Road Test Ringers re-visited.......

Had a guy spewing numbers from an old road test the other day and he got even more spittingly hysterical when I said the test he was quoting was a heavily modified "ringer" and that his stock car would go substantially slower.  He asked why the manufacturers would do that. Simple-they wanted to sell the cars!!! Anyhow-here's the the biggest offenders that I've seen over the years. # 1. 1964 Pontiac GTO. After 40 plus years Jim Wangers finally admitted what we already knew. Car and Driver's May 1964 test car was a ringer. Royal Pontiac had pulled the 389 and substituted a blueprinted 421 that had thin head gaskets to up compression,rocker arm lock nuts so it could rev higher, a re-curved distributor and a mechanical throttle linkage on the 3-2bbl carbs instead of the stock vacuum unit. Small wonder that production examples were more than a full second slower than the blistering 4.6 second 0-60 time and 13.1 second 1/4 mile!!  # 2. 1969 Z/28 Camaro. Hot Rod got their Z/28 "almost" in the 12s-it ran a blistering 13.11 e.t. Except it wasn't stock. They had added headers and re-curved the distributor, re-jetted the 780 Holley carb, added slicks and traction bars, and swapped the 3.73:1 gears for 4.56:1s!!  That's why production examples ran in the mid-14s!!  #3. 1969 440 Six-Pack Road Runner. Chrysler ran an ad in several magazines bragging that their Prototype ran a string of high 12-second e.t.s "Under controlled conditions, with a professional driver." The "Prototype" had been brought "To the top of Specifications"-i.e.-blueprinted-and was equipped with slicks, a pinion snubber,4.30:1 gears, and the "Professional" driver was Pro Stock Drag Racing Champion Ronnie Sox of "Sox&Martin" fame.  # 4. 1973 SD-455 Trans-Am. Car and Driver and Hot Rod both tested the same car-a Buccaneer Red pre-production example that ran a blistering 13.54 for Hot Rod and a 13.75 for Car and Driver. Except that car had the 308/320 duration / .470 lift Ram Air IV cam and the wrong EGR Valve, and an open "Shaker" scoop. Except it couldn't pass emissions and the cam was changed to the much milder RAIII cam-with 288 / 302 duration / .414 lift and horsepower was down-rated from 310 to 290. Noise regulations were stiffer for '73 models than they were for '70-72 models and the scoops were closed on production models. They had trouble with the connecting rods failing and with EGR valve function. The engine wasn't EPA certified until April-which is why production was so low-only 252 in T/A's and another 43 in Formulas.  The final production models ran 14.40's-pretty damn quick for a low-compression 1973 model-but not mid 13s.  # 5. 1978 Dodge Li'l Red Express Pickup. In November 1977 Car and Driver tested a bunch of performance cars in a "Double the Double Nickel" run-each car had to be able to go more than 110 mph. Truckin' magazine tested the same truck. The Dodge pickup blew the doors off both an L82 / 4-speed Corvette and a WS6 Trans-Am. It also blew the doors off a short-bed, 2WD 454 Chevy Stepside and a 2WD 460 powered Ford F150.  Except this "Prototype" " Li'l Red Truck"  had a 360 V8 with NASCAR style "W2" cylinder heads,the hot cam from the legendary 340 "Six-Pack", a single-plane Holley "Street Dominator" aluminum intake manifold, a 600 cfm Holley 4160 "Double-Pumper" carb, and catalyst-free dual exhausts. Shocker-production examples with a garden variety 360 V8-stock heads,stock cam, and iron intake with an EGR valve and a Carter Thermo-Quad carb were substantially slower.  # 6. 1978 Z/28 Camaro. Most '77-79 Z28's tested by magazines ran e.t.'s in the 15.60 range. Popular Hot Rodding's ran a 14.48. Except it wasn't a stocker. It was a DKM prototype-they were thinking about building a "Macho Z" to complement their wildly successfull "Macho T/A." This Camaro had been given the "Macho T/A" treatment-re-curved distributor, re-jetted carb, open hood scoop, Hooker Headers and dual cat converters. # 7. 1992 Mitsubishi 3000 GT / VR4. This one rivals the '64 GTO for audacity. Mitsubishi claimed their test mule "Under controlled conditions with a Professional Driver" could run a blistering 4.8 second 0-60 time and a 13.69 second 1/4. Faster than an LT1 Corvette and a Porsche 944 Turbo. Except the engineers had disconnected the knock sensor,disconnected the rev limiter,filled the tank with 104 octane gas,put wet towels on the intake and intercooler between runs, lowered tire pressure to 15 psi and had the "Professional Driver" drop the clutch at 6,200 rpm and powershift at 7,000 rpm, which produced the blistering times, and grenaded the $5,769 transaxle after three runs. Shocker that production examples could only run sub-6 second 0-60 times and mid 14 second 1/4 mile times.  So before you flippantly spout numbers-make sure your comparing actual production cars. Mastermind