What happened to evil,wicked, mean & nasty?

Part of my hatred of the modern musclecars and modern fuelie swap worshippers is the "Great drivability" Mantra. You see it in every magazine feature-"It idles at 650 rpm, gets 22 mpg, and starts in 20 below weather." So does my wife's Honda Accord. Big Deal. Why are the words "glass smooth idle" and easy cold starting and bragging about fuel economy in a hot rod magazine? I loved my 12:1 compression, solid-lifter cammed,roller-rockered, dual quad carbed, 4-speed, 4.33:1 geared GTO Judge. It ran 11.30's with slicks, and either low 12's or high 12's on street tires depending on whether you fried the tires halfway down the track or all the way down the track. Remember Nicholas Cage in "The Rock?" Where the FBI agent asks him if he has daddy issues? Cage replies-"My dad was a drunk, a degenerate gambler, and a whore chaser." "I worshipped the ground he walked on." My GTO got 8 mpg using two cans of octane booster per tankful, had a stiff clutch, a loud exhaust, the Rock-Crusher whined at low speeds, the motor was buzzing at 3,500 rpm on the freeway, and the Lakewood ladder bars banged over every speed bump or when entering or exiting a driveway. The Hurst-shifter was like racking the slide on a 12-guage shotgun. And I loved every minute of driving it. It would literally spin the tires as long as I wanted to stay on the throttle. Blasting through the gears was like being shot out of a cannon. The front fenders would rise, the intake roar of the dual 750 AFB's would get louder than the exhaust. The inside of the car would sound like the "Bullitt" or "Vanishing Point" soundtrack turned up to 10. 6,500 rpm would come quick,slam the Hurst shifter back while giving a quick, deft touch of my left foot to the clutch-Crack! would go the exhaust acknowledging a perfect, full-bore powershift, and the tires break loose for another 75-100 feet, as me and the 12 bolt posi fight to keep it going straight. The close-ratio Muncie M22 would only have a 1,400 rpm drop between gears-so I'd hit 2nd about 5,000 rpm-right near the pumped up Ram Air III's horsepower peak. It's a short time to 6,500 and Crack! The car lays another 8-10 feet of rubber into third gear, the fenders still flying high. Third gear feels like 1st in a normal musclecar. The hood tach hits 6,500-6,800 and crack! into 4th. I hit the traps between 6,800-7,100. It's over too soon. I want to do it again! A guy I went to school with had a 435 hp tri-power, 427 '69 Corvette with a 4-speed and 4.11 gears. He also had chrome Hooker headers and chrome sidepipes on it. His car sounded better than mine, with it's choppy, 1,400 rpm idle ( an L88 cam will do that ). Nothing sounds like a high-compression, solid-lifter, barely muffled Rat Motor.  He and I had many impromptu drag races that were usually too close to call, unless one of us screwed up the launch or missed a shift. We were great adversaries because no one else's car could touch his or mine in a drag race, so we raced each other for sport. When he had the three Holley two-barrels at full wail, there wasn't a sweeter sound, except maybe my dual AFB's wailing right next to him. People could hear us from blocks away and they said it sounded like a NASCAR race. I had another acquaintance who had a '69 SS396 Chevelle that he put an L88 / LS7 cam into, along with headers, a Mallory Unilite ignition, and a Weiand Tunnel ram and dual 600 holleys and 4.56:1 gears. He didn't want to cut up the hood, so he just took it off. I remember him laughing loud and hard after racing a Z/28 Camaro from about 60-130 on the freeway. The Camaro driver said-"Sounded like you were running out of gear there at the end". My buddy laughed and said, yeah, it did tend to break up a little as you got close to eight grand! It makes me sad to read a road test where they talk about a new Challenger's heated and cooled seats, and moonroof and Nav system, and how the shifter on the Tremec six-speed could be better if it was a little more BMW like. Gag. Anybody old enough to remember trying to powershift a 4-speed Chrysler car with the "Pistol-grip" shifter? There's a reason Barry Newman and stunt driver Carey Loftin were SLAMMING that thing around in "Vanishing Point", and it wasn't mugging for the camera! I read an article in Car & Driver where they said a one-ton, diesel dually Ford F350 pickup's ride was "Too trucklike." Hello?! This thing is designed to tow like 18,000 lbs. It's not going to ride like your wife's Camry!! Road and Track said the new Boss 302 was too loud and too stiffly sprung, and the retro paint scheme was too loud and even though it beat a BMW M3 around Willow Springs raceway, the inside of the car got so hot while hot-lapping that they had to turn the A/C on!! They said that they preferred the quieter, softer sprung, more understated regular GT model. Oh go F&%K yourself, you tweed cap wearing,pipe-smoking,disco dancing,Striesand ticket holding, Oscar Wilde reading, friend of Dorothy! I remember having a similar sentiment when I was looking at a Gorgeous black and orange, Doug Nash 5-speed, Hooker Chrome rollbar and Hooker Header equipped, Herb Adams prepped "Fire Am" and the salesman, thinking he was cool and sophisticated saying that he'd rather have a Firebird Formula "without all the bells and whistles". All you grown-up, tasteful guys go ahead and say how wonderful prim and proper Jane Hathaway is with her mannish haircut and gray-flannel business suit. I'll take blond, busty, loud, barefoot in denim shorts Ellie May Clampett six days a week and twice on Sunday!! Mastermind