Is Brand Loyalty Dead? Thank You Pro Touring.....

[silver_bullet]

I pretty much have to agree... with the noted exceptions of their crate engines, 4.3 v6 and 3800 buicks...

[Monster]

I don't believe you can blame the small genre of Pro Touring for the demise of brand loyalty. Loyalty to a brand was brought about by the perception that a particular manufacturer's product stood out from the others. Today there is little to differentiate one brand from another, so the commodity mentality has become the new standard ... "which product is cheaper" ?

[Gateclyve Photographic]

There's another factor . . . Since the late 1990s, the options for cheap RWD automobiles have precipitously declined. (And FWD is still not an appealing option because of the expense, added difficulty to build, and inherent performance limitations)

This tends to increase "core" prices for buildable shells (Desirable old RWD stuff gets more and more expensive and fewer newer RWD alternatives exist that aren't sports cars or trucks). Because a strong vein of home-built performance has always been about dirt-cheap speed, blending cheap RWD-able bodies and cheap engines (JY or crate) will have a continuing appeal (at least where its legal).

This will only get worse as Detroit abandons more automotive segments to the Japanese and Koreans.

[silver_bullet]

Then, there's the question of availability for factory and aftermarket support....for differential, I'd have to say that the 9 inch and Dana varieties have it....for engines and transmissions, Chevrolet and Tremec(transmission) have it on sheer numbers...at this point, we have to be honest...it's become all about business...I feel the pain as well... there are getting to be less and less suppliers of parts for Buick v6 and inline 6 engines.... I truly feel for those building the remarkable engines like olds, Buick, Pontiac , AMC, studebaker, or even the older y block fords, and non hemi mopars....

[RockJustRock]

Before Pro Touring in the Pro Street days a back half and tubs was pretty damn cool. A modified version of the stock engine or the one used to commonly used to race a certain body style was cool. Cars like that went very, very fast at Drag Week and beyond. Then Pro Touring came along and stuff got built up JUST for the sake of building up. The guys rarely do track days outright. They rarely REALLY go for quick time at an autocross. Yeah, I can blame then and nap with a clear conscience. We live in the era of the "SEMA build". Nobody breathes the words but the "Barrett Jackson build". Oh, but it has those classic Brand X lines, you know Brand X built the best muscle cars.

But don't mind me. I got pissed off when people started calling base model Buick Skylarks "Muscle Cars" too.

[Gateclyve Photographic]

Lots of "pro street" cars were pro lawnchair and pro fairgrounds . . . . (We don't need to name names . . . .)

[RockJustRock]

Are you talking undercooked, like the tunnel ram and the open ten bolt or overcooked like the chromed stock A arms and the pinstriped (or missing) fenderwells? Obnoxious, yes, but sincerely obnoxious in the name of the manufacturer and throw a few hundred dollars at it versus throw ten thousand dollar chunks of obnoxious at it.

[Gateclyve Photographic]

I truly feel for those building the remarkable engines like olds, Buick, Pontiac , AMC, studebaker, or even the older y block fords, and non hemi mopars....

Only a slight disagreement . . . while the supplies of "Brand X" core engines are rapidly dwindling, there are more aftermarket aluminum heads and other parts for some of these alternative engines now than there were 30 years ago. The prices aren't cheap (or all that competitive with popular crate mills), but you can build a hotter "real" Pontiac, Olds, Ford Y-block, Falcon six, flathead, or other alternative engine now than most could have back in the day. Add in the increasing cost effectiveness of "power adders" and there's even more opportunity to make noise with Brand X power. (Example: Car Craft recently ran a story on a 600-horse turbo'd inline Jeep six!)

The problems are high costs, shrinking knowledge base (more than a few machine shops have lost essential knowledge on some of the more obscure engines) and finding something solid, interesting, and affordable to put a "Brand Xer" in.

People are building stuff now out of necessity that would have gone to the crusher back in the '70s and '80s.

[Gateclyve Photographic]

Are you talking undercooked, like the tunnel ram and the open ten bolt or overcooked like the chromed stock A arms and the pinstriped (or missing) fenderwells? Obnoxious, yes, but sincerely obnoxious in the name of the manufacturer and throw a few hundred dollars at it versus throw ten thousand dollar chunks of obnoxious at it.

[silver_bullet]

So much for the idea of certain individuals not being named.....

[Gateclyve Photographic]

I was trying to be nice. BTW, it was an incredible car . .. that almost single-handedly killed pro street . . . it wasn't useful either as actual transportation or as a racing car. My wild guess is that more than half of the pro street cars built during the height of the fad never tripped a timing light at a drag strip. Many wouldn't even pass tech.

Nowadays, with all the small-tire action at the track, a big tire car probably ought to be "ludicrously" quick . . . .

I've got nothing against those who want to enjoy the fairgrounds and cruise night side of the hobby with radical stuff. It's all good. . . It's sort of like the post-1948 version of street rodding. But it's unfair to single out pro touring as "poser" when that's a segment prevalent in every build style.

[RockJustRock]

And stop saying Pro Street is dead. Drag Week cars are Pro Street. The Street Outlaws (hilariously so) are Pro Street. Pro Street that doesn't ever get raced is dead.... a GOOD thing. For me the No Prep thing has come down to the really fast guys taking enough power out of their cars to get down the track vs. the other guys who get a lucky shot at them if the track comes DOWN to their level. But Pro Touring? Pretty cars, Ugly trend. Two thousand "fully built" Pro Tourers, few real standouts, just "ultimates". Oh yes AND the best brand.... sort of.

[RockJustRock]

By the way. Dobbertin's Chevy II was the death of Pro Fairgrounds. If I was the Texas Bazzilionaire that bought it I'd strap it to a chassis dyno and full throttle limp it down a drag strip to kill the fantasy for good.

Big tires are good for a tenth or two of time and 50-60% better consistency. Radial cars move better on the top end Simple.

But all this is material I touched on last semester. This week I'm going after Pro Tourers.

[Gateclyve Photographic]

And stop saying Pro Street is dead..

I said "almost killed" which isn't the same as dead. There were a surprisingly large number of pro street-style cars at the 2017 Car Craft Summer Nationals in Bowling Green, KY last July (which amazed McGann)

{BTW, many of them were trailered and I saw few of them make a pass on the 1320, despite available unlimited "fun runs" down the quarter mile . . . it looked like a greater percentage of the pro touring stuff ran the free autocross and even the strip than did the pro street stuff . . . . ).

As for the "Street Outlaws" being "pro street" . . there's not a lot of 'street" in a trailered 2,500-3,000+ horsepower tube tube frame, "steel roof and quarters" (Read: thin overlays) car burning M100 and having no radiator . . . . It's a pure race car with license plates. Certainly the Unlimited-class Drag Week stuff -- which do have some highway equipment (and carbon fiber cupholders) -- trends a little more toward pro street . . . . But there's not all that much in common (other than giant rear tires) between seminal pro street cars, such as Scott Sullivan's Nova, and Dave Schroeder's Unlimited-class Corvette. Just as every hopped-up '32 Ford is not accurately described as a "street rod:" (in the Tom McMullin/Gray Baskerville concepts of the term), not every big-tired whip on the street should be deemed "pro street."

[SuperBuickGuy]

I don't believe you can blame the small genre of Pro Touring for the demise of brand loyalty. Loyalty to a brand was brought about by the perception that a particular manufacturer's product stood out from the others. Today there is little to differentiate one brand from another, so the commodity mentality has become the new standard ... "which product is cheaper" ?

Of course they can, this is the internet.