mike spinelli: can generalmotors build a rear wheel drive sport compact car you guyswould actually want to drive, let alone buy? and what should they name it? we've got alex nunez fromroadandtrack.com on the after drive couch. and today on after drive, weare talking about the best chevrolet product rumorin decades. that's right nowon after drive.
so i just want to start up byacknowledging the commenter's that after last week's show whenwe were talking about the bmw e30m3s s14 four cylinderreminded me about a natural aspirated four with a verysimilar power output in production aroundthe same time. and that was the 2.3oldsmobile quad 4. and if you're a fan of quirkpodengines, you remember the quad 4. it produced 180 horsepowerdouble overhead cam 4 with a
very rare w41 versionthat produced 190. the old cutlass callaway quad442 did 0 to 60 in seven seconds, which, back then,was pretty good. it was quicker thana z28 camaro. and it also raced, and it wonthe msa fire hawk endurance series and msa. international sedanseries in 1991. so if you want to know more,head over to quad4forums.com. i'll put the link in thebasement down below this.
also, the quad 4 poweredthe gm ero tech cars like this one. the concept cars. this one set a closed coursespeed record at the hands of aj foyt of 267.88 miles perhour with heavily turbo charged quad 4. alex nunez fromroadandtrack.com. you remember the quad 4. alex nunez: yeah.
i can't say i'd thought about ituntil about 10 seconds ago. mike spinelli: neither did i.and that's why somebody had to remind me. alex nunez: i don't believethose are the stock headers. mike spinelli: first of all,not stock headers, though. alex nunez: right. not stock. it's funny that you bringit up though. i was at a cruise nighta couple weeks ago.
i brought my kids to a saturdaynight thing at one of these drive-in's. and somebody had aquad 4 callaway. not the rad quad 442. mike spinelli: thew 41 package. alex nunez: and that'sreally rare. what was the number? mike spinelli: well,that's the thing. of the callaway withthe w41, there were
only 209, maybe, made. so, what, are there300 enzo's? mike spinelli: they'remore enzo's. could you imagine theenzo's more rare? i mean, that's morerare than an enzo? alex nunez: it probably isbecause a lot of these are probably dust anyway. most of the surviving onesare probably in michigan. you won't see them at all.
and then you go to the woodwarddream cruise, and you'll see all of themin a 24 hour span. mike spinelli: right. everything is in michigansomewhere. alex nunez: everything isin michigan because you know how it is. you get off the plane, and allof a sudden you drive out of the rent a car thing. and the last time i went i sawtwo thunderbird super coops in
the space of five minutes. i hadn't seen one, i think, inprobably three or four years. so, i'm sure that's whereall these are hiding. mike spinelli: andit's interesting. the cool thing about the quad 4is that a lot of hot riders started getting into thembecause, other than the fact they're nerds, if you lookover here at the cams, it looks like an offenhauser alittle, if you look at an old offenhauser racing engine.
so it's got a lot of, kindof, nerd engine cred. and hot riders don't careabout mvh issues, and everything that plagued thesecars when they came out. mike spinelli: yeah. well, that's the thing. they use to rattle, andeventually they added a bounce shaft or something later on. eventually, they fixed it. and then they just cut it off,which was classic gm
methodology of the era. and kind of interesting that,in the old days, the brands used to make theirown engines. so, that kind of wentaway in the '70s. and then in the '80s, to haveoldsmobile build its own engine like this and then end upin the chevy beretta and-- what else was this in-- the pontiac grand am. alex nunez: i think itwas in the grand am.
mike spinelli: yeah, in thecalais and the achieva. alex nunez: oh, the achieva. mike spinelli: achieva. alex nunez: i just saw anachieva on 57th street the other day, now thatyou bring that up. mike spinelli: anyway. so, chevy. alex nunez: yeah, chevy. sort of big news.
mike spinelli: so to recap,a couple of years ago in detroit, gm showed up withtwo concept cars, right. so one of them was thetru 140r concept. and that, sort of, lookeda lot like a mitsubishi eclipse, actually. alex nunez: very much like it. mike spinelli: but then theyhad the code 130r. i mean, the names are terriblefor both of the cars. mike spinelli: i know.
it's sort of whatever theythink the youth oriented culture is going to be. alex nunez: because thatworks out so well. mike spinelli: because that'sworked out so well in the past for them. right. so as it turns out, the car thatis the one that shows the most promise for what they aretalking about building with the rumor that we're talkingabout today is that they're
going to build a sportcompact car. mike spinelli: because listen,mark royce has been on record multiple times. he loves this car. mike spinelli: and thisis actually-- alex nunez: gm bossby the way. chevy boss. and the thing is, i rememberwhen these photos came out i was like, oh, it'skind of lame.
but the thing is, this carin person is great. it's a really good size. got a great stanceand everything. and so, the rumor as jalopnikreported-- and i have some other stuff from probablysome other source-- is right now in australia therear wheel drive zeta sedans. this is the last generationof those. so after this three yearrun, we're getting that as the chevy ss.
and hsv is unveiling their newsuper performance versions tomorrow, including the wagonand the ute and everything. mike spinelli: by the way,that's the platform that the camaro's are right now. that's the larger rear drive. alex nunez: right, whichaustralia developed. mike spinelli: yes. alex nunez: this is anaustralian thing. this is once again whereaustralia sort of saves
america's bacon in terms of rearwheel drive cars because it's such an ingrained partof the culture there. so the issue right now, and thiswas a great concept from a couple years ago, withbasically a two door holding commodore concept. that's that platform iwas talking about. this is zeta. this is the old body style. i love that car.
mike spinelli: by the way, ifyou go back a little bit-- go back two more-- we're going to talk about thismore in terms of the styling of it as an influence of whatgm might be building. but keep going on the-- so the problem is, after thisrun of zeta sedans, the commodore world becomes a globalfront drive car, like a lacrosse platform or whateverthe current version of that is at the time.
and that, from the sources thati've talked to, has the guys in holden very-- mike spinelli: they're pissed. alex nunez: they are unhappybecause holden wants an australian car. and australian car is codefor rear wheel drive. mike spinelli: right, exactly. australian car means musclecar lineage, right? australia developed this, kindof, parallel muscle car
universe to america's. alex nunez: right, exactly. mike spinelli: andthey kept it. where we, sort of, threwit in the garbage. alex nunez: we threwit all out. after the '80s, when we got ridof all those mid-size rear wheel drive platforms like themonte carlo, and the regal and everything, that waspretty much it. the only thing that survivedwas the mustang.
mike spinelli:. alex nunez: because at gm, rearwheel drive went away if it wasn't a corvetteor a camero. and then the f-body's went awayfor a period of time. you had nothing. so the australians, they wanta rear wheel drive car. so my understandingis that they went pretty far in this process. from what i understand, thereare clays of this proposed
car, which they wantto call terrano. they want to resurrectthat name. mike spinelli: and it mightlook like this? alex nunez: no. what i heard is that it is goingto be a three box coupe, which speaks to that 130rwith some camaro style attitude to it. so it sounds like it's actuallygoing to be not as conservative lookingas the 130r.
or at least what has beenpitched by holden to the mother-ship to tryand get this car. and i think, as part of thatpitch, they're saying, if you green light this, youcould sell this in the us as a chevelle. so i think that's where thechevelle rumor comes from. mike spinelli: so, the thing isthat the car will be small. and this is what a chevellelooked like. a big car.
and this is going to be a sportcompact, so this is going to go up against thesubaru brz, theoretically. mike spinelli: theyneed a name. so we went to facebook and askedour facebook audience what they thought we should callit and whether they would buy it because, don't forget,gm is not known for its sport compacts. have they done asport compact? yes, they actually did if youconsider the cosworth vega.
so, i wrote a piece in"jalopnik" about why they should call it the vega. and basically, it's becausethen they could work with cosworth and do like a cosworthtuned version, and do a new cosworth vega. and i think that wouldbe freaking awesome. alex nunez: i don't know aboutcalling it the vega. i think there's way toomuch baggage there. and seriously, if not for madmen two weeks ago, are we even
bringing up vega inthis conversation? mike spinelli: that's true. would we be talkingabout vega? alex nunez: i mean, we wouldnot have thought of it. just like i would not havethought of the calais 442 had you not brought it up at thebeginning of the show. i think that's kind of the pointi was making is that nobody remembers what a piece ofcrap the vega was, but it's a good name.
and cosworth vega, kind of,has a little ring to it. this had basically the aluminumblock from the vega with the cosworth twin cam headson it and was kind of neutered by the epa and theemissions control people. and so, they owe us this car. they owe us a good one. i mean, this was pretty good-- alex nunez: they owe usa good sport compact. they don't necessarily oweus a cosworth vega.
mike spinelli: [laughs] i think they owe us adamn cosworth vega. alex nunez: i can totallysee them going with something like chevelle. because can you imagine in therensen, all of the chest bumps and everything if thatever got approved? and all of the marketing peoplejust having a field day thinking of how they're goingto advertise this? the other thing you could callit, in my opinion, is monte
carlo because you getback a real coupe. a real monte carlo. not the front wheeldrive, you know. you were talking about the oldlandau roof with the giant-- alex nunez: i'm talkingabout monte carlo ss. mike spinelli: oh. alex nunez: i'm talking aboutthat sort of generation where, again, you had a three boxtraditional coupe, which is what that 130r is.
and which is what the rumorhas it that the australian design also mimics. and monte carlo-- mike spinelli: that'sinteresting. alex nunez: there isgood equity there. and still in recent memory. i mean maybe you coulddo and throw a coupe. mike spinelli: trust me. i remember the montecarlo very fondly.
let me tell you somethingabout the monte carlo. this is a car that i rememberlike i remember my own name from way back. let me tell you something. all right. so we went to facebook andtwitter and asked you guys what you thought the name shouldbe and whether you would buy it because that'sanother thing. would you buy a gm sport compactdespite the fact that,
actually, cars like the cobaltss weren't really as bad as people remember them. and gm does make goodcompacts now. i mean, sonic is really good. mike spinelli: and echotechis a pretty good engine. maybe in next generationechotech could actually be pretty good. so on twitter, austintacious-- austin underscore tacious--
said, "i'd consider it no ideawhether it should be a rebirth, like the chevelle orthe vega, or a totally new car, though, as long as it'snot a sonic." that's it. sleevy b says, "call it a novaif they're boring, bel air if they're ballsy, corvair ifthey're being ironic." so you could call it a corvair,unsafe at any speed. i don't think corvair hasquite the equity. alex nunez: it doesn't. i mean, corvair isa cool car, and
obviously has its own following. but i don't know if thatname really works. mike spinelli: not surecorvair will work now. rear engine though. if they did a rearengine 911 fire. that's coming soon. mike spinelli: so tokyo car guysays on twitter, i just can't think of a way theycan pull this off. and this is really the thingwe're not sure about.
whether they canpull this off. they don't have theproper base or experience in that segment. and then ansand says, "for usantipodeans--" meaning the antipodes, which is a kind ofcool reference, that's the other side of the world. that means australia,i would imagines. "for us antipodeans, ithas to be the torana." alex nunez: it hasto be the torana
mike spinelli: so it has to bethe torana in australia. alex nunez: so australiahas to be the torana. mike spinelli: exactly. alex nunez: if the car getsmade, the whole debate is what would call it here. right, exactly. so on facebook some ofcommenter's added a little more because you could commentin more space. i'd buy a sub 200 horsepower sub2,700 pounds so sub 22 k
rear wheel drive coupe with 12to 13 cubic feet of trunk space, which the brzdoes not have. mike spinelli: so that'ssomething that if chevy did the code 130 r style, they wouldhave more trunk space. that's the major factor keepingme from considering the brz as a daily driver, andonly car, for this guy. it doesn't have tobe a sports car. just rear wheel drive and manualsays mark rothenberg. as far as names go,a brz competitor.
who cares what it's called. just build it, saysjonathan arena. and sean costello has the bestcomment ever about this. he said call it chevroletthe chevrolet. alex nunez: wow. mike spinelli: to use ferrari'snaming scheme. alex nunez: let me justcall it chevy 3. mike spinelli: that'strue, yeah. there was chevy 2.
what was chevy 1, by the way? do you remember? alex nunez: i don't remember. mike spinelli: what do theyconsider to be chevy 1? the bel air? i don't know. and then chevy 2 was the nova,which is another name that a lot of people have been sayingthey should use. so the problem is, that'scontinuing to go back to their
heritage to name a car that'snothing like any car they've ever built. alex nunez: i don'tnecessarily think that's a bad thing. i hate when these automakersdon't reach back and use heritage names that havecache to them. i mean, lincoln has completelylost the plot in terms of naming. totally messed it up.
but chevy has good names thatthey can still pull from. or like with sonic, they can goand just create something totally new and try and give thecar a new identity, which would be fine. it is a new car. if this ever came to fruition,i think it could be a great car because alpha is good. i mean, look at the ats. the chassis tuningon the ats--
mike spinelli: we have anats in here somewhere. actually, there you go. the chassis tuning is the bestthing about this car. alex nunez: it's an amazinglygood car. the ats is pretty spectacularto drive. the issues that people have withit are around the user interface inside the car,which is whatever. you can either get usedto it or you don't. if you're reviewing a car-- youhave it for a week-- it's
not the same as livingwith the car. so you probably get used toit like you get used to everything else. but one thing that isjust undeniable is that chassis is awesome. that means the new camaro shouldbe really good too. what about size, right? so they're actually making thenew camaro smaller to fit on this platform.
so this is the alpha platform,they call it? alex nunez: it's alpha. mike spinelli: it'salpha, right? mike spinelli: ok. so they're making thecamaro smaller to fit on this chassis. so the next sport compact caris going to have to be even smaller than that. alex nunez: but not necessarilythough.
well, look at how bigcompact cars are. look at how big thebmw1 series m is. mike spinelli: that'svery true. alex nunez: that is a big carconsidered to be a compact. put a 1m next to an old m6. you know, an og m6. like 635. that kind. the 1m is like this giganticthing next to it.
alex nunez: so the notionof compact-- first of all, these sizeclassifications are all based on epa interior volume anyway. so they'll call ita sport compact. it's not going tobe a small car. just like the mustang issupposed to be like a small pony car. it's not a small car. the brz is not reallya small car.
mike spinelli: well, in termsof competition though, or in terms of their own line. so if the camaro's small, thiscar can't be a similar size as a camaro, though. so then you're lookingat making it even and that's why on "jalopnik,"they were talking about that they might not be able to usethe alpha platform, because that would be too big. alex nunez: well, they're notgoing to develop another rear
wheel drive platform. so it has to come out of theaustralian rear drive platform that we've been talking about. they'll develop the whole car. and they'll do it right. i mean, they alreadydo it right. mike spinelli: so what's thedeal with australia? so how did australia end upbeing a muscle car culture? is it just the same thingwith america?
do they just havea ton of space? alex nunez: well, it'sa ton of space. i've never been to australia. it's one of these places thati really want to go to and drive in, because i feellike there are a lot of parallels there. it's an entire continent,obviously. there is this, sort of, ruggedindividualism type of thing going on.
and there's this senseof freedom and being able to go anywhere. and that all has directparallels to the us where you have the romantic vision, whichstill exists, is that, on any given day, you can justget in your car and drive away and go any place. and you can, sort of,live that fantasy. and i think australiais a similar thing. and the tastes were similar.
v8, muscle, rear wheel drive. i mean, these falcons and thesevarious commodores and everything. these are really cool cars. mike spinelli: yeah, and it'sfunny how we, kind of, abandoned that for thefront wheel drive. and part of it was, obviously,for the economy reason. but part of it was that westopped giving a crap. i mean, it's sort of about--
and keep in mind, theseaustralian rear wheel drive cars, they're not cheap cars. mike spinelli: right,that's true. so, it's not like they haveeconomy rear drive cars. it's either the goodv6 or a v8. and just like here, the ss,which we have now, that's pretty much a premiummodel only. it's a single trim level. so thank you australiafor keeping the
dream alive for america. when are going to see somethinglike this come out? i mean 15? are we looking at 15? alex nunez: i mean, ifthey approve it. so mark royce was recently ontwitter talking about they want your help. they want our help. alex nunez: roycewants this car.
but it's all about businesscase, i think, at this point. mike spinelli: i guess so. and i think maybe they'rewaiting on the brz and the frs to see how well they do. alex nunez: well look,they're not waiting. they're going to makethe convertible version of the frs. that show car was a finishedproduct with better leather. so they're not runningaway from that.
and toyota maybe has a differentreason for this, because toyota was so beigedout for so long that the frs or gt86-- as it's called everywhere else--is really important in terms of resetting somethingat toyota. like reminding that performanceis not just the unobtainable lexis lfa. mike spinelli: and nobody needsthat halo more than chevy right now, i think.
alex nunez: well, chevy hasthe corvette, which-- mike spinelli: ok, yeah. i mean, it's true. alex nunez: c-7-- i mean, it's an all new car. mike spinelli: it's all theaccessible super car. i mean, if you want to lookat the z06 and the z01. alex nunez: it's goingto be really good. mike spinelli: this car has tobe freaking awesome, or they
are going to be screwed, becausethey really need the bragging rights at this level. and this gives them somethingthat ford doesn't have. that is very true. alex nunez. roadandtrack.com. alex nunez: thanks, mike. mike spinelli: good site, man. so wait a minute.
so road and trackjust did a major redesign for the magazine. and you're doing the samekind of thing with the-- so the magazine relaunchwith the may issue. june issue is out nowwith a magnus walker porsche on the cover. it's a big porscheissue for 911 50. and the website relaunchedback in december with a full redesign.
and then we had anupdated redesign. we took the new logoand everything. we just did another update tothe homepage to, hopefully, make it even more readable andbetter looking for people that come and visit. so encourage everybody to comevisit roadandtrack.com. mike spinelli: roadandtrak.com. it looks awesome. alex nunez: thanks,man.
mike spinelli: so, that's it. after drive today, whatdo you guys think? would you buy, wouldyou drive, a chevy sport compact car? if it's great, ofcourse you will. but what would you name it? let us know. there's a really good threadup on facebook right now. i'm going to leave you thelink downstairs also.
www.slashdrive.tv, @driveon twitter, and facebook.com/drivetv. i will see you guys next week. [music playing]
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