110mpg 400hp car (video)

[tick68charger]

hope this is not a repost. It's been awhile since i've been to the site.

100 MPG Muscle Car!

[tick68charger]

I hope his design doesn't get berried. maybe the big three will do something with his design.

[1BAD68]

110 mpg 
0-60 in 3 sec.   

I find that very hard to believe

[G-man]

110 miles per gallon... and here im getting told I cant get 550 ft/lbs of torque at the rear wheels for 20mpg. 

I think that guys been getting Anal last 40 years. 

[mally69]

In my thoughts you need Cu. In and fuel or your not gonna have power. I find it very hard to beleive and won't be convinced other wise until I see it happen in person. 

[dodgecharger-fan]

0-60 in 3 sec!!!

D'ya think he was caught off guard by the question and just tossed out an answer?

That's Bugatti Vehron territory, for crying out loud!!

[BigBlackDodge]

 



BBD

[Hemidoug]

Probably have to push it for the first 100 miles....it is a Ford after all......

[ViperRedCharger]

HEHEHE Hemidog that was funny.

[tick68charger]

ya and he has been tweeking it for years. what made him stop at 100mpg?  what about the comment at the end to get up to 500mpg someday.

[Rolling_Thunder]

i believe the news article i saw was the car gets approx 80mpg  -  he is shooting for 100mpg unless he got there already,....        he did alot to improve the efficiency of the engine itself...    he also stated alot of electronics were involved if i remeber correctly...       Think MDS, DIS, mappable fuel curves, mappable timing curves, and such...       

[Finn]

ya and he has been tweeking it for years. what made him stop at 100mpg?  what about the comment at the end to get up to 500mpg someday.

With 500 mpg he'd probably have the 0-60 down to 1.5 seconds. 

[Mike DC]

 
I'm not convinced that this guy is all he's cracked up to be yet, but I do agree there's stil a ton of efficiency left in the internal combusion process to tap into.



We make 300 hp cars because we want to be capable of 300 hp for a tiny fraction of the time it runs. 

Once you get a car/truck up to highway speed, it takes something like barely 20-25 hp to keep it there.  Right now we're still making at least 3 times that much any time the engine is running at all. 

There's room for tons of improvement if we can widen the spread between the high & low output ranges on motors.

 

[Kevin68N71]

BS.  I can't show you, I'm waiting for patents.  Yet he has worked on it for 10 years.  He could have gotten the patents for the main technology and then refined them before release.  What does he do, run it down a long hill coming out of the mountains with his engine off to get the 100 mpg average?

Then when asked what it will do "off the line" he just seem to pick an arbitrary number...um 3 seconds!

This is like the BS with electric cars I keep hearing about.  Oh they'll do 0-60 in 5 seconds, go 200 miles, and you can charge them in 5 minutes!  Yeah, show me the math how you can get that kind of power out of 120v for 5 minutes.  I'll buy an electric car now.

[Mike DC]

   
People talk about the kinds of "modern Manhattan Projects" that we need to solve the energy issues.


For my money, we should quit trying to find another type of fuel/propulsion, and start putting that kind of international effort into electric power storage methods.  Battery tech.  The power we need is being generated hundreds of times over, most of it just gets wasted in one way or another.   

[Steve P.]

I think that most of the things we now take for granted came from someone's crazy thought. FLY.. ROCKET TO THE MOON..  TALK THROUGH A WIRE. RECORD VOICE. THE WHEEL. COMPUTERS. CARS. LIGHT FROM A PIECE OF GLASS AND A WIRE. AIR CONDITIONING. REFRIGERATION. TV.

The list could go for many pages. My point is that if we do NOT try new things and work them out we end up just where we are..


How many of us are ready to go back to living in a cave??


I say, try it all and shoot for the moon and beyond.... 

By the way, how many people KNOW that the efficiency of a combustion engine is only in the 20% range??

One more thing. Years ago my grandfather was into radio controlled cars and planes. He had a car that was about 28 or so inches long that ran off batteries. At a collage in Brockport, NY he ran a fastest speed of 89 MPH across the parking lot. It wasn't all too big and he never got a chance to see what it would top out at but it was more than 15 MPH faster than everyone else. When you take into consideration that he built that car at least 30 years ago and was using THEN modern technology, what do you suppose he could build now?

[Brock Samson]

I hope his design doesn't get berried. maybe the big three will do something with his design.

the "big Three"?..
well Toyota is gonna put solor panels on the Prius next yr...

[Kevin68N71]

By the way, how many people KNOW that the efficiency of a combustion engine is only in the 20% range??

Well much of that inefficiency is heat.  I suppose one could capture that heat, heat up a canister of water, drive a supplementary steam turbine....oh never mind.....

I don't mean to be overly dismissive, but at 47 and having magazine subscriptions and a serious curiosity and love of cars for 40 years, I have heard these things over and over and over and over and over again.  Kind of like the blimps the size of Manhattan on the front of Popular Mechanics.  After a while, it's oh, yeah, I remember this from 20 years ago.  Samples?

These products comes and goes like miracle cleaners...everyone figures it out that it's bogus, so it goes away, only to be brought back in a few years to scam new people.  A good example is the "wind tunnel" product, of various names, that you are supposed to stick in your intake and through "vector air pressure" you get 20-50% better mileage.

For the past 40 years---I have Car and Driver articles from 1963! that show a company converting Karmann Ghias to electric.  (Actually, electric cars were with us from almost the beginning of cars, but the point is, this type of conversion was always in support of the "we're running out of oil"! scares).  How many years have we heard of cars that can go a zillion miles at 100mph with hardly any charge?  Yet when, or if, anyone tests it, it's like a 40 mile range---without air or your stereo on!  And it takes all night to charge.

How many times have I heard you can be "entirely off the grid" by having solar in your house, charging your electric car, and NEVER using any gas?  If this was practical, and not just possible on the sunniest days with a lot of hassle, why isn't just about anyone with a house doing it?  Why? Because it will cost you about $100,000, with gas at $4 a gallon will get you 500,000 miles of driving, or a return on investment after 25 years.  And during that time, you're stuck with limited range, higher electricity bills, and a battery disposal nightmare.  But it works, right?  Why aren't all the millionaire hobbyists at least doing this?

How about the grease oil car?  You know the deal.  Collect filthy grease oil from the restaurants and donut shops around your town.  Fabricate a filtering machine in your garage to separate the stringy fat and cigarette butts from the oil.  Buy an old diesel car and convert it, and run it on this slop.  Then figure a way to dispose of the garbage you filtered out of it.  Then drive your diesel smelling like french fries.  Then look in shock as the restaurant owners get wise and start to charge you for the oil because too many guys are asking for it, and they figure it's worth charging you.  Oh, and you thought there was an unlimited supply of dirty fry oil!  Wonder why you haven't seen this "amazing breakthrough" on TV anymore?


Want to know the real shocker?  Watch what happens if the fuel bubble really does burst.  I am not saying it will, and who knows, gas may stay at $4 a gallon even if we do drill.  However, let's say it drops back down into the $2 range.

The whole Hybrid/Chevy Volt/"I get 100mpg" world goes away and people go back to SUVs.  Which would be hilarious to watch.

The list could go for many pages. My point is that if we do NOT try new things and work them out we end up just where we are..

I have no problem with keeping an open mind.  Just show me the tests.  Show me something works.  I would have wondered about heavier than air flight too, taking into account general knowledge at the time.  But when you SAW something fly, then you can believe it.

Show me the electric car that gives reasonable performance, has a real range, I can have my air on in hot inland CA, and charges up in a few minutes for pennies--and I'll buy it.  We all hear it is out there, but the excuse "the government won't let it happen".  More BS.  Show the technology and let us test your sample...hell, keep the hood closed even, and I will believe it.   Until then, it's just more hot air.

[Kevin68N71]

I hope his design doesn't get berried. maybe the big three will do something with his design.

the "big Three"?..
well Toyota is gonna put solor panels on the Prius next yr...

Really?  That would actually make it look better.  Of course, throwing up on it would make it look better.

[Steve P.]

Kevin, turn on the science channel some time. People DO live for next to nothing using natural resources and at least once a day I smell french fries on the open road.
There is a large club of people here in Tampa Bay that practice what they preach with burning grease. The big problem with it is now the people that USE TO charge to pick up the spent fryer grease are PAYING for it. Those companies have been recycling it for years and are now losing too much business. Also the local govt. has been raising hell with them as they are not paying any excise tax if not buying their fuel at a station. Most of the people around here have removed their GREEN stickers...

Next time you are on your cell phone or pushing buttons on that THING in front of you right now, consider that without someone taking a stab at a crazy idea you would have neither. Hell, some few hundred years ago a small group of people got together and worked on an idea. Next thing you know there was a place called the UNITED STATES were people could live in FREEDOM.

[RallyeMike]

CNN reported it. It must be true.

[Kevin68N71]

Kevin, turn on the science channel some time. People DO live for next to nothing using natural resources and at least once a day I smell french fries on the open road.
There is a large club of people here in Tampa Bay that practice what they preach with burning grease. The big problem with it is now the people that USE TO charge to pick up the spent fryer grease are PAYING for it. Those companies have been recycling it for years and are now losing too much business. Also the local govt. has been raising hell with them as they are not paying any excise tax if not buying their fuel at a station. Most of the people around here have removed their GREEN stickers...

Next time you are on your cell phone or pushing buttons on that THING in front of you right now, consider that without someone taking a stab at a crazy idea you would have neither. Hell, some few hundred years ago a small group of people got together and worked on an idea. Next thing you know there was a place called the UNITED STATES were people could live in FREEDOM.

My only point is that we have been hearing about these things as cure-alls for years.  These are not new inventions on the level of the internet, or heavier than air flight, or the founding of the country. Many of these things are not new technologies at all. (I could send you the data on the Briggs and Stratten Hybrid from 1975, but never mind that now).  Many of these things are bogus, and MANY of them are pure scams. Many of them have some level of functionality, but are not anywhere near practical. I've named some.

I have no problem with people trying different things, and inventing things. Go for it.  Just don't tell me they do what they cannot--like the "water engine" which ran on "pure water", and whose inventor "died under mysterious circumstances and all his plans were stolen".  I could go on an on.  Or the Prius that could get twice the mileage that the people who bought them found they were getting.

I watch the science channels all the time, but unlike many people, I dig deeper into stories.  Do your research, you'll find there's not enough "restaurant grease" to run anything more than a niche number of people running their diesels.  And you yourself stated it's no longer free. Why should it be if it has value?  And just because the grease was used once, does not mean that it was NOT produced using resources itself.  Where does that oil come from?  Corn is harvested by machines.  Transported and processed by equipment requiring fuel.  That oil did not just appear in the grease dumpster.  You started out your response about people using "natural resources".  Processed corn oil is no more natural than processed oil from the ground.

And sorry Steve, I don't agree with your analogy of the exaggeration of niche and bogus technologies to freedom.  I never said a word about people being free to to pursue whatever they want and try to sell it.   If you can build an electric car that really performs, I'll buy it.  Just don't lie to me about what it can do.

Freedom does not mean free to scam me.

[Mike DC]

             
We could get 100 mpg today if we'd accept some compromises on the vehicle. 

A 1940s Volkswagen Beetle is about as technologically developed as a lawnmower, and yet it gets gas mileage up there with the best hi-tech electric hybirds of today.  All it has to do is have 40hp, have no real climate control & no power accessories, and weigh under a ton. 




Look at our demands.  They're crazy: 

We basically insist on being able to drive a rolling living room, at 70 mph, with out even putting much muscle effort into the controls, that still can maneuver & stop nimbly . . .  all that, and we also demand to be able to run head-on into a blunt object and walk away without a scratch, being restrained by only one thin loose strap of nylon.


And the whole thing has to last long enough to go a couple of times around the earth before you have to open the hood with a wrench for the first time.  If it costs more in maintinence/repairs than about 1/4th of the original purchase price during its lifetime, we call it a piece of crap.  If it has to be retired before it's made enough miles to circle the planet at least 5-8 times on such little maintinence, we call it a piece of crap.


Oh yeah, and it also has to be affordable enough for every adult & high school kid to have their own. 

[Steve P.]

I'm not picking a fight here. i am saying that without people dreaming and working on those dreams we are all still cave men.

The used oil deal is helping people save a pile of money. It also helps you and I at the pump due to the number of people that ARE using it is that same amount of people not at the pump. It also helps as it is not oil from carbon. So they are not putting tons of crap in the air..

Every person or company out there is adding something to the mix. Sure, plenty of garbage is out there. I agree. My point is to stir any pot other than the one that allows people to look at a HALF FULL glass.

I'm not much on conspiracy theories. I do, however, believe that those in power get things done or get things squashed. For instance: The GM EV1. That was a GM car produced with up to date technology of the day. Many of the people that had them loved them. GM only put them on the market under a lease. No one could ever buy one. That may have had many reasons or only one. The end result was that GM took every one of them back and crushed them. (One left in a museum WITHOUT it's drive train). The fact is that those cars were cheaper to fuel up and drive than anything else then. The BIGGER fact is that the electric motors will last longer than any combustion engine out there with almost no maintenance. They could do everything an every day car can do except fuel back up in a matter of a few minutes. Not great for long distance, but fantastic for daily commute to and from work and the grocery store. The only reason I can think of for removing them from use and killing the program is that GM will have nothing to sell if nothing is broken. Then what??

We will need crude oil for as far as I can see into our future. It is used in just about everything in your home, office and hell, just about everything we touch all day long. This includes fabrics and plastics as well. This means that the cost of nearly everything will rise with the rise in oil costs. So why not bring down the use of oil? It will save us on everything else as well.

I damn sure don't have all the info or all the answers. I just believe we NEED to find other sources of fuels and put them to work. Wind and solar are an everyday occurrence. They are also FREE. Capturing it and storing it is costly, yes. But continuing as we are today is only going to make matters worse for everyone.


Again this is my 

[Steve P.]

             
We could get 100 mpg today if we'd accept some compromises on the vehicle. 

A 1940s Volkswagen Beetle is about as technologically developed as a lawnmower, and yet it gets gas mileage up there with the best hi-tech electric hybrids of today.  All it has to do is have 40hp, have no real climate control & no power accessories, and weigh under a ton. 




Look at our demands.  They're crazy: 

We basically insist on being able to drive a rolling living room, at 70 mph, with out even putting much muscle effort into the controls, that still can maneuver & stop nimbly . . .  all that, and we also demand to be able to run head-on into a blunt object and walk away without a scratch, being restrained by only one thin loose strap of nylon.


And the whole thing has to last long enough to go a couple of times around the earth before you have to open the hood with a wrench for the first time.  If it costs more in maintenance/repairs than about 1/4th of the original purchase price during its lifetime, we call it a piece of crap.  If it has to be retired before it's made enough miles to circle the planet at least 5-8 times on such little maintenance, we call it a piece of crap.


Oh yeah, and it also has to be affordable enough for every adult & high school kid to have their own. 

I agree, but you forgot to mention that they also MUST be able to climb extreme terrain without a scratch or spilling a drop of your Perrier or Starbucks double mocha cappuccino with a twist of whatever they charge 2 gallons of gas for. 

Also, I bet they could figure out how to get 100 MPG and even do it making 60 HP...    The fact is that with technology they have figured out how to better MPG. Problem is that we, (as a country), want more luxury and power and size. Now that we are paying the price for it we are again screaming for change. Yes, me too.... 

[Kevin68N71]

Mike, you are completely right.

I had a next door neighbor that complained that his Ford Explorer was a POS.  I asked him what was wrong.  He said his steering squeaked, and he took it in and the dealer replaced the steering column for free.  Then he told me his check engine light was on.  I asked him if he ever had it serviced, and, no kidding, he asked me, why?  Yeah, the car was a real POS alright.

On the EV1, I agree with Steve that I don't do conspiracy theories.  No publicly traded company is going to pump millions into a program then just stop it because...I don't know, the oil "cartel", Dick Cheney, or whatever bad guy you want to choose told them to.

The EV1 did not sell well.  The storage facility in Van Nuys had a ton of them rotting away that people did not want to buy.  They did not have the range, and why would you deal with that back with cheap gas? 

GM sold them under a lease for a very good reason.  The idea was that battery technology and control technology would have advances.  By bringing the cars back and leasing you a new one, you got the new technology and GM would not have to worry about replacing the older batteries.

As far as not selling them, this was a liability issue.  GM had no idea how those batteries would age, or any danger with age they might have.  The didn't want to continue to provide parts for them, nor have them serviced anymore.  The sales performance was poor.

I have seen ex-owners attempt to re-write history by saying that big bad GM would not let them keep "their cars".  News for them, they never WERE "their cars".  It was a lease program for GM, and the public demand for the cars was not there.  GM would love to have done a 2nd, 3rd, 4th generation of these vehicles, but there was no money in it.  As a public company, you gotta look at the bottom line and the stockholder shares value.  I think they were only able to lease 800 out of 1000 made.


http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950CE3D6143FF931A15753C1A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2

[Steve P.]

I don't agree with that at all.. Americans will buy rubber turds, mood rings and hairy pots all day long as long as you advertise it on TV. The worst garbage ever thought of is salable if it is promoted well. The fact is GM barely showed the car at all. I jut watched a show about the EV1 and they said that EVERY EV1 was leased and most owners were trying to buy the cars outright even before the lease was up. The cars sitting in the lots were the previously leased cars that GM crushed. Most of the info came from the people that worked on the EV1 project. Some of them are still with GM.

The science channel just did a piece on an electric car that kicked the crap out of a couple of the fastest production cars in the world.

My thought is this. The beginning of GAS cars was nearly shot down because people just could not get their head around the infrastructure. Also they had no clue how it was going to operate or how to fix any problems. They knew how to feed and water their horses just fine..

The diesel engine was designed to run on PEANUT OIL. NOT carbon fuels. That got shot down even though it would have put many people to work and not dumped tons of crap into our air.

Electric cars were made many, many years ago and shot down due to bad battery capacity..

So with all of the tech. today and the gazzzzzzilllllllions of dollars spent and made by the auto makers and the government, do you think maybe if we had been putting our heads into electric storage all of this time instead of killing projects that we would be in this economic death? Who knows.. I know we went to the moon a time or two.....

[Kevin68N71]

I don't agree with that at all.. Americans will buy rubber turds, mood rings and hairy pots all day long as long as you advertise it on TV. The worst garbage ever thought of is salable if it is promoted well. The fact is GM barely showed the car at all. I jut watched a show about the EV1 and they said that EVERY EV1 was leased and most owners were trying to buy the cars outright even before the lease was up. The cars sitting in the lots were the previously leased cars that GM crushed. Most of the info came from the people that worked on the EV1 project. Some of them are still with GM.

The science channel just did a piece on an electric car that kicked the crap out of a couple of the fastest production cars in the world.

My thought is this. The beginning of GAS cars was nearly shot down because people just could not get their head around the infrastructure. Also they had no clue how it was going to operate or how to fix any problems. They knew how to feed and water their horses just fine..

The diesel engine was designed to run on PEANUT OIL. NOT carbon fuels. That got shot down even though it would have put many people to work and not dumped tons of crap into our air.

Electric cars were made many, many years ago and shot down due to bad battery capacity..

So with all of the tech. today and the gazzzzzzilllllllions of dollars spent and made by the auto makers and the government, do you think maybe if we had been putting our heads into electric storage all of this time instead of killing projects that we would be in this economic death? Who knows.. I know we went to the moon a time or two.....

Didn't advertise it?  How many times did I have to sit through the "appliances are alive" commercials here in CA?

Did you read the article?  They could only lease 800 of the 1000.  People don't want a limited range vehicle back when gas was $2 a gallon.  There was no market for it.  Comparing it to late night $9.95 steak knives doesn't work...a lot different with an expensive car.

Gas cars did not take off because people could not get their heads around it, they were too expensive until mass production.  But the manufacturers could SEE a market was there.  GM thought a market was there, and lost gazillions with the thing.

Yes, a diesel engine can run on all sorts of things.  But where are you going to grow all this vegetable matter to run on, and at what expense to the cost of FOOD growing on that land?  We are going through more expensive food prices because of the joke programs of turning food into gas.

The markets have worked with these issues for years.  It's not conspiracies or foolish thinking...it's the market!  What sells the best and cheapest wins.  Gas from oil is by far the cheapest to produce, is abundant, and is the best fuel for now.  There are alternatives...many of which cost more to produce than gas for what  you get out of it.

What I never get out of these debates is this--if any of these ideas are so great, why are they not in play, with people making GAZILLIONS of dollars off it?  Why? As I keep saying until I am blue in the face, the ECONOMICS are not there.  The alternatives are available at a price point that people don't want to pay.

One final note, of COURSE you are going to get positive feedback for the EV-1 for people who had them or worked on them.  They were the small demographic for which the car worked!  It doesn't change the fact that most people don't fit the demographic, and the car was a failure.  How many times does GM have to say they would have loved to sell tons of these and make back their R and D?

You think its all advertising.  In the HUGE California test market, with all the TV advertising, they leased 800?  Therein lies the problem.  People talk big about buying electric cars, but the market is tiny at that cost with that performance.

[Steve P.]

Debate is good.


The demographic WAS in CALIFORNIA...  I am in Florida. A buddy in NY. asked if I saw the show and asked if I had ever heard of the EV1 before.. He had never seen the ads either. (Yes, they showed the ad during this show). They also said that ads for them were tiny in comparison to most other car ads. 

The comparo to knives and rubber dog crap is probably not good. Let's use the HUMMER... The first Hummer on the market was a monster and everyone I knew and spoke to about them said they would never sell.. I told them all it would and it would sell big. 24" wheels do nothing for a cars performance either, but you don't have to look far to see plenty of them..

As far as growing what we can burn, well I find it funny, or tragic, that the US was known as the people that got things done. Only we have seen this coming for ages and done nothing. Brazil, on the other hand, did something about it more than 30 years ago and grows most of their fuel. Nearly all of their trucks and a huge percentage of their cars are diesel and burning what they grow. Nearly all the rest are flex fuel and a large percentage of them are made in the USA... This has been the norm there for years and the US had provided most of the vehicles that are flex. Why did flex cars only start here a few years ago?

Much of the problem with WHO WILL GROW IT and FOR WHAT PRICE is a logistical problem.. The fact is, we are NOT utilizing a huge percentage of this country now. Farmers in the mid west want to grow corn as that is what they know. Switch grass grows faster and takes no maintenance. Florida is NOW starting to use switch grass and what used to be the useless parts from sugar cane. They are working with sea weed and other growth from waterways. Many of our police forces use propane to substitute gasoline.

Obviously I don't have all the facts or I would be beating on the doors of congress. BUT,,, I know we can do better and need to now.



It's funny how we never worry about anything until we are threatened by death or a bare wallet. 

[Mike DC]

   
We're not gonna have any farmland left if we don't get some land management in this country. 



I read a statistic that between 1995 and 2005, the total amount of earthen land that was paved/concreted over in the United States was enough to cover INDIANA. 

Future American farmers can't grow crops on abandoned suburban neighborhoods & strip-mall parking lots.  If we ever want that land back, somebody has to pay to dig up that pavement and haul it off to a landfill.  (Hopefully we can fit it all into a landfill that's no more than the size of New Hampshire, ya think?)



Right now, we basically think it works to let any developer build anything he chooses on any piece of land he can afford.  This has been a gigantic 50-year-long mistake that we'll be paying for eventually.

         

[WingCharger]

.

[Kevin68N71]

Heres what it comes down too.  All us Americans want the transition to be painless. I could argue on this for hours, but I need  to get in bed early for the fair tomorrow. IT WILL NOT BE PAINLESS!! That would be impossible. To save our natural resources, you will have to give up that Hummer sitting in your condos driveway that has never seen dirt, and get a car the size of a Yugo. I believe we have become way to much of "more is better culture". I have this too. (A six pack is better than a quad) We all do. (Charger instead of a Festiva)
I have seen firsthand agricultural land turned into subdivsions. Even though I am only 14. My grandparents used to be the only people living on my road, now there is a house everywhere. I hate subdivions, and want them to go away. They have ruined our country. If we ever had to go back to a lifestyle of the 1920s, where if you lived on a farm, you grew everything you needed, and if you lived in a city, you worked in a factory to make the farm implements, due to gas prices, it would be impossible. Because 50% of our culture lives in a subdivision where they have to drive everywhere. If you live in a city, rail would deliver in the 20s. Farmers had horses.

You're buying into the belief that our resources have a limit.  When I was in high school, in the 70s, my energy "expert" ex-brother in law said we have 30 years of oil left, and we were all in for a disaster. Magazines of the time repeated this.  Now we're pushing 40 years since then and starting again to hear this "peak oil" stuff.  Then someone comes  up with another huge deposit.

We have enough oil shale in the rockies to sustain us for decades.  The answer, a multi-faceted energy policy.  Drill, nuclear and renewable energy where it makes sense.  Conservation and renewable energy by themselves are a joke, and if that is our energy platform, we might as well give it all up to China--who has no restrictions, and watch our economy tank.

I am trying to grasp the negativity towards the suburbs. A guy should not be able to save up and buy a house in the suburbs?  He should only have an apartment and commute on a train? Not be allowed to drive a car that allows him to pull a trailer?  Isn't that his business?

So there should be no Hummers?  How about boats?  Motorhomes.  Trailers.  Get rid of those too, and all those industries and jobs?  Why not tell people they can't fly on vacation, as it's a waste of "natural resources".  Outlaw a/c too.

Here we are on a site that celebrates essentially toys.  Few people depend on their Charger R/T to get to work, most have them for pleasure.  Why are we doing this, if we are in such dire straits?  Why not force everyone to junk their "old gas guzzling cars"?

It's no one's business how much or little energy I use.  For every person admonishing someone for their Hummer, I'll point to a Honda driver that takes three vacations a year, overwaters their lawn, leaves their TV on all night, and uses too much A/C.  A Hummer is just an easy target.

Last time I checked, it's a free country, and I get to use as much or little energy as I wish to pay for.  Anything else starts to lean the country in a very, very dangerous direction.

[Mike DC]

       
The suburbs DO have serious problems.  When they've expanded to this point, they're a mess. 



Q.  Why are we out of shape & unhealthy?  
A.  Because we drive instead of walk everywhere.  Because we eat too much fast food at drive-thrus.  Because our kids can't get anywhere on their bikes, because the town is too sprawled-out to make anything in bike-range of them except more houses, so they sit inside all day.  The list goes on and on.  Americans didn't change their DNA in the last 40 years to get so much less healthy, we changed our lifestyle radically. 


Q.  Why do we get so ravaged by a slight spike in gas prices? 
A.  Because the vast majority of the population can't even exist in daily life without driving huge distances for even basic things like a cup of coffee.  We can't buy gorceries, get to work, ANYTHING without personal cars.  Everyone in America needs a car = everyone in America competes for a finite supply of gas every day = gas is expensive as a MoFo.  It's not exactly the only oil problem we've got right now, but it's an unnessecary problem that we shouldn't have given ourselves. 


Q.  Why does public transportation suck?
A.  Because it can't possibly work in suburbia.  It works fine in true urban areas where things are compact like NY or London or urban SanFran.  It's a bad joke in suburban Missouri.  The amount of money they throw at it is irrelevant, it's never going to be anything but a punchline in an area with such a tiny population density.


Q.  Why are diverse small businesses all getting big-boxed out to China so fast & badly?
A.  The reasons are complex & many, but the fact that big-box stores even work very well is a product of suburbia.  It's the only reason we have the cars to carry these items home in, the oversized homes to store them in, and the space to cover with a huge Wal-Mart in the first place.  Without suburbia, everyone looks pretty stupid trying to carry 50-pound bags of Cheerios home on the subway.  (They still get Cheerios, they just buy a reasonably-sized box.  And they subconsciously eat less of it at one sitting.)


Q.  Why are our inner-cities such a mess in so many cases? 
A.  Many things again, but it doesn't help that they're abandoned by anyone with money.  It's easy to let 100,000 urban dwellings rot out & fall to gangs when everyone with decent money just buys a fresh house 10 miles farther out every two decades.  There's no more demand from (the people who matter) to FIX anything in the decaying cities.  And with no money from property taxes & no affluent parents pushing certain issues, the inner-city schools fall apart soon, which leads to even less demand for housing improvements as the desirability of the area falls ever more . . .




Suburbs are fine within reason IMHO. 

But what has gone on in the last couple of generations is not reasonable anymore.  It's a compulsive plastic building spree that is having serious detrimential long-term effects on the whole society. 

   

[dkn1997]

some good points, but I will say that kids are out of shape and unhealthy because of their parents allow it. 

[Ghoste]

You forgot the endless pressure to consume.  The priests of the free market religion bombard us every waking second with the message that in order to be good Americans, to be beautiful, to be happy, to live large, we must BUY! BUY! BUY! 
You need suburbia to have good consumers with a place to put all that important stuff.

[Kevin68N71]

Well, I have some other points of view....

Out of shape and unhealthy...I agree this is more the fast food mentality than anything, and not watching what you eat.  You can exercise alot, but if you consume more than you burn, you get fat.

I grew up in suburbia.  Great sprawling developments that I wouldn't trade anything for.  I was thin as a twig because us kids DID ride our bikes EVERYWHERE.  There was a small mall 3 miles away, riding to that and back was not even considered a big ride.  Everyone had a basketball hoop over their garage, and playing basketball (without having to wait your "turn" in some dumpy city court) for two hours was hardly thought of as even exercise.  There wasn't a plump kid on the block.

We've had suburbs since the GI's came home after WWII.  Suddenly now, they're a problem?  Exactly how is growing up in a city better?  I live in suburbia now because of all it offers my kids.  We have huge soccer fields for sports and for flying our RC planes.  Fields for flying and chasing after rockets.  My kids have a huge yard to play in and for me to store my cars.  I have garage space.  If I want culture, downtown LA is 45 miles away.  We have libraries and places of interest, like most suburbs if you look.

Here we are on a COLLECTORS website...where exactly BUT the suburbs would you stash your pristine Charger?  A city garage for $500 a month? 

Please try to convince me how suburbs are so awful.

More and more cities have, as many articles on the subject will tell you, work areas spread out in "nodes".  Downtown areas, or the "real cities", no longer are the sole hub of business.  Businesses are spread out, and so is housing areas of all types.  Some call it sprawl, I call it choice.  You're no longer bound to having to work downtown and commute to a handful of places to live.  There's a good chance that the facility you work in is out in the suburbs too.

In the company I work for, over 50% of the work force is telecommuters, which is a HUGE growing segment.  My wife works in sales, her home is her office, in fact, there IS no LA office, it's all in NYC.  So when she drives, she is directly visiting customers.  This is a growing trend for the millions of people who find themselves in sales.

So all the trends are not necessarily bad.  And since this is a free society, be my guest to move into the city.  Hey, you'll find alot of museums you will likely not go to, crowded shopping, no parking spaces, crummy schools, noise, and alot more pollution.

Have at it.

[Steve P.]

I don't want to cut anything or anyone out.. I LOVE my 2002 F-250 Super Duty, Super Crew, 10 piston comfortable monster. I can tow nearly anything I can think of with it. Certainly more than I will ever need it to tow. It has all the bells and whistles and the seats are better than the nearly $5000.00 couch and chair in my living room.  I was also living large in the country before moving to Florida and again once we did move here. I WANT my space...

We are in America. That doesn't make us right or wrong. Only pigs. We alllllways seam to want much more than we really need. None of us NEED to drive out R/T back and forth to work. We WANT to. We do much of what we do because WE CAN..... We ALSO swallow so much crap from the "THIS IS WHAT YOU NEED" people that we are allowing it to make life more difficult instead of better. Nike sneakers will make you run, jump and shoot a basketball just like Jordon. Taking the HUMMER down the mountain 6 miles to the mailbox and then back. YUP!! That's what we all need to do!!! It all depends on what the BOOB TUBE is telling us the the Jones's have and we should too. It's BS. Like I said before, (rubber dog crap). Mood rings...

It does not matter to me if they find enough oil to last another 50 years. That is just a damn lazy excuse to me. My kids and grand kids and their kids will then have to deal with the problems we KNOW we can do something about today. What are we doing to future generations if we do nothing. Again, PIGS...

There is and should be absolutely no excuse to not get to work on free natural energy. I would enjoy driving a full blown Suburban again. With it's roof mass large enough to soak in plenty of free power.. Now I just need to figure out just how to make that work..

[Ghoste]

It's not just Americans, it's humans everywhere.  As the Chinese become more affluent with our former manufacturing jobs, what do they want?  A North American diet, blue jeans, and a car.  Mankind has invented nearly everything to make his life easier in some way.  (even many tools of war)

[WingCharger]

.

[Kevin68N71]

Steve, while I don't agree with calling my fellow American's pigs, you are touching on a central point here.

The hypocrisy here my friends is stunning.

Here we are on a COLLECTORS website, and you folks are bitching about crass American consumerism.  WTF?  If you want to prioritize anything in terms of importance, a vintage Charger certainly is low on the list.

Let me see, you guys (and me included) buy seat covers, paint, vinyl tops, new parts, tires, batteries and all the rest for your toy.  You use "precious natural resources" to drive to shows or around town.

But people who are NOT interested in cars, whose interests may be big screens at Walmart, or buying toys for their kids, THEY'RE the crazy consumers.

Do I have that right?

You guys are bitching about the suburbs, while your collector car is tucked neatly in your SUBURBAN GARAGE.  You scream about gas prices, but how many of you have I seen in pictures with your big Dodge truck?

So let me see if I got this right...it's ok for YOU, just not for THEM!

Do I need to go on?

[Kevin68N71]

Here we are on a COLLECTORS website...where exactly BUT the suburbs would you stash your pristine Charger?  A city garage for $500 a month? 

I live on a farm. I will store it in the shop!

Ok, so I see.  It's ok for you, because you have a farm.  So the choices American should have is, buy a farm, or live in a city.  Do I have that right?

[Steve P.]

No.. You don't need to go on.  We all have our opinions. We can agree or not or find some middle grounds. The point of debate is to see if the other opinions have merit. There is something to be said in all aspects of this. Pigs.. Yes we are.. We all have much more than we need to survive. By a long shot. Many people in this World DON'T have anything and they survive. We just want more and we want it perfect and we want it cheep and NOW.  That is why I use the word PIG.

Yes... We are here on a site all about our hobby. Yes. I am a PIG as well...


I grew up in the city. Very small parcels of land and about 4 miles from the mall. Less than a mile from Kodak. Most people we knew lived within a few miles of their work.. I was very thin and also used my bike for getting around. Many hoops in between us in out back yards. Good schools and all the amenities. I had a pretty good upbringing in the city. Then my wife and I bought our first house in the city for all the same reasons everyone I knew lived there. SAVE MONEY FOR THE COUNTRY HOUSE.. AS WE DID......

You act as though I am putting you, us down. No. All I am saying is that we are not stupid. We can have our cake and eat it too. We just need to be smarter about it and leave this place better than it is. Like this hobby. It's becoming rare that anyone restores a car back to it's EXACT, from the factory everything. We upgrade most of them. Brakes, paint, fitments, engine parts, etc...  We have the technology and know it works, so why not??  That is all I am saying about this entire topic. We can WANT in one hand and SH_T in the other, but today we know how to turn the sh_t into fuel....  WHY THE HELL NOT??

[Mike DC]

I also grew up in suburbia too.  I have a lot of fond memories of it.  I also used to to bike a couple of miles all the time and play sports in the afternoons.  My friends & I were never fat either. 

But everything I named was a worsening problem in the 1970s & 80s, and it has been getting MUCH worse since then.  The density loss, the distances between things, the lack of decent parks, etc.




And our beloved old cars, in relation to suburbia? 



My father's suburban house is on about 1/2 an acre of land, and the house & garage eats up a fraction of that.

When I was a teenager, I KNEW these cars would be getting much more expensive in the future.  I wished I could have been storing up some spare Chargers because they were still cheap.  But I couldn't store one extra 17-foot-old Charger shell on a property that's 200' long on each side, because it wouldn't have "looked good" to the neighbors.  Same with building a decent big garange on that property. 

All I would have been allowed to do with that property, by societal rules, is pay property taxes for it.  That, and mow the grass on it every other weekend for fear of angry notices & fines as per the neighborhood rules.

 

[WingCharger]

.

[Steve P.]

I hear ya Mike. Since blowing my back out, we have moved back to a small house on a postage stamp. I miss having room for the cars and boat and trailer. I miss having room between me and my neighbors. Also getting tired of them reaching across to borrow the soap when I'm in the shower.  Ok, it isn't that bad, but you get the picture.

The pisser to me is that in my fathers time and my grandfathers time the US was the place it seemed everyone else wanted to be. We were growing at an enormous pace and had the work and tech. to provide for everyone. Somewhere along the line other countries caught up and then passed us. Started putting our CAN DO ideals into their play and now, it seems, have blown us out of the water. We use to be the World leaders in tech., workers, spirit and top of the line was the least everyone expected from us. Now many of us still think that HERE, but many other countries DON'T. We have lost our leadership in the World market along with our clout.

My mother says that we use to be a WE CAN AND WILL society. Now she calls it a ME< ME< ME cave. Looking around I see what she means. Yes, we still put out product, but not at the rate we once did and not at the high quality level that was the norm. Some, not all.

Again, I just think we can do better.....

[Kevin68N71]

We have the technology to be completly non dependent on others countries, but dont use it. Why? Three Resons:

1. We have to trade with other countries to keep good relations. 
2. Big oil wont allow any of their records profits from record prices go down the toilet. 
3. WE ARE TOO LAZY TO FULLY DEVELOP IT!!!

You've got the first part right, let me re-write the reasons for you.

1. Historically we have traded with other countries and bought more and more of their oil not because it was "good relations" but it was the CHEAPEST thing to do.  That's what's called a free market.  Let's say gas was still at $2.00 a gallon.  Would you have opted to pay $2.00 a gallon, or $5.00 a gallon for oil produced at home?

2. Big oil is absolutely making record profits.  You can too, buy their stock.  Their mission is to return maximum investment to their stockholders.  That's called business.  Big oil is not making bigger money now because they set the oil price.  They don't.  Oil is a world commodity sold on the markets.  Gas prices go up because of fear that we will pay MORE in the future. That's called speculation, which in and of itself is not a bad thing, it's how ALL commodities work.  Right now, demand outstrips supply about 5%. Market forces, what is called supply and demand, come into play.

3. No company develops ANYTHING unless there is a profit incentive.  Would you invest your personal funds knowing you would not get money out of it?  How is that lazy?  The reason we are not developing more fuels at home is the government's refusal to let companies explore and drill, they don't let us build nuclear so that we have better electricity generation, and they just tell us to stop driving and slow down.  That's leadership?  As I have stated, we have plenty of shale, oil deposits on and off shore, and lots of opportunities right in this country.  It may cost more initially to get it, but it's worth it if for nothing more than security.  However, there has to be a profit incentive for it.

By the way, let's not forget that MOST of our oil imports are from Canada and Mexico, and not the middle east!

[Steve P.]

From Kevin:

1. Historically we have traded with other countries and bought more and more of their oil not because it was "good relations" but it was the CHEAPEST thing to do.  That's what's called a free market.  Let's say gas was still at $2.00 a gallon.  Would you have opted to pay $2.00 a gallon, or $5.00 a gallon for oil produced at home?


I might add: The depletion of other countries oil makes this countries oil worth much more in the long run.

As I said before, even if we figure out how to run a car on water or the sun or a swift kick in the bumper, we still will need crude oil to produce our plastics and lubricate out bearings and so on...

[Mike DC]

           

I have no beef with oil being a for-profit commodity that companies make a huge profit from.


I have a big beef with our society working hard to help force a dependency on oil like it's a utlilty, and then leaving its pricing as uncontrolled as a luxury.  We would not stand for this situation if it was some other life necessity. 

Imagine if the govt wasn't controlling the prices of water, and it was being pipelined in from foreign sellers (with US govt subsidies).  Would we also let the US govt artificually dam-up the natural sources from reaching people at the same time?  Hell no.  But when you get right down to it, this is not so different from what we've done with oil. 



It took plenty of govt help to get us all this dependent on oil in the first place.  It's time for govt help to fight the dependency. 

[Kevin68N71]

From Kevin:

1. Historically we have traded with other countries and bought more and more of their oil not because it was "good relations" but it was the CHEAPEST thing to do.  That's what's called a free market.  Let's say gas was still at $2.00 a gallon.  Would you have opted to pay $2.00 a gallon, or $5.00 a gallon for oil produced at home?


I might add: The depletion of other countries oil makes this countries oil worth much more in the long run.

As I said before, even if we figure out how to run a car on water or the sun or a swift kick in the bumper, we still will need crude oil to produce our plastics and lubricate out bearings and so on...

Precisely, not to mention you have the old fleet, engines that must continue to run on gas in some applications, etc.

We will have gas stations 40 years from now.  Sounds like a long time, but it goes by in a flash.  Development of new technologies can take decades to refine.  And people find it hard to admit that the internal combustion engine is a very good overall balanced example of weight, simplicity, and power for energy put in.

It will be replaced when technology and performance bring us an alternative for cheaper.

Mike, your water analogy is a great one.  If it were about water, Nancy Pelosi would be run out of town on a rail.  Ok ok, putting my political hatchet away and going back to dreaming about Hemi Chargers for a while!