If you have not been to a Top Fuel drag race, and have the opportunity to go, you should go. They are quite the spectacle. Being there, hearing, feeling, and seeing those 10,000HP monsters fly down the track is worthy of experiencing live, at least once. The kind of thing you can't watch on TV.
I can say the same for a Monster Truck rally. Go there and embrace your inner 10 year old watching those machines Move. (And, boy, can they move!)
Bring earplugs.
There's more to the sports than the pinnacle of achievement. There are innumerable classes within drag racing, something for everyone. It's not a "solved" problem by any means. Folks will continue to try and master the start, getting traction, keeping that beastly powered thing straight in the lane, trying to not choke on their beating heart that has surged into their throat.
Bracket racing is a hoot where folks bring whatever they like, and they're rated by time (i.e. a "time bracket"). Whether you're running a old 60's hot rod, a Jet Powered car, or anything else, if you can run within the time, it's pretty much fair game. And it can be fun to watch, and real fun to participate in.
Racing of all kinds can be a fun culture to be around.
I wholeheartedly agree: Monster truck stadium shows are once-in-a-lifetime events—as in, see one, and you’re good for life. That said, they’re hugely entertaining, and I’m glad I went.
Other things I would recommend in the “see at least once and you’re good” category:
1/ A major sporting event where the fans believe something is at stake, like the run-up to the playoffs. In the U.S., baseball tickets can be had for reasonable prices in small markets late in the season, and the seats don’t matter. You want to experience the emotion and energy firsthand. Unlikely to turn you into a fan, but the experience will be one you think on for years to come.
2/ A live sporting event where the outcome makes no difference, like your local minor league team. Again, seats don’t matter—you want to feel the buzz and sense of community.
3/ Amateur musical theatre. The on-stage talent is often top-tier, while the rest of the production is endearingly amateurish. But the enthusiasm, honesty, and agenda-free earnestness of the production will make you love people a little more.
4/ Opera…
You get the point. Any endeavor where a group of people dedicate huge energy—often their lives—into making a show, along with their incredibly enthusiastic fans, is worth your time. Also, sometimes you can get corn dogs or drink wine out of a plastic cup.
The article seemed to go on and on and not have a real point...but on the topic:
Hot-rodding is dying. Let's think about that.
V8's are dying. Dodge was the first to stop putting them in cars.
Mustang sales are at low levels. The Camaro is gone.
Ford doesn't allow tuning of the current Mustang (asterisk for approved Whipple/Ford Racing parts). GM tried locking people out of the new Corvette but they eventually got into it.
Tuning hardware+software companies have been raided by the US government. Most of this is due to the diesel truck crowd.
The manual transmission is pretty much dead. Sure, the current 8/9/10 speed automatics are faster and get better mileage, but a lot of people still prefer a stick shift.
Drag strips are closing. Housing gets built near them, the events make too much noise, and the land is too valuable to be used as racetrack which doesn't really make much money.
Lastly, the younger generations aren't into cars as a hobby/culture like the previous ones were. They don't drive as much and view cars as more of an appliance.
Hard disagree. The aftermarket is stronger than ever.
V8s have been replaced by turbo engines which respond much more dramatically to modifications than any N/A V8.
There are numerous enthusiasts cars to pick from across manufacturers.
Tuning companies operate globally. People get their tunes from obscure companies in Europe.
ECU protections are being cracked regularly. Even “unhackable” ECUs are getting tunes year after year.
Stick shift options are available on a lot of enthusiasts cars. They’re slower, but people can get them if they want.
I’ve been hearing talk about the death of the car aftermarket for a decade, but every time it’s really just someone lamenting that it’s changing. I think people just get upset when the car scene of their younger years is no longer the popular scene (Mustangs and Camaros with V8s and stick shifts)
> V8s have been replaced by turbo engines which respond much more dramatically to modifications than any N/A V8.
While technically true, it’s not the same. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve owned (and enjoyed!) both, but a highly strung big-boost inline 4 is not the same as a big V8. The instant throttle response, torque for days wherever you are in the rev range, the noise, nothing else can match it.
If you want concrete evidence of this, look at the sheer variety of cars that become more fun with a big V8. Yeah, a corvette is an awesome sports car, but the same engine turns grandpa’s Buick into a genuine enthusiast car (Impala SS). You can’t put a 300HP tiny inline 4 in a comfy sedan and expect it to become fun, it just becomes a bit faster.
And anyone who’s ever modified American V8s knows how easy they are to get power out of. Yeah, you can turn up the boost on a 2.0T for a few hundred bucks, but for double that you can take a 260HP 5.7L from the 90s (that costs $500 to buy a whole ‘nother engine, by the way, if you blow it up), slap on some heads and a cam, and make 400HP and 400lb-ft of torque - or more if you don’t mind sacrificing a bit of streetability. Or spend like $5k on heads, cam, an intake port job, and some eBay turbos & manifold and make 550/500 for a few years until you want more, turn up the boost, and blow it up. Or go even cheaper and spend a grand on eBay turbos & manifolds and do nothing to the engine, and still make like 400HP.
Anyways, long/rambling way of saying turbo 4s don’t replace V8s. Pretty much the only similarity in their behaviour is that they both ICEs. People that love V8s won’t be swayed by “but the turbo 4s make just as much power!” because that’s not what they care about.
I agree- I’m active on forums and in the “scene” of modifying turbocharged European cars. It’s alive and well and the DIY technology has come so far from 20 years ago- now with totally open source fuel injection systems, etc. People are doubling and tripling the power on cars you can buy cheap on Craigslist, and they still hold up well.
The American V8 was a high performance product at an entry level price. During the last couple years the Dodge twins got ridiculously expensive (the Challenger 392 is now almost as expensive as the Hellcat was in 2016).
The problem with the turbo engines is they are way more expensive to do anything with and they come in expensive cars. BMW, Audi really being the only things that are 'fast'. Subaru, Kia, VW are all pretty much low-level performance. And then you have really expensive stuff like the Nissan GT-R.
Turbo engines have been around for a long time, they're nothing new. And they have always been part of the car scene. But again, the lower price options aren't really competitive, they were at least close in the 2000's.
And again, the Ford ECU has been out for two years and nobody has cracked it.
I disagree on both of these. Turbo engines are usually much cheaper to tune- most of the time you can substantially increase the power with just more boost. More serious power requires a bigger turbo and bigger injectors which is still cheap and easy - an afternoon install with the engine still in the car.
Tunable turbocharged European sports cars cost next to nothing once they’re a decade or two old.
You need more than just a tune for reliability and real power. Sure you can get a cheap boost but everyone is going to realize they need to add hard parts like downpipes and intercoolers. Then you get into drivetrain issues.
And you're talking about a very, very small group compared to the old days when the hobby was more popular. Honda Civica and Ford Mustangs were such a hugely popular vehicle to modify.
It’s all a matter of the vehicle and what your goals are- sure at some point you need to modify everything else, but a turbo car gets a lot further to start with for a lot less money. I grew up tuning old Volvos and Mercedes and they were so well made and undertuned from the factory you could just about double the horsepower for next to nothing and they were still reliable. Early on they even used massively oversized turbos that had a ton of lag but could really have the boost cranked up. European cars, especially older ones tended to be heavily overengineered - with the drivetrain, cooling system, suspension, brakes, etc. massively oversized compared to Japanese and American cars.
Lastly, the younger generations aren't into cars as a hobby/culture like the previous ones were. They don't drive as much and view cars as more of an appliance
I think this was true of the last younger generation, and prob me and maybe you, but from what I’m seeing, TikTok is making anything and everything cool to the youths, particularly trade type jobs. They are realizing how much money there is to be made because our generation didn’t want the work and are embracing the opportunities because the videos they are watching are making it look cool.
I can’t speak for other markets but in Australia millennials are really into Japanese cars, 4X4 or our domestic cars. And the zoomers seem to be into 4x4 as well.
I would argue modified cars are more common than ever in Australia, it’s just not what you’d expect when someone says modified cars, it’s 90% large SUVs and other 4x4 vehicles.
There is a reason the younger generations aren't into cars. There are less places to go to, shopping is online now, car parks and shopping malls are dying.
Public transport is getting better or less worse than it used to be, owning a car is getting a lot worse with taxes and higher cost, insurance through the roof, particularly for the models you've pointed out.
Finally, their buying power is a lot lesser than it was 1 generation ago when it came to "projects".
Demand is lower for ludicrous vehicle, mostly because of the rest, leading to ever less silly cars being produced or designed.
I was impressed by the author they managed to find for this piece, Rachel Kushner. She's an accomplished novelist who writes with deep knowledge about motorcycles, as in her novel The Flamethrowers (how I was introduced to her writing). She's at the level that you might expect to find a long interview with her in the New Yorker. To learn more about her, see this article.
The article is mostly focused on race tracks, and especially drag racing. But to me "hot rodding" explicitly means street racing.
And in street racing, and driving fast responsive cars in general, electric is the future.
I just recently started owning one, and it drives better than any other vehicle I have ever driven.
The instant acceleration, the very fine power control, and the weight distribution make it more responsive and better handling than literally any other car I've ever driven (and I've been driving for 50 years).
Power hasn't been a problem in racing for decades now. All the major racing circuits, from F1 to NASCAR, have power limits in some form. It's maintaining ground contact that's hard.
There was an electric dragster, the Lead Wedge, in 1969.[1] It was really crude but performed OK. There was enough unhappiness about an electric doing so well that the sponsoring battery company didn't do it again. Their main customer was auto companies.
The fastest motorcycle is currently an electric.[2] Somebody took it up to Alice's Restaurant above Woodside and drove Skyline on it. Which is a scary thought, if you know the area.
You are absolutely right about electric cars and how fun it is to drive them. I just want to make the obligatory statement that street racing is very dangerous for innocent people and nobody should do it or encourage it.
the whole hotrod culture produced those fast cars in order to compete with the police, it then turned into in-group competition, and then formal racing.
'hot rodding' wouldn't exist without competition.
The first SCTA style 'hot-rods' were 'souped up' ford flatheads that were lucky to have over 80 horsepower going for top speed runs.
What i'm saying is that 'racing' was before 'fast' in the history of hot-rodding.
p.s. this also applies to the almost-entirely-disconnected very early European car scene. It was racing events and famous individuals that drove the entire culture -- this then lead to 'fast cars'. The history of the Mille Miglia comes to mind.
In my experience, they’re lots of fun... in a straight line, to a point. I haven’t driven one that turns or stops as well or as “connectedly” as pretty much any enthusiast ICE car. And yes they have instant torque off the line with very good traction control, which makes them much faster at drag strips than most ICE cars, until you get to purpose-built dragsters that are putting down just as fast 60 foots making the same (or more) power but while weighing a few thousand pounds less. Until batteries get waaaaay lighter (like, 2-3 orders of magnitude), I really don’t see them as the future of fun cars.
Yup--electric performance vehicles are unreal when you first give one a try. I test drove a Ford Lightning this week and it is ridiculous what a 7,000-lb vehicle can do with that powertrain (to the point where honestly maybe it should require a CDL to drive). Just for kicks I also tried a Mach-E, which was the same kind of zip but without the novelty of being in a three-ton monster. Both felt glued to the road and they were real pleasures to drive.
I really wanted to pull the trigger on the Lightning, but it really was Too Big (won't even really fit in my driveway). Instead I picked a PHEV Escape SUV that'll become my wife's in 4-5 years (so we retain gas ranges on at least one vehicle) and I'll reevaluate what I can get in electric then. The Escape PHEV, however, has all the other advantages except the instant torque; I've never had a vehicle so able to finely control power and the eCVT smooths out the kind of lagging a conventional transmission has on hills and the like. Using zero gas for an hour-long drive is a nice plus, too.
The future of cars, including and maybe especially fast cars, is exciting.
As a recent (a few weeks ago, in fact) buyer of a Lightning, as well as a two-time Tesla owner ... I totally agree. My pickup weighs 6500 pounds and will hit 60 mph in 3.8 seconds. That is ridiculous. Technically that makes it faster than my Model 3LR (though traction on damp pavement is definitely better on the Tesla than on the Ford).
It's easily the best pickup I've ever driven. Perfect (and I mean perfect) 50/50 weight balance, astonishing power, low center of gravity, etc. It simultaneously feels like a 6500 pound truck, but also doesn't. It feels like it defies physics sometimes.
> The future of cars, including and maybe especially fast cars, is exciting.
1000% agree. We used to think that the horsepower wars of the 2010s was the pinnacle of performance, but EVs are just raising the bar even higher.
Will it still be maintainable in 30-40yr? Just the other day I pulled my 80 series Land Cruiser's windshield wiper motor to epoxy one of the permanent magnets back on (it had come loose from the housing and was making a horrible grinding noise). That part is made to be rebuilt, it's every bit as simple and straightforward as the century old Westinghouse motor in my drill press. I'm confident with nothing more than my lathe I could manufacture the parts necessary to keep that thing working indefinitely.
The problem with modern cars in my view, in no particular order:
1. Too much proprietary software.
2. Proprietary interfaces--no way to swap computers between cars. They're universal computers for fuck's sake, why can't we just replace them? If my 1995 Toyota had sensibly designed, open interfaces I'd be easily able to replace any computer on it with off the shelf components.
3. Too much complexity. The hardware and software has gotten so intricately intertwined that reverse engineering it is pretty hopeless, at least from the perspective of someone just trying to keep their vehicles going. Even if point (2) above were addressed and we started talking seriously about building stuff that's meant to last we'd still have to face how damnably complicated these systems have become.
The problem in my view is nobody is trying to make an EV that I'd still want to own in 30-40yr. I'm confident if I watch the market and stockpile enough parts, and learn how to rebuild the ones that are getting rare or NLA, that I'll be able to make this 1995 Cruiser go indefinitely. If I have to make my own transmission control unit or engine controller I'm pretty sure I could do that, or hack some cob job together well enough to get me down the road. I have no such confidence about "modern" vehicles.
If someone makes an EV that looks like I'll still be able to keep it going 30+yr from now I'll buy it on the spot, but so far they all look like 5yr lifespan landfill bait.
How far can your truck tow anything? We run a motorcycle race team in Spain and going electric for our logistics vehicles would be a nightmare. Currently we can get from Barcelona to Jerez in a day. With electric that becomes 2 days, sometimes three. Several hours to charge a vehicle is a huge amount of time waiting around, especially when paying drivers by the hour, not to mention the electric vehicles are so heavy that it means a 3500kg electric van doesn’t have nearly the same payload as the diesel equivalent. So we either need bigger vehicles (requiring a commercial license and more expense) or we have to have more vehicles to move the same stuff.
Amecdotally, I was behind a Tesla 3 performance at a recent track day; it was lowered on eibach springs, but had more mass than my stock height 2004 bmw 3 series.
It couldn't handle the Gs on a slightly negative camber straight, as opposed to I could floor it there. I definitely expected it to clear me on the straights faster.
>>And in street racing, and driving fast responsive cars in general, electric is the future.
Street racing is entirely too dangerous and of course illegal. You don't have to race to take part in the street scene, which in that scenario the actual power to weight ratio is somewhat irrelevant in itself. What is relevant to me, personally, is the ambience that surrounds a supercharged radically cammed V8 rumbling down the street. That will give me goosebumps every time. The power is in it's growl, not necessarily it's bite. I don't know how you replicate that in an electric vehicle and I think that feeling transfers to the racetrack as well. I would rather watch a 3-4 second top fuel race rather than a 2-3 second electric car race.
Oh yeah if you ever do happen to catch one of those top fuel events don't miss watching them rebuild the engines and the 'let's make sure it runs' startups. The fumes will cause tears in your eyes and your lungs will hurt but it's as good or better than the actual race.
> I would rather watch a 3-4 second top fuel race rather than a 2-3 second electric car race.
The car enthusiast obsession with vroom-vroom noises has always seemed pretty silly to me. Maybe I just don’t get it. Like heat, loud noises are just a sign of inefficiency and energy loss. A car that goes the same speed as another car, but 10dB quieter is objectively better and more efficient at delivering power to the wheels. A car that is both faster and quieter is even better and more impressive. Like a GPU that delivers high performance without getting hot and needing a fan. A noisy car is a worse car.
From an enthusiast point of view, I'd wager that it's more because a lot of the most iconic engine noises are distinctive and recognizable based on model and just general throttle feedback and it's a quirk that gives different cars a lot of personality. Versus electric cars not having that personality quirk to really tell them apart- they're all going to be quite similar in "feel" and responsiveness to the throttle. I think in general for more hands on enthusiasts electric will never really quite take over ICE obsession. From a tinkering standpoint, intricate mechanical systems like engines are far more satisfying to pour your hands over when you're rebuilding or modifying an engine than black box electrical systems that you can't really reasonably work on. The act of replacing a physical, actual part instead of plugging in a laptop to twiddle some abstract values is also more gratifying. It's the same reason I imagine that mechanical watches are pretty much universally preferred by watch collectors and enthusiasts over digital ones.
edit:
When I think about it more I guess celebrating inefficiencies/nostalgia/the physical aspect of a hobby is not that different anywhere. Like people still collecting vinyl records, or using real CRTs with refurbished consoles instead of emulating, people into collecting physical books / doing their own book bindings instead of switching to digital etc.
> The car enthusiast obsession with vroom-vroom noises
BTW this is a gross generalization. Many of us car enthusiasts, including oldsters like me, love EVs. And if I'm feeling a bit spicy, the fact that I can use 100% of the power without announcing that to the world is exhilarating. I love a big rumbly V8, too, but everything has it's place.
> Street racing is entirely too dangerous and of course illegal
Someday I wonder if that will change?
Consider a future where full self driving cars have been perfected, to the point that they are mandatory. Every car on the road is FSDing, and the cars are also all in communication with nearby cars and with a central planning system.
Many humans will still want to drive for fun, and that could be implemented as a mode. In human driving mode the FSD system would still be running but it would be taking driving commands from the human and following them as long as they are safe. Safe in this context means the FSD does not let the car get into any situation where the FSD system won't be able to keep control.
The FSD system could coordinate with other nearby cars and the central system to leave more space around the car in HD mode to allow for slower human reflexes.
Such a system could also implement a street racing mode, where two or more cars in human driving mode could race, again with the FSD coordinating with other cars and the central planner to clear traffic.
You really dont though, turbos cut the noise in half in the recent years and it's considerably nicer to watch a race.
Recently, the gt3 Porsche cup at an F1 event; you need earplugs for the gt3s 1000' away, but the F1 cars you can have a conversation, not damage your hearing (because of the turbos)
If you have not been to a Top Fuel drag race, and have the opportunity to go, you should go. They are quite the spectacle. Being there, hearing, feeling, and seeing those 10,000HP monsters fly down the track is worthy of experiencing live, at least once. The kind of thing you can't watch on TV.
I can say the same for a Monster Truck rally. Go there and embrace your inner 10 year old watching those machines Move. (And, boy, can they move!)
Bring earplugs.
There's more to the sports than the pinnacle of achievement. There are innumerable classes within drag racing, something for everyone. It's not a "solved" problem by any means. Folks will continue to try and master the start, getting traction, keeping that beastly powered thing straight in the lane, trying to not choke on their beating heart that has surged into their throat.
Bracket racing is a hoot where folks bring whatever they like, and they're rated by time (i.e. a "time bracket"). Whether you're running a old 60's hot rod, a Jet Powered car, or anything else, if you can run within the time, it's pretty much fair game. And it can be fun to watch, and real fun to participate in.
Racing of all kinds can be a fun culture to be around.
I wholeheartedly agree: Monster truck stadium shows are once-in-a-lifetime events—as in, see one, and you’re good for life. That said, they’re hugely entertaining, and I’m glad I went.
Other things I would recommend in the “see at least once and you’re good” category:
1/ A major sporting event where the fans believe something is at stake, like the run-up to the playoffs. In the U.S., baseball tickets can be had for reasonable prices in small markets late in the season, and the seats don’t matter. You want to experience the emotion and energy firsthand. Unlikely to turn you into a fan, but the experience will be one you think on for years to come.
2/ A live sporting event where the outcome makes no difference, like your local minor league team. Again, seats don’t matter—you want to feel the buzz and sense of community.
3/ Amateur musical theatre. The on-stage talent is often top-tier, while the rest of the production is endearingly amateurish. But the enthusiasm, honesty, and agenda-free earnestness of the production will make you love people a little more.
4/ Opera…
You get the point. Any endeavor where a group of people dedicate huge energy—often their lives—into making a show, along with their incredibly enthusiastic fans, is worth your time. Also, sometimes you can get corn dogs or drink wine out of a plastic cup.
Opera is dangerous like cocaine. Most people can do it once or twice and that’s fine. Others see one opera and can’t get enough.
most expensive nap ive ever had. comfy seats tho.
turns out being a tourist all day is tiresome
The article seemed to go on and on and not have a real point...but on the topic:
Hot-rodding is dying. Let's think about that.
V8's are dying. Dodge was the first to stop putting them in cars.
Mustang sales are at low levels. The Camaro is gone.
Ford doesn't allow tuning of the current Mustang (asterisk for approved Whipple/Ford Racing parts). GM tried locking people out of the new Corvette but they eventually got into it.
Tuning hardware+software companies have been raided by the US government. Most of this is due to the diesel truck crowd.
The manual transmission is pretty much dead. Sure, the current 8/9/10 speed automatics are faster and get better mileage, but a lot of people still prefer a stick shift.
Drag strips are closing. Housing gets built near them, the events make too much noise, and the land is too valuable to be used as racetrack which doesn't really make much money.
Lastly, the younger generations aren't into cars as a hobby/culture like the previous ones were. They don't drive as much and view cars as more of an appliance.
Hard disagree. The aftermarket is stronger than ever.
V8s have been replaced by turbo engines which respond much more dramatically to modifications than any N/A V8.
There are numerous enthusiasts cars to pick from across manufacturers.
Tuning companies operate globally. People get their tunes from obscure companies in Europe.
ECU protections are being cracked regularly. Even “unhackable” ECUs are getting tunes year after year.
Stick shift options are available on a lot of enthusiasts cars. They’re slower, but people can get them if they want.
I’ve been hearing talk about the death of the car aftermarket for a decade, but every time it’s really just someone lamenting that it’s changing. I think people just get upset when the car scene of their younger years is no longer the popular scene (Mustangs and Camaros with V8s and stick shifts)
> V8s have been replaced by turbo engines which respond much more dramatically to modifications than any N/A V8.
While technically true, it’s not the same. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve owned (and enjoyed!) both, but a highly strung big-boost inline 4 is not the same as a big V8. The instant throttle response, torque for days wherever you are in the rev range, the noise, nothing else can match it.
If you want concrete evidence of this, look at the sheer variety of cars that become more fun with a big V8. Yeah, a corvette is an awesome sports car, but the same engine turns grandpa’s Buick into a genuine enthusiast car (Impala SS). You can’t put a 300HP tiny inline 4 in a comfy sedan and expect it to become fun, it just becomes a bit faster.
And anyone who’s ever modified American V8s knows how easy they are to get power out of. Yeah, you can turn up the boost on a 2.0T for a few hundred bucks, but for double that you can take a 260HP 5.7L from the 90s (that costs $500 to buy a whole ‘nother engine, by the way, if you blow it up), slap on some heads and a cam, and make 400HP and 400lb-ft of torque - or more if you don’t mind sacrificing a bit of streetability. Or spend like $5k on heads, cam, an intake port job, and some eBay turbos & manifold and make 550/500 for a few years until you want more, turn up the boost, and blow it up. Or go even cheaper and spend a grand on eBay turbos & manifolds and do nothing to the engine, and still make like 400HP.
Anyways, long/rambling way of saying turbo 4s don’t replace V8s. Pretty much the only similarity in their behaviour is that they both ICEs. People that love V8s won’t be swayed by “but the turbo 4s make just as much power!” because that’s not what they care about.
I agree- I’m active on forums and in the “scene” of modifying turbocharged European cars. It’s alive and well and the DIY technology has come so far from 20 years ago- now with totally open source fuel injection systems, etc. People are doubling and tripling the power on cars you can buy cheap on Craigslist, and they still hold up well.
Any recommendations on where to best locate this scene? Forums, etc. Sounds intriguing.
The American V8 was a high performance product at an entry level price. During the last couple years the Dodge twins got ridiculously expensive (the Challenger 392 is now almost as expensive as the Hellcat was in 2016).
The problem with the turbo engines is they are way more expensive to do anything with and they come in expensive cars. BMW, Audi really being the only things that are 'fast'. Subaru, Kia, VW are all pretty much low-level performance. And then you have really expensive stuff like the Nissan GT-R.
Turbo engines have been around for a long time, they're nothing new. And they have always been part of the car scene. But again, the lower price options aren't really competitive, they were at least close in the 2000's.
And again, the Ford ECU has been out for two years and nobody has cracked it.
I disagree on both of these. Turbo engines are usually much cheaper to tune- most of the time you can substantially increase the power with just more boost. More serious power requires a bigger turbo and bigger injectors which is still cheap and easy - an afternoon install with the engine still in the car.
Tunable turbocharged European sports cars cost next to nothing once they’re a decade or two old.
> Tunable turbocharged European sports cars cost next to nothing once they’re a decade or two old.
I'd like some specific examples (I'm in the market for cheap sports cars). Keep in mind RWD is part of the definition of a sports car.
You need more than just a tune for reliability and real power. Sure you can get a cheap boost but everyone is going to realize they need to add hard parts like downpipes and intercoolers. Then you get into drivetrain issues.
And you're talking about a very, very small group compared to the old days when the hobby was more popular. Honda Civica and Ford Mustangs were such a hugely popular vehicle to modify.
It’s all a matter of the vehicle and what your goals are- sure at some point you need to modify everything else, but a turbo car gets a lot further to start with for a lot less money. I grew up tuning old Volvos and Mercedes and they were so well made and undertuned from the factory you could just about double the horsepower for next to nothing and they were still reliable. Early on they even used massively oversized turbos that had a ton of lag but could really have the boost cranked up. European cars, especially older ones tended to be heavily overengineered - with the drivetrain, cooling system, suspension, brakes, etc. massively oversized compared to Japanese and American cars.
> undertuned from the factory
This seems to be a big component of then vs now. Previously companies lacked precision modeling and simulation and so often simply overbuilt parts.
Now, costs have been cut and fuel efficiency standards are much higher, so systems are more tightly engineered from the factory.
Sure - but my point is the hobby is nowhere near as popular/mainstream as it was before
Lastly, the younger generations aren't into cars as a hobby/culture like the previous ones were. They don't drive as much and view cars as more of an appliance
I think this was true of the last younger generation, and prob me and maybe you, but from what I’m seeing, TikTok is making anything and everything cool to the youths, particularly trade type jobs. They are realizing how much money there is to be made because our generation didn’t want the work and are embracing the opportunities because the videos they are watching are making it look cool.
I can’t speak for other markets but in Australia millennials are really into Japanese cars, 4X4 or our domestic cars. And the zoomers seem to be into 4x4 as well.
I would argue modified cars are more common than ever in Australia, it’s just not what you’d expect when someone says modified cars, it’s 90% large SUVs and other 4x4 vehicles.
There is a reason the younger generations aren't into cars. There are less places to go to, shopping is online now, car parks and shopping malls are dying.
Public transport is getting better or less worse than it used to be, owning a car is getting a lot worse with taxes and higher cost, insurance through the roof, particularly for the models you've pointed out.
Finally, their buying power is a lot lesser than it was 1 generation ago when it came to "projects".
Demand is lower for ludicrous vehicle, mostly because of the rest, leading to ever less silly cars being produced or designed.
Overal, sadness.
I was impressed by the author they managed to find for this piece, Rachel Kushner. She's an accomplished novelist who writes with deep knowledge about motorcycles, as in her novel The Flamethrowers (how I was introduced to her writing). She's at the level that you might expect to find a long interview with her in the New Yorker. To learn more about her, see this article.
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2021/04/13/on-memory-and...
> She's at the level that you might expect to find a long interview with her in the New Yorker.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/rachel-kushner...
Most gasoline has alcohol in it now. How has that affected it's flammability?
Increased it? If you want more power you tune for E85.
Hell ethanol is rocket fuel.
The article is mostly focused on race tracks, and especially drag racing. But to me "hot rodding" explicitly means street racing.
And in street racing, and driving fast responsive cars in general, electric is the future.
I just recently started owning one, and it drives better than any other vehicle I have ever driven.
The instant acceleration, the very fine power control, and the weight distribution make it more responsive and better handling than literally any other car I've ever driven (and I've been driving for 50 years).
Power hasn't been a problem in racing for decades now. All the major racing circuits, from F1 to NASCAR, have power limits in some form. It's maintaining ground contact that's hard.
There was an electric dragster, the Lead Wedge, in 1969.[1] It was really crude but performed OK. There was enough unhappiness about an electric doing so well that the sponsoring battery company didn't do it again. Their main customer was auto companies.
The fastest motorcycle is currently an electric.[2] Somebody took it up to Alice's Restaurant above Woodside and drove Skyline on it. Which is a scary thought, if you know the area.
[1] https://www.hotrod.com/features/batteries-and-a-salt-februar...
[2] https://newatlas.com/lightning-ls218-review-ls-218/36470
Loud pipes save lives…
What will be the electric motorcycle equivalent? A standards based notification system for nearby vehicles?
The probably kill more than they save by impaired health from the stress and sleep deprivation they cause.
Vigilance and proper operation and safety procedures would save a lot more lives than any kind of noisemaker.
How much do they? The bulk of the sound is behind the bike where it serves no purpose other than angering people because of how overly loud they are.
You are absolutely right about electric cars and how fun it is to drive them. I just want to make the obligatory statement that street racing is very dangerous for innocent people and nobody should do it or encourage it.
> The article is mostly focused on race tracks, and especially drag racing. But to me "hot rodding" explicitly means street racing.
Hot rodding about fast cars. Racing doesn't need to come into the picture at all to have a hot rod.
>Hot rodding about fast cars.
the whole hotrod culture produced those fast cars in order to compete with the police, it then turned into in-group competition, and then formal racing.
'hot rodding' wouldn't exist without competition.
The first SCTA style 'hot-rods' were 'souped up' ford flatheads that were lucky to have over 80 horsepower going for top speed runs.
What i'm saying is that 'racing' was before 'fast' in the history of hot-rodding.
p.s. this also applies to the almost-entirely-disconnected very early European car scene. It was racing events and famous individuals that drove the entire culture -- this then lead to 'fast cars'. The history of the Mille Miglia comes to mind.
In my experience, they’re lots of fun... in a straight line, to a point. I haven’t driven one that turns or stops as well or as “connectedly” as pretty much any enthusiast ICE car. And yes they have instant torque off the line with very good traction control, which makes them much faster at drag strips than most ICE cars, until you get to purpose-built dragsters that are putting down just as fast 60 foots making the same (or more) power but while weighing a few thousand pounds less. Until batteries get waaaaay lighter (like, 2-3 orders of magnitude), I really don’t see them as the future of fun cars.
Yup--electric performance vehicles are unreal when you first give one a try. I test drove a Ford Lightning this week and it is ridiculous what a 7,000-lb vehicle can do with that powertrain (to the point where honestly maybe it should require a CDL to drive). Just for kicks I also tried a Mach-E, which was the same kind of zip but without the novelty of being in a three-ton monster. Both felt glued to the road and they were real pleasures to drive.
I really wanted to pull the trigger on the Lightning, but it really was Too Big (won't even really fit in my driveway). Instead I picked a PHEV Escape SUV that'll become my wife's in 4-5 years (so we retain gas ranges on at least one vehicle) and I'll reevaluate what I can get in electric then. The Escape PHEV, however, has all the other advantages except the instant torque; I've never had a vehicle so able to finely control power and the eCVT smooths out the kind of lagging a conventional transmission has on hills and the like. Using zero gas for an hour-long drive is a nice plus, too.
The future of cars, including and maybe especially fast cars, is exciting.
As a recent (a few weeks ago, in fact) buyer of a Lightning, as well as a two-time Tesla owner ... I totally agree. My pickup weighs 6500 pounds and will hit 60 mph in 3.8 seconds. That is ridiculous. Technically that makes it faster than my Model 3LR (though traction on damp pavement is definitely better on the Tesla than on the Ford).
It's easily the best pickup I've ever driven. Perfect (and I mean perfect) 50/50 weight balance, astonishing power, low center of gravity, etc. It simultaneously feels like a 6500 pound truck, but also doesn't. It feels like it defies physics sometimes.
> The future of cars, including and maybe especially fast cars, is exciting.
1000% agree. We used to think that the horsepower wars of the 2010s was the pinnacle of performance, but EVs are just raising the bar even higher.
Will it still be maintainable in 30-40yr? Just the other day I pulled my 80 series Land Cruiser's windshield wiper motor to epoxy one of the permanent magnets back on (it had come loose from the housing and was making a horrible grinding noise). That part is made to be rebuilt, it's every bit as simple and straightforward as the century old Westinghouse motor in my drill press. I'm confident with nothing more than my lathe I could manufacture the parts necessary to keep that thing working indefinitely.
The problem with modern cars in my view, in no particular order:
1. Too much proprietary software. 2. Proprietary interfaces--no way to swap computers between cars. They're universal computers for fuck's sake, why can't we just replace them? If my 1995 Toyota had sensibly designed, open interfaces I'd be easily able to replace any computer on it with off the shelf components. 3. Too much complexity. The hardware and software has gotten so intricately intertwined that reverse engineering it is pretty hopeless, at least from the perspective of someone just trying to keep their vehicles going. Even if point (2) above were addressed and we started talking seriously about building stuff that's meant to last we'd still have to face how damnably complicated these systems have become.
The problem in my view is nobody is trying to make an EV that I'd still want to own in 30-40yr. I'm confident if I watch the market and stockpile enough parts, and learn how to rebuild the ones that are getting rare or NLA, that I'll be able to make this 1995 Cruiser go indefinitely. If I have to make my own transmission control unit or engine controller I'm pretty sure I could do that, or hack some cob job together well enough to get me down the road. I have no such confidence about "modern" vehicles.
If someone makes an EV that looks like I'll still be able to keep it going 30+yr from now I'll buy it on the spot, but so far they all look like 5yr lifespan landfill bait.
How far can your truck tow anything? We run a motorcycle race team in Spain and going electric for our logistics vehicles would be a nightmare. Currently we can get from Barcelona to Jerez in a day. With electric that becomes 2 days, sometimes three. Several hours to charge a vehicle is a huge amount of time waiting around, especially when paying drivers by the hour, not to mention the electric vehicles are so heavy that it means a 3500kg electric van doesn’t have nearly the same payload as the diesel equivalent. So we either need bigger vehicles (requiring a commercial license and more expense) or we have to have more vehicles to move the same stuff.
Soemthing like a Tesla Plaid (or even a P120) is light years ahead of a Mach E in performance.
That's a bit of an overstatement, but by your gauge it's also light years ahead in cost.
It's like 40+ mph faster in the 1/4 mile (almost 50%)
It does cost double though.
Approximately the same brakes as the Mach E. Maybe worse.
Amecdotally, I was behind a Tesla 3 performance at a recent track day; it was lowered on eibach springs, but had more mass than my stock height 2004 bmw 3 series.
It couldn't handle the Gs on a slightly negative camber straight, as opposed to I could floor it there. I definitely expected it to clear me on the straights faster.
>>And in street racing, and driving fast responsive cars in general, electric is the future.
Street racing is entirely too dangerous and of course illegal. You don't have to race to take part in the street scene, which in that scenario the actual power to weight ratio is somewhat irrelevant in itself. What is relevant to me, personally, is the ambience that surrounds a supercharged radically cammed V8 rumbling down the street. That will give me goosebumps every time. The power is in it's growl, not necessarily it's bite. I don't know how you replicate that in an electric vehicle and I think that feeling transfers to the racetrack as well. I would rather watch a 3-4 second top fuel race rather than a 2-3 second electric car race.
Oh yeah if you ever do happen to catch one of those top fuel events don't miss watching them rebuild the engines and the 'let's make sure it runs' startups. The fumes will cause tears in your eyes and your lungs will hurt but it's as good or better than the actual race.
> I would rather watch a 3-4 second top fuel race rather than a 2-3 second electric car race.
The car enthusiast obsession with vroom-vroom noises has always seemed pretty silly to me. Maybe I just don’t get it. Like heat, loud noises are just a sign of inefficiency and energy loss. A car that goes the same speed as another car, but 10dB quieter is objectively better and more efficient at delivering power to the wheels. A car that is both faster and quieter is even better and more impressive. Like a GPU that delivers high performance without getting hot and needing a fan. A noisy car is a worse car.
From an enthusiast point of view, I'd wager that it's more because a lot of the most iconic engine noises are distinctive and recognizable based on model and just general throttle feedback and it's a quirk that gives different cars a lot of personality. Versus electric cars not having that personality quirk to really tell them apart- they're all going to be quite similar in "feel" and responsiveness to the throttle. I think in general for more hands on enthusiasts electric will never really quite take over ICE obsession. From a tinkering standpoint, intricate mechanical systems like engines are far more satisfying to pour your hands over when you're rebuilding or modifying an engine than black box electrical systems that you can't really reasonably work on. The act of replacing a physical, actual part instead of plugging in a laptop to twiddle some abstract values is also more gratifying. It's the same reason I imagine that mechanical watches are pretty much universally preferred by watch collectors and enthusiasts over digital ones.
edit: When I think about it more I guess celebrating inefficiencies/nostalgia/the physical aspect of a hobby is not that different anywhere. Like people still collecting vinyl records, or using real CRTs with refurbished consoles instead of emulating, people into collecting physical books / doing their own book bindings instead of switching to digital etc.
> The car enthusiast obsession with vroom-vroom noises
BTW this is a gross generalization. Many of us car enthusiasts, including oldsters like me, love EVs. And if I'm feeling a bit spicy, the fact that I can use 100% of the power without announcing that to the world is exhilarating. I love a big rumbly V8, too, but everything has it's place.
> Street racing is entirely too dangerous and of course illegal
Someday I wonder if that will change?
Consider a future where full self driving cars have been perfected, to the point that they are mandatory. Every car on the road is FSDing, and the cars are also all in communication with nearby cars and with a central planning system.
Many humans will still want to drive for fun, and that could be implemented as a mode. In human driving mode the FSD system would still be running but it would be taking driving commands from the human and following them as long as they are safe. Safe in this context means the FSD does not let the car get into any situation where the FSD system won't be able to keep control.
The FSD system could coordinate with other nearby cars and the central system to leave more space around the car in HD mode to allow for slower human reflexes.
Such a system could also implement a street racing mode, where two or more cars in human driving mode could race, again with the FSD coordinating with other cars and the central planner to clear traffic.
My mechanic told me the future of racing is hydrogen. You gotta have noise.
You really dont though, turbos cut the noise in half in the recent years and it's considerably nicer to watch a race.
Recently, the gt3 Porsche cup at an F1 event; you need earplugs for the gt3s 1000' away, but the F1 cars you can have a conversation, not damage your hearing (because of the turbos)