Whenever someone talks about the good ol' days, kick them in the nuts.

This is a listing of times for brand new cars in 1977.

Chevrolet Corvette (350 V8 w/ Automatic Transmission)
0-60 Times: 9.2
Quarter Mile: 16.9
Chevrolet Corvette L-82 (350 V8 w/ Manual Transmission)
0-60 Times: 7.5
Quarter Mile: 15.4
Lancia Beta Scorpion
0-60 Times: 12.8
Quarter Mile: 19.4
Porsche 911 Turbo Carrera
0-60 Times: 5.1
Quarter Mile: 14.2
Porsche 924
0-60 Times: 11.8
Quarter Mile: 18.6
Alfa-Romeo Alfetta GT
0-60 Times: 11.8
Quarter Mile: 18.8
Lotus Sprint
0-60 Times: 8.9
Quarter Mile: 17.6
Chevrolet Monza Towne (350 V8 w/ automatic)
0-60 Times: 11.9
Quarter Mile: 19.0
Ford Mustang Cobra II (302 V8 w/ automatic)
0-60 Times: 12.4
Quarter Mile: 18.8
Toyota Celica GT (2.2 L4 w/ 5 speed manual)
0-60 Times: 13.1
Quarter Mile: 19.0
Honda Accord (1.5 L4 w/ automatic)
0-60 Times: 14.0
Volkswagen Scirocco
0-60 Times: 10.3
Quarter Mile: 18.2
Pontiac Astre Formula (2.5 L4 w/ 5 speed manual)
0-60 Times: 14.8
Quarter Mile: 20.8
Plymouth Volare (318 V8 w/ automatic)
0-60 Times: 11.2
Quarter Mile: 18.2
Chevrolet Nova Rallye (350 V8 w/ automatic)
0-60 Times: 8.8
Quarter Mile: 16.6

Pretty embarassing huh?

77 was not exactly the pinacle of performance for any car in america.

Try 70 an 71.



05 M6 YJ GTO 1 of 447 12.767@109.93

Early 70's were mopars cream of the crop...so you know theres some sped there.

I'd like to see a list of about '64-'69 as well.

1972 was the last year when cars were not regulated on emission, hence the drastic loss in performance from there on.




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-----The orginal Mr.Goodwrench on the JBO since 11/99-----

umm , 66 was the first year for smog crap on cars , 71 was the first year of the change in HP ratings , they went from testing with no accesories on the motor to with , plus the necessary changes made for emissions , generally the cam and compression to a large hit


check your book mrgt

actually you are both wrong.
The motor vehicle air polution control act was passed in1965 and the regulations in it were to be met starting with 1968 models
these standards were the same as California had in place to start in 1966 models
the EPA was formed in 1970 and from there on they were in charge of regulations in the 49 states that are behind California (not Cali since they are always ahead of the curve)

The purpose of this post was to show that older cars aren't neccesarily faster. I am well aware of the Musclecar era and would have included their Quarters if this post was entitled "1971 Era Quarter Mile and 0-60 Times" with the theme of THE GOOD OLD DAYS REALLY ROCKED! but that wasn't my intention.

I also want to point out that the Golden Age of musclecars wasn't that Golden. Most people act as if every car made back then could cut a 13 second quarter. No way. Most cars back then were 15 second cars. Even the big blocks. A magazine I have at home tested a bone stock 1968 Camaro 396 and got it to do a 14.8 quarter with the bias ply tires. A 1968 Ford Mustang GT with a 390 did about 15.6. Unless it's a Hemi or a 440 Six Pack or a Chevy 396/454 or Buick/Oldsmobile 455 or a Ram Air Pontiac... it's not as fast as you think. The 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 only did a 14.9 quarter at the time. The current cars you see at car shows have modern tires and modified internals and do the quarter MUCH faster. People have had 30+ years to devellop "recipes" for those older engines that allow them to look stock and remain durable but go like hell. And it's become so prevalent to modify them in this way that realistic quarters are almost impossible to figure out now.

One last thing, as much as I was busting 1977 era cars' balls, they had a major advantage over today's cars. You could hop up those lame ass things like crazy. Maybe the stock Mustang Cobra 302 engine only made 129hp, but a little tweaking would have had that thing doing 240 in a hurry. Today stock engines are more powerful but the cheap 100+ horsepower gains from a good exhaust system, a carb change and a cam are gone.

i'd say if you strapped a set of modern tires onto those "slow" muscle cars, you'd see times alot quicker than 14's

you're comparing cars from the 60's on tires from the 60's to modern cars with modern tires. tire technology has come along way in 30-40 years too... better yet, put some of today's cars on the 60's bias plys and see what they run...

strat81 wrote:i'd say if you strapped a set of modern tires onto those "slow" muscle cars, you'd see times alot quicker than 14's

you're comparing cars from the 60's on tires from the 60's to modern cars with modern tires. tire technology has come along way in 30-40 years too... better yet, put some of today's cars on the 60's bias plys and see what they run...

You kind of misunderstood what I was saying. I'm not comparing cars FROM the 60's to modern cars. I'm comparing cars IN the 60's to cars today. At the time all they had was crappy tires with no traction so AT THE TIME they only did relatively modest quarter mile speeds. The fact that much better tires existed twenty years into the future did not make those cars go one milisecond faster in the quarter because they didn't exist and people had to make do with what they had. The fastest cars of that era were the Hemi and Six Pack E-Bodies, the LS6 Chevelle, the Ram Air IV Pontiacs, the Stage 1 Buicks, the W-machine Oldsmobiles and another handful of cars that I can't remember right now. Those cars did low 14's and high 13's at BEST. Because they were hobbled by the technology of the time. I'm sure that with technology from 2027 a 2007 Cobalt SS will do the Quarter in 13.8 seconds, but it's not doing that today. In today's world it's a 14.8 quarter.

How about the 427 corvette, the 429 boss mustang. Hemi darts, etc.
E-bodies were not hte fastest sorry. You listed all the larger cars.




05 M6 YJ GTO 1 of 447 12.767@109.93

Sappy96 wrote:How about the 427 corvette, the 429 boss mustang. Hemi darts, etc.
E-bodies were not hte fastest sorry. You listed all the larger cars.

The Hemi Darts were purpose built NHRA Super Stock racecars. Fast, but you couldn't drive it on the street. They didn't even have VIN numbers or windshield wipers or even roll up windows. Lightest street legal car a Hemi was ever dropped in was the E-bodies. I did forget about the 1969 Dodge Dart GTS 440 and the Plymouth Cuda 440 though. Those were no slouches. I forgot the ZL1 Camaro that came with the aluminum 427. Also, you're right, the 427 Corvette was indeed very fast and I should have included it. The Boss 429 Mustang was okay but kind of a dog because the engine had horrible heads a huge carb that was more likely to stall the engine than feed it enough gas and a transmission that wasn't suited at all for it's power curve. And it was so nose heavy that you couldn't get any traction. From what I remember the 429 Cobra Jet Mustangs were either faster or equal to the Boss 429.

Look, I'm not slagging old cars. I LIKE OLD CARS DAMMIT!!! I'm just saying that AT THE TIME they came out, they weren't as fast as most people like to brag about. For the last decade or so I keep hearing more and more improbable musclecar quarter mile times. Back in 1989 a 1969 Dodge Superbee Six Pack did the quarter in 13.9 seconds which was PRETTY AMAZING but realistic because the Six Pack engine was faster than a Hemi (and easier to tune to boot). Then around 1995 I started hearing about "bone stock" cars doing 13.2. Now it's 12.9... what's it gonna be ten years from now? 11.2? It's nuts.

With today's technology helping them along YES THEY ARE FAST. VERY FAST. But their legend predates all this new technology and people are blabbering about how they were pulling high 12's in the sixties. The SUPER STOCK NHRA racecars weren't that fast!!!! I'm starting to think of myself like historian that's trying to explain to people how Young Guns is not an accurate portrayal of Billy The Kid.

I know what you are saying.
They tell me how there old car would break them lose at 60.
But yeah w/ poliglass tires rofl.



05 M6 YJ GTO 1 of 447 12.767@109.93

You can't really compare the cars of yesterday with the cars of today.

If you don't know any different, there is nothing to compare it to.


Not only that, but most of the cars weight 3000 Lbs plus

When I think good ol days.. I think back in the late 60s extremely early 70s not 1977.. The cars started going down hill around 72 by 73 and after they lacked.. For almost 2 decades HP ratings kept falling until the late 80s.



Had to change sig because some dickhead is mad it went 1 letter over size

when i first started modding my Z i tried to explain this to people. even other people in the tuner scene thought i was crazy. but i was like "even such and such car ran the 1/4 in 15 seconds" and i would get replies like "whatever....its got a 400 cu v8!" yeah but it weighed twice as much as our cars too....and tires sucked, and blah blah. no one would ever listen.

i think im gonna print out these stats (or try to find a magazine with them) and keep on hand so anytime a jackass doesnt believe me i can show them




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Are you kidding me? You are comparing performance of the late 70's to the performance we are used to today? Why don't you dig up some times from the late 60's and early 70's and compare those to today. The late 70's was when emissions started strangling engines like crazy so obviously they were slow, jesus man.

Besides, I highly doubt a stock Cavvy would run as fast as most of the cars posted, maybe some though.. a few were SLOW AS HELL. LOL



1983 Camaro Z28

we had a Lancia Beta when my Dad was station in Germany in the mid 80s

CodeRedZ24 (aka Geeds) wrote:we had a Lancia Beta when my Dad was station in Germany in the mid 80s

My cav ran a 15.5 w/ a intake.

Faster than most of those.



05 M6 YJ GTO 1 of 447 12.767@109.93

The 1964 to 1971 musclecars were (and are) fast as hell. No one's contradicting that. But lets not pretend that every Musclecar could cut a 13 second quarter. That's ridiculous. Most cars were low 15/high 14 quarter cars. That's still VERY fast. It's just not the legendary figures being thrown around.

Here's some times that I believe are accurate for the 1969 Camaro range

Z/28
302/290bhp: 0-60 in 7.4 sec, 1/4 mile in 15.12 sec @ 94.8mph.

SS350
350/295bhp: 1/4 mile in 15.4 seconds @ 90 mph.

SS396
396/375bhp: 0-60 in 6.8 sec, 1/4 mile in 14.7 sec @ 98.7mph.

COPO 9561
427/425bhp: 0-60 in 5.4 sec, 1/4 mile in 13.5 sec @ 102mph.

COPO 9560
427/430bhp: 0-60 in 5.3 sec, 1/4 mile in 13.16 sec @ 110 mph.

See what I mean? Regular musclecars are well within the range of current cars, with plenty of room to be made faster obviously. The Race bred COPO cars though would give a run to even the fastest modern car. Being much faster than the average cars of the time because a) these 0-60/Quarter times were obviously done with slicks and b) those advertised horsepower numbers are total fantasy. They're a lot closer to 550bhp than the cruddy 425/430 numbers that were advertised.

It also helps if you look at the cars with net horspower numbers instead of brut.

The Z/28 would be making 230hp instead of 290. The SS350 would be more around 235. The SS396 is making around 300. Compare this to recent Camaros. The 1990 Trans Am with a 235hp engine did the quarter how fast? 14.9? 15 flat? The 1994 Z/28 that put out 275hp did the quarter in what time again? 14.6? Pretty close huh?

Same with the COPO cars. How fast does a Vette or a Viper do the Quarter? Now give the COPO better tires and watch it do the quarter in roughly the same time.

Well you have to remember that the hp #s they gave were w/o accessories so by todays standards I say those hp #s might even be lower.




05 M6 YJ GTO 1 of 447 12.767@109.93

COPO camaros posted way faster times with tires. but with todays cars, they run just as fast as those in the 60's to early 70's.today



maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow....... but some day

Personally I miss a lot of those cars. I never liked the "tuner" look of today. Like for example, I'm trying to find deep-dish wheels for my Sunfire because I can't stand rims with too much positive offset. And I'm thinking of adding old style dual racing stripes on the car and jacking it up in the rear. Pretty pathetic I know, but I loves me some old cars.

But...

Having grown up on the fringe end of when those cars were still fairly common on the road, I will say that I do not miss the following things about musclecars:

A) Carburators: OH GOD I HATED THEM!!!!!! I have never hated a lifeless piece of mechanical technology as much as I hate carbs. A well tuned carburator is fine, it's almost like a fuel injection system. A badly tuned one though... holy crap... you'll stall at every street corner, use about a million gallons of gas a mile and SET FIRE to your engine occasionally. Hate it! Hate it! Hate it! Hate it!

B) 4 wheel drum brakes: Anyone ever drive a car with this? Anyone ever lock up your wheels and do a 180 while emergency braking and almost slam into whatever you wanted to avoid going BACKWARDS???? I have. Trust me. 4 wheel disc brakes are the shizznits.

C) 3 speed column manuals and 2 speed automatics: The autos are way before my time but there were still a few 3 speed manuals when I was a driving youngun... talk about crap. I'm not talking about the 3 speed floor mounted stickshifts, those were fine (in fact, they kept those 3 forward gear trannies well into the 90's with an added SUPER LOW gear before 1st so when you needed to pull a small house off it's foundations you could.) no I meant the column shifted ones. Crap. Crap. Crap. I hated driving like that. Made me feel like I was driving a badly malfunctioning automatic and I can't imagine how horrible this must have been to try and sportshift while driving a Nova SS350. Oh joy...

D) Bias Ply Tires: Nothing like a blowout at 90mph to get your blood pumping and the adrenaline going. Not to mention warming your pants up with your own brand of chocolatey fudge goodness as you scream like a girl while the car carreens all over the damn road on three wheels and the now rubberless metal rim shoots sparks 20 feet up in the air like it's the fourth of f**king july. Fun times baby. Fun times.

My own personal musclecar-ish wishlist would read like this:

1951 Kaiser Henry J Gasser w/ Supercharged 392 Hemi
1957 Chevrolet Bel Air 2 door hardtop w/ 396 and 4 speed manual
1960 Pontiac Catalina 389 3x2bbl 2 door hardtop w/ 4 speed manual transmission
1964 Ford Mustang GT Coupe w/ 289 K engine and 4 speed manual transmission
1968 Plymouth Barracuda S 340 Convertible
1968 Dodge Coronet R/T 440 Hardtop w/ 4 speed manual transmission
1971 Dodge Demon 340
1972 Plymouth 'Cuda 340 (I just like the look of that year better)
1973 Chevrolet Nova SS350 with 4 speed manual transmission
1973 Plymouth Fury 440 2 door hardtop
1974 AMC Hornet X 360 with 4 speed manual transmission (James Bond's car in Man with the Golden Gun baby!)
1977 Plymouth Roadrunner 360 (A much faster version of my first car. I'm sentimental.)

Nothing too fancy. Just a few fun rides.