Another myth

[charlief1]

Eric, you and I are probibly two of the few that remember the mid engine GTP TT V6 Corvette. I would have LOVED to take a ride in that little toy myself, but I think it's been destroyed now.

 

[Dennis Kirban]

kirban 2 cents worth

A few more comments on the subject.....

Concerning the Citation that car was not even popular in my area when it was new...and rust killed them years ago.

The We Brake For Corvettes decal I wish I could take credit for it but actually it was a decal that was circulated in Buick probably as a "dig" at the Corvette. I remember buying original decals from some guys that worked at Buick.

Looking back Buick engineers did a great job, ashame that progress for instruments in the dash were lacking and braking was nothing spectacular either for the performance the car had.

Buick did catch Corvette sleeping....and we are all fortunate enough to reap the rewards from this bit of history.....

kirban

 

[whitehot84]

Quoted from concept/carz


Gaining a reputation as a modern muscle vehicle, the Grand National was acquiring quite a popular status by 1985. Unfortunately the days of the G-body was drawing to a close. The GNX was featured for its final year in 1987 at a US$11,000 premium. Advertised as the 'Grand National to end all Grand Nationals,' the GNX was under-rated by Buick at 275 hp with a substantial 360 lbf-ft of torque. The following years model converted the chassis to front wheel drive which wouldn't be able to put down that much power.

The plug was eventually pulled on the GNX as Buick didn't want one if its own vehicles outperforming their flagship, the Corvette. Though the muscle cars of the 1960s had the power to beat the GNX, the tires of the time couldn't transform this into speed.

 

[turbofish38]

Concerning the Citation that car was not even popular in my area when it was new...and rust killed them year ago.

GM made millions of them. Like most of us you just didn't pay attention to them. You know what's damn funny about them? OK everyone remembers the X-Car bad brakes,bad PS,etc recalls? Here's a lesson in GM alphabet platforms. The A-Body. No not the old GTO, Chevelle A-Body but the 82-96 FWD A-Body. Well all it was, was an X-Body stretched 3 inches in the wheelbase. You never heard about brakes, PS racks or anything like that being recalled on the Century,Ciera,Celebrity,6000 did you? Talk about the consumer being manipulated by the leftist press. And the Century and Ciera were some of GMs best built cars towards their end in 94-96! Goes back to my statements about build quality stigmatism and profit. If the problem can't(won't?) be fixed than the solution is to get rid of it.

Since your a GTO fan here's another A/X-Body story for you. I was just reading Jim Wangers rant on the demise of Pontiac. He qoutes that the Pontiac 6000 would have been a success(what type of success, I don't know) if they would have just dropped the more powerfull Buick 3800 under the hood. He might have been right. I always thought the 6000 was the most Pontiac flavored car as far as rebadging Chevys went. The 6000STE looks like it was designed by a CrackHeadedHo. Heck who knows? Maybe they would have added a clutch pedal with that motor on the options list?

 

["Turbo-T"]

My buddy in High School had an X-11 - for what it was it did OK, those were dismal times for performance cars. Gotta Love the "sideways" stereo in the Citations/X cars!

Hee hee.....I remember that....knew of a guy with an '81 model that only had an AM push button. I was kind enough to give him and install for free an AM/FM/Cassette I had sitting around, but it looked silly since the numbering on the dial wasn't designed to be mounted vertically. I think around 1983 or 84 they redesigned the dash so the radio was relocated in the center pod that also housed the HVAC controls, similar to the G body cars.

And yeah his car wasn't an X-11 but it was a 2.8 liter model with auto......it was actually pretty peppy for what it was....it could easily get out of it's own way, but still no real power house.

But those Citations were pieces of chit that fell apart in a 5 year time frame, and were IMO were one of the cars that really tarnished GM's name as a leader in mass productions of crap. They didn't make them after 1985 and they were mainly common in the 80's. But I think GM really decided to take a step further in 1988 and start building more pieces of chit FWD's from the recently killed G body line.

That's b.s. if the Corvette guys actually squawked enough to get Monogram to remove the "GN's were fastest production car in 1987" from the sides of the model box. Guess they can't read it and weep. Face it, since about 1978 the Corvettes were down to like 200 hp and were gaining weight. They should have taken a clue from the GN and came up with a factory turboed engine.

 

[alwayscode390]

They should have taken a clue from the GN and came up with a factory turboed engine.

Honestly , I believed that domestic cars tried HARD to prove they could do WITHOUT forced induction ... to prove dominance in technology without "cheating" and to keep mpg down too.

Now that the SHO Taurus is heading to turbo power and small displacement to keep the mpg competitive ... I lost all respect for the Domestic line.

I will keep the cars I have until I die. I will even sleep in my cars if the times crush me hard enough.

This country is back in the 30's ... and I wont fall for it ---

 

["Turbo-T"]

Honestly , I believed that domestic cars tried HARD to prove they could do WITHOUT forced induction ... to prove dominance in technology without "cheating" and to keep mpg down too.

Most of them probably were thinking the same thing.....only a few select domestics began the turbo thing.....Olds had it on the 215 V8 in '62 and '63, then Buick in '78, then Pontiac tried it on the 301 in '80-'81, then Ford offered it on the 2.3 liter and finally Chrysler tinkered with it on the 2.2 during the 80's.

However if you noticed, it became more common in the 80's during the dark ages of performance. Call it cheating if you will, they say there's no replacement for displacement, except for perhaps forced induction. I don't call it cheating, I call it technology.

 

[Turbo6Smackdown]

The reason the tr's went away, was because after the cia ordered their share, they realized how potent they were, and told gm to quit making them. Everyone knows this...

 

[turbofish38]

Honestly , I believed that domestic cars tried HARD to prove they could do WITHOUT forced induction ... to prove dominance in technology without "cheating" and to keep mpg down too.

I never considered anything as "cheating". The main reason the Corvette never went to forced induction until the current ZR1, and this goes back to the first post, was because it didn't need it. You have to be into Corvettes to understand them. Lets face it. Nobody ever won the lottery and said they were going to buy their dream car. If your the average Joe Schmuck,than you don't know your Fit from your Corolla( get it? Chit from Shinola in car speak::tongue: ) And years ago that dream car wasn't a Buick. It was a Corvette. Peeps bought a Vette because........it was the Corvette. The Crown Prince of Americana! They didn't care if it had a Briggs under the hood. Image sells! Just look at how many "showroom racecars..i.e.Z51" they built to prove my point. Anybody who owns a Vette or subscribes to Corvette Fever or any other Corvette magazine gets junque mail by the ton. There are two distinct halves to any Corvette business. The hard parts end and the apparell end. I get a kick when the Mid America or Ecklers catalogs hit my box. The junque one has the catch phrase "all the stuff you need to live the Corvette lifestyle". WTF! Lifestyle? That there pretty much sums up the Corvette world for you. If you can't afford the car you can still wear a polo or panties and make people think you can afford one. Nobody ever said "I want to live the GN lifestyle".

One might even use the original ZR1 as an example. Those weren't scheduled to be built in mass numbers because Chevrolet wasn't sure that the true diehards would buy a car powered by an engine that was so far away on the other side of the convential SBC(or BBC) spectrum. One could even argue that was the reason the LSX didn't go OHC like the Fords did. Heck it took an outsider like Calloway to strap turbos onto a Corvette and look how many of those they sold.