Know how I know you haven’t spent much time other places in the world?

Oh no no no...

It really depends on the business. Things with strong network effects tend to have “first mover advantage” because once you hit a critical mass, nobody wants to move to a new, un-established network.  Things with massive up front research/investment that then becomes commoditized tend to have “second mover advantage”…

Which is what killed off the Supra, 3000GT, 300ZX, etc in the 90s...although part of the price spike was the Yen’s selloff.  If they want to move upmarket, at least sell a Lexus version (SC?)

A simpler take: at 35-40k, ie Mustang GT territory, you would find plenty of F&F fans who drove Eclipses in their teens and can now afford the descendant of the car they idolized.

2900 lbs and 430 hp is what the production version should’ve had.  That would be how you revive the legend.

Believe it or not, the 370Z lost weight relative to the 350Z. And while the 300zx wasn’t the lightest thing (TT V6 and stuffed full of 90s Japanese complexity), the 370 ended up around the same weight, 32-3400 lbs.

> responsible and woke

Ok looked it up and the 2500 ranges from 5900-7300 across all configurations. Looks like the diesels are 6800-7300, which still seems very heavy to me, but still well shy of 8200.

I don’t think this thing is anywhere near 8200 pounds, is that a GVWR maybe?  IE truck plus all possible passengers and luggage?  Even with the diesel, 4 doors, and 4wd I bet it’s in the 6000s.

Pick whatever transmission you want, it would still be miserable.  Yes that F1 engine’s peak power means you could tow a tractor-trailer with it, but you’d be at 20k rpm just pulling across an intersection.

Just quoting the peak power is also useless without mentioning the rpm range. People don’t want to rev their cruisers out to 14k to get moving.

So what would you change about this engine? Dropping it to a liter would improve its hp/L, at the cost of torque, and raising the power would mean shifting the powerband upward. For a cruiser, you could go the direction of Honda’s 1800cc flat 6, which puts out about 120/120 so pretty comparable.

The LS isn’t a scaled up S2000 (9000 rpm and 120hp/L * 6.2L), and you can’t just treat a big torquey 2 cylinder like 2/4s of an LS. The customer buying a cruiser with 120 lbs-ft down low doesn’t care how many liters it takes, but he doesn’t want to have to wind it out to 14k rpm.

Chrysler’s turbine car idled around 20k, peaked around 50k, but the output was wonky. Something like 125hp and over 400 lbs-ft, with lag and 12-15mpg. Turbines are suited for steady state power generation — few engines have good response and power across a wide range which is why piston engines have endured, but you…

My point is that the hp/L purists treat it like some fixed characteristic you get to scale up and down, rather than a variable alongside displacement and rpm to get a targeted output. Nobody wants to rev their cruiser to 14k rpm, and you can’t just say “100hp from 900cc should mean 200hp from 1800c” because things…

True, but turning horsepower into torque with gears has its drawbacks. A 900hp F1 engine is perfectly capable of being geared into 2000 or whatever lbs-ft to get a big rig rolling, but do you want to be at 20k rpm as you roll across the intersection?

So sports bikes hitting peak power at 13k rpm.  Do you think anyone wants to wind their cruiser out that high to get going?

What’s your take on things like BMW’s I6 rated at 300-330 while putting down 295 etc to the wheels?  I had always assumed they could under claim (ie you can claim 300 SAE hp if your car exceeded it), but if they’re not ‘allowed’ to do that I’d just assume they’re pulling timing/boost on the test cars with the view…

“Less than half the torque, but then again, that’s what rpm, gears, and final drive are for.”