>Spectators of racing often look to the past and say,”those were the golden years.” This is said for many reason including the quality of racing, lack of electronic wizardry, and the diverse personalities of the drivers. However, many drivers have paid the ultimate price over the years and it’s too easily forgotten how their sacrifices have led to the relatively safe racing that we watch today.
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It has been 10 years since Dale Earnhardt died at the Daytona 500 but to this day he remains one of the most popular and profitable names in NASCAR. So it seems natural to slap his name on just about anything. If you combine that fact with the empire that is Dale Earnhardt Inc., it is actually a bit surprising that there isn’t two dozen special editions already out there.
Looking past my own jaded opinions it is actually a pretty stout vehicle. It boasts 704 HP and 695 ft-lbs of torque via a Eaton supercharger. Other performance highlights include a one inch drop all the way around, 2″ exhaust, cross drilled rotors, high flow injectors, and chassis stiffening through sub frame connectors.
Obviously a lot of the appeal of the car is that it’s officially a product of DEI, and Dale Earnhardt Chevrolet. It sure has a lot of badges to make sure you don’t forget too. I mean lets be honest, the macho of having the latest baddest super ultra mega special edition is what moves the new muscle car market. If it didn’t, there wouldn’t be a million versions of the Mustang out there.
I guess it really comes down to if it’s cool. Yes… But is it worth the $79,993 base price? ehhh…
You can find more pictures and specs here
>We are terribly sorry that we haven’t posted anything lately. We are having sporadic internet problems and haven’t been able to pull together posts. As soon as we’re back online, we will definitely make it up to you!
Our Deepest Apologies,
Flappy Paddle Heads
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Happy Hump Day!
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Aston Martin has been a long established leader and benchmark for elegance in design. During motorsportscenter.com’s interview with Henrick Fiskar in 2005, Fiskar revealed,
With the Aston Martin V8, I did one sketch and that was basically it– I knew this was it…
…There should be no changes from a design perspective, because a design that is beautiful is no more expensive to make than an ugly design. There is no excuse for an ugly design.
Five years later, the Aston Martin V8 looks just as beautiful and proportional as it did when it was first unveiled as a prototype. It is truly one of the most successful designs of the decade.
And so, allow us to take the obvious course of action. Enjoy our selection of modern Aston Martin car porn.
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FPH covered the famous Group B sports cars during our Killer B series a few months back. However, like the brightest stars that burn the quickest, the Group B era soon ended as the FIA grew increasely concerned of the incredible accidents that are so often blamed by the cars’ outright speed and its negligence for safety. Competition was so fierce that even engineering innovation moved faster than governing bodies could manage.
In this post, I want to honor the little brother– Group A. Based on production cars, Group A had stricter restrictions on power output, technology, weight, as well as team cost. Yet DTM, perhaps the most popular Group A racing series, allowed ABS, electronic driving aids, all wheel drive, and carbon fiber.
Of course, the poster child of early DTM has often been the original BMW E30 M3. However, I was a bit surprised to discover that it did not win as many championships as its popularity led me to believe– 1987 and 1989.
Here are some great stills of some other Championship winning race cars of DTM’s golden era:
And finally, a video… with period correct German soft-rock. I think.
Enjoy a great weekend everybody!
>Usually we don’t post things like this on FPH but this is to help out a fellow blogger over at Motoriginal.
For sale: 1998 DINAN BMW E36 M3 Sedan PRICE DROP to $12,000 obo
My friend’s father is now selling his DINAN M3 so he can upgrade to an M5 and he asked me to help him sell it. Please REBLOG if you think your followers may be interested. He wants to find a good home for this car. Details below:
New parts: radiator, steering rack, high pressure power steering hose
Recent maintenance: fluid changes
This car is seriously immaculate and deserves a good home. It is located in Putnam/Westchester County, NY.
Asking $13,500. Email me at jeffreye.butler@gmail.com for more information.
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The automotive world is mourning the passing of the great David E. Davis Jr. As a past contributor to Car and Driver and Road & Track in addition to being founder of Automobile Magazine and Winding Road e-magazine, Davis inspired and influenced an incalculable number of automotive enthusiasts. While he will be missed by many, his legacy lives on. We would like to extend our condolences to the Davis family.
Autoblog’s Matt Davis remembers his father here.
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I would like to start off by saying that the Corvette is a fine car that represents a great performance bargain in the market but… I hate the damn car. It is nothing more than a status symbol for the mid-life crisis. It’s nothing special, it isn’t a famous racing brand, it’s not rare, it’s just another car.
It’s right there with your Mustang and Camaro. Somewhere in your late 30s, you start feeling a little short between the legs so you go out and buy the loudest colored, newest special edition car you could find so you could feel like a man again. If you are a billionaire, you go buy a Bugatti. If you are a millionaire, you go buy a Lamborghini. If you are Mike the middle manager, you go buy a Corvette. And, if you are Joe the plumber, you buy a Mustang or Camaro.
Now at one point in time, they were unique cars. Upon their introduction, they were like little else in the American market. The early C1 cars had some style to them; they were relatively small and came only as a convertible. Unfortunately it was also a failed car that survived with the help of the Thunderbird. GM couldn’t let Ford be the only game in town so to speak.
The C2 car was okay, but I don’t feel there is much that puts it any higher than the rest of the muscle car heap besides a higher price tag. On a separate note, can someone please explain why a split window Corvette is somehow more valuable than a V16 Cadillac? When the others went racing the Corvette stayed home. The “mighty” Corvette couldn’t possibly be beaten by such lowly competition like the Mustang or Javelin (to be fair the Javelin would have been in the C3 era) so why even show up?
This Corvette racing mystique has all of a sudden showed up out of nowhere like it’s always been a superior race car. It wasn’t until recently they showed up in an empty class and beat up on a bunch of little guys. When Aston Martin showed up they couldn’t keep up in speed. And now that they have showed up in what was GT2, they finished behind the M3, 997, and F430.
The main reason I hate Corvettes is similar to the same reason that some hate BMW; it’s that aura of superiority. Your Corvette isn’t special and it doesn’t make you special either. They are right there with the Mopar Survivor crowd, obsessively delusional. Your fiberglass C1 wasn’t straight from the factory so how do you expect it to be straight now, almost 60 years later? If I see Corvette club stickers my asshole radar just starts going off automatically. This is not to say all Corvette owners are jagoffs, I have just found it to be a higher percentage and it makes me hate that damn car just a little bit more. It’s an okay car, but sorry, it’s nothing special.
