My friend Mike Guerra says that the best cars are muscle cars. The poor guy is stuck on 1/4 miles and all that lame stuff like nitrous which I call steroids for cars. We got into this argument that If I could or if anybody could. Would they tune one of the old junks buckets from ol' and make them a slalom shreddin', curve handling machine well what a sport compact does and that would still apeal to the old windbags. What I'm wondering is could such thing even be done? and why would anybody do it? Are there even coil-over kits for those cars? Or for that matter sway bars? I'm not a fan of old technology, but I make a hobby of upgrading things. What do you all think?    

anything can be made to handle. There are several full size stationwagons doing the Autocross circut.

As for your friend, I know a lot of sport Compact Freaks who are stuck on the whole quarter mile thing too. I personally think that there is more to life than a quarter mile at a time.

If you are going into old technology.. what do you consider old? The new Vette owes much of it's goodness to those muscle cars of old... including that awesome engine it has. Going back on topic though, Sport Compacts and Muscle cars have more in common than you might be willing to admit to. BOTH were (or are) built on economy car under pinnings (even the new Z) and can usually be bought as a stripped "commuter" special along with the high end high performance versions.

Now (I am rambling) would you consider my 77 fiat spider old tech? This was a car that was designed in 1966, but came with a double overhead cam engine (only 8 valves though) A rubber timing belt (first mass produced car to have one) Four wheel disc brakes, Load sensitive brakes. An easy to use converatble top (makes the Miata's look fussy) and even had fibre optic lighting for the centre console illumination. Not too shabby for a car just as old or older than some "old tech" muscle cars  

Well my friend has an 82' Firebird. He says that if I can or anybody can make that p.o.s. type of car run as good and handle as good as a sport compact or any touring car he'll like them or admit that they're any good. I don't know what he means by that. I guess he's trying to figure out if going fast and turning at the same tine is worth the effort instead of just going fast in a straght line. Well here's what I have to deal with or anybody since the protocol is the same for those cars. The idiot put some Micky Thomsom rims and those hideous oversized tires on rear and tiny ones in front. He cut the springs too. He took it to Midas and offset the camber plates so the car faces downward as much as possible. That thing handles like a farm tracktor on a small european road.

Secondly you have a pretty cool Fiat. I didn't know they came with all that stuff. And thanks for that info on station wagons sounds awsome.  

that firebird is going to take a LOT of work to make it handle semi-decently. As it sits now, it is set up for one thing only.. going in a straight line.

You are going to want to take a good hard look at the vette for help here. Wider rims and tyres on the front to help offset the weight of the big v8. I would suggest trying to run similar size tyres front and rear, even if you have to downsize the rear some in width.

Next would be shocks and springs, you need the car sitting more or less even to keep the weight distribution under control. Right now if you turned too quickly, the rear would try and slide (if not for the huge rubber back there) because of the pendalem effect of having all the weight up high above the centre of gravity. Unfortunatly, because of how the car wants to understeer due to the tyre size differential, it is going to happen quickly and uncontrollably when it transitions into oversteer.  

Thanks for the info. I'll put it to good use. The idiot has money to spend. But on my account my neighbor has a 71' corvette that just gathers dirt on his backyard. Maybe I can break the cycle of 1/4 mile screaming cars. The only thing is that his son convinced him to put a wing on it, so it looks pretty dumb not retro at all .  

that year vette is one of my favorites. I like the early early 70s vettes when they had the molded front bumper and the little chrome bumperettes on the rear.

The Vette was always america's "sports car" and by that definition, can handle  

The only thing is that in a book it says that it was built by Lotus in the early years. I don't know if its true or not, The name of the book is the world of Wheels and it has a orange plymouth on the cover. But in my mind its one of the few good cars GM ever built. If not the "ONLY!" While on GM I don't think the Cobalt SS has more HP potential than LOOKS. 202hp come on and with a supercharger?! Is the Ion Redline the same or do the guys at Saturn build their own? sport compacts?