Parenting advice for automotive enthusiasts:
Parenting advice for automotive enthusiasts:
That is pretty hilarious....
(coming from a guy who once drove around with one of those cosworth 16v engines in a 1990 caravan)
I don't often laugh until I cry, that car and that story can both cause this.
Some of you love to rip Jalopnik, but that's quality right there. I mean, the headline alone.....
In reply to Tom_Spangler :
I rip Jacrapnik because they are everything that GRM isn't and you know as well as I do that the supermarket tabloids that they emulate often had great titles for their junk stories.
Few feel this way, I understand that, but its a personal crusade.
That was great. Thanks for making me read Jalopnik, even though I'm told not to.
Great premise, brilliant headline, 60% execution.
I went to an Italian car show a few years back and ran into an old acquaintance who was there with his Maserati TC...he had recently purchased it, and thought it was really something. However, it was pretty beat, even for a used Chrysler. Among all the Ferraris and Lamborginis it stuck out like a turd in a punchbowl.
I love Jalopnik, no idea why y'all hate on em. Yeah they have clickbait-y titles sometimes, but that's just the name of the game nowadays. I applaud them for still doing honest reviews of cars instead of giving every car the same generic praise review that other car mags give to literally every car. And they have lots of articles about used cars and cool old cars, so it's not just covering the latest appliances that manufacturers X, Y, and Z are popping out.
Did you watch the video? I just started it, and it's full of warnings about how to not treat a TC buyer like a regular Chrysler customer.
I still want a red one. Preferably a v6 version so it's easier to swap a more interesting mitsu 6g into it. Although i still have a turbo manifold for the stock 12v version sitting on a shelf and they're proven to make ~280hp with absolutely nothing done to the n/a ignition timing. 500+whp if you want to try. And the 5spd that bolts to it is one of the stronger fwd ones out there. They only start to have repeatable durability problems when you get to the 10-second 1/4 mile power range. I already know how to sufficiently slam a k-car and make it handle well enough. I would definitely have to upgrade the seats! They're horrendous! The same kind of bad as in the BiTurbo.
Also, i own a red early 90s r129 500sl with 320hp that is basically the standard-bearer of what the TC aspired to be. And.. i still want a TC. But only in red! And preferably with the non-turbo 142 hp mitsubishi engine. 
For me, it was when they completely threw out the writers and editors along with the community that helped build the site. All to chase clicks with click bait and terrible writing.
When I asked the editor why, he told me to go berkeley myself. Needless to say, I swore off the site after that.
The comments are the best part.
stuart in mn said:I went to an Italian car show a few years back and ran into an old acquaintance who was there with his Maserati TC...he had recently purchased it, and thought it was really something.
My family lived in Pavia, Italy (suburb of Milan) for a while in the mid-'80s. I think I remember them being built in Milan. So, maybe it's not too crazy to bring one to an Italian car show.
Heck even the Austin Allegro with the quartic steering wheel has its fans. I'm one but then we owned one. 
Torch is the single best thing about Jalopnik nowadays. Sort of like how I used to only go there for Murilee Martin.
I could tell just by the title that it was Jason's writing.
I thought about this, how I think a guy with the right parts could combine AWD bits from the Caravan, the 2.2 turbo engine, and probably a bit of added bracing to make these a bit less pedestrian. Then hit the interior with good seats, modern stereo, some better sound deadening.
Then I remembered how cheap early Porsche Boxsters are becoming and forgot all about that other stuff.
I was always more partial to the looks of the GTC coupes than the TC but I did want one multiple times.
Grizz said:
I was always more partial to the looks of the GTC coupes than the TC but I did want one multiple times.
Me too - I had a LeBaron coupe for a while and I think the LeBaron is a better looking design. The TC by Maserati does have some amusing potential to troll Italian car shows though.
Well, when two cars love each other VERY much .......
Never knew they did that with the badge. HAHAHAHAHAHA.
The TC was supposed to be released at least a year or two before the LeBaron Coupe/Convertible as a way to help establish a prestigious luxury Italian car in the Chrysler lineup.
Obviously, that didn't happen and the resulting delays (thanks to the Italians) meant the TC was released at nearly the same time as the LeBaron which was the same car under the hood (with the exception of the rare Cosworth designed TwinCam) with better leather interior and a hand-fit body/hardtop.
Unfortunately, they haven't aged well, especially compared to the LeBaron and ultimately its a further dilution of the brands using the same sort of platform engineering that Ford, Chrysler and Chevy have used to ruin their brands for decades.
Always loved the looks of the LeBaron coupe. Had a free one for a while. Got it running and sold it. It looked better than it drove, but I didn't hate it.
The premise of the article had potential, but I don't think it lived up to the OP's hype. I felt disappointed.
I would drive a TC if one fell in my lap. I've only ever seen a handful, and the last was years ago. Heck, you don't even see K-cars anymore, although I did coincidentally see two yesterday. Weird!
You only got the Maserati valve covered engine if you ordered the 5 speed manual. Only 1,500 were ever made this way. If you ordered the auto trans then it was a standard Turbo II engine. The turbo was a one year offering (the first year.) Following years only went to a V6 and no longer offered manual trans.
As I hear the story, the head was designed and made by Cosworth and Cosworth did not realize that Chrysler really did not have the full permission of Maserati to put the Maserati name on the valve cover. I hear that Maserati was not at all happy about having their name on the engine that they had nothing to do with. Of course, god forbid we disgrace the good name of Maserati engines (I'm looking at you BiTurbo!)
Yeah, it cracked me up that Lotus designed a cylinder head for Chrysler (the T3 motor) for the 2.2L.
Then Cosworth did as well, but put a Maserati badge on it. Of course it is considered the best of the commercially available DOHC heads for the 2.2. They didn't suffer the cracking or other issues that Lotus heads did.
Add in the Hans Hermann designed head (which was on the PPG Pace cars, the Dodge GTU cars and Shelby's personal GLH-S). If you look at the design of it in Shelby's car, you'll see that Hans' ideas were used later by VW on the crossflow 16V motors.
so there were several solutions that all were used as data points for the Neon SOHC and DOHC heads. Which is why they were able to make 150hp from a N/A 2.0L instead of 146hp from a SOHC 2.2L with a turbo hung off of it.
The SOHC turbo in the TC is a Turbo 2, but its been detuned to help the 3-speed automatic survive the abuse. Upping the boost and adding a transmission cooler helps wake them up a bit.
Putting a 3.0L V6 and 4-speed auto in them seems highly sacrilegious to me, but I guess its the second coming of the Axis powers, at least until Italy changes sides again.
The Maserati DOHC motor was matched to a very, very strong Getrag FWD transaxle that was based around a GM mid-engined Corvette project that never came to fruition. The only drawback is that parts weren't available for them, they had to be sent to Getrag for repair (if they broke).
They are an interesting historical footnote as Chrysler owned Maserati and Lamborghini briefly and the TC was the only commercially known result of those marriages. The Daytona powered by a Lamborghini V10 drivetrain was just an engineering exercise. There was an article about it though.
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