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...
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
