Wayne said: > Funny how there's such an interest in putting big honkin' engines in Ds. > When JZD was mulling the concept of the ethical sports car, OPEC threatened > to cut off the world's gas supply, gas prices were going up so fast there > seemed no upper limit, and the gov't was threatening ever higher mileage > requirements. This is a critical aspect of the DeLorean story. During the 70s, while DMC was developing its car, Detroit was struggling to respond to Asian imports which were better designed and more fuel efficient than American cars. Ford came out with the Mustang II (based on the Pinto), and even the Corvette and Trans Am seemed to get smaller engines and worse performance every year. To me it is obvious that DMC was trying to do what the Japanese had done: anticipate the market and come out with the product America wanted years ahead of their competitors. A high tech, fuel efficient sports car seems like a pretty logical anticipation to me. On early Corvettes, heaters were optional. Eventually so many customers wanted them that heaters became standard equipment around 62. In 63 air conditioners were optional, installed on only about 1% of Corvetes. Then demand for A/C increased constantly, through the 60s and 70s, just as it had for heaters. If a sports car maker in the 80s wanted to get a jump on General Motors, a logical step would be to make lots of toys standard equipment. This is exactly what DeLorean did. I would love to take data from the sports cars of that time (engine displacement, fuel economy, 0-60 time, horsepower, etc.) and extrapolate. For example, I know the Corvette of the 70's was converging on the DeLorean's performance and standard equipment. I suspect I would find that if things had remained the same, the Corvette's numbers would have met the DeLorean's somewhere around 1988-89. Does anyone know where I can find information like this? The data needs to include performance factors like horsepower and 0-60 time, but I also need production volumes of the different performance packages, to see the trend in consumer taste. - Mike Substelny