Check out the hood.

 

The old X-11's were awesome cars..

 

That is funny!!! Great find. Beside the Chevy Chevette was there a bigger lemon produced than the Chevy Citation?

Didn't Shelby have a sporty version of the Dodge Omnia?

 

Dodge Omni... and Dodge Charger...

 

Friend of mine has an omni with a Shelby charger turbo 2.4l? Might be 2.5 but whatever. And he is running 18 psi. Man that car is fast
But it tq steers into the wild blue yawnder everyte you touch the throttle

 

Cars from the era of the Citation were a sad lot. The X-11 would have pitiful performance by todays standards (17 second in the 1/4 mile!) but it brough some joy to an otherwise dreadful lineup of new cars in the early 80s. I actually like the lines on these cars...the Citation X-11 in particular is understated and clean.

BTW, the Dodge Omni GLH and GLHS were fantastic cars for their time...very recently I have seen a couple put down incredible times on the autocross course and that 2.2L motor shares a some archtecture with the well respected 2.4L in the SRT4.

 

I bet that Shelby Omni was fast.

These are the years when i lost some of my respect for Shelby. Putting his name on crap cars

I feel better about him now. I guess he was going through 'hard times' for a while, back then .

 

First, they weren't as bad as you think. Considering the changing world that put an end to the monsters of the 60s and (very early) 70s, these cars were the first signs of life from the performance segment and really lead to the revival that we're enjoying now.

Performance is relative and when you're used to a car that takes 16 seconds to get to 60 (I'm looking at you, Chevrolet Chevette), a car that does it in 10 seconds feels quite spunky.

Our butt-dynos have been seriously desensitized by the vastly better performance of modern cars on the average.

Shelby was working with the best stuff out there at the time...and really they were cool in their own way and worthy of some of some street cred.

Even though a Ford Focus would keep up with these "hi-po" cars, find a well preserved 80s performance car, and I think you'll agree that they do FEEL like a high performance cars even if the numbers don't show that. Tight suspension, quicker ratio steering, good throttle response, etc. The things that made them fun back then still apply.

Besides, anything with a snail hanging off the side of the motor has potential. Have you guys seen the mid 80s Caravans and Voyagers with the turbo 2.2s that run in the 13s? Serioulsy formidible. EDIT: 12s! First youtube video I found shows one snuffing an LT-1 Camaro.

 

The problem with those cars is they are not cool, you half expect a guy with a **** stach to jump out with a Jean jacket on
And the fact that you will have to explain why it's "cool" to anyone who doesn't know about them already

 

A guy named "hahnsolo" should know this...

"She may not look like much on the outside, but she's fast enough for you old man."

 

I know I know I for one love a sleeper, but you can't get away from the fact that other people are going to think you nuts for rocking out in your omni, here in MN it's really hard to find a crappy omni yet alone a cherry one

 

They have a similar appeal to the comparable year VW GTI, 280/300ZX, 1st and 2nd gen RX-7, 80s Celicas, etc. They were cool in their day.

 

I agree with the VW but I'm not sure on the rx7 and 280-300z . The rx7 was cool no matter the model and same with the Nissan but with the old hatches they had to make a hot version to get that appeal, and the non-hot versions of these cars are not cool at all. But over all I'd like any of the hot 80's cars to beat up on the weekend, why not?
I'm probably just bias towards rear drive sports cars though

 

Fair point... but I think these models stand on their own and the high performance variant was the flagship model even if they didn't sell in the biggest numbers...

Regardless, plenty of very cool cars have appliance-ish base models:

Like the Mustang GT versus the v6 (pre 2011...sorry, guys) or 4cyl
Like the 442 versus the Cutlass
Like Scrambler versus the Rambler
Like the 'Cuda versus the Barracuda (post '70)
Like the SSTi versus the Bonneville (ok, neither were cool. )

 

I agree 100% a lot has come from hopping up moms sedan or sis's hatchback but I have always loved purpose built sports cars over hot versions of otherwise plan cars, i always love the idea of a sleeper but I don't want people to know it's fast by a badge on the back but rather my tail lights when i hit the gas. With a say... M5 you kinda know wheat it is right away, with a 5.0 powered ranger though things can be a little different

 

and for the pontiac goes I always liked the buick ultras better, it's basically the same car with more leather and looks nicer

 

CS stands not for Carroll Shelby, but Complete Sellout.

 

Harharharharhar dumb

 

Cannot unsee

 

Glad you liked the joke, Chip.