SSC

To the moderators, I apologize for posting this here but I fell this is important. As a person with a sense of loyalty to the Fbody I deem it necessary to let the people respond to this outrageous discriminatory article written about the Fbody.
Thank you,
SSC

COPIED
__________________________

AUTOMOBILIA

Computer chip ends Detroit Muscle's reign


By Royal Ford, 12/1/2001

o the Camaro and the Firebird are going to the big junkyard in the sky.


The General Motors response to the '60s Pony Car craze - so named because the Mustang started it all in 1964 - were these Chevrolet and Pontiac muscle cars. But with the 2002 model year, they are gone. No more Z28s, no more Firebird Trans Ams. Now some have postulated that the SUV made the twin killing of these two automotive icons. They say enthusiast eyes drifted from muscle, sportiness, and performance to bulk, muscle, and utility. I say they are wrong.
The computer chip killed the Camaro and the Firebird: the computer chip as it is used by young folks looking for sport and individuality (the same niche that 30 years ago bought Pony Cars for those very essences).
Detroit Muscle met ''The Fast and the Furious,'' and the latter won. The computer chips, you see, are at the heart of the tuner craze. A $500 chip can add as much as 50 horsepower to a stock engine such as those found in Audis, Hondas, Volkswagens, Mitsubishis, the Ford Focus, and other cars favored by the tuner set.
That's 50 horsepower on top of already feisty engines that in stock form produce 180 to 225
horsepower.
If the Camaro and Firebird were about sporty individuality, the same can be said in bolder terms of today's tuner cars.
Sure, the Camaro Z28 had that wonderful, insouciant flip to its tail, and the Trans Am had what looked like a road kill chicken flattened on its hood.
But to add 50 horsepower to one of these rigs meant boring out the cylinders, tinkering with valves, changing pistons ... a greasy, lengthy job.
And sure, the Camaro and Firebird were popular cars, selling around 430,000 cars at their peak in 1978. But time passed them by. The last time I tested a Firebird, I felt I should have been wearing bell-bottoms and a big-point-collared shirt open to the navel, displaying gold chains and a whopping medallion. Last year, combined sales of the Camaro and Firebird were around 70,000. Enough said.
No, their sales were not lost to SUVs. These cars weren't bought to haul families around in the first place, so the SUV was simply not an alternative to the prospective Camaro/Firebird customer. But hot tuner cars were. Tricked out, chipped up, turbocharged, and customized, a Honda Civic, an Audi A4, a Toyota MR2, a VW Jetta all meet the needs of those looking for what the Camaro and Firebird offered their generations.
The whole point of the tuner craze is to tinker, to customize, to individualize.
Audi enthusiasts, for instance, have a three-stage program for souping up their cars.
Stage one is the chip upgrade. New software, written by an aftermarket company, is loaded into the existing system, replacing those stock, electronic engine controls.
Stage two is upgrading the exhaust to boost horsepower.
Stage three, well, Katy-bar-the-door, because here you get all of the above - often in stronger doses - along with a turbocharger. Other options here include intercoolers, nitrous systems, and other performance gear.
Of course, you'll need to upgrade suspension, maybe shorten the shifter throw, add high-performance tires.
Then you make it sound good with a multispeaker, high-powered sound system.
You'll make it feel good with tight racing seats and five-point seat belts.
And you make it look good with special wheels and body kits to make it look more muscular.

Voila: tuner car as muscle car.
And thus the death of the Camaro and the Firebird.
I don't mourn their passing. They were good cars for their time.
Unfortunately, the best of those times, in my view, were the late 1960s. That Trans Am I drove months ago was a boaty, rolling beast of a car. It did not have the tight suspension, the fine steering, the quick power of a modern tuner car. I think one of the most frightening sights on American highways today is a 17-year-old neophyte
driver at the wheel of a worn out old Camaro or Firebird, its soft suspension gone softer, its tires barely legal, but its engine still pounding out the ponies as it hurtles and rumbles down the passing lane.
General Motors is looking to tap into the tuner craze (Ford is doing it already with the Focus) and in doing so acknowledges that the Camaro and Firebird have been passed by. They'll go out with a couple of special 2002 editions - a 35th Anniversary Camaro SS coupe and a Firebird Collector's Edition.
If you still love these cars, you'd probably do well to grab one. Or, better yet, find yourself a perfectly restored model, circa 1968. But if you're ready to accept their demise and move on, think tuner car. You surely won't be thinking SUV.
Royal Ford can be reached by e-mail at ford@globe.com.

This story ran on page D1 of the Boston Globe on 12/1/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.


------------------
85 Camaro Z28, Cowl induction hood, Black-355/TB400,3:42 posi, Tons of goodies but if you ask, "Its stock"
82 Firebird, White, red in six months-355/TB350,3:42 Powertrax posi. Not an insane amount of goodies but it runs like a motha!
76 Chevy C10, Firemist blue, 355/Muncie HD 3speed,3:73 TorqLine posi. Show me another 12sec@4800ft SBC street truck??
91 GMC 1500 Sierra 4x4, Red, Was 4.3 now the proud recipient of the Firebirds LG4. 305/5 speed.
56 Buick Special, OG Blue&White, V8/auto. Maybee one day I'll get it going.

TomP

Yeah, we already went thru this... and for imports, a chip /might/ yield them 50 HP. The guy sounds like he hates cars in general, anyway- he complains about worn out suspensions on f-bodies? He's obviously never driven a new one (his reference goes back to the 2nd gen "smog years"), and he should go take a ride in one of these "tuner" (aka IMPORT!) cars in 10 years and see how it's stock suspension held up.


------------------
-Tom P (Hot rodded 1986 Firebird 2.8l)

deadbird

Had you actually scrolled down a little ways, you'd have seen it's already been locked once....

https://www.thirdgen.org/messgboard/...ML/003274.html

If you visit the Tech/General Engine forum, it's still an active topic...

https://www.thirdgen.org/messgboard/...ML/016283.html


------------------[*]my Formula Homepage [*]Collision P/Ns & Diagrams

"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone."