I look at performance like the stock market, it has it's ups, downs, and plateaus. Most of the 80's and 90's were a plateau, but now every new car seems to raise the bar in some way. We all know what caused the last muscle car era to end (gas shortages, emissions, etc.). However, these all have been overcome with technology...example being the Corvette that gets 30mpg on the highway and is a low emmisions vehicle. most performance cars easily pass government emmission and CAFE regulations. As you can see more specifically I am speaking of RWD performance and it's rebirth.

With a new Camaro possibly hinging on GM seeing this current trend toward RWD performance hold out untill 2010-2015...when and how do you think it will end?


Personally I think the fate of performance car development is tied directly to people's desire for SUV's and them continuing to sell. Liek it or not, they both have a give or take relationship.

As long as automakers continue to make more powerful and efficiant drivetrains for RWD based SUV's there will be a trickle down effect to RWD performance cars. For example Chevy's Gen III and Gen IV engines were designed primarily for SUV's and Trucks, then tailored for cars. Thus with each improvment in SUV performance, cars get a corresponding improvement in efficiancy and performace. DOD is a good example...developed mostly for trucks, but will help the cars it is used on even more. This sort of piggy backing works well because trucks are so profitable and it takes little to adapt improved engines in cars. What all this means, is that the current SUV boom is in effect subsidizing the future RWD cars we will have.

Now there is a point where the SUV ties are bad. If there is some extreme fuel economy law that comes along directly aimed at the the SUV in a market where the desire is still high for SUV's, then performance car development will be the first to suffer as automakers struggle to find money to find ways to make a 5,000lb SUV get 40 mpg. SUV's drive profits in the current market, thierfor as long as they are what the public wants, the industry will find ways to make them work...at whatever cost (to a point).

On the otherhand if SUV's became unpopular in the market and such a law was was passed, Automakers might shudder many of thier RWD SUV models and work on smaller more efficiant FWD based SUVs and FWD cars. This hurts the RWD performance car market because the cheap trickle down RWD technology improvements the currently reap will dry up. This would mean that for performance cars to continue to become faster and more efficiant, automakers would have to fund thier improvements directly, rather than indirectly has they do now with SUV improvement. This again is bad because it would make the performance cars more costly as thier cost of development goes up. This would cause the performance market to decline.

Also consider, if the maket turns from SUV's to RWD cars, then makers will run into a development funding issue. There is more profit in an RWD SUV than a similarly priced RWD car..though the numbers change, the rule is rather inflexable. If an automaker looses 400,000 units in SUV sales because of changing market tastes, but gains 400,000 in RWD cars because that is what the market wants, they will make less money at the same volume. This means less money to improve current cars and develop new ones. The only way out of this hole would be sell more cars then you previously did SUV's for example....replace the above numbers with 400,000 SUV's and 600,000 RWD cars. In short they must replace lost SUV volume with greater RWD car (or whatever is hot) volume to stay at the same profit level. This is unlikley to happen short term as much of the new vehicle market is slowly being run dry because people getting tied into 5-6 years SUV loans they will always be upside down on (because of the depressed used car market). This means it could be argued that the overall amount of people in the new vehicle market may actually decrease in the coming years, making it impossible to replace lost SUV volume with greater car volume. Decreased revenue would mean less money for imporvement in a RWD market that would be hot....this means the performance market could go into a plateau.

Man that was long...

I think we will be able to ride this performance era out another 10 years as long as gas levels remain constant, people want SUVs and the performance/efficiancy rateing keeps improving. Only real threat is legislation which all depends on who is elected.

 

I don't see it going anywhere anytime soon. In fact it looks like the industry is doing almost everything they can to get back to making and selling CARS again and RWD V8. What I do feel is gonna start happening is more IRS/AWD cars. If they start making good cars again they can take away from SUV sales. I know some people that would like a good new B-Body like full-size car instead of their SUV.

I have to say though, that at sometime cars are gonna get way too fast right out of the showroom and I'd bet on a limit in power or needing certain requirements to have a certain level of power. I mean if they eventually make cars that will go faster than 12.0 from the factory, these STOCK cars are gonna need roll cages at the track!!

 

One positive from the SUV craze. Critics are stumbling over themselves to chastise them! They're too big, use too much gas, safety concerns..... Has anyone noticed they've all but completely ignored sport cars??? It used to be that the sporty cars got all the abuse for, ironicly, about the same reasons....gas, safety...

Automakers are still going to have to strive to make more efficient vehicles though.....They just have to stay one step ahead of emissions, fuel efficiency regulations.

 

Same thing that killed them off at least 2 times before, a changing market.

It's easy to blame emission standards and energy crisis for the death of performance cars in the '70s, till you realize OPEC 1st turned off the pipes in 1973 and emission regulations really didn't jump till 1974. CAFE didn't start till 1977.

Yet all performance car sales dropped like a ton of bricks starting in 1970! Performance cars got too expensive, people wanted more luxury in their vehicles, and the simplicity of pony cars was no longer wanted in the marketplace. Remember, Ford's Mustang II was started in 1969, GM's plan to discontinue the F-bodys after the 1974 model year was initially hatched in 1972, before the fuel crissis. The Pontiac "back to the basics" GTO of 1974 was planned at least 3 years prior.

(Trivia: The fact the Mustang II & the '74 GTO showed up during an energy crisis is pure coincidence, they were planned in advance)

Of all companies, it was Chrysler that tried to ride out the performance storm, offering multi carburetor engines as late as 1972, Keeping Road Runners with 440s till '76, and keeping dual exhaust V8s available till at least 1980.

The public has always been the killer of performance when their tastes change. You can follow the baby boomers purchasing habbits from stripper performance cars, to more luxurious performance cars, to luxury cars, to expensive cars (the BMW & Mercedes boom of the 1980s). The next big population boom drove "ricers" in the late 90s and is moving to performance cars now.

I'd say we have another 8-10 years before we start seeing another comfort car/ luxury car boom begining at the expense of performance car again.

 

All the performance numbers started to drop in 71...I would love to see what gas cost per year too..

 

I think it'll be a combination of what the market wants and what is forced on the market by changing regulations....

 

The end will come when they run out of spatulas for scraping incompetent drivers from wherever they splatter themselves with their 300+ HP cars. Yes, I know, there are also lots of Darwin award candidates that can get the job done with 50 HP ... but the extra HP amplifies it.

Seriously, I think the insurance companies will end up having the biggest impact on the hyper-performance market.

I see this as an area where a company like GM could become an industry leader by INCLUDING, or making mandatory, a stint at a perfomance driving school before handing over the keys to these vehicles. Perhaps this could also be done in conjunction with the insurance companies where they simply won't insure the car unless the driver had documented competence for the type of vehicle they are insuring.

C6-Z06 "Museum delivery" replaced with "Bondurant delivery".

 

I think we're seeing this at a pretty even level right now...luxury and comfort seem to be better as cars get faster. I drove a Nissan Maxima last week and it felt like I was driving a higher end Infiniti, (except it was FWD of course) the power and comfort was all there!

Look at the Accord! 260 HP with hands free GPS and driver station (or whatever its called). That also reminds me of a luxury car. Compare that to an Accord of 15 years ago...its not even the same car in any way (except the badge.)

The new Malibu is just going to be sin with all the comfort features its getting! Too bad it doesn't have the power yet though...The new 300C is going to be spectaculur in both areas. Toyota is going great w/ quality materials and comfort items but their still lacking power. That new Prius electric engine might be a nice add-on to their other vehicles to make up the lack of power in their engines...

I agree w/ all of this.

 

The Horsepower drop of 1971 is only because of new government regulations phasing out the use of leaded gasoline. This meant the end of high compression engines, since before modern electronics, lead in fuel actually helped make high compression engines possible. In the late 70s when unleaded fuel was completely phased out, owners of some high compression cars had to resort to fuel additives to keep their engines going.

In 1971, GM (and others) lowered compression ratios on their high performance engines because of this. It had nothing to do with the stricter emission regulations of the mid 70s.

Gasoline prices: http://www.floridacommunitydevelopme...df/table11.pdf
(note: adjusted for inflation, fuel prices actually droped in 1971!)

Looking at just the Z28 with 350 ci in V8' horespower:

1970: 360 gross hp/ 280* net hp
1971: 330 gross/260 net hp* (compression ratio lowered from 11:1 down to 9:1)
1972: 330* gross/255 net hp
1973: 325* gross/245 net hp
1974: 325* gross/245 net hp
(*converted & rounded)

To show you how the mid 70s pollution standards affected performance, consider in 1974, a L82 Corvette had 255 net hp (about 10hp more than a Z28), but in 1975 that same engine with emissions equptment had only 205 hp.

That's why you can not blame emissions (or fuel costs) for the death of performance cars in the 1970s. Some people like to say that, but it's misinformation.

 

Maybe a driver course. Like for motorcycles. Of course then the people who arent enthusiasts wont bother and sales will suffer.

 

government, lawyers, people suing each other

then comes the threat of higher adn higher gas prices (although it doesn't seeem to affect people's choices that much).. some emissions/tech regulation that drastically reduces power. (although it seems like the auto companies have a pretty good say)

why would any car company want to potentially limit people from buying their cars, unless it really was strictly intended for the track, or a very limited number car?

how would you like it if suddenly you get a letter in the mail saying that you have till July 2004 to attend and pas a $500 driver course/certification, or else you won't be able to drive your Camaro?

 

This is because most people don't realize that gas shortages and emissions weren't the first thing to cause the damage. The first thing to cause the damage was the extreme raising of the insurance on muscle cars after the industry analysts determined that those big engines were leading to more accidents. A lot of people couldn't afford or didn't want to pay for this increase and sales dropped. The next few years caused even more problems with gas shortage/gas prices and the decrease in performance due to emissions. I'm amazed how many people always leave the insurance companies out, especially since they were the initiators of the death of performance vehicles.

 

The Gov't will kill then with forcing hybrid and hydrogen cars on us.

lets hope we don't get a real tree hugger president.


I'd say SUVs are helping us, we get the trickle down engine tech. and as long as SUVs are around they will be the gas pigs of the auto world.

 

GM trucks haven't really innovated much engine-wise lately. Most of the fourth-gen engine technology came from the Corvette, you know.

 

I think car trends are directly related to large populations of people that are within a narrow age group. People of a particular age (20's,30's,40's,50's,60+) all have specific needs and/or desires and the popularity of a product is based on how well it meets those needs at a particular time in history.

As people age or when their income changes (for the better or for the worse) it dramatically alters their buying choices and too often these real world changes occur long before the marketing and advertisement agencies of most car companies catch-on and change their strategy.

OPEC's oil embargo in the 1970's did have a direct relation to the increased popularity of small cars like Honda's and Toyotas since driving a small car with a small fuel efficient engine was more fun then driving a big/heavy car with a little fuel efficient engine and V8's were just too expensive to drive at the time.

Many late-teens and early 20's people who were buying Mustangs and Camaros in the 1960's were getting older and starting familes and by the early-to-mid 70's and many of those same people were already making the transition to a different type of automobile and the oil embargo of the 70's was the final nail in the coffin for a while.

Here's and interesting quote how higher oil prices caused by OPEC's production cutting policies directly effects America's consumer spending (considering OPEC just cut oil production back yesterday):

"The economists at Merrill Lynch reckon that each additional penny per gallon that Americans pay at the pump dampens other forms of consumer spending by $1 billion. Over the past 40 years, the United States has witnessed four major spikes in oil prices -- in 1974, 1980, 1990 and 2000. Each one preceded or coincided with a recession. "



Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) currently supply about 55% of the oil traded internationally and 15% of the world's natural gas.

OPEC member countries are the following: Algeria, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela.