[Shotimes] Pontiac unveils SHO successor?

[Ron Porter]

(Slow night at work, so I'll respond to my own posts!!)

All that said, there is one situation where I found FWD to be useful. I had
to do a lot of long drives across Interstates at night for a number of
years, and FWD was useful for testing the slickness of the road in winter.

With an MTX, cruising at 80 is around 3K rpm, so the power starts coming on
when you accelerate. If I would accelerate in 5th at 75-80 at the front
tires broke loose, I had to slow down big time. If they didn't slip, I would
drop to 4th and try it. If they didn't slip then, I would downshift to 3rd
and try it. If it took 3rd gear to break 'em loose, I could proceed at
speed, but slippage in 4th or 5th showed that the road was pretty slick.

This isn't something that I would try with a regular RWD, although I'll try
it with AWD and see what happens.

Ron Porter

-----Original Message-----
From: Ron Porter [mailto:ronporter@prodigy.net] 
Sent: Saturday, October 30, 2004 11:24 PM
To: 'SHO'
Subject: RE: [Shotimes] Pontiac unveils SHO successor?


MUCH better than powerful RWD cars in the snow? Guess you haven't driven RWD
cars with good tires....

The first nasty FWD condition I had was something I had to deal with every
day with the original SHO, namely making a left turn unto a crowned road in
crappy conditions. You can:

1.  Accelerate

	OR

2.  Steer

Can't do both at the same time.

Weight over the drive is not very relevant, IMO. As I mentioned, the best
car we had in the snow was a lightweight Toyota with skinny tires. Same
formula that works with light, low-powered FWD cars.

Which is where FWD should have stayed. After all the years I've spent
driving a FWD car, I still think they are "less than optimal.

Ron Porter

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Heaton [mailto:HiTechRV@gmail.com] 
Sent: Saturday, October 30, 2004 11:02 PM
To: SHO
Subject: Re: [Shotimes] Pontiac unveils SHO successor?


I love powerful FWD cars in all weather conditions, and think they are
MUCH better than powerful RWD cars in the snow.  The weight transfer
that makes RWD good in dry weather is missing in slick conditions and
makes RWD far worse. Traction control helps a lot, but it helps a lot
in FWD too.

The Vibe is a NUMI joint venture car, not a Toyota or a GM.

Jim
'96 TR

On Sat, 30 Oct 2004 19:53:10 -0400, Ron Porter <ronporter@prodigy.net>
wrote:
> Don, the bulk of US car buyers are clueless rubes. Much of the move to AWD
> SUVs is due to big FWD cars being as useless in bad weather as big RWD
cars.
> After having owned/driven smaller, lighter FWD cars, I learned in the
winter
> of '89 that FWD in a SHO was no picnic and had nothing on a RWD car with
an
> LSD and good tires, and in fact was no better than the '86 Z28 TPI AT with
> no LSD that I traded in on it. In '89, my wife bought a new 5.0 GT
5-speed,
> and once we got the same tires on the SHO and the GT, the GT was as good
in
> crappy weather as the SHO.
> 
> In my wife's opinion (and possibly mine, since I drove it), the BEST
winter
> car she had was a '78 Toyota 5-speed (RWD). Low power, skinny tires.
> 
> In 10+ years we will look back on these years with FWD in big, heavy cars
> and comment about what a misguided direction the car mfrs took.
> 
> Ron Porter
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: shotimes-admin@autox.team.net [mailto:shotimes-admin@autox.team.net]
> On Behalf Of Donald Mallinson
> Sent: Saturday, October 30, 2004 10:11 AM
> To: shotimes@autox.team.net
> Subject: Re: [Shotimes] Pontiac unveils SHO successor?
> 
> I think a lot of us (but not me) have forgotten how anti-RWD
> most of the country was at that point.  It has only been the
> last 4-5 years that RWD has started getting some acceptance
> among the general population, and only because of better
> traction control systems.  Some of you may have forgotten
> how truly awful and dangerous RWD is in the snow if you
> don't have the right winter traction devices (snow/ice
> tires) and how great FWD is in comparison.  FWD is not going
> to go away, personally I do NOT want to go back to the main
> part of the population driving around in small light hard to
> control RWD cars.  Note also that most fans of RWD
> enthusiast cars have a FWD or AWD "winter" car for those
> that live where snow flies at ALL during the winter.
> 
> Don Mallinson