The C3 was my favourite American car of the era, a beautiful futuristic shape, though I was more than a little surprised to find out that the underside was more like a truck than a supposed sports car, drum brakes and all..! My old Lotus would run rings around it on anything but a dead straight road...
When ever I think about comparisons between US and BrItish automobiles, the best way to really demonstrate the differences is believe it or not, is the comparison of relative motorcycle tyres. US motorcycle tyre were generally a U shape profile, made of harder compounds designed to last 15k plus miles easily for cruising on the long straight interstates. Whilst British tyres generally had a V shape profile made from a stickier component with a much shorter mileage life designed for sidewall gripping when cranked overgoing around corners and bendy bits and not in straight lines.
When we took our Harleys across to the States in '93., most had softer V Profile UK tyres on them (having binned the US tyres when acquiring the bikes from new). The heavier tourers got through their new V shaped tyres in about 3k miles whilst on the tour, as the long interstate wore away the centre of the tyres in no time at all. Those that were still on the US harder U profile tyres were hardly touched by the distances covered, but so not great when managing the few twisty bits we came across or going thru the monsoon type rains we experienced in the mid west..
