Although it didn’t have a Hemi engine, I have to say that my brother’s 1970(?) Barracuda had the absolute worst assembly quality of any car I ever saw. The paint looked like it had been applied with a broom, at least one body panel was misaligned, interior panels were badly misaligned, and several accessories were either attached very insecurely, or–as in the case of the rear defroster fan–weren’t even attached at all. The rear defroster fan assembly was just lying in the trunk, even after the dealer’s…meticulous…pre-delivery inspection, which clearly consisted of nothing more than washing the car and removing the plastic from the seats.
The car deteriorated very rapidly, with early failure of several components. I distinctly recall that the A/C compressor clutch failed about 2 days after the 1 year warranty expired.
I have always considered the 1964 GTO to be the original Muscle Car. Like the song says, "three deuces and a 4 speed and a 389… " The later models never quite lived up to the original’s reputation.
Rod Knox: The 1964 GTO was one I have always wanted but never owned. I agree that Pontiac started with a great Muscle Car and steadily worked their way down.
Original muscle cars just didnt work in the twisties the way todays cars can. Their lack of suspension sophistication and the tire technology just wasnt there. My 98 mustang gt (a dog by todays standards) wouldve been a contender with old muscle cars back in the day.
But the looks and the feel just dont compare at all. Modern stuff is too refined for me.
Resto-modding is the best of both worlds but the classics are good enough for me, warts and all
“Original muscle cars just didnt work in the twisties the way todays cars can. Their lack of suspension sophistication and the tire technology just wasnt there.”
It wasn’t only muscle cars.This statement can be broadened to ALL cars by removing the first 2 words. “Original muscle cars just didnt work in the twisties the way todays cars can. Their lack of suspension sophistication and the tire technology just wasnt there.” CSA
^
Yup!
Just think back to the old Highway Patrol TV program of the mid-fifties, with those Buicks’ tires SCREAMING as Broderick Crawford and others cornered those drastically-leaning cars at even moderate speeds. The cars of the '60s were better, but…not that much better.
Actually the sophistication of the old suspensions was better than todays when you consider the tires of the time. The big problem with those high profile biased ply tires was that when subjected to side forces from cornering, the rolled under. If the tire was held perfectly vertical, then up to 75% of the already very narrow tread would lift off the road.
The front ends used a wishbone control arm combined with w straight control arm to form a series of triangles that in turn formed a series of triangle based pyramids to control the angle that the tire met the road. In a corner, the excessive lean would cause the top of the tire to lean in, combined with the large caster angles to further lean the tire so that it compensated for the roll under. That would keep the tread flat on the pavements.
The rear tires were held vertical so the answer was to use much wider tires on the rear to compensate for roll under.
The wider lower profile radial tires of today have almost no roll under so the simpler McPherson strut suspension works very well. The body roll can be reduced greatly because the tires don’t need the camber change or caster angle to compensate. Some modern cars have gone back to the older suspension systems, but still using struts for the shock spring part, and independent rears in order to extract the last bit of handling from todays tires, but the camber change are much less than they needed to be in the past.
Brakes in the old days weren’t as bad as so many seem to think, but as pointed out earlier, they used asbestos. When you replace the friction material with modern materials, they simply don’t work as well as they used to. There are some pretty good carbon fiber materials for brakes, but they don’t seem to be available for drum shoes.
Adding modern gas pressure shocks, urethane bushings and wheels will help the older cars corner better, but they will never come up to todays standards without major surgery.
There’s a tv show where the guy only restores mopar muscle cars . . . Graveyard cars, I believe
Anyways, the guy is a perfectionist, and he goes to painstaking lengths to duplicate the same lousy build quality. He straight out said it a few times. He pointed out uneven gaps, poor fit and finish, unpainted metal, etc.
Speaking of build quality, the 1966 model year I believe was the best year in the 60’s for build quality in general. I don’t know why, but it seems that the 66’s outlasted all the other years. I had three of them, a 66 Catalina, a 66 Galaxy, and a 66 Coronet. The Pontiac got wrecked at a young age, but the Ford and Dodge both went 200k miles. 67 was the next best year, but before and after those two years, the cars didn’t seem to be as good.
The result was that under hard acceleration, the rear end squatted down, the rear tires cambered in and lost traction. They just sat there and spun.
That is not my experience at all. I never owned one until the late 70s but have owned a half dozen late 60s vintage since. Some early ones ran on bias plys but most were radials. All were manuals. Didn’t own an auto vette until an '89. NONE did as you describe. It’s actually difficult to achieve wheel spin. Back in the day I used to challenge people to touch the dash pad during take off. Still own a '69 and it’s a beast. My Chevelles needed lots of improvement to even come close to the stock vettes so not sure how we could have such extreme difference in experience. Do you have a specific example of this behavior?
Marnet, to try to answer your question about the difference between a muscle car and a sports car… it ain’t always cut & dry. Muscle cars are usually considered big-engine coupes or sedans designed for straight line performance. Sports cars are generally considered two-seaters designed for handling on the twisties. But… while a 429 Cobra handles fabulously, it’ll also shoot ahead with gusto. And there are a number of sports cars like the Fiat 124 Sport Spider that have a small back seat (often called 2+2s). And some people don’t consider two-seaters with roaring fast engines and hardtops as true sports cars.
Personally, I don’t consider anything without a drop top or with more than a quasi rear seat to be a sports car. Fast cars like hardtop 'Vettes, Nissan 240/260/350/370 Zs, etc. are coupes. Others will disagree. There’s so much gray area between different car types, so much “crossover”, that there’s a wide range of opinions, and it’s also true that many cars fit into more than one category. Many consider a Porsche Cayenne to be a sports car, I don’t.
If you think it’s a sports car, who am I to argue?
I am going with Mountain bike on this one. There is almost no answer to this question . What I would use as an example someone else would disagree. That is why there is such a variety at classic auctions.
Agreed. A muscle car has to be quick, but it can have other attributes. Sports cars are all about handling, but they can also be quick. To me, the Corvette is both a muscle car and sports car. I’d say the same for the Dodge Viper, but it is from a more recent era.
One exception to the 2 seat rule - Porsche 911. And a Corvette roadster is a sports car, but a coupe isn’t? I would call pretty much all 2 seaters sports cars, except for those built for mpgs.
Yes, I have two examples. A friend of mine inherited too much money at too young an age (ruined him but thats another story) and ran out and bought a brand new 67 427 vette. He wanted the 435 horse but had to settle for a 425 horse version. He didn’t want to wait for the 435. He challenged me to a race against my 57 Olds Super 88. All our friends were lined up and off we went. He sat there smoking on the line, I was burning rubber too, but I pulled away off the line. About 300 yards down the road he went past me, but by then, we were out of sight of our friends. He traded it for a 435 horse 68 vette but we never raced.
Later that year, I was taking my prom date to dinner in that Olds and another 67 427 vette pulled up next to me at a red light. It was my first date with this girl and she was pretty hot looking, but so far rather cool to me. He looked at her and then challenged me, I know what he had on his mind. The light turned green and he made a great show of smoke and noise, but I left him behind in his rubber smoke cloud. She got a lot warmer to me after that, lot warmer.
I was an avid reader of the various Hot Rod and other car magazines of the day and there were quite a few articles about the Corvette’s lack of traction off the line and what you could do about it.
BTW, never saw a Corvette with radial tires in 67/68 time frame. They came mostly with Goodyear Polyglass bias-belted 70 series tires. Maybe radials that were put on them in later years helped correct the traction problem, but when the rear end squatted down, the polyglass sidewalls did not flex so only a couple inches of the tires total tread was in contact with the ground. A radials more flexible sidewall may not have had this problem.
Generally speaking, I don’t consider anything with a rear seat as being a sports car. A '57 Thunderbird yes, a '58 Thunderbird no.
I owned a '68 Roadrunner and a '69 Superbee and I never thought of them as anything other than muscle cars.
I have to respectfully disagree that 60s era Corvettes are prone to lousy launches. My '59 is a different story of course but back in the day 3 friends owned Vettes; 2 of them mid 60s and one a '72. Two of them were big blocks and when I’ve been with them while the car was being hammered I’d get slammed back into the seat before I could say WTH???
