Ford,GM,Chrysler

[blitzkrieg79]

Well, coefficient of friction (both static and, er, the other kind. Sliding?) are important in how efficient a car is, especially in the drive train (pistons, various gears and shafts, transmission) and part of the suspension (bearings).

That's why I mentioned the 1999-2003 Mitsubishi Galant because as much as Mitsubishi is getting blamed for their "poor" quality (and I blame everything on bad management in USA) no one really gives them any credit for true engineering/design (inside guts) which in my opinion is one of the best pound for pound in the world. Another example is Mitsubishi Montero (some say it has an underpowered engine, some say it rolls over, yet somehow it wins offroad races all the time) but it's off-road capability is probably only matched by Land Rover (Range Rover) which is at least 10K more expensive.

Most companies built decent looking cars but only few of them design driver cars. Mitsubishi in my opinion is one of the few.

 

[iGav]

That's why I mentioned the 1999-2003 Mitsubishi Galant

In black and Sport guise, still one of the finest looking saloon cars IMHO.

 

[geese]

In black and Sport guise, still one of the finest looking saloon cars IMHO.

I agree entirely, those Galants must have been one of the first japanese saloons to look better then a Bangle-BMW. Its a shame they done sell more here. My dad used to have a 1994 one and it was a decent car.

Silly Mitsubishi fact: the Mitsubishi 'Starion' was meant to be called the 'Stallion'- but Mitsu got the pronounciation wrong.

 

[Counterfit]

(some say it has an underpowered engine, some say it rolls over, yet somehow it wins offroad races all the time)

Five Dakar rallies in a row

 

[kiwi-in-uk]

(some say it has an underpowered engine, some say it rolls over, yet somehow it wins offroad races all the time)

Five Dakar rallies in a row

... and the showroom models win the Paris-Dakar and other off-road races???

 

[aloofman]

... and the showroom models win the Paris-Dakar and other off-road races???

Yeah, and Chevy calls their NASCAR racer a Monte Carlo.

 

[blitzkrieg79]

... and the showroom models win the Paris-Dakar and other off-road races???

Companies use rally races to experiment with technology (I find rallying the most demanding type of sport from automotive technology point of view as not only the speed matters (boring-ass NASCAR) but also handling, suspension, overall balance of the car) And as a matter of a fact look up Mitsubishi L200 (http://www.mitsubishi-cars.co.uk/newl200/) and that car is based upon the actual pajero evolution concept which won the recent Paris-Dakar race...

Of course we won't see L200 here in USA because of dumb Mitsubishi Motors management team in California... Instead we have a Mitsubishi Raider truck which is a child of the Daimler-Chrysler relationship and based off Dodge Dakota, actually it is Dodge Dakota with a different body...

Of course cars used in races are some kind of modified vehicles (non production) but then again why such a small company as Mitsubishi Motors was able to dominate rallies in 1990s and Paris/Dakar for offroaders and not Toyota/Volkswagen/Hummer or some other big time company? My point was that Mitsubishi is probably one of the most innovative car companies in the world and most people only see the bad things in them... Rallies are used as laboratories for car companies, they test a lot of new technologies that may/or may not be used in actual production vehicles one way or the other...

 

[kiwi-in-uk]

...... My point was that Mitsubishi is probably one of the most innovative car companies in the world and most people only see the bad things in them... Rallies are used as laboratories for car companies, they test a lot of new technologies that may/or may not be used in actual production vehicles one way or the other...

Yep.
So Mitsubishi has a lot in common with Citroen and Skoda - also among the most innovative car companies in the world and also with rallying and racing pedigrees. Ask owners of either marque (up to late 90s in the case of Citroen, and pre-VW in the case of Skoda) what they think of their "rally-bred" cars.

I don't actually disagree with you, but the earlier pair of posts seemed to draw a closer link between showroom cars and rally specials than (I think) you might have intended.

 

[Counterfit]

In general, most rally cars are subject to homologation rules (not the Schlesser Dakar buggies though I think), which require the production and sale of a certain number of street-legal cars to the public. This gave us the Ford RS-2000 (and other Group-B cars), the Lancer Evo and Impreza (WRX) STi, heck, even the ACO (the group in charge of the 24 Hours of Le Mans) requires it for the GT* classes, which ended up with the sale of several road-going Mercedes-Benz CLK-GTRs
Because of this, a rally car (especially WRC ones) will have much more in common with the road version than, say, a Nextel (Sprint?) cup car. The discrepancies between the cup version and the road version of most of these cars is due to the rules, which require iron (I think) block carbureted V-8s, rear wheel drive, and certain other things which you can't get at all in the road versions of those cars. The Monte Carlo is a front wheel drive car, with a fuel injected V6, only recently have you been able to buy a RWD car from Chrysler again, and the mid sized taurus (thankfully now dead) has always been FWD, even the V8 SHO.
If you look inside a WRC car, you can see the same stuff as you would if you completely stripped the inside of your model, but with a roll cage, a carbon fiber dashboard, and other minor to moderate modifications, like carbon fiber body panels.

 

[Jon'sLightBulbs]

If you look inside a WRC car, you can see the same stuff as you would if you completely stripped the inside of your model, but with a roll cage, a carbon fiber dashboard, and other minor to moderate modifications, like carbon fiber body panels.

And race shell seats, and 5 point harnsesses, and a completely different shift mechanism, and a completely revised suspension, and tires with frozen gel inserts to resist puncture.

And what, again, do WRC cars have in common with their mass produced counterparts!?

 

[kiwi-in-uk]

...And what, again, do WRC cars have in common with their mass produced counterparts!?

About as much as the off-road rally winning 4WDs have in common with their showroom counterparts (which is where this started) i.e. not much at all apart from the manufacturer's badge

 

[blitzkrieg79]

About as much as the off-road rally winning 4WDs have in common with their showroom counterparts (which is where this started) i.e. not much at all apart from the manufacturer's badge

I don't think you have ever driven a showroom Montero or Lancer Evo, I have driven quite a few cars and all I can tell you is that a showroom Montero has better offroad capabilities than any Honda, Toyota, Ford you can think of, the closest offroaders are Land Rover and Hummer but those cars also cost twice as much.

As far as Evo is concerned, its the best performance car bargain you can currently get by a wide margin (except maybe Subaru STi but it's not an Evo either, and please do not bring cars such as Dodge Neon SRT in to the same class as an Evo)

 

[decksnap]

Montero??

A girl at my work drives one of those. It is so severely underpowered it can barely get up a hill on pavement.

 

[blitzkrieg79]

Montero??

A girl at my work drives one of those. It is so severely underpowered it can barely get up a hill on pavement.

I don't buy it. I drove one of these in Pennsylvania on a wild terrain and there wasn't a thing this car couldn't do. Suspension of this car is amazing. Engine may have less horsepower than the competition but we are talking here about off-roading where suspension and overall lightness of the car is more important than speed.

 

[miloblithe]

Montero??

A girl at my work drives one of those. It is so severely underpowered it can barely get up a hill on pavement.

Oh, a girl drives one...

A 215hp vehicle is underpowered?

What the hell do Americans think they need to do with their vehicles that requires more power than they have?

No vehicles available in the American market are underpowered.

 

[decksnap]

Well the thing is huge and built like a tank. It's no suprise it has no power going up hills. I'm not arguing whether it's good or not off road. Most people don't actually buy these things to drive off road though.

 

[Etrain]

[Speaking of the new 2006 Civic] Yep, and I don't like it. It trys too hard. The problem it'll have is that it'll date really quickly, it trys to be radical... and it fails.

Good design doesn't need to be radical, hence why the TT still looks fresh even after all these years.

It lacks image, and there lies Honda's problem, that and antiquated engineering of course. Old folk will buy them because of Honda's reliability. And that will have a detrimental effect on the sales to younger people.

I have to respectfully disagree. I recently was car shopping for about 3 months for a car around 20k. I live in Youngstown so I wanted to support our local labor force and buy a Cobalt. I tested the Cobalt, Focus, Mazda 3, Ion, Corolla, Vibe, G6, Civic, Eclipse, Scion TC, Kia Rio and Spectra. I did ALLOT of research!

Anyway, to get to my point, the Civic beat them all hands down. Personally I love the looks, but looks are objective. What I take issue with is your comment about their engineering. Honda has some of the best engineered cars on the road, and hands down the best engineered for the price. I have a couple friends with Civics from the late 80s - early 90s that have over 150K miles that still run perfectly. If Honda fails at engineering, and the Civic is not the best in that market segment, then why would it win both the Motor Trend's car of the year AND win best car at the Detriot Auto Show? Mind you Motor Trend had over 25 competitors for that title, including Fords, and the Civic sweeped the votes.

Thats why I bought one and love it like crazy. It is a solid quality car and is sporty compared to the others I mentioned above. I love it and consider it the best value, quality, preformance and enjoyment of any small econ car.

Just my $.02

 

[aloofman]

No vehicles available in the American market are underpowered.

In absolute terms that's probably true. But there are several vehicles that have an inadequate engine for their weight. The trend toward bigger SUVs and crossover vehicles (whatever that means) has yielded some cars that are too heavy for the models that have cheaper, smaller engines. Between newer safety requirements and the bulky look people seem to like, there's a lot more metal in a car than there used to be and some engines have trouble pushing them around.

If your bigger point is that engines are plenty big enough to push around the cars that people actually need, then I agree.

 

[miloblithe]

That's part of what I'm saying, but I do think that in 99% of the cases, people want more power because they want it, not because they need it. I don't think that an SUV that accelerates to 65mph 2 seconds slower than average models is underpowered. It's just slower. A pick-up that is intended for hauling trailers that can't pull an acceptable amount up an incline is underpowered. A car that's not that fast is just slow.

I realize that the term can be applied to slow cars in a reasonable fashion; it just usually isn't. My problem is that many people tend to refer to anything that isn't race-spec as "underpowered", which is rediculous. A 140hp, 3000lbs sedan isn't underpowered.

 

[decksnap]

OK, I'll rephrase. Responsiveness is the word. Her Montero is not very responsive going uphill.

 

[iGav]

I have to respectfully disagree

Many do... heehee.

What I take issue with is your comment about their engineering. Honda has some of the best engineered cars on the road, and hands down the best engineered for the price.

I do think they're well screwed together, but that's it.

Regressing to a torsion beam suspension layout is unforgivable in the 21st century, that's why I made the statement that I don't believe that they focus as much on engineering as people would want to believe, the only justifiable reason for reverting back to a torsion beam is one of cost, or bean counting as Don't Hurt Me would call it, I stand by my comment.

The new Focus is better engineered than the new Civic, that is beyond a doubt. The Honda is possibly/marginally better scewed together, though it's a close call because of the strides Ford Europe have made in recent years to approach German levels of interior quality, something Honda, and pretty much every Japanese manufacturer suffers from e.g. relatively poor quality of interior plastics for example such as lacking tactility or just plain insipid design (which also usually affects the exterior design as well).

So yeah, whilst I don't disagree that Honda's are well screwed together, and reliable, I do disagree with suggestions that they're massively better engineered than other cars and the new Civic is a perfect example that they're not.

 

[decksnap]

Have you ever got in an American Focus? Interior quality is beyond poor.

 

[Counterfit]

And race shell seats, and 5 point harnsesses, and a completely different shift mechanism, and a completely revised suspension, and tires with frozen gel inserts to resist puncture.

And what, again, do WRC cars have in common with their mass produced counterparts!?

I class those under minor/moderate upgrades (except the suspension, that's fairly major). Heck, you can go buy a Recaro/whoever seat, and a 5 point harness for your Impreza or Lancer and put it in. Strip the interior, change the dash to carbon fiber, change the shifter, and there you go, you have the interior of a WRC car.

About as much as the off-road rally winning 4WDs have in common with their showroom counterparts (which is where this started) i.e. not much at all apart from the manufacturer's badge

No, it has much more than that. Like I said, it uses the same body/frame as the production car. The Baja trucks and Cup cars use space frames, which to get into a production model would require, well, a completely new body and frame.

 

[iGav]

Have you ever got in an American Focus? Interior quality is beyond poor.

Blame the American workforce for not screwing them together better.

 

[decksnap]

I'll blame the cheesy materials and awful designs.