THE DAY FUTURE OEM MUSCLE CARS DIED

The automakers and the folks we can't mention (or they'll lock the thread) have destroyed what’s left of automotive liberty in America today.

And Ford, GM and Chrysler threw us Car Crafters "under the bus." They cut a plea bargain that will banish any new replacements for the RWD V8 cars we love after 2011.

The new across the board 35.5 m.p.g. Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standard, now required by 2016 (with massive 5% annual increases during the lead-in years) will force a 42 m.p.g. average for cars. There won’t be anything remotely like a RWD Mustang GT or a Shelby GT500 or Challenger SRT-8 or even Camaro Craft's favorite bankruptcy ponycar possible under that freedom-killing plan.

The elite journalists parrot the line that the average cost of compliance to be passed along to consumers is $1,300.00 per vehicle. Which means that for low-volume sporting and high-performance vehicles, the cost of compliance will be $5,000.00-$10,000.00 or more. Moreover, volume limitations inherent in an “average” will mean that OEM and dealer gouging will be rampant for anything that remotely resembles a “performance” car.

Thus, the liberty of regular wage-earners to purchase a large SUV or a high performance car is being regulated away.  Ordinary Car Crafters need not apply.  The dream of a new V8 muscle car is DEAD, effective September 2011 (if not sooner).

While all-aluminum and carbon fiber SUVs may still be available to the Range Rover class of buyers, regular folks who punch a clock for a paycheck will be priced out of the market. And with the idiotic giveaway known as “cash for clunkers,” the supply of used SUVs will be decimated.


What’s worse, the aluminum and carbon fiber SUVs will drive many high performance cars off the road — Cars that would have been built in a free market.


SOME OF US DO NOT WANT A “FOUR” OR A “SIX.” For those who have dreamed the American dream, played by the rules, struggled and saved up for a chance at the torque, power, rumble, and aural symphony of a V8 (or even an exotic v10 or V12), that future is being destroyed by the people we're banned from mentioning. A “sealed-for-your-protection” EcoBoost six or four simply won’t cut it.

Those wealthy few who want a private jet, or a light aircraft, or a yacht, or energy-intensive vacations on cruise ships, or even a classic V-twin motorcycle instead of a new, affordable V8 muscle car will still be able to pursue their carbon-emitting dreams with abandon. But those people that CC won't let us name have singled out hot rodders, "Car Crafters,"grassroots racers, V8 enthusiasts and the automotive culture to bear the lions-share of the “jihad” against the “anthropogenic climate change” bogeyman.

Sadly, elite journalists simply don’t understand all of that. Or if they do, they simply don’t care.

Under the quick "CAFE deal"time-frame, V8 muscle cars are most certainly going to be slaughtered in the headlong rush to build soulless, happy, smiley FWD O#@&@mobiles that are acceptable the appliance motorist greeniacs and  the Californians that we dare not name, lest this thread become blocked.

Detroit, humiliated, humbled and beholden to corporate welfare will meekly comply, mostly out of the horror that could have arisen had the courts permitted the California and thirteen other  . . . states to set their own fuel economy standards.

Thus, the long, gloomy nightmare that will be a redux of the 1970s, albeit about ten times more expensive and repressive this time, has now been assured.

You may not think it affects you because you only "craft" the dwindling numbers of surviving cars from the 1960s-1980s. You may have even stockpiled "cores" in fear of this day.  But the supplies of EFI V8s, rear axles, RWD transmissions and other parts derived from new vehicles that many budget Car Crafters, street rodders, and even kit car builders rely upon will dry up as the auto market is PRIUS-ified.

Twenty years from now, any desireable V8 RWD car that survives the onslaught will be as venerable (and expensive) as a 1930s antique or classic is today.  Most of your grandchildren will never know the thrill of building a traditional V8 muscle car.  Their world will be one of electric golf-cart cars, FWD, and "no tampering allowed."

For some of us, the environmentalists will get our “antique” V8s only as they pry the pistol-grip shifters out of our cold-dead hands. We are too old to wait out this long, dark, repressive nightmare. They may crush our collector cars and our bank accounts, but the power-mad looter vermin in charge will never crush our spirit and our resourcefullness.

Others, someday, may anticipate a new birth of vehicular freedom. Whether it occurs is up to a number daunting factors, such as advancements in alternative fuel technology, geopolitics and whether a sufficient number of courageous, freedom-loving citizens push back this approaching midnight of our discontent.

While this smokey, back-room power grab will dissuade millions of casual automobile enthusiasts from any defiance (mostly because pre-packaged muscle and sports cars will soon become neutered, sanitized, homogenized, and priced out-of-reach), a defiant core of resourceful believers in vehicular freedom and self-determination will reject the compromised, store-bought motoring appliances and hack together “freedom machines” that send but one unmistakable message to those who would attempt to crush our liberty and our dreams.

While the going will become much tougher and the way less traveled, rest assured that some of us will keep on keeping on, if only to fight against outlawing of our way of life.  
http://speedzzter.blogspot.com

TO ANYONE WHO WANTS THIS LAW PASSED: "WE GIVE UP OUR V8'S when you RIP!! OUR PISTOL GRIP HURSHTS OUT OF OUR COLD DEAD HANDS" we will fight this, and lose, but when were all driving our electric carts around, watch out because well find a way to go from 0-60 in 4.5 no problem, enviromentalists think they have won but its a loseing battle for them.  

This is the same over reacting BS that has been happening for years

People thought the same thing in the late 60's and early 70's,  then again in the mid 70's, then again in the mid 80's.  In the early 90's it was predicted than to car would ever again exceed 300 CHP.  


Your just whining and stiring up crap for no reason,  35.5 MPG wont kill performance,  just like the past legeslation the market will adjust and we'll end up with cars that are faster than ever and cleaner too.

Keep in mind that 35.5mpg is the average requirement, with enough little eco cars around and with clever ruel bending like calling the PT cruiser a truck theres no reason the performance market needs to meet that particular number.   But then again theres no reason a car shouldnt get mid 30's mileage and 300-400 CHP.



I believe that the hobbyists and businesses need to make stands an certain subjects but aimless mongering like this is pointless and more likely to harm the hobby than anything else.