Continuing the Movie Car Collection series with another great American muscle car:
Better Off Dead: 1967 Camaro
Price range: $20,000-45,000
Better Off Dead is my favorite 80’s teen comedy. Considering the number of 80’s teen comedies, that’s pretty high praise. This car brings Lane together with cute French chick Monique (I bet he put his testicles all over her). More importantly, it flattens a Ford Falcon driven by the Asian Cosell brothers. On second thought, that’s not more important. I’d much rather have a hot French foreign exchange student than beat a Ford in a street race – I can do that with my WRX already.
Turns out, I am not the only one in love with this car, not by a long shot. There is a terrific story at betteroffdeadcamaro.com about how the owner of that site tracked down the original car (wasn’t easy!) and fully restored it to it’s former glory. Just like the movie. Wow, man.
Since the original isn’t for sale, you can settle for a diecast 1/18th scale replica. Yes, of course, it’s black.
Whoah there fella. You can’t just blurt out that you have a WRX without further information. Let’s see some stats on that puppy. Pics?
uring my search for a car with a little more space, I looked into the WRX for obvious reasons. But it looked small so I looked at the wagon version but no thanks. They won’t give you the better tuned engine with the wagon. Right now I’m leaning towards the Dodge Magnum. I’m reading on the message boards that with very little modification you can bring that thing up to ZR1 pace. And still have all that rear space for kids and beach crap.
It’s a 2002 WRX, auto, and fully stock except the tires. The tires were actually a huge improvement, Bridgestone Potenza S-03 Pole Positions. Not cheap, but the highest rated for both wet and dry traction at TireRack.com. Combined with the AWD and traction control, it sticks the road like glue.
But truth be told, several Ford’s can beat it, as I believe the latest V8 Mustangs have a better 0-60 than the current WRXs. Not sure how the Cobra stacks against the WRX STi, but they’re pretty different vehicles so a comparison would be skewed.
I drove a Magnum very recently, although not a V8. Decent power, but the brakes felt weird, like you had to press hard to get a response. Overall, a pretty big car. I prefer the compact, more agile sports cars. Then again, I don’t have kids.
If I needed more space, my obvious choice would be the Subaru Forester 2.5 XT. That’s T for Turbo, don’t even test drive the others. It is faster than my WRX! Although the new WRXs have the same 2.5L engine, so they should beat them now. You also get Subaru all-wheel drive (comes with all their cars, so they’re experts in it). And as a family man, you’ll be happy to know it’s the only small SUV to get a PERFECT gov’t safety rating. It’s also a good $5,000 less than the V-8 AWD Magnum. And you get Japanese reliability, with a time-tested car. If you did want to soup it up, no problem there, I know someone who autocrosses his with several sponsored mods.
I should get commission for selling these things.
I looked at the V6 Forester, but everyone at work said it wasn’t “me”. I think they’re right.
Plus I need a gray color and the Magnum comes with two shades available. (wow they know me.) The Forester had no Gray.
I’m with you on the Jap-compacts, but kids force you another direction. I will not be another minivan in the school parking-lot, I’ll tell you that.
You have to try the Hemi-V8. Every inch of the pedal is more power and “Dodge-Talk” Message boards are lit up with easy mods. It’s as close to a truck as I’ll ever get (for cargo). I’ll always be a street man.
Your WRX sounds sweet though. Id like to see pics. They always turn my head when I see them drive by.
p.s. I got Z-rated Pirelli tires myself because you never know when the day will come when you need to top 150.
Ok, I’m pretty positive you didn’t look at the Forester – maybe an Outback? The Forester doesn’t come in a V6, it has a 2.5L boxer engine with a turbo (XT version), which is very fast and tunable. It also comes in TWO different grays: Steel Gray Metallic (very similar to your 300ZX) and Crystal Gray Metallic. Check out http://Subaru.com. You sound sold on the Magnum, so I’m just saying you should just test drive a Forester XT as a benchmark (and make sure the asshat salesman gets you a real Forester with a turbo!).
Sorry, don’t have pics of the WRX, I don’t even own a camera. Gonna have to get one of those some day…
I guess it had to be if it had a V6. Hmmm (It was over a year ago.)
The Forester XT looks nice. Maybe I’ll swing back by there.
PS. No cell-phone camera even??? Come on!