More A#$%holes of the Century......

A while back I posted a parody of Hustler Magazine's "Asshole of the Month" column. For those not familiar-It's pretty funny. "Asshole of the Month" is usually a politician or celebrity that did something incredibly stupid or hypocritical. Like the senator from Idaho who was vehemently opposing gay marriage and then got caught trying to pick up a guy in an airport men's room. Or the woman who founded Mothers Against Drunk Drivers taking a six-figure job as a salesman for Seagram's, or the Gun-Control advocate in Washington D.C. who shot an intruder in his house with an un-registered gun. The way this relates to musclecars is I spotlighted people who had ruined classic cars. No, this wasn't a why did you put an SRT8 Hemi in a '69 Charger gripe, even the magazines featuring these cars wanted to storm these people's houses with torches. I won't reprint the whole article-but here's some highlights. The one guy had put a 389 Pontiac into a pristine 1957 Thunderbird. Blaspehemy most foul!!  The other guy had put the engine and drivetrain out of a 1998 Toyota Supra Turbo into a 1967 Camaro. Everyone wanted this guy drawn and quartered, tarred and feathered, and my personal favorite-entrails cut out and burned. Everyone was furious because he butchered not one, but two rare classics. Musclecar guys were mad about putting a Jap drivetrain in a classic Camaro, and the Import Tuner crowd was furious that he'd cut up a rare, valuable Toyota performance car. Well, I found a few more idiots with more money than brains that tops even these collossal ruinings of classics. These irritated the musclecar crowd and the classic sports-car crowd, and the Import tuner group. 3 for 3. Here's the winners of this month's "Asshole of the Century" award. # 1. This guy put a Mopar Performance 528 inch crate Hemi into a 1972 Ford Pantera!!!  Why???  First off-you can't buy a decent Pantera for less than 25 or 30 grand. Secondly-their pretty damn good performers stock-the mid-engine 351C Ford V8 pushes the swoopy 3,000 lb cars to 0-60 times in the 5 second range and a top speed over 140 mph. If you want to go faster than that-there's tons of hot rod parts for 351C's-aluminum heads,intakes, cams etc-or a 429 / 460 Ford has the same bellhousing bolt pattern and is almost the same size externally. So why would you spend 30K for a pristine Pantera, another 20K for a Mopar Crate Hemi, and then untold hours and dollars making it fit?  Ford guys, Mopar guys, and Sports car guys all hated this one. # 2. This genius put a 302 Chevy out of a 1969 Z/28 into a 1971 Porsche 914 / 6!!  Porschephiles lost their mind, and rightfully so. Everyone loved the cute little 914 Targa Coupes that were made from 1970-76 and even with a 4-banger they were a blast to drive. However in '70 and 71 a few were built with the 6-cylinder 911 motor which made them rockets. Except for a 550 Spyder like James Dean got killed in, or a '69-73 911S, the 914 / 6 is about the most desirable and collectible Porsche around. Butchering it with an american V8 wasn't enough-a 302 Ford or garden-variety 350 Chevy, oh no-this had to be a solid-lifter "DZ" 302 that someone would pay blood and a first-born child for to put in a '69 Z/28 they were restoring. And-here's the kicker-the car wasn't that much faster with the V8, and it handled worse!!! Because the iron small-block Chevy weighed WAY more than the aluminum flat 6 Porsche motor-and ALL that weight was unsprung on the rear end which drastically altered the cars weight distribution & aggravated the usual Porsche tail-happyness to an unmanageable degree!! If he wanted more performance-there's plenty of speed parts for 911 Porsche motors. Or why couldn't he buy one of the thousands of 4-banger 914s that no one cares about and drop in a 3.8 liter GM V6 out of a Buick Grand National Turbo or Pontiac Bonneville Supercharged SSEI  that wouldn't weigh any more than the Porsche / VW 4-banger and have triple the power?  # 3. This clown put a 350 Chevy into a 1988 Jaguar XJ/S coupe. If you don't know-the XJ/S was the flagship performance car-it had a V12 from the factory that moved the big cats along quite rapidly. And this wasn't Jehtro in the backwoods bought an old Jag with a blown engine,couldn't afford the $8,000 to rebuild the V12 and stuffed the 350 and TH350 out of his pickup into the car, no this Jag was a pristine, example with less than 50,000 miles on it that ran perfectly. The guy yanked the Jag powerplant that had nothing wrong with it, then went and spent a ton of money buying a TPI L98 350 and TH700R4 out of an '88 Corvette, spent several grand on Vortec heads,Edelbrock baseplates and TPI runners,and wiring up all the electronics to run the Fuel-Injection, moving the crossmember back, shortening and re-balancing the drive shaft, etc. And the net result-it got 20 mpg on the highway instead of 16, and ran the 1/4 in the high 14s instead of the low 15s. After he spent $12,000 and countless man hours and ruined the value of the car. If he wanted a nice Jag for a cruiser-he already had that. If he wanted a C4 Corvette for a hot rod-their the proverbial dime-a-dozen. I saw a nice one on a used car lot the other day for $3995!!  Anyhow-these people managed to offend everyone on all sides. Thought people might find it entertaining. Mastermind