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How Fast Were They,Really ???

8K views 38 replies 30 participants last post by  a401cj 
#1 ·
I am wondering how fast cars really were "back in the day".
I mean cars from the late sixties and early seventies.
Cars that the average person had.
Such as 390 GT Mach I Mustangs,Chevelle SS's with 327's,350's or 396,'68-69 Roadrunners with 383,340 Swingers or Demons,Firebirds with Ram Air III 400's,442 Cutlass's,Buick GS,Camaro's with 350-396,Challengers & Cuda's with 340 or 383.Etc..........
I dont mean cars that were all done up,but ones that were more or less stock..
I hear from people from time to time on how fast their car was back then,and I'm curious as to how fast they actually were.
Guy
 
#3 ·
I had a new 1969 Chevy Nova SS ... with the 396/375 HP option and a 4 speed. It came with a 4.10 rear gear. I ran low 13's with it in stock ... original trim. Nothing done but jetting and timing changes. With headers, a Hurst shifter and more jetting and timing changes ... it went mid 12's. I later bought a 70 Chevelle SS 454 with the 450 HP LS - 6 option and it was a low 13 second car also ... with nothing but jetting and timing changes. headers and tuning got it to the mid 12's also. Both without ever removing the engine or having the heads off.

I raced at a NHRA track ... @ about 200 feet elevation. Traction was good ... and the air good. :D

The biggest competition came from other Chevrolets and the 440 6 pack Mopars.
 
#5 ·
The big hitters were quick, LS6 chevelle =low 13's,most however were not that quick mid 14 to 15 second range many small block cars were in the 16 second range.However also this was due to the tires of the day a 327/350 hp duece with good tires can go 12's.But for every 350 hp chevy 2 there were probably 50 to 100 327 -300 hp, 283 220 hp cars out there living on the reps of there faster brethern.Same goes for ma mopar for every extremely quick 6 pack car there were hundreds of plain jain 383 cars.Really depends on the options picked.It was the same then as now speed costs money how fast ya wanna go?
 
#7 ·
"Back in the Day" (1968) we had a 1963 Dodge 4 door that was a county squad car in another life. It had a 383 with 440 head and intakes and a 4 barrel carb (ordered from the factory that way) that would kick just about anything around without doing anything to it. This was a smaller, lighter car than comparable cars later on in the late sixties and early seventies. I drove another ex squad car set up the same way, only it was a '66, and it was an absolute dog compared to the '63.
 
#9 ·
I bought a '66 Nova SS with an L-79 (350HP 327) new in June '66.
It had 3.73 gears and a close ratio 4 speed.
Totally stock, with street tires ( 6.95X14's) it ran 14.6 in the 1/4 mile.
After changing to "cheater slicks" and with open Jardine headers, it ran 13.8.
I had 4.56 gears later, but never ran it at a timed track with them. I would guess it ran about 13.2 with the 4.56's.
JA
 
#11 ·
1964 Pontian GTO

One of my high school buds had a GTO, that his mom let him buy when he got a job working a hospital as on orderly. We all piled into his car an went cruising on the weekends. His car seemed fast... he street raced against anything out there that would want to race!

It had the single 4-bbl, positraction, and a 4-speed. The only mod he made was to add some glass packs for more vroom sound.

Wednesday nite was "Run what ya brung nite" at Lion's Drag strip in So Cal, so we drove there to get a timeslip. The cool part was him being too chicken to run it and allowing me to have the first honor!!

I remember wheel hop, smoking tires and a high 13 quarter mile. He later wrecked the car on a curve. It as a pretty nice ride at the time.
 
#12 ·
I dont mean cars that were all done up,but ones that were more or less stock..

I thought the 327s were "it" until I bought a bone stock 13,000 mile 69 Dart Swinger in the spring of 1970. It was rated 275hp i think, 4 sp, 391 posi, lightweight tincan Mopar body. I've yet to own a stock Chevy that could do what that car did.


All the modern stuff is fine; but the younger guys really have no clue what it was like back then, and what you saw being done on a Friday/Saturday night :D

How about those days when you stuffed it on a rolling start, and smoked the tires ALL the way through first, and halfway through second, a good 10 feet in 3rd, and at least bark them in 4th. They may not be "fast" in todays terms, but I miss that power...and lack of traction :) Keep the new crap...I want to go back ;)


I'm going to try to show my 16yr old what those old cars could do...this is what I worked on today...putting a sixpack on a 340 4sp 69 Dart conv... Now I need to get 391s instead of the 323s :D I hate cheap valve covers made today, so I found these mid 60s offys :cool:


The kids today are still hot for the old muscle, but they feel it's out of reach...at least as a daily driver like we had.
 
#13 · (Edited)
I don't honestly know that they were all that fast, especially compared to some of the stuff today. Most stock "muscle cars" would run 14's, some even 15's (without slicks).A little work, headers, slicks, etc. could get 12's.

The thing was that they had "IT". They looked mean, they sounded mean, and each one had its own personality. Drivers could identify with a certain car make or model....hell, most of them had their own songs. Cars of today are pretty hum-drum by comparison.....hard to tell one from another.

Look at the engine in a big block NOVA or a tri-power GTO. It's impressive! Now look at the engine (well, try to find the engine) in most any of these tuner cars. You can't even see many of them for all the jumble of hoses, wires, and gobbeldy-**** running everywhere.

It was just a different deal altogether. Gas was cheap; insurance was cheap.
I had a '63 Plymouth Belvedere with the 426 Ramcharger engine, manual-shift torqueflite, 4.56 posi, and stock appearing. Had a real "THUMP" to it idling with the solid lifter cam. Driving down the street, you had to use the pushbuttons to shift. Take off at any more than an idle and when you'd hit the next gear, it would chirp the tires. That thing was a ride, for sure. Only time I ever had it on the strip, with a pair of used cheater slicks and closed headers (just off the street) it ran 13.02 at 109. Today, it would cost a fortune to drive....6 or 7 miles per gallon, and you had to run 100+ octane; back in those days it was 260 Sunoco, Pure Firebird Super, or Super Shell. In 1971, this stuff was about 45 CENTS A GALLON! Can you imagine?

And of course, stupid kid me, just married, in the service; I couldn't afford to keep the car (payments) so I sold it (I'm not going to reveal just HOW stupid I was by telling you what I sold it for). But, please believe me that I've kicked myself in the *** at least once a month ever since then for getting rid of that piece of muscle car history.....and I don't even want to think about what it would be worth today.

How things have changed! I now drive a 2004 Dodge SRT-4, a turbocharged 4 cylinder, that will run on crap gas, start everyday (even run thru water), get 30 + miles per gallon........and run high 13's to low 14's on the strip. It's a fun car to drive (even tho I'm not a front wheel drive lover), but there's just something missing. That thump; the way the car shudders as it idles; I don't know. I guess there was an "animal" aspect to cars back then that's missing today. I love my little SRT; but I'd give a body part to have my old Ramcharger back.
 
#14 ·
Here's a link to some interesting information about Muscle Cars

"too "high-strung" for the street was Chrysler’s small-volume-production 1965
drag racer, the 550 bhp (410 kW) Plymouth Satellite 426 Hemi. Although the
detuned 1966 version (the factory rating underestimated it at 425 bhp (317
kW) ) has been criticized for poor brakes and cornering, Car and Driver
described it as "the best combination of brute performance and tractable
street manners we've ever driven." The car's understated appearance belied
its "ultra-supercar" performance: it could run a 13.8-second quarter mile at
104 mph (167 km/h). Base price was $3,850."


"Chevrolet likewise eschewed flamboyant stripes and badges for their 1969
Chevelle COPO 427 and kept its appearance low-key. The car could run a 13.3
sec. quarter-mile at 108 mph (174 km/h). Chevrolet rated the engine at 425 hp"


"The 340 CID (5.6 L)-powered 1970 Plymouth Duster was one of these smaller,
more affordable cars. Based on the compact-sized Plymouth Valiant and priced
at US$2,547, the 340 Duster posted a 6.0-second 0-60 mph (97 km/h) time
and ran the quarter mile in 14.7 seconds at 94.3 mph (151.8 km/h)."
 
#16 ·
It's really not how fast the cars were, it's how they went fast.

Muscle cars were generally drunk with torque. My uncle's 66 SS396 Chevelle left the biggest impression on me. The cars were quick, but you can't get the same pinned to the seat feel with today's cars as you did by merely depressing the pedal. Even an LSI car just ain't the same.

Not only were they torquey, they had those special sounds that new cars don't produce. Like that special wine of muncie coupled with the howl of a 12 bolt posi and the moan of big block breathing through a Holley. These cars were special, and they were built for young people in a special time in America.

The notchy feel of a big chrome four speed, and the smell of vinyl seats, sunoco 260 and maybe the tinny sound of an AM radio.

Ahhhh.........

Now those were REAL CARS!
 
#17 ·
The older I get, the faster I was.

Cars that the average person had, such as the 390 GT Mach I Mustangs,Chevelle SS's with 327's,350's or 396,'68-69 Roadrunners with 383,340 Swingers or Demons,Firebirds with Ram Air III 400's,442 Cutlass's,Buick GS,Camaro's with 350-396,Challengers & Cuda's with 340 or 383.Etc..........
For 1966, they were really fast. Most Big Three cars built in the 1958-62 era were unbelievably bad, slow, crummy cars, so the '63-71 muscle cars were a quantum improvement. However, by today's standards, they are bog-slow. A secretary-mobile Toyota Camry 4-door will blow the decals off a 390 GT Mustang.

One thing to remember is most cars tested by the mags were ringers built by some factory-supported race shop. Pontiac used to have Royal Pontiac put 421" engines in GTOs and send them out for tests. Many times, the showroom stock cars wouldn't get within a second or 10 MPH of the 1/4-mile times they showed in the articles. I remember it well, as I was there, racing them at the time.

One car which hasn't been mentioned is the first big block 396"/425hp '65 Corvette. Want to smoke the tires? With 3.90 gears and Posi, it would smoke both skinny little red-line tires the full length of the quarter. It also blew up with regularity, as GM hadn't figured how to control those long, heavy valves at the 6,500 RPM the solid lifter cam would turn.

Today's Factory-Appearing-Stock-Tire-class cars are a joke I don't get. The faster cars do not have a single OEM internal part. They are running 100-inch billet strokers, custom forged pistons, in pro-built engines, transmissions and suspensions. They are spending $100k to make a forty-year-old car run two seconds and 20 MPH faster than the same car ran when new.

The Pure Stock Muscle Car Drags are the place to go to see what it was really like. There are a couple of certified-stock supercharged '64 Studebaker Larks whipping up on big blocks to the tune of 13.10 @ 105 MPH.

thnx, jack vines
 
#18 ·
As we got older our cars got faster.... :welcome: ... LOL

The old magazines tested cars "as is".

The Shelby GT 350 ran the quarter in 15.3 with GY Blue Streak tires.
GTOs ran barely in the 14.9s if the weather was right.

Even Ole Shelby himself said that the GT500/KR and CobraJet cars did only 245 hp at the tires. Recent testing of restored cars overseen by Shelby proved he was correct.

I had one of the hottest true STOCK street cars around, and it ran 14.9s on a 90* summer day. :D I got put "on the porch" by some out-of-towners.

A few of the BIG DOGS were quick, but most cars were just OK by today's standards.
MOST of the stock muscle cars of the 60s would have a difficult time against a decent stock Fox Mustang stick shift.

Quick was good...... but S T Y L E and showmanship are what counted the most.
Not so different from today, :thumbup:
 
#19 ·
Fast?

Back in 1966 in Powel River B.C., a guy we knew named Gob bought a brand new yellow 66 GTX with the 440 only and immediately cut off the front a-arms and put in a straight axle from a van or something and he could lift the front wheels for a helluva long ways. We were totally freaked out I,ll tell ya.... In those days you could hear guys rapping off with glass pacs from a few miles away and you could tell who it was.(at least we thought we could) Clint
 
#20 ·
this is a debate that i doubt will ever end.
for some fun facts,
http://www.autofacts.ca/classics/fast.htm

some of the cars back then were ringers, but only a few.
those old muscle cars also were not high priced for the day. many times for just a few hundred dollars more you could get the big motor.

those old big Mopars, depending on what site you look at were 3500~4000 pounds, they were huge cars. to run the quarter in the 14s or better in a car that big & heavy was, & still is fast. and to think they were doing it on tires that by today's standards are junk is amazing.

back then it seems few cared about aero dynamics, the Vette had it, so did the Daytona & Superbird, but most all the others had the shape of a brick.
 
#22 ·
The old man used to own a 68 Camaro SS 396 (350 hp version), 4.11's and automatic trans - it would run 13.80's on (modern) street tires. This one was actually slower on slicks - it needed higher stall converter.
I also remember seeing a (supposed to be) stock Hemi Cuda run 13.40's at Byron Dragway near Rockford, Illinois.
 
#23 ·
Something else to remember, besides the difference in tire technology, is that these cars had a lot more steel in them and very little plastic except for the interiors. I think if you could duplicate one of these old muscle cars with new technology, it would be exceptionally fast.
 
#25 ·
Guy Hiltz said:
I am wondering how fast cars really were "back in the day".
I mean cars from the late sixties and early seventies.
Cars that the average person had.
Such as 390 GT Mach I Mustangs,Chevelle SS's with 327's,350's or 396,'68-69 Roadrunners with 383,340 Swingers or Demons,Firebirds with Ram Air III 400's,442 Cutlass's,Buick GS,Camaro's with 350-396,Challengers & Cuda's with 340 or 383.Etc..........
I dont mean cars that were all done up,but ones that were more or less stock..
I hear from people from time to time on how fast their car was back then,and I'm curious as to how fast they actually were.
Guy
Many modern cars are as fast or faster without the raucous cams and multiple carbs. There is 40 years of progress between the muscle car era and today.

Imagine driving a 2 ton car with 400 horsepower on 2 ply-4 ply rated bias ply nylon tires, and drum brakes, that sums up the first GTO, GTA Fairlane, 409 Impala, 421 Pontiac, 406 Ford Galaxie, 413 Max Wedge models from Chrysler and many, many more. Some of these cars couldn't be stopped from the top speed they could attain, the brakes faded to nothing and you still had 80 mph to get rid of. The fact so many of use survived this era is simply amazing.

Bogie
 
#26 ·
CHECK THIS LINK OUT:

http://www.geocities.com/motorcity/speedway/4067/50fastest.htm

it's a list of the 50 quickest stock American cars ever put on the road as tested by magazines when these cars were new, not compiled by a single magazine years later...as you can see the 1966 Cobra with a 427 pulled 12.20 1/4 mile, that was in 1966 it took 31 years for another stock american car to beat it...keep in mind the Cobra was tested in late 1965 and then think of how far tire technology has come since then...not sure when this was compiled because by now there would be quite a few more recent additions to that list but I still find it pretty amazing how quick some of those cars were back then when compared to more modern rigs...imagine how those numbers would change with some modern wrinkle walls...
 
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