Ok, this may be a little off topic, but I have been arguing all day on this one. My dad has been trying to say that in the 70's, no car could touch the Dodge Charger on the strip. I find this a little hard to believe, can you help me out?

 

426 Hemi-equipped Mopars and the COPO Camaros and Novas pretty much buttraped everything else on the road, assuming they could get some semblence of traction. Of course the COPO cars were made in the 60's, so if your dad is talking about cars actually produced in the 70's then I think the 426 Hemi survived into 1970, making those cars the baddest of the 70's.

 

The Hemi was a great engine, and in professional drag racing the Hemi was a big star. But at the grassroots level, I almost never saw Mopars running on the strip or on the streets by the mid-70's. During the 1970's Chevrolet continued to fund racing teams and the factory continued to produce performance parts, while both Ford and Mopar officially ended their involvement with racing in about 1970-71. Ford founded SVO around 1980 and the factory began producing performance parts again, but Chevrolet had built up such a huge lead in most forms of racing that Ford had to spend many difficult years regaining its competitive edge.

What I'm trying to say is that, at least in my neck of the woods, Big-Block Novas, Chevelles, and Camaros ruled the streets during the 1970's, much as I hate to admit it. As far as brand new, bone-stock cars go the 1970's Trans-Ams were far ahead of their Domestic competition.

In fact, despite the fact that its a cliche' to claim that the 426 Hemis were "Underrated", in a day when adjusting timing, tire pressure, etc. was the norm for road tests, very few sources ever broke into the 13's with a stock Hemi Charger. Seems when you take the weight of the enormous Mopars this engine pushed around into account, 425hp sounds just about right. Hemi-equipped Chargers were rare the day they were built, much less 5-10yrs later, and were never anywhere near as popular (primarily because of their high cost and impracticality for the street) as the Chevy, Ford, and even Pontiac performance cars of their time...Believe It or Not!

 

we have a built 69 super bee that would give any charger a run for its money... haha... i thought the plymouth hemi superbirds were the fastest cars of the time? they had a top speed of over 200 mph i read in a mopar magazine.

 

There were plenty of cars that would give a Charger of any year a run. Big block Chevelles and Camaros, 429 Stangs. The Hemi died in '71, so I guess Hemi powered cars mihgt have had the most HP from the factory, but the E-bodies (Cuda and Challenger) were lighter than the Charger by a bit, so I would dare to say there were faster. I think your dads just living the past and being nostalgic, let him have his memories.

 

or you can get his blood pressure pumping saying that the volkswagon bug ruled!///j/k

 

I'm not really sure if we are arguing STOCK cars here, or strip warriors... lol

i know the nastiest mustang made in the 70's was probably the Boss 351,, it made a car and driver 13.8 bone stock,,, perhaps a 428 mach 1 with a 4.30 rear from 1970 would have been a good race, but many many people overlook the Boss 351 because it was in the 'big' car years.

just my too sents

 

Yes, Ford decided to wait an extra year to detune its engines to the wimpy, low-compression, smog-equipped engines that typified 70's "High-Performance"(). It was one of the faster, and probably the best All-Around High-Performance Mustang of the original era (64-73). However, the cars produced in 70 and 71 were the very tail end of the 60's High-Performance Era and did not typify the majority of the decade, when the Trans-Am was widely considered both the best handling and fastest Domestic performance car in a very weak field...