<VV> Representative times ot 60 mph back in the 60s?

[Tony Underwood]

At 01:16 hours 11/23/2005, BBRT wrote:
>Anyone remember or have old mags and can give some representative 
>0-60 mph times for muscle cars or high performance cars back in the 
>60s and 70s?


More than a few...  but they're almost meaningless.   The cars were 
run in dealer lot condition and tires of the day were almost useless 
for launching a genuine musclecar and hoping to exploit all the power 
these cars were capable of generating.   Most tires simply went up in 
smoke.


Those same cars today with modern rubber can oft times knock off as 
much as two or even three seconds from their "golden age" 
quarter-mile times.   One example is the venerable Dodge Challenger 
with the 440x6 engine option.   In 1970 this car had trouble running 
a solid 14 second quarter mile.   It could not hook up and launches 
were almost impossible, with time-to-60-foot figures being no better 
than what would be expected from a non-muscular 4-door sedan that dad 
was driving.    Today, a tech'ed "NHRA certified" bone stock Dodge 
Challenger with the 440 "six-pak" option will turn mid-12 second 
quarter mile times, got documentation to show for it.


I know a fellow with a teched "stock" 440 powered Challenger that he 
races in Street Stock class dragracing, single 4xbbl carb on a stone 
factory stock 440 with the rest of the car in street trim except for 
headers and slicks and his car turns consistent low 12 second quarter 
mile times.    He says that he's also run the car with an 
aftermarket  camshaft with more aggressive lift and duration and it 
turns 11.90s but he can't run this cam in Street Stock.   If his car 
was running 1970 vintage tires they would be hopelessly fried.

By the way, most car magazines also timed the typical Dodge Charger 
with the 426 Hemi option (that's 425 "rated" hp) at around 14.2 
seconds at around 103 mph.   Today, ANY bone stock Roadrunner with 
the factory 383 engine and GOOD tires can easily beat 
that.    Likewise the 396 Chevelle, which was turning times in the 
mid-14s, easily able to dip into the low 13s with no problem if the 
car has tires to work with.

In 1971, Motor Trend tested a 426 Hemi-Cuda with some good tires on 
it, actually "cheater" slicks, and the car was turning low 12s (with 
tire spin), with a 0-60 time of 4.2 seconds.   Motor Trend later 
mentioned that the two quickest 0-60 time cars they had ever tested 
up until that time were the Hemi-Cuda and the DeTomaso Pantera, both 
of which turned in the same 4.2 seconds time.

I also recall the '69 302 powered Z-28 Camaro in street trim as 
turning a quarter-mile in around 14.5 seconds at around 98 mph, also 
with tire issues off the line.   Bigblock Mustangs were not worth 
considering without slicks and other traction aids.

I drove a '67 427 Mustang fastback a few times Back When...  that car 
was just plain scarey if you got frisky with the gas 
pedal.   Traction was a distant foggy fantasy but one got the feeling 
that if it ever hooked up it would yank the sheet metal out from 
under its own paint.    I also had the distinctive privilege to drive 
a 1970 W-30 Olds 442, yellow with black interior, 455/4-sp and just 
three years old at the time and looked like brand new, traction was a 
distant dream and the car had wheel-hop from Hell, but once it hooked 
up it would really haul, genuine contender as a real factory 
musclecar.    I felt twitchy about pressing the car hard, scared to 
death I'd splatter a bug against the windshield or something... the 
car was THAT nice, absolutely beautiful.

They were asking 2500 dollars for it.    Today, a W-30 in that 
condition would likely bring about 50,000 bucks, maybe more.    Heavy 
but powerful, and it was hard to not love the way it looked sitting 
there in the late summer sunshine...  with all that yellow splashed 
everywhere and the cop-bait black stripe down the sides...   I'll 
never forget how  that car looked.   But I bought that '66 Plymouth 
Satellite instead...  cheaper and it was a Mopar after all.    And 
faster...  ;)   On its best day, my Plymouth would do low 12s but it 
was hard to keep it there...  drive it two days like you had sense 
and then if you ran through the gears it would misfire or sputter or 
likewise do something bad on top end unless I replaced plugs and 
tweaked it yet again...  there's something to be said for modern 
engine ignition and fuel metering control systems, that's a fact.

But when it was right, it was righteous.   Not stock, so the times 
mean nothing in this instance.

My brother's '69 Roadrunner was stock and it ran consistent 14 second 
quarters with the obligatory wheel spin and tire smoke.    My buddy 
"Peewee" Owens had a '67 Z-28 that would run 14 flat typically, and 
high 13s on a good day (and he never let anybody forget it either) IF 
he let air out of the back tires, which tended to make for a 
squirrelly ride on top.   He also had 4.56 gears in back, not stock, 
so the car behaved a bit differently than it did when new.


Obviously any of these older musclecars were capable of much better 
performance if their capabilities were exploited via good tuning and 
if they were wearing good tires.    They certainly would give today's 
high tech neomuscle a run for its money in any heads-up competition 
if given the same advantages in tires and tuning.

It is also difficult to find a decent standard from which to judge 
stock performance of these vintage musclecars.    I don't think any 
car magazine or independent road test organization ever managed to 
get times/speeds of the same car to match up between them.   Everyone 
was always getting different results from what was supposedly 
identical cars.   The only way to find out for yourself what the cars 
would do was to...  find out for yourself.

On the Blue Ridge Parkway at the Roanoke River overpass, is a bridge 
which coincidentally is almost exactly 1/4 mile in length (and is 
known locally among some street racers as "the quartermile 
bridge").    It has been the site of many a road test involving 
contests of acceleration for a very long time... and I've run a few 
cars across it myself.   No dragracing on the bridge for the likes of 
me; I'd rather not have some squirrel beside me 200 feet off the line 
at 60 mph and miss a gear and get sideways.    The guard rail is only 
3 feet high and it's 400 feet to the river below.    But there's some 
impressive black marks on each end of the bridge to be seen fairly 
often, even now.     Yes, I've run my Corsa ragtop and the Spyder 
across the bridge as well... for funzies, didn't time the runs.

Sometime, when I feel inspired, I might go run the quartermile bridge 
and take a stopwatch with me, see what a Corvair would do.    I 
should have timed the Spyder; it ran pretty well, likely could have 
made a good showing for itself.     Or not.   The quartermile bridge 
is also a good place to get a ticket if you don't have "road guards" 
at each end keeping watch.



tony..