your fave pony & GT cars...

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cfz2882

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time to discuss "pony"and/or "GT" type cars you own,almost owned,or really like,
etc...
-'69 camaro:from camaro's early"pony"era,mine was an early '69:#149,aug '68
build,it had some '68 features that would be changed as the long '69 run went on
into calender 1970.Bought as an engineless junker for $250 in 1986,i used the
engine(350) ,tranny and other parts from my nova to fix it up ito a typical
teenage hotrod :) Though '69 camaros have "icon" status and i really liked this
car,it was easily the biggest P.O.S. i have ever owned LOL-lots of miss-molded
plastic parts,miss stamped metal parts,too thin wiring,iffy workmanship...
OTOH,the seats and(delux)interior panels were well made.Sold this in 2004.
-'82 camaro z28:Bought in 1990 in good shape for $4500,had original 305 carb/
borg warner super t-10 4spd-swapped this for '84 vette crossfire 350 engine and
th 350 1n 1994.in 1995 modified the crossfire injection for a big power
increase and swapped in a 700r4 4spd auto.Car still in good shape after having
it 22yrs and my fave highway cruizer-ultra smooth and stable and huge tidal
wave of torque.Pretty fast of the line too,but handicapped by weight some VS
my '69 camaro('69,with lessor engine and steeper gears was way fast off the
line!)
-'81 porsche 928:got in 2004,standard 220 hp 4.5L/5spd-pretty fast by 1981
new car standards,it lacks the sheer torque of my z28 and isn't as smooth
but as one would expect,the brakes and suspension are much more sophisticated
and better than those on the chevy(steering pretty good on the z28 actually,
but brakes (4 whl disc)just too small for the job...) This 31 yr old german
has been ultra reliable but i am carefull not to do anything stupid that
could result in expensive parts being needed :)
The "strongly considered" list..
1965 mustang fastback:checked this in '85;2 barrel 289/4speed,was original in
pretty decent shape,but had the standard falcon type instrument cluster...
White with blue stripes and the usuall faux knockoff wheel covers,seller was
asking $2500...
1965 barracuda:at a rummage sale in '85 for $800,had 273"super commando"v8 and
IIRC,4spd.Needed paint and other work expected for a 20yr old classic car..
 
My 2003 Hyundai Elantra GT has the lettering "GT" on the back, does that count? :)

Seriously, my first sports car was a 1991 Toyota Supra. Straight Six, Twin Turbo. Great car, but had a truck transmission and rowed like one. Lots of blind spots too. Moved like a bat out of hell.

My current sports car is a 2010 BMW 135i, which is a kind of a spiritual successor to the Supra.. 3.0 Litre, Straight six, Twin Turbo, 300 HP.. what a fantastic recipe! Smooth power delivery...

I really wish the domestics would build a car using this formula. It's just a fantastic balance of power and fuel economy.

Part of me wishes Buick would bring back the Grand National... They did turbocharging right. That is how you build a modern pony car! :) (No offense to current Mustang owners!)

I'll admit, I've never driven anything built before 1969...

If Ford actually made the new Mustangs with their "Ecoboost" technology and developed the platform so it had some legroom, I'd consider buying one. I don't fit in a modern Mustang. :(
 
I've always had a soft spot in my heart for the 1965 Chrysler Barracuda. The Slant Six had a lot of turbocharging potential... Shame they didn't know how to back then.

(Which irks me, because they were building freaking TURBINE cars during that time!)

I'll admit, I wasn't too much of a fan of when they changed the grill for the 1966 model year. The '65's have a very Virgil Exner like style to them I really like.

I kind of piss off 'cuda owners because I mention that they should have designed the car with a small engine, kind of like the Toyota 2JZ-GTE or the Nissan RB26DETT. (Twin Turbo, Inline 6, about 3.0 liters.)
 
Still ever the Mopar Freek! The way Chrysler USED to build

For me it's the Dodge Challenger--the way it was built 1970-1974, of which the new ones, 2008-Present cannot capture the completely true essence...!

The Plymouth Barracuda was almost as good, but Mopar should have learned maybe in its final original years, the Challenger didn't need a "corporate stable mate", least in that 1972-1974 stage...

Wish I could get a new one, but Chrysler doesn't seem to be putting enough into the car as Chevy does w/ its Camaro and Ford does with its 'Stang! (And no "special incentives", yet, either, when all I want is a basic model; no Hemi...)

Surely something has got to give, and it will have what Chrysler is putting into its other cars, (though I can't stand the speedometer & tachometer w/ the fuel & temperature gauge below each one in the same pod, w/ the occasional oil & temp. gauges up in between them) and maybe have some of the tweaks that made it unique back in the day (bringing back some more colors & keeping 'em would also help!)...

I'm waiting around, while around here in the snow-belt area & given my current living conditions, I am still fighting the need for buying a truck/van/SUV, or being better off with, which would be more practical, and w/ my aging Honda's reliability sometimes in question--or just to have put way to much money in 'er...

-- Dave
 
Of the 3 Mustang's I owned, my faves were the 85 GT, and the 84 SVO....kickass cars, but no traction in rain or snow.......once traded, when the need hit, I'd borrow my Brothers 84 GT Convertible, the ultimate tanning machine......all of course with a 5-speed.......

a Wolf in Sheeps clothing was my 93 Taurus SHO, which I just sold.......for the most part a plain four door sedan, until you lifted the hood.....mega intakes for outstanding power.....teamed with a dealer installed ford hyper chip.....tap the pedal and burn rubber everytime......

very few cars I truly loved, and the main one, 1985 Chrysler Laser XT Turbo coupe.......this was a turbo in every sense......and didn't know the meaning of turbo lag.......add to it, Front Wheel Drive....traction, economy, power......mine also was digital and talked......CR gave it a bad rap for the talking car, and yet today they give high scores to the ones that do have SYNC! .... go figure!

I'd like to see more cars go TURBO again......4 cyl economy and V8 power
 
You could call it a GT I guess...

our '69 Jag E-Type fhc (short wheelbase) coupe in Wedgewood Blue and Navy leather... Gawd, I loved that car. Too bad everytime you drove it something really expensive went wrong... still, it had to be one of the sexiest cars ever buiilt, and a real blast to drive. Wish we still had it.
 
My favorite GT would be a '70 Plymouth Sport Fury GT!

 

But I guess that's about as close to a GT as Qualin's Elantra GT!

 

I like big cars!
 
'70 Plymouth Fury...

like this? not a GT, but it is a convert, they didn't make a Sport Fury convert that year ('70 was last year for full size converts, only 1950 were made), but Plymouth did make a Fury III convert, our summer car, yes, we like the big ones too:

firedome++2-22-2012-14-07-34.jpg
 
My baby

Sice I was a little kid, having a Corvette was my dream. I bought my 1981 from the original owner when it was 4 years old and have had it ever since. Has every option and just shy of 50,000 original miles and surprisingly gets almost 25 mpg on the road. Its only used on nice days and has been a very spoiled child since new

wayupnorth++2-22-2012-14-57-32.jpg
 
Mustang's !!!

I've always had a thing for Ford Mustang's as my first car was a 64 1/2 convertible (sadly long gone). I currently have a 72 Mustang coupe that I restored over a period of about 4 years.

pdub++2-22-2012-15-03-7.jpg
 
It has a stock 302 V8 with a 2 barrel carb and C4 cruise-o-matic transmission. It was a California car so the original owner ordered it with air conditioning. Here is a pic of the front.

pdub++2-22-2012-15-05-12.jpg
 
ROAD RUNNER!

Or Charger 68 and 69!!! I read once that in the movie Bullit, they had to modify the Mustang so it would keep up with the Charger!!! That black Charger was tough!!
 
2013 GT 500 with 650 HP, 200+ top speed.. ahh well someday. I always liked the pre 82 Firebird Trans Ams, had a 81 Black and Gold with 4 speed, 305 4bbl, not much power, but with the WS6 package, it handled great for it's day and was fun to drive.

On the Fury GT, I am reading George Pelecano's new book, "What it was" which starts out Chapter 1 "It was a Plymouth Fury, the GT Sport, a two door 440 V-8 with hidden headlamps and a four-barrel carb."

I like the big cars too, have a 68 Impala Convertable.
 
Mmmmhmmmm... 2013 GT500.... Sexy as ever.

My dad owned a 2007 Mustang GT. I loved that car. Had a lot of pep. We installed wider GT500 pirelli tires, and some under-the-hood modifications like a cold air intake.

We own a 1961 Thunderbird, but its not really a Pony/gt car at all. More of a powerful luxury land yacht.
 
I have a 1975 Plymouth Duster in lucerne poly blue that I bought off a barracks mate in 1980. It came with a 318 mated to a three speed manual transmission with a stick shift. Once the front and rear anti sway bars were installed the car was a blast to drive. One of these days I'll get around to restoring it.

Speaking of restorations, you did a fantastic job on that Mustang, Patrick.
 
1st gen camaros

some good ones there-i kinda miss my old '69 camaro sometimes despite the quality
problems i mentioned with mine.Just loved the look inside and out and it was a
blast to drive-didn't handle near as good as my '82 z28,but in a way was more
"tossable"thanks to it's lower weight.Today you can even buy replica bodyshells
for the early camaro;they are from taiwan and cost about $15,000(no thanks,i'll
take a real one,complete, for less$ LOL)For mustang,i like the '71-73 versions-
lots of mustang guys disliked these for years,but they are starting to get more
recognition as true ford classics last 5 yrs or so.A friend recently scored a '92
mustang GT in really clean shape;with it's mildly modified 5L and stick tranny,
its pretty fast for the era,but not as fast as his stock '02 z28.
 
Camaro Story . . .

A friend of mine had one of the very first Camaros made. In the fall of '66 he was a young guy working for his dad's contracting business when they had a project at a local Chevy dealership in the San Fernando Valley part of Los Angeles. One of the GM plants that made Camaros was in the Valley, so once a car rolled off the assembly line it only had to be trucked a few miles to a dealership. During his lunch break he spied two interesting cars just off the transporter, something that he'd never seen before, and being a real, serious motorhead he'd seen just about everything. He took a closer look and saw two of the first Camaros ever, one was a stripper but the other had been ordered as a "showroom queen", with a hot 350/four speed combo, vinyl top, rallye wheels, etc., etc.  At the time he was driving a '59 Corvette and was instantly in love with the hi-po Camaro, so he went to talk to a salesman.

 

Initially the salesman said Chevy wasn't allowing any sales for two weeks until the official introduction, but my friend was very persistent, and of course they knew his family owned a good sized contracting business so relented. They even offered him $250 (some money in 1966!) to let it sit on the showroom floor for two weeks. He said no way and drove off in it that evening. According to my friend, the reaction at gas stations for the next two weeks was wild: eveyone knew it was a new car, but most thought it was a new '67 Mustang. When they saw the Chevy badge they'd exclaim "Oh wow, a Chevy Mustang!". He street raced the car extensively and discovered that the hi-po 350 was too strong for the rear suspension as it had to be repaired under warranty three times - everyone pretty much knew why it broke but since Chevy couldn't prove it they had to fix it. That 350 had to be one of the very first 350s as well, the 327 was still in full production through '68 and 350 availability was limited until then.

[this post was last edited: 2/25/2012-20:32]
 
cool story!-my '69 had the "monoleaf"rear springs.My'69 camaro was built at the
norwood ohio plant,but my '82 was built at VanNuys-4th week of march,1982:just
about to hit 30!-doesn't seem that long ago i had a 30th celebration for my '69...
 
Another buddy of mine has one of the last generation Firebirds - about a '99 - but I believe he said his car was built in Canada. He's had it since new and maintains it absolutely by the book, but it has tended to break a lot. It is an interesting car because it was custom ordered with pretty much all the hi-po stuff, hottest engine available, quick steering rack, etc., but is a Formula rather than a Trans-Am. Basically, he liked the Firebird but not the ugly twin nostril Trans-Am hood hence the special order.

 

To be honest I've never liked that car since I took a nasty spill while trying to get into it late one night when he picked me up at the airport: some idiot at Pontiac put a HUGE buldge in the floorboard right where you put your feet. It was icy outside and as I slid my left foot along the floor and started to lower my tail into the passenger's seat my heel caught on the carpeted buldge. It threw me off balance, my right foot slid on the ice and I ended up falling onto the sill and then the parking lot. This happened when the Firebird was nearly new - first time I'd been in it - and during the many, many years when I was running Fiat/Bertone X1/9s as daily drivers. I had three of them, and must have spent way over 200,000 miles in those, plus quite a few miles in one of my sister's DeTomaso Panteras. In short, I do know how to get into a low car, but I've never seen anyone other than Pontiac make a floorboard into an obstacle course like that. What were they thinking?
 
passenger floor bulge

that bulge(for catalytic converter clearance)has been present from at least 1982
to 2002 on camaro/firebird.75-81 2nd gen might have the bulge too.Those long,heavy
doors of 2nd and 3rd gen can be a bit of bother too,especially 2nd gen.i think 4th
gen doors are lighter.4th gen,'93-02, was made in canada-at st.Therese Quebec.5th
gen is assembled at oshawa,ontario-GM holden helped with development of the 5th
gen.
 
I also like the '65 Plymouth Barracuda. But no need to turbocharge the six - the car was available with a 278 V8 that year.

However you are correct that the slant six did have hot rodding potential. I know several guys who used to soup up their slant sixes - one of them used to race them on grudge nights as part of a group called "Mini Mopars". Another one modified the engine to run on alcohol with a 13:1 compression.

I have a '64 Valiant with the 225 six; it has the same grill (horizontal slat) as some versions of the '65 Barracuda. Which I like better than the '65 Valiant grill.

I also like the '71 Barracuda. Very nicely done shaker hood scoop etc.
 
Chrysler Australia had a variant on the slant six with a hemi head, supposedly quite fast, too bad Chrysler here couldn't be bothered. The slant six ought to be rugged, it's heavy enough! Both Chevy and Chrysler used their full-sized sixes in the Chevy II and Dart/Valiant, while Ford created a whole new line of lightweight sixes for the Falcon while keeping their big sixes for truck and full size sedan use.

 

Chevy and Olds made the first production turbocharged cars for '63, with the Corvair and F-85 respectively. The F-85 turbo only lasted one year, as it used the Olds version of the Buick 215 aluminum V-8 which was discontinued in all forms after '63 because the '64 F-85/Cutlass, Buick Skylark, and Pontiac Tempest all got larger and could use the smaller displacement versions of their respective divisions' big iron V-8s. This was lots cheaper than the 215, which of course ended out being reborn as the first Range Rover engine. The Corvair turbo lasted for several years, but truthfully turbos really didn't work very well until the '80s when it became feasible to build sophisticated engine management computers that could control both fuel injection and ignition. Without this turbo lag was a part of most every turbo engine, and a clogged injector or carburettor jet could result in a big hole in a piston if the system went to full boost. Because of this, the 273 was a much better and more reliable idea than trying to turbo the six. Too bad they didn't have the 340 back then, but Chrysler just didn't seem interested in a really high performance small block to compete with the Ford 289 Cobra or especially Chevy's hotter 327s.

 

When I was a kid an aunt of mine had a '65 Barracuda, white with blue bucket seats, pushbutton Torqueflite, and the 273. She divided her driving time between the Barracuda and a lovely '62 Studebaker Hawk GT in black with a red interior and four speed manual.
 
Actually I've never heard of anyone trying to turbo charge a slant six.

But I believe that when it came to hopping the motor up, a better start would be with the "smaller" 175 cu in model, rather than the 225. That's the because the 225 got its extra displacement from a longer stroke, which resulted in a lower rpm limit than the 175 or 190 could do. This is similar to the philosophy that leads one to conclude that the Chrysler 340 V8 is a better start for hot rodding than the 360 V8.

The stock 225 carb on my '64 is a relatively tiny single barrel affair. Major performance gains could be accomplished by replacing the intake manifold and carb with a two or four barrel setup. And of course fuel injection is a possible modification these days, although I'm not aware of any ready to install kits for the purpose for the 225.
 
To make a really good carburetted inline six you've got to have more than one carb. One of the inherent characteristics of an inline six is that you can't get even fuel distribution from one cylinder to another with only one carb as the center cylinders will run rich and the end cylinders will run lean. Two carbs work OK, but three work even better. I'd guess that two progressive carbs (i.e., the primary barrel opens fully before the secondary barrel begins to open) would improve economy as well as performance.

 

So long as you're not asking for lots of revs that long stroke isn't all bad as it contributes to a nice flat torque curve, the downside being that as revs go up the piston speed on a long stroke engine gets high, which loads the bearings and contributes to bore wear. Some manufacturers got away with long stroke performance engines however, just check the stroke on a Jag XK six, like the old 3.8 and 4.2 units used in the E-type (plus pretty much anything else Jag built from '49-'71 and even after). With the twincam head they breathe well enough, but they do not like to rev, it was all done with torque. A good mid '60s Chevy 327 with the Duntov cam just loves to rev happily to 6500, overhead valves and all, which surprises people who think of old 'Vettes as sloggers and E-Types as high strung revvers. Maserati also made some really long stroke stuff with the 3.5, 3.7 and 4.0 inline sixes used in the 3500, Sebring, and Mistral, all of which were pretty rapid devices during the '60s. They didn't rev either but with their twincam heads, twin ignition, and from about '62 fuel injection they didn't have to.

 

I will confess that while I'm not a V-8 guy at all, and not a Corvette guy either, those old "mid years" 'Vettes made from '63-'67 are pretty decent cars. The steering isn't too hot and oh yes they rattle, but the chassis isn't half bad, and a hot 327 with the little Muncie four speed trans is a very nice combination indeed. The tranny shifts as well as a good Alfa, and with the short gearing many of them had you can punch it at highway speeds and not even downshift - it just squats and goes with a lovely V-8 whine. There is a price to be paid, however: I once drove a semi-tired '66 convertible on a 100 mile freeway trip and ate 9 gallons of premium, though I will admit to seeing 90 whenever I could :)
 
One of the benefits of the slant of the Chrysler six is that the intake runners could be made longer, resulting in better delivery of the fuel-air mixture.

The only way to make all the runners even length would be to have six carbs, in which case multiport fuel injection becomes a better option.

Also, uneven intake runner lengths can function to widen the power band. The longer runners help low end torque, the shorter ones help with power at higher revs. However for high performance applications equal length intake runners seem to be preferred:

Me want one

http://slant6parts.com/
sudsmaster++2-26-2012-00-59-27.jpg
 
That manifold is probably as good as it gets for a single carb inline six, might be worth investing in.

 

You don't need six carbs for equal fuel distribution in a six cylinder engine, three will do just fine. One of the most classic carb setups for an inline engine is to use one Weber DCOE two barrel sidedraft carb for each pair of cylinders, since the DCOE is non-progressive each cylinder gets one barrel all to itself and thus no unbalanced airflow in the manifold that can be caused by one cylinder interfering with the other. Still not as good as modern fuel injection, but is probably the ultimate carb setup for smoothness and performance, if not economy.
 
They are claiming big economy boosts with the long runner carb setup (two barrel progressive carb) from Aussie. Like 30 mpg out of a slant six equipped car.

My Valiant has been parked for about 15 years now... still runs, but the brakes will have to be serviced (fluid leaked out a while ago). It's not super great on gas (best it ever got was around 20 mpg, as I recall) but it doesn't have to be smogged.
 

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