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I had a 1970 'Cuda 340 4-speed, complete with the OEM pistol grip shifter, when I was in college. It's one of very few cars I regret selling. I bought it in 1980 with 64K miles on the odometer. It was completely unmolested, down to the stock radio. I paid a whopping $850 for it.
For the average hot rodder to build that car he would have to be fairly wealthy just to afford the car, engine, paint, upholstery, and it would take years of working on it.
Oh, yeah, that was no cheap car for sure. It is a lot like the ones we see built by some pro shop on one of the many TV shows. Easy to put $500K or more in one of these things.
The combination of the weight, transmission, frame construction, and handling would have made this much power unwieldy for most people. The same power in a hellcat or a C8 with launch control, proper limited slip diffs, and handling improvements would be completely tamable for the average driver of skill.
Any of us ,who play with high performance cars, know that they can get squirrelly pretty fast sometimes. Most of us have had our eyes opened wide when the car got sideways on us without any warning. Even on the controlled surface of a drag strip, cars get out of shape and end up into the guard rails.
I've had a few good scares when the car went sideways on me when playing games at some red light. When you have a light car and big HP, things happen quickly. One night, when I shifted into second, the car went sideways, and I was looking at the door of the guy next to me. Luckily, I missed hitting his side.
Shame about his Barracuda, it was evidently a high dollar pro build car.
My 89 gmc shifted so hard after a rebuild and a shift kit and corvette servo that I had to let off slightly when the transmission shifted otherwise it would kick the rear end out. And there are servos out there that shift 30% harder than Vette serves on 700r4s. And I didnt have anything special under the hood. 350, roller cam headers and bored TBI with 4:10 gears. Hell I dont think I had 275 hp in it.
I’m building that truck now to a 383.
So yes it doesn’t take much to get a car to get out of shape. Throw in a cocky inexperienced driver with that car a little gravel or sand on the road will kick that rear out especially with 700 hp turning it.
Guy should have done a couple of track days or track schools, learn how to handle that car.
To master the obvious, anything with Hellcat power has to be handled with considerable discretion on the street. Hell, that's true of a base level 383 with a single 4-barrel carb. But 707 horsepower can get car speed up above brain speed in just a couple of seconds.
Everyone wants "more power, more power" when they can't even drive the car correctly. The first time I took my car to the track ( 450HP C4 Corvette with suspension mods ) an instructor with a stock SHO Taurus handed me a good lesson on how to drive properly. That was a humbling experience for me
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