King of the Muscle Cars

[Lee Stewart]

IMO - two things that were important for a muscle car: gearing and the driver. Most muscle cars came with 3.55 gears, even the high horsepower cars. You look at all the road test from the 1960s and very few had optimum gearing (3.90 - 4.11). Most were in the 3.23 - 3.55 range.

As for the driver - it mainly applied to manual shift cars. When Chrysler held their "shootout" for their new A12 they had a couple of "regular guys" and Ronnie Sox. Sox was ALWAYS a few tenths lower than the other guys. When Chrysler decided to see what a pure stock A12 could do they removed the entire air cleaner assembly and Ronnie Sox shifted without the clutch at 5200 RPM (which Chrysler engineers told Sox was the best shift point) and posted a 12.91 ET. With the ACA = 13.00