Old Muscle car 1/4mi times are inaccurate.

[PercyJWellingtonIII]

Lots of 1/4mi and 0-60 tests were done back in the day by poular hot rod and car magazines. Many of the 1/4 times seem slower than expected and are misleading.
Here is a quote when testing the 68 440 Barracuda....
"
1969 saw the first appearance of the 'Cuda designation for a performance Barracuda package. A limited number of 440 Darts and Barracudas were produced. Car Life tested the 'Cuda 440 at 0-60 in 5.6 sec, and 14.0 @ 103 in the quarter mile. They were disappointed. It seemed that they just couldn't get the car to hook up. It kept spinning the tires. (Car Life, June/69). Another period road test, reprinted in Musclecar magazine, backs up the 14-flat quarters, but they also tried it with ten-inch slicks, and ran low 12s. Modern street tires are better than those slicks ...
The final Barracudas kept numerous reminders of their Valiant roots, in their basic exterior dimensions and dashboard shape, as well as a considerable amount of small hardware, but they were differentiated far enough that casual buyers would probably not see the similarities. "

Seems the old tires really loused up good times for those old cars.
But its pretty much what I expected as I know from experience that my old 69 RoadRunner clocked by magazines as running mid to high 14s. Yet I know my Road Runner would wax my Camaro good in power and torque, yet coming off the line aggressively would be uncontrollable wheel spin. Just wondering how low my times would be with my Camaro tires. I suspect my Camaro would be left in the dust coming out the hole. But my V6 Camaro would eat the roadrunner at the top end since it only had a 3spd auto trans. compared with the 6 speed man.

[TOMS1SS]

Originally Posted by PercyJWellingtonIII

Lots of 1/4mi and 0-60 tests were done back in the day by poular hot rod and car magazines. Many of the 1/4 times seem slower than expected and are misleading.
Here is a quote when testing the 68 440 Barracuda....
"
1969 saw the first appearance of the 'Cuda designation for a performance Barracuda package. A limited number of 440 Darts and Barracudas were produced. Car Life tested the 'Cuda 440 at 0-60 in 5.6 sec, and 14.0 @ 103 in the quarter mile. They were disappointed. It seemed that they just couldn't get the car to hook up. It kept spinning the tires. (Car Life, June/69). Another period road test, reprinted in Musclecar magazine, backs up the 14-flat quarters, but they also tried it with ten-inch slicks, and ran low 12s. Modern street tires are better than those slicks ...
The final Barracudas kept numerous reminders of their Valiant roots, in their basic exterior dimensions and dashboard shape, as well as a considerable amount of small hardware, but they were differentiated far enough that casual buyers would probably not see the similarities. "

Seems the old tires really loused up good times for those old cars.
But its pretty much what I expected as I know from experience that my old 69 RoadRunner clocked by magazines as running mid to high 14s. Yet I know my Road Runner would wax my Camaro good in power and torque, yet coming off the line aggressively would be uncontrollable wheel spin. Just wondering how low my times would be with my Camaro tires. I suspect my Camaro would be left in the dust coming out the hole. But my V6 Camaro would eat the roadrunner at the top end since it only had a 3spd auto trans. compared with the 6 speed man.

Ummm you do know that before 1972 these cars were rated SAE gross? So take an engine like an LS5 making 365hp/465lb-ft in Chevelle SS application only made 270hp/390lb-ft in 1972. The only difference is that SAE gross ratings measure power without any accessories attached to the engine, while SAE net measures them with on. SAE net is how engine power is measured to today. The LS3 or L99 would smoke any classic musclecar power wise if your convert the figures back to SAE gross.

As for musclecars having crappy tires your right about that. But what your forgetting is that automakers would often send tricked out ringer cars to these auto magazine tests rather than the "real" stock version. Case and point would be the 421 64 GTO........

[20Camaro11]

The LS3/L99 could definately smoke some of the older classic muscle cars, but not all if running on the same tread. Some of the old muscle cars was drastically under-rated from the factory.

[PercyJWellingtonIII]

Originally Posted by Fearer2010SS

Ummm you do know that before 1972 these cars were rated SAE gross? So take an engine like an LS5 making 365hp/465lb-ft in Chevelle SS application only made 270hp/390lb-ft in 1972. The only difference is that SAE gross ratings measure power without any accessories attached to the engine, while SAE net measures them with on. SAE net is how engine power is measured to today. The LS3 or L99 would smoke any classic musclecar power wise if your convert the figures back to SAE gross.

As for musclecars having crappy tires your right about that. But what your forgetting is that automakers would often send tricked out ringer cars to these auto magazine tests rather than the "real" stock version. Case and point would be the 421 64 GTO........

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Sure I am aware of that, but my point is the actual 1/4mile times. The example above is they lowered the stock Barracuda times from 14sec to 12sec by just adding slicks which were still inferior to todays street tires. So your point of any LS3 or L99 would smoke any Classic musclecar does not hold true unless you mean on the top end.

[SUX2BU]

Originally Posted by PercyJWellingtonIII

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Sure I am aware of that, but my point is the actual 1/4mile times. The example above is they lowered the stock Barracuda times from 14sec to 12sec by just adding slicks which were still inferior to todays street tires. So your point of any LS3 or L99 would smoke any Classic musclecar does not hold true unless you mean on the top end.

I hope you don't mean street tires like our stock Pirellis. There is no way in hell that a car that ran 14's with stock 1969 tires and 12's with 1969 slicks would run faster than 12's with 2011 stock tires.

[TOMS1SS]

Originally Posted by PercyJWellingtonIII

--------------------------
Sure I am aware of that, but my point is the actual 1/4mile times. The example above is they lowered the stock Barracuda times from 14sec to 12sec by just adding slicks which were still inferior to todays street tires. So your point of any LS3 or L99 would smoke any Classic musclecar does not hold true unless you mean on the top end.

K find me a legit stock 68 440 Baracuda that will 12 flat with drag slicks, you won't find it because it doesn't exist. Why does everyone believe that these old muscle cars were the fastest cars ever to touch the street or track? Yes some engines were under-rated like the L88/ZL1/Hemi as proven by dyno, but even they barely break even with modern performance cars for power. Anything under 15 was considered fast for stock back then and really....all the way up to fairly recently. If you pull the specs like ture HP/torque/curb weight/weight distribution none of what you claim adds up. There is a reason you don't see Car Life around anymore.....

[clg_98ta]

I wouldn't call those numbers "inaccurate". The tires are part of the car, as delivered by the manufacturer, and those numbers reflect the performance of the cars as delivered.

The cars were often "capable" of better numbers with minor mods like tires (but so are today's cars).

[Ironheadspearo]

My father had a brand new 67 GTO back in the day, his came stock with hooker headers and hurst shifter. he added wrinkle wall slicks and was in the 11 seconds with basically a semi stock car.

[f5journal]

I owned two first gen Z-28 Camaros and never got under 14 seconds with G and F-70 -15 Goodyear tires nor BF Goodrich Radial T/A's. Both cars had headers and A.I.R. delete and were stock otherwise

I got my 64 Chevelle, built 350 (prob 400HP...more or less a '70 LT-1 with higher compression) 4-sp, 4:10 posi down to 13.20 w/ essentially the tire mentioned above

My brother-in-law got his '70 Torino coupe, 351 Cleveland (slightly modded with solid cam and headers) , 4:38 9 inch posi, 4-sp car into the mid 12's with medium sized slicks

[DevilsReject97]

I've got a friend who races, lives, breathes, dies by MOPAR....and he has a track car (Mirada) that's built and uses today's type of tires...

The reality is that there might have been a full dozen model cars (Cuda/Charger/Dart/GTO/Chevelle/etc) that could have actually hit low 13's high 12's with today's tires or slicks.....and still been factory otherwise...

Every single car of that era would benefit from today's quality of tires, but all that would do is enable them to launch a bit better. It still wouldn't fix the inadequate transmissions or suspensions most of those cars had. You take a classic muscle car of any model, throw today's suspension/tires on it....and you'd have an instant bad ass....compared to it's contemporary all original...

[BackinBlackSS/RS]

Originally Posted by clg_98ta

I wouldn't call those numbers "inaccurate". The tires are part of the car, as delivered by the manufacturer, and those numbers reflect the performance of the cars as delivered.

The cars were often "capable" of better numbers with minor mods like tires (but so are today's cars).

This says it all. This statement is EXACTLY what I was thinking reading the original post. Nuff said.

[nhra stocker]

Tires played a HUGE roll in it.

May 2007 Camaro performers magazine has a great article on the 69 ZL-1. They called it HELLBOY. Basically with some tinkering to the valve lash , carb , headers and some 8.5 M&Hs they ran 11.64 at 122 in the original 1970 Drag test. Also at the end of the article was mentioned at the proving grounds in Milford MI , 1 of only 2 ZL-1 vettes was out fitted with only a tire mod. Being a 10.50 x 15 M&H racemaster and it went 10.70s ALL DAY LONG!!! They considered that to be the key to the kingdom!

[nhra stocker]

Originally Posted by Fearer2010SS

Ummm you do know that before 1972 these cars were rated SAE gross? So take an engine like an LS5 making 365hp/465lb-ft in Chevelle SS application only made 270hp/390lb-ft in 1972. The only difference is that SAE gross ratings measure power without any accessories attached to the engine, while SAE net measures them with on. SAE net is how engine power is measured to today. The LS3 or L99 would smoke any classic musclecar power wise if your convert the figures back to SAE gross.

Having both, a 365hp 71 454 and an LS-3. The LS-3 could hang with alot of older muscle but NOT smoke them in the power department! ALOT of the older muscle were underrated. Id take any 425+hp Chevy muscle with a good tire and Id bet it would beat my 12.58.

[DevilsReject97]

Originally Posted by nhra stocker

Having both, a 365hp 71 454 and an LS-3. The LS-3 could hang with alot of older muscle but NOT smoke them in the power department! ALOT of the older muscle were underrated. Id take any 425+hp Chevy muscle with a good tire and Id bet it would beat my 12.58.

Ahhh but a good many of those cars didn't weigh 3900lbs either....