90's Red S/C Thunder Bird.....Toasted!!

[Colin]

As im going down U.S 19 on my way to best buy i noticed Early 90's style S/c thunderbird. So i knew it was on. But i was a few cars back in traffic so i notice him start to on finding his way through, so i fallow suit. My s/c sounding off and im side by side him now on his driver side, he is in the middle lane and im in the far right on a 3lane hwy. I give him thumbs up and we start talking as we are hitting a red light. He said he likes what saturn did w/the ion. I asked if thats the supercharged TB(me allready knowing what it was) He said yeah its only a v6 and it has a small charger on it. I told him i am also and it comes stock like this. He said he'd have to stop buy saturn and take a look sometime. Then the light turns and we are pacing eachother at like 35 low in second and he asks if i wanna go. I say yeah why not. He honks and we ar e off. side by side i might add but as soon as i BANG 3RD I START THE NVR ENDING PULL. then i slow back down as we catch another light on embassy. he says from a stop, i say why not. but then the light turned as we were talking so we take off together at rolling 1st like 10mph just like the the race b4, same out come. I won!!LOL. Real cool guy his name is roy and hes prob like 50yrs old i told him about the site as i was pulling into best buy. Real good race between stock s/c cars. I like it when its close. It makes it fun.

[kazkillinger]

yeah stock those s/c coupes are slow but they can be modded to fly some guy that lives in my apt. complex has one with a port and polished head and blower pullies, etc its fast and it handed me my ass
nuff said

[Colin]

It looked and sounded stock it had thunderbird sc on the bumper. Faded red in color/ good run tho worth the thumbs up to me. I saw a blue sc coupe beat a tt rx-7 on the net. so i know what they can dish out but i knew this one wasnt moded.

[kazkillinger]

right any car can be "fast" in the corners is where it matters...........

[TransAm52804]

Originally Posted by kazkillinger

right any car can be "fast" in the corners is where it matters...........

Are there "corners" on the highways and streets where you run? Probably .001% of the people out there actually race "in the twisties".

And any car can also be made to handle as well as perform in a straight line.

Not tryin' to come off as a prick, but really: cornering is not "what really matters", because 99.999999% of the racing everyone does out there with their street cars is in a straight line. A modern Ferrari has incredible handling, but rarely will its handling capabilities ever be used to their full, or even half, potential. No one buys a great-handling car and maxes out the handling on streets and highways, and they rarely ever take it to an auto-x event or roadcourse, so why brag about what it "can" do when you never will do it? "I have a car that goes 300 mph!" - Well cool, except you'll rarely ever see half that speed, so what's the point? See what I mean?

People talk about their great-handling car, but never even come close to pushing the car to its cornering max. Hell, my car has very good handling (and yes it does for all the typical doubters), but I pretty much never bring it up in discussion (unless being called out) because it's a performance characteristic that will rarely EVER be used.

So yes, good handling is a great characteristic for a car to have, but it is minor compared to straight-line power because that can be used in nearly every situation, and almost always is, no matter what car.

[syphrus22]

Handling can be used to avoid accidents and back road fun. RL was made for the track, not drag races. I think everyone knows this, so what I said may mean nothing new.

Great kill and cool person.

[TransAm52804]

Originally Posted by syphrus22

Handling can be used to avoid accidents and back road fun. RL was made for the track, not drag races. I think everyone knows this, so what I said may mean nothing new.

Great kill and cool person.

Back road fun, yes, but will the handling limits be pushed on just the backroads by a Joe Shmoe driver like a pro driver would push the limits on a test track? The same handling "force" (can't think of a good word) could probably be met by both a sporty car and a normal sedan on regular back roads. Great handling that was needed to avoid an accident, the chances of needing it in that case is probably 1 in a million. I'm just sayin, handling is good to have, but would only be NEEDED in a 1/1M chance, and will barely ever even be used.

[syphrus22]

I do know that most people do race from stoplight to stoplight, but RWD will always outmatch a FWD from a stop. That's why most FWD races happen on a roll becuase of having too much power to the front wheels. Thus why a turboed civic only raced and beaten a viper on a roll, viper would've killed that civic from a stop. I saved that clip. If I liked RWD, I would now own a Z28 or SS for $10K. Mod the hell out of it and be in 11s because of how much aftermarket it has. It's all about choices.

[TransAm52804]

I know, and the IRL is a damn good choice. I wasn't meaning to bash handling at all (trust me, I love cornering just as much as anyone else), just basically tryin' to point out that straight line power is more useful, and more used, than any "extreme" type of handling would be on a street car.

[Sp00ner]

Unless you Autox or run road courses... I also enjoy going fast around curves and twisty parts of the road WAY more than just hammering it down the road. I realize that the road part of that is not extreme handling, but I'd like to think it will be on the tracks. Now if I could just buy a helmet and pay the club membership on time for once....