The fastest muscle car?

In reply to Vajingo :

You didn't misapply "muscle car". Some people just don't seem to grasp what that means. They also don't understand "American, pre-1975."

If you asked "What 4-door, full size SUV should I buy", ten people on here would say you should buy a Miata and another ten would suggest you buy a Mercedes sedan and LS swap it.

It's just the way things work around here.

It's a tricky question for sure. There are a few in the running. I would think it would be one of these:



The Hemi Dart. Lightweight everything, a honkin' Hemi under the hood, and a disclaimer saying you are SOL on having a warranty. But, were these were expensive, special order only vehicles reserved for drag racing teams and not the everyday consumer. Plus, the only turning they would be doing is back on the return road at the drag strip.

Then, there are facrtory-endorsed, dealer-installed package cars like the GTO Ram Air V:



These were pretty crazy for their time. They ran low 12's in the 1/4 when tuned properly. Again, these were ultra rare back then and not widely available.

So that leaves stuff like the LS6 Chevelle SS, Hemi and 440 6-Pack Mopars, and others. I'm picking the 1970 Buick GSX Stage 1:



As stated earlier, these had 510 lb ft of torque. They were also equipped with discs up front, fat sway bars, and 15x8 Buick Road Wheels, which was about as fat and wide as you could get from the factory back then. By today's standards, they handle like an elephant on roller skates, especially on those bias ply tires, but this was as good as it got off the showroom floor in an intermediate-sized muscle car. Like the Ram Air V Pontiacs, if you wanted to get crazy, you could opt for the Stage II package while you're ordering the car for some extra oomph.

1988RedT2 said:

This thread got me to thinking about the Chevy II (a very legitimate "muscle car") and I was trying to remember who it was that campaigned a Chevy II in road racing back in the mid-60's?  Novas are almost universally thought of as drag machines, but I recall that this guy had some success with it on a road course.

Bill Thomas.  He put a Corvette engine in a 1962 Chevy II, along with the Corvette's independent rear suspension, and called it Bad Bascom.   It was outlawed, and then later sold to Dick Harrell, who turned it into a 427 Z-11 powered drag car with a custom fastback roof that he called Retribution II.  (The factory didn't offer a V8 chevy II until 1964, so this car wouldn't qualify as a genuine muscle car).

That picture above of the number 58 car, looks like that's at the old Riverside Raceway in SoCal... since replaced by a mall, of course, sigh... we can never have enough malls out here...

In reply to kb58 :

It was Riverside.  The car ran in only one race; it was entered in a production class, but since it was so modified from stock the SCCA banned it after that.

An article about the car in its road racing configuration: http://www.superchevy.com/features/1708-bill-thomas-stuffed-a-lot-of-corvette-into-his-1962-chevrolet-chevy-ii-bad-bascom-to-go-road-racing/

An article about the car in its later drag racing configuration: https://selvedgeyard.com/2015/02/05/legendary-chevy-ii-fiberglass-fastback-bill-thomas-badass-build-for-ckc-racing/

ShawnG said:

NOT A TA said:

Vajingo said:

Would this be easier if I just said "American cars, pre '75, rwd"?

The OP changed the parameters ^^^.

Shelby Cobra. 

D'oh!  How could I have forgotten? And Backdraft Racing is just down the street! Good call !!!

Snrub said:

AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:

The fastest muscle car....  easy Chevy SS.

Corvettes and Pony cars are not muscle cars.

 

low 13s at 108 to 109.  

By that definition, what about the Charger Hellcat RedEye with just shy of 2x the power?

YES!!!!!  Modern muscle.  
 

If we start modding, I want the LS powered car though.

I spent a lot of time at old car shows and drag races 20 years ago.  2 seaters are definitely not muscle cars.  Muscle cars are intermediate or full sized cars you can take your family around town in and drag race on the weekend.  Camaros, Mustangs, AMX / Javelin, and Challenhers were pony cars.  Easy tip if it raced in old school SCCA trans am it's a pony car or sports car, not a muscle car.  
 

The first purpose built muscle car was the Pontiac GTO brought to you by DeLorean.  While older cars can fit the mold, they weren't intended to be musclecars like the GTO.

No one really wants anything like them today except for a few oddball car guys.  

In reply to goingnowherefast :

Well then you gotta take the ZL1 1LE too, even faster.  But alas they are pony cars.

In reply to Tony Sestito :

I drag raced in a domestic car club for many years while in the Navy.  One of my friends had a black GS Stage 1 car on our team, 3 speed auto.  On M&H race masters with a strong 12 bolt it would run 13.7 at 100 all day long everyday.  They were not the fastest muscle cars  because Buick added luxury and weight.  It was one of the most consistent cars I've ever seen and my friend could cut great lights.

The saddest drag race I ever saw was a 426 hemi Plymouth Superbird vs. a 429 Mercury Cougar Eliminator.  It was heartbreaking.  
 

I was racing my fairly new 97 Mustang Cobra and it was considerably quicker (mid to high 13s at 101-103).  The fastest production car in our club was a 99 Z28 with an aftermarket airbox and exhaust cutout.  It was good for 12.8 to 13.0 at 107-108 all day long.  
 

I think my little Mustang SVO ran times on par with many of the legendary muscle cars I saw at Bremerton and Pacific Raceway (formerly SIR).  Both are pretty quick near sea level tracks.

I'm Glad someone posted the '70 Buick GSX in Saturn yellow. I've been trying to buy one parked in a salvage yard shop for .......well a very long time. Guy won't part with it. 

I have throw the 1966 Buick Gran Sport in the mix. This looks like the one I had except for the red stripe on the side. Mine had a Nail Head V-8 and a Super Turbine 400 Automatic.  Wish I still had it.

AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said

I spent a lot of time at old car shows and drag races 20 years ago.  2 seaters are definitely not muscle cars.  Muscle cars are intermediate or full sized cars you can take your family around town in and drag race on the weekend.  Camaros, Mustangs, AMX / Javelin, and Challengers were pony cars.  Easy tip if it raced in old school SCCA trans am it's a pony car or sports car, not a muscle car.  

The first purpose built muscle car was the Pontiac GTO brought to you by DeLorean.  While older cars can fit the mold, they weren't intended to be musclecars like the GTO.  

Well, there was the 1964 Pontiac Tempest that Herb Adams raced in SCCA Trans Am, called the Gray Ghost. http://www.speedhunters.com/2016/08/gray-ghost-rides/

In reply to stuart in mn :

Pretty sure that's my favorite GTO of all time. Just look at it! IT HAS FLARES!!!

In reply to stuart in mn :

When I started making Lab-14 parts to reinforce suspension and other chassis points on the 2nd gen F bodies I talked with Harry Quackenboss who was one of the engineers who was involved with the gray ghost and became the chassis engineer for the Herb Adams Firebirds and NASCAR team. He's still around AFIK and occasionally pops up on a forum. Last time I saw a post by him was on Nasty-Z28. He became the head engineer at Delorean when that company started. 

And now we're way off topic. How many directions can posts in this thread go?

Just so we're clear, we're looking for the fastest car in stock form with no mods, American, and pre 75?  

70 Chevelle SS LS6 if optioned correctly.  The M21 was a little faster than the TH400, and the 4.10s were faster than the 3.73 or 3.42 cars.  There were a very small handful of COPO versions of those cars that came with no radio, no A/C, no power steering, and no power brakes to shave every possible pound.

They are also incredibly rare and sell for well into the 6 or even 7 figures in some markets.  One report I heard was that they made about 300 of them, only about 155 of them got the 427, and only about 24 of them had the LS6.  Total COPO Chevelles known to be still in circulation is estimated at 66.

You'll find that the fastest ones are the ones that get pushed onto the paddock at a Mecum auction and really rich people buy them.  I, for one, would rather buy an I-6 Chevelle for $3000 and drop in a junkyard 454 with modern heads and a nice cam.  Blow away all the LS6 and COPO cars for $6000 instead of $6,000,000

The real allure of buying a car from the muscle car era was not necessarily in buying the fastest stocker, it's that you could buy a bone-stock base model for way cheaper realizing that the only real difference between the $500 base model and the $50,000 rarity is that one had a big engine and the other one had a small engine.  So, if you're buying a muscle car to be fast in stock form, be prepared to pay insane amounts of money.  If you want to get an even faster car for 1/10th the investment, it won't be an original stock car.  This is exactly why I got a 67 LeMans instead of a GTO.  If I paid big bucks for a wasted GTO, my best investment is to restore it to original.  Then I have a 360-gross-hp car (maybe 275hp by today's standards) that needs race fuel and an insurance policy bigger than the one on my house.  Instead, I will have about $20k total investment in a LeMans with a 550hp LS that drinks pump gas or E85.

Fastest stock muscle car is bloody expensive.  A fastER non-stock muscle car can be dirt cheap.

Edit... having said that, I am not in any way poo-pooing your desire to own a piece of American History.  We NEED people like that who are interested in keeping those rare gems alive, I'm just offering my opinion.

If you are willing to go not-stock, then you have really opened up the can of cheap worms.  By 1972-73, smog laws and new SAE hp rating criteria caused hp numbers to drop like crazy.  One year you had a solid-cammed, high compression whopper and the next year you had a tiny cam, low compression wheezer that (as if it's not bad enough) the numbers on paper dropped because of the new rating methods.  A 1970 Chevelle SS might sell for $10k as a complete basket case, but a 1973 Chevelle might sell for $5k as a runner.  Perception and market demand.  For many years I was the king of 70s boats and sleds.  Buy wheezer 1973-ish car (knowing that it was the same basic guts as a 1969 of the same name) and build some big-cube engine for it.

Curtis, The cars need to turn and forget the term muscle car. The current parameters set by the OP are

"American cars, pre '75, rwd" Road course, Auto-X, and drag strip

I'm thinking ShawnG's answer of Shelby Cobra is going to be hard to beat.

Dangit... hard to keep up 

Gotcha.  Cobra is a good one, although an actual pre-1975 Shelby Cobra is a 7-figure museum piece.  Millions of replicas, but depending on the state they will be titled as the year they were built, not the year they represent.

GT40 might work.

Were all of the Panteras built in Modena, or were some built here?  They at least had Ford running gear.

ShawnG said:

If you asked "What 4-door, full size SUV should I buy", ten people on here would say you should buy a Miata and another ten would suggest you buy a Mercedes sedan and LS swap it.

It's just the way things work around here.

You've been here before, ain't'cha...

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

The OP never said it had to be affordable.  A GT40 is a solid 7 figures too.

1975 puts you in big block Cobra territory so it would be a 100% American built car. The smallblocks were a body-in-white from AC. This makes a Cobra more American than a Pantera.

By 67 the l88 corvettes were usually beating the cobras and become the go to American gt racer with many many wins.

My father was almost a walking encyclopedia of this stuff.  He's the one who got me interested in cars by promising to buy me a Popular Hot Rodding magazine if I aced Friday's second grade spelling test.  This was 1978.  So a few years went by and after a birthday subscription to Hot Rod Magazine (because it was the "original" my dad said) I became the walking encyclopedia.  One night while we waited in the parking lot of the IGA store for mom to finish the weekly grocery shopping, dad asked me why I cared so much about all those numbers.  I said that it was because I wanted to go fast.  Dad pointed out a rusty nondescript 2002 sitting in the parking lot.  Being that we lived in the Appalachian Mountains and the roads were quite European in their width and multitude of different directions and elevations, dad said "on a real road under real circumstances, that car right there will outrun any of the ones in your magazines."

Edit: and as it turns out, and many leather clad "squids" can attest, the same holds true for that ugly "beak-bike" the GS.  The only place it's slow is on paper.  

racerfink said:

About 15 years ago, Peter Klutt did a show where they put a bunch of the big hitter muscle cars through their paces.  Drag racing, autocross, braking, slalom, skid pad, the works.  The winner was the 1970 LS7 Chevelle SS.

(Might have been Hnitaw as the host, but I seem to remember Klutt)

Any idea what the show was called? I’m trying to get a 6 mo old to sleep and getting nowhere. I could use something like this to watch :)

In reply to P3PPY :

Legenday Motorcar

P3PPY said:

racerfink said:

About 15 years ago, Peter Klutt did a show where they put a bunch of the big hitter muscle cars through their paces.  Drag racing, autocross, braking, slalom, skid pad, the works.  The winner was the 1970 LS7 Chevelle SS.

(Might have been Hnitaw as the host, but I seem to remember Klutt)

Any idea what the show was called? I’m trying to get a 6 mo old to sleep and getting nowhere. I could use something like this to watch :)

Dream car garage