Choices – 1992 NASCAR Coupes

Welcome back to Choices. An evolution of a series I wrote years ago where seemingly similar cars are pit against one another in a battle for your affection. It’s like trying to choose your favourite child (although some days that’s easier than others). Your task, if you agree to accept it, is to determine which of the four cars below belongs in each category:

• One would be your daily driver.
• One would become a motorsport special (and maybe enlighten us as to what motorsport).
• One would be locked away in storage for years to come.
• One would be tossed aside like a bottle of dried up white out. 

It’s as simple as that. Have fun with the quartet below.

The Contestants

• 1992 Chevrolet Lumina Z34 Dale Earnhardt Edition
• 1992 Ford Thunderbird Super Coupe
• 1992 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme International
• 1992 Pontiac Grand Prix Richard Petty Edition

It’s the height of the 1992 NASCAR season and the adage win on Sunday, sell on Monday has overwhelmed you. In a moment of unrecommended impulse shopping, you have acquired one example of each mid-size coupe that campaigned the ’92 NASCAR Winston Cup series. Well, you didn’t buy the actual racecars, but rather the regular, road legal cars that each stock car is based on.

Now residing in your driveway is a 1992 Chevrolet Lumina Z34 Dale Earnhardt Edition, a 1992 Ford Thunderbird Super Coupe, a 1992 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme International, and a 1992 Pontiac Grand Prix Richard Petty Edition. All four coupes feature 200+hp V6 engines and a five-speed manual transmission.

Suffering from buyers regret, it is time to prune down the fleet. One car must now be selected to be a daily driver, one must be put away in storage, one is to be converted to motorsport duty and the final car is to be discard like used toilet paper.   

My Choices

I’ll start with the Ford Thunderbird Super Coupe. Being the only car here that arrives from the factory with a supercharger and rear-wheel drive, it’s the natural choice to convert into a drag racer. Some sticky rear tires, a smaller pulley, and I’ll be ready to surprise unsuspecting pony cars at the strip.

That leaves the three corporate cousins from General Motors. All are built on the W-body platform, powered by a 3.4-liter DOHC V6 engine coupled to a five-speed manual transmission. Picking between these three is just splitting hairs but pick I must.  

For me, the Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme is the most sophisticated looking car and will be perfect as my daily driver. That leaves the two NASCAR special editions. As much as I love the Intimidator growing up, the Chevrolet Lumina Z34 Dale Earnhardt Edition is just a bit too over the top for me and is getting left behind. I’d rather store away the 1992 Pontiac Grand Prix Richard Petty Edition as I love the styling of these coupes and the paint job is magnificent – it would make a great museum piece.

Do you agree with my choices? What would be yours?

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