10/07/2011

What is Pro-Touring ?

What is PRO-TOURING?

Pro-Touring is a 10-mile length of canyon road with no opposing traffic.

Pro Touring is an as-far-as-the-eye-can-see stretch of Montana Freeway, a full tank of gas, and overdrive transmission, and a tail wind.

Pro Touring is being proud of those rock chips all over your lower control arms.

Pro Touring is driving up the coast of California on a summer day with a stout small-block under the hood, a great-handling car, and your favorite lady by your side.

Pro Touring is being proud of your Bonderant-taught skill of the heel-and-toe-double-clutch-downshift technique.
Pro Touring is knowing what a Bonderant-taught skill of the heel-and-toe-double-clutch-downshift is and how to do it.

Pro Touring is knowing you apexed that corner better than you ever have before.

Pro Touring is entering that same corner a little bit faster the next time, just to see if you can.

Pro Touring is constantly looking for an excuse to demonstrate how your Baer-braked Camaro can rearrange your passenger's internal organs with a massive dose of deceleration.

Pro Touring is knowing you can dust that smug clown in the Porsche in any number of different ways without even breaking a sweat.
Pro Touring is calling the Pony Express 100 for an entry form.

Pro Touring means having to constantly answer the question, "How did you make those monster tires fit?"

Pro Touring is knowing you'll need a killer oil cooler.

Pro Touring is a heck of a lot more seat time than drag racing.

Pro Touring is scouting the road race pits for ideas for your street car.

Pro Touring is wishing you had a dry sump because the high lateral g's are literally making the oil climb the walls of the oil pan.
Pro Touring is wondering what aerodynamic tricks will be needed to push a '67 Camaro to 200 mph.

Pro Touring is all the right reasons for building brake ducts on your early Nova street car. Pro Touring is making those mods to your own '67 Camaro to see what happens to an early Camaro at 175 mph.

Pro Touring is so cool that Tommy Kendall wants to drive your car!

Pro Touring is a good excuse not to go straight.

Pro Touring is power steering, power brakes, and A/C for all the right reasons.
Pro Touring is spending more time enjoying your car than working on it.

Pro Touring is just plain fun.

**Jeff Smith (Chevy High Performance April 1998)-FAST TALK 




Pro-Touring:
A classic muscle car with upgraded and updated suspension components, brake system, drive train and aesthetics, including many of the creature comforts of a new car. Built to function as well or better than some of today’s best performance cars.
Pro-Touring cars are built to be driven.
Driven on the street, on the race track, on the drag strip, through cones at an auto-cross, no matter the setting, pro-touring cars are meant to be driven.


A classic muscle car with heavily modified and upgraded suspension and brake system components, powerful yet functional drive train, and little to no creature comforts. They lack A/C, big billet wheels, chromed-out engine bays and navigation systems, but sport forged wheels, a roll cage and fabricated parts. Anything not necessary to make the car accelerate, decelerate, or handle better is stripped from the vehicle.  Drivability is sometimes sacrificed for performance and function. In the simplest of fashions, some cars can be equated to street legal race cars, they can also be calles Street Fighters.


[Generally speaking, late model cars are not considered pro-touring due to their factory designed suspension and brake packages.]
There are an infinite number of ways to build a pro-touring car, and perhaps the single greatest thing about the pro-touring genre is the fact that the term is always open to interpretation.




Here are a few examples :
















and so on.....






















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