exexpat

I love this car.

Rake is good, car is good. It'll even out with kids in the back seat.

Great project. Didn't take long once you found your car

I kind of want to try these on the Jag - if you ever sell.

who is that?

Hot

needs moar low, but love it otherwise. :)

The Rays have lost their lustre for me based on the sheer number of Rotas out there. Rotiforms (cast NUE and BLQ mostly) in some circles are getting a bit common, too.

Love the driveway.

I love this thing.

Favorite part of the entire car for me is the Gotti font on those center caps. That makes the entire build worth it.

Are you gonna clear them?

I love this thread and was happy to see another donk wigger car for Justin. People like Justin must give this guy so much sh1t for his rims:

they remind me of these:

Keep the pics coming. I'm going to scoop up some Japanese pics for my real contribution.

Yes, 12x1.75

They should be fine if the wheels are hubcentric. If the German TUeV approves them from an engineering/testing perspective, they are fine.

How can anyone say that things have changed? The only way that the inauguration costs are ALMOST acceptable are if he was allowed to utilize some remaining campaign funds from the DNC.

You have to look at it from the demand aspect. Since so many people wanted to be part of it and showed up, it was inevitable that things would be expensive. Purely due to scale and supply/demand.

On the other hand, 4 years back unfortunately there was no regime change in DC and thus comparatively small demand to attend the inauguration and overall lower costs. Even if they did manage to dethrown the imperial dumbass, Kerry wouldn't have pulled the same crowds as Obama either and you Republicans wouldn't be complaining as much about costs. I don't know what you're expecting budget-wise, given the scale of things and general demand this time.

42 million seems like a lot for an incumbent. 120 million for a changing of the guard and first black president seems high, yet reasonable.

I agree with Pras and Boost_Junky. While I can empathize with business owners, people with incomes over 250k per annum and those connected to our obscenely large government and military (basically those in the DC area ), I can't empathize with the typical low income NASCAR bubba's that swear by republican values and low benefits to the poor.

While there is a line you can cross in redistributing wealth, countries like Australia have figured out how to ensure quality of life for low income families, quality free health care, average education superior to the US and budget surpluses in recent years. Our government is just large, doesn't benefit those less fortunate, and deficit spends like crazy. It's a lose-lose-lose condition now. I think anyone would be better than Bush here, so I'm happy with Obama.

It will make me want to get rid of any "R" reference on my car.

You're right, the additional 18hp over the 1997 T-5 puts your car into sacred land. I would just remove the badges of the R-Designed cars myself. Who cares what you call it. Bring back "SE" if it ruffles so many feathers.

This is the lazy way out. Kind of “let’s just give in to the what the other unimaginative car manufactures are doing.” Instead of going, “let’s give them what they want and more than they ever expected.” That’s what made the Mustang, Camaro, 850 and so on. It was more than we could even imagine. So…. Volvo let’s make a car that gets good mileage and good performance, it is possible, believe me!

What if they threw in Samco hoses, poly mounts, drilled and slotted rotors and silicone vacuum hoses?

Let's be realistic:

ECU remap: cheap and doable (I would have done it, but I know not the support costs associated with it)

Bigger turbo: great, but not justifiable for number of units

Different trans or gearing: great, but not justifiable for number of units

Better brakes: not cheap, but nice to have. (remember most consumers consider "four wheel disc with ABS" to be high performance in braking)

Sways and performance tuned springs: nice, but most will bitch about ride quality

Louder, free flowing exhaust: only car guys like loud exhaust, would alienate most of your potential buyers

it all depends how much they raise the price on them

I meant to say that. I think they overpromised performance with the R versus T-5 pricing in the past.

so with everybody in this thread on the same page i want to hear from one of the six people that think this is a good idea or a step in the right direction (from the poll)

I voted good idea purely from the Volvo business standpoint. History has proven that a prettied-up T-5 with essentially no performance enhancements and just cosmetic enhancement can generate excitement and even communities of enthuisasts (and limited access "R Forums"). I probably would have thrown in a gratuitous 10% horsepower tune on the ECU and maybe a shiny blow off valve like a binky for the Chuck's and Mitch's of the world, but otherwise, I can see them selling this car and meeting the expectations of most buyers that just want something that "looks impressive" and doesn't consume more fuel than its base counterparts.

Thats what microsoft does. It starts with removing granular file control, progresses to slower version that cost more, and finally just gives up all effort of pretending to care and hikes the price 20% and justifies it as operating costs.

Its a slippery slope when you start thinking that no gain is the same as a 10% gain.... or loss......

The Volvo R as conceptualized and intially offered was just a cosmetic package with a piss poor effort at adding performance to the T-5 engined car. It got a little more differentiated in the S/V70R model range and later, but don't kid yourselves, these aren't like the AMG or M-tuned cars. You are paying for cosmetic changes / limited production and you know it. Reminds me of the 2.0 normally aspirated Golf 3 GTI or the later 1.8T GTI with less performance than the base model with 1.8T powerplant option. Mustang 5.0 GT versus Mustang 5.0 LX. I could keep going...

I agree with most of you and think they should have made an epic difference in performance, not unlike the 222hp T-5 850 versus the remapped 240hp ultraperformance T-5R. That would do it, yeah!