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1960 was interesting year; things REALLY changed by mid 62. After 62, low production things like max wedge or 425 409 took over, the average guy was out of the running. ; the 300 car I was talking about was a 62, but body of F not that much heavier(`100-200lbs?). And weight is in right place for the street. The 60 to 62 period was full of daily great stuff happening in car world ! 300’s were known for unreal top end, esp 300B. rumored to go ‘150” BUT: ”dogs” off the line. Why I liked that 62 12.9. Big Red at Pa show brought all this back.. On the street around Boston, in 1960, Olds was very formidable still with J2 triple , cam, 4 spd hydromatic , or they put in B&M “hydrosticks” (how about a 4:1 first gear?AND 4:11!) . Super 88 J2 sticks were around, usually 57 2 dr body, or 50 coupes, later Olds got big and heavy. One “old guy”, (heh heh) a brick mason, had a gold and white 59 Olds wagon with a full house 394 olds , J2 ; it was really fast..bags of cement in back. In 1960 a friend had a new stick 305 hp (361?) Plymouth 1 quad commando coupe ; it was just about as fast as a ram 383 61 wagon stick. Both killed a fast 57 Pontiac 347. I liked that. Those 57 Pontiacs were real sleepers. Same body as 55-57 chev but 347 inches, not 283. People were afraid of hurting automatics then, including mopar. Cast iron TF needed the beefing they gave it in the 300 (and other ram cars) , failures of all kinds not uncommon , if beat on at all; GM automatics were a mess (Turboglide? Brutally bad) except for hydrostick, which was really an early 50’s olds transmission .Everyone worried about “the bands”; trans would start slipping. Flatheads on the way out, slow. Lots of Fords, 312 Y blocks , sound great but real dogs. 352 even worse, and 10 mpg. Some very quick cars I remember were a 50 olds coupe,394, a 55 bird with 430 Lincoln 3 spd and 4:56 gears, a 370” dual quad stroker 283 chev in a 55 2dr, 4:56 , a 56 Plymouth convert sleeper with a 59 413, and later my own Austin Healy with a ‘hot” (ahem) 62 300 hp 327 Chev in it, vette 4 spd, set back about a foot . ( that car cost me my drivers license for a year) In 62 a few max wedge showed up, but had BIG problems with sudden loss of oil pressure at high rpm. . Not sure even now what that was all about. I heard later the tip was prone to breaking off the oil pump drive (nice…) . =keep stock oil pump, not HO. As an aside a few big $ Porsches, known for “glass first gears” if taken off the line. Corvettes sit and burn, slide sideways. After that it was $, Nascar was playing with restrictors soon, cars that raced diverged from what you bought for street. Maybe 62 was kind of a peak for what we sort of do, although 300J made some noise! The max wedge were the fastest, in 62, but barely drivable on street. Sunoco 260…..Bucrons…. rattling and shaking..Love those headers……I rode around in a new one a friend had, that winter. He lost engine twice to no oil pressure. No warrantee on those. Big sign on window said that when he bought it. From: Michael Reed [mailto:rmreed@xxxxxxxxx] FYI -- The "F" would have run C/SA in 1967. It generally took mid-12-second ETs to win that class in 1967. In 1960, the "F" would have run S/SA. Ramchargers S/SA ran 14.51 at 98 mph at Detroit Dragway that year (330 HP Sonoramic Plymouth). No kidding times have changed, Alan ... the COPO Camaro set an NHRA S/SA record at Englishtown, NJ with an 8.4 and 161.8.
__._,_.___ Posted by: "John Grady" <jkg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> To send a message to this group, send an email to: Chrysler300@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxx or go to https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/all/manage/edit For list server instructions, go to http://www.chrysler300club.com/yahoolist/inst.htm For archives go to http://www.forwardlook.net/300-archive/search.htm#querylang __,_._,___ |
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