1982 Ford Mustang GT - Light At the End of the Tunnel

 



What some refer to as "Malaise Era" cars are generally considered sluggish performing cars manufactured and sold in the 1970's and 1980's. The term stems, diffusely, from President Jimmy Carter's July 1979 "Crisis of Confidence" State of the Union address although, ironically, President Carter never said the word "malaise" in the body of the speech. Some say it all began back in the 1960's when the government first started mandating manufacturers make their wares run cleaner; their crude attempts to comply resulting in a severe drop in engine performance and efficiency. Others say it started in October of 1973 with the OPEC embargo and manufacturers scrambling like they did with emissions regulations to make their vehicles more fuel efficient. To further contempt for "Malaise Era" cars, federally mandated safety requirements forced manufacturers to compromise styling which led to many clumsy designs.

Regardless of when the "Malaise Era" began, we're of the belief that it began to end not so much with one particular car but with the advent of effective and reliable electronic engine control systems. The first "poster car" for electronically controlled car engines, in our opinion as well, was Ford's 1982 Mustang GT.

 

Ford first installed electronic engine controls, or "EEC", on their 1978 vehicles. "EEC" I and II used a computer to control fuel-air ratio which, much like Chrysler's Lean Burn system introduced in 1976, was effective at reducing emissions but did little to improve engine performance. EEC-III, introduced in 1981, was a more advanced system that was also effective at limiting emissions but also enabled Ford to push engine performance capabilities while being in compliance with federal fuel economy standards. With increased performance capabilities Ford developed, cubic inch for cubic inch, the most powerful passenger car engine they had offered since 1973. That engine was the "High Output" 302 cubic inch "Windsor" V-8 offered for sale on the Mustang GT and Mercury Capri RS starting in 1982.
 

Although a far cry from the high performance Mustangs of the late '60's through 1970, after years of taking steps backwards the '82 GT with its 160 horsepower V-8 wasn't just a step forward in performance - it was a gigantic leap. Contemporary road tests noted the car could accelerate from 0-60 in 6.9 seconds; certainly not impressive by today's standards but compared to the 10.1 seconds it took the 1979-1981 turbocharged Cobra, the GT was a watershed performance automobile.
 

 

Like many things in life, it's difficult to separate a series of circumstances that led to failure - as in the start of the "Malaise Era" and the success that was the beginning of its end. Allegedly, the 1982 Ford Mustang GT was developed to market Ford's renewed interest in racing; racing being part of a new marketing strategy at Ford in the early '80's to help create overall awareness for the company after more than a decade of being fairly irrelevant. At the same time the economy was also finally improving and gas prices were stabilizing as well. Was the turn for the better due to the Ford Mustang GT? Well, no, not directly, but the overall improvement in automobiles, a huge part of the U.S. economy, was due in large part to electronic engine controls.

 

 

It would take years for the "Malaise Era" to become a thing of the past but, again, the beginning of its end came about with electronic engine controls. How great the future of automobiles would be first brought to light by what those controls could do with the 1982 Ford Mustang GT.

 

 

 



 

2018 Buick Regal GS - Just Another Buick

I first heard about this car while reading a review of its stablemate, the 2018 Regal Tour X. In the article, the only ding the author had about the Tour X was that they wished it came with GM's 3.6 liter V-6 that is available in the Regal GS. Reading that I thought, "the 3.6 is now available in the Regal? I think I may have found my next new car." Then I come to find that the Regal was all new for 2018 and is so often the case, the styling of the new car leaves me feeling meh. Damn it.



The old Regal, a rebadged Opel Insignia that rode on GM's Epsilon II platform, was sold from 2011-2017 and was one of the few sedans on the market I really liked. Now, I realize that there's only so much designers can do with the conventional three box designs and myriad governmental requirements further squash what can be done but still, I loved what whomever drew this up did with it. Its size was great too - tad narrow, yes, but the overall design of the old Regal was way more balanced and in proportion than the cigarette boat like look of the current Chevrolet Impala, Cadillac XTS and 2010-2016 Buick Lacrosse. My only issue with the old Regal was that it only came with four-cylinder engines. Sorry, I have my standards - I'll never sleep in a communist country nor cheer for the New York Mets and I will never own a car as my personal daily driver that only has four cylinders. Turbocharged or not.

All new for 2018, Regal is still a captive import - it's a rebadged Opel Insignia and comes in three  varieties. The base model is a five passenger, four door semi hatchback they call "Sportback". The step up is the "Tour X" which looks like a mish mosh between the "Sportback" and a Subaru wagon. Somehow it works and works quite well. Both the Sportback and Cross X come only with GM's 250 horsepower, turbocharged, 2.0 liter in line four. Certainly a robust little power plant but no doubt over matched to move vehicles weighing the better part of two tons.

The Regal GS, however, gets stuffed with GM's spectacular 3.6 liter V-6 tuned to a luscious 310 horsepower and 282 pounds of torque. What's more, the GS comes with all wheel drive and, get this, a nine speed automatic. 

Regal GS sits on fotchy 19 inch aluminum rims in front of Brembo, high performance front brakes; no such hardware for the rears. Why? Saves a couple of bucks but Brembo's on a Buick? What's the world coming to?

I swear to god, if Buick comes with another series of "That's Not a Buick" ads to hawk the new Regal I'm going to have to double up on my blood pressure meds. Stupidest ads ever. They always do more harm than good - after all, there's nothing quite like making folks who already own Buicks feel bad about their car.  Hey, Buick, you're targeting this thing at older Gen X'ers like me so do us a favor, don't advertise that your brand used to be for old people. This ain't rocket science.

Anyway, I've yet to spend any wheel time with one of these so I have to glean anything tangible about it from what I've read and pundits rave about it. I mean, raaaave. Fast, solid, wonderful ride, great handling, easy to operate. Magnificent seats. Nice. Most of the reviews though mention that the GS is not great on gas and when you think about it, how could it be? The Regal GS with all wheel drive and a honking 300+ horsepower engine weighs 4,200 pounds - that's a lot. The Regal it replaces weighed no more than 3,600 pounds.

Now, let's get down to the nitty gritty - would I buy this car? No. And the biggest reason why I would shy away from it is this fast back or what they call "Sportback" styling. Most if not all of the reviewers rave about how this looks too but then I have to remember than most of them are paid by an ad agency to write something nice and fluffy with perhaps a little pith.  Hey, if I was being paid to write this I'd find some nicey nice things to say overall about it too but I'm not so you're getting white hot honesty here - this car is ugly. And ugly in ways that only sedans in 2018 are ugly too.

Can a car be ugly and generic looking at the same time? Umm, yeah. And you're looking at it. Might be because this car started out as an Opel but I'll be darned if this thing isn't a rehash of a half dozen if not a baker's dozen or more cars today. These days what's left of sedans all look the same. It's a problem that's vexing considering that sedan sales are in the crapper.

All cars today are great, well, you have to option them correctly - take our Chevrolet Impala rental from last weekend for instance - but what will help drive sales and sway buyers away from cross overs is compelling, interesting design. The new Regal is not a step in that direction and that's too bad considering what a swell ride it is. When designing sedans, if auto manufacturers don't start using some of the same design mojo they're using these days on crossovers, sedans as we know will be gone within the next ten years. At best, they'll be boutique models like pony cars are today.

There's also the issue of what Buick is charging for this car. Loaded to the front grill with every toy you can check off on, the Regal GS comes in at a click or two below $45,000. And get this, because reviewers say this car is at "Audi" levels of refinement and performance, they say it's a relative bargain compared to tonier makes and models. C'mon, are you kidding me? If you've got the beans to swing for an Audi, you are not going to be concerned about saving five to seven grand buying a freakin' Buick.

GM has been positioning Buick as an American Audi or Lexus for years now as they've been pushing Cadillac up into the upper echelons vs. BMW and Mercedes. As far as Cadillac goes, that status seeking has resulted in some remarkable automobiles that are superior to a lot of what the Germans are making now. They're bland looking and over priced but still, they're great cars. They also don't sell very well. Buick has a bigger problem as they attempt to once again get hip - they don't even have the same curb appeal as Cadillac; they'll always be "Buick". And to that end, the Regal is just another Buick.

2017 Chevrolet Impala - Road Trip

Last weekend, my wife and I rented this 2017 Chevrolet Impala from Alamo to make the 600 mile round trip to visit our sons who are spending the summer at their respective colleges. Will, our younger son is in south-east Ohio at Ohio University and his older brother, Chip, is in south-west Ohio at the University of Dayton. We live in Cleveland. The impetus of the trip was to drop my 2002 Monte Carlo off at O.U. for Will to use and dinner with Chip was an add-on bonus. Alamo had a special and with our 2006 Tahoe not getting any younger and gas getting super expensive, it made sense to rent something more economical.
 

 

I had driven an Impala LTZ in the not too distant past and was fairly impressed with how it rode and drove so I assured my wife, who had her eye on a CVT equipped Nissan Maxima, which was another level up from this (meaning: more expensive) that the Impala was going to be a swell ride. Keep in mind this car we rented was an Impala LT and not an LTZ.

I've never been enamored with this current iteration of the Impala. I find it too long, too narrow, too ugly and the interior, despite the size of the car, is too cramped. Our black on black rental here did come nicely equipped with power everything and it had blue tooth - not that we could figure out how to use it. The interior styling is a pleasant enough, although, again, it's tiny in relation to the overall size of the car. I'm no giant at barely at five foot nine and my right knee banged up against the side of that massive center stack; it was as if I was too big for the car. Some would call this cozy while others, myself being one of them, would call it somewhat claustrophobia inducing.

Despite power everything including the front seats, I couldn't get totally comfortable and find a driving position that I felt at home with. On short jaunts I think the car would seem ok - for instance on a ten minute test drive - but on a long trip I found the lack of comfort exhausted me. My wife drove part of the way too and I found the passenger seat to be even more uncomfortable than the driver's seat because it lacked one of the driver seat adjustments. Weird. I don't remember if the LTZ has better seats or not but the seats on our rental were so uncomfortable that I would not buy an Impala LT because of them; not that I was seriously considering that in the first place. Dash layout and what is referred to as "ergonomics" were quite good although we found the "infotainment" system, which included the blue tooth, a bear and a half to operate. We never touched it. The AC too; not intuitive at all.
 

Despite the design of the car and uncomfortable front seats my biggest beef with this car was its overall performance. That LTZ I drove and hammered into oblivion had an upgraded wheel, tire and handling package and was as robust a handling car as anything I've driven lately save for that BMW M240i friend Blake got recently as a loaner. Seriously - that LTZ rocked. This thing, though, bobbed and pogo sticked like softly sprung GM boats of yore. This car had less than 40,000 miles on it, high for a fleet car, and maybe those were hard miles and the struts were shot. Who knows. Sorry, I'm not going to run down to the Chevrolet store to test drive another LT like this to see if that's the case.
 



Most importantly, our rental did not have GM's heroic 3.6 liter V-6 that LTZ did but rather GM's 2.5 liter, DOHC, 16 valve "ECOTEC" in line four cylinder engine. Making 200 horsepower and 191 pounds of torque, remarkable numbers for a non turbocharged engine of fairly modest displacement, on paper, it should have been more than adequate. Again, on paper. In the real world of 80 mile per hour interstates and rural two lane highways, not so much.
 

Problem is the engine is what the experts refer to as, "peaky". Meaning it has to be turning very fast to get the most out of it. Maximum horsepower is achieved at 6,300 rpm - holy shit balls - and max torque comes around at 4,400 rpm. That's a lot of work that needs to get done before anything really happens - and in a 3,800-pound car, the big-little 2.5 liter ECOTEC is just simply overwhelmed. All said, the big four has a lot going for it with none of the horrible shaking and vibration of big four cylinder engines from the past. And it's great on gas. Thing is, it's just over matched for a car this heavy. Even with its slick shifting six speed automatic, often times I'd nail the gas and the engine would "windmill" requiring me to push the pedal to the floor and keep it there hoping something, anything, would eventually happen. It most times did but it wasn't a pleasant nor fun experience.

 

 

There's some saying out there about not being able to save money and be profitable at the same time; if the only good thing I can say about this car is that it's remarkable on gas, it's probably not worth the savings. Still, we were able to rent this thing and gas it up for about the same amount of money that it would have cost us just to use our Tahoe. Yes, the weekend special at Alamo was that good and our road trip illustrates just how bad the gas mileage is on our Tahoe. Pain in the ass to schlep down to the airport to get it and drop it back off but in the end, to save some money and keep the miles off the Tahoe, mission accomplished.

I can't tell you the last time I rented something and came away from it saying that I'd seriously shop for it when the time came to get a new car so this super bland fleet Impala LT is nothing out of the ordinary. As long as our boys are within a day's drive and our daily drivers are delicately geriatric or are gas guzzlers we'll continue to rent cars for our weekend jaunts. Stay tuned for another adventure. Perhaps next time we'll get that Maxima. 



1978 Dodge Challenger - What's In a Name?

What's in a name? Only as much as you want it to be and to most people Dodge festooning "Challenger" on a Mitsubishi Gallant Lambda meant nothing to them. To fans of the ground pounding original Challenger, however, it was akin to sacrilege. Even if the Mitsubishi sourced Challenger could run rings around the originals. Our subject is a 1978.



Chrysler sold these cars as "captive imports". That term being a marketing strategy to sell foreign-built vehicles under the name of an importer through its own dealer distribution system. It's a cost-effective way for the importer to establish a footprint here since they don't have to go through the expense of building a dealership network and the importer gets to sell a vehicle type they previously didn't have. Dodge first sold rebadged Mitsubishi's as the Dodge Colt starting in 1971 after Mitsubishi sold Chrysler 15% of their company. Later, after Mitsubishi updated the model they were exporting, Dodge badged the two-door versions as the Challenger.

Chrysler named these cars "Challenger" as a gimmick to make what they had been calling "Colt" more appealing and to ape any marketing mojo the original may have had. It was an odd move considering the original Challenger did not sell very well and the two cars couldn't have been more different from each other. 

These original Challengers didn't sell well because Chrysler introduced them in 1970 just as the performance car market, which, despite what you may have heard, wasn't that great in the first place, was drying up. It was also, like many performance cars from "back in the day", too big, heavy, thirsty expensive to insure and was generally panned by critics. The damn things couldn't do anything right except, on certain models, go fast in a straight line. That and look just utterly fantastic. These were some fine looking automobiles. 

Speaking of insurance, we blame the insurance industry more than anything else for clubbing muscle cars out of existence. Brokers slapped heavy surcharges that could exceed monthly payments for the cars themselves on anything they deemed sporty or racy. These little Challengers with the power to weight ratio of golf carts were far more "insurance friendly".

Think about it...what if GM put "Camaro" on an offshoot of their Cruze or worse an SUV crossover instead of a sporty coupe like they did when they brought the nameplate back after 7 years out of the market? That would have been unthinkable, wouldn't it?

Granted, "Camaro" was around far longer than "Challenger" was years ago but the analogy fits. It wouldn't make the vehicle any better or worse just as Dodge could have named the original Challenger anything and the design of the car would still have had the same visceral appeal.

What's in a name, then? Only as much as you want it to be.

The current Dodge Challenger, which emulates the original, has been sold by Dodge since 2008.