Well I do what I do, it just turns out I've done a lot for the group.
But in all seriousness, Many thanks to all who also make the effort to join in and have fun in the madhouse that can be the Car Of The Week Thread.
Sure some of you might secretly hope, "Does this mean you're gonna let others win?" Well....
If it ain't broke, Don't fix it.
👍
Now I do believe I'm behind on the GT500 and the DMC-12. No better time like now to get them written up.
We'll start with the Live rear axle using, supercharger abusing Ford Shelby Mustang GT500.
Packing a near 700hp after oil changed 5.8 V8 with a Supercharger bolted on top, Its Lambo Aventador rivalling power is sent to the rear tyres via a 6 speed manual gearbox.
So power is there in spades, but the chassis and everything else is not all there.
The car weighs over 1.7 tons so stopping can be lengthy if you overestimate the braking power of the larger Brembo brakes equipped on the GT500, but nothing that can't be managed.
The suspension and weight distribution on the hand is barely manageable if you trying to drive this thing seriously as it understeers like nobodies business.
And if you're not driving it seriously, well...
Put it like this, it's a good car to go sideways in without much modifying.
And another thing to consider, it's cheap at 55k which gives it in terms of horsepower for the price a near impossible to catch lead.
Of course if you try and drive it more serious than what the car likes then you'll probably hate it with the previously mentioned understeer.
And if you decide to meet it halfway and drive it how it likes to be driven, then a lot of smokey tyre shredding fun times are in your future, just don't do it leaving Cars & Coffee.
And if you want to drive it seriously, then do what Shelby keeps doing and tinker with the tyres, suspension and even the weight and it'll serve you well.
But if someone offered me the keys to a GT500 and a GT350R, I'll still take the 350R as it's a modern Shelby Mustang done perfectly. 👍
Verdict: Netural( but for 55K, grab one anyways.
)
Ok, Time for things to get heavy as I talk about the Delorean DMC-12 and to an equal extent, John Delorean himself.
After graduating from the Chrysler Institute with a masters degree in Automotive Engineering in 1952, John Delorean spent less than a year as part of Chrysler's engineering team when he was given a $14K salary at the Packard Motor Company.
Over the 4 years he was there, he improved his attention to engineering detail as well as Packard's "Ultramatic" automatic gearbox to such an extent it was launched as the "Twin-Ultramatic".
In 1956, he was offered a job in any of GM five divisions by then Vice president of GM engineering Oliver Kelley and John chose the Pontiac Division and 5 years later he was promoted to division chief engineer.
In 1964 John's most known creation at Pontiac was unveiled for the Pontiac Tempest/Le Mans, it was of course the GTO which was and still is considered to be the first proper Muscle Car, a car that we have tested IIRC in the past.
The GTO sold like hot cakes and 1965 John was promoted to the head of Pontiacs whole division, John Delorean was now the youngest ever division head at 40 years old and he was hitting the big time.
Over the next few years despite some internal resistance with a few other division heads, things were still looking good as cars like the Firebird and an all new version of the Grand Prix were being sold alongside the GTO and John's jet setting lifestyle and public appearances made sure that everyone knew he wasn't an ordinary conforming businessman.
In 1969 he was given yet another promotion and this time, it was to GM's flagship marque Chevrolet.
In short span of few years, he helped turn around the sales and in 1971 Chevrolet was experiencing record sales of well over 3 million and his division by itself was almost matching what the Ford Motor Company was doing as a whole.
After being promoted yet again to the position of Vice president of car and truck production for the whole of the GM line 1972, it seemed like the role of President was a matter of when, not if for John Delorean and some other GM executives took big issue with that.
A year later in 1973 on April 2nd, John Delorean announced he was leaving the company, but took on a presidency role at the National Alliance of Businessmen which GM was a major contributor to, but while he was there he was also planning his own motor company.
Delorean announced the DMC-12 some time afterwards, but due to production delays (among other things) the car wasn't sold until 1981 and this is when things started to go downhill big time.
The 1980 US recession coupled with not so great reviews by the public and critics alike for its low power and high price among other smaller things meant only 8,583 Delorean's were made before the company was put into receivership in February 1982 and for John Delorean, it was all about to go to hell in a hand basket.
In October that same year, John was arrested on drug trafficking charges with nearly 60 pounds of Cocaine, which was worth about 6.5 million dollars.
Now this is where things get screwy, the informant who tipped the FBI off about the deal was not reporting the truth as he called John and suggested the deal instead of John approaching about a deal.
Why he did this was simple, to save his own ass and get a reduced sentence also on drug trafficking charges involving Cocaine in which he was awaiting trial on.
Combine this with John's criminal record or rather lack of one and the informant's own criminal record who would've stood to benefit from this mess if John was convicted, John's lawyers sucessfuly argued a case for police entrapment and in August 1984 John Delorean was found not guilty, but it was a hollow victory.
I personally believe the only thing John was guilty of was going ahead with the deal instead of backing out, but then again, I wasn't $175 million in debt either nor do I plan to be.
His company was in bankruptcy and his own reputation was forever tarnished and when he was asked that would he return to the auto industry he said with a large degree of bitterness, "Would you buy a used car from me?"
Afterwards the remains of the Delorean Motor Company were sold on to a Texas based firm which services, repairs and restores Deloreans to this day and offer newly built Deloreans and even upgraded versions.
And it's one of those upgraded Deloreans is what we have in GT6.
Packing a little over 200hp after oil change from the same 2.8 PRV V6 that it started life with, its mounted at the back and sends its power to the rear wheels via a 5 speed manual gearbox.
Costing 500,000 Credits, it's not one for those who aren't Gran Turismo Rockefellers, but as I said on race night, you don't buy a Delorean with performance as first priority.
You buy it for the collectibility and the Nostalgia of the Back To The Future movies, which started in 1985.
It's got similar specs to the Scion FR-S in terms of power and maybe even weight(?) and despite the CS tyres was quite fun to drive and there was very close racing in nearly all the races with the Delorean as shown earlier in this thread.
What the Delorean was crying out for though was even more power, it'll get to 500pp without needing boost and can go all the way to near 550pp with a turbo strapped to it.
Given how iconic it still is today, I can't in good faith call it a beater even though it's still very expensive for its performance level and many cheaper cars are quicker.
So I'll settle on a Netural Verdict.
So here we are at the end of a very long post with 2 Neutral verdicts, a low battery and cramped hands from writing this whole thing up and one last question.
Was it worth it?
Well as I look at my spot in the COTW Hall Of Fame, Yeah, it was all worth it.