There's a lot more base models out there than you think...

Some people have asked me about some of the "Rare" cars I've been talking about lately. Except their not that rare. Only the top of the line models had the "Top Dog" engines. There are a lot of Camaros and Chevelles out there with 250 hp 2 bbl 350 V8s.  In 1972 they went to Net hp ratings-the 350 4bbl that was rated at 300 hp in 1969-70 ( with 10.25:1 compression ) and 270 hp in 1971 ( with 8.5:1 compression ) was now rated at 175 hp. The '72 cars didn't "lose" 95hp; the engines were identical. The rating system changed. The 2 bbl 350 that was rated at 250 hp in 1970 was now rated at 165. Anyhow-unless you got a Z / 28 or an SS model-chances are your Camaro had one of those engines. Although they were available with everything from a 250 inch straight six to a 454, most Monte Carlos had 350 power, and most of them had 2 bbl carbs. Most Firebird and LeMans models had 350 2bbl motivation. The Formula 400, GTO and Trans-Am were the big dogs. Quite a few Firebird Esprits had 2bbl 400s. The same for Olds Cutlasses-if it wasn't a 442 or a W31-the most popular engine was a 350 with a 2bbl.  Fords were the same. There are a lot of '65-73 Mustangs with 2bbl 289s, 2bbl 302s, 2bbl 351Ws, and 2bbl 351Cs. I've seen a few 1967-70 models with 2bbl 390s!!  Ditto for '67-73 Cougars. Chrysler was the same way. I have seen quite a few 2bbl 383 and 400 Chargers and Satellites, and Sport Furys. Even AMC was that way. There are a lot of 2bbl 304,343 and 360 Javelins out there.  Like I said-this is an easy fix-$600 will buy you an Edelbrock Performer Intake and matching 4bbl carb for most engines and almost anybody can change a carb and intake with hand tools. You'll have a huge increase in performance and sometimes better gas mileage. If you "gotta have" a 396 Chevelle or a 440 Road Runner or 455 Olds 442 or whatever and can afford it, by all means get it. But don't write off a base model just because it has a base model engine. A 351 Ford or 350 Chevy has more speed equipment available for them than anything else on the planet. 383 Mopars and 400 Pontiacs can make just as much power as a 440 or 455, just at a higher rpm. Mastermind    

More in the same vein.....Have some common sense!!

I'm sorry to be so cynical all the time, but like comedian Ron White says-"You can't fix stupid".  The reasons people don't buy cars that are a screaming deal just leave me shaking my head in disgust.  # 1. Carburators. I've talked to people who passed up great cars at reasonable prices because it had the wrong carburator on it!! Really??  Idiot # 1.  Passed up a pristine '72 Mach 1 Mustang because it had a 2 bbl on the 351C.  This car had a gorgeous red and black paint job, and the interior was also two-tone red and black, and it had fat T/A radials on Magnum 500 wheels. This same moron also passed on a nice '69 fastback because it had a 2 bbl 351W under the hood.  Idiot # 2. Passed up two '68 Chargers because they had 2-bbl  383s. One was a little old lady driven, unrestored but always garaged and exceptionally well-maintained unit with dog-dish hubcaps, and a bench seat. The other one had a gorgeous Torch Red ( a '90's Corvette color ) paint job and fat T/A Radials on Center Line wheels, and it had headers and a loud exhaust that sounded better than the General Lee. Summit Racing sells Edelbrock manifolds for about $200 for most engines. They also sell Edelbrock or Holley 4 bbl carbs for about $400. So for $600 and a couple hrs labor-you could have a huge increase in performance and drivability on a great car. Instead-these morons pass up these cars and either don't get one at all, or end up buying one not as nice for more money!!  Idiot # 3. Passed up a fantastic '70 Firebird Esprit that had a gorgeous bright blue metallic ( an '80's IROC-Z color ) paint job, a pristine white interior and matching white vinyl top, and Center Line wheels, because it had a 2 bbl on the 400!!  This is such a lame excuse, because changing a carb and intake is easy even for an amateur. Further-if you wanted to spend a little extra money, Mopar performance sells the throttle linkage and air cleaner, Holley sells the carbs and Edelbrock still sells the manifold if you want to put a "Six-Pack" setup on your 440 Charger or Road Runner. Edelbrock discontinued the small-block manifold a few years ago-but there's plenty of them in circulation if you wanted to put a "Six-Pack" on a 340 / 360.  If you can't find a Pontiac Tri-Power setup for sale you aren't looking past the end of your nose. This adds value to the car, not the other way around.  Ugh! #2. Vinyl Tops. I touched on this in a previous post. Whether you do or don't want one, it's a pretty easy fix. There's shops everywhere that for a few hundred bucks will add or remove a vinyl top. Honestly-I don't care that much. If I had my choice-I don't personally like vinyl tops. I think they distract from the lines of the car. That aside-If I found a 400, 4-speed  GTO or Firebird, or SS396 Chevelle I really liked, I think I'd just live with the vinyl top if it had one. Ditto for a Charger or Challenger or GTX. This doesn't matter enough to be a deal-breaker for me. Yet I saw a Pontiac Guy walk away from a pristine for-real, numbers-matching RAIII 1970 Judge because it had a vinyl top!!  A white vinyl top-on a white car with white interior!!!  That's the most ridiculous thing in my opinion. Again-this clown ended up paying MORE for an ugly green vinyl topless '69 base model than the guy was asking for the RAIII Judge!!!   # 3. Wheels. This one really blows my mind, because it's such an easy fix. Yet I've seen Pontiac guys turn up their noses at spectacular 400, 4-speed T/A's and Formula Firebirds because the car had Honeycomb wheels instead of Rally II's, or Snowflakes, or because the car had aftermarket wheels.  I've seen Mopar guys walk away from pristine Chargers or GTX's becaue the car had Rallye wheels instead of Magnum 500s, or Cragars or ET mags. I saw a Chevy guy turn up his nose at a totally badass Z / 28  Camaro because it had Minilite wheels ( which I thought looked fantastic ) on it. The stupid thing is-you can usually sell the wheels you don't like and cover most or all of the cost of getting the one's you do want!!.  Don't pass up your dream car for some trivial option that's easily changed!!  Mastermind      

Lower your sights a little and you might find a screaming deal...

I get a lot of thumbs-up from people about a post from a couple years back. It was titled "There is no used car factory" to order from. Many people need to hear that statement. The chance of you finding a 40 or 50 year old car with the engine and transmission you want, the interior color you want the outside color you want, the axle-ratio you want, the wheels you want, etc, etc is almost nil. You have a better chance of being struck by lightning or winning the lottery. You have to be reasonable. I can understand saying "OK, I want an SS396 Chevelle with a 4-speed and front disc brakes." There's hundreds of thousands of them from 1966-70 with those options. If you can't find a car with those options, you aren't looking past the end of your nose. However if it has to be a 1970 model with a cowl induction hood, a tilt steering wheel, A/C, power windows, a white interior, and a white vinyl top and white stripes over a cranberry red paint job-your going to have a rough time. You have to be flexible-If you want a '70's Monte Carlo most are 350 powered. A 402 or 454 model is going to be rare and expensive. However-Pontiac Gran Prix's from 1969-76 have 400 power all years and a fair number of "SJ" models have 455s.  If you want a 1969-76 Pontiac Gran Prix with a 400 or 455 V8 that's pretty easy to find. If it has to be a 1969 model with a 428 and a 4-speed, or a 1971 Hurst SSJ with a moonroof, that's going to be much harder to find and much more expensive! If you can live with a 340 or a 383 'Cuda or Challenger it will be much easier and cheaper than if you "gotta have" a 440 or a 440 Six-Pack. A Hemi-hope for a powerball win. And recognize a steal when you see it. I missed it, but a neighbor of mine recently sold a 1977 L82 / 4-speed Corvette for $3,000!!  The paint was faded, but the interior was perfect, and it ran like a top. A paint job and a set of tires and this car was ready to go. It was that nice. The guy could have easily got 7 or 8 grand for it-but he didn't want to wait and go through 50 tire kickers to get a real buyer. Another guy I know bought a '67 T-Bird for $1,000. It needs to be restored-but the body is clean and remarkably dent and rust free. The 390 needs to be freshened and it needs paint and interior work, but I bet he won't have 10 grand in it when he's done.  So don't despair and be reasonable in your expectations. Mastermind

Dealers order what the other 99% will buy....

Having spent a good portion of my life working in the car business I learned a few things. One is the dealers want to please the masses. They order cars that have the most appeal to the most people. For example a lot of people won't buy black cars. Their hard to keep looking clean and their hotter in the summer than other colors. I personally would love to have a black Hellcat Challenger with the widebody option and monster tires. But that's me. There's people who won't buy red cars. The same goes for options. The Kelley Blue Book actually deducts value if a car has a manual transmission. Now you may want a 5-speed in your Mustang or a 6-speed in your 'Vette, but since 95% of the general public want automatics-a stick is a detriment in the value guide. Anyhow-why do you think so many cars in the '60's and '70's had vinyl tops? To pad the stickers with high-profit options!!  In my opinion nothing looks good with a vinyl top. On some cars-particularly '70's Camaros and Firebirds a vinyl top really screws up an otherwise great-looking car. But dealers ordered them in droves, because it made money and most people would tolerate them. It was a rare person who walked off the lot or demanded that they dealer trade or special order another car WITHOUT the damned vinyl top. So somehow-a vinyl top became a "popular" option. Remember the phony wood trim on the sides of Ford wagons?  That was the ugliest crap ever put on a car-but it was rare to see a wagon without it!!  GM and Chrysler had that crap too but Ford was the worst offender. They only ordered for stock and promoted the high-end, high profit models. Everyone did. For example in the late '70's you could get a Rally Sport Camaro with a 350 and a 4-speed. You could get a base-model Camaro with a 350 and a 4-speed. Did you ever see one on a dealer's lot?  Hell no!!  You want a hot rod Camaro, you are damn well stepping up and buying a loaded Z / 28!!  That's the mentality the dealers had. Same for Pontiac. You could get a 400 or a 455 in a Formula Firebird through most of the '70's. How many 455HO Formulas have you seen? Or 400 Formulas? Or 350 / 4-speed models?  Yes Pontiac made a "Formula 350" with the scooped hood and the trim of it's bigger brothers, but you rarely see one. That's because the dealers wanted you to buy a Trans-Am. In the late '70's GMC Trucks had a cool option called the "Street Coupe". Never heard of it? I'm not surprised. Anyhow it was an option on 1/2 ton 2WD pickups. You got multi-colored tape stripes down the sides,Bucket seats in the interior,special "Street Coupe" badging and 15X8 Rally Wheels shod with fat, LR60-15 white-letter tires. Engine choices were anything from a 2bbl 305 to a 454. A friend of mine had a 454 stepside with a TH400 and a 3.73:1 posi, and he showed his tailgate to many shocked Camaro, Firebird and Mustang owners!! It was on the option list from '77-81, but you almost never see one. GMC also had an option for the Caballero ( GMC's version of the El Camino, somewhere around '77 the name was changed from "Sprint" to "Caballero" ). That was called "Diablo" and had a big devil decal on the hood much like the T/A's screaming chicken, special striping, and body-colored slotted Rally Wheels. One of the buff magazines tested one with a 350 and a 4-speed. In the downsized for '78 intermediates that combo really moved, ( Yes you could order that combo in 1978 but not many dealers did ) and they raved about the burnouts it could do. Outside of that magazine test and a salesman I knew in Springfield, Missouri that had one, I have never seen another one. I didn't know the Li'l Red Express option existed on Dodge Pickups until I read about one in Car and Driver and then went to my local dealer to see one. They also had a cool "Macho" package for 4x4's. Since the largest engine you could get in Ford F150 was a 2bbl 351M / 400M and GM offered an anemic 400 small-block Chevy that wheezed out 170 hp in a K10-that 440 powered D150 was a very "Macho" ride indeed!  But they weren't promoted. Same thing with the Ford Lightning, GMC Cyclone and Dodge Dakota R / T pickups in the '90's. What were the bean counters thinking? "Okay, lets build 3,000 or so obscenely fast but totally useless trucks that will appeal to gearheads, but don't promote them in the magazines or in sales brochures."  "People might want to buy them". Huh?  If I hadn't worked in dealers, I never would have known that Buick Grand Nationals existed, or that in 1989 you could get a Trans-Am with the GN motor!!  They weren't promoted in factory literature or the buff magazines. Ditto for 2003-2004. The Mercury Marauder was a cool car based on the Crown Victoria Police car platform. But it went beyond the "Police Interceptor" package. These had wrist-thick front and rear sway bars, fat, ZR-rated tires on 18" wheels, a special interior with Auto Meter guages, a 4-speed automatic with a high-stall converter and the snarling 302 hp V8 out of the Mustang Cobra. They wren't promoted in the brochures, and I can't find a single magazine road test of one. They have a "cult" following now, and Ford bean counters are wondering to this day why they didn't sell when GM sold every Impala SS they could make. Because for once-GM did some promotion. "Hey guys-we took a Caprice Cop car, stuffed a Corvette engine in it, beefed up the suspension and the brakes, put some fat tires and chrome wheels on it and gave it a badass monochromatic paint job." "What do you think?" "You love it?" "Great!!" "We'll sell the shit out of them until we stupidly stop making rear-drive Caprices". Check the option lists carefully-If you want a "Bullitt" Mustang or a Hellcat Challenger by all means buy it. However-the Challenger R / T Scat pack or T/A options are pretty cool, and so is the base model Mustang. You don't always have to buy the big dog that the greedy dealers are pushing. Mastermind              

Some options were costly....And marketed wrong....

A lot of people ask me why their aren't more ultra-premium musclecars around, especially since nowadays with a Honda Accord or Toyota Camry's sticker topping $30,000-the old musclecars seem cheap by comparison. You have to remember-a house that costs $500,000 today was $25,000 50 years ago. The reason there aren't more premium musclecars is three-fold. # 1 Cost. For example the base price of a '68 Road Runner was $2,800. That included a 383 V8 and a 3-speed manual trans. Now if you wanted the mighty 426 Hemi-the Hemi was a $1,200 option!! Just for the engine. And checking the Hemi box on the order form added a bunch of other "mandatory" extra cost options-like a 4-speed or an automatic, a heavy duty radiator, a Dana 60 rear end instead of an 8 3/4, and heavy duty suspension. Pretty quickly the tab could rise to over $5,000. Which is double the base price! Secondly-a Hemi only had a 1 year / 12,000 mile warranty. Every other engine had a 5 year / 50,000 mile warranty. For a young guy-who maybe had a wife and kids-that warranty was very important to a lot of people. If you wanted more punch than the 383 had to offer-the 440 4-bbl was like a $200 option. A lot less than $1,200, plus the "mandatory" stuff.  This isn't an isolated example. The base price of a 1969 Mustang was $2,848!!  The base price of the Boss 429 was $4,798, and again with very few options-some "mandatory"-the sticker price easily climbed past $6,000!! More than double the base price. The LS6 454 was an $1,100 option on the Chevelle. The Ram Air IV was a $558 option on the GTO-and again-required other "mandatory" options like a 4-speed ( a 3-speed was standard ) or a TH400, 3.90:1 or 4.33:1 gears, a posi, and front disc brakes. The price rose quickly on these cars to where some people just couldn't afford it. # 2. Excellence of the base model. The base-model SS396 or 400 GTO or 383 Super Bee or whatever-was so fast and so nice to drive-that after test driving one-you may decide that you don't really need more power. Especially for the extra $1,200+ that a Hemi or an LS6 cost. Like it's big brother-the price of a Boss 302 went over $5,000 pretty easily. And they were only available with a 4-speed, Air Conditioning wasn't available, and they were peaky and had very little torque below 3,000 rpm. Now a "standard" Mach 1 had a 351W for power-which had 385 lbs of torque, could be had with a stick or an automatic, could be had with A/C, and with it's gobs of low-end torque, was a much better street engine with much better manners in most driving situations. Plus the styling and striping options were very close to the Boss's, yet the 351W Mach 1 was hundreds or even a thousand or more dollars cheaper!!  So "Joe Average" test drives a peaky Boss 302 that doesn't really impress him. Then he drives the Mach 1-which will fry the tires off-idle, purrs like a kitten when your not hot-rodding it, and I know it sounds-chauvinistic but it's a reality-maybe he wants an automatic because his wife or girlfriend either can't or doesn't like to drive a stick. And the car is $1,000 or more LESS?  Which one would you buy? Especially not knowing that 40 years hence one would be worth the price of a house? Again-you drive a Charger that has the $200 440 Magnum on the sticker. With 375 hp and 490 lbs of torque that pavement ripping 440 will spin the tires as long as you want to stay on the throttle, and is really long-legged on the highway. Especially if the car has 3.23:1 or 3.54:1 gears. Are you going to spend another 2 grand for a Hemi? Hell no!!  Just like now-in 2019. Let's say you want a Hemi Challenger to live out your Kowalski fantasies. Great!-A base-model Hemi Challenger R / T is $35,000. Like we said earlier not much more than a Honda Accord!!  So, Are you going to spend 70K+ for a Hellcat? Probably not. See what I'm saying?  # 3. Bad Marketing.  For whatever reason, sometimes the manufacturer's didn't push certain options, or they overlapped with other models. For example there aren't many 350HO '68-69 Firebirds. The reason is they cost as much as the 400 models. In 1971-72 Chevy marketed a Chevelle called the "Heavy Chevy". It had a domed SS hood, blacked out grille, slotted Rally wheels,"Heavy Chevy" graphics and was available with any V8 up to and including the 396 / 402-which was marketed as a "400". However-the "SS" package could now also be had on any V8 Malibu model, including small-blocks. So depending on how the dealer ordered each car-it was possible to have the cooler, more sought after "SS" model for the same or less money than the` "price beater". Ditto for the 1970-72 Tempest T-37 / Lemans GT. Labeled by the buff magazines as the "Poor man's GTO" they were a good deal with the standard 2bbl 350 V8 and 3-speed stick and bench seats. But if you added bucket seats, and a 400 or a 455 with a 4-speed or a TH400, the price quickly rose to GTO levels. So why not get the real deal? Not many people knew about the awesome W31 350 option on the base-model Cutlass. The dealers wanted to sell the higher profit 442 models. Unless you were a gearhead and knew exactly what to ask for-you might not even know these options exist. Like Chevrolet rating the Tri-Power, 11;1 427 at 435 hp and the 12.5:1 much more radical L88 at 430!!  So while 6 or 7 grand may seem like a steal for a Hemi Charger now-in 1969 it was big dollars. Kind of like the Hellcat now. Mastermind          

Save the Manuals....Please!!

A while back Car&Driver had an article and started a campaign called "Save the Manuals." Their writers were concerned that everything being built whether an econobox or a Supercar, had an automatic transmission or a CVT. Some models had no manual transmission option. Especially among high-performance cars and sports cars, they encouraged people to buy the manual trans models, citing that regardless of numbers, the manuals were much more fun to drive. I have to agree. A big part of what makes a Honda S2000 or a Mazda Miata so damn much fun to drive is their slick-shifting, close-ratio six-speed manual transmissions. Ditto for the Nissan 370Z. The "Z" boasts 332 hp from it's V6 engine, which moves the sleek two seater along with quite a bit of alarcity. I have driven the 7-speed automatic models and the six-speed manuals. Without electronic timing equipment-i.e.-using the "seat of the pants" barometer-I'd say any difference in performance is negligible. In a 0-60 or 1/4 mile drag race it would probably be too close to call. However the fun factor of the manual is off the charts. Especially with the "rev-matching" feature. Normally I hate any electronic device that intrude's on the driver's control, but I like this one, because it can make any slob look and sound like the long-lost Andretti brother. When the driver downshifts quickly, the car automatically "blips" the throttle to make the shift smoother. Back in the day-experienced Porsche 911 drivers and even Triumph and MG drivers would brag about their ability to do this when driving fast and using the "heel and toe" method to work the pedals. It sounds cool and really does make the shift smoother if you do it right, but it takes a lot of practice to get good at it. With the 370Z, the car helps you look like Denny Hamlin. Now-wait for it-guys are going to bluster-"Yeah with any 4-banger or V6 the stick is going to be more fun, but with a big V8...."  Nope, sorry guys the sticks win there too. I had two "Smokey and the Bandit" T/A's back in the early '80's. The 400, 4-speed model was way more fun than the 403 / TH350 model. Of course-you say-the 3.42:1 geared 4-speed Pontiac could smite the 2.56:1 geared slushbox Olds model in biblical fashion. In bone-stock trim, yes. But the 403 model had headers and real dual exhausts, a Holley "Street Dominator" intake, and a TransGo shift kit. It would run 14.9's all day, and my all-time best was a 14.78. Using magazine road tests from '77-79 as a guide-1/4 mile times for the 400, 4-speed models ranged from 14.61 ( Hot Rod ) to 15.30 ( Car&Driver ). My car obviously fell smack-dab in the middle of those times, so the stick wasn't really noticeably faster in a drag race, but it was way more fun. In fact- a friend had a DKM modified "Macho T/A" at the same time. It was a 400 Pontiac / TH350 model. It had the "Macho" mods of a re-curved distributor, opened hood scoop and re-jetted carb, and Hooker Headers and real dual exhausts ( with 2 Catylitic Converters ). It also had a TransGo shift kit, but it had a 3.23:1 axle ratio. It would walk away from a stock 4-speed model by two or three car lengths in a drag race. Yet, the owner of the "Macho" freely admitted the stick was more fun, and wished his car had one!  I concur. My brother's GTO is probably every bit as fast as my Judge was, but it's an automatic. Speed ? Too Close to call. Thrills ?  Judge, hands down, end of story.  That 4-speed, 4.33:1 geared monster would rip your head off in any gear any time you punched it. I had a couple of friends in high school-both had 1970 SS396 Chevelles. One was a 4-speed, the other a TH400. They drag raced a lot, and it was usually too close to call, unless one of them spun the tires too much on launch. Both driver's agreed the Rock-Crusher was more fun than the slushbox, even though it wasn't any faster. I knew two brothers who were both Mopar guys. One had a neat 273, 4-speed '67 Barracuda Convertible. The other had a '70 340 / Torqueflite Dart. The 340 Dart was quicker in drag race, but the Barracuda was much more fun to drive. The same goes for modern cars. Car&Driver raved that Aston-Martin built a V12 Vantage with a 7-speed stick and no electronic nannys. It would spin the tires in 3rd gear at 60 mph, and was an absolute blast to drive. Yes the automatic equipped, electronic nanny-laden Porsche 911 and Nissan GTR were both quicker in a drag race and around Willow Springs Raceway-but they felt dead and antiseptic even if they were blisteringly fast. The Aston-Martin made you feel like Richard Petty or A.J. Foyt. I drove my friend's 2015 ZO6 Corvette. It is undgodly fast. And the 8-speed automatic transmission works flawlessly. Depending on speed, it will snap from 6th to 3rd or whatever with eyeblink speed when you punch it. I've driven 416 hp Lexus ISF's that run high 12's in the 1/4. Do we really need 8 or 10 gears? Yes, it delivers the power seamlessly, and the car is really fast.  A 414 hp six-speed manual BMW M3 has performance numbers almost identical to the Lexus. However the BMW blows it away on the fun factor. The transmission shifts flawlessly, and the sound of a V8 when you bang a shift at 7,500 rpm??? ( It's redlined at 8,400!!! ). The BMW rips ass and revels in it; the Lexus acts like it's annoyed at such shenanigans, even though it's capable of them. A buddy of mine is a Service Writer in a Dodge Dealership. He says the 375 hp base-model 5.7 Hemi Challenger with a six-speed manual is an absolute blast to drive, even more fun than the automatic 465 hp SRT8 model, even though it has nearly 100 more hp. In fact-he says-although the 707 hp Hellcat versions of the Charger and Challenger are defintely "King Kong" when it comes to speed-away from the track where can you safely open one up?  He honestly says if he won the lottery tomorrow he wouldn't buy a Hellcat; he'd get a Challenger R/T with the base Hemi and a six-speed or maybe a Challenger T/A with the 392 and a six-speed so he can live out his Kowalski fantasies. I can't argue with that. A guy I worked with had a '69 Gran Prix with a 428 and a 4-speed. It had A/C, power windows, locks, seats, etc. When you drove it it felt like a GTO!  Another guys 454 / TH400 Monte Carlo was nearly as fast-but it felt like an overpowered Cadillac Coupe DeVille. Not the same feeling. So whether your buying an old car or a new one, save the manuals!!! Mastermind