ValleyDJing said:
Sooo, if you're telling me the GT500 sucks as far as bang for your buck goes, and I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt based purely on the amount of information you put up there
No no no no no, I don't mean to say that. For $41k, it is a bargain for a fast NEW car, it's hard to get something faster off the lot for less money. The only thing really close is the base model C6 Vette. Even that's only a smidge faster but optioned out will cost you a cool $10k more than the GT500. The GT500 could be faster for the money, but it's still a good price for a good car. But my thing is, I've never cared much for that new car smell that drags so many people into paying what I feel is too much money for too little performance. I've only bought one car new (a 2000 Lincoln LS), and it honestly gave me one of my worst car experiences ever (I love the car, but the first year V8 engine is junk, I had to replace it twice due to thrown engine rods). For the tuner guys like me, it doesn't make any sense to pay $40k for a new GT500 when I can spend half the money on an RX-7 and make it run rings around the GT500. That, obviously, is not the path for everybody. I don't mean to sound arrogant, but I am a mechanical genius, that's why my RX-7 starts every time I turn the key. Most people can't handle it.
As far as buying American, I agree,
mostly. We need to support our own economy. But remember, cars may be made in Japan or Germany, but Americans still sell them at dealerships across the country, Americans still work on them everyday, Americans still make many replacement parts for them, Americans still build and support the multi-million dollar advertising structuring. As a matter of fact, the actual building of the car has probably the lowest profit margin of all aspects of getting a car from a concept drawing into consumer's garages. The amount of money taken out of this country by buying a foreign car is much much less than most people think. Hell for that matter, lots of Toyotas, Hondas and BMWs are build in the US, and lots of GM cars are built in Mexico. That kind throws you a curveball when describing domestic and import. Camaros were made in Mexico, so they're technically imported, but Eclipses/Talons were made on US soil, so aren't they domestics? The new 300C, Dodge Charger, and Dodge Magnum are all built on a platform derived from the old E-Class Mercedes. And some of not all of them are built out of the country. And did you know that at least two BMW models are built in South Carolina only, nowhere else in the world? Jaguars, Aston Martins and Land Rovers are all imported cars, but since Ford owns all of those companies, is it still a bad thing or are we still keeping money in our own economy since Ford gets the money? One last thing, Ford, yeah, they own Mazda too. So my RX-7 is domestic.....ish.
What should you go with as far as cars go? Well it depends entirely on what you want to do with it and how much you have to spend on it. Limiting yourself to only American cars isn't a horrible thing, there are hundreds of good American cars. But there are hundreds of good imported cars as well, cars that may or may not fit your needs and wants better. I think the Ford Focus is a good cheap car for people who want reliable transportation, and they even have a few sporty versions that you can kind get your kicks in. But when you can buy a cheaper Scion tC that does nearly the same thing, but with a lot more standard and available equipment, why buy the Ford? On the flip side, if you want a straight line boulevard cruiser, Japan has very little to offer that makes more sense than a Camaro/Firebird, Mustang, or even Corvette. Sure you can build n old Supra up to 800 horsepower with stock internal engine parts and up to 1500 or more horsepower with internal mods, but then you're going to spend $100k on a car wen you could put $30k total into a classic Chevelle and have it FULL SECONDS faster down the drag strip. But, there's not a single American sedan ever made (ever) that can keep up with a BMW M5 around a roadcourse track. No, the Germans have the sport sedan market covered from top to bottom, from the M5 to the Mercedes E55 and CLS55 to the Audi S and RS series of sedans. To put it bluntly, the only American performance sedans ever made that are worth a sh!t, the 300C/Magnum/Charger cars were designed by (drum roll, please.....) Germans. Back on the American side, the new Corvette Z06 is the new and undisputed king of bargains. $66k. That's about what it takes to get into one of those. And the only thing capable of beating the new Z06 around the Nurburgring racetrack in Germany is the $400k Porsche Carrera GT. It even beat out the $170k Porsche GT2. I'm the biggest Vette-hater in the world today, and even I can't deny how that's un-frickin-believable. And if you're a die hard Mafia hit-man, you can't drive a Nissan. No damned way. You can't be seen in anything less than a full-blown Lincoln Town Car. It's just the way things are, I don't make the rules.
So, I guess to sum up, I don't buy the brand of the country or origin, I buy the model. I bought my Lightning because it's the fastest production truck. If Isuzu made the fastest truck, that's what I would have bought. I bought the RX-7 because I knew for the money I had to invest at the time, there was nothing that I could build to be faster around a roadcourse and still be street legal.