Those wheels belong on VW's and Audis. They're too bubbly for the long, sleek SC.

Was no one borrowing performance parts from the MKIV platform at that time? It was the first or second model year at that point, so maybe not. The suspension improvements sound pretty good, but the engine mods are underwhelming.

 

Yeah, but in that day, those Momo's were where it was at. I wanted a set for my Alfa Spider sooo bad, but they were sooo out of reach.

SC's were pretty hot in stock form back then, on par with Mustang GT, bottom end 911, etc. Every SC owner I saw was a 40-60 year old professional or businessman, who used it as a luxury sport coupe. If they wanted a faster car, most of them had the means to buy one.

-Tim

 

I grew up in the era of muscle cars and by the time the SC came out I had shifted interest to European and Japanese sports cars. That being why the style of the wheels caught my eye, as they looked European. Googled them and they are very rare now and quite expensive, if you can even find them. If doing a period build on the SC they would would be correct for the car.. I wasn't one of those well to do business men in the nineties so I had to wait 10 years to acquire my BMW and SC after the prices came down. LOL.

 

Exactly, they are a very European look and only look correct on Euro styled cars. The SC was a Euro competitor, but not Euro styled.

While you guys both said you think they look good on the SC, you gave the exact reason why they don't (IMO). A giant Porsche or Lambo tail is about as European looking at it gets, but those wouldn't look particularly good on a SC, either.

 

The MKIV itself wasn't out until late 1993. What was there to borrow exactly?

 

And that differs from what I said how?

 

We'll just have to disagree on that. I remember very well the first SC I encountered and what I saw was a fantastic interpretation of curvaceous European long hood/short deck GT car styling of previous decades that so affected my youth. Better looking than most of what was presently coming out of Europe at any price too, IMHO and I was a European car fan above all else.
That being said, I DO agree the Ideas don't look great on the SC in the retrospect that 2017 offers. My previous point being that they were as appropriate on a hot-rod SC in 1993 as slotted mags were on a hot-rod Camaro in 1973.

The power gain on this build is mild by today's standards, but 300 HP was beyond solid in '93- equivalent to the Corvette LT-1 and Ferrari 348, not far off that wild SupraTT's mark, either. At that time, Porsche's 911 Turbo was "the highest-performance regular-production car ever offered for sale in America", and it developed what Car and Driver considered to be "an astounding 355 horsepower."

Cool article, I wonder if any of those involved knew how prophetic it really was.

-Tim

 

The momo ideas probably would look better on my 92 325i special edition as period correct, but at the time they would have been the cat's meow. I will be putting cruiser alloy 908mb wheels with nitto 450 tires on my SC when done. When the LS400 came out it strongly resembled a Mercedes sedan and The SC was modeled after a few different European luxury coupés, to compete with them. Mods on the SC in the article were comparable to the day as most cars of the period were rather under powered except a few high end exotics. We are only now recovering from the loss of hp that occured after the 76 oil embargo, which unfortunately gave us a bunch of crap cars that looked fast but couldn't get out of their own way. Liked the article also.

 

I'll agree with that last part. If there's a Euro flair to the SC's styling, it's more of a throwback, not '90s, unless maybe talking Jags, but I doubt many people were putting those wheels on them.

That's where I differ from most people, being pretty much immune to advertising, fads, popular opinion, etc. (Note to cold callers: don't bother. I've never bought something unsolicited, never will.) My preferences change over time -- as a kid, I hated the curves of Porsches and loved the straight lines of '80s Corvettes, but later felt just the opposite -- but what's considered cool rarely has an effect on me. I'd of told you in the mid-'90s the same thing I'm saying now: it's a bad look.

I wasn't judging it by today's standards, however. Why soup up a car to come up 20 HP short of its factory-tuned cousin? That doesn't make any sense to me, unless they were more interested in doing something different. Sort of like slapping on wheels that don't fit the look of the car whatsoever.