Is there a more noble car than a V6 Pontiac Firebird?
Could there possibly be a car that has more will, more wish wrapped up in it? It’s V8 dreaming of being a V8, wrapped up in an American coupe dreaming of being an exotic sports car.
And it’s so, so, so easy to laugh at them.
How can you hate the way a V6 Firebird revs at the lights? How is it different than if it was a Porsche or a Ferrari? Isn’t the heart, the desire, the same?
Every V6 Firebird’s modification, every dollar spent on getting the rims chromed, the stereo built out, is as hard-spent as any other dollar spent on any other car.
Now, today I wrote about how Honda and Acura had left the NSX to rot on the vine, letting me resent the car’s existence when I was growing up. Another reader reminded me that I should be thankful that the car wasn’t taken off the market, like other 1990s Japanese sports cars were. I replied that the car world isn’t fair. How happy car enthusiasts are when Porsche never changes anything; how bitter they are when Acura never alters the NSX.
Reader boxcarbob clarified the double standards of this enthusiasm better than I could:
but just as well, buy any late 80's and 90's Japanese cars, put a cold air intake, a fart can muffler, and you have “whored” up the car, as per the JDM fanboys here; bolt on thousands of dollars on a Camaro or Mustang, you get a meh
What other double standards do we have? What other changes do we frown on in one car, praise in another?