New Member.

Hello, I am just dropping by to say hello, I am a new member on this forum :)

welcome man... hang around and its amazing what you'll pick up.

edit: oh yeah and ignore the "newb" comments.... as long as you dont impose yourself... ussally people here will be fine with you... push something and you could get tossed. so the faster you build up your posts... the more seriously people will take you here.

Yeah I am fairl new myself. I don't have a car yet (still don't have a liscense), though I might be young don't worry about me posting any stupid posts like what kind of car should I get, I know what kind I want just not sure if I'll get it.:disappoin

Ok, I'm gonna take a stab here. 78 Malibu?
Welcome aboard!

Thanks for the welcome all! Nova71: Yes its a 78' Malibu :)

'78 Malibu is an ugly car. But with the right tweaks, can be a road course monster. It's funny to watch those bigs cars pass the Celica's/RSX's/Eclipse on a track!

Welcome aboard! '78 Malibu "big'??? I suppose it depends on your perspective. Those of us from the "muscle car era", see the G-body as "smaller". BTW, there are a multitude of goodies for the G-body. The chassis is quite rigid, and lends itself well to performance modificatioins.

I'm a "Pontiac guy", but I like the Malibu in 2-door form. The 4-door is butt-ugly...

Jim

I drive a Civic as a daily putter. So a Malibu is big for me. In today's terms it is big. Now compared to a friend's '70 Impala Sedan...it's deffinately small.

As far as Pontiac is concerned...'70 GTO Judge Convert...my favorite of all the Pontiacs!

anyone even know what the hell happened in the late... later 70's that made cars look so... so... i cant put it any better: ugly. i mean ford mustang looked like shit.... granted the gm f body looked ok... but still what made us take such a drastic turn in styling?

Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder... I agree, many of the "styles" were ugly. But there are a few "diamonds in the rough". The '78-'80 Montes were butt-ugly, but the next gen body looked pretty good. The first "G" Grand Prixs are quite popular for their look. Same is true with the earlier Malibu 2-doors. The Cutlass and Regal, well, they just look like Olds' and Buicks... The '78-'80 Grand Am is now a bonafide "collector's item", as they are so rare. Good looking cars, too (IMO).

Jim

this is true.. rarity does play a rather large role in the collector world. i am sure with some tweaking/hot rodding out of certain parts could smooth out the demeaner. but not alot of people do it. some things are easy to do and can cost very little (like modifying the bumper studs on chrome bumpers to give you a clean look or removing the liscence plate place < ive seen some look kick ass after theyve been done and rechromed) or a bit more like dropping a 327 in the fenders of a 72 vega. but it seems that more and more people are taking thier projects to resto shops instead of doing it themselves. but im sure the shop would be able to find the parts easier... or hell even cheaper.

I've found that in restoring, that not all the parts fit together right even though they came off of the same type of car. Overtime through driving, tempurature etc, they changes shapes. So a door of a '76 Firebird made not fit as cleanly on another Firebird etc. So in the cases where creating clean lines is beyond some one's ability, they take it into a shop after doing what they can.

Another thing I've seen (at my friends shop). A guy built a 327 for "380hp." The crank shaft was a replica for the 327 Trans Ams that their power band was started around (4500rpm?). He pulled a head that sat on a 350 in a Chevy 1500 that was designed to run no higher than 5000rpm.

Now, any one who knows anything about motors is grinding their teeth right about now. I didn't think it mattered and my friend said, "Just think about the numbers they're designed to run." He ordered a set of heads from Rausch for the motor and stuck it on. The original rebuilt motor was doing less than 180HP. With the right heads, 8grand produced over 340hp. He said the cam and the heads were actually working against eachother.

Just seeing that makes me want to go to a pro if not for anything, just to pay them as an advisor for their time and experience.

anyone even know what the hell happened in the late... later 70's that made cars look so... so... i cant put it any better: ugly. i mean ford mustang looked like shit.... granted the gm f body looked ok... but still what made us take such a drastic turn in styling?
:2cents: IMO when you look back at that era, we had the "oil crisis", toughening emissions requirements, newer safety standards, and higher raw material costs. All of these played a role in shaping the cars back then. I remember the last year of the big GM cars (1977), and how different the next generation looked. They were (the vehicle engineers,) trying to make the cars lighter so they'd use less gas, and at the same time also met the stricter fuel emissions/ economy that the government imposed. Inflation also was rampant back then, and the costs involved in producing these cars was ever increasing, so making them smaller also cut costs. It seems like the designers didn't have enough time to 'finalize' their ideas for how these smaller cars should look, but rather rushed their drawings into production because of the impending deadlines. I agree some of the models could have used an "extreme makeover" but there were others that did look good. I remember reading articles in various auto related magazines as far back as 1972 on how the future model year cars were to look. Some were way off as the "spy photos" were not of the vehicle mentioned, and others had too much of the body panels obscured to even get a good idea of appearance. I do remember thinking to myself back then how some of these cars just didn't look right or the next generation wouldn't live up to it's predecessor's. It gives in to the saying, "What were they thinking?"

'97VentureOwner...

I'm not certain that they new what to think. It was completely new to them. Having been trained and experienced with the larger cars, making a smaller one was something that I'm guessing they had to do through trial and error. In contrast, the Japanese were already experienced making smaller cars and just refined what they had. They were already closer to the economic and emissions standards than the big-three. Also having more experience meant a head start on higher quality standards on smaller cars. Unfortunately, it took until the late-90's before the moronic execs of the big-three realised this. Now its costing Detroit 10's of thousands of jobs.