Road Test "Ringers" revisited......

I'm amazed at the comments I get about stuff I posted two or three years ago. Anyhow-I aim to please so here's the list of Road Test "Ringers" i.e.-cars that were modified by the manufacturer to go much faster than any production example. Why did they do this? Because they wanted the magazine to write how blisteringly fast the car was and thus sell thousands of them.  # 1. 40 years later, Jim Wangers finally admitted what we already knew-Car&Driver's May 1964 GTO test car was a ringer. Royal Pontiac had pulled the 389 and replaced it with a blueprinted 421, that also had a re-curved distributor, custom-jetted carbs,thin head gaskets, and rocker arm lock nuts. The car ran an ungodly 4.6 second 0-60 time and a 13.1 second 1/4 mile. Other magazine's testers and production examples could only run low 14s.  # 2. 1969 Plymouth Road Runner 440+6. Chrysler advertised the 440 Six-Pack option in national magazines claiming it ran 12s off the showroom floor. The disclaimer said it was done on a racetrack, under controlled conditions, with a professional driver. The "controlled conditions" were a blueprinted engine with custom jetted carbs, a 4-speed, 4.30:1 gears, 28 inch slicks, and a pinion snubber. The "Professional Driver" Pro Stock drag racing champion Ronnie Sox, who ripped off a string of 12.70's. Shocker-production examples tested by magazines ran 13.50's.  # 3. 1973 SD-455 Trans-Am. Car&Driver ran a 13.75 and Hot Rod ran a 13.54. If you look at the pictures in both magazines-check the liscence plate number. It's the same car!!  The road tests were done in January 1973. However because of production problems the SD-455 wasn't certified by the EPA and released to the public until April 1973. Early prototypes had the Ram Air IV cam; engineers were worried about passing emissions so production models had the much milder Ram Air III cam and hp was down-rated from 310 to 290. Federal noise regulations cause Pontiac to seal up the "Shaker" hood scoop on '73 models. On 1970-72 models it had a solenoid operated trap door that opened up on acceleration. Look at the pictures-the C/D / Hot Rod test car has an open hood scoop. Production models ran low 14s. Great performance for a 3,800 lb car in 1973-74; but nowhere near the blistering mid-13s of the prototype. No one knows what happened to the prototype. Some say it was crushed; others say it was sold to a Pontiac executive. # 4. 1973 Olds 442. In late 1972 Motor Trend had a "1973 Performance Car Preview".  A silver and red 442 blew the doors off an SD-455 Trans-Am, a 400 / 4-speed Formula Firebird, a 454 Corvette, an L82 350 / 4-speed 'Vette,  a 440 Dodge Charger, a 401 Javelin AMX, a 429 Gran Torino, and a 351CJ Mustang. Turns out that instead of a stock 455 Olds backed by a TH400 with 2.73 or 3.08:1 gears the "Prototype" had a re-curved distributor, a re-jetted carb,the super-hot 328 degree cam from the vaunted 1970 "W30" 455, a Hurst shift improver kit, a Hurst "Shotgun" torque converter with a 2,800 rpm stall speed and a 3.42:1 axle ratio. The Olds engineers thought it was hilarious as the Cutlass showed it's taillights to all those other contenders. They 'fessed up, after the big laugh and production examples were nowhere near that fast. # 5. 1978 Dodge Li'l Red Express pickup. In November 1977 Car&Driver ran a "Double the Double Nickel" article-testing a bunch of vehicles that could go faster than 110 mph. The Li'l Red truck blew the doors off a W72 Trans-Am and an L82 Corvette in a drag race. However-the 360 V8 in the "Prototype" had catalyst-free dual exhausts, Nascar-spec "W2" cylinder heads, the hot cam out of the old 340 "Six-Pack", and a 650 cfm Double-Pumper Holley Carb on an aluminum Holley "Street Dominator" intake. No surprise that production examples with a stock cam, stock heads, and a Carter Thermo-Quad on an iron manifold with an EGR valve were substantially slower.  # 6. 1989 "5.0" Mustang. Every other magazine's Mustang test cars ran 15.20's. Car Craft's "basically stock" Mustang ran a blistering 14.19. Except CC's car had a K&N airbox and filter, a Flowmaster "Cat-Back" exhaust, the 225 / 60R15 Goodyear Gatorback rear tires swapped for 235 / 60R15 M&H drag radials, and the 2.73:1 gears swapped for 3.55:1s. If your going to nit-pick.....jeez.... # 7. 1992 Mitsubishi 3000GT VR4. This one rivals the engine swap for sheer audacity. Mitsu engineers advertised the 3000GT as running a 13.8 second 1/4 mile. The "Controlled Conditions" consisted of disabling the rev limiter, disabling the knock sensor, filling the tank with 105 octane racing gas, lowering the tire pressure to 15 psi, and the "Professional" driver dropping the clutch at 6,200 rpm and powershifting at 7,000. Which grenaded the $5,749 transaxle after three runs. Shocker-production examples ran 14.50's. # 8. 2018 Challenger Hellcat / "Demon".  Chrysler advertised the Demon as being the fastest production car ever with a 9.65 second 1/4 mile run. However no magazine has been able to get even close. Most run mid to high 10s, which is incredible for a production car. But no one has even ran a 9.90-10.30. Not even close. Gear heads with 90 grand bought them all-no need to fudge anything.  Oh well.....Mastermind           

As usual "Experts" are wrong.....

I love reading tech articles written by self-proclaimed "Experts" who dispense advice that is either wrong or is generic advice that they read elsewhere-in someone else's article or on the internet. Their so adamant about what you can and can't do, and act like your a moron if you disagree with them.  Some of my personal favorites.  # 1. Fuel Injection makes more Power than carburators. While electronic fuel management and ignition control-knock sensors, self-adjusting timing through ecms, variable valve timing etc-have enabled modern manufacturer's to get maximum power out of modern engines, the big switch from carburators to fuel injection in the late '70's and '80's was because of ever-tightening emission standards, not lack of power. Many Porsche and Ferarri collectors prefer the carburated versions of the 911 and the 308 GTB / S over the fuel injected versions. I was in Bill Pennington's shop when they removed the Tuned Port Injection from a then-new Corvette and installed an Edelbrock Torker II intake and 750 Holley carb and made a dyno pull. It made 50 more hp than stock, and that was before any jetting changes. NASCAR teams made 850 hp from their race engines with a carburator-sometimes a 750 cfm carb with a restrictor plate, or a 390 cfm 4-barrel!!  I love the modern musclecars like the Challenger Hellcat or ZL1 Camaro. No question that electronic fuel management has done wondrous things.  But if your restoring a '60's or '70's car-you'll be fine with a carburator. # 2. You need a single 4-barrel to go fast, multiple carbs don't work. Again-GM, Ford and Chrysler went away from multi-carb setups because of tightening smog laws, not lack of performance. I see it every Hot August Nights. Whether it's a 409 Impala, 426 Hemi, 427 'Vette, 440 Six-Pack, Tri-Power Pontiac or whatever-guy will spend umpteen thousands restoring a car-and then drive it like grandma on prozac. If it's driven more than on and off a trailer, it never sees the high side of 3,000 rpm because their so goddamnded afraid of blowing it up. Then, the second it fouls a spark plug, they start screwing around with the carburators. Pretty soon it won't even start. The buff magazines tell their readers to use a single 4bbl to try to be idiot-proof.  I have a lot of experience with multiple carbs, and if their tuned right, they can really rock. I remember a truck pull winner back in the '90's who was running 4-Webers on a 454 Chevy with alcohol!!  The earth shook when that thing fired up. Most often-guys run the wrong combination. I know 2 guys running Tunnel Rams on the street. One car really rips, the other one's a dog and doesn't run as good as it did stock. Here's why. The one guy has a Nova with a 327 and a 4-speed. He's running 4.10 gears, the "350 hp" Corvette cam and two 450 cfm Holleys on his tunnel-ram manifold. He revs it up to 3,500-4,000 rpm and drops the clutch hard. The car leaves with just enough wheelspin to get the car moving and up on it's torque curve, and he shifts at 6,500 rpm. It'll rev to 7,000, but he'd just be beating up the bottom-end and valvesprings-it doesn't really make any more power above 6,500. It runs 12.80's on street tires, and 12.30s on drag radials. It's a fun car. It doesn't have a lot of bottom-end torque, but the 4.10 gears help mask that and from 3,000 rpm on it's a rocket. The other guy has a 396 Chevelle with an automatic and 3.31 gears, and he's running the stock L34 hydraulic cam, and dual 660 Holleys. It's a slug. It bogs off the line, coughs and spits and doesn't run as well as it did with a quadrajet. The problem is-it's WAY OVER-CARBURATED!!  1320 cfm-is way too much for a stock 396, with a lazy cam. The stock cam starts to run out of power about 5,000 rpm-which were the manifold is just starting to rock-n-roll. I'd go to two 500 cfm Edelbrocks.  Plus the Automatic trans and stock converter hurt it, as does the 3.31 gears. For it to run properly he'd need a stick, or at least a 2,800 rpm converter and some 4.10 gears, and a short duration, high lift hydraulic or solid-lifter cam. # 3. You gotta run a dual-plane manifold on the street. I beg to differ. I love single-planes. I had a Torker on my 442 and my brother has a Torker II on his GTO and they both really ripped on the street. I know-"Sure, with 400 or 455 cubes and gears they work fine."  Well my Olds had 3.23:1 gears when I got it, and my brother's Goat has 3.36:1 gears. And they both showed a noticeable improvement over the stock intake, even before we changed the cam or anything else. A friend had a '72 El Camino with a 350, TH350 and 2.73:1 gears. It had a 2bbl from the factory. I told him to buy a #2101 Edelbrock Performer intake and #1405 600 cfm vacuum secondary carb. He bought the 600 cfm carb, but the speed shop was out of SBC Performers and he bought a Torker II. We installed the carb and intake, and the improvement was huge! If it lost any low-end torque it wasn't noticeable, but you could really feel it "hit" about 2,500 rpm, and it pulled hard to 5,500. If he'd had a hotter than stock cam, I don't doubt that it would have kept pulling to 6,500 and beyond. Even with the stock 2bbl cam,and 2.73:1 gears it still ran like a scalded cat, and was quicker in a drag race than other friends who had 350 / TH350 4bbl Camaros and Chevelles, one of whom had a Performer on it.  My '77 T/A with a 403 Olds had 2.56:1 gears and it ran great with a single-plane Holley Street Dominator intake. Even with the salt-flats gearing and the 403's lazy "smog" cam-it showed a huge improvement from 2,800-5,400 rpm. Which brings up......# 4. You have to remember that the test mule for everything is a small-block Chevy. So manufacturer "Guidelines" that are for a 350 Chevy are probably not optimum for a 440 Chrysler or 460 Ford, or 455 Pontiac!!  Larger engines can take more "Cam" without ill effects than smaller ones. For example-the old standby-the "350 Hp" 327 Corvette cam for a small-block Chevy. It has 224 duration ( @ .050 ) and .447 lift. This cam would ruin a 283 or a 305. It works pretty good in a 327 with a stick and 3.70 or stiffer gears. It's better in a 350 with a stick or an automatic with 3.42 gears and a 2,500 rpm converter, and it's really sweet in a 383 / 400 regardless of transmission, even with 3.08:1 gears.  So guidelines aren't set in stone.....Mastermind       

Ask someone who knows......Before you buy!!

I talk to a lot of people who have sometimes spent a great deal of money on a car that some schyster cobbled-up in his garage. They ask my opinion of the car, and when I give it to them, their usually aghast, and say "Gee, I wish I'd met you before I bought this piece of shit". Almost everybody knows somebody who's a gearhead that lives and breathes cars, and can tell you what's right or wrong about a certain model. If you don't, most reputable restoration shops will charge you an hour's labor-usually $90-120-to check out a car. That's money well spent to avoid spending thousands on something that's not what the seller says it is, or worse yet, is junk. Here's some horror stories that are absolutely true.  Victim # 1. Paid top dollar for a 1970 LT-1 Corvette. Except it wasn't. It had LT-1 emblems on the hood, and the vin number said it was an LT-1 car, but I knew the engine was wrong the second the guy opened the hood. "That is not an LT-1 engine." I said. "You know that by looking at it for 2 seconds?" the guy said arrogantly. "Yes." I said "1st off-GM didn't start using HEI distributors until 1975." "LT-1s had a #3310 780 cfm Holley carb on an aluminum intake." "This thing has a Quadrajet on an iron intake, and an EGR valve, which they didn't get until 1973". "And the heads don't have the "Camel Hump" casting mark., and it doesn't have the "Ram's Horn" exhaust manifolds. " "Some asshole stole the LT-1 and put a generic L48 350, probably out of a '75 or later pickup in this thing." "So you got royally fucked." His arrogance instantly turned to despair and disgust. "What can I do about it?" he asked. "If you bought it from a liscenced dealer, maybe sue the guy and try to get some or all of your money back." "But he'll probably claim he had no Idea the engine wasn't the correct one." "Unless you can prove that he purposely deceived you, you'll probably lose in court." "If it's an individual-your really fucked, because he has no business liscence to lose, and again he can claim ignorance, that he's not a mechanic and had no idea the engine was the wrong one." "Will you go to court and tell the judge what you just told me?" "I could, but I don't think it would do you any good as far as trying to get your money back." "Any small-claims court judge is going to say you should have had someone like me verify it BEFORE you bought it." "That's why they say "Buyer Beware". "Sorry." He was devastated. He eventually found a correct LT-1 engine, but it cost him a pretty penny, and he never got any restitution from the person that sold him the car.  Victim # 2. Bought a 1964 Olds 442. It was a for real 442, but it too had the wrong engine in it. As soon as the guy opened the hood, I said-"That's a '75 or later 350, not a 330." "How can you tell?" "Well, GM didn't use HEI distributors until 1975, and it has a Quadrajet carb, and an EGR valve on the intake." "GM didn't use Quadrajets until 1967, and didn't get EGR valves until 1973. " "And there's the numbers "350" cast into the side of the block."  "Oh." "What can I do?" "Drive it." "Put an Edelbrock Performer intake and matching cam on it and some headers." "Have fun with it." "Or swap in a 455 and make it really badass." "The chance of you finding a 330 Olds V8 with 1964 date codes is almost nil." "You have a better chance of getting struck by lightning on the golf course."  Victim # 3. Bought a 1977 Pontiac Trans-Am. I noticed the "Shaker" hood scoop didn't fit right. It sat too low. I opened the hood and said "Oh shit." without thinking. "What?" the owner asked anxiously. Sitting there in the engine bay was not a 400 Pontiac or a 403 Olds, which were the two engine choices that year. No-this 'Bird had a 350 Buick in it!! With two broken plug wires!!  When I explained this, the guy began swearing, and then griping. "I knew something was wrong" "I thought T/A's were supposed to be fast!" "This thing wouldn't even smoke the tires!" "So don't buy it." I said "There's tons of '77-78 T/A's with either a 400 Pontiac or a 403 Olds in them." "I already bought it." "Why would you do that?" "The price was too good to be true." "Except now it isn't" "Shit." I felt sorry for the guy, but he should have had a mechanic check it before he pony'd up the dough.  Victim # 4. Paid top dollar for a 1968 GTO Convertible. Except it wasn't a for-real GTO, it was a LeMans with a GTO front clip on it. And instead of a 400 Pontiac backed by a 3 or 4-speed stick or a TH400, it had a 350 Chevy engine in it, backed by a Powerglide!! He was really distraught. Especially when I explained that besides needing a 400 Pontiac, he'd need all the accessories-fuel pump,water pump, power steering pump, all the brackets etc. And since Chevys have a different bellhousing bolt-pattern than BOP engines, he'd also need a new transmission, even if he went with a TH350 ( which is the same length and uses the same driveshaft yoke and rear trans mount as a Powerglide ) he'd still have a cobbled-up LeMans convertible, not a numbers-matching GTO! He was inconsolable. He eventually put a TH350 behind the Chevy engine, and then sold it to someone else. I don't know how much money he lost, but he was furious for a long time. But he had no one to blame but himself. I mean if you can't tell a Chevy engine from a Pontiac, you shouldn't be looking for a musclecar without a knowledgeable friend along!!  Victim # 5. Bought a 1974 Dodge Challenger with a 383 and a 4-speed. Except the only two engines available in 1974 were a 318 and a 360. And it didn't run very good. It had a flat cam. It popped and missed above 3,000 rpm. And above 60 mph-you couldn't hold it in the road. I mean the front end was shot. When I explained all this the guy had a fit. Of course the beater lot he bought it from sold it "As Is" and refused to fix anything. "Why would you buy this?" "Didn't you test-drive it?" "No." "Why would you buy any car without test-driving it?" The guy had my shop put a new cam in it and rebuild the front end. After that it was a nice enough car to drive, but it cost him another $1,400 in parts and labor over and above the purchase price to make it drivable.  So if you don't know, ask someone who does before you part with your hard-earned cash.  Mastermind   

How NASCAR allowed King Richard to change it forever.....

Back in the '60's and '70's NASCAR's "Golden Age" the competition was fierce. Most racing organizations-especially NASCAR, the NHRA, and the SCCA-which sponsored the Trans-Am series-said Manufacturers had to sell at least 500 units of any model year car or engine to the general public to race them. This rule brought us great stuff like the Super Duty Pontiac 421, the 427 Chevy, the 426 Hemi, the Z/28 Camaro, the Boss 302 and 429 Mustangs, Plymouth Superbird / Charger Daytona, Thunderbolt Fairlanes, Hemi Darts, and others I can't remember off the top of my head. Anyhow people loved NASCAR because the cars were instantly recognizable, and you could buy a similar car from your local dealer. That's where the term "Win on Sunday,Sell on Monday" came from.  Another rule was bodystyles couldn't be more than 5 years old. After the Hemis, and Boss-Nines and other big-blocks were outlawed, and cubic inches limited to 366 ci- teams went to small-blocks. GM guys ran Chevelles and Monte Carlos with the ubiquitous 350 Chevy. Ford guys ran the venerable 351 Cleveland and Mopar guys ran the 360 Chrysler. The competition was still hot. Cale Yarborough won a lot of races for Chevrolet, David Pearson won a bunch in the Wood Brothers Mercurys, and Richard Petty won a bunch for Dodge. Richard and Pearson's duels at Daytona are still legendary. However-after the '79 season-NASCAR told Petty he could no longer run his iconic '74 Charger that had won so many races in 1980, citing the 5 year rule on bodystyles. Petty tried to run a '78 Dodge Magnum body, but it wasn't competitive. Then team Petty switched to GM. They figured out that the slope-nosed, fastback 1976-77 Olds Cutlass was much more aerodynamic than the flat-nosed, notchback Monte Carlos and Chevelles that most GM teams were running. Petty won several races in a row. The other NASCAR teams griped, because Petty was running the Ubiquitous small-block Chevy race engine. They argued that Petty should have to run an Oldsmobile engine, their train of thought being that the Olds engine wouldn't be nearly as powerful as the Chevy. I don't know why Team Petty didn't at least try to run an Olds engine and see if it was competitive. Obviously, the small-block Chevy had much more aftermarket speed equipment, and racing development than the 350 Olds.  However, the high-performance "W31" 350 Olds from 1968-70 was grossly UNDER-RATED at 325 hp; and was competitive in stock and super stock class drag racing with the Vaunted LT-1 350 Chevys and 340 Mopars. Further, back in the 70's ( and up until his death a few years ago ) Joe Mondello was THE Olds guru. Obviously,he devoted a lot of time to 455 engines, because a lot of customers wanted big-blocks, but he also built some stompin' 350's that went well beyond stock "W31" performance, and he discovered that you could use 455 heads on a 350 block, with a custom intake manifold. ( Today, Edelbrock's 350 Performer RPM will work in this application, but it didn't exist back then ) The 455 heads flowed way more than 350 heads. With the big port, big valve 455 heads, the 350 Olds would have breathed as well as the vaunted 351 "Cleveland" Fords. ( Which have ports and valves the size of a 454 Chevy ).  If Team Petty had collaborated with Mondello Performance, I have no doubt that they could have built a 350 Olds racing engine that could run with the 350 Chevys and 351 Fords. And the bottom end of the small-block Olds was bulletproof. If it could withstand being converted to diesel and running 22.5:1 compression with minor changes,it should have held up on gasoline for 500 miles at Daytona! I'm sure it was just easier and cheaper to run the Chevy race engine. Luckily for Petty-in the late '70's GM was playing musical engines because of smog laws. Depending on model, besides the 301, 350 and 400 Pontiac engines, you could get a Pontiac Firebird with a Buick 231 V6, a 305 or 350 Chevy and a 403 Olds. You could buy an Olds Cutlass with a 305 Chevy, a Buick Regal with a 301 Pontiac, an Olds Omega with a Buick 231 V6 or a 305 Chevy, and a Cadillac Seville with a 350 Olds.  Petty argued that since GM was selling Oldsmobiles with Chevrolet engines in them to the public, he ought to be able to race one. NASCAR sided with Petty and said that teams could run any GM engine in any GM body. Other teams quickly switched to the more aerodynamic Cutlass bodies. In my mind, this was the beginning of the end. Through the '80's they did this. The championship winning Buick that GM was comemmerating with the Grand National had a 350 Chevy in it, not a Turbo V6 like the production model!!  When GM cancelled the G-bodys in 1988 things really went to hell. I don't know why GM teams didn't simply switch to Camaros and Firebirds. They were rear-drive and remained in production until 2002. ( I know the Camaro was resurrected in 2009 ). Instead NASCAR allowed them to run front-drive Chevy Lumina bodies on a tube frame. Which led to Ford running Taurus bodies, Dodge running Intrepids, and Toyota running Camrys. Ugh!! Which brought us to now where the "Car of tomorrow" is a plastic body on a tube frame running 1965 technology. No roller cams? No overhead cams?  I think it would be much better if they allowed to Ford run Mustangs with the Coyote, Chrysler to run Chargers or Challengers with Hemis, Chevy to run Camaros with the LS engine and Toyota to run the Lexus coupe with the i-Force V8.  That would be way cool and the cars would be easily recognizable. And they need to change their scoring system-I've never been able to understand it. They need to get back to their roots-"National Association of Stock Car Racing"!!!!  I know that since the '50's Robert Duvall's immortal words from "Days of Thunder"-"There's nothing stock about a stock car" have been true. However-the cars were at least production based, up until the '80's when Bill Elliot drove a T-Bird and GM guys had Monte Carlo SS's.  After that, Chevy Lumina and Beretta bodies? Yuk.  Mastermind

         

The worst action movie chases......

Since we did the best movie chases people also are interested in the worst ones. I've touched on these a couple years ago, but it's worth re-visiting. You wonder what the directors are thinking. Don't they look at "Dailys" and go wait a minute-"That looks like shit, and it's totally impossible".  "Maybe we ought to re-think it." Apparently not. Anyhow here's my opinion of the worst. # 1. "Wanted" Even a briefly naked Angelina Jolie couldn't save this this stinker. Jolie and Morgan Freeman telling James Macavoy to "Curve the bullet"? Shooting bullets around corners? Everyone knows a bullet goes in a straight line until it hit's something or eventually runs out of energy and drops to earth! Ugh!  Worse than that, early on there's a chase scene where Jolie and James Macavoy are in a DODGE VIPER!! and their being pursued by a guy in a UPS type step van!! Really??  The Viper would leave the van by 30 car lengths in a block and be out of sight leaving the van driver scratching his head as to which way they went!!  But no, the van stays with the Viper for several minutes. Gag, retch, puke. And then it goes downhill from there. Really. At the end Jolie kills herself and several other people by shooting a bullet that goes in a complete circle and through several people's head, including hers. 1st off-again-you don't have to be a firearms expert to know bullets only travel in a straight line. Secondly-A hollow-point bullet mushrooms on impact, so it probably wouldn't have left the first guys skull, it would have just turned his brains to mush. If it was a full metal jacket bullet, It might have over-penetrated and went through the first guys head, but after plowing in and out of a hard human skull and through three lbs of brain tissue, it's trajectory would have been crazily skewed-there's no way to predict where it would have went next, and it certainly would have been slowed enough that it wouldn't have enough energy to penetrate and exit 3 or 4 more skulls!!!  The only thing stupider that I ever saw in a movie was in Rambo: First Blood Part II, where Stallone shoots down the Russian fighter plane from inside a Huey helicopter with a Law's Rocket. A Law's rocket has a backblast of 55 feet-so he just blew the ass end off his own helicopter and killed his crew!!  But not in the movies. I've said before-I'll give a certain amount of suspension of disbelief-like for James Bond's gadgets-but when something is absolutely impossible-why put it on screen?  Like I said, even Angie's bare ass couldn't salvage this one.  # 2. "Marked for Death". This Steven Seagal stinker really irritated me. Seagal plays a DEA agent who's suspended after a sting in Mexico goes sideways. He goes home to visit his sister in Chicago. Except the old neighborhood has been taken over by Jamaican drug dealers. He's driving a sinister black 1973 Mach 1 Mustang with American Racing wheels on it, so I'm figuring at some point there might be a chase. The Mustang gets wrecked between two big trucks-a total rip-off of John Wayne's "McQ" where his T/A gets totaled. The chase is later and Seagal and his buddy are driving a Dodge Ramcharger SUV-an underpowered, ill handling 4wd truck. There chasing drug dealers in a BMW 633CSI-a fast, great handling sports car. The BMW would leave that truck in a heart beat. And even if the RamCharger had a 440 in it-a 4wd Dodge truck is no match for a BMW around corners!!  The Bimmer would dust it and be gone in two blocks!!  Why they didn't have him chasing the Bimmer in the Mustang, and then wreck it later, I don't know. Anyhow the chase and the whole movie sucked.  # 3. "Cobra".  Riding high after releasing "Rocky" and "Rambo" sequels that were blockbusters in 1985-Sylvester Stallone stepped on his dick with this stinker. He plays Marion Cobretti a badass detective who's a member of the "Zombie Squad"- the guys called out as a last resort-sort of a badder than SWAT team. Stallone swaggers through the film wearing mirrored sunglasses and leather gloves-even when eating pizza and watching TV at home-and carries a pearl-handled, cocked and locked Colt .45 automatic with a Cobra snake emblazoned on the grips, stuffed down his pants by his dick. We never see it in a holster. Another totally implausible scene is where he bumps a custom '64 Impala low-rider out of a parking space and then rips the t-shirt of the driver. Not only do the 6 gang-bangers in the car NOT kick the shit out of him, or stab or shoot him,they don't trash his car after he swagger's away. Because he's such a badass, right? Anyhow, A group of crazies are ax-murdering people trying to create a "New World". This is never explained. Brigitte Nielsen plays a woman who is the only witness to these heinous crimes and Stallone and Reni Santoni ( who was Clint Eastwood's partner in the 1st "Dirty Harry" ) are charged with protecting her. The awful chase features Stallone driving a souped-up '50 Ford hot rod with nitrous, that apparently can't out run a 318 4-door Plymouth Volare!!!  Seriously. Ugh. Stallone single-handedly takes out about 50 guys including the ringleader, and then rides away with Nielsen on a Harley taken from one of the dead bad guys, after slugging another cop he doesn't like. Okay.  # 4. "Get Carter" I'm really not picking on Sly, people. I loved "Rocky", I thought "Nighthawks" was under-rated, "Demolition Man" was hilarious, and the "Expendables" flicks were entertaining. I'm actually looking forward to the new "Rambo" flick.  But I was really disappointed in this 2000 remake of the 1971 classic starring Michael Caine. In the original Carter kills 3 people and has phone-sex with Britt Eklund in the first 15 minutes. Now that's a start to an action flick!  Carter is a hitman who returns to London to investigate the death of his brother, who was an upstanding citizen. He finds out his baby bro was killed because he found out other gangsters had forced his daughter-Carter's niece-who's really HIS daughter we find out-into doing a porn movie, and threatened to go to the police. Carter and his brother's wife had a thing before his brother married her. The wife and Carter never told the brother the kid wasn't his, and they never told the girl either. Carter kicks the hell out of the London underworld and dies in a blaze of glory at the end. I was actually thinking the remake might be good. I was wrong. Instead of a hitman, Sly is a "Collector" for a Vegas loan-shark / casino owner. He finds out his brother has been killed in Seattle and goes to investigate, against his mobster boss's wishes. And he's having an affair with the boss's girlfriend. Smart. His sister-in-law hates him, and they never explain or even imply that the "niece" is really Carter's kid, which I felt was important. Also the brother was cheating on his wife with the smokin' hot Rhona Mitra who's totally wasted in her few scenes and later murdered. Stallone again swaggers through this film wearing mirrored sunglasses and an Armani suit, and threatening people by telling them he's going to take things to another level. However he never takes things to the next level.  Anyway there's not one, but two awful chases. One between a bad guy driving a 1980 Volvo and Carter, driving a stolen '80's Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham D' Elegance-you know the rear wheel drive model that looked like a '79, but unlike the '79 that had 425 cubes under the hood, had an anemic 4.1 liter V8-that slug?  Anyhow this one ends with the Volvo crashing and the airbag triggering. On a 1980 Volvo???  The other one is between Sly driving a rental 2000 Seville STS and John C. McGinley-Sly's co-worker who ratted him out to the boss and is supposed to bring him back to Vegas to face the music. He's driving an '70's Jaguar XJ6 or maybe it's an XJ12-it's hard to tell. But the 320 hp Northstar Caddy with 235/60R16 ZR rated tires would have easily left the underpowered Jag that's riding on S-rated 205 / 70R15 Dunlops!!  Anyhow they run around and finally play "Chicken" and the Jag crashes. There's a totally unrealistic fight between him and Mickey Rourke, and of course he doesn't die at the end and has a cutesy good-bye with his niece at his brother's grave. Not even close to the original. Only Jason Statham's bastardization of the Charles Bronson classic "The Mechanic" was worse. Like I said, I usually like Stallone, but in these two flicks he bombed. # 5. The "Driver" This 1978 action flick starred Ryan O'Neal as a professional getaway driver that gangsters hired to drive them away from bank robberies, etc. Bruce Dern was a cop obsessed with catching him. Good automotive action early on in a '78 LTD and a great scene where he destroys a Mercedes in a parking garage while the gangsters in the backseat scream like schoolgirls. It goes off the rails in the finale. O' Neal is driving a '78 Chevy Stepside pickup with a granny-gear 4-speed. He's chasing a guy in a '76 Trans-Am. Really??  If the truck was a 454 / automatic it might have been close in a drag race, but around corners?  The T/A would leave him in two blocks. The sad thing is-earlier in the film O'Neal was driving a '77 Firebird. If he was chasing the T/A in that it would have been believable. But the granny-geared ( have you ever tried to shift one of those quickly? ) truck??  Puhleeeze.  Of course the guy in the T/A crashes, and O' Neal doesn't. Right.  Let me know if I missed any other stinkers. Mastermind                   

The hottest women in car-chase / action movies revisited.....

After reviewing the best movie chases, of course the next subject was the hottest women in car chase / action flicks. In order to make this list, the character had to be an integral part of the story, and really make the viewer like her and be sympathetic to her character; not just look good and make guys from 16 to 60 drool-that's why Gal Gadot and Eva Mendes-both smokin' hot aren't on this list-their 30 second bikini scenes in different "F&F" movies aren't enough to make the cut. Anyhow here's my picks. # 1. Jennifer Billingsley "White Lightning".  Her dark brown roots showing in her bleach-blond hair, barefoot in that skimpy sundress practically the whole movie, "Shake-a-Puddin'" just oozed sex,while still having that southern belle like charm. When she runs her bare foot up Burt Reynold's bicep and coos-"If you want it, Gator just say so." "If you don't it's ok" ( Definitely a "Wayne's World" "Schwing!" moment ) Ditto for the Tarantino-ish scene where, while her gangster boyfriend sleeps in a house maybe 100 yards up the road, she kneels on the dock by the river to feed a skinny-dipping Gator his breakfast she cooked for him and we get an extreme close-up of her very dirty soles, before Burt convinces her to join him. She doesn't even get mad when Gator sets her up for attempted rape to escape "Big Bear" and his henchmen. She saves the wounded Gator and drives the car and takes him to a home for unwed mothers for medical attention. She personified the Southern Slut that men die and kill for. Others have tried it-Kim Basinger in "No Mercy", Teri Hatcher in "Heaven's Prisoner's" and most recently Reese Witherspoon in "Mud", but no one has been able to top "Shake-a-Puddin".  # 2. "Ruth" "To Live and Die in L.A."  Classically trained stage actress Darlanne Fluegel was awesome as "Chance's" hooker / informant / girlfriend. She brazenly walked around naked, or topless and barefoot, in just pantyhose and when she griped at William Peterson- "Some guy I set up for you is going to kill me someday." "What would you do If I stopped giving you information?" and he replies "I'd violate your parole and send you back to jail". You know she's going to set him up. And she does. At the end when "Chance" and everybody else is dead, and Chance's partner ( John Pankow) asks her where the rest of the money he and Chance took from the dead FBI agent is, she lies and says she got ripped off. The look on her face when he says "Let's not get off to a bad start Ruth".  "Your workin' for me now."  is priceless.  # 3. " Carol McCoy" "The Getaway" ( 1972 version ). The master of action-Sam Peckinpah-( The Wild Bunch, the Osterman Weekend ) directed, and shot the film in sequence.  No one was hotter than a then 24-year old Ali McGraw. Apparently Steve McQueen thought so, because they started a torrid affair and he left his wife for her, and she left her husband who was a producer on the movie. That must have been awkward. Their chemistry was obvious and their passion ignited the screen. Anyhow "Carol" sleeps with gangster Jack Benyon to get her husband out of prison, and then they have to do a robbery for Benyon as well. It goes bad, and when they go to split the money with Benyon, "Doc" ( Steve McQueen ) realizes he's been set up and Benyon plans to kill him. However Carol shoots Benyon first. Figuring out how his freedom was bought an angry Doc slaps the shit out of Carol. "Why did you do it?' he asks. "Because Benyon wanted it." "Because the deal wasn't good enough." "He wouldn't get you out if I didn't"  "Then you should have walked away."  "And left you in prison?"  "I figured you'd do the same for me." "Right, Doc?" "You would humiliate yourself if that was the only way to help me?"  It's said during filming this scene that McQueen and McGraw miscalculated their movements, and he accidentally hit her full force, bloodying her nose and almost knocking her out. He went to her trailer later in the day to check on her well-being and apologize, and this is when their affair started.  Anyhow, they go on the run together from the law and Benyon's gangster henchmen. "Carol" kicks a lot of ass of her own, driving the car during a chase and shooting several bad guys. She's no shrinking violet. Per the title they do get away in the end. It's a badass action flick with great performances all around. Roger Donaldsen tried a remake in 1994, and he shouldn't have. Like the MC Hammer song-"Can't Touch This."  The '94 version starred Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger who were married at the time, but they couldn't re-create the white-heat that McQueen and McGraw had. No one was cooler than Steve McQueen, not even Clint Eastwood. Baldwin tried valiantly to put his own spin on the character-but the critics couldn't help it they said he couldn't shine McQueen's shoes. Ditto for the then 41 year old Kim Basinger. While 3 years from her Oscar win for L.A. Confidential, and still smokin' hot in a MILF / Cougar way-she still couldn't top Ali McGraw for sheer hotness, and either she or the director decided to put a '90's "I am woman, hear me roar" spin on the scene where Doc slaps the crap out of Carol. Except he doesn't. She slaps him back, they have a little slap fight and she tells him to fuck off and walks away. It really took away from the scene, and the movie as a whole, and put a whole different spin on the relationship between Doc and Carol. Don't get me wrong, I'm not condoning violence against women. But the original scene was so powerful because Carol wasn't really physically hurt; she was emotionally hurt. As a career criminal's wife, she'd obviously been hit before-if not by him by other gangsters, their women, and maybe even cops. She was aghast because she'd slept with a man that sickened her, not once but several times to help her husband, and instead of showing gratitude, he responds with anger, accusations and violence. She didn't fight back not because she was hurt or afraid, she was shocked that he was such an ungrateful bastard. The Baldwin / Basinger "fuck you, fuck you back" slap fight wasn't near as powerful. And conversely, I thought higher of McGraw's Carol for "Standing by her man".  Basinger's portrayal made out like she was just sticking around for her share of the money, that she was willing to walk at any time, and didn't much care if "Doc" lived or died. Maybe Basinger or the director were trying to send some social message to young girls. That's altruistic, but a badass gangster flick with the kill ratio of an arcade game is not the place to do that.  Michael Madsen tried, but no one could play the sexually deviant gunfighter "Rudy" better than Al Letteiri  ( The Godfather, Mr. Majestyk ), and I like James Woods, but as always he over-acts, which paled in comparison to Ben Johnson's quietly sadistic Benyon. Sorry to get off on a rant there, but I thought my position needed to be explained.  # 4. Jacqueline Bisset "Bullitt". I can't remember her character's name, and all Steve McQueen callsher in the movie is "Baby".  If you thought she was hot a 33 when she made "The Deep" ( Her wet-t-shirt poster outsold everything but Farrah Fawcett in the red bathing suit that year ) you need to see her at 24 in "Bullitt".  Her puking after seeing a corpse and rebuking McQueen for his callousness kept her from ranking higher.  # 5. "Mary" "Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry". Susan George was hot in the mid-70's. She played Dustin Hoffman's slut wife in "Straw Dogs", and her inter-racial love scenes with boxer Ken Norton in "Mandingo" brought her some "Basic Instinct" type noteriety for a few years.  She's probably best known for this role however-spending the whole movie in a straining halter top ( and I mean straining, it barely contains her large, tanned breasts ) and hip-hugger jeans that barely cover her ass-crack. The action is good and her and Peter Fonda trade wisecracks well. She basically does the same thing ( wear a straining halter top and scream a lot ) in "A Small Town in Texas".  # 6. Lynda Carter "Bobbi Jo and the Outlaw". This was a B-movie action flick that starred a pre-Wonder Woman Lynda Carter and Evangelist-turned-action star Marjoe Gortner. Lynda plays an aspiring country singer who takes up with a charismatic car theif who fancies himself a modern-day Jesse James or Billy the Kid. Lynda gets naked a lot, and theirs some chases in cars that Gortner steals. Did I mention that Lynda get's naked a lot? The movie pretty much sucks, but if you want to see "Wonder Woman" in her prime totally nude and barefoot, here's your chance.  As for also rans-I've said it before nothing against Sally Field-but "Frog" just doesn't do anything for me. I know Jessica Simpson trained hard for the big-screen version of the "Dukes of Hazzard" ( which was awful ) but her phony southern accent was like fingernails on a blackboard, and the gratuitous bikini scene seemed contrived even for a mindless action-comedy.  Finally-I also left Jordana Brewster ( The Fast&Furious movies ) out. She's a hottie, but refereeing the bromance fights between Vin Diesel and Paul Walker ( "Don't fight,guys I love you both" ) through 4 movies doesn't get her on the list. Sorry. Mastermind