Open to all subscribers, focusing on this week's competition results, the ridiculous "lease scheme" on the 911 S/T, two fallen justice-reform leaders, and recent Countach purchases
If I were ever to buy a Countach, it would be to satisfy 12y/o me who had a Countach picture on the bedroom wall. Just like I’d sleep with Britney Spears today because 16-22y/o me would have loved to.
The fact that neither of those things is desirable to do today is irrelevant; like cocaine, nostalgia is a hell of a drug.
These old exotics is one place I might blaspheme and take it away from stock, at least on the engine internals to breathe more horsepower into them or improve the cooling system, etc to improve reliability.
I'm dreaming of an S1 Esprit with a Honda K motor in it. Unfortunately, that's not the sort of phrase that rolls off Bing Crosby's tongue, just like it probably won't ever happen for me in real life, but still.
I know someone who bought FOUR S1s and I don' t think he paid over 15k for any of them. If you ever get serious about this ridiculous idea I'll put you in touch!
This is that guy in the Toledo area, right? It's an idea so insane that I could make it work in the (hopefully) not-too-distant future. I will keep this in mind when I get serious about it!
The one Lamborghini I have driven was a lot of fun, but not my favorite, even in a green Spyder configuration. I would say I was a poseur, but I tolerated the label briefly.
I’ve no idea. I mean you can play that game forever; why buy an Aventador when you could have a Z06 and $300k in cash? I’m guessing that Dougie bought his because of some combination of “quirks and features!” and expected future value. I am poor enough to congratulate myself on living in a house that’s worth ~Countach money, I don’t dream big enough to pick and choose between Lambos.
I'm interested in how MLB is going to react? Bauer seems to be doing okay and making fans in Japan but now that he's shown the receipts and proven that he was set up, will anyone sign him here? Also, she wasn't a gold digger, she was a criminal.
I wouldn't buy a Countach cause it's just too tacky and the driving experience sounds awful. I wouldn't buy a Ferrari because I don't want to be associated with anyone who does. I wouldnt buy a Corvette because I'm a middle age guy and I'd be laughed at by everyone who knows me. I've got lots of reasons for spending or not spending dough.
The key to owning a Corvette is not giving a shit what other people think, just enjoy the driving experience. And don’t hang out with other Corvette owners.
Shortly after I bought it, I took my low-mileage, no options 2008 C6 to a Corvette gathering, or rally if you will, in Telluride. Driving over Red Mountain Pass in the Fall with 50 other Corvettes was a quite a scene, literally stopped traffic in places.
Socializing with the other owners was like being dropped into a Caste society where drivers of the (then) rare C8 were the Brahmins who trailered their 'Vettes to Telluride. Of course, I was treated like an Untouchable forced to actually drive my C6 up from Denver. The only genuine people who I spent more than a minute talking to drove their well-patinaed C2 convertible up from Pueblo. I thought they had the most interesting car there that day. That was the first and likely last association for me with a "Corvette Club". Just got a feeling that a lot of those Brahmins didn't even like cars especially, they seemed to like being a big fish in a small tank.
Yup, clubs can ruin whatever they intend to celebrate.
Love the C6 and would much rather have one than a C8. As a fellow C7 owner once told me, “I’m sure the C8 is a nice car, but it’s just not a Corvette anymore “.
I'll never be able to afford an LC500, but I have seen prices on 90s SC300s and SC400s and those are very reasonable. And still Toyotas with arguably peak Toyota reliability.
Have you considered the SC430? That bathtub convertible from 2002-08?
Like a Japanese SL500; again without the maintenance costs. Hard to find, but inside a nice one is a lovely place to be.
Allegedly the styling team was sent to yacht design school because Lexus wanted some sort of nautical influence on their design language. That would explain the chrome side strakes on the mirror caps -- they were supposed to remind you of the side stays on a main mast.
When I was younger I thought they were rather ugly, almost a little bulbous and geriatric looking. Now I don't think they're so bad (and the interiors are very nice places to sit), but I like the older coupes better for two reasons: I still think they're prettier, and if I were to drive one across the country there's a usable trunk for luggage and souvenirs. I know I could put baggage on the little "seats" behind the driver and passenger, but I'd rather have that stuff hidden.
Oct 5, 2023·edited Oct 5, 2023Liked by Jack Baruth
SC430s have reached the stage of “they look so weird that now they’re cool”. I kind of like them now. There’s actually many nice examples out there because the old people who bought them babied them.
I think they made them until 2011, and the later versions look a little better. Last car sold in the US with an in dash cassette player. Some great color choices, too.
True. But nobody buys it for the weight. I had no idea myself until you posted this and I had to go look it up. Same with horsepower -- and even then the quoted figures from multiple sources never agree. Or 0-60 times. Or skidpad numbers.
But go sit in it and drive it and listen to that exhaust sound and all is forgiven.
C6 Z06 (lowered) or C7 Z06 in black, or pick your meanest color. I, too, am aware of various stigmas as a nearly-middle-aged man, even if a stock C6 with a manual in good shape in dark red or a nice color is a perfectly good car in its own right. The chrome wheels, loud colors, and tacky "mods" are what really sink them. I can really only "practically" afford LT1/LT4 C4s, which means Optispark for me again, but I really like C4s.
Sometimes I like the idea of having a C4 Gran Sport. I like the color scheme and the black rims, but that dark purple color on like a '95 or '96 with a 6-speed would be just as good. I'd take a coupe over a convertible. Corvettes may come with a questionable image but I like them better than Porsches, Ferraris, etc.
I saw a beautiful example of a C4 Gran Sport this summer at a car show. The blue is stunning. The interior was black with the super cool asymmetric-patterned leather seats. Since black wheels continue to be played out, I'd be happy with GS blue and the salad shooter / turbine wheels. Dark purple, too. Coupe with the glass roof, no 'vert, though the convertibles look just fine.
Thank you!! Bookmarked the link. For all my future projects that "just need money" first. This is actually quite attainable since LS-swapping is a lot more and I'd just like to keep the stock setup in there and going. Now I need to go find my '97 Z28 (T56) that I traded in four years ago...
I would do a phenomenal restomod. Why follow the herd?
My latest restomod idea is a ‘67 Eldorado converted to rear wheel drive with a V12 under that long hood. Cadillac explored putting a V12 in the Eldorado, I would actually do it if I had FU money.
Which V12? Wonder if the Falconer V12 would fit... and of course there's already a YT video covering a 1958 Lincoln convertible with a Falconer installed. Never mind.
I think for most this just comes down to if you want a performance car, or do you want to relive your childhood fantasies. There's part of me that wants an E46 M3 or B6 RS4 (or a Phaeton), but I know I'm better off getting a new 5.0 Mustang for the money, even if it's not what I wanted in high school
I still want an 88 Mustang GT convertible. Not because it is a great car or a fast one. I want it because 16 year old me wanted one so badly I could taste it.
I'm pretty convinced you could time the classic car market as being 30 +/- years as your cohort graduated high school. I graduated in '93 and have been musing '93 Mustang GTs, the 93 Prelude, 93 SVX and 93 Corrado.
There is a guy in Atlanta who is always swapping in and out of exotic cars. At the moment, he has several toys, including an Aventador SVJ with a Gintani exhaust. I have never heard a louder street car, and bear in mind that I drive a straight piped GT3…
From what I can tell, he likes to drive around at redline at 1 AM every other day or so.
A good number of the Aventador owners I've met are Asian small business (nail salon, restaurant) owners who are in their fifties. Skimped all their lives, now blindsided by memento mori, splurged on a Lambo to distract themselves.
One of my acquaintances, upon seeing the assemblage, commented, "are Aventadors the easiest supercar to obtain?" YES.
Some Indian billionaire with a Bollywood actress wife in his Lamborghini just killed a Swiss billionaire and his wife in a Ferrari in Sardinia. They were all on some kind of billionaire’s club drive. (That sentence was the grammatical equivalent of the Indian billionaire’s driving)
The Indian is being investigated for “road homicide.”
As usual, the Daily Mail has the video.
The Swiss couple in the Ferrari burned to death, the Italian occupants of a camper van who were in the way of the billionaire’s procession were injured, but not badly.
I’ve said it before, but what these people hope to get by buying these cars is something that can’t be bought. They might be rich, but they’ll never be cool. It’s like Bezos with that used-up harridan. He might laugh at my relative poverty, but I’m laughing right back at him.
You know, if we were in high school together, we'd have either been inseparable best friends or mortal enemies, I don't think there's any in between. I mean, a Fifth Element quote? My hope is that we'd have been best friends.
I think the years of hard work and building a massive business allows you to act like a clown a bit. What's the point of all that money if you can't burn some of it on fun? I'm not denying some of the comments, but I'd do stupid stuff too if I were that rich. But I would never own a boat.
I rather liked that bit about how "...Zuckerberg's billions couldn't get him any better than a Shanghai Hard 4 who didn't respect him enough to take his name."
May 2005, That's how they roll in Italy. Maybe the investigation will end in 2034.
Williams object to court closure on Senna's death
Italian state prosecutor requests halt to long-running proceedings
The manslaughter trial following the death of the Brazilian driver Ayrton Senna in the San Marino grand prix 11 years ago may be over finally after an Italian state prosecutor yesterday asked for proceedings to be halted because time had run out to press charges under the terms of a statute of limitations.
Senna, three times a world champion, was 33 when his Williams-Renault FW16 ran off the circuit at 195mph at the Tamburello left-hander on Imola's Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari while leading the third round of the 1994 championship. He died later of head injuries in hospital in Bologna.
The cause of the accident aroused much speculation and Patrick Head, the Williams team's technical director, and his then chief designer Adrian Newey, now technical director at McLaren, were charged with manslaughter.
I saw a Ferrari 355 roll through our nice little downtown area and let off a few very nice sounding revs on main street while out for dinner with my wife. Also got to see a white Testarossa in my neck of the woods a few years ago. Both times, I was much more excited and the cars had a lot more real world presence than any number of modern Ferraris/Mclarens/etc that I've seen rolling around. Ditto the early 80s (rwd) Lesabre I passed in traffic one morning, so much more authority/presence on the street versus say, a brand new S-class. Something to be said about crisp uncluttered styling whether its a sports car or big luxury sedan.
Love 355s. Drove NSXs on occasion while an Acura dealer lot boy in college. I still have the tape-on windshield stock number from a black/black '01 NSX-T 6-speed we had. NSX forever.
Down the street from my office, there’s a veterinary clinic where--ever since my first visit to this town ~8 years ago--has sat an abandoned red early model NSX. I’d like to buy it, but the tires rotted in the Obama admin and it’s a veritable basket case I’m certain. I’d at least like to know the story.
Living in a spot with a lot of the modern stuff (we have Ferarri, McLaren, Aston, and many more dealers on the main drag), I think the well maintained 80s and 90s stuff turns more heads if that's your thing. Jack and others may disagree, but I'd think that they may be more entertaining to drive on our roads too since they don't have that crazy warp speed performance of modern cars. When I get to driving around my dad's '98 SL 500, I find it much more satisfying than the modern ones as it still has that mechanical feel, and the performance is accessible - I won't be dead and off the road when I floor it
“ it still has that mechanical feel, and the performance is accessible ”
That’s it right there and it applies to both cars and motorcycles for me. Which is why I’m (sort of) on the hunt for some flavor of 80s/90s fair weather commuter car. The most fun/engaging drive I’ve had in years was in a ‘85 Prelude S (the base twin carb model) I test drove about 5 years ago. I should have bought it.
I think the nice *looking* ones are cheap. A truly well sorted one that's had maintenance kept up on, good parts used, etc, is a 12-15k car (I guess within the grand scheme of things that is pretty cheap). What I'd personally really love is a W126 560 SEC hardtop
I'm with you on the 560SEC, but the R129s feel like a much more modern car. Not today's fancy tech, but the 80s Mercs still have a bit of a vintage feel. It's how I got my dad to go with the SL500 over a 560SL. Properly sorted you're likely over 20 for one with low miles and all records, the cheaper ones tend to need some work and likely on the top hydraulics which are complicated and EXPENSIVE
I spotted a 308 Dino on the backroads of NorCal a few years ago and thought it looked cooler than most of the exotics nowadays. I know that car doesn't get a lot of love, but at least it was distinctive. so many modern exotics look like bars of soap to my eye.
There are more wealthy people than ever before, thanks to vampire-squid behavior that drains the middle class of meaningless shit like home ownership and medical coverage so the 0.1% can live, laugh, and love.
.....live, laugh, love. I'm not the smartest guy in the room, but I detect some sarcasm there.
I'm always a bit baffled when you can be poor anywhere and collecting, you stick it out in a dangerous place. Because they look and sound like you? Those are the people making it a dangerous place. When push comes to shove, that person that looks and sounds like you is going after you anyways.
Your (2.) is usually given out in the annual Darwin Awards.
I was less talking about the still poor people who live in bad neighborhoods, which is usually because what little support they have is also there. But more talking about people who could live in a decent neighborhood but choose to be in the "hip area" (e.g. Bed-Stuy 15 years ago) then bitch about their car and house being broken into or getting robbed on the street.
I read a story about Ice Cube a long time ago, about how he wanted to be true to his roots and stay in the hood. Then he discovered he was constantly being robbed and got the fuck out. I sure as heck wouldn't stay either.
I get "remembering where you're from" in the sense that you shouldn't let money and success turn you into a giant douche or a turd sandwich (or a giant douche IN a turd sandwich), but that's a little different from getting out of the hood and never looking back!
I remember being a college kid at NYU in the early 2000s and a guy coming out of an alley telling us he’d stabbed someone and for us to help him check if he was all right. I quickly kept walking and pulled the Nokia brick out of my pocket and my two idiot friends stopped to talk to the admitted knifer! They finally moved away and felt bad about not checking on the alley “victim”! My response “You fuckers the only person stabbed in that alley would have been one of us“
I usually had heat on me in college. Nobody knew, and nobody needed to. But I wasn't about to take night classes, then walk all the way to the train station without one of my little friends.
Praise the Lord I never needed it, but I often forgot it was there.
Oct 4, 2023·edited Oct 4, 2023Liked by Jack Baruth
It was more the Bloomberg times than Rudy's, but it definitely has been all downhill since with DiBlasio and now Adams. Covid absolutely ruined it, and here we are. Even keep my head on a swivel on the Upper East Side nowadays.
Oct 4, 2023·edited Oct 4, 2023Liked by Jack Baruth
Spoken like someone who doesn't t remember the Dinkins regime.
Giuliani, somehow, did the heavy lifting, and Bloomberg for his faults did well to build on it .
By Giuliani's second term my Long Island friends, and bizarrely some of my new Ohio friends, could complain about how the city, by which they mean Manhattan, had lost its "grittiness".
It was a popular sentiment for people who had not witnessed homicides during the bad old days to express.
Most of these people also thought "Rent" was brilliant.
Oct 5, 2023·edited Oct 5, 2023Liked by Jack Baruth
It’s because I don’t remember Dinkins, I was a baby! I’m in my early 30s, so I really only started experiencing NYC on my own during the Bloomberg years. I grew up in NJ with a father who commuted into NYC everyday so I was always around the city. I meant moreso that by the time Bloomberg was mayor, that Rudy had done the heavy lifting and Manhattan was safe to roam.
I will say that anyone who complains that Manhattan has lost its grittiness deserves to get squeegee manned or just hit with a 2x4.
What I always tell people who weren't there is this: 87 people died in the Happy Land fire. Since it was arson those are all considered murders. Had the fire not occurred 1990 still would have had a record number of homicides at 2605, or 2518 if you set aside Happy Land, eclipsing 1989's 2246, although 1991 was similar at 2571. It's gotten sketchy recently but it really does not compare to the bad old days.
Jeez! Murders measured in the thousands?? Where I live now I don't think we've had a thousand murders in our entire history. Back home in Toledo I'm pretty sure it would take decades to achieve those kinds of numbers! I know New York's population is huge, but that's a staggering amount of lost life.
I grew up outside of Albany, and had a father that did the M-F commute for work amongst other things for a number of years. I went to the city for the first time around 6 or 7 which was early 90s for the Christmas show at Radio City, I was very excited to go down there and was very upset to find out we would be dropped off right in front of the Music Hall to enjoy the show and then get straight back onto the bus. Little did I know what was going on all around me.
It wasn't until I was in middle school that I would experience the city via track meets at the 168th Street Armory and sneaking out to get something to eat which looking back was probably not smart even in the Bloomberg years.
Rudy cleaned it up and took (and still takes) the heat for it. Bloomberg turned it into an expensive amusement park for tourists and sink for foreign cash.
My favorite stat was that police shootings went down significantly under Giuiani compared to the Dinkins administration but you wouldn't know it from the narrative.
They imagine NY through Scorsese films, romantically. In their minds they are NPCs who observe and are thrilled, but never catch a stray bullet, don't get mugged, and don't have to worry about money.
I would suggest that the three people who were fatally attacked were Darwin recipients, they put too much trust that us mere mortals wouldn’t have given to their attackers.
The world is an ugly, dangerous place full of ugly, dangerous people, and the only way the good guys can survive is by being scarier monsters than the villains.
Modern Marvel did Punisher wrong: his dead wife came back to life, nagged him about his vengeance, berated his toxic masculinity, divorced him and took half his shit, and destroyed all his weapons caches. Then the writer had him off himself after putting him through a Red China-style struggle session. I wish I was making that all up. But there's a reason I went with John Matrix and not him. I think I could pull off the camo face paint better than the white skull t-shirt, too.
Modern marvel has done everyone wrong. The woke crowd took over comics awhile ago. I don't consider anything written in the last 20 years minimum as canon.
Batman is arguably complicit in the deaths of hundreds of innocent people because of his misplaced nobility.
Personally, I think the Greatest Joker Story Ever Told would see the Clown Prince of Crime face down in his own blood at a gas station after trying to carjack some Nobody with carry permit.
Indeed. I'm not interested in the car choices of someone who can't put pants on before making a video.
Unless it's Sasha Grey.
This is an oddly specific exception.
I appreciate her work.
From what I'm "told" she often starts the video wearing pants.
If I were ever to buy a Countach, it would be to satisfy 12y/o me who had a Countach picture on the bedroom wall. Just like I’d sleep with Britney Spears today because 16-22y/o me would have loved to.
The fact that neither of those things is desirable to do today is irrelevant; like cocaine, nostalgia is a hell of a drug.
These old exotics is one place I might blaspheme and take it away from stock, at least on the engine internals to breathe more horsepower into them or improve the cooling system, etc to improve reliability.
I'm dreaming of an S1 Esprit with a Honda K motor in it. Unfortunately, that's not the sort of phrase that rolls off Bing Crosby's tongue, just like it probably won't ever happen for me in real life, but still.
I know someone who bought FOUR S1s and I don' t think he paid over 15k for any of them. If you ever get serious about this ridiculous idea I'll put you in touch!
This is that guy in the Toledo area, right? It's an idea so insane that I could make it work in the (hopefully) not-too-distant future. I will keep this in mind when I get serious about it!
Yes, the dead mouse eater!
I don't even know what to say to that, other than I guess he needs to get his protein somehow!
Given the choice between an old Countach and a new Aventador and $400k in cash, which would you take?
Take the cash and buy a 911 vs LC
Lamborghinis are for posers and oil sheiks. I am neither. Can I just have the 900k?
The one Lamborghini I have driven was a lot of fun, but not my favorite, even in a green Spyder configuration. I would say I was a poseur, but I tolerated the label briefly.
Don't forget douchebags.
Poseurs covers that
Just bein' thorough...
I’ve no idea. I mean you can play that game forever; why buy an Aventador when you could have a Z06 and $300k in cash? I’m guessing that Dougie bought his because of some combination of “quirks and features!” and expected future value. I am poor enough to congratulate myself on living in a house that’s worth ~Countach money, I don’t dream big enough to pick and choose between Lambos.
"why buy an Aventador when you could have a Z06 and $300k in cash?"
It rhymes with "casual keks".
Sir I’m in Chicago, you can get laid here with a Corvette.
Especially on the south side.
That's the baddest part of town!
Rather than a Corvette, wouldn't you just need $20? I have no idea what "things" cost.
Ask trevor bauer how banging gold diggers went. If you're a reasonably wealthy man in 2023 and still banging floozies', you are asking for trouble.
What if you're broke?
You cannot get blood out of a stone but Child support still lasts 18 years.
I'm interested in how MLB is going to react? Bauer seems to be doing okay and making fans in Japan but now that he's shown the receipts and proven that he was set up, will anyone sign him here? Also, she wasn't a gold digger, she was a criminal.
She was both. He should sue MLB for 100mm dollars.
I wouldn't buy a Countach cause it's just too tacky and the driving experience sounds awful. I wouldn't buy a Ferrari because I don't want to be associated with anyone who does. I wouldnt buy a Corvette because I'm a middle age guy and I'd be laughed at by everyone who knows me. I've got lots of reasons for spending or not spending dough.
The key to owning a Corvette is not giving a shit what other people think, just enjoy the driving experience. And don’t hang out with other Corvette owners.
so it's like owning an air-cooled Porsche...
So it’s like a Harley
thats like any other car with an associated negative stereotype lol
Shortly after I bought it, I took my low-mileage, no options 2008 C6 to a Corvette gathering, or rally if you will, in Telluride. Driving over Red Mountain Pass in the Fall with 50 other Corvettes was a quite a scene, literally stopped traffic in places.
Socializing with the other owners was like being dropped into a Caste society where drivers of the (then) rare C8 were the Brahmins who trailered their 'Vettes to Telluride. Of course, I was treated like an Untouchable forced to actually drive my C6 up from Denver. The only genuine people who I spent more than a minute talking to drove their well-patinaed C2 convertible up from Pueblo. I thought they had the most interesting car there that day. That was the first and likely last association for me with a "Corvette Club". Just got a feeling that a lot of those Brahmins didn't even like cars especially, they seemed to like being a big fish in a small tank.
Yup, clubs can ruin whatever they intend to celebrate.
Love the C6 and would much rather have one than a C8. As a fellow C7 owner once told me, “I’m sure the C8 is a nice car, but it’s just not a Corvette anymore “.
He has a bit of a point. They were FR pushrod V8 cars since '55.
The more I look at the C8, the more I'm convinced the C5 is the high-water mark of Corvette styling.
Same here.
Consider the Lexus LC500; 480+ HP, aluminum and carbon fiber bodywork, interior like a velvet lined jewelry box... with Toyota reliability.
I'll never be able to afford an LC500, but I have seen prices on 90s SC300s and SC400s and those are very reasonable. And still Toyotas with arguably peak Toyota reliability.
Have you considered the SC430? That bathtub convertible from 2002-08?
Like a Japanese SL500; again without the maintenance costs. Hard to find, but inside a nice one is a lovely place to be.
Allegedly the styling team was sent to yacht design school because Lexus wanted some sort of nautical influence on their design language. That would explain the chrome side strakes on the mirror caps -- they were supposed to remind you of the side stays on a main mast.
When I was younger I thought they were rather ugly, almost a little bulbous and geriatric looking. Now I don't think they're so bad (and the interiors are very nice places to sit), but I like the older coupes better for two reasons: I still think they're prettier, and if I were to drive one across the country there's a usable trunk for luggage and souvenirs. I know I could put baggage on the little "seats" behind the driver and passenger, but I'd rather have that stuff hidden.
SC430s have reached the stage of “they look so weird that now they’re cool”. I kind of like them now. There’s actually many nice examples out there because the old people who bought them babied them.
I think they made them until 2011, and the later versions look a little better. Last car sold in the US with an in dash cassette player. Some great color choices, too.
I'd be careful about the maintenance costs. Nothing that old is legit cheap, and those folding hardtops are never cheap to fix when things go wrong.
4340lbs min! Wow
True. But nobody buys it for the weight. I had no idea myself until you posted this and I had to go look it up. Same with horsepower -- and even then the quoted figures from multiple sources never agree. Or 0-60 times. Or skidpad numbers.
But go sit in it and drive it and listen to that exhaust sound and all is forgiven.
C6 Z06 (lowered) or C7 Z06 in black, or pick your meanest color. I, too, am aware of various stigmas as a nearly-middle-aged man, even if a stock C6 with a manual in good shape in dark red or a nice color is a perfectly good car in its own right. The chrome wheels, loud colors, and tacky "mods" are what really sink them. I can really only "practically" afford LT1/LT4 C4s, which means Optispark for me again, but I really like C4s.
Sometimes I like the idea of having a C4 Gran Sport. I like the color scheme and the black rims, but that dark purple color on like a '95 or '96 with a 6-speed would be just as good. I'd take a coupe over a convertible. Corvettes may come with a questionable image but I like them better than Porsches, Ferraris, etc.
yeah that dark purple late C4 is so good. saw one in chicago last year and had to take a picture.
I saw a beautiful example of a C4 Gran Sport this summer at a car show. The blue is stunning. The interior was black with the super cool asymmetric-patterned leather seats. Since black wheels continue to be played out, I'd be happy with GS blue and the salad shooter / turbine wheels. Dark purple, too. Coupe with the glass roof, no 'vert, though the convertibles look just fine.
Black wheels only worked on the GNX. And they had chrome rims.
I find the look of Corvettes to be very dependent on the color. Certain colors just don’t look good.
Is there a solution for the Optispark?
An LS.
More seriously, I bet most of the hardware to convert to EFI is there if you buy a Holley Sniper kit or equivalent.
Yes, the https://www.torqhead.com/index.html
Thanks. I like the Impala SS and it’s whale like proportions. That rental car interior is a tough one to get over, though.
Thank you!! Bookmarked the link. For all my future projects that "just need money" first. This is actually quite attainable since LS-swapping is a lot more and I'd just like to keep the stock setup in there and going. Now I need to go find my '97 Z28 (T56) that I traded in four years ago...
Yes there is a direct swap aftermarket system. You don’t want the headache of doing an aftermarket ECM swap like this other guy is mentioning.
https://www.holley.com/products/ignition/distributors/chevrolet/parts/83811
Take the ca$h and Adventador , sell the Adventador and invest all the combined $ and them go forth with out worry .
-Nate
One of the nice ones or the ugly one Doug has in the wrong colour?
How about an 812 Superfast, an F8 Tributo, and $250K in cash?
How about 100 Miatas and no cash?
I'd suggest 90 Miatas and spend the rest on tires, but you've to the only correct answer to the question.
I'll take an LMP3, a box of spares, and the Breaking Bad meth RV to get to the race.
I’d like a previous generation WRC car. I’d show up at the local autocross and do launch control starts.
https://youtu.be/Ek-SjXLMDU8?si=E3lmS7M9IEPikLtH
How about "I'll take anything of value you want to give me"
I would do a phenomenal restomod. Why follow the herd?
My latest restomod idea is a ‘67 Eldorado converted to rear wheel drive with a V12 under that long hood. Cadillac explored putting a V12 in the Eldorado, I would actually do it if I had FU money.
Why follow the herd?
I suppose I have quotidian goals!
C’mon, don’t be going all commoner on us! We all have our roles to fill :)
Which V12? Wonder if the Falconer V12 would fit... and of course there's already a YT video covering a 1958 Lincoln convertible with a Falconer installed. Never mind.
I would choose the Falconer, gotta keep it American. I think the Falconer would easily fit.
I think for most this just comes down to if you want a performance car, or do you want to relive your childhood fantasies. There's part of me that wants an E46 M3 or B6 RS4 (or a Phaeton), but I know I'm better off getting a new 5.0 Mustang for the money, even if it's not what I wanted in high school
I still want an 88 Mustang GT convertible. Not because it is a great car or a fast one. I want it because 16 year old me wanted one so badly I could taste it.
I'm pretty convinced you could time the classic car market as being 30 +/- years as your cohort graduated high school. I graduated in '93 and have been musing '93 Mustang GTs, the 93 Prelude, 93 SVX and 93 Corrado.
If you want disappointment buy an E30 M3 with its original motor. Oy.
Lancia Delta. Doesn't even have to be an evo.
$400k pays for a lot of sex.
Which is what everyone will assume you're doing if you drive an Aventador, anyway.
Why not buy the very best?
The 70s Norton Girl on the inside cover of any "Cycle" magazine. Yummy!
There is a guy in Atlanta who is always swapping in and out of exotic cars. At the moment, he has several toys, including an Aventador SVJ with a Gintani exhaust. I have never heard a louder street car, and bear in mind that I drive a straight piped GT3…
From what I can tell, he likes to drive around at redline at 1 AM every other day or so.
He is also widely known to avail himself of professional women, including a neighbor of mine; she is famous! https://nypost.com/2021/07/31/how-george-soros-money-manager-was-accused-of-bdsm-assaults/
Heard a clip of that. Utterly bonkers noises that come out of that engine.
But 12k for a few feet of stainless tube? I guess that's the Lambo tax.
It’s worth it based on how it sounds in person. I can hear him from 1.5 miles away (or further).
A full fat Novitec exhaust in inconel for a front engined V12 Ferrari is $35k+
Probably sounds amazing and is built correctly. Does that include headers?
No such thing as "BDSM Assault."
Sexual assault is the whole point of BDSM. You don't get to complain if you walk into it willingly.
It's no different from Smoking But Not Inhaling: Utter bullshit sophistry.
I need to network with her - she has a great client list.
Funnily enough, her daddy is a preacher in a small town in North GA (near my hometown).
Because OF COURSE he is.
Easy: Team Oreca Viper
Ok, but seriously: Lexus LFA
I mean, ok...Aventa--could it be a Diablo SV? I'll park it next to Pantani's Bianchi.
A good number of the Aventador owners I've met are Asian small business (nail salon, restaurant) owners who are in their fifties. Skimped all their lives, now blindsided by memento mori, splurged on a Lambo to distract themselves.
One of my acquaintances, upon seeing the assemblage, commented, "are Aventadors the easiest supercar to obtain?" YES.
Good for them!
But here's the problem: if you've been a nail shop owner and cautious saver your whole life, an Aventador doesn't change who you are.
That was demonstrated by how slowly they drove their cars while we convoyed to lunch.
Some Indian billionaire with a Bollywood actress wife in his Lamborghini just killed a Swiss billionaire and his wife in a Ferrari in Sardinia. They were all on some kind of billionaire’s club drive. (That sentence was the grammatical equivalent of the Indian billionaire’s driving)
The Indian is being investigated for “road homicide.”
As usual, the Daily Mail has the video.
The Swiss couple in the Ferrari burned to death, the Italian occupants of a camper van who were in the way of the billionaire’s procession were injured, but not badly.
I’ve said it before, but what these people hope to get by buying these cars is something that can’t be bought. They might be rich, but they’ll never be cool. It’s like Bezos with that used-up harridan. He might laugh at my relative poverty, but I’m laughing right back at him.
“ It’s like Bezos with that used-up harridan. He might laugh at my relative poverty, but I’m laughing right back at him.”
All the money in the world and no woman has truly loved him. Such a pity. A trillion dollars and no children. The deal with the devil is harsh.
"And you see how your entire empire of destruction comes crashing down because of One. Little. Cherry."
You know, if we were in high school together, we'd have either been inseparable best friends or mortal enemies, I don't think there's any in between. I mean, a Fifth Element quote? My hope is that we'd have been best friends.
Star Trek? Anime? The Fifth Element?
I think we would've gotten along just fine.
He has 3 kids
Acting like a clown at his age with three kids is almost more embarrassing. I assumed he didn't have any.
I think the years of hard work and building a massive business allows you to act like a clown a bit. What's the point of all that money if you can't burn some of it on fun? I'm not denying some of the comments, but I'd do stupid stuff too if I were that rich. But I would never own a boat.
The houses, the yachts, the extravagance I get but if you're going to act like a clown and leave your wife of twenty(?) years, at least upgrade.
Who was the guy that said the average black teen gets better pussy than Bezos?
Probably this guy named Jack Baruth
Haha! Every adult male in my family has done better than Bezos at some point.
Heck, you've seen that picture of me and my ex when we were young. Even I've done better than Bezos.
I believe Jack attributed that to the departed (from the Interwebz) "Roissy in DC"
May God watch over him
If I didn’t find him when I did, I wouldn’t have the happy family I do.
Bezos says it, but only to himself, when no one else is around.
I rather liked that bit about how "...Zuckerberg's billions couldn't get him any better than a Shanghai Hard 4 who didn't respect him enough to take his name."
Imagine your beta levels outgunning several billion dollars
sucks to suck
All that money and even the gold-diggers didn't want him.
I remember a line about how "...that guy's such a pussy, when he shakes his wife's hand, it's a lesbian fisting session."
May 2005, That's how they roll in Italy. Maybe the investigation will end in 2034.
Williams object to court closure on Senna's death
Italian state prosecutor requests halt to long-running proceedings
The manslaughter trial following the death of the Brazilian driver Ayrton Senna in the San Marino grand prix 11 years ago may be over finally after an Italian state prosecutor yesterday asked for proceedings to be halted because time had run out to press charges under the terms of a statute of limitations.
Senna, three times a world champion, was 33 when his Williams-Renault FW16 ran off the circuit at 195mph at the Tamburello left-hander on Imola's Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari while leading the third round of the 1994 championship. He died later of head injuries in hospital in Bologna.
The cause of the accident aroused much speculation and Patrick Head, the Williams team's technical director, and his then chief designer Adrian Newey, now technical director at McLaren, were charged with manslaughter.
They locked up Amanda Knox pretty quickly. The guy who actually raped and murdered Meredith Kercher only served 16 years.
I saw that, grisly.
The urge to turn the wheel must be very powerful considering how many crashes can be avoided by just using the brakes.
I saw a Ferrari 355 roll through our nice little downtown area and let off a few very nice sounding revs on main street while out for dinner with my wife. Also got to see a white Testarossa in my neck of the woods a few years ago. Both times, I was much more excited and the cars had a lot more real world presence than any number of modern Ferraris/Mclarens/etc that I've seen rolling around. Ditto the early 80s (rwd) Lesabre I passed in traffic one morning, so much more authority/presence on the street versus say, a brand new S-class. Something to be said about crisp uncluttered styling whether its a sports car or big luxury sedan.
My formative years were spent reading about Doug and Wayne and their F355s on NSX-Files; as a result the F355 is still my favorite car of all time.
Robert Farago (hello, Robert!) had a lot to say about them - on the Rienzi Report (https://rienzireport.com/farago-a-ferrari-is-like-a-mistress-1885/ ) site and maybe on the insurance company website. Good stuff.
The 355 is a sweet ride.
https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a28309552/ferrari-f355-modificata-jeff-segal/
This tuned one is even sweeter if you don't mind your ears bleeding.
Love 355s. Drove NSXs on occasion while an Acura dealer lot boy in college. I still have the tape-on windshield stock number from a black/black '01 NSX-T 6-speed we had. NSX forever.
Down the street from my office, there’s a veterinary clinic where--ever since my first visit to this town ~8 years ago--has sat an abandoned red early model NSX. I’d like to buy it, but the tires rotted in the Obama admin and it’s a veritable basket case I’m certain. I’d at least like to know the story.
Living in a spot with a lot of the modern stuff (we have Ferarri, McLaren, Aston, and many more dealers on the main drag), I think the well maintained 80s and 90s stuff turns more heads if that's your thing. Jack and others may disagree, but I'd think that they may be more entertaining to drive on our roads too since they don't have that crazy warp speed performance of modern cars. When I get to driving around my dad's '98 SL 500, I find it much more satisfying than the modern ones as it still has that mechanical feel, and the performance is accessible - I won't be dead and off the road when I floor it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zygfrEkhtFA
“ it still has that mechanical feel, and the performance is accessible ”
That’s it right there and it applies to both cars and motorcycles for me. Which is why I’m (sort of) on the hunt for some flavor of 80s/90s fair weather commuter car. The most fun/engaging drive I’ve had in years was in a ‘85 Prelude S (the base twin carb model) I test drove about 5 years ago. I should have bought it.
The thing about an SL500 is that it's not a piece of shit.
Most Italian exotics were. Up to about the 355.
Nice SL500s are cheap these days.
Make mine a "Lenny Dykstra Edition"
I've noticed a few other M-B's listed at seemingly reasonable prices also.
I think the nice *looking* ones are cheap. A truly well sorted one that's had maintenance kept up on, good parts used, etc, is a 12-15k car (I guess within the grand scheme of things that is pretty cheap). What I'd personally really love is a W126 560 SEC hardtop
I'm with you on the 560SEC, but the R129s feel like a much more modern car. Not today's fancy tech, but the 80s Mercs still have a bit of a vintage feel. It's how I got my dad to go with the SL500 over a 560SL. Properly sorted you're likely over 20 for one with low miles and all records, the cheaper ones tend to need some work and likely on the top hydraulics which are complicated and EXPENSIVE
I try to avoid the trap of "what if" engine swap/restomod fantasies, but a 560SEC with a M156 has always been my dream build.
JackNicholsonNodding.gif
Cheap to BUY anyway.
A house is the most expensive thing the average man will ever buy in his life.
Unless he picks up a Porsche 928.
Ben Stein once wrote in GQ that he took his 928 on a date and the woman asked him, "Are you rich? You have a Porsche." To which he replied,
"I would be rich if I didn't have this car."
I spotted a 308 Dino on the backroads of NorCal a few years ago and thought it looked cooler than most of the exotics nowadays. I know that car doesn't get a lot of love, but at least it was distinctive. so many modern exotics look like bars of soap to my eye.
There are more wealthy people than ever before, thanks to vampire-squid behavior that drains the middle class of meaningless shit like home ownership and medical coverage so the 0.1% can live, laugh, and love.
.....live, laugh, love. I'm not the smartest guy in the room, but I detect some sarcasm there.
Having had the (un)fortunate experience of living in plenty of shitty neighborhoods as a necessity not a choice I am baffled by people who:
0. Have never learned to be aware of and wary of their surroundings
1. When they have the means, don't move the fuck out of the hood.
2. Let a concept overrule their instincts
I'm always a bit baffled when you can be poor anywhere and collecting, you stick it out in a dangerous place. Because they look and sound like you? Those are the people making it a dangerous place. When push comes to shove, that person that looks and sounds like you is going after you anyways.
Your (2.) is usually given out in the annual Darwin Awards.
I was less talking about the still poor people who live in bad neighborhoods, which is usually because what little support they have is also there. But more talking about people who could live in a decent neighborhood but choose to be in the "hip area" (e.g. Bed-Stuy 15 years ago) then bitch about their car and house being broken into or getting robbed on the street.
It's a hassle to move.
Having been robbed at gun point in broad daylight I agree moving is a hassle but it is far less inconvenient than dealing with that experience again.
well when you put it that way
I read a story about Ice Cube a long time ago, about how he wanted to be true to his roots and stay in the hood. Then he discovered he was constantly being robbed and got the fuck out. I sure as heck wouldn't stay either.
Ever wonder WHY the people who're surrounded by that shit are all hung up on "remembering where he came from?"
The only reason to remember where you came from is to never forget why you left.
I get "remembering where you're from" in the sense that you shouldn't let money and success turn you into a giant douche or a turd sandwich (or a giant douche IN a turd sandwich), but that's a little different from getting out of the hood and never looking back!
Bud-Sty isn't something new. It's always been that way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ar_o_qS68oA&ab_channel=Movieclips 43 year old movie clip. It's a case where someone thinks they are superior to the point that they can get through to people that are "Difficult".
I was born a few miles from there. Only during the Giuliani years was NYC not worth taking cautiously.
I remember being a college kid at NYU in the early 2000s and a guy coming out of an alley telling us he’d stabbed someone and for us to help him check if he was all right. I quickly kept walking and pulled the Nokia brick out of my pocket and my two idiot friends stopped to talk to the admitted knifer! They finally moved away and felt bad about not checking on the alley “victim”! My response “You fuckers the only person stabbed in that alley would have been one of us“
I believe your radar was properly calibrated.
I usually had heat on me in college. Nobody knew, and nobody needed to. But I wasn't about to take night classes, then walk all the way to the train station without one of my little friends.
Praise the Lord I never needed it, but I often forgot it was there.
Now you almost need it on any campuses, gun-free-zone signs be damned!
"Gun-free" often translates into "Go weapons hot!"
gun free=weapons free
what are they going to do, shoot you?
It was more the Bloomberg times than Rudy's, but it definitely has been all downhill since with DiBlasio and now Adams. Covid absolutely ruined it, and here we are. Even keep my head on a swivel on the Upper East Side nowadays.
Spoken like someone who doesn't t remember the Dinkins regime.
Giuliani, somehow, did the heavy lifting, and Bloomberg for his faults did well to build on it .
By Giuliani's second term my Long Island friends, and bizarrely some of my new Ohio friends, could complain about how the city, by which they mean Manhattan, had lost its "grittiness".
It was a popular sentiment for people who had not witnessed homicides during the bad old days to express.
Most of these people also thought "Rent" was brilliant.
It’s because I don’t remember Dinkins, I was a baby! I’m in my early 30s, so I really only started experiencing NYC on my own during the Bloomberg years. I grew up in NJ with a father who commuted into NYC everyday so I was always around the city. I meant moreso that by the time Bloomberg was mayor, that Rudy had done the heavy lifting and Manhattan was safe to roam.
I will say that anyone who complains that Manhattan has lost its grittiness deserves to get squeegee manned or just hit with a 2x4.
What I always tell people who weren't there is this: 87 people died in the Happy Land fire. Since it was arson those are all considered murders. Had the fire not occurred 1990 still would have had a record number of homicides at 2605, or 2518 if you set aside Happy Land, eclipsing 1989's 2246, although 1991 was similar at 2571. It's gotten sketchy recently but it really does not compare to the bad old days.
Jeez! Murders measured in the thousands?? Where I live now I don't think we've had a thousand murders in our entire history. Back home in Toledo I'm pretty sure it would take decades to achieve those kinds of numbers! I know New York's population is huge, but that's a staggering amount of lost life.
I grew up outside of Albany, and had a father that did the M-F commute for work amongst other things for a number of years. I went to the city for the first time around 6 or 7 which was early 90s for the Christmas show at Radio City, I was very excited to go down there and was very upset to find out we would be dropped off right in front of the Music Hall to enjoy the show and then get straight back onto the bus. Little did I know what was going on all around me.
It wasn't until I was in middle school that I would experience the city via track meets at the 168th Street Armory and sneaking out to get something to eat which looking back was probably not smart even in the Bloomberg years.
Nothing says "middle class tourist at heart" than talking about GRITTY NYC. fuck those peeps.
Why in the hell anyone would enjoy "grittiness" is beyond me. I like living in safe places where I don't have to be afraid to go out at night.
Where I won’t get knifed while getting into my car to look for insurance information after discovering it on blocks!
Rudy cleaned it up and took (and still takes) the heat for it. Bloomberg turned it into an expensive amusement park for tourists and sink for foreign cash.
My favorite stat was that police shootings went down significantly under Giuiani compared to the Dinkins administration but you wouldn't know it from the narrative.
They probably miss the Times Square of "Taxi Driver," too.
Absolutely.
They imagine NY through Scorsese films, romantically. In their minds they are NPCs who observe and are thrilled, but never catch a stray bullet, don't get mugged, and don't have to worry about money.
"Big cities are playgrounds for the wealthy, and an endless trial for everyone else."
- Kevin Williamson
I grew up assuming all of New York was the neighborhood where they set "Death Wish 3."
Started going downhill under Lindsay. It was okay when we'd visit frequently in the '60s.
I would suggest that the three people who were fatally attacked were Darwin recipients, they put too much trust that us mere mortals wouldn’t have given to their attackers.
I don't have a lot of sympathy for people hoisted with their own petard.
I don’t disagree, they all broke safety protocols that should have been ingrained, and they ignored at their ultimate peril.
The world is an ugly, dangerous place full of ugly, dangerous people, and the only way the good guys can survive is by being scarier monsters than the villains.
I'd look silly wearing a Batsuit, but draping tons of armaments and ammo like Arnold Schwarzenegger might be a look I could pull off.
The Punisher is cooler than batman " I can't kill my enemies" What a pussy.
Modern Marvel did Punisher wrong: his dead wife came back to life, nagged him about his vengeance, berated his toxic masculinity, divorced him and took half his shit, and destroyed all his weapons caches. Then the writer had him off himself after putting him through a Red China-style struggle session. I wish I was making that all up. But there's a reason I went with John Matrix and not him. I think I could pull off the camo face paint better than the white skull t-shirt, too.
Modern marvel has done everyone wrong. The woke crowd took over comics awhile ago. I don't consider anything written in the last 20 years minimum as canon.
"You want her back, you gotta do what we say, right?"
"Wrong." (Boom)
Batman is arguably complicit in the deaths of hundreds of innocent people because of his misplaced nobility.
Personally, I think the Greatest Joker Story Ever Told would see the Clown Prince of Crime face down in his own blood at a gas station after trying to carjack some Nobody with carry permit.
Well, the city of Gotham ALSO should've executed the joker years ago.