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AutoBahned
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: Greater Metropolitan Nimrod, Orygun
Posts: 55,993
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not so much for the Corvette
John Z. DeLorean kicked off the muscle car craze when he violated GM's Engineering Policy Committee displacement vs. car wt. rule and shoehorned a big motor into the Tempest. He got around it by making this an option, not a new car... The Pontiac Tempest went from a 326 to a 389 and became the "GTO" ( a hideous theft of name from Ferrari which had neglected to protect their intellectual property). And Pontiac went from an old man's brand to a youth brand...
more in Ch. 7 of Engines of Change: A History of the American Dream in Fifteen Cars by Paul Ingrassia (a writer and Detroit bureau chief for WSJ)
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