Thee Performance Icons That Were Stopped At California’s State Line

[cawimmer430]

HOW DARE YOU! 



Thee Performance Icons That Were Stopped At California's State Line Before The Manual Porsche 911 GT3

Californian GT3 fans are up in arms about not being allowed to use their right arm to throw gears at the car's 9000rpm, 503 hp flat-six. Porsche had to pull the manual transmission option from the state at the last minute after realizing it wouldn't meet out-dated noise legislation.

But that's not the first time Californian fans have been denied access to the best performance options. In a bid to battle its nasty mid-century smog problem, California pioneered car emissions legislation in the 1960s that would later be adopted nationwide. That was great news for clean air, but not such great news for California-based car fans.




Scrawny Chicken



Back in the late 1970s, Pontiac's Firebird Trans Am was pretty much the last survivor of the muscle car era. And though it was a pale shadow of its former self, you could still upgrade the stock 180 hp 400-cu in (6.6-liter) V8 to the W72 high performance version that put out 220 horses. Except in California, that is, where the only available engine was a 185 hp Oldsmobile 403.

Things got even worse by the turn of the decade. While the other states bitched about the new 301-cu inch (4.9-liter) Trans Am Turbo's measly 210 hp, Californians could only buy the naturally aspirated version with a pathetic 145 foals, pictured above.


The Worst Corvette Ever?



Ask a Corvette fan to name the model's lowest ebb, and chances are they'll tell you it's the Californian-spec 1980 version. The L48-code 350-cu inch (5.7-liter) engine fitted to the rest-of-the-U.S. cars was hardly a fireball with its 190 hp rating, although if you were prepared to put up with an automatic transmission you could upgrade that to the 230 hp L82.

But the only motor available under the hood of a 1980 Corvette in California was a 305-cube (5.0-liter) V8 that made 180 hp, and quite a bit less by the time it had worked its way through the mandatory three-speed auto to the back wheels.



Camaro SS and ZL1 Made No Friends In The Golden State



Moving the story up to modern times, just last December we learned that Chevrolet was banned from selling three high performance variants of the Camaro in California and Washington.

The fancy Brembo brakes fitted to the SS and ZL1 fell fowl of a law enacted in 2010 that forbid a vehicle's brake pads from containing more than 0.5 per cent copper content starting in 2021.



Link: https://www.carscoops.com/2021/06/thee-performance-icons-that-were-stopped-at-californias-state-line-before-the-manual-porsche-911-gt3/

[shp4man]

See, we have Greenie wackos just like Deutschland!   

[cawimmer430]

See, we have Greenie wackos just like Deutschland!   

These people are so terrible. They're also like the EU - which forces automakers to make their new performance cars sound like fully castrated eunuchs! 

[FoMoJo]

These people are so terrible. They're also like the EU - which forces automakers to make their new performance cars sound like fully castrated eunuchs! 

I'm trying to imagine what a castrated eunuch would sound like.

[Soup DeVille]

I'm trying to imagine what a castrated eunuch would sound like.

Aren't all eunuchs castrated?
And wasn't it done in some cases to preserve the singing voice?

[Submariner]

If you want to remain a falcetto forever, you're going to need to cut the T...

[cawimmer430]

I'm trying to imagine what a castrated eunuch would sound like.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alessandro_Moreschi


www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLjvfqnD0ws

[cawimmer430]

Aren't all eunuchs castrated?

It depends where you lived. In The Byzantine Empire and elsewhere in that region men of white color typically only had their testicles amputated. African boys and slaves on the other hand had both their testicles and their penises amputated.

In China, Korea and Vietnam, eunuchs had their testicles and penises cut off. I read up on this subject recently after watching the film The Last Emperor.

Fun fact, the last imperial Chinese eunuch, Sun Yaoting, died in 1996. His father cut off his genitalia when he was 8 or 9 years old. The poor kid was in a coma for three days and couldn't move for almost 100 days afterwards until the wound healed. When he healed and was able to walk again.... Pu Yi, the last emperor of China, had abdicated. Sun Yaoting still ended up working in the Forbidden City as a eunuch to one of Pu Yi's wives. There's a video of an interview with the guy on Facebook. It's all in Chinese and his voice does sound somewhat effiminate.



Here are two nude Chinese eunuchs. *NSFW*


Young Chinese eunuch showing his "features"...

https://www.akg-images.de/Docs/AKG/Media/TR3_WATERMARKED/5/8/1/1/AKG4789725.jpg



Older eunuch frontal nude shot...

https://tse1.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.l9l96LEVQ4Cx9yxUrHXtDQHaKT&pid=15.1

And wasn't it done in some cases to preserve the singing voice?

Yes, in Italy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castrato

[FoMoJo]

Aren't all eunuchs castrated?
And wasn't it done in some cases to preserve the singing voice?

I was considering the moment when castration took place.  In China, most were adults when that happened according to the internet.

It reminded me of when my parents bought a number of piglets to raise and sell later for butchering.  They got a local butcher to come over and castrate them.  He'd slice the scrotum, cut off the testicles and pour turpentine on the wound.  The screeching sound the piglets made was ear shattering.  The only engine sound I can relate that to is when F1 were running V10s.  It was primal.

[cawimmer430]

Sun Yaoting, the last eunuch of China.







There's a eunuch museum in Beijing showing a terracotta figures scene on "how to make a eunuch". It's terrifying. But apparently many poor men in China were willing to undergo this procedure to live a life of luxury (daily meals and a roof over one's head) inside the Forbidden City. No amount of money in the world would ever convince me to part with my genitalia... 

NSFW

https://china-underground.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/howto-eunuch-1.jpg

[shp4man]

Ouch!

[Laconian]

What a threadjack. AFAIK castration was a good way to keep the powerful males in the emperor's orbit from getting any pesky ideas about forming their own dynasties.

[FoMoJo]

What a threadjack. AFAIK castration was a good way to keep the powerful males in the emperor's orbit from getting any pesky ideas about forming their own dynasties.

It seems to have taken a few twists.

[Soup DeVille]

I was considering the moment when castration took place.  In China, most were adults when that happened according to the internet.

It reminded me of when my parents bought a number of piglets to raise and sell later for butchering.  They got a local butcher to come over and castrate them.  He'd slice the scrotum, cut off the testicles and pour turpentine on the wound.  The screeching sound the piglets made was ear shattering.  The only engine sound I can relate that to is when F1 were running V10s.  It was primal.

My god: had he never heard of the rubber band technique?

https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/producers-pride-castrator-premium-bander-1019755?cm_mmc=feed-_-GoogleShopping-_-Product-_-1019755&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIqOvYzuCf8QIVB52zCh3LXAwCEAQYASABEgJs6fD_BwE

[Soup DeVille]

It depends where you lived. In The Byzantine Empire and elsewhere in that region men of white color typically only had their testicles amputated. African boys and slaves on the other hand had both their testicles and their penises amputated.

In China, Korea and Vietnam, eunuchs had their testicles and penises cut off. I read up on this subject recently after watching the film The Last Emperor.

Fun fact, the last imperial Chinese eunuch, Sun Yaoting, died in 1996. His father cut off his genitalia when he was 8 or 9 years old. The poor kid was in a coma for three days and couldn't move for almost 100 days afterwards until the wound healed. When he healed and was able to walk again.... Pu Yi, the last emperor of China, had abdicated. Sun Yaoting still ended up working in the Forbidden City as a eunuch to one of Pu Yi's wives. There's a video of an interview with the guy on Facebook. It's all in Chinese and his voice does sound somewhat effiminate.



Here are two nude Chinese eunuchs. *NSFW*


Young Chinese eunuch showing his "features"...

https://www.akg-images.de/Docs/AKG/Media/TR3_WATERMARKED/5/8/1/1/AKG4789725.jpg



Older eunuch frontal nude shot...

https://tse1.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.l9l96LEVQ4Cx9yxUrHXtDQHaKT&pid=15.1



Yes, in Italy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castrato

Aren't all of those things described effectively castration?

[FoMoJo]

My god: had he never heard of the rubber band technique?

https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/producers-pride-castrator-premium-bander-1019755?cm_mmc=feed-_-GoogleShopping-_-Product-_-1019755&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIqOvYzuCf8QIVB52zCh3LXAwCEAQYASABEgJs6fD_BwE

This would be in the late '40s, plus he was likely old school even back then.  This is the guy who would drink a cup of blood from an animal he had slaughtered.  Seemed to enjoy his work.

[cawimmer430]

What a threadjack. AFAIK castration was a good way to keep the powerful males in the emperor's orbit from getting any pesky ideas about forming their own dynasties.

The solution would have been so simple: lock up all the concubines and wives in a section of the Forbidden City where they each have their own rooms, but the main door to that section is locked every night and only the emperor himself has the key...

Instead, they make life so complex by cutting off balls and dicks...

[cawimmer430]

Aren't all of those things described effectively castration?

Yes, but the techniques and what was cut off vary depending on culture.