1973 malibu

But the ’ 75 on did,

insightful, I have to disagree with you. I perused through many a JC Whiney catalog of the day and lake pipes did not extend past the wheel well, at least not back in the 50’s and 60’s. Side pipes, which were popular with road racers did. Hot rodders did not want any length of pipe that was not absolutely needed.

I perused through many a JC Whiney catalog of the day...

I guess it depends on the catalog (note “since 1952”):

How they got to be called “Lake(s) Pipes” is anybody’s guess Maybe this picture will open…

Scroll down to the '55 Lincoln…

Long ago in automotive history when all things high performance were important to me and Road & Track and Car & Driver were on the must read list a friend was given a custom 1961 Thunderbird ‘roadster’ with lakes pipes. It was over the top cool at the time. There were removable diamond shaped caps that could be easily removed to open the exhaust for high performance. It was all for show though. A V-8 Fairlane could easily leave that T-Bird in its dust. But image was important and the T-Bird had image.

Re. the Toronado: Well, I’m pretty sure it was a 1974 and it had a cat. I personally saw it when I drove it when I was 16, it managed to drop part of its exhaust system, and I had to tie it up with wire to make it home. The car was a rust bucket at that point. (It also actually had air bags too) But I can’t argue with two different sources I guess, and I was a teen when he had it, a long time ago. But who knows, the way manufacturers mix up model years, etc.

My dad had a thing for Toronados when I was a kid. He had a 1966, a 1968, a 1974, and his last one was a 1978.

You sure it wasn’t a resonator instead of a cat? They all had those extra mufflers in them. Also, air bags in a 74? Even my 86 Riviera (which was a Toro clone) didn’t have air bags. I suppose maybe a California 74 might have had a cat but air bags came much later.

I think '75 was the first year that Monte Carlos used catalytic converters but I seem to remember the '74 I had as having a converter on it. Maybe my '74 was a late production and the change started part year.

GM had a potpourri of changes going on at that time with the HEI ignition becoming standard in '75 but already in use on some '74 Cadillacs.

Yup, the '73 Toro was the first GM car to come out with airbags. http://inventors.about.com/od/astartinventions/a/air_bags.htm

I didn’t think they had cats until 75 though. I know Fords didn’t.

One rancher who bought a new LTD from the dealer I worked for complained that there was no gas station within 40 miles of his house that had unleaded gas, so the dealer removed his cat(s?) but made him promise that they could reinstall them as soon as his itty bitty town’s only station had the right fuel.

It was pretty common back in that era for Wal Mart, K-Mart, any auto supply house, and even convenience stores to sell “kits” that would allow leaded gas to be used in unleaded cars.
The "kit’ was a small funnel that sometimes had a short length of hose attached to it.

Many a converter and even engines were ruined due to those funnels.

Its coming back now. Seems to me they must have offered them in 73 and then pulled them a few years later until they finally became standard equipment.

A metal pipe reducer was sold that fit on the old standard nozzles so that leaded fuel could be pumped into cars with the unleaded only barrier.

In 1975 we bought a Celica GT Liftback, it had the unleaded restrictor in the fuel filler, but also had a big sticker that read non-catalyst, so we used the reducer to pump regular leaded fuel. Didn’t have any problems with it.

LEG pipes

Most (but not all) 1975 models had converters and required unleaded fuel. Honda, with their CVCC engine did not install Cats until '80 or '81…Most gas stations changed their Premium Leaded pumps (100 octane) to Unleaded…Leaded regular continued to be sold for several more years. It was 90 octane and sold for about six cents a gallon less than the 85 octane Unleaded. Needless to say, fuel switching was rampant. Only when Leaded Regular was withdrawn from the market was it possible to achieve compliance…They sold these little red plastic “Fueling adapters” in parts stores for a buck or two…They slipped over a “Leaded” fuel pump nozzle with a smaller extension that would fit the unleaded nozzle restrictor…By 1978 or '79, the EPA realized that very little unleaded gasoline was being sold to they resorted to banning the sale of all leaded gasoline intended for automotive use…The people who still owned the old high-compression performance cars were left in a bind with only 85-88 octane unleaded fuel available. After a year or two, Unleaded Premium (90-92 octane) became available but the old high compression engines still suffered. Some stations offered “off the road use only” “Racing Gasoline” at 100 octane but it was really 100 octane low-lead av-gas sold at high prices…It worked though…

Not Lake(s) pipes?
I take it then that all of these countless people who labeled these images as well as all the sites that sell “lake(s) pipes” exactly like the one on the Malibu are all wrong??? Magazine editors, car photographers, customizers, exhaust pipe makers, they’re all wrong???
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=cars+with+lake+pipes&qpvt=cars+with+lake+pipes&qpvt=cars+with+lake+pipes&FORM=IGRE

My, how interesting.

I did my share back then of either gutting catalytic converters to be empty pipes, or simply replacing them with straight through “test pipes”. This enabled owners to use the less expensive leaded gas.

Once the cat was gone, the real benefit then came from drilling out the carburetor jets.

In 1975 car makers were forced to shrink the opening in the carburetor jet in order to get to a 14.7:1 stoichiometric mixture. That reduced gas mileage and power. Up until then they had been running carburetor jet opening sizes to get 110% of stoichiometric, since that gave more power and was the ratio to get the best MPG.

Beyond 110%, gas mileage would drop but power would keep increasing until around 116% of stoichiometric. Jets used for carbs in racing often went into that range.

I drilled out many jets back in the ~75-78 timeframe, making many owners happy with the increased power, better gas mileage, and driveability.

Things evolve over time and names can be reused on other products. In the early days, there were side pipes and lake pipes. Side pipes were either for show and street use and came with baffles or were for racing and did not have baffles.

The racing cars that used side pipes were usually brought to the race track (SCCA/stock car) or circuit (Grand Prix) on a trailer. In the early days of drag racing, the car builder/owner/driver (one guy) did not have the luxury of a trailer, tow vehicle and pit crew. He drove his race car to the strip or dry lake bed, raced it, and then drove it home.

A lot of the stuff they had on their vehicles, they made themselves. Sometimes they would supplement their hobby by making the pipes and other things for fellow racers and even some catalog companies like JC Whitney. Lake pipes provided the solution of having a muffler while on the road to the track and open pipes for racing. All he had to do was remove the caps for racing. Most of the time, the lake pipe did not extend past the back of the wheel well.

As drag racing became more popular, it started taking bigger money to stay competitive. It was no longer a hobby.

You seem to forget two things:

  1. you’re not the only one that was around in the old days. A lot of the rest of us were too. And I remember them being called “lake pipes” as far back as I can remember.
  2. your argument that they’re not lake pipes is addressing CURRENT terminology. Not what they were called half a century ago.

Perhaps in your neck of the woods pipes that went past the front wheelwell were never called “lake pipes”. Perhaps in your neck of the woods they were all called “side pipes”. But where I’m from that isn’t the case. Your inflexible criteria don’t hold water.

I think most people would call those side pipes, classic lake pipes don’t have a heat shield.