ski

Perceptions of straight line acceleration differences between factory production classic muscle cars and current muscle cars are irrelevant when factual data is considered. And I am talking about comparing test numbers from the late 60's/early 70's and today.

Norm Peterson

Comparison is what you can do when the numbers are sitting in front of you. It's what you have to do if you weren't there the first time around or didn't pay much attention to cars if you were. My 10-years-younger brother could be the poster child for either . . .

Perception is what makes up memories, and it becomes part of what you have left to go on in the absence of hard numerical data. It's also most all of what OP's Dad has to go on.

Of course there is a difference.


Norm

Unleashedbeast

They were all restored/refreshed. This isn't even a consideration of the performance variance.

ski

I owned a '68 383 RoadRunner in 1968 when I was 20. It wasn't the factory stock king of the hill, running the 1/4 in the 14's.
But I also drove a few other faster factory stock muscle cars owned by friends(427 Vette, Mopar Hemi & 6-Pack, & 427 Ford Fairlane), and I saw them run the 1/4 anywhere from the high 12's-low 13's at a local drag strip.
So I suppose one can say I have both comparison and perception, which in my case do not differ according to what I've experienced and what I've read.

ski

If those engines were tight, then the drivers apparently had a bad driver mod according to the majority of acceleration tests performed with those cars during that era.

When muscle cars are compared, there's one item that is always top priority => straight line performance.

outceltj

I suppose when I get a little older the same comparisons will be made and kids will be talking about there sports cars and comparing them to what I am running now. It will be interesting too see where the sports car era will be in say another 20 to 25 years. Hopefully SEMA can keep the american sports car just that SPORTS CAR.

pascal

The good thing about the old cars is that with just a bit of tweaking, you could take about all of them in the 12s because of the big cube.
Cams and carburetor mods get you 50hp right of the bat.
For example, the Boss 429 was tested at 14" bone stock but tune that thing properly and you can do some spanking.
My best friend neighbor used to have one of those and he tracked it in the 11s.
The idiot should have never sold that car.