Here comes the Judge

[flyingn]

keep in mind the speedos back then may have been quite a bit off.

[Keith Tedford]

Back in '68 I had a Ram Air 400 Firebird. The engine was balanced and blueprinted, included the Royal Bobcat kit, polyloc nuts, and headers. The rear gears had been changed to more user friendly 3.55s. With that combination the engine was still climbing very well at 130 but laid down right on 133 mph (according to the speedometer). Lifter pump up? Perhaps 150 with 2.56 gears.......or a high cliff. I've heard guys, with much slower cars, claiming much higher top speeds than mine. I'm wondering if Chrysler speedos weren't reading way high on the top end. These guys were always claiming wild top speeds. If memory serves me correctly, GM speedometers were calibrated to be accurate at about 70 mph or there abouts. There is no telling how far off the speedos were at 130. I know one thing, a two mile straight stretch of road gets used up in a hurry at that speed.

[markjohnson]

I don't think that article was a publicity thing at all for Pontiac, but instead it was just an attempt by a newspaper reporter, with a boring life obviously, to try to stir up controversy by making people think that we're surrounded by cars capable of going 150 MPH by drivers of all kinds. Riiiiight. Maybe he even succeeded. All it would take is some insurance executives to read that, do some investigating into horsepower ratings, start raising rates and BAM.......no more musclecars. Waitaminute......that's what happened!

[ORIGLS6]

My '68 Chevelle L35/M21 w/3.55 gears would go well past the 120 mark on the speedo. Now, ..... was it accurate? Who knows. But I also had a '68 Corvette with the 390 HP 427/ 4 spd and a 3:70 rear. That car had serious problems getting over 100 MPH, and when it did it got VERY light in front, ........... and scary!

[markjohnson]

You know, this does bring up a point that's not talked about very often. Mainly, the speed potential of some of these '60's and 70's musclecars on skinny, bias-ply tires. Talk about a high-speed, and even panic braking, nightmare! It's a wonder that not as many people died as could have. How would you even drive a 4-speed, 400+ horsepower, 4.11 gear'ed car in the rain or snow? Kinda fun to think about!

[Keith Tedford]

Back in the day, I don't think any of the tires available were speed rated for the speeds that some cars were capable of. Our Firebird, even at the 130 mph indicated on the speedometer, was as stable as at 60 mph. The Chevelle, with 4.10 gears wasn't going to be going 130 mph and have the engine stay in one piece. For the first three years, I drove our COPO Chevelle summer and winter. With 4.10 gears and the M20 transmission, the car was actually very good in the snow. With the idle set at 1200 rpm, I could just let out the clutch and the car would pull away without me even stepping on the gas. That engine had manners plus. Our '68 Ram Air automatic Firebird was pretty useless in the snow. No weight in the rear I guess. I have always preferred a standard transmission for winter driving. Put an inexperienced person in one of these cars in rain or snow, and they could very likely end up wrapped around a hydro pole. Spinning the tires at any speed was pretty easy to do. As far as braking goes, I never had a problem with the disc brakes. For the most part I ran big tires which probably helped too.