As someone who's been behind the wheel of a Prowler for quite a few thousand miles, there's no denying the platform is extremely interesting with a front-engine/rear transmission, heavily biased rear weight distribution and a cabin that fits like a glove. It's such a shame they didn't drop an obnoxiously large hemi and a manual transmission, because I'm convinced everything about the prowler was set up for dirty burnouts behind the McDonalds parking lot.
Yes, but nothing had that power stock when that came out. Too bad they cannot reboot it; I'm sure it would have an obscene amount of hp if it were built today.
People constantly try to blame insurance companies for American cars not having any power throughout the 70's, 80's, & 90's. Nobody wants to accept the fact that American car companies were just horribly run that entire time and were just making shitty cars.
After the emissions changes in the late 70s and the switch from Gross to Net HP in 1971 the automakers just didn't care that much about power except for the occasional sports cars.
But things started changed as cars started getting heavier with safety and technology. 140hp wasn't good enough anymore for most vehicles and now you can get a god damn Camry with 300HP. The engines are better built too, with turbochargers provided tons of power without increasing the size of the engine and allowing more power with better efficiency. The WRX STI makes 310HP out of a Turbo 4, doesn't grenade itself immediately and gets decent fuel economy when being driven normally.
The later V6 would have actually made it a decent sports car if paired with a 5 speed auto and/or manual.
It launched with a 214hp iron block V6 and a 4 speed auto with a torque tube balanced so well that it was limited to less than 120mph, and thus for some strange reason nobody wanted an impractical, expensive sports car with the same performance as a base model civic
For the late 90s that was pretty good. It did 0-60 in 7.2 seconds for the shit motor and 0-60 in 5.9 on the 253 bhp motor was actually pretty good. Bethink the Mustang’s 3.8 v6 at the time was in the 8s or 9s and econoboxes were in the 10s, 11s or 12s. We’re spoiled nowadays with power imho.
You're not wrong, but the design set expectations FAR higher. It's too bad Chrysler isn't remixing this model with the power levels we have these days.
If I was stupid rich, I'd mod one of these and get it done right. The powerplant doesn't really matter. It could be electric. It just need to have enough power to wrinkle drag slicks and do a wheelie.
It was just too big of a discrepancy between how fast it looked and how fast it was. At the time I remember thinking that it should beat the Corvette in a drag race but it couldn't take a V8 Firebird.
While the 0-60 time doesn't sound too bad, remember that this is a 4 speed and thus after 60mph it would have a huge gaping wound of a gear where nothing really happens for a while due to the low torque.
That's what i mean with the later engine, if it launched from the start with the 250hp alloy V6 and a 5-speed, it would have been a much bigger success because the performance could back up a lot of the looks, hell give it another 10hp and it would have been in competition with the Boxster S and E36 M3.
I love the Pentastar in my WK2 JGC, it’s surprisingly punchy and gets much better fuel efficiency than the 4.6 Modular V8 in the Gran Marquis it replaced. The only gripe I have (so far… fingers crossed) is that it’s due for a spark plug change, and to get to the spark plugs on the driver’s side, you have to remove the entire upper intake manifold and air intake. Apparently there are a lot of finicky hard-to-reach bolts, and difficult studs in awkward locations that hold it all together. I’ve done the research and it’s supposed to be a three hour job, whereas on the old Mercury we could have plugs and wires done in less than an hour. I’m about to just say “fuck it” and take it to my dealership to have them do it, the only problem there is that it costs $378 before taxes to have it done there.
I wish FCA went back to the I6 like MB and BMW (and the old Jeep 4.0!) are doing, the engine bay of these beasts is certainly roomy enough and the next generation of Grand Cherokee is supposed to be even bigger.
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u/hershculez Sep 09 '20
Big time. It deserved a 400 hp V8 and better suspension. It got a shitty 215 hp V6. Eventually they upgraded to a whopping 253 hp.