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What is the best muscle car ever?

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Owned a few in my time and lobed the Mopars but the best deal was the Rambler Scrambler for $1999 back in the late 60's early 70's...Had a 390 w/Hurst 4spd....Red, White, and Blue
 
Tiger, I wouldn't mock the McLaren's engine if I were you 😉 😛

Just out of curiousity, what was the strongest/biggest stock engine back then? Just for comparison's sake and curiousity.
 
Bozo,

I rode a few times in a friend's 69 'vette in 1972, listening to very loud Highway Star and other songs on his Deep Purple's Machine Head 8track.

Yum.

Stylish babe attractor. 🙂

Smoke On The Water (Deep Purple)

 
The thunderbolt was a stripped down fairlane with a 427 shoehorned into it.
by my book it ran
11.76@122.78mph

the fastest one in the book, I have looked before 🙂, is a 64 dodge with the 426 hemi
11.40@125mph

The one I want
69 dodge dart gts 340
0-60 6.0sec
1/4 mile 14.4@99

not the fastest, easy to fix though, but it also handles fairly well.

The fastest car would probably have been whatever the ford sohc 427 was in. The engine came with 657hp@7500rpm but probably was never put in a car from the factory and if it was it was most likely a galaxie. The engine alone cost $2000. That would buy a cheap car in 65.
 
genocide,

I'm not mocking the McLaren engine, well, maybe a little.😉

By definition a muscle car is a production vehicle that anybody could walk in off the street and buy. How many people own a McLaren?

If I'm not mistaken the biggest displacement engines of the day were the GM 455's. The biggest out of the factory displacement/H.P. combo had to be the Mopar 426/425hp Hemi's. My H.S. physics teacher had a 1970 Plymouth Super Bird with that combo.

 
I am a Ford person through and through, but for some reason have always had a soft spot for the Hemi Cuda..... but my second choice would be a Boss Mustang. Don't know how I ended up with a '72 Gran Torino, though for a 'gas guzzler' with a 429cu inch motor it does get better mileage then my '99 Jeep.........
 
Being an Aussie I would say the Falcon GTHO Phaze III, which was designed for production touring car racing & in fact to win one race the 500 mile Hardie Ferodo 500 at Bathurst. However to make all the mods race legal they had to sell so many for the road - 1500 GTs & arround 300 homogulated with the racing mods as Falcon GTHO Phase IIIs.

They had a top speed of 160mph & did the quarter mile in 14 secs with the same gearing. However as there were 4 different gear ratio options for the Toploader 4speeds they were sold with, Some have a lower top speed but accelerated faster & vice-a-versa. They are extremelly rare today as a good proportion were written off in racing, so most on the road are fakes. Genuine ones in concours condition are worth about $50 000 today.

Here are some limks on the Falcon GT & the Falcon GTHO PhaseIII, Which in its day was reputed to be the fastest production 4 door sedan in the world, What with its Cleveland racing engine that reved all the way to 7000 revs in stock GTHO form.

http://www.netspace.net.au/~manc/MOFFAT1.html appears to be a Newspaper aticle about the GTHO Ph1 (XW{69}351W), Ph2 (XW{69}351C), & Ph3 (XY{71}351C) & their success at Bathurst (a 500 mile production touring car race).

http://www.fl.net.au/~johnk/ho.gif A very famous photo that appeared in Australian newspapers, taken by a 'Wheels' magazine staffer, during a test drive. The photo is taken from the aspect of someone sitting in the rear seat, leaning over the drives shoulder. In the photo you can look down the bonnet, past the 'Shaker' bonnet scoop & see the Hume highway, but if you look down at the dash you'll see the tacho at 6700rpms & the speedo at its maximum - 0ver 140mph (I don't know if its true, but someone told me, that by caculating the revs against the gear & diff ratios the car was doing 158mph).
This cause a furor with the media & politicians, forcing Ford from bringiing out a GTHO phase 4 variant of the latest XA(72) Falcon, after they already made 5 cars (which BTW had a top speed of nearly 180 mph).

http://falcongt.com The West Astralian Falcon GT Club.

http://members.tripod.com/~Wardman/gthistory.htm Pictures of the various Falcon GT models.


http://www.falcongt.com.au A Falcon GT restoration business, good photos.

http://www.fl.net.au/~chris A site that has information about old & new Falcons, including the MadMax cars. Yest that's right Mad MAX, Mel Gibson himself drove an Aussie Falcon, however most Falcon GTs were 4 door sedans, but a few Falcon GT 2 door coupes were made arround the mid 70s, plus 2 of the 7 infamous Falcon GTHO Phaze IV race cars were 2 door coupes too.

Other great Musclecars would be the original 289(W)V8 AC Cobra (which was in fact an English car, just with Canadian Windsor V8 engines) & the later 427 AC Cobra. Also the road goingAluminium hand beated Ford GT40 Mk IV LeMans racers (they made a limited amout of MkIVs for the road). The early ones also had 289 Windsor V8s, while later ones had 427 big blocks. BTW AC still make hand beated aluminium bodied Cobras today in England.

Also one mustn't forget the Shelby Mustang GT350 & GT500, plus the Hertz rent-a-racers. Also the 426 Hemi Road Runners & Super Bees with thier outrageous rear wings & aerodynamic front aprons, were bloody amazing vehicles too. Plus there's GM & the original Fuel injected 327 V8 1963 Stingray & the GTO & of course the 455SD (of the famous Radio Birdman song).





 
The three muscle cars I've owned over the years are

1)1969 Z28 with original 302 engine (mostly original)
2)1970 Hemi Cuda (completely original)
3)1971 383 Dodge Challenger (modified)


The 1969 Camaro/Corvette ZL1 are definately the baddest ever made. Only 50 ZL1 Camaros made and only 2 ZL1 Corvettes ever made. The whereabouts of one of the corvettes is still unknown to this day I believe. In the early 1980's, I saw a ZLI Camaro for sale in the newspaper for $25,000. I called them up but it was sold.🙁 Probably worth $300,000 or more today.
 
1970 Chevelle SS454 LS6

Popular Mechanic/Science(don't recall which) ran one with a set of modern street tires and all else stock and it ran low 12s a while back. Best muscle car ever made.

Mustangs and Camaros are not muscle cars, they are pony cars. A muscle car must seat four adults comfortably, and still do well at the(1320 foot long arrow straight) track. Vettes and Cobras(the AC/Shelby type, not the Mustangs) are not muscle cars either, they are sports cars.

Tiger-

"If I'm not mistaken the biggest displacement engines of the day were the GM 455's."

Nope, GM offered a 500 cubic inch motor in Cadillacs. 8.2 litre monstrosity which possibly even more amazingly was an option on the front wheel drive Eldorado. 400HP and 500lb ft torque through the front bias ply tires. Those things would make it so you couldn't see from the smoke before you moved an inch if you floored it from stand still. Didn't handle the 1/4 too well, they weighed nearly 5,000lbs, but with a few "tweaks" they would nearly pull the front wheels off the ground(yes, a FWD car), having a 6 1/2 foot long hood aimed at the sky is always amusing🙂
 


<< but with a few &quot;tweaks&quot; they would nearly pull the front wheels off the ground(yes, a FWD car), having a 6 1/2 foot long hood aimed at the sky is always amusing >>



I was with you untill you made that ridicilous statement!😉

You do have the differences nailed on the nomenclature of Muscle, Sports, and Pony Cars.
 
Ah ben it contradicts the laws of physics for a FWD car to lift up when you put too much power through the wheels. What should happen &amp; useally does happen is that the front wheels 'tuck up' &amp; you also get torque steer forces that can almost knock the steering wheel out of your hand, from sideways pull on the front wheels, &amp; you'll get masses of understeer - I felt it myself in a Turbo Ford Capri (a FWD convertable sports car built by Ford Australia, using Mazda running gear &amp; a Mazda 323 platform, some were exported to the states as Mercury Capris, they had very poor fit 'n finish).

Give me a good RWD V8 any time, nothing beats steering into a bit of power oversteer as you lift that clutch &amp; put your foot down.
 
&quot;they would nearly pull the front wheels off the ground&quot;

&quot;Ah ben it contradicts the laws of physics for a FWD car to lift up when you put too much power through the wheels. What should happen &amp; useally does happen is that the front wheels 'tuck up' &amp; you also get torque steer forces that can almost knock the steering wheel out of your hand, from sideways pull on the front wheels, &amp; you'll get masses of understeer&quot;

It doesn't contradict the laws of physics and has nothing at all to do with the forces that lift the wheels in a RWD car, the gyroscopic forces of the engine itself &quot;twist&quot; the car, much like a powerful RWD &quot;leaning&quot; to one side when under heavy load at launch. Because of the direction the crankshaft is rotating in relation to the car. If they &quot;swapped&quot; the engine around and had it face the other way the nose would dive. Remember- 1970 Cadillac= Very soft suspension, not much force needed. I, unlike the others it seems, have put several thousand miles on one these old boats. Two door land yacht at a little over 20 feet long total if I recall.

I will agree on the RWD V8 any day though🙂

Edit-

Forgot to add- The cars are completely full framed and also the engine is set back, behind the front axle, the reason for the enormous hood. I never thought it was hard to understand why the car &quot;squats&quot; as it does, enormous motor soft suspension and everything lined up properly. In this case, particularly with how this car is built it is far easier for it to squat being FWD then it would if it was RWD. The length of the car coupled with the very low grip of the tires(not to mention weight) would eliminate this from every pulling the front tires off the ground completely without heavy modification FWD(never) or RWD(800+ CID, blower 14:1 etc😉 ), but the FWD layout allows for a much more noticeable squat then RWD would.
 
Fair enough Ben.

Actually I know someone who built a dune buggy style rally racer useing the 8.2L (500ci) FWD running gear of a Caddilac, but with that whole FWD assemby mounted at the back, with the tierods boltlocked straight ahead - as you said the engine is mounted back behid the axle, which would mean he'd have the engine hanging off the arse (VW style), not normally good for handling. So he turned the assembly arround, which meant he had to change gearboxes, otherwise he'd had 3 reverse gears &amp; one forward gears, but he didnt want an auto anyway. Apparently he had to get special castings &amp; all that made to get a Borg-Warner singlerail 5 speed fitted, because from memory I think there's chain drive or planetary gear drive from the back of the engine (what would have been the front on his rally buggy) to the front of the gearbos that lied nest to the engine &amp; parrallel with it.

It takes a while to get used to driving it because as the stick comes out the top of the rear extension housing (which was all changed arround so it fitted with the way the axles come out the sides of it right near the clutch), cause the H pattern was all arsed up &amp; left to right.

Tell you what it was a neat buggy, especially after he replaced that big block with a 351 Cleveland.
 
1964 GTO Tri-power (all factory equipt, including vacuum linkage)ran almost everything that would me....only thing that beat me was Plymouth Ramcharger (hemi-head)!
 
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