Camaro, Challenger, Shelby: Old vs New Cars
Hot-Rod Time Machine: Just How Good Were the Good Ol' Days?
It's abundantly clear from the hard evidence presented in these pages over the past months that these are the best of times for car guys, if vehicle performance is your measure of such things. And yet, yank a geezer's chain at a car show, and he'll jabber on about how the new ponycars just can't compare with those of the late 1960s and early '70s. Is there anything to these lunatic ravings? To find out, we've gathered three modern high-spec ponycars and matched them with their glory days ancestors. We're pitting a 2011 Camaro SS against the '69 Camaro SS396 that inspired its design; a 2011 Challenger SRT8 meets the '70 Challenger it so faithfully resembles (ours is an R/T SE 440 Six Pack); and a freshly minted Shelby Mustang GT500 convertible meets its '69 forebear. We'll turn them all loose on a closed section of road in L.A. 's Griffith Park and see what happens, but first, let's have a look at those good old days.
The late 1960s was a golden era for American automakers. Those pesky imports were nibbling away at the margins, but at the dawn of 1970, they accounted for a little over 11 percent of sales. Design reigned supreme, and designers had yet to be reined in to any great extent by buzz-kill pedestrian safety regs, crash-survivability standards, bumper strength laws, aerodynamics, etc. Gasoline was plentiful and cheap, and engineers were finding better ways to burn as much of it as possible in halo performance models that earned the brands big headlines and drove sales up. Vehicular variety was on the upswing, too, with new automotive platforms of different sizes and configurations making their debut throughout the 1960s.
All those babies conceived by randy veterans returning home from World War II were now grownups ready to buy their first new cars, and they accounted for 20 percent of the market. They didn't want what Dad was driving. They wanted a car to lure a backseat mate -- something with a long phallic hood, two doors, and a pert, short trunk. They wanted ponycars. To keep the cars affordable, OEMs shared compact-car underpinnings, and prices started just a bit higher (Dodge and Plymouth moved their ponies up to midsize architecture for 1970). The formula worked. By 1970, the pony market topped a half-million annual sales.
At their peak, each pony offered the choice of at least nine regular production engine offerings, from thrifty sixes to fire-breathing V-8s. Stuff a pony's hood with one of the multi-throat-carbureted monster motors, and it could fog the landscape with testosterone and tire smoke. Spec the six-banger, and it still told the world you were a carefree, playful type utterly unconcerned about practical considerations like trunk spaceand a serviceable rear seat (optional reclining front seats provided ample accommodation for mating rituals). Come to think of it, that last bit may have more to do with our geezers' fond remembrances of these cars than their actual aptitude for going, turning, and stopping, but by all measures these cars represented a bang for the performance buck that's not unlike what their descendents deliver today.
With pricing for an upper-echelon V-8 pony ranging from $4000-$5000, these cars marked the price point of entry to six-second 0-60 and mid-14-second quarter-mile acceleration, and that bargain-performance image stuck with these steeds even through the dark horsepower ages of the mid '70s and '80s. How affordable were they? That price range translates to $22,500-$28,000 today, but in terms of affordability they were closer to today's V-8 ponies, which typically range from $31,000-$45,000 (our GT500 convertible is an outlier, starting at $54,495). Back in 1970, that range equaled 34 to 42 weeks' worth of the average American's earnings; today it amounts to 40-57 weeks' worth.
Camaro vs. Camaro
Now let's see how these familial cars compare, starting with the Camaros. Musclecar collector and former actor Ken Funk is first and foremost a Mopar guy, but he couldn't resist this rare Rallye Green '69 SS396 when it came up for sale four years ago sporting all the drag-racer goodies: L78 solid-lifter 375-horse big block, M22 "Muncie rock-crusher" four-speed manual, front disc brakes, and even the rally gauge package down by the shifter, which has been replicated in the new car.
As is generally the case with retro-redux cars, the new Camaro dwarfs the old one, stretching nearly a foot longer, a half-foot taller, and 1.7 inches wider. We've carped plenty about the new car's bunker visibility, and climbing into the original cabin validates our point. Its delicate A-pillars and lack of B-pillars provide an airy greenhouse, albeit one that wouldn't slow a moose down significantly or preserve much headroom if you turned it turtle. The rest of the interior is quaintly finished in shiny plastic, vinyl, and oh-so-fake wood. Dodgy "ergonomics" (had Detroit yet uttered the word in 1969?) involve a mishmash of vertical sliders, buttons, and knobs. While the new Camaro is no paragon of intuitive controls, it's infinitely better.
The delicate bucket seats offer minimal lateral support, but maybe that's okay-the period-correct Firestone Wide-O-Oval F70-15 bias ply tires generate minimal grip in any direction. Turning and stopping were never the strong suits of a big-block pony. (SCCA Trans Am homologation specials like the Z/28, Mustang Boss 302, and Challenger T/A were the choice for the stringback-glove set.) With all that iron plunked on the front axle and pinky-finger power steering assist, the driver remained blissfully unaware of the road surface the tires were squealing past.
Clutch and shifter travel are considerably longer than expected today, but each has a satisfying mechanical precision. Toe deeply into the accelerator, and the engine's thrust persists far higher up the rev-counter than expected. This big-valved heavy breather likes to rev, which is why you need the manual transmission-the automatics upshift too early. Still, this 6.5-liter big-block's 375 gross ponies are no match for the 6.2-liter Small-Block's 426 net steeds. Routed through more ratios and modern rubber, they charge through the quarter mile in just 12.9 seconds at 110.8 mph-1.9 seconds and 12.1 mph faster than the SS396. The disparity in 60-0-mph braking is even greater, at 112 feet versus 143. No, the real joy to be had in this old car (its buckets do not recline) is in breathing its unburned hydrocarbons and listening to the lumpy loping idle of that high-overlap cam. But there is a better-sounding car here.
Challenger vs. Challenger
Jack Thomas supervises set construction for the hit TV show "How I Met Your Mother" at Paramount Pictures. He bought this 1970 Challenger as a basket case and lovingly restored it in his driveway. It's a rare R/T loaded with SE trim (power windows!) that was special-order painted in the Imperial color Charcoal Iridescent. Originally equipped with a 440 Magnum four-barrel, Thomas' rebuild upgraded it to a 390-horse 440 Six Pack-the top-spec "wedge" motor that stood one rung below the mighty 426 Hemi on the performance ladder.
With 7.2 liters' worth of lung capacity singing through two big exhaust pipes and six carburetor throats, it was judged the vocal champ of the vintage class. As a reminder of how unpredictable working with children, animals, and old cars can be, our Challenger lost a heater hose clamp on the way to the photo shoot, showering the engine and distributor with coolant that fouled some plug wires. This caused our Dodge to play the diva all day, refusing to idle and clearing her throat constantly. A late-night session replacing plug wires and meticulously cleaning the engine compartment got her back to belting out luscious bass notes like Harvey Fierstein's Edna Turnblad.
