Young and Nerdy
Sitting on the trunk of my Trans Am at 19, nerdy Rush vanity plate and all. Check out my knee where I knelt in a puddle setting up the camera. On and scope that right rear tire...no tread, bro. The car was a 1979 Y84 Black Special Edition Pontiac Trans Am with the W72 T/A 6.6 400 cubic inch engine and the Borg-Warner Super T-10 4-speed transmission that came with all W72 cars in 1979.
For a little while this was the best-handling car in the world. It was getting .82 in skidpad tests at a time when a Porsche 928 was at .76 and the 911 was getting .77 in skidpad tests. The only cars getting comparable numbers were tiny. The Triumph Spitfire and the MG Midget were getting right around the same kind of handling numbers, but they weighed 1600 pounds or so. Not nearly as much as this 3700-pound rotund American.
It's hard to even imagine this as a performance car now. Its engine only put out 220 horsepower (at 4000 rpm) and 320 pounds-feet of torque (at 2800 rpm). It got 12 mpg City and 17 mpg Highway. Car and Driver got a 0-60 time of 6.7 seconds and a quarter mile of 15.3 seconds at 96.6 mph. Top speed at redline was 124 mph.
By comparison a 2015 VW Golf GTI puts out 230 horsepower (at 4200 rpm) and 258 pounds-feet or torque (at 1500 rpm). It gets 24 mpg City and 34 mpg Highway. The Golf does 0-60 in 6.4 seconds and a quarter mile in 14.8 seconds. Top speed is 155 mph.
So you don't even have to get into sports cars to best this old beast nowadays. Even in terms of price, the Trans Am I had here cost about $10,000 new. Adjusted for inflation that's about $32,000 in 2013 dollars. A Golf GTI will set you back $27k or so. Of course, Volkswagen doesn't put giant screaming chickens on the hoods of their cars...so there's always that.
Young and Nerdy
Sitting on the trunk of my Trans Am at 19, nerdy Rush vanity plate and all. Check out my knee where I knelt in a puddle setting up the camera. On and scope that right rear tire...no tread, bro. The car was a 1979 Y84 Black Special Edition Pontiac Trans Am with the W72 T/A 6.6 400 cubic inch engine and the Borg-Warner Super T-10 4-speed transmission that came with all W72 cars in 1979.
For a little while this was the best-handling car in the world. It was getting .82 in skidpad tests at a time when a Porsche 928 was at .76 and the 911 was getting .77 in skidpad tests. The only cars getting comparable numbers were tiny. The Triumph Spitfire and the MG Midget were getting right around the same kind of handling numbers, but they weighed 1600 pounds or so. Not nearly as much as this 3700-pound rotund American.
It's hard to even imagine this as a performance car now. Its engine only put out 220 horsepower (at 4000 rpm) and 320 pounds-feet of torque (at 2800 rpm). It got 12 mpg City and 17 mpg Highway. Car and Driver got a 0-60 time of 6.7 seconds and a quarter mile of 15.3 seconds at 96.6 mph. Top speed at redline was 124 mph.
By comparison a 2015 VW Golf GTI puts out 230 horsepower (at 4200 rpm) and 258 pounds-feet or torque (at 1500 rpm). It gets 24 mpg City and 34 mpg Highway. The Golf does 0-60 in 6.4 seconds and a quarter mile in 14.8 seconds. Top speed is 155 mph.
So you don't even have to get into sports cars to best this old beast nowadays. Even in terms of price, the Trans Am I had here cost about $10,000 new. Adjusted for inflation that's about $32,000 in 2013 dollars. A Golf GTI will set you back $27k or so. Of course, Volkswagen doesn't put giant screaming chickens on the hoods of their cars...so there's always that.