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Remember in the 80s when a car that could do 0-60 in 7 seconds was described as being sporty and the cars that were doing this included Mustangs and Camaros? What happened between then and now? We now have family sedans being called slow if they do 0-60 in 7 seconds because so many can do it in about 6 seconds. My older midsize sedan can do it in 8 seconds and it feels plenty fast enough for daily driving. When did the need for speed extend to midsize family sedans? Camry, Accord, Altima, and Malibu are all capable of the 6 second range, a range that was once the exclusive relm of sports cars. The performance version of some compact cars can also reach the 6 second range. Cobalt SS and Civic Si are two examples. We now have real sports cars doing 0-60 in less than 4 seconds. I have to wonder,...will these cars get even faster with a 2.5 second 0-60 time or will they begin to get slower with more strict CAFE standards? Such power in the hands of responsible adults is no threat to anyone. But such vehicles don't always end up in the hand of responsible adults. They sometimes end up in the hands of people looking for a street race or drive daily as if they're in a street race. I don't care if such people kill themselves by driving dangerously on public streets. I do care if they kill others on the road with them. You want to race,...take it to the track.
Well Dave. I guess you could call it the sign of the times.
Back in the 80's, I think most car manufacturers were still trying to figure out how to make a smog engine have performance and still pass the EPA sniffer tests. Not to mention most cars were heavier and some of them were still RWD, which eats up more power than a FWD.
Once the EPA dropped the hammer back in 1970, all the sudden for the next model year, they had to come up with a cleaner burning engine. That meant lower compression ratios, lower camshaft profiles, retarded timing, no more leaded fuel, carburetor detuning, exhaust restrictive catalytic converters....and the list goes on. The problem was, none of the car manufacturers knew how to put "power" and "low emissions" in the same sentence together.
By the 80's they introduced EFI which gave a glimmer of hope, but they were still behind the power curve. Pontiac tried the turbocharging route back in 1980 but that was written off after a 2 year trial as a total failure. Buick jumped on the turbo bandwagon in 1978 but it wasn't until fuel injection was added in 1984 when it really began to come alive, and by 1987 the turbo Buick was the fastest American car you could buy....running 13's in the 1/4 out the box when all else was running 14's and 15's stock. Of course that too was short lived when the GM G body RWD line was axed in December '87, but Buick's turbo V6 did make one last appearance in '89 in the Turbo Trans Am pace car, which left a bad taste in Pontiac fan's mouths, especially since "how did a turbo 6 manage to make a Trans AM run 13.4's in the 1/4 when our own beloved 301 V8 turbo couldn't push it past the 16's?"
Now had it not been for the EPA coming about and forcing auto manufacturers to create less polluting cars, I think the 1970's and the 1980's would have had even more powerful cars than the 1960's ever built.
But I believe today especially now with the distributorless ignitions, fuel injection, direct overhead camshafts, multiple valves per cylinder and especially FWD (less power loss as opposed to going thru a driveshaft and a differential), the auto manufacturers are trying to now incorporate speed into a few more models than just sports cars. Our 2007 CRV is not a speed demon by any stretch of imagination but for a 166 hp 4 cylinder AWD, it can get out of it's own way fairly quick. I know for a fact a 1995 + Cavalier with just a 2.2 liter 4 cylinder can outrun a 1981 Olds 88 with a 307 V8.
I still love the old notch back mustangs they are prefect to drop in a 351 a huge shot of nitrous throw on a set slicks and gut it to make a cheap race car the and if you wreck or blow the motor it won't matter my biggest fear is crashing at the track cause you have no insurance and liable to fix anything you damage but since my car runs street tires and is N/A and has a standard tranny I have terrible 60 foot time and am all over the place with my ET
People seem to live life faster these days and want instant gradifacation.Even if its just passing a car quickly on the highway.I have a big 4 door kinda slow car...and even i wanta sup it up a lil.(its the sign o the times)LOL!
There's a segment of buyers who need a reasonably priced, practical car that meets all their family needs but are not willing to concede that a family car must necessarily be a boring car. As Deez Nutz hits on, for a period through the 70s and early 80s the car companies simply didn't know how to accommodate them while meeting emissions regulations and EPA mileage targets. Once they started figuring it out in the mid-late 80s, even family sedans started getting quick again.
For those who see family sedans as appliances and appliances only, the 4-cylinder models are available for them.
People seem to live life faster these days and want instant gradifacation.Even if its just passing a car quickly on the highway.I have a big 4 door kinda slow car...and even i wanta sup it up a lil.(its the sign o the times)LOL!
yeah it a blast but I find I speed alot more in my car then my 91 F250 which can't really pass anything on the freeway
There's a segment of buyers who need a reasonably priced, practical car that meets all their family needs but are not willing to concede that a family car must necessarily be a boring car. As Deez Nutz hits on, for a period through the 70s and early 80s the car companies simply didn't know how to accommodate them while meeting emissions regulations and EPA mileage targets. Once they started figuring it out in the mid-late 80s, even family sedans started getting quick again.
For those who see family sedans as appliances and appliances only, the 4-cylinder models are available for them.
most econmoy 4 bangers make 140HP in the base trim in the 80's 300HP was alot they corvette never made that much stock till 92 with the LT1 I used to think the 5.0 mustang GT with 225HP was fast but now that is nothing. the 80's were boxy FWD cars the only nice car was the IROC camaro it had some style the mustang was pretty normal looking
I pretty much think that when Chevy ;ford and mopar quit providing perfroamnce parts that muscle cars died. Use to be you could buildup a car with parts provide thru them as far as engines went much cheaper than the after markets.Not that I am not impressed with the HP per cu in hw days espeacilly since the late 80's.The mid 70's when unleaded first appeared was the death of muscles cars IMO.
I don't think it's so much the need for speed but the need for power. Back in the 80's cars were heavy, inefficient by today's standards and definitely underpowered. Add to this the weight of a family of 4 and an a/c blowing, and whatever little bit of power was virtually non-existent. Lots of people can tell you how difficult it was to merge onto a busy freeway. Driving uphill? almost impossible in a huge car with 125 anemic horses.
Nowadays cars don't have those problem. You don't see the average Buick or Cadillac driver drag racing or driving irresponsibly, but I am sure they are happy they have all that power underfoot.
I pretty much think that when Chevy ;ford and mopar quit providing perfroamnce parts that muscle cars died. Use to be you could buildup a car with parts provide thru them as far as engines went much cheaper than the after markets.Not that I am not impressed with the HP per cu in hw days espeacilly since the late 80's.The mid 70's when unleaded first appeared was the death of muscles cars IMO.
Muscle cars died with the rising of insurance rates in the late '60s. EPA didn't mandate unleaded fuel until the mid '70s, but the musclecars were castrated by '72. And those cars had been in development since '68.
This is most illustrated by the Mustang II. When the big block '70 BOSS429 was just hitting showrooms, before the big '71-73 Mustangs were even released to magazines, Ford was already seeing the writing on the wall from insurance companies coming down hard on muscle cars, making them almost entirely uninsurable by the very buyers that wanted them. So by September of 1970, the first Mustang II prototypes were making the rounds inside Ford.
Similar things were going on in GM and Chrysler offices.
The EPA was stepping up emissions requirements, and automakers were scrambling to adapt to them, then they got hit with the fuel crisis (and Ford got lucky, the new, smaller Mustang II might not have sold well, but the fuel crisis hit just as the car was introduced and the new Mustang sold almost as well as the '64-65 versions). It took a while before manufacturers could re-introduce performance with fuel economy AND low emissions.
But rest assured, it was not emissions or fuel economy that killed the musclecar at the manufacturer level.
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