I was just thinking today how car names have gone down the tubes. What once was a muscle car is now a compact, WTF is that?!? So what, in your twisted little minds, is the greatest discrace to a namesake of a car? So many cars have gone from a nice beefy car to something I would not drive if I had too. Granted some are not bad now but they no longer follow their true "blood lines" if you will.

BTW: I'm talking strictly domestic since foreign don't count anyways!


If I miss a big one let me know and I'll add it.

I think the nova got the worst of it. It was once a car with power and the most recent ones I've seen are about the size and power of a vacuum cleaner :?

def the nova 350ci v8 RWD vs 4cyl FWD that hurts
at least the other are semi decent v6+

I would have to say the Duster.

For one, I'm a big mopar fanatic. Another reason is for god sakes look what happened! They let same female come up with the idea for the compact duster (no offense towards women intended, just need to be dramatic).

My friend has a '75 Duster with headers, Magnum 500 rims and the whole nine yards. Great car, but somewhere along the line they took a $&*!

Ok, just thought of one. The Mustang. Don't get me wrong, I don't like Ford but I need to give credit where credit is due. The older Mustangs were really nice. I'm talkin about ones like a '67 Shelby GT500! Then, 20 years later, they have a small 4 cylndr engine and danm near the same body as the escort. So sad...

I would still take any V8 stang I could get my hands on. Especially a nice SVT!

Yeah they had bigblocks, my friend'* dad has a 70 Nova SS with a 396. Except it runs 9'*.

Wind that sucker up, and you can watch the gas gauge go down. Had a '77 camaro when I was in high school.....in 84! I could do it too. Best friend had a 70-someting Nova. Built like you wouldn't believe. He was getting like 2mpg downhill with the wind. Didn't care, gas was cheap.

I seem to recall that the poor, castrated Novas that I drove in Driver'* Ed (86-ish?) actually had a three-pot motor. Couldn't get out of its own way on the driver'* ed range. We would rev the crap out of them and drop them into drive and they would just go 'chirp' on the asphalt. Pathetic.

Next we'll see Pontiac bring out a hybrid electric grocery hauler and call it a 'TransAm'

The Nova--It was a Toylet (pronounced Toilet) (Toyota with a Cheverolet badge--My grand mother owned one and even some of the engine decals were in Japanese). It had the standard 1.something 4 cyl engine and FWD. I'm sure you have all heard the story why Nova'* didn't cell in spanish speaking countries, NOVA or "No va" means "doesn't go" in spanish. It really lived up to it'* name in the eighties.

I like to think another couple of tragedies were the Le Mans and the Grand Am. The Lemans could be ordered with all of the same options as a GTO--even the endura front end. Then, in the eighties, Pontiac accepted a Korean import and badged it as a Pontiac Le Mans. This was a two door hatchback with a 1.6 four-banger FWD and was even more pathetic than the nova.

The original Grand Ams were also based on the Le Mans/GTO body in '73 at the tail end of the muscle car race. Pontiac made them for three years (73-75) quit for a bit and then brought them back for three more years (79-81) all of them came with big V-8'* for their day. Then one day Pontiac came up with a FWD 'namesake' that to this day has not lived up to it'* bloodlines. Even with the best 6 cyl, it is still pushing rice status.

Oh, the horror of it all!!!