Muscle Car Revisionism
About two weeks ago, I got a new (2016) Mustang GT to test drive. 435 hp. This is a mass-produced, docile, AC-equipped street car with a dead-calm idle. Anything from back in the day – the ’60s and ’70s – that made that kind of power would have been a handful to drive on the street and also would almost certainly have been either a low-production, bracket race-intended animal (e.g., an L88 427 Corvette) or modified.
Almost nothing that came from the factory back in the day made 435 hp.
Or even 335 honest hp.
I wrote about this before (here) and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. It does not alter the truth. Hindsight is not 20-20. Most of the first-generation muscle cars were weak… by modern standards.
quicker through the quarter-mile (low-mid 13s) than all but a handful of the most feral late ’60s stuff, such as the L-88 Corvette already mentioned and others like it (of which there were very few).
The SD-455 was a special engine, very low production and assembled on a separate line. It shared only its displacement with the more common (and non-SD) 455 V8s used in other Pontiacs (including run-of-the-mill Trans-Ams). It had a special heavy-duty block, specific high-flow round port cylinder heads based on the race-only Ram Aim IV heads Pontiac designed for the Trans-Am race series, an aggressive camshaft, big four barrel carb and a bunch of other special equipment, including provisions for dry sump oiling. Yet this huge – and radical – engine – produced how much power?
290, SAE net.
Less than the current Mustang’s four cylinder turbo engine. And not even half what the new Hellcat’s engine delivers.
Now, there is a qualifier.
The old stuff seems fiercer. Feels quicker. Sounds tougher.
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