Ultimate Daily Driver? Not!

I have one word for the 68 Camaro featured as the "ultimate daily driver" in your January issue: bogus. A car that is insured as a collector car with a  restrictive policy that specifically prevents it from being driven daily is, ipso facto, not a daily driver. Period, end of story.

Nice car, sure, but ...

A daily driver absolutely has to be, by definition,  a car with standard, unrestricted insurance coverage. If this eliminates all the $50K+ pro street, pro touring, pro whatever cover cars, then too bad. It is what it is. I would have thought you guys, of all people, would know this. Keep it real!  

Agreed. Any vehicle that is considered "street" should have either a standard comprehensive collision, or liability policy, with all the required coverages mandated by the law. Laws will vary from state to state. Also the engine should not need a stall converter, and have streetable qualities. By streetable qualtiy, I mean good vacuum signal at idle, with instant throttle response, and a smooth idle. If a driver has like 5" if vacuum at idle, a 2500 stall converter, lopey idle, smells like gas while idling type vehicle, then it is not a "street" car. A true "street" machine, should be able to be driven in all condition, snow included. It should have radial tires as well. ALot of cars featured in CC are beautiful cars, but most of them aren't suited for daily commutes, and probably get around 10-12 MPG. I mean CC sells mags based on high numbers on the dyno, so it isn'tlikely to change. Most readers aren't interested in a 275 HP "pure street" built Camaro, that gets 21/32 MPG city/higway with an O/D. They want to see 400-500+ HP vehicles driven on the street.  
Guzzling gas and hauling ass, the true American way.

Think you're shooting a bit low on the stall of the torque converter.  I run a 2600 RPM stall in my Cutlass...which I drove every single day and managed to consistently get over 20 mpg highway with (25 mpg once)...  
68 Olds Cutlass ~ 350 Rocket
85 Delta 88 ~ 425 Rocket
02 Silverado 4X4 ~ 5.3L

Hey my car only got 10-12 mpg when it was a daily driver. It STILL only has liability coverage and uninsured motorist coverage. Its not the total daily driver now though. when fuel started climbing that milage really hurt me. When you are spending more on fuel than what a car payment would be, it kills it for ya.

I still drive it and with gas back under $2.70 here, its gonna get more miles. Oh, and believe it or not, i'm upgrading to a radio i got out of the junkyard from a 71 Country Squire. upgrading? yeah, it has outputs for 4 speakers instead of the stock 2. Daily drivers gotta have tunes. even if its the occasional driver now and ive been out of the junkyards for far too long.

Hey, i dont want a CD player in the gold car. AM/FM stereo is good enough in there for me.  

I agree with the bottom line of this thread, an everyday driver has NO restrictions from insurance on how often it can be driven.  

Umm how about a 3200 stall? Wouldn't a 2600 stall squelch the tires on takeoff? Or are they tame enough to roll em quickly, but silently?  
Guzzling gas and hauling ass, the true American way.

Forget all this talk about "stall speed" . . . run a clutch!

A daily driver is whatever someone is willing to put up with on a daily basis.  Most are either newer machines with EFI and overdrives or mild vintage stuff.  

. . . almost no daily driven pro-streeters with a pair of Double Pumpers and an 8-71 sticking through the hood.

A PRACTICAL daily driver does or has the following things things [IF YOU DISPUTE ANY OF THESE POINTS, LIST THE NUMBER AND WRITE WHY I'M WRONG]:

1. Starts easily on cold and damp mornings without a bunch of fiddling . . . and stays running on its own.
2. Has wipers, a horn, treaded (sipes and grooves) tires, lights, turn signals and ordinary "general use" insurance.
3. Idles in traffic without constant stalling or  throttle "nursing."
4. Has a WORKING heater and defroster (trust me, the no defroster thing doesn't work in about 98% of the U.S.)
5. Driver's side window rolls down . . . and up (having to open the door at every toll booth and drive-through gets old in a hurry).
6. Doesn't put your rear end to sleep in 15 minutes because the seats are so bad (skimpy drag racing seats usually do not pass this test).
7. Starts reasonably easily when hot.
8. Runs on some sort of widely-available pump fuel (not race gas)
9. Will clear speed bumps and driveways (trust me, it's not fun getting stuck all of the time or dragging off the mufflers in parking lots)
10. Gets good enough fuel economy (or has a big enough tank) that you can go at least 150 miles between gas stops.
11. Doesn't require an armed guard or a pit bull to keep it from being stolen out of the Wal-Mart parking lot ... or otherwise molested.
12. Doesn't require an Olympic weight lifter to steer when parking (mini-sized steering wheels and no PS may work at the strip but are miserable on the street)
13. Isn't so wild that the police can't resist stopping
it every time they see it.
14. Doesn't have a rat's nest of wiring, extra gages and other "performance" gear getting in the way of using the car as transportation.
15. Has at least two useable seats. (might not apply to drivers with exceptionally poor hygiene or social skills)
16. Isn't built from such exotica that when something ordinary breaks (starter, alternator, shock absorber, tire) you can replace it without waiting a couple of weeks for the U.P.S. man to arrive . . . .
17. Doesn't buck or chirp the tires on every turn (no welded spider gears or spool)
18. Doesn't require visiting the high side of 4,000 r.p.m. in routine (non-performance) driving.
19. Isn't so valuable that you could trade it for a house in the heartland (if it is, most of us won't risk driving it daily).
20. Doesn't require three hours of detailing for every hour spent cruising.  
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460_BBF_Turbo-in-CC (formerly Dr511scj) "This guy has no life other than posting endlessly on carcraft.com." -- Car Craft, July 2005
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October 1, 2003: " I'm thinking a couple of...turbos, blowing through an old Powerstroke intercooler...on a Super Cobra Jet-head 460 would be mad cheap and make sick power."
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"I have no problem with your...talking to several versions of yourself...or pointing out our failure to do a turbo story ...." --Douglas "CC/Rambler" Glad

I think you have summed it up in a nutshell. If anyone disputes those claims, they are just looking to start an arguement.  
Guzzling gas and hauling ass, the true American way.

Now that my January '09 issue of CC finally arrived (apparently they ship mine by THREE-LEGGED MULE EXPRESS), and I've seen Greg Becker's "Mission Accomplished" verdant '68 Camaro . . . I SECOND THE CRITICISM ABOUT IT NOT BEING REMOTELY A DAILY DRIVER!

Sure, it's a nice "empty-the-checking-account-and-max-out-the-credit-cards" build.  And at a lot of "Super Chevy" car shows, it would wow those who believe mega-buck naturally-aspirated Corvette crate motors in Gen I Camaros are the apogee of creative Car Crafting.

BUT . . . is it "Loud, Fast, Real?"  Is it "Affordable Street Performance?"  NO, NO, NO! A thousand times NO!

Would it cost more to duplicate than the "Daily Living" houses of most CC readers?  What do you think?

A lot of folks with a car like Becker's wouldn't even dare to take it out of its alarm-protected, climate-controlled Car Bag or Car Capsule except on rare, perfect weather "cruise night" occasions.   They would be mortified at the mere thought of subjecting it DAILY to the ravages of a world filled with Wal-Mart shopping carts, homeless squeegeemen, ham-fisted Prius drivers, rolling "homies" of the "Midnite Auto Supply," and cabbies who can barely "speaka de In-gleeese," much less drive coherently . . . .

(Not to mention that Becker's bomb would get spankwhipped by nearly every built twentysomething Mustang with a power adder)

Ultimate Daily driver?

Only in Jeff "Camaro Craft" Smith's wildest GMPP-sponsored dreams.  
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460_BBF_Turbo-in-CC (formerly Dr511scj) "This guy has no life other than posting endlessly on carcraft.com." -- Car Craft, July 2005
-------
October 1, 2003: " I'm thinking a couple of...turbos, blowing through an old Powerstroke intercooler...on a Super Cobra Jet-head 460 would be mad cheap and make sick power."
-------
"I have no problem with your...talking to several versions of yourself...or pointing out our failure to do a turbo story ...." --Douglas "CC/Rambler" Glad

Ill add to 460-BBF-Turbo-In-CC.
21 Balanced brakes, If the rear end comes around you have no control and are asking for it.
22 Noise vibration harshness. I had too radical a engine in my last Vega and the whole car shook pretty bad at low speeds which leads to
13 As you get older you develop a lot less tolerance for hassels.
I like what he said, a car new enough to have fuel injection and overdrive or a mild old car.
A lot of 86 cars have fuel injection and overdrive.  

AHHHHgreed

i dealt with the above point violations #1, 12, & 22 for several years
i did manage to convert to power steering but got tired of the others as time went by and eventually realized the truth of #23

as i said in another post, a/c in the southern summers and sound deadener have turned out to be quite useful  
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the red-headed step-child of the mailing list

fuzzy dice, air shocks & N50's rule

I used to deal with my 1987 Monte Carlo SS with a 355 equipped with Dart heads, Speed Demon 750 carb, Edelbrock Performer RPM, Comp valvetrain with extreemly lumpy cam that hated idling longer than 30 seconds, TCI Super Streetfighter Turbo 350, 3.73 limited slip rear, Hoosier drag radials with bigs 'n littles for the summer (winter tires were the factory rims with all season treads). Yeah sure it only got 10 mpg but I enjoyed it, yes it required quite a bit of attention, yes it really did suck firing that bad boy up in 15 degree weather (I live in eastern KY), and it was a real hoot (very sarcastic) to drive on ice. I definatly don't miss that part of it but I did drive it every day to work and such as it was my only source of transportation, now I drive an '04 Silverado and it has its pluses but I miss driving through town with the headers uncapped (cops are pretty cool around here) and letting everyone know that I have arrived!!  

If it complies with state law then its streetlegal. If the driver is willing to put up with less than ideal driving habits from the car then its a driver. Some may not put up with it everyday but those that do can call theirs a true dailydriver.  

I live in south Mississippi, and still believe that power steering, power brakes, and AC are for women.