I did something I never thought I'd do...

[Vincent Brick]

so at least the seats & shifter are nice while the rest of the car falls apart around you. :)

hey, you know what shares the same platform/engine as the SRT-4?



Bet you could get one real cheap too.

:p

In 13 years of driving them, my 1st gens never had problems with the rest of the car falling apart around me, not even the one I paid $1k for and drove for 5 years never washing it once. With that said, I do feel Neons do better in the hands of enthusiasts who don't treat them like shit, the interior plastics don't hold up to abuse as well as say a Corolla or Civic. The plus to this is the interior pieces are REALLY easy to replace. Cracked upper dash? Yeah, that takes a whole minute or two to swap out. Lower dash cracked? Ooooh, better set aside a whole half hour for that. It took me an entire year to convince myself that replacing my Neon R/T with an E30 wasn't a massive mistake, I still wish there could have been a way for me to keep both.

I would totally rock a GT Cruiser, they accept most of the SRT mods and you can haul a few things in it too, would make a great daily. A shame they didn't get the same beefy T850 trans as the SRT, but the ZF units in the PT turbos seems to hold up even in cars getting into the high 11s in the quarter. I still fail to understand why PTs get made fun of so bad, had a friend with one, drove a few, they aren't horrible for being so upright. Not on the Neon platform though, they share front suspension and a few other things, but PT has a twist-beam rear and a flat rear floor so it could be classified as a light truck to improve Chrysler's CAFE numbers, where the PL (Neon) was always IRS.

I wish I could find the sleeper PT street race upset vid I saw sometime in the last couple weeks..... Make fun all you like but 600whp on stock bottom end is a thing.






Sorry (not sorry), but when I see people on forums centered around higher-end cars ragging on cheap-but-potent stuff they obviously know nothing about (How many of you have actually driven a twin-cam, stick-shift Neon?) it really comes off as little more than arrogant, elitist ignorance. I never got the whole internet car shit-talking thing, it seems some of you gain some sort of sense of superiority from it that I don't understand. A decade-plus of owning those cars does put a chip on your shoulder, and unless you have owned a great car that gets mass undeserved disrespect, I guess one can't expect people to comprehend.

[Exodus_2pt0]

Won't hear anything bad from me. My best friend in high school bought one when they first came out.

It was an awesome car.

[ThatOneEuroE30]

Pt cruiser has got to be the ugliest car beside the Pontiac aztec and chevy hhr

[Kershaw]

I still fail to understand why PTs get made fun of so bad, had a friend with one, drove a few, they aren't horrible for being so upright.

People usually make fun of ugly things. It happens in grade school, it happens in the adult world, and it happens to cars. It's not hard to understand. The neon and pt cruiser are ugly cars. Even if they were incredibly reliable, got 50mpg, had 300hp, and sold for $500, I wouldn't buy either.

[atldohc]

dont worry vincent, you're not the only one to like neons. i still miss my first gens,(only the 5 speed ones of course). they were a blast to drive, and were pretty reliable for me. honestly sometimes more fun than the e30. dirt cheap and easy to work on. i had 3 of them, none with under 100k and never any kind of drivetrain problems. i would still be driving the acr if not for the e30, since i also had to choose between the two. even back then people would give me shit for driving a neon, without ever spending some real time driving it. nowadays it seems like the opposite reaction. strangers saying "your car is awesome!" or "nice ride man!". usually these are people who know nothing about e30s but i guess if it looks nicer then it must be? i guess the point of my rambling is that a cheap car can sometimes be a very satisfying one to own and drive, even if most other people dislike it and will never give it a chance. and i wish e30s were not as popular so i could get parts for cheaper.:razz:

[roguetoaster]

People usually make fun of ugly things. It happens in grade school, it happens in the adult world, and it happens to cars. It's not hard to understand. The neon and pt cruiser are ugly cars. Even if they were incredibly reliable, got 50mpg, had 300hp, and sold for $500, I wouldn't buy either.

Every single PT Cruiser that I've driven (4 examples) has been a complete POS, 20 MPG, awful driving dynamics, no power, average brakes. It's the only car that I have ever felt genuinely ashamed to be driving. PT Cruisers also 100% missed the styling appeal to me, and they have a freakin' towel bar for the passenger, so, yeah I have no idea on that one.

Neons OTOH have been solid, excepting one beaten auto example, fun to drive if not fast, and are really only let down by the low price point manufacturing. Still haven't driven an SRT-4, but I suspect that they are just like a Joan Jett song.

So it's not just the ugly that hurts them, it's the apparent cheapness/reputation and therefore low enthusiast appeal that does. Just consider the inverse, the E30 M3, much rep, but not enough pep to back that up.

[nando]

They are the same car. lol. Sure, it has different rear suspension - everything else is basically built to the same level of quality, using the same parts bin.

I have driven a manual transmission, 16v Neon. It was well, a Neon. Sorry (not sorry) I convinced my wife not to buy that POS.

the R/T was kinda cool when it came out - I wanted one pretty bad. Everything else was horrible. Where did all those 1st generation Neons go? There were millions of them. I haven't seen one in years.. even the 2nd generation have all but disappeared. Wonder why that is?

[jpod999]

Where did all those 1st generation Neons go? There were millions of them. I haven't seen one in years.. even the 2nd generation have all but disappeared. Wonder why that is?

I've been wondering the same thing, I haven't seen one here in the Bay Area for a while now.

[nando]

it's really a rhetorical question. We all know very well what happened to them. :p

[supermansocks95]

it's really a rhetorical question. We all know very well what happened to them. :p

Madtyte burnouts into madstiff poles?

[Vincent Brick]

Neons are ugly? 1st gens? Seriously? That's news to me, I think the 1st gen coupes are great looking cars, but admittedly the bugeye isn't for everyone whether its Neon, Subaru, whatever. PTs aren't exactly attractive, but ugly? I find that to be a stretch. Its no uglier than an X3 or any other small utility appliance, it just has that played-out '00s retro styling.

Anyone who has driven a twin cam 5-sp 1st gen Neon and didn't think it was a fun car simply wasn't doing it right. That or they are so spoiled as to not enjoy anything FWD and low-power, or at the very least maybe just aren't aware that the car stickered for thousands less than a similarly equipped Civic that is still down by ~20hp and doesn't handle as well (remember this is pre-B16 EK Si period) and are trying to compare it to more expensive cars. Not trying to say the Neon was the hands-down best compact of the era, but those cars didn't win multiple consecutive Showroom Stock C national titles, over 300 podium finishes at SCCA national events in 1997 alone and IIRC over 1500 total SCCA podium finishes during the car's production cycle by being a huge pile of dog shit.

I can't speak for CA because I haven't been here long enough, but in the midwest they are starting to disappear due to rust and being easily totaled in crashes because of low resale value. Pretty much the same fate of any other period compact that isn't a Civic or Corolla, both of which took much longer to depreciate. Here in my part of SoCal I see about as many Neons as I do Proteges and Sentras of the period.

[agent]

Yes. Neons and PT Cruisers are ugly.

[MR E30 325is]

I think the forum has found Vincents hot button issue.

I have never seen anyone defend a dodge neon this seriously.

+1 to them being terribly ugly.

[supermansocks95]

Vincent, I agree with you on this. I will say, however, that I don't care for the PT Cruiser's looks. But the SRT-4 isn't ugly at all to me. I like the fact that the neon has such a terrible reputation, to be honest. It's fun to have people rev at me at stoplights because they think I'm just another ricer. Why is it fun? Because they shut their mouths when I rev and they realize there's more than just another low-power N/A four banger under the hood. I could do without the backfires, though...

[supermansocks95]

That or they are so spoiled as to not enjoy anything FWD and low-power

My first car was an 05 Pontiac Sunfire. That thing had all of 140hp and a 4-speed auto. I had so much damn fun in that car. I still regret selling it :(