[Shotimes] (OT) Mazda 6 and '04 Maxima

[John Miller]

> IMHO, I feel that the GTO was created to hang on to the F-body folks until
> another RWD performance car comes out.

The problem is this: the GTO is a real car.  It's got a real chassis, a 
real useful interior, it's screwed together decently well.  The proportions 
are right - the front wheels are out at the front corners, the beltline is 
reasonably low (it's still sedan bits under the skin), etc.  Until proven 
otherwise, I won't accept that US GM is capable of producing anything 
close.

The old F-body never was - it had a chassis that was good for a stick axle 
but that's the best you can say about it, and material quality that really 
showed just where GM took money out of the car.  The last F-body was a good 
car by Firebird standards, the GTO is a good car by world standards.

The Cadillac CTS has the chassis, but the material quality is at best a 
notch down from Holden standards, and the damn thing is every bit as ugly 
as the Aztek.

GM could bulldoze everything they build in the US into Lake Michigan, sell 
a whole lot of Commodores and Monaros here, and it'd be an absolute net 
improvement.

Exactly the same goes for Ford, its US products, and the Aussie Falcons. 
The bottom-line Falcon Forte rentacar we flogged around a year ago was a 
better car than any production SHO ever built.  Not as fast, to be sure, 
but better-built (not one rattle even when pounding over washboard gravel 
roads), better seats, better steering, a better-tuned chassis, better 
material quality than the Gen 1/2 cars and on a par with the Gen 3, and 
more interior room in an equivalently-sized package DESPITE being 
rear-drive.

> owned a few in years past. He felt they should have done some hood scoops
> or SOMETHING to tie the car back to the old GTOs, but it's basically a
> generic-looking coupe that really looks like something that one of the
> Japanese manufacturers would have produced.

Spare me the hood scoops, next someone will be asking for a chicken decal.

It's a coupe version of the Opel Omega shape.  Which is still better than 
anything GM's proven capable of getting into production in the US.  And, 
compared to what's oozing out of other manufacturers' drawing boards, it's 
damn near perfect.

What else is even close?

I love the C5, but it's attractive in the same way a new, shiny framing 
hammer is attractive, the rear bumper caps NEVER fit, and the Z06 and its 
hardtop body is right up there with the Scooby STi on the Yes It's Ugly As 
Hell But I Don't Give A Damn list.

The 350Z is a flattened, misproportioned lump like the Audi TT, a squashed 
roofline trying to make a high-beltline sedan chassis look sporty.

The G35 coupe is very nice (and far, far better than the 350Z) and the 
sedan isn't bad, but the G35 interiors are catastrophic.  I can't sit in 
the driver's seat (6'1 200lb) without various things bumping, poking, and 
thumping my legs and thighs.  It also suffers from 'SHO disease' - a 
pedal-type parking brake - which makes a manual transmission troublesome in 
hilly country.  As for the Altima, new Maxima, etc - the shapes just don't 
quite work.

The RX-8 is odd, the rear doors are a waste of weight and complexity.  The 
Mazda6 is okay but that chrome-upper-lip grille just flat doesn't work - 
the Audi A4 does the same basic concept more cleanly.

The Mini is a nice enough shape, I can't decide whether I can get friendly 
with its overdone interior and all its aluminum-looking-plastic bits.

The Acura RSX is the best that could be done to put a smooth shape on the 
current tall, cheap Civic chassis, but it's nothing special.

The Subaru WRX and STi may be wonderful cars (and I suspect I'll have to 
own an STi sooner or later) but it'll take more than a nose-job to fix the 
Impreza shape.

The Camry's a boxy minivan with a trunk and the ES300 variant just looks 
silly with its tall beltline and squashed roof.  All the recent Toyota 
sedans look like dirigibles, and the coupe versions look like sports 
blimps.

The new Accord's got a seriously weird and ponderous nose.

The last REALLY good looking BMWs were the E39 5-series and the E53 X5, the 
E46 3-series isn't too bad but a little fussy and the Bangleized crap 
that's come along since then is giving the BMW board serious indigestion.

The Lexus SC400 is pretty decent to drive but it looks like a motorized 
turtle with the top up, and not much better with it down.

The Cadillac CTS looks five stories tall and six inches wide.  The 
proportions are all wrong, the lines all go in the wrong directions.  The 
edges-and-angles 'Art & Science' styling might work, and spy shots indicate 
the new STS will be a whole lot better proportioned, but the CTS shape is a 
joke.

The new little Benz CLK coupe is the definition of bland; odd, 'cause the 
one it replaced was actually quite nice.  The S and new E and SL are quite 
nice.

> The new styling cues on the Bonneville GTX make it look better, IMHO. The
<snip>
> body cladding and over-the-top stuff. Although it's an ATX, the 4.0 V8
> should be sweet.

But it's still a big FWD pig.

I like my SHO's behavior well enough, but it took a $1200 Quaife to get its 
road manners past 'tolerable'.  I see no reason to ever buy a big FWD car 
again.

John.