2006 Pontiac Gto on 2040-cars

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This or That: 2005 Chrysler Crossfire SRT6 vs. 1984 Pontiac Fiero

Welcome to another round of This or That, where two Autoblog editors pick a topic, pick a side and pull no punches. Last round pitted yours truly against Associate Editor Brandon Turkus, and my chosen VW Vanagon Syncro narrowly defeated Brandon's 1987 Land Rover. In fact, it was, by far, the closest round we've seen, with 1,907 voters seeing things my way (for 50.8 percent of the vote) versus 1,848 votes for Brandon's Rover (49.2 percent). Sweet, sweet victory! For this latest round of This or That, I've roped Editor Greg Migliore into what I think is a rather fun debate. We've each chosen our favorite terrible cars, setting a price limit of $10,000 to make sure neither of us went too crazy with our automotive atrocities. I think we've both chosen terribly... and I mean that in the best way possible. 2005 Chrysler Crossfire SRT6 Jeremy Korzeniewski: Why It's Terrible: Taken in isolation, the Chrysler Crossfire isn't necessarily a terrible car. In fact, it drives pretty darn well, and there's a lot of solid engineering under its slinky shape. Problem is, that engineering was already rather long in the tooth well before Chrysler ever got its hands on it, having come from Mercedes-Benz, which used the basic chassis and drivetrain in a previous version of its SLK coupe and roadster. Granted, the SLK was an okay car, too, but even when new, it hardly set the world on fire with sporty driving dynamics. Chrysler took these decent-but-no-more bits and pieces from the Mercedes parts bin – remember, this car was conceived in the disastrous Merger Of Equals days – and covered them with a rather attractive hard-candy shell. Unfortunately, the super sporty shape wrote checks in the minds of buyers that its well-worn mechanicals were simply unable to cash, though an injection of power courtesy of a supercharged V6 engine in the SRT6 model, as seen here, certainly helped ease some of those woes. In the end, Chrysler was left with a so-called halo car that looked the part but never quite performed the part. It was almost universally panned by critics as an overpriced parts-bin special, which, I must add, was damningly accurate. As a result, sales were very slow, and within the first few months, dealers were clearancing the car at cut-rate prices, just to keep them from taking up too much of the showroom floor. Why It's Not That Terrible, After All: I can speak from personal experience when discussing the Chrysler Crossfire. You see, I owned one. Well, sort of...

World's only 1964 Pontiac XP-833 Banshee coupe for sale by Kia dealer

It seems like there has been a spate of especially odd car sales in the first part of this especially odd year, from the numerous barn finds and homebrew specials to the time capsule cars — like the BMW wrapped in a protective bubble for 23 years. Napoli Kia in Milford, Connecticut, brings us another, via Motor1. Len Napoli is the dealership principal and die-hard Pontiac maven; his father opened Napoli Pontiac in 1958, and Len held onto the franchise until the early 2000s, just before GM shuttered the brand that built excitement. Napoli got hold of the 1964 Pontiac Banshee XP-833 coupe concept, and put the car up for sale through his Kia dealership for $750,000. The exceptional price comes from the fact that Pontiac built two Banshee concepts in 1964, one this silver coupe with a red interior, the other a white roadster, making each concept a one-of-one collector car.      Motor Trend wrote a detailed piece on this one in 2013, the editorial tour hosted by Bill Collins, the Banshee's lead engineer. The short story is that GM exec John Z. DeLorean — yes, him —  gave approval to a small crew at Pontiac to create a two-seater sports car to compete with the Mustang, because GM had nothing to fend off the four-seat coupe that would sell one million units in just 18 months on the market. Collins and his team took inspiration from the 1963 Corvair Monza GT concept, working up a fiberglass body over a steel frame, with a 230-cubic-inch overhead-cam straight-six producing 165 horsepower and 216 pound-feet of torque, a four-speed manual transmission, and 9.5-inch drum brakes at all corners. The idea was that the XP-833 would be "an affordable and fun two-seat sports car," the concept demonstrating the base-model price leader offering a lengthy list of options for those who wanted more. The white roadster, in fact, fitted a 326 cubic-inch V8 under the hood. Rumor says that Chevrolet execs didn't like having another two-seater sports car in the GM fold, especially one with a fiberglass body that held weight down to 2,200 pounds. GM execs took one look at the two concepts in 1965 and shut the project down. The two XP-833s lived in a garage for years, Collins and his colleague Bill Killen getting permission to buy the cars from GM in 1973 before Collins left to help engineer the DeLorean DMC-12. It wasn't until just before Collins departed that the XP-333 got the name Banshee.

Gordon Murray, F1-driven production and .. the Pontiac Fiero

Gordon Murray's design and engineering chops are unquestionable. But does his carmaking approach owe something to the short-lived Pontiac Fiero, a scrappy little car program that emerged from GM against serious resistance? Murray had a Formula One career that ran from 1969 to 1991, with stints at Brabham ('69 to '86) and McLaren ('87-'91), that resulted in several shelves' worth of trophies for the cars he was instrumental in designing. He moved on to McLaren Cars, the consumer side of things, where, during his tenure from 1991 to 2004, he helped design the McLaren F1 and the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren, two cars that took learnings from his two decades in Formula One. What do all of these cars have in common? Three things: They are light. They were built in limited numbers. And they were (and are) exceedingly expensive—when the McLaren F1 debuted in 1994, it stickered at $815,000. Murray went on to establish Gordon Murray Design in 2007. GMD has created some interesting concept vehicles, such as the diminutive T.25 city car (94.5 inches long, 51.1 inches wide and 55.1 inches high), and the OX, a lightweight truck for the developing world that packs like an IKEA shelf and is working toward realization through a worthy crowdfunding campaign established by the Global Vehicle Trust. Now he has created a vehicle manufacturing company, Gordon Murray Automotive, that will use manufacturing methods that he developed under the moniker "iStream." Unlike a unibody, there are the "iFrame," a cage-like construction made with metallic components, and the "iPanels," which are composite. The panels aren't simply a decorative skin; they actually provide structure to the vehicle. Presumably this has something of the F1 monocoque about it. Going back to the three elements, (1) this arrangement results in a vehicle that can be comparatively light; (2) Murray has indicated that his manufacturing company will be doing limited-run production; and (3) to launch Gordon Murray Automotive they are going to be building a flagship model, about which Murray said, "With our first new car, we will demonstrate a return to the design and engineering principles that have made the McLaren F1 such an icon." Which seems to imply that it will be on the pricey side. According to the company's verbiage, "iStream forges an entirely new production method that defies conventionality with its Formula One-derived construction and materials technologies." It also sounds a whole lot like ...