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Reatta in Car & Driver's "Periodic Table of Sport Cars"


Guest Corvanti

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Heh,

C&D sucks like a hood scoop intake. To list the Reatta in a "periodic table of sports cars" is stupid to begin with as it isn't a sports car. It is a luxury coupe, and was marketed as such. That it began development with aspirations of [maybe] being a sports car, and that the body is styled in the manner of one is irrelevant. And of course, being a GM product, especially from the 1980's, they feel the obligation to bag on it. Same is true for pretty well anything else that isn't Bavarian in origin. The Reatta isn't a seat of your pants exciting car, it is an enjoyable car and is sure to get more notice by mere mortals (not those who drive the kind of cars the staff at C&D likes to slobber over) than any BMW short of maybe an X6. Of course, that only gets attention because it is so strange (and I am being charitable describing it as such) looking. I dare say it may be the Germanic descendant of the Aztek. And to demonstrate my objectivity, there is a GM product that I can enthusiastically bash.

KDirk

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Used to be that every thirty years or so the old GM let Buick design their own version of a production Halo car, something not really intended to sell, more to bring people into the showrooms to buy family trucksters.

The '54 Skylark was the first, then the Riviera, then the GS-455 stage one, and finally the Reatta. If you look closely none were original concepts, more a GM "image" car they were allowed to create. This badge engineering is something that GM has always been good at, funny thing is that what Buick comes up with is often the best of all just as the 63-5 Riviera was closer to the Thunderbird concept than the Grand Prix and on both a road course and a 1/4 mile the GS could trounce every factory SS ever made.

So for the Reatta to be a "better" Allante/Fiero is not surprising (not counting the 'vette which was a different market). That the bulk of the population does not realize it yet is also not surprising. Suspect it may change when more become used to a WiFi equipped DVD player that can display pictures taken from a telephone.

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C&D sucks like a hood scoop intake. To list the Reatta in a "periodic table of sports cars" is stupid to begin with as it isn't a sports car...

I've always liked C&D. Yes, they have all the facts and figures like every other car rag. But they don't take themselves too seriously, and like to have a bit of fun. A legacy of their David E Davis days.

FWD 'sports cars' have never fared very well from the automotive press. This includes contemporaries of the Reatta such as the Elan and the Capri. OTOH, FWD is a very practical configuration for daily driving. Look at the trunk space in the Reatta compared to just about any other 2-seater. It is really a great road car for two.

One notable thing about the table: The sole Fiat entry is the X1/9 - not one of their better efforts. I would have much rather seen the 124 Spider in there. But again, C&D didn't intend it to be taken too seriously.

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I alway's likeD Tom McCahill's definition: (and naturally cannot find my copy of the Modern Sport Car to be exact) "a car you can drive during the week and race successfully on the weekend. Last car I had that fit the definition was my '78 Sunbird.

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Maybe I was a bit too harsh on C&D in my previous post. I had a gift subscription for 6 months a while back and found some of the articles to be good reading. My beef with them (in general) is their incessant bashing on GM (which has admittedly subsided to an extent with Cadillac getting _some_ respect there now) and pretty well anything else that isn't built (or at least designed) in Germany; most preferably BMW. Their sycophantic prostration to the blue and white propeller is not quite as pronounced as it may have been 10 years ago, but a clear bias still exists.

Now, I am not a die-hard defender of GM (especially since the "bailout") and will rip 'em on bad business decisions and poor vehicle designs as much as the most ardent GM haters out there. I just find the bias at C&D to be a bit much. And then they put out this periodic table (I think it goes next to an occasional chair) with the inclusion of numerous vehicles that don't belong there as a chimera so they can insult the cars in question, the Reatta being one.

The real issue that prompted my first post was the articles categorization of the Reatta as a sports car, which is incorrect on it's face. Of course it fails as a sports car (in C&D parlance "poseuroid"), because it isn't one. To dump on the car on what is a demonstrably false pretense just rubs me wrong. Really, it should not be featured in that chart at all, even if they had something good to say about it. Simply put, it doesn't belong there (nor does the TC or a few others I saw there). So to criticize it as they did was just another opportunity for them to take am unwarranted cheap shot. Same as it ever was.

KDirk

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Guest Corvanti

i have the same problem having the Studebaker Avanti being included - it was also a luxury coupe - although the R2 supercharged version could get up and go! :)

(full disclosure): i owned a '63 Avanti R1, and loved it!

the 1st mustangs that came along were built on a falcon chassis, much like the avanti was built on a Lark convertible chassis. early production problems with the supplier of the fiberglass bodies, $$$ and time ran out for Stidebaker...

note that i'm not talking about the various non-Studebaker Avanti II's, which at first used leftover Stude parts, GM engines, etc. then in the mid-80's, were basically rebodied monte carlos, caprices, firebird and the last - mustangs... :(

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Padgett -

What a name from the past, Tom McCahill really had great descriptive phrases in explaining the performance or handling of a car.

My most favorite was "shaking the rattlesnakes along the road".

Did he ever write a book?

Thanx for bringing memories of reading POPULAR MECHANICS.

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Tom McCahill, The Modern Sports Car, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1954

Tom McCahill, Tom McCahill's Car Owner Handbook, Arco Publishing Co., New York, 1956.

Tom McCahill, Today's Sports and Competition Cars, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1959.

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