If your going to drive the car at all.....Think carefully about what you really want....

For most of us a Musclecar is a toy. A 2nd or 3rd or 4th vehicle in the household that we take out on nice days to "Show-n-Shines" and the occasional weekend trip to the drags. Very rarely is a musclecar a daily driver-but some people like me-I put about 5,000 miles a year on mine. I don't drive it in the rain or the snow, but I'll take it out for a weekend cruise or maybe a day trip to grandma's with the kids in "Dad's Cool Ride"  (as opposed to the "uncool" Buick LeSabre I drive to work and back ). Anyhow-here's what I'm saying. If you want a $20,000 or 30 or 50,000 dollar piece of garage jewelry that's only driven on and off the trailer or to Concours shows, then buy whatever you want. But if your going to drive the car at all-even if it's only 3,000 miles a year-you might want to make some allowances to drivability. # 1. Transmission. If you live in a big city like San Francisco or Los Angeles, etc-that has a lot of stop and go traffic-an automatic transmission might be a better choice than a 4-speed and a heavy duty clutch. Yes, banging through the gears is fun. But constantly shifting in 25 mph rush-hour traffic is not. # 2. Axle ratio. Same thing-if you live in a rural area-like me-I'm 29 miles from Reno, 35 miles from Carson City and 25 miles from Fallon. 4.11:1 gears may give you great acceleration-but the motor buzzing at 3,500 rpm on the freeway gets old real quick. You might want to give up a couple of tenths on you 0-60 or 1/4 mile time to make the car more pleasant to drive on the highway-something in the 3.08:1-3.55:1 range will give you a good compromise between "jackrabbit" starts and highway cruise rpm. # 3. Comfort. If you live in an area where it's 90 or 100 degrees all summer it might behoove you to find a car with working or at least repairable air conditioning. Conversely-if you live somewhere that has harsh winters-unless the car is going to be stored inside from October to April-I would stay away from convertibles and T-Top cars. These tend to leak the elements into the interior and the heaters can't seem to keep the windows clear or the car even halfway warm. # 4. Don't get the biggest and baddest model-unless your primary goal is to show it, or race it at the pure stock drags or MusclePalooza. Let me explain-An older gentleman than came into the shop was disappointed in his Corvette. He and his wife wanted a C3 'Vette to cruise the wine country in and maybe to Lake Tahoe and back. In my opinion all he needed was a '68-79 model with an L48 350 and an automatic.He could have bought one of those in good shape for less than 10 grand easily, and it would have been dead-reliable, ran fine on 89 octane pump gas and gave him and his wife many hours of trouble-free cruising. No, he spends $60,000 on an 11:1 compression,solid-lifter L89 435 hp, tri-power 427 stingray with a 4-speed and 4.11:1 gears. He complains that it pings even on premium, gets 5-8 mpg, the motor is buzzing almost 3,800 rpm at 70 mph,it fouls spark plugs constantly and overheats in traffic, and his wife burns her legs on the sidepipes getting in and out of it. Well, Duh!!!  I'd love to have that car-because I'd put "KNGKONG" on the liscence plate, fill it with 104 octane race gas and go around every weekend giving the finger to Dodge Vipers and Porsche 911s, until I got my driver's liscence revoked. But that's me. This fella who was in his 70's-needed like I explained-a low-compression small-block model-or if he HAD to have a Rat motor-a hydraulic-cammed LS5 or LS4 454 with a Q-jet and 3.36:1 gears ( Plenty of those built from 1970-74 ). That would have been a powerful, easy cruiser that he wanted. Another guy did the same thing-he bought a 1969 W31 Cutlass, that the original owner had ordered as a stripped-down street fighter. Then he griped that although it was blisteringly fast- it was impossible to park and hard to drive at low speeds ( because it had no power steering ) and it was hard to stop from freeway speed ( it had 4-wheel manual drum brakes ) and the motor was buzzing at 4,000 rpm on the freeway. ( It had 4.33:1 gears.) He traded it to someone at a 442 / Hurst Olds convention and was much happier. The car he traded for was a 1970 Rallye 350 Cutlass-that had the "standard" 350 V8, a Muncie 4-speed, power steering,power front disc brakes, and 3.31:1 gears. He raved how this car was so much easier to drive and was still fast enough to be a lot of fun. Yeah!! That's what he should have bought in the first place. Which brings up # 5. If your going to buy a hot machine-like the GTO song-once in a while you have to "Turn it on, wind it up, and blow it out." I'm not saying run your car to 7,000 rpm constantly and risk throwing a rod out the side of a rare, numbers-matching block. I'm not saying that at all. But it won't hurt it to run it at full-throttle up a freeway on-ramp or down a country road once in a while-even say just up to 4,500 or 5,000 rpm. I see this all the time-especially with Hemi 'Cudas, Six-Pack Road Runners,Tri-Power Pontiacs and Corvettes,409 Impalas,427 Galaxies, etc. Their so goddamnded afraid of blowing it up or putting too many miles on it that they drive like my grandmother on prozac. The car never sees the high side of 3,000 rpm, or drives more than 5 miles at a time and never even really gets up to proper operating temprature. Then, the second it fouls a spark plug, they start screwing around with the carburators. Pretty soon it won't even start, much less run properly. If your going to drive like you have eggshells under your feet-go a range or two hotter on the plugs. If you do decide to take a road trip or go to the drags and hammer it-changing to the proper heat range of plugs is easy. But it's really much easier-to at least once a month drive it ten miles or more, and put your foot in it once in a while-that'll keep the valves clear and carbon out of the combustion chambers and the plugs from fouling. Mastermind