Grumpy AuContraire wrote:


>>> Top ten all american sports cars
>>> http://mailone.blogspot.com/2007/08/...orts-cars.html

> To be fair, the discussion at that site includes cars like the Mustang,
> Challenger etc.
>
> So, to put my 2¢ worth:
>
> The Studebaker Avanti came before, (Introduced in May of 1962), all of
> the so called "pony" cars and boasted significant features as full crash
> padding throughout, a built in roll bar, front disc brakes and a
> fiberglass body. Notable were the 29 world speed records set at the Utah
> salt flats during the fall of 1963.


There is no real "discussion" to be found at:
<http://mailone.blogspot.com/2007/08/ten-all-american-sports-cars.html>
only an unattributed lifting, crudely done, from Forbes.com
<http://tinyurl.com/38otdp> by an apparently 30-yr old Indian female,
the totality of whose blog entries seems to consist of similar
cut-and-pastes of advertising copy from various product websites.
Neither does does her Blogspot-post list the ten cars Forbes has
chosen--four of which are not even available yet. At least two more of
those cars on the list will never be found anywhere near a local
dealership for all but a very few American buyers. Two of them are
differentiated only by their name-plates. So Forbes.com's "Top Ten"
undergo an instant melt-down out here where the rubber meets the road,
and shrinks to a paltry three, count 'em, THREE real-world vehicles
that you and I might someday see cruising down our street, or even own
and drive for ourselves.

If it isn't--or hasn't ever been--in the hands of American drivers,
calling it one of the Top Ten All-American Sports Cars is more than a
slight stretching of the reader's credulity--no matter how one defines
"Sports Car". Few of these ten have even begun to prove themselves to
the American market, let alone earned honors of any sort. Those from
the Forbes.com list which have reached the top echelon now number in
the extremely low single-digits (the Chevrolet Corvette--end of story).

Forbes.com might know a real sports car from a runway model, or a
stock prospectus, without somebody pointing it out to them, but they
sure don't know from common sense. I'd say that Sona, the Indian
blog-girl, exhibits exactly the sort of drooling wannabee customer
mind-set Forbes.com are looking for.


Cadillac XLR-V...$98,300
Corvette Conv....$53,415
Chevrolet Camaro (avail. 2009) no price
Dodge Challenger (avail. 2008) no Price
Dodge Viper SRT10 Conv (avail. Fall 2007)
Ford Shelby GT Conv. (avail Aug 2007) no price
Panoz Esperante Conv....$93,256
Pontiac Solstice GXP...$27,115
Saleen S7...$592,700 [you read it right--$600,000 plus, out the door]
Saturn Sky Red Line...$29,025

note: The Saturn and the Pontiac are virtually the same
car, with base equipment/price variations.


None of the old "pony cars" about which we reminisce were sports cars,
though they were certainly "sporty" compared to the stodgy
all-grown-up models of their day. Sure, I loved my '65 Mustang 2+2
fast-back coupe, but it wasn't a sports car fit for comparison to the
Corvette of 1965.

And yes, Grumpy, the Avanti was an interesting footnote in the
American market, and it did include some interesting safety
features--albeit at the cost of certain production economies--but an
American sports car must have done more than achieve some
straight-line speed records (after considerable tweaking by the
factory) at Bonneville more than four decades ago to be considered one
of the best, even when it is designed by Raymond Loewy.

Count years in production, SCCA class championships won, and number of
units put on the road, and there are not ten true All-American Sports
Cars to be found--even if you go back six decades and start counting
forward--let alone a "Top Ten" in the vein of the Forbes.com article
pasted so clumsily by Ms Sona. Why, even the Shelby Cobra had a
chassis which came from the British, as did the Cadillac-Allard of a
decade earlier.

At the very least, no matter what our own definitions require, we
should be able to agree that neither Forbes.com nor Ms Sona really
know nor care what a true All American Sports Car might be. And guys
like us could have a ball, more or less, with any one of even
Forbes.com's so-called contenders (except that Solstice/Sky
thing--it's too small for me).


Jack