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Oh, the RWD-FWD shift aesthetic disasters...

Tallgeese, that ugly damned thing is a Monte? It looks like a Lumina coupe. My memory's a little fuzzy here...

Did the Lumina coupe become the Monte Carlo or just replace it? 'Cause I have a hard time imagining the Monte name being applied to something as bland as the car in that pic. At least the later FWS Monte Carlos incorporated a few styling cues that were vaguely reminiscent of the Monte.

Not that they looked good, mind you.

Such a stupid damned car, that was. I think their only market was NASCAR fans, a group who notoriously don't like FWD V6 cars. That leaves teen-aged hoodlums who want to read Donk, Box & Bubble magazine.

So sad! In terms of styling, that thing's even a downgrade from the first-generation Lumina!

And what was up with the door handle in the window frame, anyway?

All 1980 cars that were fast (not simply quick) handle like smurf (my 5.0 in the snow and old ladies would be passing me as a hung on for my life). My Mustang was average to bellow average for it's size and handling was not impressive for it's relatively compact size. The larger sized Camaros, Grand Nationals, etc., were way worse, just straight down the line old school. In fact, I really had more faith in my 1969 Buick Skylark in  terms of handling, which is weird. But then again, that was my 1st car (1987) and I still miss it.

I think these guys are only looking at American cars from the '80's

Bren wrote:

You're saying a Porsche 944s didn't handle good? What about a supercharged Toyota MR2 or a CRX Si?

My Dad's new toy is a 1983 Porsche 928S that handles better than most sport coupes that are built today! Do the math, it is now a 26 year old car. It's considered an antique automobile!

Bren wrote:

[snip]... Shelby Charger GLHS.

In high school my friends Dad had a Dodge Daytona Turbo Z. Cool car!

Let's go further back in time and let's look at the Corvair. From what I've heard that thing was a death trap at any speed.

Well, it was certainly safer than the Pinto.

The Corvair used the same sort of suspension that small VWs, Porsches and Mercedes cars used.

Bu it also didn't deserve to be singled out.

Yes, the Corvair was a death trap, it did deserve to be singled out, and GM executives should have gone to jail over the thing.

1) Long before Ralph Nader wrote Unsafe at Any Speed, car magazines were talking about the vehicle's evil, unpredictable handling, so much so that a cottage industry of aftermarket parts cropped up just to fix the car's inherent handling flaws.

2) People died because of this. In one particularly gruesome case, a woman lived, but lost one arm. Her Corvair had lost control when she made a turn at a very low speed.

3) The issues were due to the fact that GM had chosen to go cheap on the car's suspension, fitting it with much simpler, less expensive components than it was originally supposed to have.

4) To "solve" the resulting problem of the car's wildly unpredictable handling, GM did something totally unprecedented, and specified in the owner's manual that the rear tire pressure had to be drastically different from the front tire pressure. This specification was not well-publicized, so owners didn't know about it, and did what any normal person would do with any car, which is to fill all four tires to the same PSI. When their cars went out of control and people were killed or injured, GM repeatedly blamed the owners for not maintaining proper tire pressure.

Yes, GM did eventually fix the Corvair's handling, and pretty much every Corvair currently on the road has been retrofitted with parts which normalize its handling, but, as I said, the Corvair, and General Motors were hardly innocent.

Bren wrote:

You're saying a Porsche 944s didn't handle good? What about a supercharged Toyota MR2 or a CRX Si?

I was referring to American cars. Anything that costs as much as a 944 should do everything extremely well. You could lump a Corvette in there as well. But if your rich you can buy the best. I'm talking about fast American cars that were aimed for the general public. As far as you other examples, I consider those cars quick not fast, but were fun to drive b/c they were quick and did handle well (especially paired with a manuel transmission). However, I'm talking fast, which is a big dif. Any fast 1980's American car would kill them in the 1/4 mile but also handle like smurf.

I had a Sunbird Turbo that seemed what I would ALMOST consider fast (anything 0-60 in 6.5 seconds or under - it was probably in the low 7s) and it handled well. I think it was an early 90's car though.