As these has been a lot of talk about how american (or should I say muscle) cars are “bad” cars with “huge gas guzzling engines which don’t really make any power compared to their displacement”.
Sure, Compared to modern European or Japanese cars that is the truth. Or is it?
To be honest I think we need a little perspective here.
I decided that we should look a bit further in to this. Take few different cars, and compare them with eachothers. And I try to ignore known issues with these cars (Pinto is prone to go up in flames in event of collision, and such) But I put up few notes of the cars original purpose in
So lets take few cars which were designed to do the same things in different continents. Although those continents have quite different conditions, so the cars were designed in different conditions and that has affected to the end result. Therefore when/if we start testing we could use Nurnburgring and Fujimi Kaido to simulate The rest of the world and LeMans to simulate America.
Why so you may ask? Well there is an easy explanation. While Europe had mostly somewhat twisty roads, and mountain roads the ring and fujimi will simulate them quite well, While on the other hand america had mostly rather straight main roads. Sure there are some twisty bits, but that could be simulated with Nordschleiffe too.
and start with the old and progress to modern cars. All comparisons have been done on bone stock cars as they are in the game.
50’s to 60’s
Looking at the line up, and first taking a look for cars that were originally planned to carry people around without actual racing in mind. So cars with passenger space for 5+ people. and /or same model has been sold with 4 door body.
America 3 / rest of the world 0 We can find
Hudson Hornet, Which has history in racing but was actually planned as family car.
Cadillac Eldorado, Family car, and actually the heaviest possible version of it as it is convertible. We could actually say that at the time it was a luxury car.
Chevrolet Bel Air, Yep Family car, featuring automatic gearbox with staggering amount of gears. all 2 of them. This would have been considered luxury in Europe and Japan too.
Sports cars. So actual race cars will not count. There is 1 car which I really cant figure out. Aston DB4 Zagato 25 cars produced.
Europe 8 / America 3 Now we can start comparing.
Austin Heally Sprite Mk1. Yes and all of the 45 horsepower, in sports car. Don’t really think I should even test it. Will be fast conming down from Fujimi, but that’s about it.
First time I bother testing anynything…
MG MGA Twin-Cam. This actually could be worth testing, Might give a run for the…
-53 Corvette. The first ever real American sports car. Although again we got the luxury version with automatic gearbox, and 2 gears.
Now actually I think Europe takes this one, with only 10 mph lower top speed, but it has so much better handling and gearing. If that corvette would have been with 3 speed manual it might have had a chance.
BMW 507, Not much to say…
Porsche 550. Manufacturer which has build sports cars since 2 years after WWII. (since 1947) Yeah it’s obviously the best in sports cars… or is it?
Jaguar XK120 SE. We start getting faster… a whole lot faster. This might be able to take on the Ford T-bird, But I want to see more…
Mercedes “Gullwing”, which was based on race car. Yep, I thought it should be other way around, so should this even be on the list? Yes it should, as it was production car. and not just any production car. The fastest production car of it’s time
T-bird As I said, I think it the Jaguar might have beaten this one. but then again this was first ford USA sports car, Actually I think this as first sportscar from Ford overall. and I wouldn’t be surprised if it would lose to statisticly lot worse car. Afterall the first ever is usually prone to be… well not that great.
-60 Corvette Now this might actually be worth something. so what could we compare it with. maybe…
Ferrari 250 California. well they have been building race cars, before WWII, and only 10 years road legal cars. on -57 Not really worth testing.
So Europe wins on 50’s-60’s sports cars.
And so it wins on race cars. Europe 6 America 0
Lets move in to 60’s-70’s league
Family Cars. Rest of the world 4 America 11 (Do I see pattern here? so many family cars?)
VW Beetle & Karmann Ghia. These could be compared to Covair Monza, Afterall that Corvair was designed to compete with the beetle.
How ever, cause the more powerful Karrman Ghia loses 15 mph on top speed on LeMans, I don’t think that it could reel that corvair in on the other tracks.
Datsun 510. There isn’t anything I could even closely match this car…
Lotus Cortina, “European muscle car” Originally started it’s life as a Ford as a “Large family car” Interesting, it’s one of the smallest cars in the group…(Probably should try cramming in 4 adults a mid size dog and camping gear for a week… Yep… it fits but I’d rather be in something where we could actually fit in.)
Therefore we could compare it to Corvair, which is smallest american car here. but then again how fair would it be placing this car which basicly is tuned version of the original, to a car which wasn’t even the best of the model line in the first place.
Just as fair as it would be putting Civic type R tuned by Mugen racing with 1.6l Golf. The winner is obvious. Then again the Cortina doesn’t really stand a chance if we pull out one of the other small cars out of America, This one would be factory tuned Ford Fairlane Thunderbolt, Although it is a drag car. so it’s horrorshow trying to drive it.
Ow, we ran out of european cars, so we might a well skip the rest of American family cars.
But before we do that, I saw a great big wagon coming out of America, but the rest of the world does not answer to this?
Yeah, I thought so.
Sports cars Rest of the world 14 /America 24 (I thought I saw a pattern here my guess is that the rest of the world really didn’t have enough good cars to put in.)
Lets start from higher classes this time.
Ferrari 250 GTO. 49 ever produced… it’s homologation car and nothing more. Cant really count it in as production car
Ferrari 365 GTB/4. And you say American cars don’t handle. This would be easy win for…
-67 Corvette. But there is…
-67 Lamborghini Miura which has fair chance to take a win here… Too bad that you could buy 2 corvettes with the money you spent on the Miura…
Anyhow, this needs testing.
So what did I test, I tested both cars on Fujimi. and LeMans.
On results Corvette beat the Miura on Lemans, despite it’s lower top speed corvette was full 16 seconds faster. the time was made in the more twisty section of Lemans.
On Fujimi Corvette lost the race by 6 seconds. Miura was way faster going up the hill. How ever, Corvette was gaining trough the whole downhill section, just because miura har massive turn in, and oversteer issues. Actually, I made 16 tries with miura to get reasonably clean run, I didn’t count the the minor scrapes, but quitted every time if I had big enough bump that would highly likely disable the car in real life. So miura had 16 runs and corvette had only 1 run. Can we actually call that a win? Hardly, but it is still a win for the rest of the world.
DB5 Vantage. Now this cars seems to be rather equal with
Mercury Cougar. And it’s actually the middle class car so we of course can compare those two, it’s just as equal as comparing subaru BRZ and modern vantage. Isn’t it? they are both sports cars? well sports car VS gran touring car, almost same thing.
Anyhow, Vantage beats this one. Mercury really isn’t a match for it. But hey, at the time we could see those vantages driven by average people on at least weekly basis… well If someone on your street had one yeah, it’s possible, but quite unlikely.
Jaguar E type. Well again one of these 2 seaters from europe. so only thing we could compare it is Corvette… And jaguar has been doing sportscars and race cars fairly long right now I’d really want to but there really isn’t anything similar to test it with.
Ferrari Dino Pretty much same thing with jaguar…
At this point it really starts looking like people outside America needed to buy 2 cars if they wanted to have fun, but they still needed to think about their family. And the other car was worth 2-3 average cars. America wins again.
Sports utility? I can see a pickup truck here, it’s from America Rest of the world… Nothing
America wins again.
Race cars Rest of the world 2 America 3
Ferrari 330 P4 only 4 cars ever built. but they had huge success
Ford GT40 only 107 ever produced but it was huge success.
I could call that a tie, but as most of us know, the P4 is just about undriveable, while GT40 is rather easy to drive… Well lets just agree that it’s a tie.
Shelby Cobra I really cant judge this as this was the best what Europe has, combined to best what America has. but all in all, it was American car.
Alfa 33 Stradale…did it actually ever won anything? nope… “stradale” means “road going” Yeah… 18 ever built, and you could buy 4.5 average cars with that same money… Basicly we could say it was Bugatti Veyron of its time, Except it wasn’t best at anything.
Shelby Daytona Coupe. and this is again all American, we could say it’s predecessor of Shelby Cobra, Setting lap records in LeMans… and few other races. I think we have a winner here, It goes to America.
70’s 80’s As some of us might know, back in 72 there was HUGE oil crisis and average cars were tuned more economical. so we can have economy car class in here too.
Economy cars America 3 / Rest of the world 0
Ford Pinto
Ford King Cobra
AMC Pacer
Where are all the economy cars of rest of the world, I think they were not good enough to be in the game.
And why I’m not counting Datsun 510, or escort RS1800 in to this, Well if I would have 1.3 litre version of that datsun, or 1.0 version of the Escort available I could, but as I do not have them I can’t.
Family cars Rest of the world 4 / America 2 (pattern seems to be braking… finally)
Datsun 510, loses on everything but handling to economy car
Saab 99 Turbo, I wish the turbo lagg would be featured in game as it is in real life.
Ford Escort RS1800 Truly a great car
BMW 2002 Turbo
Mercedes 300 SEL First higher class family car. yay Europe does have something.
Dodge Coronet Superbee. Well it was long shot to get it in family cars, but then again, it’s the same consept as Datsun 510, Saab, Ford and BMW has, Cheapest body which is the 2 door version, with the most powerful engine that you can fit in there.
Chevrolet Chevelle 454 Same as Dodge Coronet.
Don’t really think that we need to even test these. America wins again.
Sports cars. Rest of the world 11 / America 13 I can see so many cars which the oil crisis strangled, but then again they are here so we have to count them.
Porsche 914/6. which was so bad that it was rebadged for Volkswagen for American market
Lotus Elan Sprint. Nice car for those tiny back roads
-79 Camaro Strangled by the fuel crisis But still seats for 4 people, that’s 2 more than any other car so far in this bracket.
-71 Skyline. Japanese masterpice. won most of the races of it’s own region, Seats 5 people. Let’s see how it fares against the Camaro.
Looks like it’s tie on fujimi, and 3 sec win on LeMans for Nissan. Great job the best of Japan beats the strangled Camaro, which is just trying to keep sporting image up, and trying to be economical at the same time. Should I take the 70 Camaro in instead? Do I really need to? as the outcome would leave the Nissan dead. Hold on wait… Did the camaro (175hp/3,560lbs)just barely lose to Nissan (160hp/2,425lbs) as the Nissan has clearly better power to weight ratio.
-77 Firebird TA, Again oil crisis strangled this one,
-70 Alfa Romeo Montreal, actually 4 seats in this one… And at the same time one of the most expensive cars in Europe.
-71 BMW 3.0 CSL Homologation car, The race car was success, But can we really use these Homologation cars as comparison points for cars that weren’t homologation cars. UNLESS the homologation car was so huge succes that it continued for servial years like Ford Sierra RS500 and Escort Cosworth? I though so too, we cant. That’s why I pit this one against with that 70 Camaro, and it loses that race.
-73 BMW 2002 Turbo I could pit it against -71 Mustang. Just because I hate how that mustang handles. And what happens, BMW is left for dead.
XB Falcon. Now this is interesting car from Australian Ford, But as it uses the same philosophy as American cars, I’ll skip it
Lancia Stratos, Not bad looking and it drives quite well, But to be honest I have trouble with these homologation cars, So I call out -70 corvette, and leave the stratos eating dust
De Tomaso Pantera. Now again a car that I’m not going to rate just because it is again best of America and Best of Italy mixed together
-73 Porsche Now This is better car than any of the American cars here, Too bad that it’s not notably cheaper than any of those American cars, only then I would admit it would be the great winner of this bracket. Now it stays just a winner.
-77 Vantage V8. the “Britain’s first Supercar” only car that could really challenge the Porsche. But somehow I see a Mustang in this one… I cant help but think that IF mustang would have been European car. this would be it… Of course with the price of this car, you could buy 2 or 3 Mustangs…
Now please tell me are the american cars so bad afterall.