Quote:
Originally Posted by aporigine
Ooohh them's fightin words!!
Contingent, of course, on how you and I define "sports car"....
(I hope you take this in good fun as I intend it.)
cheers apo
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The original Thunderbird (or maybe the warmed up version of that car) was regarded as competitive against European GTs of the mid 50s, it scared Jaguar's management quite a bit when it appeared - it cost less than the XK120/140 and went faster and handled quite well. Unfortunately Ford moved the 'Bird into the late 50s-60s "good life" so it got fat and lazy, if not slow. By the 1970s most Europeans would consider the Bird to be a pretend sports car, like the Mustang of the time.
The Cobra was a development of the AC Ace although Shelby himself states the contribution of AC as being minimal. It was meant as a racer and not a GT.
The GT40 was also British, a development of the Lola GT prepared with the idea of beating Ferrari at Le Mans after Enzo refused to sell his company to Ford in the 60s. Again a racer and not a GT.
I would regard the Vette as being a competitive sports car compared to products from the rest of the world today. I don't know C-numbers too well but there was a period during the 70s when the Vette brand seemed to be dead like the Thunderbird, but they got their act together with the 84 model onwards and gradually improved the ride and handling a lot from there - the 1990s model wouldn't knock out your fillings like the 84 would and the engines started appear like they were designed in the latter half of the 20th century and not the first half.
For the money there is little to compete with it, but outside North America it just doesn't sell at all. If you are in the position to afford a high performance GT like that would you buy one with a Chevrolet badge on it - which has no status at all here - or one with a prancing bull or horse or a 3 pointed star ? That tapped of course there are cars with less appealing badges which do sell well - the new Skyline from Nissan for example.
The Viper/GTS was competitive too in terms of performance and handling. Unlike the Vette though the style was too over the top, too much trying to ape the Cobra instead of making something truly different and new, and far far too big. They could have improved it I suppose, and it didn't really rebuild the Dodge brand to any great extent.
I'm sure some will immediately think of Muscle Cars being in this category and certainly in terms of straight line speed they would probably match if not beat some quite exotic machinery of the time. Although they are part of American car culture their influence on the world stopped at the Pacific and Atlantic coastlines. The same is true of the modern versions - the Mustang, the Camaro etc. I can't help wonder why Ford retained the live axle under the Mustang except for costs.
The Solstice seems to have been a victim of timing, it would have been interesting to see if it could compete with lower end GTs like the Porsche Cayman / Coxster but again it was NA only so we won't know.
EDIT - that was fun and just opinion
