On Wednesday, May 23, I finally got my car back from the body shop. I had dropped it off on February 5, and had to drive two different cars until now. It was originally supposed to simply have the front bumper cover and left fender replaced, and it turned into a complete repainting.
The car had last been painted from September 1997 to January 1998, which was a color change from the original factory teal (aka “Dark Aqua Metallic”) to black. Even that involved bringing the car back to paint the engine compartment, buff it several times, and finally have the decals put back on in June. Until then it had the Knight Rider jet black finish to it. And since it will be some time before I put the decals back on again this time, it will be KITT again for awhile. Here are some thoughts about the whole deal.
Work. This car is my daily driver. I drive it in good weather, rain, snow, etc. I park it in garages, on the street, in mall parking lots, etc., everywhere I go. I take pains to park away from the idiots and morons, but I can’t control when some dumbass will pick – of all the spaces in an otherwise empty parking lot – to park his behemoth of an Explorer next to my car. So since 1998 it had accumulated a wide variety of dents, dings, scratches, and even some rust. The paint on the hood and roof began to oxidize (probably just the clearcoat) and became a cloudy grey instead of jet black. Suffice to say, it had seen better days and was in desperate need of attention. Thanks to the body shop, all those dents, dings, scratches and rust are gone, and once again it’s straight. Even more to the point, because black is the one color which is least forgiving of even the least imperfection.
Cheap, good, and fast – pick any two. Well, the paint job is great, the price was right, so the missing element was time. This is why it took so long. It was frustrating and annoying, wearing my patience to the bone, but the wait is over.
Rarity. Between 1987 and 1992, they only made less than 55,000 Formulas. There are only 6,500 ‘91-92 Formulas, and of these, only 1,000 are 1992 models. Of these, even less have the far more desirable 5.7L V8 (aka “Formula 350”); the rest have the anemic 5.0L V8. The days are long gone that I regularly saw third generation Formulas on the street, and months go by before I see another 91-92 Formula. These cars are getting rarer and rarer every day.
Other cars. The inequality of this is that few owners of economy cars have ever driven, much less owned and driven on a daily basis, any sort of performance car. In Brazil and Europe, performance cars are extremely rare, limited to the Porsches and Ferraris, with no Firebirds, Camaros or Mustangs available for the common man (or woman) with a limited budget to enjoy. Scoff, if you wish, that Camaros and such are “poor man’s sports cars” (which is true) but there was an excellent reason why the 1965 Mustang sold so well: until it came around there was NOTHING which came close to filling this valuable niche in the market, a performance car that the average person could afford. Truth be told, the Firebird is not put together like a Swiss watch, with the top quality ingredients, fit and finish of a BMW or Mercedes. Some of the models are extremely cheap in appearance. And unlike Hondas and Toyotas, these are not reliable cars. Even when pampered, lavished, and kept up on routine maintenance, they will still break down and give all sorts of problems. Part of the reason the cars are getting rarer and rarer is that there is little reason to salvage or maintain the lower (non-Z/28 or Formula/Trans Am) models, and not enough motivation to do so even for the performance models. Even my car, with the top V8 available, in the last year for its generation (1992) only has a blue book value of $4-5,000.
Having said that, how does the car compare against a 2006 Nissan Versa (rental car) and 1998 Dodge Neon (customer car) which I drove while I was waiting for my own car to be finished?
1. Fuel economy. Hands down, both economy cars won this big time – hardly surprising. They could pass a gas station without stopping and I could get down to Stafford and back without filling up all the time. With gas getting expensive again, this was a big plus.
2. Performance. The flip-side of this! The Versa could get out of its own way from a stop, but quickly ran out of breath. It’s a hot rod so long as you never leave a parking lot. As soon as you get on a major road, let alone the highway, you’re quickly reminded that it’s a 4 cylinder under the hood. In the Neon I frequently had to put the gas pedal to the floor just to get up to 60. Whereas in the Formula, with its 300 horsepower V8, (even with 210,000 miles) I can get the car moving quickly to 60 with only part throttle. It gets up to 80 without breaking a sweat. And with its wide tires (245/50ZR16 size on 16x8” wheels), low stance, and performance suspension, the car handles terrific. The Versa and Neon both wallowed on curves and their narrow, skinny wheels & tires did a poor job of biting the road.
People have asked me, “don’t you get frustrated in this muscle car when you’re stuck in traffic?” Yes, I do. But I get frustrated stuck in traffic in ANY car – even a Versa or Neon that can’t even cut loose when the traffic does lets up. Traffic jams are frustrating no matter what car you drive.
It’s clear to me that the people who cynically whine that “you can’t use all that power” have never owned such cars and are just full of sour grapes. I haven’t been to the dragstrip since 1998 and yet I’ve still been able to enjoy the power, performance and handling of my car on the roads, highways, etc. without street racing, without a stack of tickets for speeding or reckless driving (you can get both in an economy car if you’re simply unlucky or a bad driver) or prohibitively expensive gas or insurance. Some cops have it out for such cars – I know from personal experience – but others are, to the contrary, performance enthusiasts and far from being hostile to Firebird and Camaro drivers, respect and admire such cars.
3. Features. The Versa, despite being the cheapest rental car, had a killer stereo. Lots of rich bass and midrange, perfect! And it had power everything. None of this yank-yank-yank on the windows. The Neon had a big hole where the stereo used to be, until Tim put a factory CD player in there – which worked 60% of the time. The presets didn’t work on the radio, meaning I had to manually twirl the dial to change stations. Hey, it’s a ’98 and I was paying zero per day for it, so I won’t complain. The Formula is somewhere in between: manual everything but a respectable stereo with 6-disc changer in the trunk.
Incidentally, I can convert the Formula to power windows, door locks, etc. if I scavenge a parts car for the required parts. Maybe in the near future I’ll do so. For the time being I’m focused on getting the rear spoiler and getting the car to pass inspection.
It’s a great car, and now it looks as great as it runs. It’s definitely a keeper.
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