I remember way back in 1974, my brother had a 69 GTO that he used to run occasionally at a local track in Ontario, Canada. He ran steady mid-14's, no posi, the car had 50,000 miles. I actually have home movies of that car running his friends 69 Dart 340, they were dead even. Anyway, when the SD-455's came out, my brother had NO respect for these 8:1 compression "new" cars, and he thought it was ridiculous how the magazines were touting them as "old Musclecar power". As luck would have it, a brand new Buccaneer Red SD-455 Trans Am appeared at the track one weekend. Since the track did not have board lights to announce the et's, we watched it run a couple times, thought it was SLOW. It made no noise, at least nothing we could hear in the grandstands, as most cars ran open headers back then. We found the car in the pits, and my brother sort of laughed that someone would bring a "new" car to the track. I remember it had a black interior, auto trans, and a/c (which meant it had a 3.08 posi). We assumed it would run high 15's. The driver's side window was down, and it smelled new.
So with about 40 to 1 odds of actually lining up with this lone SD-455 car, my brother actually got paired up with the Trans Am. I was riding shotgun (local track, they didn't care), and my brother told me to watch the Trans Am (passenger side) and tell him how much he was beating him by.
We launched, and the Trans Am immediately jumped about a car length (remember, my brother's car had no posi), we pulled up a little in the mid range, then stayed even on the top end, then the Trans Am actually pulled a little on us. I didn't have much to report to my brother while going down the track, the Trans Am was right there the whole way! We picked up the time slip, and my brother ran a 14.41 at 96 mph, the Trans Am ran a 14.32 at 98 mph.
My brother was stunned, and a little embarrassed. The smog motored, ultra quiet, 4000 lb, brand new car with about 500 miles on the odometer defeated my brothers mighty 69 GTO. When we later found out the a/c equipped cars had 3.08 gears, we were impressed beyond belief. With a 3.42 gear and an open scoop, we figured 14.0's were quite possible.
Simply amazing performance, especially considering all the handicaps the SD-455's were straddled with. The SD-455 is still the most impressive performer of the era in my opinion. It wasn't the fastest Musclecar ever in stock trim, but considering how far it was from being "maximized" from the factory, hindered by a .408 lift cam, 8:1 compression, an EGR intake, not even a cold air induction setup, it's quite impressive.
