found this on fox news.com
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,317556,00.html
Quote:
DETROIT — When General Motors Corp. pulls the cover off a new supercharged version of the Corvette at the Detroit auto show next month, it will unveil a performance car designed to rival or better even the fastest, most expensive exotic cars from Europe.
But the Corvette's chief engineer says the 2009 Corvette ZR1 may be the last in a long tradition of Detroit performance cars, endangered by stronger federal fuel economy regulations and limits on carbon dioxide emissions.
"High-performance vehicles such as this may actually be legislated out of existence," Tadge Juechter said at a recent showing of the ZR1, which is designed to have around 620 horsepower.
President Bush on Wednesday signed into law legislation that will bring more fuel-efficient vehicles into auto showrooms and require wider use of ethanol, calling it "a major step" toward energy independence and easing global warming.
The legislation requires automakers to increase fuel efficiency by 40 percent to an industry average 35 miles per gallon by 2020.
But Juechter said to sell one of the Chevrolet supercars, GM would need to offset that with cars that get 45 mpg.
"It could really be an endangered species," he said.
Aaron Bragman, an auto analyst with the consulting firm Global Insight, said predicting the death of the muscle car might be premature.
The Corvette, he said, is fuel efficient when compared with its competitors. Although fuel economy figures weren't released for the ZR1, the current 505-horsepower Corvette ZO6 gets an estimated 15 mpg in the city and 24 on the highway, according to GM.
The ZR1, he said, gets around the same mileage as a Chevrolet pickup truck, and GM won't be getting out of the pickup business because of gas mileage standards.
"I think it's a little over-dramatization," Bragman said. "GM wants to sell big, high-performance, fun cars. And typically that's what Americans want to buy."
Performance cars of the future may be powered by smaller engines or electric motors, he said, but they won't die.
The ZR1 will have a top speed of more than 200 mph, driven by an all-new supercharged 6.2-liter V-8 engine. It has 19-inch front and 20-inch rear wheels and a suspension tuned to provide extraordinary cornering grip, GM said.
The car has a carbon-fiber hood, fenders and roof for weight savings, and its huge carbon-ceramic brake rotors give it great stopping power, the company said.
The ZR1 will cost around $100,000 and probably will go on sale next summer.
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That blows. 35mpg for a pickup, come on I can see a 30mpg full size pickup by then possibly if it's made of extremely lightweight materials. This is what it must of been like back in the 70's when the musclecar wars was legislated out with a little help from OPEC and Insurance companies. If GM and Ford were smart though they would import the UTE's from their Australian counterparts and label them as Trucks. That'd help offset the full size pickups crappy mpg.
Musclecars are a tiny part of the pollution problem at best. The logical way to do this is to force all heavy equipment vehicles (Big rigs/tractors/payloaders/dump trucks) to pass very strict emission requirements and be hybrid/diesel. They're big and bulky and expensive and an extra 25 to 50 grand tacked on to their price will barely be noticeable. All light trucks/suvs should also be hybrid diesel or diesel to improve fuel economy. Then all passenger cars and minivans should be gas hybrids. No exceptions.
However, I'd amend that to leave wiggle room for musclecars. I'd leave manufacturers the right to produce 50,000 cars a year that don't have to counted in any MPG standards and pass only current ULEV standards, and then as a bonus I'd let em do 500 cars a year that have to pass no standards whatsoever, not even crash tests. Sure, that means that all base model Mustang/Camaro/Challengers would be neutered hybrids, but the faster cars would absolutely kick butt and that's what counts.
It's coming to this anyway, might as well jump ahead of the horse and try to get something for ourselves before it's too late.
thats my theory anyway too. but if you recall or maybe you don't,, but in the late 70's when gas crisis, this is when they put out these 4cly slow cars ie the cavalier, but through time they started to increase the power and we are right back where we started. IMO I would rather spend a little more in gas (when obviosly its not goign to be my daily driver) but america wants power, speed and the ability not to be "restricted" but obiiosly the government doesn't want theat.. They can't pracitce what they preach though, if you think about it most congressman don't drive a prius they drive a jag, Benz or sometimes Hummer, woulnd't you think they would practice what they preach? just food for thought.
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Ryan (1REDRY) wrote: They can't pracitce what they preach though, if you think about it most congressman don't drive a prius they drive a jag, Benz or sometimes Hummer, woulnd't you think they would practice what they preach? just food for thought.
Actually I would hope that they would drive a Cadillac, Lincoln, Chevy, etc. They work for the people who build those cars, not for the Germans or the British.
I highly doubt that muscle cars are the main cause of concern with gas mileage.
How about all of those company's that need fleets of full size vans and trucks so they can haul around those big heavy work beds, that probably get 10mpg at best, and drive constantly?
Those are probably sucking up most of our fuel. Muscle cars have an effect, but not near as big as those fleets do.
1983 Camaro Z28
Knoxfire wrote:Musclecars are a tiny part of the pollution problem at best. The logical way to do this is to force all heavy equipment vehicles (Big rigs/tractors/payloaders/dump trucks) to pass very strict emission requirements and be hybrid/diesel. They're big and bulky and expensive and an extra 25 to 50 grand tacked on to their price will barely be noticeable. All light trucks/suvs should also be hybrid diesel or diesel to improve fuel economy. Then all passenger cars and minivans should be gas hybrids. No exceptions.
However, I'd amend that to leave wiggle room for musclecars. I'd leave manufacturers the right to produce 50,000 cars a year that don't have to counted in any MPG standards and pass only current ULEV standards, and then as a bonus I'd let em do 500 cars a year that have to pass no standards whatsoever, not even crash tests. Sure, that means that all base model Mustang/Camaro/Challengers would be neutered hybrids, but the faster cars would absolutely kick butt and that's what counts.
It's coming to this anyway, might as well jump ahead of the horse and try to get something for ourselves before it's too late.
So it's okay for 500 people to die tragic/clearly avoidable deaths? I'd accept the emissions part, but it's simply unethical to put another in danger when you have the resources to avoid such harm.
And ethanol isn't the answer to our problems. With supercapacitors in conjunction with lithium ion and hydrogen fuel cell technologies right around the corner, I really don't see it lasting much longer anyways. The government really needs to focus on legislation towards industry and power companies, seeing as automobiles only make up around 20% (IIRC) of all GHG's emitted into the atmosphere.
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"Youth in Asia"...I don't see anything wrong with that.
Ethenol actually reduces fuel mileage, because there is less energey in a unit of etheonol than there is in a unit of gasoline, not to mention ALL the MANY other issues with using ethenol for fuel.
Plus increasing to 35 MPG by 2020 is nothing. On average efficiency improves by about 1-3% per year, so 12 years from now, that's not out of the question.
A better solution would perhaps be not to produce minivans with 268hp engines (Toyota). Who the hell needs a minivan that can run 0-60 faster than most cars on the road.
A Ford engineer had a genious setup going. They found that if they inject a little bit of ethenol straight into the combustion chamber, with the gasoline, but using it's own injector, that the engine would think it had very high octane fuel, and so could run huge turbocharged compression, and get big power out of a small engine. And when there was no need for all the power, cut the turbo pressure and run like a normal small engine.
Then of coarse there is the most obvious solution. If you are just running to the store for milk, you don't need to drive the big F-250. Take the Focus instead, or walk.
You better buy em' now..because they won't be around much longer....
Rumors already of stuff that might get killed in the pipeline....
Guess this is good news if you want flashbacks of the 80s.....
its BS... look as the early 70's... you had huge cubic inch engines making lots of power and by 73 the muscle car was "dead" becasue of catalitic converters and the first emissions and fuel mileage concerns... 30 years with the most strict emesions to date and the bigest emphasis on fuel mileage the world has ever seen and a showroom stock sports car will easily out perform the the "muscle cars" from back int he day... hell the average passenger car now days would prolly match up against a muscle car pretty well.
This may slow down the production for sports car for a while but come on.. dead? not a chance. The reason humans run the world is becasue we are smart enough to adapt and invent in order to overcome obsticales... this is no different.
Interesting at best.Condsidering todays cars do have more hp than most actually need to kick around or commute in the first place.My 85 cav averages 25 or so in town and 34 hwy and for a 22 yr old car tbi (one injector) that's pretty good.So I am not to concerned and it's acheviable the econo cars always will be around and it's just a issue coming back from the past which will be nothing more than it was in the past.
Just car companies using the "feel sorry for us" P.R. Spin B.S..
They could make cars fast and economical, the government knows this too. But the problem is....the R&D costs would dip into their C.E.O.'s and upper level management's already huge over inflated salaries. They built car A in Detroit using UAW workers @ (let's say) $30.00 and hour.
To offset the cost of the hourly workers, their insurance, the cost to manufacture the parts, and whatnot they develop an M.S.R.P.. Based on the bottom line of how much it cost to make that car. (we'll say) $25,000.
Some as*hole in upper management decides he wants another mansion in Hawaii and a yacht to go with it. So he comes up with the idea to shut down the plant in Detroit where they pay people $30 bucks an hour and make the same car in Mexico where they can pay the them $10 bucks an hour. They get the parts made in China and India where they can pay half of what they used to pay for them.
But….
The car STILL cost $25,000. Where is all that profit going?
In executives pockets.
And that, is a long drawn out way of saying they have plenty of money to develop new technology to increase mpg, and still have a fun and powerful car. And most importantly….not make up some P.R. boo-hoo story about how congress is killing fast cars. They’re greed is what is killing them.
Look at the Tesla Roadster. Amazing technology from a small independently ran carmaker, and it's all batteries. Imagine what GM or Ford could do on a larger scale and with hybrid technology added. So it’s only an excuse that they can’t make fast AND economical cars.
"Formerly known as Jammit - JBO member since 1998" JBOM | CSS.net
rofl
I'm back from the dead.
Currently Driving: RSX Type-S.
My Cavalier Burnt up :-(
I'm out of town and don't have time to read everything posted but..
Congress just recently passed a regulation that by the year 2020 car manufacturers must meet regulation standards of 35(ithink) mpg.
Also an article in Popular Mechanics(ithink) that detroit is getting pretty pissed about wanting to get better mileage out of thier vehicles without increasing displacment, and are now deciding to head down the path of turbocharging their vehicles.
Just a couple of interesting points that i've picked up on recently. I'll see if I can find the article about detroit and check to see if the congressional regulation is part of the Kyoto Treaty or not.
