F40 did not actually make to 200mph ever, they verified it speed at only 189Mph max by calculating the distances & time traveled. It was always short of 200mph.
The sufficiently straight road in Nebraska is still used today for speed runs. Not sure if it is the exact same road but every year there is a high speed challenge about an hour from my house. See all the big ones there. Ferrari, Lamborghini. McLaren. Then of course the vetts and fords It is part of the sand hills open. Which is a weeklong road rally with a 55mile course and a 12 mile course. The high speed contest is the last day.
I'm 99.9% certain Knudsen is pronounced Ka noot sen. It's Danish for Kanoot's son. That's the most common way I've heard it pronounced, with the other leaving the K silent as in Noot Son, but that is much less common.
You are 100% correct. I went to High School with the kids of the family that built those cars. They were from Atlantic, IA. Their High School mascot is the Trojans. That name was trademarked so they dropped the R and called them Tojan.
Yes you are correct. This is a fairly common name where I grew up in central Minnesota. But this is what happens when lazy RU-vidrs don't do their due diligence.
They could've at least given people a 500 HP version which would've been one of the fastest cars of the decade. Sad, I really like the way those third generation firebirds and camaros looked but the engines, with the exception of the 5.7L which has all the potential of any 350 small block, left much to be desired. Sounds like a typical GM story though. Make something really cool and exciting, then neuter it down to something tame and lame for insurance companies and commuters but still ask the sports car price.
WS6 is cool, but I see them everywhere. I didn't even know The Tojan existed until now, and several of my family members worked for Fisher Body #1 in Flint MI that eventually became a factory that tooled dies for Buick, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, and Cadillac. I grew up drooling over the "75 years of GM" book that had all manner of GM based cars in it and I never saw this car once. Not even at any of the over 100 car shows I've been to. I would definitely take a Tojan over a WS6. I'd put one of the gen 3 upgrade suspension kits on it, and put 2 giant turbos in it, like it was meant to have.
The f40 never officially hit 200mph. That’s what Ferrari claimed but nobody was able to do it in independent testing. RUF was the first to do it legitimately
Now that is an interesting fun fact that I didn't know - so both this car and the F40 had their "unofficial" top speed testing. I've heard ferrari doing some very suspect stuff with press cars to fudge numbers.
I had the 1984 Car & Driver mag with this car on the front & a great article telling about it! The next year I went out & bought a new black/gold Bandit II Edition Trans Am that I drove all the way up to 1998 with 375,000 miles on it before I sold it! Never had any issues other than routine stuff like a starter, battery, radiator, brakes etc! Also had a new '88 Fiero GT V6 that was just a little go kart! The "Toe Jam" was a mind blowing car for the time & I wished that they had kept making them a few more years ✌💖☮
@@Mr-Clark TRUTH! and was self driving. For the record … Self driving is old technology, The government bought the patent rights to it and hid the information at Area 51. My friends stepdad met a drink government employee at a bar that told him the entire story. 😂
@sadwingsraging3044 okay genius. So you're telling me in 1969/1970, Chrysler came out with a car that had (realistically) maybe 400 horsepower that could go 200 miles per hour? Yeah not a chance.
to say... K.I.T.T. other than that. If GM or anyone would make a new GTO without any compromises. On a 1967 body. Because... at that time, they made really cool looking but horrible automobiles.
Should have been called the Super Turbo Turd! They added an awesome engine to an ugly car, made it too expensive…. So they removed the awesome engine. I bet Gale Banks had NO IDEA they were going to put his engine into a car that looked like a parade float. 😂 This had to be inspired by the Bricklin.
Looks exactly like something made by a tacky conversion company. And with all the Pontiac heritage to draw on, who picked that awful name? What a piece of junk.
@@williampalmer8052 EXACTLY….. like some of those horrendous third party “custom” pickups that the dealers sold in early 90’s. Add fender flares to a truck with skinny factory tires, an obscene sun visor, fake fender scoops and hood scoop, swap the seat for a velour bench….. Top it all off with ultra ugly stripe kit!
The 200 mph was a prototype. It was not a production car. None of the 150ish Tojans sold would ever achieve 200mph. It wasn't exactly a production car either.
Yes after the protype car was neutered down from the Banks TT motor to the stock 5.0 or 5.7s they were no longer very fast at all - thankfully the prototype car does still exist today though
@@rarecars3336 when I was a kid my Dad got me a Hotwheels of this. And being a kid I just tore open the box to play with it so I thought it was a fake car like them other whacky ones. But watching this, and seeing it beside both a Fiero and a Firebird it looks like they took the panels of the Fiero and just made them Firebird sized and fitting. Then slapping on the Countach wing...can see why I thought it was fantasy now eh? Just sent him this video and he confirmed it this car(still has some of my old junk)
The first showroom cars that broke 200 happened in 1968. The Daytona hemi wing cars were 202. The race version hit 248 on the salt flats. And the guy Knudsen is pronounced like knew my friend lol
It's just like the Firebird that the Kugel family built to go 300 mph at Bonneville in '97. That car also had Banks twin turbo small block. That would make a good video re-telling.
This whole premis is just plain Stupid !!! When you add all the $$$$$$$ that it took to make this ONE car..well..Ferarri put the F-40 on their PRODUCTION LINE !!!!!!!! so..IMHO, the toe jam or whatever it was called is a one off prototype that likely cost several million 1984 dollars.
In 87 or 88 the Callaway Sledgehammer hit 250 mph not to mention the very expensive Konig Ferraris and Lamborghinis all well over 200 mph. And German RUF Porsche I think 211 mph.
Everyone is talking about Pontiacs huh....Its in the stars. I just picked up a 500 dollar Trans Am. Less Tojan, more toe jam. But it will smoke anything. Literally. lol.
As a former owner of a first year 82 Trans-Am, I read an account of this Gale Banks creation taking to a public road attempting this 200 MPH goal...all was well & good as they approached this target....until it was time to end the experiment. The account was from the driver, as he backed out the throttle & applied the brakes, the car bled off the 200 MPH down to about 125 & the brakes overheated and went away, but still leaving him at 125 MPH & approaching public "traffic"...he recalled carefully driving along the shoulder well above 100 MPH trying to bleed off speed as the brakes were woefully inadequate & still non-functional.
I never knew this car existed. In 1987 I bought an 86 Trans Am with the 245hp motor. It was a great car back then, but pale by modern performance car standards.
If it was the prototype that made that kind of speed, and it didn't see it in final production, that isn't a production car and thusly doesn't get the claim of having that kind of speed That would be like if the Callaway Sledgehammer held the world speed record for a production car just because it was built on a C4 Corvette, it was a dealer option not a factory option
Anyone have a supercharged version? I would take this over the firebird if it was the supercharged version. Hust cant see myself with the old small block sub 300hp muscle car that looks so cool
This is pure 80s in the difference between the exterior and the interior. Theyd build super slick bodies, wild powerplants (sometimes), and then stuff the cheapest already available interior into it. Good production example would be the fiero. Looks amazing outside, and has the stone cold ugliest interior ever. Why couldnt they do a truly awesome interior to match everything else? (My first thought was the 3000gt, looks great, both inside and out.) Its sad when cheaper always wins.
Woah! I never knew about this. It’s pretty sad the 800 hp version never made it to mass production, but that’s corporate America for you. The big wigs or higher ups are always the ones making all the decisions. 😡
Never heard of this particular unicorn. Gotta say i like its look, reminds me a lot of the pantera, mixed w a lot of fiero. The only thing that bugs me for some reason is having the bottom front skirt/lip come up that much on the way to the bumper. It kinda grates. Maybe aerodynamics, maybe because the front clips reminds me of a really a really raked m4s. I know not practical on a road car, but it looks like the front should be hugging the ground.
So a one off prototype hit 200 mph, that's not a production car. Anyhow, a friend found one of these a couple of years ago and bought it. It's interesting, but kind of a pig. One strange thing was that it had some bizarre gps system that was tape or cassette fed (can't remember which), and he got it working. I wasn't aware that anything in the 80's had gps capabilities.
If I remember correctly, the F40 hit 199 mph. I think the Diablo actually went 201 mph. Maybe a little afterwards, the F40 may have hit 200, but initially went 199.
I grew up in South Georgia and remember seeing one parked. Stopped and looked at it and couldn't find any information from anyone at any dealership. I eent years thinking it was a one off custom job by a local builder.
Technically they were sold new through select dealers and not as kits. If you purchased a Saleen Mustang through a dealer although that for all intents and purposes is a Mustang GT, it would still be a production car as far as I am aware.
@@rarecars3336 I had a buddy back in 1988 who had a Saleen Mustang. We never really considered them "production cars" back then either. Yes, he was from a pretty wealthy family. These type of cars were really unobtainium back then for 99.999% of all of us. I did own a '85 Mustang GT at that time and I could never get him to race me. I remember this Pontiac in one of the big car magazines at the time, never seen one in person, ever, anywhere. It was, as I said, unobtainium.
@@rarecars3336the Callaway isn’t a production car, it is a modified car. And the GT 500 had a top speed of 180 mph, there were some that were modified that went over 200 mph. But again they weren’t from the factory. Yes, the C8 does over 200 mph, which if it didn’t there would be something wrong. Dodge had two production cars that were capable of going over 200 mph, and they weren’t light weight sports cars. Both the Redeye Hellcat Charger and Challenger could do over 200 mph with no modifications. And they were heavy cars too. And there were also a couple different Viper models that would also break 200 mph with a N/A, pushrod, V10 putting out only 650 hp. That was over 10 years ago. But you really need to learn what it means when a car is called a “production” car, because you are always getting it wrong. A production car is one that comes straight off of the assembly line in factory trim, not a car that went to a tuner or performance company or had any sort of modifications done to it.
@@TheCrazyMoparDude68the only reason the GT500 right from the dealer could not do 200 miles an hour is because it was speed limited. ( like most production cars) The only modification the car needs to hit 200 is remove the limiter. The 13 and 14 GT500 with the 661 horsepower Trinity engine, would hit 60 mph in first gear. It came with a 6-speed Tremec transmission.
I wouldn't take one of those Toejams if you tried to give it to me. Cars of that era were hot garbage, regardless of manufacturer, but American cars of that era were remarkably bad. Now if we're talking about a '92 Firehawk...uh yes sir, gimme gimme
I like cars from this era. Hot garbage describes most modern cars with their needlessly excessive electronics, unwanted options and ludicrous touch screens.
Here is a small question. What are the taillights from. They are obviously partsbin specials and not firebird. They actually look like later 3g firebird (91-92) on a couple of the cars.
