I knew a guy who wore one of these headlight helmets to protect his thoughts from the aliens. True story. His truck had a big beefy 454 under the hood, so I have to trust his judgement.
The sixties were the glory days for performance automobiles, and by performance, I mostly mean straight-line horsepower. By the mid-seventies, cars were just disco vans with less space. Tape stripes replaced bright paint, and hefty horsepower was supplemented with old names from the glory days slapped on with more tape stripes. Compression? Low. Horsepower? Cut in half. Weight? Up. Torque? Down. Even fuel economy was down, which totally misses the point, as these inefficient, slow pigs were created because the world was running out of fuel. Apparently, the Chevettes and K Cars solved that crisis, as horsepower started to come back through the mid-eighties, and as I’m writing this, Dodge offers new cars with around eight hundred horsepower. It seems we’ve recovered, right? Oil is cheap, so there must be lots of it, and gas is expensive, which is likely tax that limits recreational use. Are we headed for four-digit factory horsepower now? I don’t think so, but what does a guy in an industrial-grade tinfoil hat know?
I believe that we’re heading towards a horsepower cliff again, and once again, that cliff is legislated. This new horsepower is incredibly affordable and incredibly efficient. A guy I know who builds drag cars still prefers big-block V8’s from the last half-century, as he says the modern engines with boost make horsepower too smooth, silent, and easy. The fans actually prefer the crude violence of yesteryear to the boring top-end pull of the modern power plants, regardless of speed. These new engines can deliver tons of power and sip on the fuel like an economy car if appropriately tuned. Since we all know legislation never makes sense, nor has a definitive endgame, I believe they’ll go after horsepower again. Does a Challenger need eight hundred horsepower when a quarter of that could push it along? Those three-quarters could be penalized. Would electric cars be exempt? It makes sense in a green sort of way, but I’ve heard talk of a tax-per-mile system to level the playing field in a low-blow sort of way.
I’m told these electric cars are actually pretty fun. Flat instant power across the RPM range, silent (boring) operation, and no trips to the pump. I saw a Chevy Volt a few years ago, but that was an isolated incident, and I’ve never seen one again. I see a variety of hybrid badges around and knew a guy who liked his hybrid Civic “alright” ten years ago or so. Teslas are easy to spot with the weird, flush-mounted chrome door handles, but I’ve only ever spotted the same two. I’ve even used an electric vehicle charging spot before. True story. I couldn’t find a parking spot to eat my sandwich, so I thought the odds were in my favour that no one would want to charge for that particular twenty minutes. No one did. As I sit here, stinking like exhaust from circa 2016 regular mixed with more 10w30 blow-by smoke than I’m comfortable discussing, I still cannot readily accept the electric car. I run glass packs on every single exhaust system that I weld together, and I can’t give that up. I need horsepower that I can hear, and I don’t think I’m alone.
Ford has been waving the electric flag for a while now, and I get it, as I owned a 2007 5.4 Triton, and it was hot garbage. Had I been responsible for that mess, I’d distance myself from the internal combustion engine too. They’ve also distanced themselves from the electric Mustang in a way. How? It’s a crew-cab crossover with no grille and Mustang taillights. If they were so confident, why isn’t the GT electric? I’ll tell you why: because the 5.0L is an absolute Mustang icon, and they’ve sounded great forever, regardless of how they‘ve evolved. Mustang guys are like me, they like horsepower you can hear, and there are still millions of them out there.
Have a question or comment for Kelly? Post it at lmtimes.ca/kirk
