[Shotimes] OT - What is the SHO considered???

[Ron Nottingham]

> just wondering....
>
> I took my SHO to a local Car Show today, which by the way if anybody was
> wondering I won my class...best Production Car 1990-2004....up against
> nearly 30 other cars..., and I was parked behind a guy and he said he has
> owned 4 SHOs in his day....so we got to talking about them, and it got me
> wondering.....would an SHO be considered American Muscle, or a Japaneese
> Ricer?.......any comments?

It's an American Sports Sedan.  An inexpensive BMW M5, if you will, offering
about 90% of the BMW's performance at half the cost.  It was the first
sports sedan produced by Detroit whose lofty goal was the then current BMW
M5 (E28 body, sold in the US during 1988 only, but sold in Europe much
earlier), and in truth, the first true sports sedan to ever come out of
Detroit (well, technically Atlanta :-).  All other "sports sedans" from
Detroit either didn't handle well, or had anemic engines (with the
exceptions of the '87 Shelby Lancer and earlier Dodge 600 ES Turbo).  Most
of the "sports" sedans were in name only, as they sported lots of vinyl, and
not much in the handling department and very little under the hood.

So, back to your main question as to whether the SHO is considered American
or Japanese...  At the Axis and Allies autox (an event sponsored by either
an Alabama or northern Florida region of the SCCA [can't remember which],
occurring around Dec. 7th, all proceeds to benefit a different charity each
year), cars a categorized as either Axis or Ally, depending on their country
of origin (BTW, Italian cars are classed as Axis for the first half of the
event and Ally for the last half).  I was going to take the SHO down one
year, so I asked the event coordinator where the SHO would be classed, since
the engine was Japanese.  His response was Ally, since the country of
manufacture was the US.

Given only the choice of American Muscle or Japanese Rice, it would be
American Muscle.

Now, for something non-SHO related, but related to this thread.  Isn't it
ironic that GM created Saturn to compete with Japanese cars, but will now
use a Honda V6 in a couple models?

Ron N. - Dalton, GA
90 SHO
89 325i
88 325
"It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile"
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