Angus MacKenzie: The Glorious Times I Torched European Roads Driving New American Muscle
Key takeaways
- From 2007 to 2012, we hit the autobahn in Cadillac V models, a Dodge SRT, and the mighty Corvette ZR1.
- I was on an autobahn somewhere near Ramstein, Germany, in the late 1980s when I saw a boxy little Dodge Aries with U.S.
- Hard TimesTo be fair, the late ’80s weren’t exactly a golden age when it came to desirable American automobiles.
Why this matters: an automotive development that could shape industry direction or buying decisions.
From 2007 to 2012, we hit the autobahn in Cadillac V models, a Dodge SRT, and the mighty Corvette ZR1. The results were memorable.
I was on an autobahn somewhere near Ramstein, Germany, in the late 1980s when I saw a boxy little Dodge Aries with U.S. Army Europe license plates wheezing along in the slow lane, shimmying and shuddering on its suspension at 70 mph. As locals in their garden variety Volkswagen Golfs and Opel Kadetts whisked past it at 85 or more, I remember thinking how cruel it was to be sent to a country that had the fastest roads on earth, that was the home of Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Porsche—and Uncle Sam made you drive a crummy K-car.
Hard TimesTo be fair, the late ’80s weren’t exactly a golden age when it came to desirable American automobiles. The Ford Taurus SHO was the nearest thing America had to a fast sedan, but it was 60 hp down on an E28 BMW M5 and drove the front wheels, not the rear. By the end of the decade, Chevrolet’s C4 Corvette had finally been given a decent six-speed manual transmission to replace the awful Borg Warner “4+3,” and it could hit 150 mph. But it still looked cheap and rode like a Conestoga wagon, which made it slow and cumbersome on a bumpy road. The Fox-body Mustang 5.0 was a ride on the mild side, nowhere near as fast or as accomplished as the V-8-powered Holden Commodores I was testing back in Australia at the time.