1978 Pontiac Grand Prix SJ SPECIOUS SUPERCAR

Specious Supercar Document from Motor Trends, November 1977
Grand Prix moves to  downsized "G body"  '78 for better handling, performance and economy. Best GP ever!

2

3

1967 Chevrolet - Estes' downsized dreamboat...

Certifiably Specious Supercar Document on the 'Quick Sized' '67 Chevrolet...

pg 2

Impala SS427 SPECIOUS SUPERCAR HISTORY

Specious Supercar History Document!

Page 2

Specious Supercar History: 1968 Chevelle SS 396

Musclecar Mea Culpa -OR - Roadrunner Revisionism Revisited

Kids, ‘ol Kingelvis, lo these many years ago (2003), published “Horsepower War: Our Way of Life.” When I started writing the book I fully intended it to reflect the conventional wisdom about 1970’s and ‘80’s cars. I just wanted to do an ‘ironic’ (in the mocking sense) book about the ‘70’s and ‘80’s performance models. But while researching primary sources, I began to prove what I had read in secondary sources - that smog controls killed the muscle car - ‘wrong.’ More precisely, my point was that the ‘70’s weren’t as bad, and the ‘60’s weren’t as good as remembered in the secondary source musclecar histories I had read in my teens.

I discovered to my amazement that car magazine complaints about engine smog controls were present nearly from the beginning of the supercar. Beginning with the “Air Injection Reactor” (A.I.R.) or “smog pump,” smog controls were mandated by the California Air Resources Board in 1966 – the first year Ford and Chevrolet offered direct competitors to the Pontiac GTO. Remember that these cars were the ones tested by Southern California based Petersen Publishing’s leading Motor Trend and Hot Rod titles.  This fact proved, to me anyway, that smog emissions regulation could not have been the proximate cause of the supercar’s nadir, as was argued in most of the supercar/musclecar histories I had read. Many blame the Clean Air Act, passed in 1970, even though federally mandated A.I.R. devices (or substitutes like the “CCC” air intake pre-heater, pioneered by Oldsmobile) came on all 1968 model year U.S. cars. Still, the CAA promised a dramatic decrease in hydrocarbons and oxides of nitrogen or NOX by the year 1975.

The end of high compression ratios and inception of exhaust gas recirculation in 1972 dealt a crushing blow to the first wave of the ‘supercar era.’  But the ’72-’74 period had a host of holdouts like the 440cid  Charger, Camaro Z-28 and Super Duty Trans Am which preserved 95% of the power from the peak year of ’70. The problem then was the market was gone. Virtually no one bought them, partially because of draconian insurance rates, which discouraged sales from 1970 onward, and also thanks to rising fuel costs and gas lines due to the Arab Oil Embargo and the 1973 Yom Kippur War.  The killing blow of the gas crisis led most auto-philes to allow that 1974 was the last year of supercar glory and to posit the dead end of the ‘supercar era’ at Anno Domini 1975 - first year of widespread* use of the catalytic converter.

Here’s the EPA “Milestones of Mobile Source Pollution” website...

http://www.epa.gov/oms/invntory/overview/solutions/milestones.htm#pagetop

1975: The "first generation" catalytic converters are built, significantly reducing vehicle emissions. The use of converters provides a huge indirect benefit as well: because lead inactivates the catalyst, unleaded gasoline is introduced in 1975. This results in dramatic reductions in ambient lead levels and alleviates many serious environmental and human health concerns associated with lead pollution.

I wrote a chapter in “Horsepower War” called “The Nadir of Hair” about a road test by Don Sherman in the January ‘75 Car & Driver. In the new ‘formally styled’ Fury Roadrunner with a 190hp 400 cubic inch 4bbl V8, Sherman clocked a 0-60mph time in seven seconds flat and 17.1 seconds at 80.5mph in the quarter mile. I must admit, I tried to pick the test apart because the 0-60 and ¼ mile times seemed like they should be closer together just going by typical results.

Let’s just look at one example: Chevrolet’s first supercar, the 1966 Chevelle SS396. Hot Rod, Motor Trend and Hi Performance Cars magazines all driving different test subjects, all with the optional 360hp engine and four speed transmission, exacted a 15.7 e.t. @92mph, 15.5 e.t. @89mph and 15.85 e.t. @ 91mph, respectively. The 0-60mph times were very consistent at 7.9, 7.9 and 8.0 seconds respectively.  An 8 second flat-ish 0-60mph just sort of ‘goes with’ the mid to high 15 second quarter mile elapsed time.  

Separating 16.00+ second e.t. cars into non supercar status is logical. So though the ’75 Roadrunner’s 0-60mph is impressive, its quarter mile elapsed time doesn’t even get near a 15.99 ‘first wave’ supercar standard running from the sizzling sixties through the turbulent seventies and downsized eighties. Most would agree by 1990 the cut-off line moves to 14.99, by 2000 to 13.99 and to 12.99 in 2010. By that standard, through the lean year of the 185hp 1975 Pontiac Trans Am, virtually* nothing American-made qualified…

The ’75 Roadrunner obsessed me so much that I wrote an addendum to my “Nadir of Hair” chapter called “Will the Real Roadrunner Please Stand Up?” where I registered this meaningful complaint: The 190hp 400 V8 was not the most powerful engine you could get on the new ‘small’ Fury. Back around 1995, I had seen a 235hp number as an optional “dual exhaust” 400 4bbl engine for all Plymouth Fury two door hardtops. This was in a car magazine option table somewhere in the microfiche at the Harold Washington Library in downtown Chicago. I know not where. I should have noted the source then, but didn’t.

Why, I complained in WTRRPSU, couldn’t Car and Driver have tested a model with lower profile G-70 series tires and 14” wheels instead of the tall GR-78 tires and 15” wheels (this would effectively increase the torque multiplication) and the significantly more powerful 235hp engine? I argued the optimal ‘75 Roadrunner test subject would have run the quarter mile in the fifteen second bracket. That would place it right in there with the ’66 Chevelle SS396.

But here’s the second muscle mea culpa: I ‘self censored’ (in the spirit of retrodiction see my inaugural blog post) the figure to 225hp when, in 2002, I wrote an index of the cars covered in the chapters. This was about seven years after I first wrote the original essays. Ironically for me, who was arguing that the seventies ‘weren’t that bad,’ I was understating by ten horsepower in the index the very case I was making on page 72. Clearly, this is a case where the phrase “self editing” can be seen for the oxymoronic and (in the cruel sense) ironic phrase it is.

 

Flash forward ten years to April, 2012.  I decided it was time to to settle the question once and for all. How powerful and how fast was the ‘optimal’ Roadrunner? So first things first: No longer tied to the microfiche at Harold Washington Library as I had been years ago, I found multiple sources from 1975 saying that the dual exhaust 400 was indeed rated 235hp that year. One is the from Changing Times magazine in the December '74 new car edition. It also lists peak horsepower of 4200rpm. http://books.google....epage&q&f=false

Now the tough part: To determine how fast was a 235hp Roadrunner? Where was a road test of this more powerful ’75 Roadrunner? Does The Internet know? Maybe it does!  There's a site called "old ride.com" with this little blurb on the '75 RR. http://www.oldride.c...oad_runner.html It’s short, so here’s the whole thing…

1975 Plymouth Road Runner

“In 1975, with the [sic] increasing emissions regulations and energy concerns had all but spelled the demise of the muscle car. Plymouth continued with the Road Runner for 75, but based the model on the "New Small Fury" platform. Although most of the mechanical parts remained from previous years, the new Fury had a redesigned dash and interior, along with new exterior body sheet metal. Known as the "Tunnel" cars, for the unique deck lid decal, the 75 Road Runner was only a shadow of it's [sic] former performance platform.
Choked by catalytic converter [emphasis mine] and egr to meet Federal emission standards, the Road Runners were only lukewarm performers. Motor Trend tested a 400 4 barrel car with the 3.21 open rear axle and recorded 0-60 in 8.6 seconds and the 1/4 mile in 15.77 seconds @ 89 mph. Testers did applaud the ride and comfort of the new platform and the test car was equipped with the rear sway bar and handling package. Only 7831 1975 Road Runners were built, resulting in a car that is difficult to find body and interior parts for. The only year for this body style, it was the last Road Runner to carry the RM21 serial number.”

I was wrong, the "Nadir of Hair" of the first wave of supercars was not 1975.

But in "Will the Real Roadrunner Please Stand Up?" I was right. The optimal Roadrunner would qualify as a supercar. 

The 0-60 is much higher, but the nearly 90mph quarter mile is mighty encouraging. This had to be the 235hp car. That is, as long as the oldride.com crew are honest men.  I’d have to confirm that number. Confirm that the ’75 Roadrunner was still a supercar. 

*Except for maybe the '75 Roadrunner.

NEXT: Everything We Know is Wrong

Ron Paul's Constitutional Conundrum

I think I like Ron Paul. Really. And I like a lot of the people I see advocating for him.

I know a number of Gen X and very late boomer generation people who like Ron Paul. He's not just for the college kids. He's the only Republican who is talking about real issues like our various wars, drug, terror and otherwise. There have been some convulsions on 'the left' as I know it regarding his racist '90's newsletters. His denials that he actually wrote them are embarrassingly craven. I fancy myself as knowing more than your average bear about economics, and I'm absolutely sure there's not a rational economist alive who doesn't think that returning to a gold standard would plunge the US into a deflationary spiral. Lets face it, if Paul had is way, lots of us would be going hobo chic - ridin' the rails and singing our folk songs of lament.

But the heart of Paul's appeal to 'the left' and to the libertarian, 'small government' types stems largely from his thoroughgoing critique of the entire notion of what the Presidency should be. His emphasis on ending the US 'policing of the world' is really just a way to say that the POTUS himself shouldn't be doing it. Obama's recent insistence to Congress that he should, in theory anyway, be allowed to assassinate anyone at any time is truly chilling - he's continuing the drive toward realization of the theory of the "Unitary Executive" that was such a turn-on for Cheney-Bush.

I personally think our martial society - complete with blue-shirt thugs at the airport harassing and commanding all they survey - is in dire need of being rolled back. We've an embarrassment of riches when it comes to official gun toters and 'secret agent' men. Start with eliminating TSA, then move onto the DEA and finish with CIA. But how do you do it? How do you roll all that back - especially considering these fine folks will not take it lying down and there would likely be a new golden age of bi-partisanship when it comes to defending these delicious Democrat jobs (yes, Dems were the ones who wanted to create the confounded TSA - Cheney Bush just went along)?

It would appear the closest thing we have to an answer is contained in the convictions of a Texas Doctor who wrote 'race war' newsletters in the '90's. Congressman Paul would not likely convert into President Paul without any alterations, but when it comes to rolling back the martial society and the unitary executive, he's pretty much the only game in town...right?

If you're only looking at Presidential candidates, the answer is yes, but the problem for Paul and the problem for his supporters is that darned US Constitution he's always praising in his squeaky but sincere tone.

The framers envisioned the three branches as essentially 'self interested.' Should the judicial get too drunk with power, the framers thought that the executive and congress would jump in and slap the black robed ones around the head and neck. In our era of Presidential over-reach, it is the courts and Congress that must 'check' the the President. Let's say a miracle happened and Paul got elected. Maybe he would declare that the President doesn't get to kill anyone at anytime for 'national security.' Maybe he would send the DEA agents packing and end about 90% of the killing Mexico.

But what happens once he's gone? Maybe the pendulum would swing back and we'd get a twisted amalgam of Cheney, Nixon and Woodrow Wilson.

I can't remember the exact NPR story - I think it might have been about German holocaust museums and monuments, and I heard some commenter mention what I consider to be one of the most salient observations about politics: "States really just don't 'do' self abnegation."

This notion that the President himself would engage in a kind of self humbling simply runs counter to the entire notion of nationhood itself. There is no 'other hand' to state self glorification and by extension, Presidential power, given that he is indeed head of state. National glory is a one way street - it's 'unipolar.' 'Patriotism' is just an extension of boosterism - there's no two sides to that coin - literally no 'loyal opposition.' Power and status don't have opposites - there's just a spectrum that begins probably with the POTUS and ends with the blind beggar in India singing under the bridge. But there's another blind beggar with a better spot, and he has higher status and is damn proud of it. See what I mean? There's no opposite of status.

So if the President is too strong, you don't solve that problem by sifting through till you find one self abnegating guy who will be President because he's basically opposed to most of what the President does in the Post WWII world (although this 'over-reach' stretches back at least to Woodrow Wilson and his jailing of war protestors).

If you think, as I do, the POTUS has gotten too big for his britches, you have to look to strengthening congress. I think the most important step would be to combine the House and Senate so you don't have a "House divided against itself" to quote my favorite Republican - or hey, even a Constitutional amendment might do the trick. But electing a President who promises not to be so President-y - while it has idealism behind it that I respect - is virtually impossible to pull off and wouldn't work anyway.