So you’ve decided to hop up your car with a bigger, badder engine than it had before. Maybe you’re doing the classic LS V8 swap, putting a Volkswagen TDI engine in your Ford Ranger or putting a Hayabusa engine in your Smart. But what happens to the old engine?
Jason wrote a Cold Start about a Corvette-powered Volvo. 10001010 gets the first COTD win of the week:
I love to think that somewhere out there a Corvette is tooling around with a 4cyl out of a Volvo.
ChefCJ:
Isn’t that why they call it a swap?
Timbales:
Guess What’s Under The Hood Of This Orange Volvo
Another hood
#hoodception.
The Bishop wrote an enthusiastic piece about how a Holden wagon could have saved Pontiac. V10omous brought some cold water, and honestly, makes a good point:
I don’t think fast wagons or utes were or are the solution to selling cars to normies.
The Outback appeals because it’s relatively cheap and seen as responsible, reliable, and safe (whether or not this is actually true is mostly beside the point). An import, especially when exchange rates were unfavorable, would not have been cheap, and 2009 GM was not renowned for reliability.
Remember also that the key to crossovers taking over from truck-based SUVs was plausible capability (they have to *look* like they can conquer the Rubicon, even if they can’t). That Holden doesn’t look capable of doing anything tougher than a gravel road to a campsite. Again, forget what it can actually do, or what buyers will actually do, it’s the perception that mattered until car-based stuff became more normalized gradually.
Another attempt at bringing Holdens here in 2009-10 (with even less mainstream body types) would have delighted enthusiasts and failed miserably.
In The Morning Dump, Matt wrote about news of Canada and tariff breaks for GM and Stellantis. Rebadged Asüna Sunrunner came up with an idea that I’d love to see so much:
I know the solution to the Ingersoll plant’s potential closure!
Dig out the old tooling for the Geo Trackers they used to build there, and throw ’em back into production! A perfect car for this day and age.(I know this will work, because factories are so big, they must never ever throw anything out, and all the tooling must be in some forgotten back room) /s.
Have a great evening, everyone!
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