the most impressive car you have driven

[BillZ260]

Man, I feel like I am sitting at the looser table in high school at lunch!

 

I remember my dad buying a 69 ford pick up 3/4 ton w/ a 390 for like 700 bucks. I got to drive part of the way home, was 14 or 15. Hit 70 in second gear, man I though that was the hottest thing going!

 

My first FAST, but not quick, car was a 1980 malibu that i traded an 81 Z28 in on (MISTAKE) This car was purple, had a tunnell ram and two 650's and NO2, it got like 6mpg and was Horrible off the line. The guy that built it never got around to putting new gears in the rearend, had...2.56! YEP This thing was a bullit on the HWY's but didn't have the suspension for it, could literally smoke just about anying on the hwy. It would bobble all over the place and sometimes the over size tires would grab the fender wells. It was a redneck hot rod.

 

So noting really exotic, but I will tell you, everyone that rode in THAT car with me (being all of 19) was scarred of it Yeah, I have read the safety thread!

[Z-Gad]

Well, not driven, but ridden in ... has to be ... Scottie's GNZ

[Guest bastaad525]

Heheh wow I feel so underpriveledged, I have to say the most impressive... okay no, just the plain fastest and scariest car I've ever driven is my own. I even posted the other day about how I got to drive a '93 or '94 Supra TT (it was an automatic though ) and I just was not impressed... it didn't scare me or throw me back in the seat like I expected, and like my 240zt does. But I WAS impressed by how solid the car felt... I didn't go too fast in it but I had no trouble imagining this thing going 150+ and being as solid as a rock... something my 240 definately can't do . I also got to drive an R34 skyline, pretty much stock but with a few bling parts like chromed intake pipes, about a year ago, me and a couple friends of mine, and NONE of us were impressed. It was more of a show car, loaded with stereo equipment and such, but more than that the car just felt sick, and I dont mean sick in the good way. Very odd sitting on the right hand side!

 

The most impressive car I got to ride in was an early 90's sentra SE-R that had, I kid you not, a damn 300zx turbo motor in it, set up front wheel drive style. This guy took me down the street in this car, spinning the tires in any gear was not a problem... 4th gear at 100mph and still could spin them easily. This car looked 99% stock on the outside, just wider tires and rims, a wing and some foglights... faded black paint... total sleeper. I want one.....

[Guest Perry]

I've had rides in a bunch of random stuff, nothin too exotic.

383 240Z has a V8 Rx7 that's pretty cool, my first drive in that was on a drag strip.

I have an uncle who just about wet himself when I took him down a back road in my 77 280Z with a turbo engine in it. He was talking smack about nascar being the ultimate racing and my jap crap not worth working on. He knows nothing about cars or racing that he didn't see on a nascar broadcast, but he's an expert. I took him on a very familiar stretch through mountainous terrain at about 100 mph. I think that's the only time I have confirmed off the ground on asphalt(tach shot up at the crest of a hill at about 90 mph) When we got back his knees were shaking for a half hour and he changed his shorts, My aunt still pulls me aside and thanks me for that every once in a while, he's a bit of a know-it-all. I feel kinda bad about it sometimes but enjoy offering him a ride to the store everytime he's over for a visit.

My most memorable are always with a gearhead uncle of mine. I drove his short cab short bed 2wd dodge ram with a blower at 12psi, talk about a sleeper.

he also had a 400 small block in a vega with nitrous. We ran to the Pizza shop one night in it and came back with a mangled pie and big grins. He had a plymouth belvedere with a 440 V8 with a big blower and dual carbs. I rode along while he did a wheelie in that one in the dealership parking lot between two rows of brand new cars, off hours of course.

But the most memorable is my ride in his 350 horse V8 240Z. We rigged a shifter into it, he was still putting the car together. It had no passenger seat, so I tried to hang on and sit on the floor boards, unsuccessfully. He still had stock size tires on it, we left black lines through first, then second, then half way through third. I went home that day pretty bruised up from trying to stay in the passenger side footwell, but it was a blast. Now that I think about it I probably have him to thank for this expensive hobby of mine.

Sorry so long.

Perry

[Guest Aaron]

Well, not driven, but ridden in ... has to be ... Scottie's GNZ

 

I would be scared to ride in Scottie's car.

 

Another favorite car story from my life. When I was in the 6th grade, my mother had a flat on her way home, about one mile from home. When my dad got home, he and I went to change the tire. When we finished, he handed me the keys and told me to drive the car home. It was the first time I ever drove a car by myself on the road. I thought I was something. The car was a 1980 280ZX 2+2. I have been in love with the Z's since then.

 

Just thought of another one. My granddad's baby was his 1950 Ford Custom. 48000 original miles 6 Cyl. It has sat in his barn most of the last 30 years. In 1998, we pulled it out of the barn, washed it, put a battery in it, filed the points, cleaned the plugs, primed the carb, and pull started it with a tractor. The car started right up, and ran like a new car. We drove it around the block and he let me drive it. I was suprised by the power a 48 year old six cylinder had, and it was the first time I drove a "three on the tree". Since my granddad died, my dad has done some restoration of the car. It is looking nice, but is going to need paint (it was never cover in the barn except by dust). However, the engine siezed after we put a few hundred miles on it. That is project for another day.

[Chaparral2f]

In 1967 I bought a new Dodge Charger with a street Hemi. Only car I ever had that would lift the front wheels on the street. I got to ride in a friends 930 Ruf turbo. It was till accelerating at 300kph. (180 mph?) Hot lapped in an Offy powered Curtis Craft midget.My business partner who owned it said it was making about 380 hp and weighed something like 800 lbs. When he let me drive it, he said it would scare me before I could hurt it. Boy, was he right! Drag raced a blown Harley sportster in the '70s. Best time was 6.87 in the eighth. The next week it got away from me and comited suicide. There wasn't a part left that you couldn't pick up in your hands. Other than being unconsious for about ten minutes I survived with only a bunch of cracked ribs.

[Drax240z]

FSAE car... 600cc GSX-R motorbike engine, unrestricted in a 577lb car.

 

0-60mph in 3.9sec

1/4 mile in 11.89@112 (Gear limited) :D

1.45g's on the skidpad. :D

 

We never did get the brake distances on the g-tech but they were pretty phenominal too.

[dot]

The most powerful was my ’71 El Camino SS 454. It would spin the tires at any speed and would stop like a hippopotamus on wet clay!

Second was my wife’s 440 Dodge Charger. It used to corner like the Chev used to stop.

Third was an AAR Cuda I was planning to keep. It was reasonably quick and nimble but lack a true sports car feel.

The best all around car is the Z…natch.

 

Thanks for the mention Mat

[Guest Perry]

That reminds me,

I was the engine development guy on our FSAE car, it needed LOTS of test time to get right...

CBR 600 with a turbo at 12psi running on M85. Final drive was a chain and actually bent the back half of the car from the forces on it until we made a big aluminum structure to tie the diff straight to the engine block. That was loads of fun.

Perry

[Guest smoov280zx]

I'd have to say a RT/10 Viper, think it was about a 98 or so. I was at the auction picking up a couple of cars for boss, and viola a candy apple red viper. Wow this is nice...WTF its not locked. OMG the keys are in it. Well, it had torque from idle and i gave it about half throttle and scared myself(i was in the auction lot still, its pretty big). I didnt get on it that hard but my best friend who is also a car nut wound out 1st when he drove it. Man that thing hauled like I'd never felt, and i didnt even get to go fast. Wow.

 

Mitch

[philiow313]

a built ACR viper.

 

i used to work at dodge, and one guy who owved the only ACR they ever sold there had fully built thing thing- rebuilt, high compression, headers, etc.

 

CARBON FIBER BODY

 

this thing looked stock but ran like a beast. ill never forget that drive.

[majik16106]

rode in the Batlground engineering Supra, the one that belongs to Dan Wiley 1000+rwhp. On I-75, i couldnt tell you my name during that ride.

 

Drove a t78 4th gen that was a ton of fun. Also Cleve's datsun, now Bob's, that thing is SCARY, it made 500+rwhp on juice, it was scary as hell, we took that on 285 once near his car wash, INSANE.