In almost any professional field, you would think that an enthusiast with decades of experience within said profession would have some clout. And if they loved the subject of their chosen profession, they would probably know a bit about it, right? You would think.

But then there are people who know more than everyone else about anything and everything. You know the type: if you did a modification to your engine, they did one better. If you installed a turbo, they can get more horsepower without a turbo. Their quarter-mile times are exactly one second quicker than yours. They are experts at the topic du jour, and you just can’t win. It reminds me of a debate I had with my older brother back in the early 1980s.

A Mercury Bobcat similar to my brother's, complete with faux wood on the side.

I hadn’t seen my older brother for a couple years, but you can bet that as kids we were always trying to one-up each other. So when he drove up to our Grandmother’s home in a 1981 Mercury Bobcat Wagon – yes, the Mercury “Pinto” – I already knew I had won the car wars.

When he saw my sports car he immediately felt threatened, apparently, and spouted off that his Bobcat was faster than my car. Since we were brothers, it was on – just like old times. While my car wasn’t anything special, it was pretty quick and nimble.

My first questions were simple: did he have a bigger cam, did he install a Weber, did he have bigger pistons, a stroker crank, etc.? All of the questions returned the same suspicious “no.” I had covered just about everything, so I was curious and asked what he had done to it to make it so fast. “I had a friend do something internally,” he told me. Victory, he didn’t really have an answer so I won.

It was just like when we were kids, he didn’t really have to prove anything, he just had to say the words and I was supposed to surrender in defeat. My brother was clearly not the automotive guru he wanted me to believe he was, and I just accepted his claim at face value and decided the argument wasn’t worth it. Yes, I let my big brother win that one.

My brother passed away a couple of months ago, so we’ll never have these challenges again, but that’s how I remember my big brother, and will miss that about him. Not negatively, just that even as an adult we still had to one-up each other, as brothers often do.

At that time, I was still in my infancy with regards to anything automotive, but I was an enthusiast nonetheless. As years progressed, I began to work at dealerships, body shops, service centers and high-performance shops honing my knowledge and skills as an automotive professional. After a couple decades, I felt I had amassed a good bit of knowledge about cars – but there’s always someone who knows everything. I sometimes find myself asking them, “You do know what I do for a living, right?”

The Non-Convertible Cobra

A few years back, a group of us were talking about cars, and I mentioned how we had a ’61 Pontiac Catalina convertible when I was a kid. I commented that the top had been replaced numerous times because vandals had ripped it while it sat in its “forever parking space” at the edge of the woods. I told my friends that I was not fond of ‘verts for that reason alone.

Then a friend started talking about her boyfriend’s Cobra that he had sold. She had said she wished he hadn’t sold it before they became so valuable. Ignoring the “became so valuable” part of the comment, I stated that the Cobra was an exception to my “no convertibles” rule. Julia said, “His Cobra wasn’t a convertible.”

Realizing that there was no way he had an original, 1-of-6 Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe, I responded by saying, “Oh, so it was a Mustang. I thought you meant a real Cobra.” She shook her head and told me, “It wasn’t a Mustang. It was a Cobra.” She seemed disappointed that a car guy like me was so naive. Taking the bait, I tried to reason with her, to explain that his “Cobra” was a version of the Mustang but she told me that I didn’t know anything about cars and turned away.

I reminded her of my automotive background and asked her, “You do know what I do for a living, right?” I was hoping for a little credit there, that I just might know what I was talking about. But she knew more than me, and she spited me every day afterwards and never spoke to me again.

The WS6 12-Second Trans Am and the 33-Mile Electric Car

I seem to have met a couple of Julia’s cousins recently. A few of us were in the break room at school and talking occupations, I mentioned that I was an editor for Street Legal TV, and immediately the car talk commenced. We talked cars for a while, and then Bob showed up and said he had a ’92 WS6 Trans Am. Even though I’m not particularly fond of that generation of Firebirds, I politely commented that it was a nice car. I was so hoping that the “it’s not a Firebird” debate didn’t ensue.

The only way I could see Bob having a Corvette rear end on his WS6 Trans Am.

Not many people I come across refer to their car by the RPO code, saving for the ZR1 or a Z28 owner. So I asked Bob if he knew what the WS6 meant – yes, I was egging him on.

He told me that it meant his Trans Am had the entire drivetrain out of a Corvette and that it came from the factory that way. I chuckled, and told him that his car didn’t have the entire drivetrain from a ‘Vette, let alone an IRS, but he insisted that his did.

He shook his head at me, as if he was that guy you always hear of who got the one-of-zero car that you have to see to believe, because on paper it’s too ridiculous to believe. He also tried to tell me that his stock WS6 Trans Am did the quarter in “12 flat,” clearly a phrase he must have heard in some movie like The Fast and the Furious.

I tried to reason with him, stating that there wasn’t enough room under the ass end of a ’92 F-body for a ‘Vette suspension, and that there was no way a stock Trans Am was hitting 12 second quarter-mile times, that it was more likely about 14 or 15 seconds. But Bob knows more than me and was sure that his WS6 was a “Trans-Vette” that could blister the 1320 at 12 seconds. I asked him, “You do know what I do for a living, right?”

Another friend, Mike, started talking about the, “new electric car they have out that goes 33 miles on a single charge.” Yes, I laughed as well. I asked him if he was referring to the Fisker Karma, a hybrid, but he insisted it’s 100% electric. I tried to explain that 33 miles was not going to get you very far, but Mike insisted that the car he was talking about was all electric. Again he said it would go 33 miles on a charge, and that it was faster than a Corvette (or Bob’s WS6 Trans-Vette, perhaps?).

I told Mike that he got his numbers crossed, and that the Tesla is all-electric but can go about 245 miles on a single charge. I suggested that 33 miles was not going to sell any electric cars, and the Fisker is a hybrid that goes 33 miles on electric power, but that it also has a combustion engine. He insisted that the car he was referring to was all-electric and went 33 miles on a single charge. Logic didn’t budge him an inch, so I went with my old stand-by. I asked him, “You do know what I do for a living, right?”