[Paul D]

Some of you guys may be as big a "pack rat" as me, but the other day I uncovered a May, 1962 Motor Trend in my garage attic (where I have a few thousand car rags!).

At any rate there was a Road Test by Roger Huntington entitles "421 Pontiac" that really spells out how special these early 60's Super Duty's were. My understanding is that Huntington was an engineering type who got into great detail on the technical aspects of the cars he wrote about.

I'm sure many of you know (and may want to chime in) that after 1961, I believe NHRA made a rule change requiring all cars racing in stock classes to have factory installed component rather than the dealer installed as done in previous years.

So beginning in the '62 model year the horsepower race went full tilt with race car options that the public could check the box at the dealer (if the dealer or the buyer knew about the option!!), and when it came in, drive home a factory race car.

The test car this article was as 405 horse SD Catalina, but it didn't have the aluminum front end and bumpers options. The car weighed 4070 #'s, and with ballast in the trunk and two in the car it weighed in at 4500 #'s for the test.

Here's a few quotes from the article:

"The big advantage was that we could uncap the exhaust......The big disadvantage was poor traction. The strip had recently been covered with ice and smow, was dirty, and bite was nowhere near as good as under normal drag strip conitions....."

"Here's a recap of the acceleration figures under these conditions:
0 - 30 2.7 sec
0 - 45 4.1 sec
0 - 60 5.4 sec
Quarter mile 13.9 and 107 mph"

He describes the difference between his stop watch timing and normal drag strip electronic timing.
"In other words, with regular drag strip timing we would have been turning et's of the 13.6 and 13.7 in this test."

"under optimum conditions.....would be et's around 12.5 and 112 - 115 mph?"

"the factory rates this combination at 405 hp at 5600 rpm....I took a series of accelerometer readings....The peak was a fantastic 465 hp at 5600 rpm's....and peak torque was 510 lbs.-ft at 3500! I didnt't want to believe that either. The accelerometer doesn't lie...."

Roger concluded the article by saying, "I must say this new 421 Pontiac is a terrific piece of automobile. I'm still shaking!!"