Quote:

Quote:

Quote:

The Gen III is where its at RIGHT NOW, you have drag racers loving them and an entire market of new Mopar gearheads with 2006 and newer hot rods that are putting blowers and turboes on by the 100's. One example, take ANY Charger RT from 68-71 and put it against my wifes 2012 Charger RT and I can promise you will see nothing but tail lights of my wifes car. Things are a changing guys.




While I admire your passion, you have let it run away with you on this one. You simply cannot support your conclusions in the real world.

The new generation of Hemis are a very good design and we are very fortunate to have them. BUT THEY CANNOT NOR WILL NOT REPLACE THE WEDGES AND 2ND GEN HEMIS AS THE "GO-TO" ENGINES FOR MOST MOPAR MUSCLE CAR GUYS!

And there are a ton of reasons for that. Here's a few:
For there to be enough sales volume to justify new development and production of pieces for the new Hemi, non-racers will be the bulk of the buyers. Just like it was 40 or 50 years ago. And most street car guys will not be looking for big hard parts like blocks, cams, stoker kits for these new Hemis like they have been and still are for our old engines. And this thread is about lack of blocks for our much more popular old stuff.

Park your new R/T next to a 2nd gen R/T and look which gets the most attention at a car show. Especially from Mopar guys.

After you spend the coin to build up your new Hemi, you will then need to spend that much again on the drive train to hold the additional power.

While we still get some very good parts at reasonable prices at the salvage yards for our dinosaurs, there will not be much of that going on with the new stuff.

Most muscle car guys still can't tune a carb after all these decades and now you expect them to deal with electronics and computers? Dream on. Then there's Chrysler's closed architecture.

If handled wisely, our dinosaurs are an investment, more likely to appreciate than depreciate. What do you think happens to your new R/T's value when throw that blower on it, beat on it a few years and then want to sell it? How much of your money will you get back?

It takes much, much more of our disposable income today to play with these new toys than it did with the old ones. And household budgets matter to most of us. Frankly, far fewer guys have the time or the money to throw at beefing up these newer toys today. Especially given the depreciation involved.




You're missing the point, I don't think anyone is expecting a Gen III to replace the B/RB platform for "classic car" guys, it's a dying market as it is, hell we can't even get a decent aftermarket RB block, BUT the future is definitely the Gen III, young guys (you know, the future of this hobby) don't generally care about a platform that's been out of production for almost 40 yrs. they care about what can be bought cheaply now. It's this investment attitude (your own words) that are killing classics because no one can afford them. BTW, I've always been a BB guy, matter of fact the engine going into my 67 Coronet is a 400 w/a 440 crank, it's the cheapest way for me to get 450 HP (509 cam, 915 heads, M1 tunnel ram, etc), BUT if I had the $ it would be a Gen III, 400+ cfm out of factory heads with no bore shrouding just makes sense




I may be missing your point. But my point was that there has not been enough sales volume with the BB and Hemi blocks of old to warrant production. So it is hard to believe that there is enough sales demand for the new Hemi block production without major inroads into our classic cars as well as today's modern cars.

We are talking about engine blocks here. Not air induction systems or computer controllers. So while I could see an explosion in demand for bolt-on items for the new Hemis, there are fewer and fewer guys (young and old) that are willing to build an engine from scratch. So I would be shocked to see enough demand for aftermarket blocks to be produced.

As to investment value, most of us will want another car/project at some point and will need to recover enough money from our current car in order to move on to the next car/project. At least those of us that are not made of money, anyway. And that will be harder to do when depreciation is a big part of the picture.

A lot of the older guys will not move onto the new Hemis because they will be more expensive to build and because there is a lot that has to be learned. And it will take a certain number of older guys along with the younger guys to generate enough sales volume to justify an aftermarket block source.

Heck, there may be enough guys being syphoned off by the new Hemi, that there is even less demand for the older stuff and thereby helping to put the nails in it's coffin.

It does all come down to dollars and cents.

I am not debating the current or future popularity of the new Hemi vs our old iron. I am just laying out why I do not think there will ever be enough demand for aftermarket block production of the new Hemis. The already small pie can only be sliced into so many pieces.



Master, again and still