binners – Member
All American vehicles, with the exception of Mustangs, are absolutely hideous! They look like they’ve been styled by a pubescent schoolboy, in between bouts of self-abuse.

Have a look again at the ‘Cuda, the Charger, and the Challenger, then look at the Ventora, not so many differences, apart from size.

Love them. All of them. Some were fast. Some were slow. Never driven one but seen plenty and have been a passenger in one of the former variety.
You could say they are big ugly steel lumps of hideous excess, or you could say they are just simply beautiful.
Interestingly some have been reborn in the form of modern variants.

A couple more hideous American cars:

’62 Caddy Coupe.

’37 Cord. How beautiful is that?

CountZero. Good point. Look at the proportions. Proves it’s sometimes good to be a hideous – although I know your in the right camp 🙂
How many Vauxhall vivas** or whatever..have been reinvented as desirable production cars?

** – i am sure vauxhall vivas were good cars at the time and should not be singled out.

American muscle cars are cool in their loudness and ridiculousness but I don’t think they translate well the a UK/ European setting. We don’t have the big distances, big, wide roads, low traffic volumes, straight cruising roads, with 24hr dinners, big car parking spaces, dry atmosphere, attitude that when a stop light turns green you don’t have to move for about 5 second e.t.c Its the same way in the US most motor bikes are cruisers and in the UK most are sports(ish) bikes. I’m in the US at the moment and someone bought a 3.5L V8 nitrous charged motorcycle into where I am working, awesome, but would be horrible in the U.K.

That said if you want one go for it, I’d buy one if I live in the US but would hate to have one in the UK.

Agreed.

Harley Davidson:

Cruisin’ down to New Orleans?
Cool.
Cruisin’ down to Bacup?
Jury’s out.

Nonsense – We’ve got Maccy D’s drive-ins and Halfords Car-parks.

In all seriousness I am sure there’s plenty of UK-US car meets/events – as well as the above

iamroughrider – Member

Nonsense – We’ve got Maccy D’s drive-ins and Halfords Car-parks

Which in Britain are the natural home of the Vauxhall Nova, not the Chevrolet Nova. 🙂

well…lol

🙂

The model I drove, NANA. As for the Vauxhall Viva, my sister had one on which the brake pedal broke, fortunately at a non-critical moment.

suggest you all lookup “roadkill” episodes on youtube for a contemporary
muscle car fix (old cars today)

eg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JXDcJQqZrA

Closest I’ve got to driving one was a brand new, bright red (natch) convertible Mustang. We hired it in California in 2003 when we turned Dr North’s work trip into a holiday.

While Dr North was working eeach day, I had quite a laugh rolling around Orange County as a 25 yo Brit – got a lot of attention from the young ladies in that…. 😀

Am contemplating having a fun car in the garage for high days and holidays. Needs to be more than a 2 seater (we have daughter), and something preposterous like that would be just the thing!

Back in the late eighties I had a ‘pony’ car. ’78 Camaro RS – it looked the nuts (pre-facelift) IMHO but only had the 250 V6 engine. Full leather, air con, column shift & it even handed you your seat belt. Only issue was finding unleaded fuel back then.

Like this but dark blue:

I need a crossplane V8 in my life. Ideally with an aftermarket cam and suitably lumpy idle.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZrXX3HdxVY[/video]

I love these cars… Probably will never own one.

Thread’s reminded me of my daft dream of building some ratty british muscle…

Probably never going to do that either but still.

British muscle.. hehe.. reminds me of my mate’s cousin who put a Rover 3.5 V8 into an Austin Allegro. That’s bad-ass.

My grandad used to drive us to school in a mk4 cortina with a rover v8 in it, made even more exciting by the fact you could see the road through the holes in the floor.

Proper British muscle:

And couldn’t capture the muscle ethos any better- doesn’t go round corners and gets only 600bhp from a 27 litre engine.

That Cord is stunning, and very ahead of it’s time, pop-up headlights, front-wheel drive…
Really beatiful car.

a bloke down the road had a ’69 Charger. It was HUGE, cruising the suburbs of Glasgow it looked like someone had fitted wheels to a boat.

Judging by the way the thing bounced on its springs at traffic lights I imagine punting down a B-road wasn’t for the fainted hearted. What a noise though!

a geezer i work for occasionally has a yard full of yank tanks.
have a butchers here:
http://www.kxservices.com/promotion-gallery/promotion-gallery.htm

loads of motors there… my favourite is the van that wheel spins at 80mph and drops a Porsche from a standing start (but only if you have a few bags of sand in the back to help it get traction).

he rents lots of them for films or tv and uses other as promotion vehicles for various companies.

two other guys that work for him also have some strange addiction to beefy motors.

one has a pontiac thing with the bird on the bonnet. a good laugh on quiet roads, but just not my thing.

the other has a Ram pick up with four wheel rear axle. the thing hangs off the road 50% of the time.

Nice alpin, some beauties

that first one with the stripes (Chevelle?) puts out over 650bhp. sounds like the world is about to fall in on itself when started up in the work shop.

Thinking about renting one for a weekend. They’re based in Germany I assume?

ja.. west of munich

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8so_ZxrMLA[/video]

I need a crossplane V8 in my life. Ideally with an aftermarket cam and suitably lumpy idle.

It was definitely something like this that passed me the other week. I want!! What a sound.

*fires up eBay*

edit: OK, it seems they’re going for 20k. Maybe I could settle for one of those Rovers instead 😐

I have a friend with a Hemi ’70 Barracuda and it’s pretty nice. The guy next door has a ’67 Shelby GT500 which he decided to “restore” but he’s a raging alcoholic and it’s in a million bits now. Not likely to be a car again any time soon 😯

Ok I think the best plan of action is to spend this summer going to a few american car shows, there’s a big one at brands hatch I think, and maybe rent one for a weekend. My main concern is my garage is too small so will have to rent a lock up, I’m not mechanically minded so really want something to drive occasionally rather than tinker with. Not worried about fuel costs as it won’t be main vehicle. .

Can a midlife crisis happen twice?

I’m not mechanically minded so really want something to drive occasionally rather than tinker with.

You are looking at +40 y/o cars… 🙄

A pal of mine takes modern Mustangs and makes them uber bonkers…

http://www.ubbmustang.com/

Not vintage but, at 1000bhp, the muscle is certainly there.

You are looking at +40 y/o cars… yeh I know, crazy eh? Hence my concern.

Be prepared for everyone to sanctimoniously point out that “American cars suck in anything but a straight line” and “an M3 would run circles round that”… Pretty much repeating anything Jeremy Clarkson rants about.
They really are different beasts, but that’s what makes muscle cars great! One of my friends in Glasgow has a Camaro and has very little trouble getting spares, so don’t be too put off by that.
The modern ones are starting to become competitive too for what it’s worth 😉
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqkyWhVBSKU[/video]
This is my dream right here…
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cwDY4c82hk[/video]

This was my Plymouth…

It ended up going to Ireland to be converted into a Plymouth Superbird. I wish I could get it back 😥

That Plymouth is four houses long 🙂

It felt like it going around corners.

I saw one of these when I was out last night, just parked up on the side of the road. Thought it looked very familiar – sounded great, not sure if it was one of the originals, but it was bound to have cost a lot to reproduce (although given where I live, I’m not suprised to see expensive cars, I appear to be surrounded by millionaires….)

Went on holiday in Canada a couple of years back and had booked a cheap hire car to drive across the country for a couple of weeks. They were out of stock in Vancouver and we ended up in this instead:

Might not be as authentic as the old ones but was great to drive and got a lot of attention – coming home to the Mondeo was a bit of a comedown!

Do you want some realistic advice?

If you don’t want to spanner, and you don’t have a suitably sized and equipped garage, just don’t bother.

The novelty of occasionally driving a ‘fun’ car will wear off very quickly. You just don’t get enough use out of them to be worth owning. Every time you go down that lock up, you’ll find it won’t start for some reason, or it’s dropped oil on the floor, or something else has happened that needs oily handed attention before it’ll even move.

Sponteneity is what’s cool about a fun car. Decide it’s a nice day, go for a drive. Done. But it’s never like that. Old unreliable motors sat in a lock up you have to drive to, and that don’t move when you get there unless you spend an hour on your back covered in crap kind of kill that sponteneity. You don’t cruise around the countryside enjoying the open road. You sit in traffic hoping it doesn’t overheat or you spend your time driving leaning forward in your seat trying to hear what that new grinding noise is. You’ll carry a can of oil and a battery charger in the boot.

Classic car ownership is nothing like you think it will be. You’ll regret it. And having done a fraction of the miles you envisaged, and having not kept on top of the endless upkeep they demand, you’ll sell it as a none-runner, at a loss, in a few years to someone who has to fetch it on a trailer. And when you do you’ll be glad to see the back of the bloody thing.

Buy a posh bike instead.

what jackthedog says is true.

My brother has avoided this problem by keeping his Alfa at a specialist storage company who make sure it’s always in a driveable condition.

When he wants to use it he gives them a ring and a nice man with a covered van brings it to a location of his choice.

It’s the sort of service that probably costs an arm and a leg, tbh.