What is this old car, with rounded shell, inch thick wood interior?

[krw]

The dealer was crap, for sure, but the company behind them wasn't any better (and the workers, probably not up to that level)...

+(can't count that high)

[clare]

Well, I worked for an AMC dealer in '72, and American Motors Canada went the extra mile for their dealers to satisfy the customers. Labour problems affected build quality - mostly in fit and finish - things like ball bearings or bolts welded into closed body chanels (the fix I devised was to drill a hole and shoot the channel full of undercoating to glue the nut or bearing in place) and beer cans inside tires. AMC paid what was required to fix those problems.

[J. Clarke]

Thank you for providing a Mona Lisa Vito-worthy automotive infodump. However Mona's boyfriend would have first ascertained such particulars as he could before turning Miss Vito loose on the court. And in this case it was a 1968 Cutlass.

However I do see the source of my confusion, I did not realize that GM had foisted two DIFFERENT 2-speed automatic abominations on the world. As for the "corporate" engine, no, it did not have a Chevrolet engine, it had Oldsmobile's quite adequate 350--"small block" is not restricted to Chevrolet.

I agree that the tires were at least part of the issue, however after that relatively minor fender bender (one tiny piece of trim on the Olds bent) my mother decided to sell it instead of doing something sensible like putting a set of Michelins on it.

[clare]

That critter had a "jet-away" transmission -which had a dual stage converter - also called a "switch pitch" which made it act more like a

3 or 4 speed automatic than a powerglide. - it had 2 planetary ratios and 2 converter "ratios". Thepowerglide has 2 planetary ratios and that's all.

The Jet-away WOULD burn the tires with a 350 rocket if it was set up right. It would start in low with the highg pitch converter, then "upshift" the converter, before finally shifting into high (sometimes downshifting the converter to give the effect of a 4 speed ) The car would have had E or F78-14 tires from the factory (roughly a

200-70 in P Metric) G78 or H70 tires would hold a lot better, particularly with the right rubber, and a lot of guys used L70-14 or L60-15s on the w31 and 442. Belteds stuck better than straight bias plies - Firestone Wide Ovals were popular - and BF Goodrich TAs were a good upgrade with a lot better traction.

[Ed Pawlowski]

My last car was a 2.0 ltr. 4 cylinder with turbo. The guy driving the Camero could not understand why my sedan could pass him no matter how hard he pushed the pedal.

Even modest cars today have pretty good performance. There were some bad years though when the first pollution stuff was hung on engines. IIRC it was about mid 70's.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Agree. But back in the 50s and 60s you could tell a Chevy from a Ford a half mile away. Today, aerodynamics has improved buy 90% of the cars look almost alike from 30 feet away.

[Markem]

Offies did a lot more than 300HP with four cyclinders.

[John McCoy]

"J. Clarke" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Sorry ol' buddy, but krw and clare are right, the law has nothing to do with it. It is all about the laws of physics, specifically those relating to thermodynamics.

60's era engines were lousy at thermodynamics (and tried to make up for it with vast displacements).

Modern engines have overhead cams and much "cleaner" intake manifolds - result is much better airflow into the engine. Modern engines have fuel injection - which means the exact right amount of fuel for best combustion, 60's engines had carbs, which just gave a rough approximation of the right amount of fuel. Engines today have knock sensors and electronic ignitions, which means you can have higher compression (better thermodynamically) and the spark occurs at the optimum time for mechanical advantage (you want peak cylinder pressure with the piston about 1/4th down the cylinder, for best leverage on the crank).

All these things (and that doesn't even touch on variable valve timing and turbos and other exotica) mean engines today produce twice as much power per cubic inch displacement as 60's engines did. They are far more powerful than those dinosaurs.

John

[krw]

I don't remember looking at them in the showroom.

[John McCoy]

Ed Pawlowski wrote in news:YhuBA.61700$ [e-mail]:

Two things happened there in the early 70's. One was the emissions controls (and the US industry has no-one to blame but themselves for that, hoping they could band-aid their existing designs instead of investing the money to design a proper fix). The other was the SAE deciding horsepower should be specified using the "net" method instead of the "gross" method.

The net horsepower rating eliminated a lot of the tricks the manufacturers used to cheat on horsepower ratings. So you'd see a "400hp" engine suddenly drop to maybe

220hp net, and then to maybe 165hp after the emissions controls were added.

John

[Leon]

I am not arguing that, HP in the 60's, but they got terrible gas mileage. That is why I said getting rid of carbs and adding electronics is how the HP has returned and fuel economy.

[Leon]

My wife's V6 Camry can out accelerate my sons 84, mint condition, Corvette, on the highway.

[Leon]

+1 ;~)

[Leon]

Yes with the stock 4 banger, A70-13 Firestones. Well there were 2 versions of the stock Vega engine. One had a different cam. Still about 92 HP.

Because of the coil springs in the back I got all kinds of wheel hop if I was not careful.

If you start with enough enough RPM's you could easily spin the tires.

[Leon]

Radial Tires eleminate most of that problem. Old biased ply tires were horrible on wet surfaces especially adphault surfaces.

[Leon]

In 68, it probably had 7.35 or 7.75 tires. E78-F78. ;~) I was in the tire business in the early 70's when the switch to the letter rated sizing began to happen. When working PT for the tire store, in 72, I had to learn to convert the old style sizing to the letter sizing. And that did not last long, I went through the same thing when going to the metric sizing change around 1977.

Oddly the sizing went full circle, back to the approximate width of the tread, except it went metric instead of inches. Approximate because every manufacturer has a different start and end point for the width measurement.

(roughly a

[clare]

On the street? On pump gas?

252 cu inch, 15+:1 compression, 4 valve dohc 420HP.Turbo'd, ovewr 1000HP

[J. Clarke]

OK, so tell us what changed in the laws of physics that resulted in the 1970 350 Corvette having 370 horsepower the same engine in 1981 producting 190 horsepower.

[J. Clarke]

Yes, the electronics and so on allow emission controlled engines to work well. But that does not alter the fact that the emission controls pulled performance way way down for a long time.

And a car in the '60s could get good mileage, it's just that that cost more than the typical American was going to spend--Ferraris got quite remarkable mileage considering the performance.

[J. Clarke]

It's amazing what aspect ratio does to appearance. My Jeep has 16 inch wheels and they look like great huge things. My electric has 17 inch and with that tiny bit of rubber around them they look tiny.