What makes a vehicle amazing is its chassis. You can bolt on all the after-market suspension, sway bars, strut bars or roll cages you want but their performance is limited, ultimately, by the chassis. You can sprint and lift all you want, but if you’re 5’5″ and 135 lbs your skeleton will keep you out of the NFL. But thanks to Art Morrison, you can take the body off your hot-rod, ditch the weak, flexy, obsolete frame it came with and bolt to a chassis whose abilities probably exceed yours.

One of our favorite episodes of TST was the Art Morrison 1960 Corvette 3G. The episode was fun to make and looked amazing but the star of it was the car. It accelerated, turned, and stopped better than many modern Corvettes. Then there was the 1955 Chevy Bel Air, the car that changed Matt’s perception of what a hot rod can be. Art’s chassis are also used as the back-bone of the incredible one-off off-roaders made by ICON. There’s nothing he can’t improve. That’s why we drove up to Washington to film this episode for “TUNED.” We went to see his shop and find out how he -along with his son, Craig- are able to make old cars so damn good. Unfortunately the rain kept us from driving their latest project, but we had fun learning what it is that makes these cars so good. Jump for the video. 

You know how the Chinese have the Year of the Dragon, or Cat, or Dog? As Matt put it after SEMA, this was the Year of the LS Swap. Every project had an LS motor. Pro-touring cars, off-road machines, Japanese drift cars, shit, you can probably get an iPod case that has an LS motor in it. I know, I know; cheap, reliable, easy-to-find power. Yeah yeah, we get it. Logically it makes sense but I hate logic and nothing is immune from becoming over-played. After all, advancement and new ideas are what drive the entire automotive industry.

Then I saw this guy, 1dirtyZ, on the ls1 forums. He’s putting an LS1 into 996 Porsche. And there’s a video of it. Fine, one more, but then we’re at capacity.

The builder is 1dirtyZ, a fabricator living in Saudi Arabia. He had the idea for this swap for a while, and finally found a 996 Porsche that fit his needs. Originally he was going to get a regular 911, but the car he found happens to be 996 turbo. That means it has AWD, which he found out he can fit to the LS1. Awesssome. And he got it for about $10,000

A Turbo for $10,000?? What? How?

This is how:

Fires hurt resale value.

So it had had a small engine fire. Who cares? 1dirtyZ cleaned that out, bought new rear brakes, knuckles, control arms and found a way to shove the engine in. I wish I had this guy’s skills. I know some will say sacrilege, and I love how responsive the stock motor is to mods, but if your engine caught fire and you knew how to build a Frankencar like this, why not?

"It fits! The damn thing fits! And I thought there were no more spaces!"

His plan is to get this car into daily driver shape; NAV, stereo, A/C, all that noise. He also wants to put turbos on it at some point. I guess “daily driver” means something different over there. But if the roads are as straight and boring as they look on YouTube, that makes crazy-person-sense.

It’s still a ways off, but he was able to get it running last month and do a few pulls past his shop. The videos were taken in the dark, but it’s a fun exercise for your brain to try to see a Porsche turbo but hear a V-8. So here you have it; one of the most interesting and hopefully final LS engine swaps for a while.

- Zack K

Note: Let’s call this Sunday reading. It’s a bit long but there’s pretty pictures, even one that moves! It’s Sunday, take some time for the story I spent hours on yourself.

SEMA was over. The AdultCon of car shows had packed up, making way for the AdultCon of people; AdultCon. Hundreds of thousands of people stared at thousands of cars, parts, dudes in company polo shirts, failed strippers promo models, obstructing the way for depressed humanoids trying to gamble. Everyone went home on Friday…and missed the best show of the entire week: The Optima Batteries Ultimate Street Car Invitational

You should have gone, because this event is the shit. Matt was invited to compete in his 1998 C5 Corvette. We figured between the car’s lightweight, power and suspension and Matt knowing Spring Mountain like the palm of his hand, he might do pretty well. However we were not prepared for what showed up early on Saturday morning. Make the jump for the story and massive gallery.

Let me briefly explain the Optima Streetcar Invitational. It’s a triathlon for cars, except it has 5 events; Road Rally, Design, Road Course, Auto-X and Speed/Stop Challenge. Points are awarded to the top 20 finishers of each event. The Road Rally was first, but Matt decided not to run it. “Why?” I’m glad you asked.

Road Rally

The Road Rally was from Vegas to Pahrump. That day, NV decided it was bored of being known as a hot desert, and sent some rain (and at higher elevations, snow). Perhaps nature’s way of cleaning Vegas of neon lights and Lambo doors to make room for those talented actresses. Anyway, Matt loves convertibles. Before he drove from LA to Vegas he took the roof off his ’98 Corvette. Did I mention Matt left that roof behind? “That seems silly Mister Zack.” It is silly, Timmy. “Why?” I don’t remember why, something about his car will be in-doors all week and “so many Car Show groupies, it will be hitting me in the face.” Could be paraphrasing.  Point is he left it behind. “Mister Zack, does it rain in Nevada?”

Yes, Timmy. It does.

Cut to Friday, it’s raining and cold. Highway 15 had been closed due to snow. Matt was scrambling to find a solution. Borrow a roof, find a trailer to hitch a ride with, wait for the rain to die…all fails. We stared at the Optima awning, “I wonder if we can make it into a roof, like Lamborghini does…” We couldn’t. So, Matt quietly  put on 2 jackets, racing gloves and drove to Pahrump quickly. Yes officer, the speed keeps the rain out. He described it as a  less-than-optimal fornication experience, AKA, “that fucking sucked!” We felt his pain, our 2011 BMW X5 diesel was fitted with seat heaters only, no massage. The humanity. We thawed ourselves with potato water. The morning’s events were pushed aside by a young woman telling me about her friend, an “actress” who once made a “movie” where she “entertained”  600 gentlemen. I stared at a woman wearing a bikini in the winter, thinking “Can you catch syphilis from a bar stool?” Sleep.

Points earned: 0.

The morning came too soon. Cold and dark. The casino/gas station/swap-meet coffee was shitty. We pulled into Spring Mountain Motorsports Ranch just after daylight did. We parked the car and found Matt in line for tech. He we realized  Optima uses the term “streetcar”  loosely. These cars were serious. A conversation with several owners could have gone like this, “Nice race trailer. Kinda big though isn’t it? You need the space for what?….to hold your 4 rolling Snap-On tool boxes and the soul of Michael Shumacher? Ah I see. Yeah it makes sense then.”

Half the field were classics. Camaros won the  popularity contest, along with 2 ’66 Mustangs that sounded like a NASCAR motor starting in a small cave. In fact, most of these cars had exhaust notes that can pierce a hymen standing too close. One Mustang had a 4-foot tall wing on it… no one laughed. That should say something. It’s the fight club of the pro-touring community. Race engines, wide-bodies, huge huge huge rubber. The fact that a modded Nissan GTR (Gee, wonder how it did?) had serious competition coming from multiple cars 40 years its senior should tell you something. In some ways a battle of generations.  A bright red wide-body Corvette started up. My hangover was overcome with a big grin. This is going to be an epic day. Matt didn’t smile.

Autocross

The good thing about the OUSCI is there’s several events. The bad thing is, two of them are run simultaneously. Because there were so many cars, the event had a tight schedule and the cars were split up. Auto-X and the Road Course would be ran at the same time. So you have to pick whether you want to watch every car do 1 event, or half the cars do both events. We stuck with Matt and headed to the Auto-X course. It was set up to be more open, allowing the high-powered cars to run a bit. No 15 MPH slice and dice.

The lineup was daunting. It included the modded GTR and the down-force-packing Mustang. Oh and Sam Hubinette. He was taking Jamie Howe (the only SPEED host a 13 year old boy should know by name) for an on-camera ride . His parade lap was done dorifto style, the finale stopping in the stop-box while doing a rolling burnout. This is officially the second-best cure of a hangover. Spinning his tires was easy thanks to the frigid 42 degree air and colder tarmac. Despite the cold pavement Matt managed to run the course in 43.5s, 26th place, dead in the middle. Considering it was cold, his tires are old and his car was worth as much as most of the cars’ support tools, finishing mid-pack was fine by him.

The rules say “no pro drivers.” Ok. 10-Time consecutive “recreational” SCCA champion Mary Pozzi came in 2nd ( 39.4s) in a sick, newly-finished 1972 Chevy Camaro. Between its chassis, fender flares and wheel/tire combo it was as classic as an iPad 2. But man, seeing a muscle car rail around an Auto-X with that kind of agility, braking and balance blew me away. I spent a lot of time with these cars as a kid and I never thought I would see them within tenths of a second of a modern Corvette or GTR. And nothing sounds like an old car with race pipes, nothing.

My friends 3ZERO3 Motorsports ran a 43.4s in a VW Beetle with a turboed R32 drivetrain. That silenced several  “un-pimp ze auto” jokes. (There was a particular PT Cruiser that needed to be thrown with a trebuchet due to suffering from whowouldbuildthat-itis. A sweet bonus was watching Goldberg hosting the SPEED coverage of the event. Each car got an introduction, said with the charm of Gerard Butler barking words of encouragement to his men in 300.

Top time went to Danny Popp, turning a 38.2 in his 24 Hour Le Mans GT lookalike  street-capable C6 Corvette. To revisit the conversation on defining “streetcar”; this gentleman had tire warmers on his car while he waited in line. Trailer full of tools, tech team, ok. Fine. Cars are a pain to work on and if you have the $, why not. But tire warmers?  I wanted to look at this gathering as a sort of race amongst gentlemen (and ladies). They all created a car from an idea, brought it to the biggest show and then decided to have a bit of motoring fun in Pahrump. Apparently it’s a bit more serious than that.

Matt’s car was out-gunned and with ninjas like Pozzi and Popp playing, out-driven as well. His goal now was to finish mid-pack, not crash, not break anything and not embarrass himself. Mine was to find water, Advil and warmth. 1 out of 2 ain’t bad.

Points Earned: 0  

Hot Lap Challenge

Thad and I made our way towards the road course, stopping to look at all the pretty metal scenery along the way. I won’t slow this down with commentary on every car but definitely check out the gallery at the bottom. The best viewpoint is the Spring Mountain viewing bridge, perched above the starting line and grid. That’s another great thing about this event: access. You can walk up to the track barrier, there’s viewing towers, you can even go up on the giant Optima trailer. Being able to see everything is what makes a race event fun to attend. Usually it costs extra (pit passes); here were free to roam. Cars lined up as a group, running warm-up laps a few at a time. Each car launches from a stop and ripped directly under us at WOT. I Inhale delicious carcinogens shot out of cat-less exhausts. Thad points North, “We drove over those fuckin’ mountains!“  In the distance, a burnout cracks the cold air. So far, so great.

In the driver’s meeting they had told everyone the warm-up lap was a warm-up lap. We all know where this story is going. Coming around the corner is a ’68 Camaro, driven by someone who is following the meeting’s advice. He’s driving 6 tenths, cruising toward the sweeper. A little behind him is Danny Popp, in his magic car. Danny is also learning the track and exploring his car’s limits on the track but his are a little higher. He’s gaining like a cheetah chasing an old woman. Camaro brakes early. Corvette: Full brake, tire lock, smoke. From my vantage point Danny was close enough to read the other driver’s lips through the rear view mirror.

Someone else had an interesting warm-up lap: Matt. He went off in turn 2 during his warm-up lap. Bad tires and cold ground were charged as the guilty party. Matt shook it off, but we later found out he had broken a sway bar end link, hurting his timed laps later on.

At the end of the event, he had put down a time of 2:00 flat. 26th place again. The other times were all over the place. Some cars that I expected to be slow (1992 2-door Chevy Tahoe with an AT and a big block!?) weren’t. A V6 Mustang had an exhaust that sounded like cicada’s farting into a trumpet buzzed around to everyone’s chagrin.

Others looked fast like the sharp modern/retro 1966 Nova- weren’t. Mary Pozzi’s Camaro thundered round in 1:53.1.  Kyle Tucker put down a 1:48.43 in his 1970 Camaro. But the track was ruled by Corvettes. Danny Popp and Peter Callaway (yeah, that Callaway) ran a 1:42.208 and 1:44.745. The cheater! GTR, with all its computers and TSC:  1:48.441. That shows you how fast those Corvettes are, and also how fast Kyle was in the Camaro.

Points earned: 0

Design Challenge

All day judges were walking around grading the cars for the Raybesto’s Performance Design Challenge. The judges apologized for only having 5 minutes for each car, saying, “There’s some cars we could spend hours looking at.” Cut to Our Super Speeding friend Rob Feretti stood with the judges as they looked over his 1100WHP Supra,  “Yea it’s not probably not one of those 2 hour cars you guys were talking about. Go ahead, pretend to look at it for the entire 5 minutes. ” Matt did not win, but at least he didn’t bring a PT Cruiser with the graphics package off a 1984 surf board.

Points Earned: 0

Speed/Stop Challenge

It was now the last event of the day: The Wilwood Brakes Speed Stop Challenge. The Auto-X course had been cleared and a strip was set up diagonally across the big black slab. Starting at the banner, cars raced towards the stop-box. THe goal was to get to the other side as fast as possible. You had to stop in a box about 40′L x 15′ Wide.  Brake too late you hit the cones and get DQed, too soon and you lose valuable seconds. It was a great test of acceleration and braking, only one of which is a natural skill for old cars.

Thad and I walked out to the tarmac. I never worried about a car getting lose and murdering us, but it is a little interesting standing at that end watching cars with 500+ HP try to contain it at WOT. I saw more than a few hoods waver side to side. The marshals did forbid me from standing behind the stop box for a head-on shot, I guess in case a throttle stuck. Despite having had that experience myself, when the throttle in my ’65 Le Mans stuck at about 95MPH on Highway 1, I thought that type of accident was impossible. At the lease I’d be able to dodge the automotive bull. The marshals are smarter than I, and asked me to move.

Matt hadn’t ever done anything like this but he had plenty of drag racing experience, so the launch was easy. But stopping on cue and calculating that while you’re accelerating as fast as possible must be a strange idea for your brain to understand. Unfortunately Matt hit cones 3 times in a row. No points. Eh, who cares. How often do you need to pull into a garage at 78 MPH?  Back from his runs, “That’s a lot harder than it looks.” I believe him. Another driver advertised confidence. 5 minutes later, “That’s harder than it looks.”

Car after car charged at the box, furiously throwing itself forward with the silence and subtlety of an avalanche and then throw out the anchor and late-brake into the box. The 1957 Chevy Bel Air was fun to watch. It was like a cartoon elephant trying to come to a quick stop right before the cliff. Skid marks were plentiful. It was fucking awesome. A few yards from a juiced up pony car screaming towards us like a rabid dog chasing Lady Gaga.

First place went to Gary Rubio in….the Nissan GTR. It leaped to the box and stopped in 0:06.54s. This surprised no one. What did surprise us is that 2nd place went to Mark Stielo in his ’69 Camaro, which somehow found traction, screaming away with the violence of hesitation of a depleted-uranium round from an AC-10 and came to a rest in only 0:07.096. .6 seconds behind one of the most technically capable cars ever is no joke. Pozzi and Popp were only behind by tenths of a second.

The PT Cruiser showed up. It struggled with the acceleration portion of this event, because it started in 2nd. Then it would downshift from 2nd to 1st about 60 feet from the start line. Its sound was worrisome. “That’s the sound of it trying to kill itself.” a spectator commented. Ba-zing.

Pete Callaway's Corvette

There was one more thing going on during this challenge, that really encapsulates what this event is about. In the middle of the challenge, Peter Callaway was yanking his brake master cylinder, to give to Danny Popp. Danny’s had failed after the road course and its difficult to compete with no brakes. Danny was in competition to win the event, and Peter’s C6 Corvette was a matching tissue doner. This is what weekend racing is about; being competitive without working against each other. It’s just a bunch of really crazy friends. They pulled the part, got it in and Danny was able to get 3rd, putting him tied for the win Mark Stielo. A 2006 Corvette Zo6 and a ’69 Camaro, tied at 80 points in a performance decathlon. Pretty cool.

Points Earned: 0

The judges decision came down to the tie-breaker: the fastest time on the road course wins it. Mark Stielo hadn’t  beat Popp’s time of 1:42.208. But even so, it’s incredible what the pro-touring cars can do. The diversity of the cars, the close-up action, the access and the friendliness of every single person there made this one of the best car shows/races I’ve ever been to. It was relaxed without the bore of a stand around car show. And it was noisy and competitive without feeling to serious or impersonal. New cars, old cars, burnouts, road course, all held together by tens of thousands of horsepower. I was grinning like an 8 year old all day.

Unfortunately the day wasn’t great for Mr. Farah. He actually did pretty well considering the broken end-link, old tires and no tire warmers. But the road rally and Speed Stop Challenge cost him.  Add in judges incapable of appreciating the beautiful and captivating miracle that is a red C5 Corvette and ended up in 46th place.

But Rob Feretti got 47th.

- Zack K

There has been some interesting debate in the comments about my performance in the 2011 Mojave Mile, piloting the Corvette ZR1. Mainly, the debate revolves around two factors:

1) I am fat, and if I were not fat, I would have broken 180 mph, the completely arbitrary goal I set for myself that day.

2) The 2012 Nissan GTR shouldn’t be faster than the Corvette in the mile, yet in the video, the announcer at the Mile says that a “girl in a stock GTR” ran 179.9.

Let’s explore these items after the jump.

First, lets get all the facts straight. Going into this event, I had no idea what kind of number the car would run. I picked 180 as a completely arbitrary number, having no idea if the ZR1 were capable of that. Is there evidence that any bone stock ZR1 has ever cracked the 180 mark in the mile? No. Never been done. I probably should have looked that up, before running, but whatever. The organizer of the mile runs a ZR1, and he said that in absolutely perfect, sea-level conditions, his car wouldn’t do any better than 178.5. And he’s a professional NHRA/SCTA drag racer.

Mojave is also at 2800 feet of elevation, which is good for nearly a 50 horsepower loss. So I wasn’t running with 638 horsepower; it was much closer to 590.A horsepower loss like that is good for about 1.5 mph in the standing mile. There was a 15 mph headwind as well, good for another 1.5 mph. So I was, basically, limited to 3 mph slower than the car’s absolute performance potential for this test.

Now, about this whole “fat driver means slow car” issue. It’s true that being lighter is better, whether you’re talking about the car or the driver. Or is it? Check out this video of Autocar’s standing mile race between the Corvette ZR1 and the Porsche 911 GT2. You may notice that a) the video is shot in england, which has an average elevation of 500 feet. and b) the driver of the Corvette is, compared to yours truly, one skinny little limey. Obviously, because he’s skinnier than me, the car simply must go faster in the mile, right? RIGHT? Nope. Skinny little England’s ZR1 hits 175.9 mph, 8 tenths slower than my fat American ass ran one at elevation. Weight comes into play for the kind of stats that manufacturers need to sell their cars: Acceleration from a standstill, handling, and braking. No manufacturer this side of Koenigsegg tries to market their vehicles by saying how fast they will accelerate over 150 mph. At those speeds, it’s all about horsepower and aerodynamics, not weight. I neglected to mention the driver’s weight for the fastest recorded standing mile run in a stock ZR1, 178.5 as run by the pro mentioned above. The guy is 300 lbs, or about 45 lbs heavier than I am. If driver weight matters so much, how come the heaviest racer on the runway can run the fastest pass?

Now that we’ve proven the ZR1 won’t do 180 in the mile in stock trim, even with a skinny driver, let’s discuss the GTR. In the film, the announcer says that I am getting beaten by “a girl in a stock GTR” that ran 179.9. In hindsight, lets take a look at the race results for ourselves. If you’d like to see them all, click here, otherwise I’ve screen-shotted the most important part below.

You’ll notice the stock 2012 GTR, piloted by Irmina Martinez of Oceanside, CA, did not actually beat me in the mile. She ran a 175.3 to my Corvette’s 176.7. So the announcer was just fucking with me for video purposes. On the other hand, Dave Scholtz, in the 2010 GTR, seemingly ran 180.5. Anyone who knows anything about GTR’s knows that there’s no way in hell a stock 2010 GTR will beat a stock 2012 GTR in a simple drag race by that much. 5 MPH faster in the mile with otherwise identical cars would require one of the cars to have more than 100 extra horsepower over the other. Google says that Dave Scholtz is an accomplished amateur autocrosser and road racer, but in a GTR you really just mash it to the floor and go. If both cars are truly stock, as they claimed, I think that Irmina’s 175.3 is much more realistic. Bascically I’m calling bullshit that Mr. Scholtz’s car is stock.

Basically what I’m saying here is that I ran that damn ZR1 all day long, every which way possible. And I’m convinced that I ran it as fast as it would go. Would me losing a few pounds make the car go any faster? Maybe a fraction of a mile per hour, but nothing of significance. Standing mile is about horsepower and aerodynamics, not ultra low weight and launch grip. The internet has made gigantic horsepower numbers seem so normal, and no one even realizes what a feat they are. Going from 0 to 176.7 in just a mile is ludicrously quick. In order to get that same car to do 200 in the mile, you’d need over 1,000 horsepower at the wheels. 

So while yes, the idea of this post came about because I was sick of reading hundreds of comments calling me fat, the truth goes much deeper than that. Any asshole can post up some dumb YouTube comment. In fact, for every one thoughtful comment I see there are at least 50 more written by University of Phoenix online rejects, people with 5th grade reading and writing levels, and fucking morons. Do your homework people. You want to use a car not reaching an arbitrarily chosen goal on a runway as a good excuse to call someone fat? At least make sure you know what the fuck you’re talking about.

On this episode of The Smoking Tire, we take the 2011 Corvette ZR1, the fastest Corvette ever produced, to the Mojave Mile for a little high-speed testing. Back in May, Matt came to the Mile with a Porsche 911 GT3RS, an amazing, barely street legal track car, and while it ran a very respectable 166.8 mph, that just wasn’t enough. We had a goal of crossing the 1-mile traps going at least 175, and the ZR1 could be the perfect weapon. Hit the jump for the video.

*If the embedded video does not work, please go here to watch it.

There has been much debate over the results of this video, and I address some viewer’s questions and concerns here.

Sometimes, there’s just too much goodness to go into one video, so I also wrote a full cover story review for the November issue of Road Lanes Online Automotive Magazine, which you can view here. 

There is rarely enough time in one of our 7-minute films to say everything that needs to be said about a car. You get in the moment, you forget things here and there, and you go home at the end of the day wishing you had said this or that. Well, in between filming and writing for The Smoking Tire, I review cars for other publications as well, which gives me an opportunity to write a completely different take on the same cars we film with. Introducing Road Lanes Magazine, a new online automotive magazine that you can download for free and view offline as well as online. In last month’s issue, I reviewed the Dodge Durango and Corvette ZR1. This month, check out the new issue of Road Lanes for my reviews of the Mercedes CLS63 AMG and BMW X6M.

So as not to disappoint our loyal fans here at The Smoking Tire, we have also made films with the Corvette ZR1 and BMW X6M, which you will see on the site and our various video outlets soon. Until then, click here to see the latest issue of Road Lanes!

Drifting is one of those things that, like golf, bull riding, and porn, professionals make look very easy. It’s also something that many drivers claim to do well, when in fact, they do not. Since Matt is not a professional racing driver, he is more than willing to admit that he doesn’t have the first clue how to drift a car properly. But he’s also the first to admit that when you don’t know something, you get a professional to teach you, and you simply listen and try to be a good student.

The kind folks at the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving in Arizona offered The Smoking Tire the use of their facility and vehicles for a day of private drifting lessons from instructor Corey Hosford, who will be starting his Formula Drift career this coming April at Long Beach in his K-Sport Nissan 350Z. Can Matt start from nothing and become a drifter in just one day? Hit the jump to find out.

When I set out to write this article, my main focus was to offer a comparison between Toyota’s legendary AE86 and Mazda’s game changing Roadster. However, the more I tried to pinpoint just why these lightweight FRs are so great, the more I realized why today’s successors just aren’t. Keep reading my fellow ADDers, you will enjoy the article, or your money back!

They say a man can accomplish anything so long as he is confident, and humble. I think this principle applies to cars as well. Now haters, don’t jump to a different article just yet, hear me out. Take the Corvette ZR1, or the R35 GTR for example. Both cars are in-your-face performers with the horsepower and Nordschleife times to backup their bragging, I’m sure you’d agree. Now after I say this, there will be countless fanboys who’ll stop blowing their imaginary ‘Vette to yell mean things at my mother.. but I digress: these cars have no soul. They may be fast, or offer driver involvement (not you R35, move along) but they are not any fun without their horsepower. Sure they can still carve a corner in 6th gear, but would you have any fun doing that? Ok, now imagine that same horsepower you’re getting in 6th being used on your favorite straight. Still sound like a hoot?

"Who cares about fun?! Look how many drag strips I can bench!!!"

The problem (IMHO) with many of the steroidal cars on the market today is that they have something to prove. I almost can’t blame the manufacturers for continuing this stupidity either. Kids and their man-racer brethren argue 0-60 times, Nordschleife lap records, skid pad ratings, and other objective points, like they’re somehow going to prove something subjective, like a car being “better”. Plus, cars like the ‘Stang and M3 have to worry about their market share going to competitors because they have less horsepower. But don’t fret car buyers, some of us in the industry prefer to avoid hostility and just have some fun. Remember, you have nothing to prove, so why give in? I know there is no standard rating to measure fun, but I guarantee its importance.

Before I get too philosophical, I’ll get back on track. What made cars like the AE86 Corolla and NA Miata fun to drive was that they had no competition standards to meet. They had enough power to go slideways, and were light enough to return decent gas mileage in the process. Land Ho!, fun is good for gas mileage. Who would have thought that a fun car doesn’t need to have a Rosie O’ appetite. There were no performance times they needed to beat, or rivals they needed to silence. The Eight-Six was an FR that fit 3 friends, and had a hatch for lugging loot (or tofu) around. You did not need to sacrifice anything to have this fun, mucho respectable ride.

Today we have something similar to that, they’re called hot-hatches. But- and it’s a big, Rosie butt- they aren’t rear-wheel drive. Save for the not-for-America 130i, all of these cars are FFs. This means that while you can still go fast ‘round a bend, you cant do it looking like a badass. Say what you want, but we all want to look cool in our cars. After all, it’s the reason why we buy our cars in the first place. They make us feel good. Sure you can rip that e-brake on the little FWDs, but that skill level isn’t really reachable for anyone who doesn’t constantly practice. Also, MS3s and GTIs are dope, but they’re not great places to start for building a racer. And if there’s one requirement for an affordable cult classic, it’s that it can be transformed into a monster with enough passion and babysitting jobs. Us young-ins don’t like you old farts telling us that we can’t do something, and we put a lot of work into showing you that you’re wrong. And dumb. The Ferrari-slaughtering Supras and Evos speak for themselves.

We also have a new breed of FRs that don’t try to make big hp, like the the Genesis Coupe 2.0T, and the BMW 128i, but they are too heavy. I used to think that a 3200lb Z4 M Coupe was  light and fun, but then I drove the 2300lb NB Miata.. which I then bought. I love driving expensive cars, because they usually drive great, but I also like being able to put my driving gloves on, and go for a session without someone trying to race me. There’s a great group of guys called the Drift Mechaniks that promote keeping drifting fun. I love that. No hate, no bitching, just guys having fun. I’m going to take it one step further: keep driving fun (I know, I’m so clever). I’ll be frank, aside from every materialistic ho on Long Island wanting to chill with me when I drive an R8, the Miata is just as fun. The Yacht, as I call it, is is worse at cornering, braking, and acceleration, but  I do not give a flying one. Truly it is quite strange, but I can assure you, if you’re man enough to pick up chicks without a super car, you will love an adequately powered FR. Low insurance costs, great gas mileage, less tickets, and if you have the sack, the same amount of babe-age.

You may have dismissed my words for a rant, but I truly wanted to show the world that even young men will buy sports cars that don’t have 400hp. This is a good thing, car manufacturers. It means that you can build what you call a mom-mobile, and with the right marketing turn it into a cash cow with college guys. Repeat after me: Rear-drive, lightweight, fun. One more time: Rear-drive, lightweight, fun. It would even do away with all of the purist bullshit about keeping manual transmissions. We like standards not because they suck in traffic, but because they’re fun. Hopefully Lamborghini is onto something with the spank-you-on-the-ass feeling the tranny in the Aventador gives you. I should rephrase that: The transmission spanks you on the ass..

Anyway the goal for affordable, fun, stock cars should be that they be fun on exit ramps. It’s really that simple. If you can give people a car that’s fun within the speed limit, people don’t feel the need to speed. They might want to drift, but I’ve never heard of any high school seniors getting killed because they were sliding in tandem on prom night. It’s easy to feel invincible when the car does all the work like in a drag,  but when you actually go sideways for the first time it’s truly humbling. I say, let’s make fun cars again. We’ll be safer, richer, and happier. The American Dream dead? I think not.

By Adam Totter

Matt hates video games for several reasons, but mostly it’s because they aren’t nearly as much fun as the real thing, which he proves in this video. In 2006, Art Morrison won the “Gran Turismo Award” at the SEMA show, which means that they put your show car into the video game Gran Turismo. After testing the video game version, Matt can’t help but dream of driving the real thing. Hit the jump to see what happens when your wish is granted.

The words “practical” and “powerful” a rarely friends. The same way “playmate” goes with “PTA meeting.” But this week we got something that is able to mesh those two words together. It’s the American offering to the uber wagen market. An offering from Cadillac that has enough power and performance to not only run down Europe’s best family haulers, but some of the world’s best sports cars as well.

It’s the Cadillac CTS-V Wagon. After driving it around L.A. for a week, we needed to see what it could really do. So we took it to the El Mirage dry lake bed, one of the greatest places in the U.S., where speed limits do not exist. How else will you find out if a car can make Dora the Explorer horrifying? We wanted to see not only how fast the CTS-V could go, but how it would contend against it’s cousin, a C6 Corvette. Make the jump to see what happened when we took away tarmac, and speed limits.

You’re going to like the next episode of The Smoking Tire. In it, I take a Cadillac CTS-V Wagon, the most impractical, practical car in history, to El Mirage Dry Lake Bed for a little high-speed testing. I’m going to find out just how fast you can get your kids to school, and see if I can figure out why Cadillac would bother with a wagon in the first place, even if it can hit sixty in 4.3 seconds and do massive burnouts.

But first, a little teaser video. My friend Chris decided to bring out his tuned up 2008 Corvette to the desert as well, and we had a half-mile drag race to see if the “Corvette of Station Wagons” had what it takes to keep up with its more established little brother. Chris’s car has some basic bolt-on performance parts and a tune, and spins the dyno to the tune of 420 wheel horsepower, translated into 480 crank horsepower. That’s 76 horsepower less than the Caddy, but it also has nearly 1,200 fewer pounds to lug around.

Video after the jump.

Let’s cut the fluff shall we? Best Motoring is cancelled, and for their last race, their lineup was awesome: Lexus LF-A vs. Porsche GT2 RS vs. Corvette ZR-1 vs. Nissan GTR vs. Ferrari F430 GT3. There’s street cars, super-cars and might-as-well-be-a race-cars. The price is all over the board, as are the cylinders and countries of origin. Each of our favorite countries is represented in a cool, if not the best, way. Thanks Best Motoring, for all your hard *cough* work over the years. You’ve put together some of the coolest and most expensive super-cars in wheel to wheel races.

Make the jump to see who won.

Text and Photos submitted by TST reader Nick Busato

Porsche 911 GT3 RS, F430 Scuderia, Corvette ZR1 and the M3 GTS are all names that will induce any automotive enthusiast’s mouth to water uncontrollably. Based on already ludicrously quick road cars, these thoroughbreds are seen as the ultimate track day toys. It seems to be an easy formula for any car manufacturer to follow; strip out unneeded bits, toss on some Brembos, coilovers and sticky tires, massage some more power out of the engine and for added bonus points put an “R” in the car’s badging. These are the speed machines that occupy the prised poster space of many car fanatics’ bedroom walls. If these cars are seen as the superior versions to their more limp wristed counterparts then surely an even more race bred car would be that much more illustrious.

Enter the realm of the American Le Mans Series GT2 class where you will find the dreamiest racing versions of road going sports cars. While other series like DTM, Nascar and Grand-Am may have fairly recognizable body shapes the cars actually share very little if any parts with their production counterparts. In contrast, the ALMS GT2 cars are based on their respective production variants and must use the same chassis and primary bodywork. What you are left with is a car with no comprises made in the interest of comfort, they have a single purpose: to go fast.

Doran Design Ford GT

The original GT40 was greenlit to serve a single purpose: beating Ferrari at the 24 hours of Le Mans. They did just that from 1966 to 1969. Forty some odd years later, a similar shaped machine would yet again be taking on Ferrari, only this time in the GT2 class. In a series dominated by cars who’s body shapes are determined by values found in the wind tunnel its shocking to see a car that has a body based on an artist’s impression of an iconic car from the 1960’s. What is more surprising is that this shape has somehow been honed into a possible race winning car without any real factory support.

Converting the Ford GT into GT2 specification was no easy task for Doran. Despite being one of the most capable production chassis ever, the GT2 spec car still required revised suspension, brakes and a roll cage. The largest departure for the production variant comes in terms of the power plant. The 5.4L supercharged engine is ditched in favour of a 5.0L Roush Yates unit coupled to a six speed Emco transmission. It may come as a surprise that the race engine actually makes less power than the supercharged unit, however the road car is not burdened with 29.1 mm restrictors or operating at near peak RPM for twenty four hours straight. Unfortunately, the car has limited success due the lack of factory involvement in the program, limited budget, and gentlemen (read: rich drivers who pay to race, as opposed to professionals paid to race) drivers.

Chevrolet Corvette C6.R

While many companies claim that their race car development eventually shows up in their road cars, the majority of the time they are speaking absolute rubbish. The Corvette team, on the other hand, allows their race car development to be directly applied to their production models. The lessons learned with the C5.R GT1 car were responsible for the shape, headlights and air management seen in the C6. The carryover of technology from the track to the road has unquestionably improved the Corvette.

The C6.R may start its life on the same production line as the road car, but apart from its chassis, part of its cockpit bodywork, and the taillights, little is carried over. The result is a car that looks like a ZR1 on steroids with its enormous fender bulges just barely concealing the massive racing slicks. The ZR1’s double glazed polycarbonate window is tossed out in favour of a single massive vent that allows hot air from the radiators to be channelled out efficiently through the hood. This air management trend continues with additional ducts used to cool the rear transaxle and the air conditioning unit.

Like the Ford, the C6.R drops the larger production unit in favour of a smaller displacement naturally aspirated V8. A General Motors sourced 5.5L V8 is situated as low and far back as the aluminum hydro-formed chassis will allow. The power output is once again limited to a little under 500HP due to breathing through an asthmatic restrictor. Don’t let the massive power discrepancy fool you, despite the ZR1 having a 140 horsepower advantage, the C6.R will lap Laguna Seca a full twelve seconds quicker. Perhaps the best part of this heart transplant is the sound, as there has never been a deeper “I am going to eat you alive” burble since the Panoz LMP01. Unfortunately, the ZR1’s carbon ceramic brakes cannot be retained, so they are swapped out for the regulation cast iron units. This, however, is only a minor setback since the weight reduction and stickier slick tires will allow the C6.R will still come to a stop far quicker than the ZR1. The result of all this fat trimming, chassis refinement and the engine swap is a Corvette that will literally rip your face off and make you ears bleed.

Porsche 911 GT3 RSR

While many other teams spend endless amounts of money and time to develop a race worthy chassis, Porsche offers its customers the 911 GT3 RSR; a car capable of taking the top step of the podium right out of the box. The 911 has competed in the American Le Mans series since its inception and has not wasted any time taking home the hardware, winning nine of the possible twelve GT2 manufactures championships. Like the 911 road car, it has not been revolution but rather evolution that has enabled the (997) RSR to be completive well into its fifth year of competition.

Since the 997’s introduction in 2005, the car has undergone a form of spots car puberty with the wheel wells growing in size and its engine gaining the ever more important horsepower. The current iteration now sits on mammoth, C6 rear tire equalling, 12 inch wide front and 13 inch wide rear tires. The massive contact patches these tires provide enable the RSR to generate north of 1.5g in a turn. The traditional 911 boxer engine has gradually grown in size from the 3.6L in the 996 to the 4.0L unit found in the current 997. The engine location is retained from the road car as it offers nearly ideal weight distribution… perhaps Ferdinand Porsche was onto something all those years ago.  If perfection is the result of endless refinement then perhaps the 911 GT3 RSR is just that.

(Also noted here that the Porsche 911 RSR is the only race car on the ALMS grid that produces significantly more horsepower than its production counterpart.)

BMW M3 GT2

It would seem that developing a race car from a luxury two door coupe that shares the majority of its genes with a four door sedan would be like bringing a knife to a gunfight. While the M3 is a formidable production car, an ideal GT2 platform it is not. Fortunately, the BMW Motorsport division is the MacGyver of race car engineering and was able to hone the M3 into a genuine GT2 contender.

The M3 GT2 is perhaps the most modified racer in the GT2 field as nearly every detail of the road car sees some attention in its transformation into race car. The suspension and bodywork undergoes heavy modification to optimize the new larger racing slicks. The 4.0L engine is pushed as low and far back as possible with the X-Trac transmission located at the rear in the form of a transaxle. The lengths gone to improve weight distribution do not end there, the driving position is pushed lower and further back as well. The drivers head is essentially in line with the b-pillar, a position so far back that it requires a secondary dash and the steering wheel column to be extended. The result of all this hard work by the boys (and girls) in Munich was the 2010 ALMS GT2 Manufactures Championship, not too shabby for only their second season.

Ferrari F430GT

The Ferrari F430GT is perhaps the most feared, and without question the loudest, car in the GT2 paddock. While it may not have taken home as many manufacture championships as the 911, it has been the dominate force in the true endurance races. A single Risi Competizione F430GT chassis won Petit Le Mans 2008, Le Mans 2008, Sebring 2009 and Le Mans 2009 before being scavenged for parts to repair the sister car at Mosport 2009.

In contrast to the M3 GT2, the F430GT is the closest to the production car of all the cars in the GT2 field. While the obvious tire and brake upgrades have been made, a great deal of the original F430 architecture has been retained. The nose has been reworked in conjunction with the front splitter and rear wing in order to claw back some of the downforce lost due to regulation driven diffuser. The engine has been destroked to 4.0L in an aim to maximize the regulations regarding the displacement to weight ratio. Despite this smaller displacement, little horsepower is lost in comparison to its street sibling. It must be said that the most favourable aspect of GT2 spec engine, in terms of the race fans, is its noise. Never has there been a more beautiful sound from a GT car that screams high into the rpm range. Even when cruising down the pit lane F430GT backfires almost constantly sounding like the opening scene from Saving Private Ryan. The Ferrari really is a work of art in both the visual and audible sense.

Argument about which of these racing cars is best has raged on for years and will continue for as long as the world still has enough gas to go racing, but we feel the whole grid is well-worthy of inclusion into The Smoking Tire’s Dream Garage. Welcome!

The Smoking Tire was fortunate enough to be able to attend the first-ever “Cars and Cockpits” event at the Lyon Air Museum this past weekend. It was a great change of pace from the usual Cars and Coffee and Supercar Sunday, because not only were there several million dollars worth of metal in the parking lot, but also the museum opened its doors to us, so we could appreciate some fine vintage aircraft and military vehicles. Some highlights of the show included the famous “triple black” Ferrari Enzo (pictured above), many other Ferrari’s, Lamborghini’s, Aston’s Bentley’s, Nissan GTR’s, BMW’s, Porsches, and crazy tuner cars, including the world’s ugliest vehicle, the Mansory Panamera Turbo. In the gallery, check out the yellow F430 Spider, which isn’t special except that it’s fitted with carbon fiber hand controls so its wheelchair-bound owner can wind out the 4.3L V8 using his right hand. Inside the Lyon Air museum, we were treated to some elegantly restored World War II-era aircraft and vehicles, my favorite of which was the minimally restored and completely functional 1934 Mercedes 6-wheel parade car, formerly owned by Adolf Hitler. Hit the jump for the 80-image mega gallery of the event.

The legend goes that back in the late ‘60s, GM developed an engine so powerful that it ran on liquid hot magma, and could make the earth spin backwards when fully unleashed. The name of this incredible powerplant? The ZL-1.

While the ZL-1 doesn’t burn molten lava (would it even be possible to burn lava?), it has become one of the most storied engines ever created by General Motors. Built with racing in mind, it found its way into the engine bay of the 1969 Corvette Stingray, creating the equally rare Corvette ZL-1. How rare? Though a few hundred engines made their way from the parts counter into racing cars, it’s whispered that only two production cars were ever built with the powerplant factory installed.

Flash back 50 years and you’re in the Chevy dealership, looking over the options for the ’69 Corvette. You read down the page until you get to the really important part: engine choices. You could get your ‘Vette with the base V8, you could opt for the exclusive and more powerful L88, or you could mortgage your house and purchase the ZL-1. A Corvette with the ZL-1 option box checked would run you over $10,000. In 1969 money! Other features include a Posi-traction rear axle, upgraded brakes, and special front and rear suspension. This price threshold meant that not a lot of people bought one, which has only added to the car’s mystique.

The all aluminum ZL-1 took the basic format of the L88 motor and improved upon it with burlier connecting rods, larger heads, a higher lift camshaft, and significant weight reduction over its cast-iron cousin. It makes a whole pile of horsepower too: Some estimates put it at over 580. In a 1969 production car! And it’s not just the horsepower that’s impressive, estimates put the 0-60 time somewhere around 4 seconds, and the quarter-miles times from the low 11’s to low 12’s. This car was properly fast.

Rarity can do funny things to objects that turn out to be pretty ordinary. But, when a car packs an engine as exotic as the ZL-1 and puts down the incredible performance figures that it does, there’s no question that the Corvette ZL-1 really is the stuff of legends.

Welcome, Corvette Stingray ZL-1, to The Smoking Tire Dream Garage.

My Corvette is probably my single most prized possesion. Surprised? Probably not. I bought it new in 1998 and have only put 24,000 miles on it in 12 years. I’ve also modified it considerably to improve not only the horsepower, but also the overall driving experience. I’ve made changes all over my car in the 12 years I’ve owned her, but the question is this: Has GM made the same changes that I’ve made to improve the car? Or is their vision of a better Corvette completely different from my own? Hit the jump to find out.

Remember Jimmy Neal? The former NASCAR driver who led cops on a 50-mile high speed chase from San Clemente, CA to LaJolla, only to surrender when the engine on his 2003 Corvette grenaded? Well, he got out of jail at 1:30 this morning, and was arrested again within 5 hours, this time for false imprisonment and attempted rape. Escalating much? It seems that Jimmy got out of jail and went straight to the home of a woman in Lake Forest, CA, and police were called several hours later for a “disturbance.”

Story unfolding….

[Source: LAIst]

James Neal raced in NASCAR, somewhat unsuccessfully, in the 1980′s. Not used to leading races, he’s decided he’d rather lead chases, which is what he did on Monday in his 2003 Corvette. Neal led authorities on a 50 mile chase from San Clemente, CA to La Jolla, at speeds up to 140 mph, before blowing up his engine and surrendering.

Cops didn’t know they were chasing a pro driver, but probably could have guessed Neal raced in NASCAR, when he started making repeated left hand turns. Neal plead guilty to Misdemeanor Felony Evasion and will be spending a month behind bars.

[Source: LAist]

When Corvette performance is your priority look no further than CorvetteGuys.com, the aftermarket Corvette authority!

Great day of shooting today with our old buddy Doug from Switchcars.com. You’ll have to wait a couple of weeks to see the episode, but for now here’s a few behind-the-scenes photos. Enjoy!

Improve your Corvette’s performance with a Corvette throttle body from CorvetteGuys.

Roll in style with C5 Corvette wheels from CorvetteGuys.