When you absolutely positively have to get there quickly

[bdm]

I had a 1973 Plymouth Sebring 318 motor held up good with the rust only problem was the ballast resistor control module

[Allen]

Cars maybe don't rust as much anymore and tha'ts hardly a problem in the desert, but they must paint them with water colors now days.

That's the clear coat cooking off. It generally holds up well but constant sunlight with no shade will cook it.

[JB White]

Ford used to import De Tomaso's Pantera back in the early 70's. That had a mid mounted 351 Cleveland as well. Those were fun so long as they were moving. Otherwise they wanted to overheat due to insufficient air flow. Top end was barely over half as fast as the GT in the OP.
At 300+ mph I no longer have what it takes to keep it sunny side up....if in fact I ever actually did. Used to think I did at speeds between 140 to 180. I was young and dumb and full of....*ahem*....adrenaline back then.

[lyman]

buddy in high school had a 68 camaro that was built for the strip,
hot rod 350 bored out to maybe 368 or some such,
it would flat out scoot,
no front inner fenderwells, aluminum deck lid, cage, can't remember what else

crappy mileage, of course, but fast



another guy had a factory 427 Cougar, that car was damn scary to ride in

[shadycon]

20 to and 20 back =40 miles. 40 miles in 10 minutes = 240 mph and that doesn't allow time to find a bucket and fill it with wet sand. I don't think I need to add the additional 5 miles in. 15 minutes would be 160 mph. Still a stretch.

It's been a long time ago, so the bet was probably 30 min, but he won the bet.
Losing a few brain cells over time.

[Allen]

At 300+ mph I no longer have what it takes to keep it sunny side up....if in fact I ever actually did. Used to think I did at speeds between 140 to 180. I was young and dumb and full of....*ahem*....adrenaline back then.

A sign of the times. We used to have only 2 lane roads and had NO traffic problems. Once, my grandmothers sister came to visit us. She had a brand new '64 T-bird with the 390. The speedometer was like a thermometer reading sideways to 120 (no needle). She took my brother and I bowling one night, the lanes being about 15 miles away. For most of the trip she (for our amusement) pegged the speedometer for most of the trip and this was my grandmothers sister. You could feel the car accelerate beyond what was showing. Not only did we not see any cops, we didn't meet a single car. My mother use to roller skate on the state highways here w/o seeing any cars. Kids at high school would brag about how many cars they could pass at a time on 2 lane highways. One guy claimed 19.

In 1971 Alabama purchased AMX Javelins (401 engine) for the state troopers. All of them were impressed with the performance, some would let people who had hot cars race with them (w/o being ticketed).

My first car was a 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado with 385hp.
Our family cars included a '65 T-bird and '68 Olds 88 with the 455.
My brother had a '67 Olds 442 and a '65 Buick Super Wildcat with a 445ci engine with 2 factory equipped 4bbl carbs.

All the above were considered luxury performance cars. They were all heavy clunky cars but they sure did ride nice. All are missed too.

I guess we all could tell tales of driving or at least being in a car being driven 120-160mph in our younger days.

Now it takes several minutes to just access a highway, then you will be driving bumper to bumper for the entire trip. IF you can make it to the speed limit you consider yourself fortunate.

[JB White]

Ahh..the AMX. Fellow in the neighborhood did some impressive things with the pair he owned. I turned wrenches and drove sometimes on a Chevelle belonging to another friend. I could turn ET's in the mid 12's. A few tenths quicker than he was doing. I was more aggressive and went the extra r's on the tach, but I had him convinced it was because I weighed less than he did.
I drove mostly Fords as every day cars. But I was able to tweak (not build) a fully loaded 67 New Yorker into the low 14's in the quarter just for grins. That was a fun Saturday night sleeper for a few years.
Someone at the time had a couple of 'show off photos' I wish I now had. In the neighborhood launching off a brake torque. Front wheels barely touching the ground and smoke pouring out of the fender skirts....we used to impress ourselves.

[Merc]

I don’t have any muscle car stories that I like to talk about. I lost three good buddies in a 409 Chevy in 1962 that hit a steel pole going 90 MPH.

My sister passed along a beautiful silver 2013 Audi S4 to me two years ago. It has a supercharged 333 HP V6 engine in a compact-like sized 3400 pound car body and it’s probably the fastest car I’ve ever driven. My daughter claimed it.

Let’s talk about what’s out there today.

I bought a technically interesting car last September. It’s a 2018 Toyota Highlander Hybrid SUV. The power train consists of one V6 gas engine and two electric motors, one on each axel, that produce a total of 309 HP. The electric motor on the rear axel makes it AWD. The transmission is a CVT (Constantly Variable Transmission) so there’s no gears to shift. It has two driving modes: Standard and Eco. Standard mode is fast and powerful but isn’t as economical as the Eco mode. Flip a switch on the dash from Standard to the Eco mode and the on-board computer cuts the horsepower and AC back a little which allows more MPG. I can run on pure battery power for miles on level roads if I stay below 45 MPH. Braking and coasting charges the traction batteries when driving around town. The gas engine charges them on the highway. The computer says I get an average of 28 MPG overall, 25 MPG around town and 31 out on the highway. I’d probably get more MPG if I lived in flat Kansas instead of hilly Pittsburgh. Still, not too bad for a 4900 pound SUV.

The safety features include things like collision avoidance, lane departure, cross traffic alarm, interactive cruise control and probably a few more things that I’m not aware of.

[shadycon]

Did you hear what one car said to the other after the accident?
Why didn't you stop when I stopped for the human in the crosswalk?
My sensors are dirty and my human won't clean them!

[dryheat]

Maybe they called it the AMX Javelin to dis associate them from AMC. American Motors built some of the ugliest junk ever to have four wheels. I owned a Pacer wagon once. Something broke weekly. Some things broke time after time. If you drove through a puddle of water the distributor cap got flooded. I got to where I could pull over, open the hood, pull the cap and wipe everything down and be back on the road in two minutes. Both rear springs rusted completely through and broke. There was rust in the gas tank. One day the entire muffler/tail pipe just broke off. That was the rust problems. Plenty of other problems. The bell housing shattered. The water pump disintegrated. One day the whole ignition lock work fell out with all these little copper parts everywhere. I ended up towing that thing to the junk yard. Very happy day.