Golden Age of Musclecars

[JBrady]

Post up any true stock drag strip numbers to compare. I have never seen an authentic 12 second time slip from an as delivered 60s-70s muscle car including 426 hemi's, 454 LS6's, 427-429 Ford SOHC, CobraJet or SuperCobraJet Vettes, Chevelles, Camaro's, Mustangs, Torino's, Challengers, Cuda's etc.

Here are two modern musclecars:

2006-09? Corvette C6 ZO6, 7.0 liter, 505hp, bone stock except drag radials.
10.74 @ 129.5 1.67 60fts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Zv5RDzwS4g&feature=related

2009 Corvette C6 ZR1, 6.2 liter supercharged, 638hp, bone stock STOCK tires!!! 10.74 @ 133.2 1.73 60fts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woOqqfGtqHo&feature=player_embedded

 

[JBrady]

One of the very fastest of the original "musclecars".

The only year for the 450hp LS6 Chevelle SS 454 1970
454cid/7.4 liter, 450hp 500tq,
13.8 @ 104 5.4 seconds 0-60mph as tested by magazine drivers

Probably good for a very low 13s at 106-107mph on slicks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI74SZd_x44&feature=related

 

[Zuffen]

They were surprisingly slow for all their power.

I can remember when the "Walkinshaw" Group A Holden was released in 1988 and we were king of the hill because it could manage a 15 second 1/4.

My wifes steeet car (bone stock) rolls out a 12.9second 1/4.

A car that could manage a 6 second 1-100 (0-60mph) was considered very fast now most V8's in this country will run very close to it if not go way under it.

But Muscle Cars had something animal about them. I'd have a 1967 Hemi Cuda in my garage any day.

 

[WDoherty]

All very true. The Chevelle had very small, and i'm not sure if radial or bias, tires on it. With a set of modern rubber, it would do much better. Corvette's are lighter than a 4 passenger chevelle, they are more than a muscle car. A fair comparison to muscle cars would be new camaro ss, challenger srt8, mustang gt etc. With some modern rubber, it could be pretty close to those.

 

[XR8tt]

A Corvette is a sports car...

 

[WDoherty]

A Corvette is a sports car...

that's what's up. Plus motor trend would probably get an 11.7 our of a z06, the numbers posted are with all ideal factors. The chevelle example did not have that. The 1969 Yenko Zl-1 Camaro was a perdy bad beast for its day.

"Super Stock & Drag Illustrated tested a '69 Yenko [COLOR=blue ! important][COLOR=blue ! important]Sports [COLOR=blue ! important]Cars[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] 427 Camaro in its July 1969 issue and the results were mind-boggling. The only deviating from a production 427/425 [COLOR=blue ! important][COLOR=blue ! important]engine[/COLOR][/COLOR]
was a set of open Dough Thorley headers. With 8-inch-wide M&H slicks the 4.10 gears, the Camaro rolled to an 11.94 at 114.50 mph."

That's close-ish to a modern zo6, although still different classes of cars. This is the heyday i suppose, with 640 on a freakin vette i don't see how it will go any higher as that is a light car and its hard to put any more power than that to the street. In ways it is not the heyday, because everything has grown so porky (even compared to the old monsters), vette excluded.

 

[WDoherty]

And some beautiful Yenko's running for fun, they even look like they have stock rims/repo tires.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgzhFdy9GnY&feature=player_embedded

 

[JBrady]

I girl I knew dated a guy back in the early 80s who bought a dark green/white stripes 69 Yenko Camaro 4 speed for a reported $3600. I sat in the car but never rode in it. The 2 got married, she became an accountant and made him sell it years ago. Worth 6 figures now. Never trust an accountant when it comes to cars

 

[Zuffen]

Cars have become porky for sure.

Very few cars would go close to weighing less than 1,00kg (imperial ton) yet 20 years ago there were cars running around that came in at a lot less than 1,000kg. I'll bet an 80's Corolla weighed 300kg less than today's version.

Given the weight increase the performance we are seeing now is remarkable. Combine that with fuel economy that may get twice as far on a gallon than any muscle car and you can see we've come a long way.

 

[WDoherty]

I girl I knew dated a guy back in the early 80s who bought a dark green/white stripes 69 Yenko Camaro 4 speed for a reported $3600. I sat in the car but never rode in it. The 2 got married, she became an accountant and made him sell it years ago. Worth 6 figures now. Never trust an accountant when it comes to cars

funny, my dad had two brand new e-types his father shipped from England back in the day. One was a 3.8, the next was an XKE, but he was becoming a priest and the bishop didn't like the kind of cars he drove and was told to get rid of them. One cool thing is he got to trade the XKE for the day for a friend's Ferrari 250GTO and he scarred the piss out of a fellow seminarian he didn't fancy.

 

[Zuffen]

Your Dad was a priest?

I didn't think Priests partook of the flesh?

Your Mum wasn't a Nun by any chance?

 

[JBrady]

Pure Stock Muscle Car Drag Race
www.purestockdrags.com

Very cool, rules require STOCK vehicles and there are some impressive times being run on "correct" tires!!!

Fastest "muscle car" is the 1969 L-88 Corvette (I guess that speaks to the Vette considered a muscle car argument).

How about an 11.6 @ 121mph. May not be a modern ZO6 or ZR1 but VERY respectible even bordering on unbelievable considering the restraints.

Check out the rules:
http://www.purestockdrags.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=48&Itemid=53
Check out the results in PDF since 2003:
http://www.purestockdrags.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=52&Itemid=65

 

[JBrady]

But Muscle Cars had something animal about them. I'd have a 1967 Hemi Cuda in my garage any day.

Agreed and the 67 Cuda was the best of the A body cars. Buddy had a 67 Formula S with a 383 automatic.

Were there any production 67 Hemi Cuda's?
http://www.musclecarclub.com/musclecars/plymouth-cuda/plymouth-cuda-history.shtml
Ok, found this:
http://musclecars.howstuffworks.com...967-1969-plymouth-barracuda-383.htm/printable
Fastest of all were the limited-edition Super Stock Hemi Barracudas, which were built under contract by Hurst Performance. Sold through Plymouth dealers for sanctioned drag racing only, these were 10-second, 130-mph quarter-mile machines. Barracuda sales slipped this year, with only 45,412 coming off the line; ragtop production was down by nearly 40 percent, to 2840.

Fastest real muscle car I got to drive was a rough but still very quick 1970 Oldsmobile 442 with a W30 package 455 rated 370hp/500tq with the close ratio muncie 4 speed with a temperamental Hurst shifter.



Buddies was missing the fiberglass hood and was in rough shape but everything else was there:

Here you go Rod

 

[cribbj]

Back in 1970 I had the incredible good fortune to have the keys for a 1968 Shelby GT500KR dropped in my lap for a weekend. Heady stuff for a 20 year old car nut, whose existing set of "hot wheels" was a Volvo P1800 with a pretty worn out four banger. Going from that into the GT500KR, it's probably a minor miracle that I survived to tell about it.

I lived in that car the whole weekend and probably put several thousand miles on it, and God knows how much fuel. Here's a pic of a car which is the spitting image of the one I had:

With the biggest V8 that Ford made, and Shelby's tweaks, this thing was built to go fast either on the straights or the curves. It had the 428 Cobra Jet with two big Holleys feeding it and produced scary amounts of torque. I never knew how fast it could go, but remember that it could easily bury the speedometer (which I think went up to 140 MPH).

 

[samsdad]

I've had the good fortune to own and stupidly sold the following..
1969 Mini Cooper S
1974 Holden Torana SL/R5000
1977 Holden Torana Hatchback Production Option A9X
1935 Perano High speed motor launch (Looks like a criscraft on steroids)

 

[WDoherty]

Your Dad was a priest?

I didn't think Priests partook of the flesh?

Your Mum wasn't a Nun by any chance?

He Episcopal, its sorta like Catholicism plus babies. My mum in a nun in her own ways, haha.

JB,

I like the way those early Cuda's look, not a common car i suppose.