50/60’s cars certainly hosted a wide range of engine power. Hard to imagine why one needed 335, and another only 18?
67 Fiat Spider: 89 bhp
70 Dodge Challenger: 335
61 Morris Minor: 34
67 Fiat 500: 18
56 MB 300SL: 215
66 Beetle: 40
I’d place the Spider’s 89 hp as the best compromise.
Feel free to add some more to the list.
Weight, muscle car: bult for acceleration, sports car: bult for handling, econobox: bult for economy going from A to B… and then a combo of some or all of the above…
The 1956 Chevy Bel-Air one of my teachers drove regularly up to the early 90’s would have had at least 160hp or 180 if it had the power pack. All black 4dr named the “black mariah” that got to clear it’s throat several times a week taking the back way to his last school on a series of rolling hills. It stayed in rotation for the times he needed to haul instruments around.
IIRC my high-school era 62 Ford Galaxy Coupe 6 cylinder 223 CI engine sported about 135 HP. Seemed to be plenty enough for what I needed.
Wait a minute, what is so different about now vs then with HP differences between cars??
Fiat 500=101 HP
Mazda2=100
Chevy Spark=84
Mitsubishi I=66
Dodge Challenger Demon=840
Ford Mustang= 500
Chevy Camaro=650
Lotus Evija: 2,000hp
Tesla Model S Plaid: 1,020hp
And everywhere in between, nothing new… There has never been a wider spread in new/late model car HP, then there is now…
Some cars don’t need as much power. Our 1990 Mazda Protoge weighed 2,300lbs and wan eas more than enough for daily use. Keep in mind previously we had a VW Rabbit Diesel with 48hp so the Mazda could cruise happily at 70mph all day while getting close to 40mpg on long trips, the Rabbit was begging for mercy at 60mph by comparison.
67 Fiat 500: 18
66 VW Beetle 40
61 Morris Minor
All cheap, light, fuel efficient cars for war torn Europe.
56 MB 300 SL 215 hp… Mechanical direct fuel injected engine making more than 1 HP per cubic inch! Expensive and small production halo car
67 Fiat Spyder 89 hp… Italian Miata before the Miata existed. Sports car.
70 Dodge Challenger 335 hp… Muscle car in the land of cheap gasoline!
And ALL of these cars were rated gross HP, not net like today. An 89 hp 1967 car is like 63 actual net HP. Corvette’s 370 hp 1970 LT1 350 V8 was really putting out about 300 net. About as much as my 326 cubic inch truck motor!
Ding, ding, ding!
Plus, there was no standardized test back then. And even so, they still exaggerated! In both directions!! Some to make them more appealing than they were and some to blunt the insurance penalties for higher hp.
And, it still ignores drivetrain losses. All measured at the crank.
Gearing and torque matter more to buyers, what you feel in the seat of your pants!
The 335 would be just enough to start to put a smile on my face. My 1960 Chrysler 300F puts out 375 hp in factory stock tune and 495 ft lbs of torque.
… where new cars were taxed on the basis of their engine displacement, and where gas has always been taxed MUCH higher than in The US. Very few folks could have afforded to buy–and to operate–a car in post-war Europe if the mfrs hadn’t featured small, low-power cars.
Citroen 2CV… 8 to 12 hp, less than 40 mph max, 2 taxable horsepower. It was a car (barely) for basic transportation.
The Iso Isetta is pretty much the same. Sub-VW hp, size, weight and cost. 9.5 hp. Built under license by BMW and others. The BWM was the hot-rod of the bunch with 12 hp.
The Morgan F series… although they were made starting in 1932 up to 1952 when they had a screaming 10 hp. Clearly people wanted and needed personal transportation even when mass transit was readily available.
Back in the 50’s and 60’s, horse power in Europe was based on a standard called DIN. In the US, we used SAE gross. The DIN horses were about 20% stronger than the SAE horses. The Japanese used really small horses at the time, don’t know what their standard was.
France taxed on horse power as stated by the manufacturer, so you would see most French cars were either deux chevaux or quatre chevaux, oddly all the deux chevaux had two doors and the quatre chevaux had 4 doors, but it gave the French manufacturers a big advantge over other manufacturers in the home market, especially over American cars.
Anyway, when insurance companies started charging a premium for vehicle with over 300 HP, the standards changed. Todays standard HP is pretty universal AFAIK.
A friend in Germany, dead now, reported paying an extra 50% of the value of the car as tax. Coming to a theater near you.
Uk has a 1st year tax based on co2 then a flat tax for 2nd yr on. If the msrp is more than 40k added taxes are due for the 1st 5yrs.
And that 375/495 in a car that size sitting on 14 inch bias plys puts a different kind of smile on your face!
Some would call it demonic.
When i light up the rear tires, my grin goes from ear to ear!
I have seen 56 Bell -Airs wiith the 135 hp 6 cylinder and your horsepoweer figures are wrong also, the 4 bbl carb 56 was 220 hp.
Let’s not forget the King Midget with its 1 cylinder 6 hp Wisconsin engine. Electric start was optional.
If you’re worried about it, move to a state that doesn’t have a sales tax like here in NH.