Les cars

["Mahoney, John" <JMahoney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>Is that more advanced or is it just 'bling' in black and white?

Peter, weeks (months?) ago, I wrote that 7- and 8-speed automatics were overkill: flexibility modest, fuel-savings minimal.  Lexus' move is more a signal to German manufacturers and American buyers than a mean technical coup, but,   that said, in the world where more seems to mean better in too many things, Japan is still in the pursuit of, ahem, perfection.  Where America still needs more to be.

>>
someone just reversed a couple of digits to make fun
of Peugot?  I have not seen a 505 model mentioned in
any AMC literature.
<<

Or removed another letter "e" and renamed it Poojoh?  (A joke --- I'm not picking on Poor Joe out in Californey...)    

>>
how long a Renault Lecar or 18i based transaxle would hold up?

Behind 500 hp?
<<

While Le Car started small and became faster,

http://www.renault.com/gb/passion/culte_p3.htm

to Maxi 5 out at ~350-hp in the mid-'80s, doesn't anyone into AMC history remember Le Car by R. Teague?  The '82 he gave gull-wing doors (doesn't anyone see his '55 300SL?) from the DMC (yes, DeLorean) parts bin?  It showed details a [Spirit-based] Turbo AMX of '82.5 or '83 could've worn.  The "blackout" A-pillar, "boxed" hood, "bubble" fenders, "ribbed" fascias and lower body cladding, plus "density" taillights --- cues from the fastest, best handling [all-American!] production sports car that would -not- be built by AMC.  (An AMX/4 would've been Franco-American, oui?)

http://www.suninternational-usa.com/PPG-3.jpg

Some of the Poojoh fanciers do know Le T II.

http://www.forum-auto.com/sqlforum/section5/sujet129119-70.htm

>>
I would be more concerned about the torque being produced by the motor rather than the HP
<<

I would, too; that's why a '66-'70 E-body application sounded so good.

(Plus, of course, it's been done: check out the mid-mount '72 Javelin) 

>>
i hadn't known that the early unibody tempests ['61-3 only, iirc] were
also available with v8s.  they were really little cars for america -
the size of the corvair, remember!  they would've been -very-fast-
with a 326, and -very-nose-heavy- too, as the 326 was essentially a
low-deck 421/428/455, rather bigger than a sbc never mind a buick 300,
let alone a 215.
<<

Of the Corvair-derived "second-wave" Y-bodies (Tempest, F-85, and Special ---which Tom McCahill opined had "more angles than a broken plate glass window"), Buick's 215 made 155-hp upon introduction, with a 4-bbl 185-hp version awaiting Special Skylark come spring of '61.  While two of them were "conventional" in layout, they all carried on the revolution begun by Corvair.  In size, economy and technology, from the Dual-Path Turbine Drive of '61 (which was not a Dual Path Hydramatic) to the 135-hp V-6 of '62, they're models more American Motors fans should know: in terms of history, they "became" AMC cars in more ways than just three.

http://www.tocmp.com/pix/Buick/images/part2/61Buick04-or.jpg

http://www.tocmp.com/pix/Buick/images/part2/1962caroftheyear-Special.jpg

One might go so far as to pose the question:

http://www.ephemeranow.com/cars/cars171.htm

"Did Charlie's ghost work at GM or at AMC?"

Given who built an earlier luxury compact,

http://www.ephemeranow.com/cars/cars258.htm

and given that two sticks beat two speeds.

http://www-tech.mit.edu/archives/VOL_083/TECH_V083_S0154_P018.pdf

There always was some Buick in Nash-AMCs!

(There's also more tranny info online than you want read.) 

http://www.442.com/oldsfaq/oftrn.htm

>>
I am surprised no-one had mentioned the Fiero transaxle..   

virtually worthless to junkyards as they are mostly fibreglass 
<<

Also virtually worthless if they're mostly SMC, TPO, and RIM?

Fiero is different from, say, '50s Corvette/'60s Avanti RFG.

Read this interview if you care to: 

http://www.theavanti.com/BlakeInterview.html

and note footnote 17 in this piece:

http://www.sri.com/policy/csted/reports/techin/rim1.html

Plastic had Graduated from Mrs. Robinson's neighborhood.