hrothgar02

Like many of you, I am an avid car enthusiast. I did not experience the 60's and 70's but I do know the history. 60's - horsepower war; big cubic engines with crazy SAE HP ratings; MPG be damned. Late 70's and 80's - CAFE; OPEC embargo; we end up with horsepower enemic cars (i.e 190hp Corvette and a Mustang based off a Pinto).

2003 - present = unbridled and cheap horsepower. 300-400hp is easily attained (SRT8's, Mustangs, Corvettes, 350Z etc). 400hp is readily available albeit at a higher cost. 500hp-600+hp in production cars? This was only a dream in the 90's.

We are now facing 35mpg CAFE and stricter emissions control. GM has announce that it's shelving the Northstar V8 engines. What does this mean for large displacement V8+ engines and performance? How many C class cars can Mercedes sell to meet the 35mpg requirements? I don't know about you but I think I might hang on to my 5.4 liter Mercedes for a while. I fear the future. I drive the 2006 Honda Hybrid for my commuter / beater car and I hate every minute of it (I am going to sell it and make my CLK55 a daily driver). I can't imagine driving a 9 second 0-60 economobile or a compromised "performance vehicle" (i.e some funky hybrid or enthanol boosted technology 4 cylinder engine) daily in the name of CAFE and emissions. Your thoughts?

Chappy

The insurance companies were the first ones to kill the hp wars.

rsr911

"I will give up my performance car when they pry my cold dead fingers from it!"

LONG LIVE AMG!!!!!!

Jakpro1

As long as companies like Nissan keep pumping out cars like the GTR and Lexus keeps upping the ante with new performance cars, the horsepower wars continue.

I do think we are nearing the top of the bell curve however. Once cars are near 600-700hp, people will be wiping it left and right, Greens will be screaming "save the planet" and the gov/fun police will have to step in.

On a side note, I think technology has come quite a long way now. My E55 basically gets the same mileage now if not BETTER (highway) as it approaches 750hp with mods. Course once you stomp it, it's single digits but welllll ya know. I really think they can make some serious horsepower with higher mpg thanks to technology.

Bottom line, KEEP BUYING THEM!!! All these companies really care about is cash. As long as we keep buying, they'll keep making right up until the gov shuts them down.

silver_metallic

Mercedes paid $35 million dollars in fines last year for not meeting CAFE regulations. They will probably pay more in 2008. I'm not so sure the HP wars are over. If anything, we'll be paying a lot more for Benzes with power.

Chappy

Chappy

I keep trying to entice you to come down for the meets and school us with those 750 horses.

SoCalCLK

The CLK55 AMG is proof that the muscle car still exists in a German form.

neilbo75

No, not the first. Tightening emission standards started to kill off the high compression engines begining in 1972. Then in 1973 the insurance companies persuaded Congress to mandate 5 mph bumpers. That was particularly cruel to low volume sports cars. The final blow came in 1974 with the oil embargo and the resulting energy crisis. CAFE came a bit later, but by the mid-seventies virtually all high performance cars already were dead, dying or at least seriously hurting. It would take the Porshce Turbo to get the ball rolling again.

Today we don't have quite the same 'perfect storm'. Unlike 1974, gas is still plentiful. It is also still cheap, at least by German standards, and anyone who can plow $100k or more into a four-wheeled toy can afford to fill the tank. The insurance companies are dormant, and so far the engineers are keeping up with the tree huggers. GM may have killed the Northstar, but they are coming out with a lightweight diesel V8 with "bluetec" cleanliness and over 500 pounds of torque.

So rest easy. AMG and its arch competitors will continue to thrill us for years to come. The 600+ hp 'vette with ceramic brakes is not the last hurrah.

BTW, while too young to drive, I do remember the swinging late 60s. The Pontiac Judge was the ultimate cool car, at least for us California kids!

fourml8r

Wow, we think alike. I drive a 2005 CLK55 AMG Cabriolet (My fun car) and my other car is a 2007 Honda Civic Hybrid (Commuter car)

Substance

what mpg do you get with the civic hybrid?

did you guys here about the mercedes hybrid prototyps? 1.8L engines + 20-30 hp electric motors = 35-40mpg on S-class w221. very wierd technology they are still perfecting it before they adopt it to street cars. a few things i remember it would use the electric motor to launch to higher efficieny everytime you come to a dead stop it will stop the gas engine and everytime you hit gas it will start again. one more thing i remember , some new tech, using the gas engine like a diesel meaning no use of spark plugs while minimal power needed. at the it was a 240-260 hp super high tech high efficient engine. cant imagine what mpg one would get if it was placed on a smaller car than s class.

Chappy

Amen.

hrothgar02

I guess great minds thing alike! I don't know about you but I HATE getting beaten off the line by a HUMMER H3 (6 cyl engine no less)!! Holy moly the hybrid is slow; it's like a turtle stuck in chunky peanutbutter. The other day, a Buick beat me off the line and cut me off to get into the left turn lane.

I knew the acceleration was going to be slow but not to the point where I was going to be fused to the grill of a Mack truck (talk about puckering up to the point where I was pulling seat fabric out of my butt for 2 days). 40MPG is one thing but I will take the ability to get out of danger and 16MPG any day!

hrothgar02

[QUOTE=Substance;2588940]what mpg do you get with the civic hybrid?[QUOTE]

Substance, I usually get around 42-48MPG during the winter time (no AC); 48MPG if I drive like a 90 year old pansy with cataracts. During the summer time, I will get anywhere from 38-40MPG driving fairly normally.

I used to belong to a hybrid board and some of the hypermilers will regularly get over 60 MPG. They make it a game and some to the point of sickness (i.e there is a posting where this one guy will cut the ignition, actually get out of his car and PUSH his car over the speed bumps at work in order to sustain his MPG). For me life is too short for this type of psychotic behavior!

I think diesels are the way to go for the best compromise in terms of driveability (great low end torque) and MPG.

blackbenzz

hrothgar02

From Autoblog:

Inside Line reports that Cerberus is prepared to make an instantaneous decision regarding the future of the Viper, both because of a cash crunch and because the $85,000 snake may be losing its bite anyway with the passing of a new national energy bill and higher CAFE standards around the corner.

AMGOODNESS

there is no way in hell i would drive a hybrid with less than poor acceleration just to appease the green movement. i would however drive the all-electric Tesla in a heartbeat.

fourml8r

40-45 MPG in mixed driving. depends entirely on how easy you are on the gas.

Stiggs

Stop thinking so hard. Just drive your car!

hrothgar02

From NYTimes:

January 16, 2008
Interest Fades in the Once-Mighty V-8
By BILL VLASIC
DETROIT — The V-8 engine, long a symbol of power for American car companies, is sputtering.

At the Detroit auto show this week, Detroit’s Big Three are promoting smaller engines and alternative-fuel vehicles, eliminating the V-8 from many models and relegating it to niche status.

Ford Motor, which first popularized the V-8 in the 1930s, will start using a turbocharged 6-cylinder in many vehicles, including the next generation of its Explorer sport utility vehicle. The company has named its new engine technology EcoBoost, a nod to consumers’ concern for the environment.

“It’s pretty clear that the V-8 is on its way out of the mainstream,” said Ford’s chairman, William Clay Ford Jr.

General Motors recently canceled a $300 million program to develop a new V-8, citing new fuel-economy standards that require a 40 percent improvement in overall gas mileage by 2020. “That cancellation was a direct result of the 35-mile-per-gallon legislation,” Robert A. Lutz, G.M.’s vice chairman, said Tuesday.

Even the famed Hemi V-8 from Chrysler will be quieted at stoplights when it is paired this year with hybrid technology in some big S.U.V.’s.

Car companies, in a sense, are catching up with shifting consumer tastes: sales of V-8 engines in the United States have dropped 24 percent since 2004, according to the auto research firm R. L. Polk & Company.

The V-8 will still be a staple in pickups and large S.U.V.’s, and Detroit continues to flex its muscle-car muscle with some other models. General Motors, for example, unveiled this week a limited-edition 620-horsepower Corvette ZR1 — the fastest and most powerful Chevrolet ever — and a high-performance Cadillac, the CTS-V, offering 550 horsepower.

Ford executives said they had at times wrestled with the decision to give up V-8s in some models, including a new sedan from the Lincoln luxury division, because they worried about customer reaction.

“I worked on the Lincoln Continental program 20 years ago, and people were vehement that it had to have a V-8,” said Mark Fields, Ford’s president for the Americas. “But now people don’t really care if the performance is there.”

Some Asian automakers, notably Honda of Japan, have stayed out of the V-8 market entirely. Toyota offers V-8s in its full-size pickups and S.U.V.’s, but it has dominated the midsize car market with less powerful engines.

“The era of indulgence is over,” said John A. Casesa, managing partner at the Casesa Shapiro Group, an investment firm in New York. “When oil goes to $100 a barrel, the romance of a V-8 under the hood diminishes pretty quickly.”

Chrysler is bucking the trend somewhat. The company is updating its Hemi engine and achieving better fuel economy by marrying the current edition to a hybrid system in its full-size Dodge Durango and Chrysler Aspen S.U.V.’s.

But the automaker, which was bought last year by the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, is developing a new line of V-6 engines that would be an alternative to the V-8s in popular models like the Jeep Grand Cherokee S.U.V.

“There’s a new group of young customers that may not appreciate or care what the Hemi does,” said the Chrysler vice chairman, James E. Press.

That observation would have been considered sacrilegious in the glory days of the V-8, when drivers blared Chuck Berry’s “Maybellene,” singing along to the words, “Nothing will outrun my V-8 Ford,” and Detroit packed even smaller cars like the Dodge Dart and A.M.C. Gremlin with big engines.

Mr. Ford, the 50-year-old great-grandson of the company’s founder, Henry Ford, said the passing of the V-8 era is somewhat bittersweet for baby boomers like him.

“We all grew up when the coolest guy on the block had the most cubic inches under the hood,” he said. “That feeling dies hard.”

AMGOODNESS

that is the saddest article i have ever read. plus lexus just came out with a V-8 powered IS-F. for a car manufacturer to virtually eliminate the V-8 from its line-up in crazy. although i do have an affinity for turbo powered cars. they allow for lots of modification and make it much eaiser to squeeze hp from the motor.

hrothgar02

I hate to be the bearer of bad news. I am sure some of them will be worth some $$ in the future (i.e. Ford GT, V12 TT Mercedes, V10 BMW's etc)