Random Car Facts

  • Thread starter Thread starter Slash
  • 830 comments
  • 68,775 views
LM7325
I am not sure those hyperutectic pistons, powdered metal rods and shallow skirt block agree with that. The LS engines have a crazy strong block making them stay together, not so much the V6/60° family. And I have never heard anything but grief about how weak the GM front drive trans were at the time.

Sorry, not trying to troll here, just skeptical of these claims.
Click to expand...
Well, it took me a while to dig for the information. I found it somewhere obscure so the credibility is a bit questionable...
 
I have an ancient GM performance parts catalog hiding somewhere. It has a section devoted to the 60 degree engines. Summit even sells aluminum Bowtie V6/60 blocks still. 400 hp is well within reach with a little work, and a generous amount of forced induction. I just doubt the stock setup would hold up very long is all.

But what do I know, stock 5.3 truck engines have held over twice that power with similar questionable internals. I figure it has to be the block holding it all in for them.
 
Neddo
Does term armourcars gets used for something else than literally?
Click to expand...

Balogna is the last thing you want on your paint. Vienna Sausage may be just as bad. Please don't Armour my car...
 
  • Audi never intended to bring the TT RS to the American market, but decided to do so after a large FaceBook protest.
  • To reduce weight, badges on most racing-oriented Porsches are actually just stickers.
  • To deter thieves, the hood ornament on all current Rolls Royce models will automatically retract into the hood if touched.
  • The Noble M400 uses the same exact taillights as the 4th-gen Hyundai Sonata
  • Honda lost money on every Integra Type-R DC2 ever sold.
  • The Ford Thunderbird was the last American car to have porthole windows.
  • The 2009-2015 Toyota Prius and Scion FR-S use the same exact tires.
  • The first wrecked ND Miata was totaled after it's new owners had only driven it 1/2 a mile!
  • All current Rolls Royce models have built-in umbrellas into the rear doors.
  • If you drive a Bugatti Veyron at it's top speed for 9 minutes, it's tires will completely wear out.
  • The U.S. government classed the first-gen Lexus IS as a subcompact car, due to it's abysmal interior legroom.
  • The Tesla Model S used the same steering wheel stalks as the Mercedes-Benz E-Class
  • The subcompact has more interior legroom than a full-size Toyota Avalon!
  • The Dodge Charger is the only sedan on the market that still uses lift-up door handles, rather than pull-out ones.
  • The GMC Terrain has the GMC Logo in it's taillights, if you look very carefully.
  • Mercedes originally wanted to name the ML-Class crossover "M-Class", but BMW would not allow that, due to it's line of M performance cars.
  • The Chevrolet Suburban has been the longest produced car that's still in production. It has been produced for 79 model years so far.
  • In Russia, it is a criminal offense to drive a dirty car in the city.
  • The 4th generation Honda Prelude beat every Ferrari, Porsche, and Lamborghini model (from it's time) on the slalom test.
  • 18% of all American car owners drive a manual.
  • The current Lotus Elise and Exige uses engine and transmissions designed by Toyota.
 
The Ford Sierra RS500 Cosworth has Recaro seats.
0Y7A7434-620x413.jpg
 
• The Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione shares a similar V8 to the Ferrari 458.

• Buick used Shaquille O'Niel as a benchmark for headroom in the LaCrosse.

•President Lyndon B. Johnson used an amphibious car to scare guests by driving into a lake while screaming about brake failure.

•Google's self-driving Prius has only ever been in two accidents, and both were from external causes.

•The Tesla Model S broke the NHSS' rollover testing machines.
 
The air conditioning buttons in the Pagani Zonda are the same ones used for the Rover 45.
 
Reviving this thread for a great car fact:



P-Jones is Richard Parry-Jones, the engineer most hold responsible for turning Fords from utter crocks in the 1980s and early 90s into some of the best handling cars in their class from the mid-90s onwards.

Reminded me of another great fact though, which I read recently in a review of an Abbot Racing-tweaked version of the old Saab 9-3 Viggen from the late 90s. One of Abbott's modifications was a hefty brace for the steering column to quell that car's huge torque steer - the company found that under full load the steering column was moving as much as 4-5cm...
 
You can play Tetris on a GAZelle Next

The video is in Russian, this the the translation on how to get it
1) Turn the ignition on 2) Start a car 3) Activate the right turn signal for three blinks 4) Two click the trip odometer reset twice (the computer translated this as “two times distant,” but this is what I think that means5) Push the clutch five times 6) Rev the engine to 2000 RPM while turning on the left turn indicator
Click to expand...
Jalopnik
 
Here's an interesting one. All three of the Big Three (Chevrolet, Dodge, Ford) have made a car called the Durango at one point or another.

Most obviously is the Dodge Durango, 1997-

JDPA_2021%20Dodge%20Durango%20SRT%20Hellcat%20Gray%20Front%20on%20Track.jpg


1979-1982. A dealership conversion of the Ford Fairmont mid-size sedan into an ute. Between 250-350 were produced.

Ford_Durango.jpg


Finally, the Chevrolet S-10 Durango, which was the name given to the middle-of-the-road trim of the 1980s S-10.

1983ChevroletS10_01_1000.jpg
 
  • The first-generation Rover 200 (launched 1984) initially used the same suspension settings as the Honda Ballade, upon which the 200 was based. Rover later investigated the 200's suspension after reports of bad handling, and found that the rear spring rates differed by up to 17% per side. They made the necessary adjustments, and the changes were so successful they were later adopted by Honda themselves.
  • A 2010 study of BMW 1-series (hatchback) owners revealed that about 80% of them thought that the car was FWD, not RWD.
  • In 1995, Volvo was originally going to name the new S40 and V40 model, the S4 and F4 respectively. Due to Audi already having used the S4 name, the names were going to be switched to S40 and F40, and ultimately V40 was chosen after F40 was already used by Ferrari.
  • Mercedes-Benz attempted to sue Volvo, in 2000, for naming their mid-sized car the S60, for bearing too much similarity to the flagship S600.
  • The 1998-2011 Lincoln Town Car can reach speeds as high as 63mph in reverse.
  • In 1980, Chrysler had to decide if they wanted a 4 speed or 5 speed stick shift transmission. A 5 speed would had been $20 more to produce. They went with the 4 speed because that's what Ford and Chevrolet had.
  • The roofs of the 2007 Ford GT and Tesla Model S are so strong that when they were roof crush tested, they both broke the machine.
  • The TVR Chimaera had design input from Trevor Wilkinson's (founder of TVR) dog. The story goes that his dog got hold of a scale model of the car and gave it a good chewing. Having got the model off the dog, Trevor looked at the result and thought "actually, that looks pretty good" and incorporated some of the bite marks into the car.
  • The Chrysler PT Cruiser was the first car completely designed in CAD. Because of how tight the engine fit it took several weeks to get production up from more than just a handful of cars a day.
  • Apparently the decision to cancel a production version of the HSV-010 in 2009 was SO unpopular among Honda engineers, the brands marketing director was literally warned not to visit the R&D centre in case of a riot.
  • A 1987 Yugo was the only car to ever get blown off the Mackinac Bridge due to strong winds. The incident took place in 1989.
  • In production of the 2018 Dodge Demon, Dodge decided to skip production number 666 to avoid creating a bigger resale market for a single customer. There are rumors that this production number was secretly produced anyway.
  • Following the sale of the new '99 Mustang Cobra, people began realizing that it was making around 285 horsepower, far less than the 320 Ford had advertised. This actually made it slower than the Cobra of the previous model year. Ford halted new 1999 Cobra sales in August of '99 and recalled every single car. They replaced "the intake manifold, certain computer components, and the factory cat-back" to reach the 320hp number they were looking for.
  • The Volkswagen Phaeton was supposed to be designed with 10 required parameters. When Ferdinand Piëch announced them, half of the engineering team supposedly walked about because it was impossible to achieve. The only parameter that’s been made public is this: "The Phaeton must be able to be driven all day at 186mph, in 120-degree weather, while maintaining a cabin temperature of 71.6-degrees".
  • The Saab Sonett name has nothing to do with the poetry style, but rather from the Swedish expression "Så nätt den är", which means "it's so neat".
  • Volvo's turn signal sound come from the sound of branches being broken in the Swedish forest. Took about 300 different branches to find the perfect sound.
 
GranTurNismo
  • The first-generation Rover 200 (launched 1984) initially used the same suspension settings as the Honda Ballade, upon which the 200 was based. Rover later investigated the 200's suspension after reports of bad handling, and found that the rear spring rates differed by up to 17% per side. They made the necessary adjustments, and the changes were so successful they were later adopted by Honda themselves.
  • A 2010 study of BMW 1-series (hatchback) owners revealed that about 80% of them thought that the car was FWD, not RWD.
  • In 1995, Volvo was originally going to name the new S40 and V40 model, the S4 and F4 respectively. Due to Audi already having used the S4 name, the names were going to be switched to S40 and F40, and ultimately V40 was chosen after F40 was already used by Ferrari.
  • Mercedes-Benz attempted to sue Volvo, in 2000, for naming their mid-sized car the S60, for bearing too much similarity to the flagship S600.
  • The 1998-2011 Lincoln Town Car can reach speeds as high as 63mph in reverse.
  • In 1980, Chrysler had to decide if they wanted a 4 speed or 5 speed stick shift transmission. A 5 speed would had been $20 more to produce. They went with the 4 speed because that's what Ford and Chevrolet had.
  • The roofs of the 2007 Ford GT and Tesla Model S are so strong that when they were roof crush tested, they both broke the machine.
  • The TVR Chimaera had design input from Trevor Wilkinson's (founder of TVR) dog. The story goes that his dog got hold of a scale model of the car and gave it a good chewing. Having got the model off the dog, Trevor looked at the result and thought "actually, that looks pretty good" and incorporated some of the bite marks into the car.
  • The Chrysler PT Cruiser was the first car completely designed in CAD. Because of how tight the engine fit it took several weeks to get production up from more than just a handful of cars a day.
  • Apparently the decision to cancel a production version of the HSV-010 in 2009 was SO unpopular among Honda engineers, the brands marketing director was literally warned not to visit the R&D centre in case of a riot.
  • A 1987 Yugo was the only car to ever get blown off the Mackinac Bridge due to strong winds. The incident took place in 1989.
  • In production of the 2018 Dodge Demon, Dodge decided to skip production number 666 to avoid creating a bigger resale market for a single customer. There are rumors that this production number was secretly produced anyway.
  • Following the sale of the new '99 Mustang Cobra, people began realizing that it was making around 285 horsepower, far less than the 320 Ford had advertised. This actually made it slower than the Cobra of the previous model year. Ford halted new 1999 Cobra sales in August of '99 and recalled every single car. They replaced "the intake manifold, certain computer components, and the factory cat-back" to reach the 320hp number they were looking for.
  • The Volkswagen Phaeton was supposed to be designed with 10 required parameters. When Ferdinand Piëch announced them, half of the engineering team supposedly walked about because it was impossible to achieve. The only parameter that’s been made public is this: "The Phaeton must be able to be driven all day at 186mph, in 120-degree weather, while maintaining a cabin temperature of 71.6-degrees".
  • The Saab Sonett name has nothing to do with the poetry style, but rather from the Swedish expression "Så nätt den är", which means "it's so neat".
  • Volvo's turn signal sound come from the sound of branches being broken in the Swedish forest. Took about 300 different branches to find the perfect sound.
Click to expand...
Just a small correction. Trevor Wilkinson had left the company in 1962 and it was the company's third owner, Peter Wheeler, who's dog made the styling suggestion*


* I actually got to pet said dog on a impromptu visit to the factory back in 1993.
 
The 1960 Maserari 3500 GTi was the first car to carry the GTi nomenclature. It was also the first Italian fuel-injected car. A Grand Tourer injected, the suffix would later be adopted by hot hatches without any relevance to a car actually being a grand tourer.
 
Last edited:
  • The second-gen Mitsubishi Diamante was extensively facelifted in 2004, yet its sales were less than half of the pre-facelifted car in 2003. Only 1,400 of the 2004 Diamantes were sold in the US market in 2004. The 2004 Diamante was also the first Diamante to be sold in Canada, and only 400 were sold.
  • For model year 2015 only, Infiniti sold the Q50a- just a Q50, but an ultra base trim. All that differentiated a Q50a from a 2014 normal base model was the lack of a moonroof and the standard tech package. Most dealers had removed the "a" from the badging to lessen confusion.
  • The facelifted 2009 Hyundai Azera was so poorly received that Hyundai moved forward the second generation model that had been scheduled for release in summer 2011 to early 2010, and pulled the plug on the Azera in the Canadian market altogether.
  • The classic Mini Cooper, produced from 1959-2000, outlived its successor, the MG Metro, by two years. Much of the OG Mini's later success was attributed to the Japanese market, where later models featured multi port fuel injection, power windows and locks, AC, and passenger side airbags. Ironically, Japan wouldn't allow them to be sold there in the Mini's early years.
  • The quickest 0-60 time for an American car in 1978 and 1979 was... the Dodge Ram Lil Red Express. Boasting a time of 7.4 seconds, it was more than an entire second quicker than a Corvette.
  • The model names Pacer, Villager, Citation, Ranger, and Corsair all first appeared on Edsels.
  • The 2000-2005 Cadillac Deville was the first production car to use full led taillights and a night vision camera, beating out Mercedes by a few years
  • The most powerful FIAT ever made was... the Freemont, that crappy rebadge of a Dodge Journey for the European market. With the 3.6L V6, it made 290hp.
  • A 1999 Citroen Xantia Activa held the record of the highest cornering speed for the swedish moose test at 86 km/h, beating the Porsche 911 GT3 RS as well as the Audi R8. It was only beaten in 2019 by a Nissan Juke.
  • The Buick Regal Grand National was, for years, widely recognized by car guys as one of the fastest production cars you could buy in the mid 1980s, mainly because Car and Driver clocked it at the absurd 0-60 time of 4.7 seconds in a road test. Even in that article they scratched their head a little and said the math didn’t seem to add up (hp vs weight), but in the end they hand-waved it away by citing atmospheric conditions, declaring the car unbelievably fast and the sleeper of the century. Then 20 years later in a retrospective in their 50th anniversary issue, C&D admitted they’d been slipped a ringer by GM.
  • Honda developed the CVCC system which used a special carburetor design which sent a small rich mixture near the spark plug to ignite a larger lean mixture, allowing the engines to meet 1970s California emissions requirements without a catalyst, meaning you could run them on cheaper leaded fuel. Ford and Chrysler licensed the system from Honda, but GM’s CEO dismissed it as a technology that only worked on "little toy motorcycle engines." So as a screw you to GM, Soichiro Honda bought a 1973 Impala with a 350ci V8, had his engineers build CVCC heads for it, then had the EPA emissions test it. It passed with no loss in power, plus improved fuel economy.
  • The 1980 Ferrari Pinin concept was originally green-lit for production, but Ferrari pulled the plug at the last minute, believing there would be no market for a 4-door Ferrari.
  • Many believe that the Ford Pinto was the deadliest car ever made due to its gas tank being able to catch fire. However, more than four times the amount of people died from ignition issues in the Chevrolet Cobalt/Pontiac G5 (27 versus 124).
  • The Suzuki Carry is the only car to have been rebadged as both a Ford and a Chevrolet.
  • In 1969, Pontiac developed an experimental lightweight 427 hemi V8. It had direct port injection, overhead cams and an aluminum block. Pontiac engineers claimed it could make 640hp.
  • The 4-beep door chime on 1970s Honda models is the letter H in morse code.
  • The Honda S2000 had the highest horsepower per liter of any naturally aspirated production car until it was beaten by the Ferrari 458, 9 years later.
  • GEO, despite being a GM brand, never sold any actual GM based vehicles.
  • The Honda Accord from 86-89 was available with both fuel injected and carbureted versions of the same 2.0 four-cylinder engine. Yet the carbureted version got 3 higher MPG than the fuel injected one. This was because the fuel injected version, with its 4 fuel injectors, had only 25% of the computing power available for each injector.
  • The Dodge Avenger sold so poorly in the UK, that some dealers started offering a buy one/get one free deal in fall 2008, at the height of the financial crisis.
  • The 1958 Chrysler Norseman concept was never shown to the public. It was on SS Andrea Doria when it sank near Nantucket. That was the only concept of the Norseman that existed. Amazingly, someone explored the Andrea Dorias remains in the 1990s and found the Norseman’s mangled remains (mainly just the steel bits and the wheels) among the rusted ship.
  • Layne Staley from Alice In Chains was born in 1967 and died in 2002 - the same years the Pontiac Firebird began and ended production. In fact, he never lived in a world without the Firebird being in production. He also happened to own a 2000 Firebird- a 6-speed manual Trans Am WS6 even, during the height of his heroin addiction.
  • Jaguar won a NASCAR cup series race in 1954.
  • The rearview mirror was invented in 1911 on the Marmon Wasp, the first car to win the Indy 500, as a way to get around the rule requiring riding mechanics.
  • The GMC Motorhome, the only RV ever made by a Big Three automaker, was FWD. Same FWD setup developed for the Oldsmobile Toronado (and later used on the Buick Riviera and Cadillac Eldorado).
  • Cadillac was in the midst of developing a 7.4L V12 for the 1967 Eldorado. If it had been produced, it would be the only FWD car to ever have a V12. Cadillac again revisited the V12 around 1974 for the Fleetwood, but these plans were cancelled in light of tightened emissions laws.
  • Princess Anne once had a Reliant Scimitar GTE.
  • A De Tomaso revival was attempted in the mid 1990s, which morphed into the Qvale Mangusta. It had Italian styling with Ford Mustang running gear. Qvale hoped to sell a few thousand of them but pulled the plug after less than 300 were sold. MG Rover bought Qvale for a few million, and engineered the Mangusta into the X-Power SV (still using Ford V8s), which sold 100 units.
  • The 1958 Chevrolet Full Size lineup was the most expensive American car ever developed, costing over $3.5 billion adjusted for inflation. Yet they were only to be replaced in 1959 with the next generation.
  • The Chrysler turbine engine was allegedly past its development issues when it was scuttled as part of the US government bailout deal.
  • The 2012-2014 Toyota RAV4 EV was co-developed with Tesla after they released the Roadster but before the Model S.
  • Speaking of RAV4s, the V6 RAV4 Sport was unintentionally the quickest Toyota in its lineup from 2006 to 2009, reaching 0-60 in 6.1 seconds.
  • The 1994 McLaren F1 is still the fastest naturally aspirated car ever produced, 31 years later.
  • The Škoda 105 was sold as 1050 in France, for the same reason Porsche scrapped the 901 name in favor of 911- Peugeot had trademarked a three digit number with a 0 in the middle for a car model name. Yet the Ferrari 206, 208, and 308 slipped by because Ferrari paid an undisclosed amount of money to Peugeot to get around the trademark.
  • 27 paint colors were offered on the Lexus LFA. Of the 500 LFAs produced, none had been optioned in Ivory White, Aqua, Lavender, Lime Green, or Moss Green. The only LFAs that exist in these colors are in Gran Turismo 6.
  • In the 1960s, there were only two other cars made in America that had positraction, an independent rear suspension, and enough power to make those marks. One was the C2 Corvette, which could never be confused with the Buick Skylark. The other had the same body length, height, width, weight, wheelbase, and wheel track as the '64 Buick Skylark, and that was the 1963 Pontiac Tempest.
  • In 1950, Studebaker had patented the sliding rear door glass on pickup trucks.
  • The most recycled consumer product is lead acid automotive batteries. Over 99% of the materials in a car battery are recovered during the recycling process. And 99% of batteries sold are returned for recycling.
 
Last edited:
Last edited:
GranTurNismo
  • The quickest 0-60 time for an American car in 1978 and 1979 was... the Dodge Ram Lil Red Express. Boasting a time of 7.4 seconds, it was more than an entire second quicker than a Corvette.
Click to expand...
Dodge found a cute little one-year loophole in EPA regulations and came out with something legitimately impressive amongst an extremely woeful lineup, but it probably wasn't actually the fastest in 1978 and it definitely wasn't in 1979 when they had to detune it a bit. The main test that Dodge leaned so hard on in its marketing was a top speed test Car and Driver did. For that test the gearset you could get for what was most likely actually the quickest car in America for those two years (the 6.6 Trans Am, because Pontiac pushed the car as an actual Corvette competitor and the Trans Am weighed more so it had a lot less issues with grip than plagued the C3) was specified with a 3 speed auto with a 2.56 final drive because that's the transmission the Pontiac engineer/driver who brought the car thought he could get in the car with broad enough gear ratios for a top speed test against an L-82 Corvette.

In comparison, the manual Trans Am that Car and Driver tested the following year basically destroyed all of the acceleration tests the Express (or anyone else in the test) set, and still would have had the second highest top speed in the original test Car and Driver did in the first place. An L-82 Corvette with a 4 speed would have been very similar in performance, faster on some days and slower on others.
 
Last edited:

Latest Posts

Back