Still another stupid GM Corporate Edict that hurt performance and cost sales

For whatever reason, GM was deathly afraid of Ralph Nader and the safety Nazis in the 1960s. After Nader's "Unsafe at any speed" almost single-handedly killed the Corvair-maybe they had good reason. One of their concessions to "safety" was that no intermediate -i.e.-Chevelle, LeMans, Cutlass, or Skylark could have an engine over 400 cubic inches. This was ok from 1964-67 when GTOs, and SS396 Chevelles pretty much ruled the street. However, in 1968 Chrysler dropped three nuclear bombs. The Charger was redesigned into it's now classic form, and you could get a 440 V8 or the mighty 426 Hemi. The Road Runner and Super Bee were introduced with the 383 standard and the 440 and 426 Hemi optional. A big 440 inch Road Runner or Charger had little to fear from a 400 GTO or 396 Chevelle. Ford even dropped the mighty 428 into the Mustang.  A few GM guys fought back. Don Yenko, a Pennsylvania Chevy Dealer started swapping 427 Vette engines into Camaros and Chevelles. George Hurst took a 455 Olds out of the Toronado, gave it W30 heads, intake, and cam, and stuffed it into a Cutlass 442 and created the legendary Hurst / Olds. Royal Pontiac would swap 428HO Gran Prix engines into GTOs and Firebirds for a fee. Yet the GM brass wouldn't budge, and allow the bigger motors to be factory installed. In 1969 Chrysler hit another home-run. They introduced the 440 Six-Pack option on the Charger, Road Runner and Super Bee. This was a 440 Magnum with a hotter cam, and 3 holley 2bbls on an aluminum Edelbrock manifold. This beast was actually a better street performer than the vaunted Hemi. When the Camaro-sized new E bodies-Challenger and Cuda were introduced with the 440-6 and the Hemi optional, GM realized it was war. They relented and for 1970 we got the legendary LS6 454 Chevelle, the W30 455 442, and the Stage 1 455 Buick GSX. Pontiac stuck with the Ram Air III and Ram Air IV 400 engines as the top dog in the GTO and Trans Am. You could get a 455 in a GTO,but it was a "station wagon" stump-puller, not near the fire-breather the 400s were. However, for 1971, Pontiac put the RAIV heads and intake on the 455 along with the milder "068" cam and created one of the greatest street  engines ever-the 455HO. This monster produced 480 lbs ft of torque at a low 2,700 rpm. To this day 455HO Pontiacs dominate stock class drag racing even beating up on LS6 Chevelles, Hemi Cudas and the like. After 1971 the lowered compression ratios and ever-tightening emission controls began killing performance packages. The Hemi and 440 Six-Pack were gone after 1971, as was the LS6 ( It was still sold as a crate engine until 1991 ) . The W30 Olds 455 and the 455HO Pontiac were gone after 1972. Herb Adams had a last Hurrah with the 455SD Trans-Ams of the 73-74 period, but that was it for true performance engines. You could get a 455 in a Trans-Am until 1976 and a 400 until 1979, but they were "corporate" big blocks by then with barely 200 hp. What a shame that the GM brass didn't allow the mega inchers until it was almost too late. Mastermind