BOP/Rover V-8, where GM screwed itself.

[Bob Riebe]

Not that the people in charge of GMfrom the fifties on were ever mental giants, when they quit and sold this engine , their moron standards loose their were blatant.
They did try to buy it back but the British boys knew what they had and laughed at what GM , offered.

The Rover P5, is THE British car I would love to have, although the SD1 was sweet and the last truly British car to make a name before the Brits started selling off their heritage.

https://silodrome.com/rover-v8-engine-history/




I always though the Coupe looked like it had a chopped top so I checked; the factory chopped the top by 3 inches.

SD1

[Lloyd Smale]

that motor was actually very failure prone for Gm. Aluminum blocks were in there infancy back them and the technology of today just wasn't there. Ive heard that even the british versions back then were terrible when it came to reliabiiity. Heck british cars as a whole back then were terrible when compared to reliability of American cars. Im sure the motor they used in modern times was a far cry from those old buick v8s and the new range rovers sure don't have that old buick v8 in it. The same can be said about early fuel injection. I remember a buddys dad who had a 61 283 fuelly corvette. It was a headache from the day he bought it. Nope in my opinion Gm did the only thing that made sense. They sold a lemon to recoup some of the money they lost wasting time on it.

[Bob Riebe]

The only problem , out side of ignorant people not using anti-seizure compound, was some, not a lot of blocks cracked due to the method, mentioned in the article that GM used to make them.
The Brits could not afford the then high tech block casting method so they went to simple slip fit bore liners.

Back at the turn of the century , the last British company  making blocks had developed a slightly bigger bore version so they could easily be taken out to 320 plus some inches.
The block was the base of a Formula One championship just five years after it was created so, GM bit the horse in butt; but as I said they realized it fully when they tried to buy back rights to the engine and the Brits told them what to do with their asinine offer, so the tech. related Buick V-6 was used instead.

Chevy dickered with an all alloy version of the Mouse motor at the same time but again GM's bean counters killed that also.

[ironglows]

I don't know if it uses that same engine, but the Range Rover has suffered in recent years with reliability issues.  I don't think it is engine problems anyway, but more likely electronics etc.
  https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-7680649/The-65-000-Range-Rover-Sport-reliable-new-car-buy.html

   I believe the Morgan sports car people for a time, used that engine in their little 2 seaters.  That made it a real screamer, somewhat on the order of the AC Ace conversions to Cobra.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_Plus_8

[Bob Riebe]

When Ford bought Rover , it has since then used strictly Ford engines, though the current owners are developing their own V-8 engine, their is rumor they may use BMW eight cylinder engines.

[Lloyd Smale]

land rover was the only one that ever made me look. There were battle tanks. Many still in use today. Could have used more hp but there was seldom anything that stopped them. But like the range rover they lacked reliability. Buddys dad had one and it spent more time in his garage then it did on the road. Bottom line is a 90s chev blazer with a 5.7 vortex is hands down a more reliable rig and got as good of gas mileage and cost about half. Same could be said through the years comparing it to a bronco. Over priced junk for people with gold chains around there necks and the ones that put spinners on wheels. They about give away 5 year old units because there unreliable and cost a fortune to fix. Id hands down take a benz 4x4 any day for the same money over a range rover. At least there reliable. Heck id take a grand Cherokee any day over a range rover. Half the price, more reliable and much better resale value. Want a motor? You can get one of them with a 5.7 6.4 or a 707hp hell cat motor and i can pick up a loaded one of those for 10k less then the base price of one of those ghetto cruisers. Those motors, especially the first two are prove 200k motors even if abused. Light years ahead of the britts in technology. Or go buy a tahoe with a 6.2 that will eat a land rover for lunch. Heck you can even get it in black and put spinners on it. Today even the old technology LS gm motor puts anything the britts make look like a flathead 6 out of an 56 f150.

They can only dream that there over priced junk could compete with the reliability of US vehicles today or for that matter the Japs and Germans too. Gm probably didnt loose much sleep over loosing that motor or they would have just built another one. They in fact did, they built the all aluminum 427 in 69. A motor that was built RIGHT. I sure dont see hot rodders looking for old aluminum buick motors. Or pulling them out of old range rovers. Yup chev thought about an aluminum mouse motor but after the buick fiasco they knew people were gun shy. In later years they didnt do it because they didnt have as stick of fuel economy standards as they do now. That is what brought you aluminum blocks and turbo charged 4 cyls. They also knew the old mouse motor wouldnt meet the newer emission standards and needed something new and were working on the LS motor. Hands down a better motor in every way and that comes from an old hotrodder that grew up loving rats and mice. Guys pull them out of wrecked and rusty cars and trucks at the junkyard with a 150 k on them. Clean them up and stick them in a hot rod without fixing a thing and drive them another 100k. Now thats a GOOD aluminum motor. If aluminum motor technology was good enough in the 60s did you ever wonder why ford and chrylser didnt bring something out? They had no agreement with range rover. bottom line is those buicks were the chevy vega of the 60s.

[ironglows]

I simply must take some issue here.. with this statement by Lloyd.;

  "They can only dream that there over priced junk could compete with the reliability of US vehicles today or for that matter the Japs and Germans too."

  Let's look at reality..I'm not here to condemn the traditional American brands, but to point out some obvious flaws in the above statement.
  Perhaps he has not seen the many Hondas and Nissans that have hundreds of thousands of miles on their odometer..and still running well.
    Haven't you heard the phrase.."Toyotas are like the energizer bunny, they just keep running and running"?

  Back in the 1950s and 1960s, Volvo had a "million mile club" program, where if a Volvo owner could show by dealer records, where their car clocked over 1,000,000 miles, they would get a gold watch.  Volvo gave up on the program after handing out too many gold watches...not to mention that too many owners were not trading for a new car, hoping to hit 1,000,000 miles with their old one.
  That was back in the 1950s and 1960s when 100,000 was considered to be just about the life of a car.

  Here's a guy who has nearly 3 million miles on his car.... likely has it now.  https://www.nydailynews.com/autos/million-mile-volvo-club-adds-member-article-1.1187793

  "As impressive as his mileage is, though, it's not a world record. That honor belongs to Irv Gordon, the current Guinness Book of World Records holder who has over 2.97 million miles on his 1966 Volvo P1800. He expects to pass the three million mark sometime in late 2013."

  Incidiently, those Volvos were all 4 cylinder cars !

[Bob Riebe]

They also knew the old mouse motor wouldnt meet the newer emission standards and needed something new and were working on the LS motor. Hands down a better motor in every way and that comes from an old hotrodder that grew up loving rats and mice. Guys pull them out of wrecked and rusty cars and trucks at the junkyard with a 150 k on them. Clean them up and stick them in a hot rod without fixing a thing and drive them another 100k. Now thats a GOOD aluminum motor. If aluminum motor technology was good enough in the 60s did you ever wonder why ford and chrylser didnt bring something out? They had no agreement with range rover. bottom line is those buicks were the chevy vega of the 60s.

You are giving the LS far more credit than it deserves.
It became what it was partly because it was lighter, even the iron version; it came to be when GM became just gaggle of badge engineered cars with few exceptions.
Caddy did not give up its own V-8 because it wanted to.
Without Chevy returning to racing in the very late nineties, the LS would not have had the development it received as it would have had not reason to.
The early LS cylinder heads were no wonderful break through, the Castle port configuration, was dropped dropped when Chevy had a Corvette racing team and replaced with conventional rectangular ports for simple horse power reasons.
Had Dodge not put itself on the map racing the Viper, the Corvette would probably not been more than a boulevard cruiser that it had become, but Dodge exposed the Corvette for what it was.

Before the big/surviving 3 built race only V-8s for NASCAR, GM used the small-block to the very end, developing special cylinder heads for it which NASCAR allowed and then banned one by one trying to keep up with Ford. (partly as the France boy wanted a single spec. engine till Chevy, Dodge and Ford said to that we are gone.).
The BOP engine was the engine of choice in many A sports racer cars, the class the Can-Am was developed from, in the early sixties.
 Including Penske in a Cooper, when he still drove and the original Team McLaren, which Bruce McLaren WON with battling Chaparral who DID have access to the new back door alloy small blocks, available only to Chaparral.
Simple physics and that -- inches cubed rule -- finally retired the BOP engine,  made the small block Ford non-competitive even with Weslake cylinder heads, and retired the small block Chevy by 1968.
Many were used in open class midget racers up into the eighties.

Porosity was the problem that plagued the original alloy Chevy small-blocks which Duntov wanted BADLY to be produced.
GM 1963 no racing edict put an end to such products, with secret back-door, secret to GM bean counters, being the only thing keeping alive.
The vaunted ZL-1 only existed because Duntov knew which strings to carefully pluck while keeping the back door locked to the shirt and tie GM people.
Ford had alloy cylinder heads for the FE road racing engines before the ZL-1 existed, the much vaunted liner-less Can-Am big-block Chevy was another experiment Chevy tried and screwed up .
Using the same alloy in the Vega engine with bad results due to penny pinching which GM was noted for, while the Porsche 928 used a mod. version of the the same alloy in its V-8 with success.

As the one millionth Land Rover was sold in 1976, it was far from a crappy vehicle; they left the U.S. market, 1974,  back then only because the cheaper Toyota Land Cruiser made exporting a waste of time , and i am sure the Ford Bronco was part also.
Back then they were true Utes, not SUV crap that exists today.

In the early sixties Chrysler and AMC both tried alloy versions of their six bangers but again, penny pinching and problems that always come with some thing new and different killed them.

[Bob Riebe]

  Here's a guy who has nearly 3 million miles on his car.... likely has it now.  https://www.nydailynews.com/autos/million-mile-volvo-club-adds-member-article-1.1187793
  "As impressive as his mileage is, though, it's not a world record. That honor belongs to Irv Gordon, the current Guinness Book of World Records holder who has over 2.97 million miles on his 1966 Volvo P1800. He expects to pass the three million mark sometime in late 2013."

  Incidiently, those Volvos were all 4 cylinder cars !

When the best known  owner of a multi-million mile car died in 2018, it had 3.2 million miles on it.
I would love to have a P1800 station wagon.
In 1975 Volvo switched form SAE thread to metric on the engine.

[ironglows]

Yes; that P1800 was nice in either the coupe or the wagon..which Europeans call a "shooting brake"..and I don't know how they arrive at that term.  Shooting as in hunting i understand..but brake ? 

[Bob Riebe]

SHOOTING BRAKE

HISTORY. The term "shooting brake" comes from turn-of-the-century England, where it referred to a car used to transport a hunting party and its gear. "Brake" referred to a chassis that was used to break in horses. ... Thus was the modern idea of a shooting brake born as a low, sleek two-door wagon.

[ironglows]

SHOOTING BRAKE

HISTORY. The term "shooting brake" comes from turn-of-the-century England, where it referred to a car used to transport a hunting party and its gear. "Brake" referred to a chassis that was used to break in horses. ... Thus was the modern idea of a shooting brake born as a low, sleek two-door wagon.

   Thanks Bob..  Say, those two Rovers on the top, are cars from the 50s & 60s aren't they?
  The British manufacturers  for some years back then, suffered from strangely contrived regulations.  Back then, British cars were taxed , and taxed quite dearly..theoretically, by their engine displacement.
  The problem was that parliament decided that displacement was governed by the dimension of the bore only.  So what resulted for most cars, were engines with a small bore and long stroke.
  So, since over square engines were rare, it resulted in slow revving engines, compared to the nearby European builders.
  If I am wrong in any way perhaps somebody from the UK can correct, but that is how I recall it from so long ago.

[Bob Riebe]

The P5, was from 1958-73, the SD1 was 1976-86.
The first P5 had a 182.8 side-valve straight six (over head intake, side exhaust).
They used that six until 1967 when the V-8 replaced it.
In its last version it had 134 HP which out of a 182 in. cu. side-valve is pretty darn good.
The first one at just under 3,500 pounds, for that period of time it was not a light car, my 1966 Plymouth Fury weighed a little over 3,700 lbs.
The original got 20.5 imperial gallons per mile which was very good but if you ever check, even U.S. cars from the late fifties-early sixties 20 mpg, U.S. was not rare depending on engine.

Most of Europe taxed, I have not checked , I think still, taxes  displacement and from what I remember you are correct that is one reason large engines were not over square like U.S. cars.

This the P6 ran concurrently withthe P5 for a good chunk of the sixties and seventies:

As Rover pretty much Britains equivalent of Chebby in the U.S., this would be like Chevy II four door sedan for place in hierarchy.
This one, was the one that was used to decide whether or not to use the Buick eight, back door of course.

It came with either an OHC 4 banger or the V-8 but was 700 pounds lighter than the P5.
It was also built in New Zealand and South Africa.

Now for a radical hot-rod person such as yourself, here is the car they both replaced.

[Lloyd Smale]

Well as to boulevard cruisers even the c4 corvette would out run most of the early vettes except the fuelies and big blocks and even give them a run. Maybe the smogged up 70s vettes could be consider that but then everything made in america was lame then. I drive mopars now. A ram, a wrangler and a challenger 392. That said if you pinned me down as to the best small block v8 ever id probably say the lt4 chev makes now but bang for the buck you just arent going to find a hot rod engine cheaper to buy and to make fast then a ls. Not only that but it will be fast for a LONG time. If your calling one of those ls corvettes a boulevard cruiser id suggest you line up against one. Or better yet the zo6 version. It would out drag about anything made in the 70s and do it with a 150k on the odometer.  Even a normal vette with a set of headers cam and tune would woop an old ls6 or hemi. There wasnt a small block chev sold at a dealership that would make me run and hide in my 392 or anyone with a stock ss camaro built in the last 5 years. Throw in the coyotee mustang too and if toyota would build a real muscle car with there v8 it would be a player too. Any of those three would give ANY muscle car of the 60s nightmares and do it with the ac on and a girl driving if its an auto. Like is said i bled chevy in the 70s. Had an ls6 and a and many small blocks. Loved them but there not even close to a LS in any department let alone a lt4. Sorry but these are the good old days of muscle cars. Small block chevs and all the rest of old school v8s are more in line with the flat head motors then todays motors. Heck you can go to the junkyard and buy a used ls with a 100k on it slap in in a car and have less then it would cost to rebuild a small block chev and id about bet that small block chev would need rebuilding sooner then that 100k ls and youd have to invest more then the cost of that junkyard ls to even come close to the power the ls made stock. Range rover v8? Buick aluminum v8? Like i said how many hotrodder fart with those dinasours. Now that motor would probably make for a boulevard crusier if you couldnt find a comparable hp 4 cyl to transplant into your hot rod. As to land rover reliablity all a guy has to do is check the sites like consumer guide and you will get the facts. Theres good reason other then price only the wealthy buy them. But ill bow out of this one. Like my buddy says. Memory's are usually faster then the timer at the track. Reliablity can fall into the same memory lane selective memory condition.

They also knew the old mouse motor wouldnt meet the newer emission standards and needed something new and were working on the LS motor. Hands down a better motor in every way and that comes from an old hotrodder that grew up loving rats and mice. Guys pull them out of wrecked and rusty cars and trucks at the junkyard with a 150 k on them. Clean them up and stick them in a hot rod without fixing a thing and drive them another 100k. Now thats a GOOD aluminum motor. If aluminum motor technology was good enough in the 60s did you ever wonder why ford and chrylser didnt bring something out? They had no agreement with range rover. bottom line is those buicks were the chevy vega of the 60s.

You are giving the LS far more credit than it deserves.
It became what it was partly because it was lighter, even the iron version; it came to be when GM became just gaggle of badge engineered cars with few exceptions.
Caddy did not give up its own V-8 because it wanted to.
Without Chevy returning to racing in the very late nineties, the LS would not have had the development it received as it would have had not reason to.
The early LS cylinder heads were no wonderful break through, the Castle port configuration, was dropped dropped when Chevy had a Corvette racing team and replaced with conventional rectangular ports for simple horse power reasons.
Had Dodge not put itself on the map racing the Viper, the Corvette would probably not been more than a boulevard cruiser that it had become, but Dodge exposed the Corvette for what it was.

Before the big/surviving 3 built race only V-8s for NASCAR, GM used the small-block to the very end, developing special cylinder heads for it which NASCAR allowed and then banned one by one trying to keep up with Ford. (partly as the France boy wanted a single spec. engine till Chevy, Dodge and Ford said to that we are gone.).
The BOP engine was the engine of choice in many A sports racer cars, the class the Can-Am was developed from, in the early sixties.
 Including Penske in a Cooper, when he still drove and the original Team McLaren, which Bruce McLaren WON with battling Chaparral who DID have access to the new back door alloy small blocks, available only to Chaparral.
Simple physics and that -- inches cubed rule -- finally retired the BOP engine,  made the small block Ford non-competitive even with Weslake cylinder heads, and retired the small block Chevy by 1968.
Many were used in open class midget racers up into the eighties.

Porosity was the problem that plagued the original alloy Chevy small-blocks which Duntov wanted BADLY to be produced.
GM 1963 no racing edict put an end to such products, with secret back-door, secret to GM bean counters, being the only thing keeping alive.
The vaunted ZL-1 only existed because Duntov knew which strings to carefully pluck while keeping the back door locked to the shirt and tie GM people.
Ford had alloy cylinder heads for the FE road racing engines before the ZL-1 existed, the much vaunted liner-less Can-Am big-block Chevy was another experiment Chevy tried and screwed up .
Using the same alloy in the Vega engine with bad results due to penny pinching which GM was noted for, while the Porsche 928 used a mod. version of the the same alloy in its V-8 with success.

As the one millionth Land Rover was sold in 1976, it was far from a crappy vehicle; they left the U.S. market, 1974,  back then only because the cheaper Toyota Land Cruiser made exporting a waste of time , and i am sure the Ford Bronco was part also.
Back then they were true Utes, not SUV crap that exists today.

In the early sixties Chrysler and AMC both tried alloy versions of their six bangers but again, penny pinching and problems that always come with some thing new and different killed them.

[ironglows]

One of the simple formulas for performance is "pounds per horsepower".  For instance, where the small block Ford (289 cu. in.) was a very good performer in the Ford sedan, in the Cobra it was a major performer.
  Of course, I suppose in today's cars, 289 cu. in. would no longer be considered a 'small block' any engine.  Of such is progress..   

[Lloyd Smale]

Now slow down and read what i actually wrote. I wrote that british cars are not as reliable as American cars OR the japs and germans. Not that American cars were more reliable then a Honda or any other jap car maker. But then its a apportunity to take a shot

I simply must take some issue here.. with this statement by Lloyd.;

  "They can only dream that there over priced junk could compete with the reliability of US vehicles today or for that matter the Japs and Germans too."

  Let's look at reality..I'm not here to condemn the traditional American brands, but to point out some obvious flaws in the above statement.
  Perhaps he has not seen the many Hondas and Nissans that have hundreds of thousands of miles on their odometer..and still running well.
    Haven't you heard the phrase.."Toyotas are like the energizer bunny, they just keep running and running"?

  Back in the 1950s and 1960s, Volvo had a "million mile club" program, where if a Volvo owner could show by dealer records, where their car clocked over 1,000,000 miles, they would get a gold watch.  Volvo gave up on the program after handing out too many gold watches...not to mention that too many owners were not trading for a new car, hoping to hit 1,000,000 miles with their old one.
  That was back in the 1950s and 1960s when 100,000 was considered to be just about the life of a car.

  Here's a guy who has nearly 3 million miles on his car.... likely has it now.  https://www.nydailynews.com/autos/million-mile-volvo-club-adds-member-article-1.1187793

  "As impressive as his mileage is, though, it's not a world record. That honor belongs to Irv Gordon, the current Guinness Book of World Records holder who has over 2.97 million miles on his 1966 Volvo P1800. He expects to pass the three million mark sometime in late 2013."

  Incidiently, those Volvos were all 4 cylinder cars !

[Lloyd Smale]

yup a great way to rate performance. Lets see a 289 cobra does 0-60 in about 5 seconds and the quarter in mid 13s.https://www.automobile-catalog.com/car/1964/212840/shelby_cobra_289.html  It weights about half what my challenger does and the challenger easily blows those stats away with the ac running the stereo playing and 6 piston brembo brakes to stop it for a top speed of 180 which to by the way is faster by a good margin then the cobra and pull as many Gs in a corner. . Thats not even using a hellcat, zl1 or gt500 to compare. Those three would easily hand a 427 cobra a whooping and the later two would probably pull more Gs the the best race cars of the day. Not only that but will run for 200k. then look at the two seaters like the newest vetts, nissan gtrs, vipers ect. They would chew up a cobra. You know CARS WITH REAL MOTORS Also factor in a cobra of the day cost 2 to 3 times as much as an average car and were basically crude aluminum beer cans with a v8 in them. that kind of money today would buy you a zo6 vet or a viper. Probably similar in price at todays inflation rates and light years better in every aspect. Thank God for technology. Like i said THIS is the golden age of muscle cars.  Back in the 80s when the cobra kit car was the craze they were dropping 5.0s out of mustangs in them and turning better numbers then the 289s did and making them much better handling and gave them brakes the cobra could only dream of.

You need to also keep in mind that hp rating techniques did a big change in the 70s. Those 289 275 hp mustangs today would be rated closer to 220hp and maybe put down (and im being generous) 175 on a wheel dyno. I have a video where they dyno'd my exact car with a just a change of exhaust and were putting 430 down at the tires. Here it is if you doubt it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E14kZ395Mcc. Now tell me in what universe was there a motor even that good in the 60s that would last more then 9 or 10 1/4 mile runs without needing a rebuild let alone 200k. Little hint THERE ARE NONE!    Cars like my old ls6 454 450 hp car that were king of the road back then put down about 300 on average on a wheel dyno. A decent v8 or a v6 in the case of ford pickup today will put those kind of numbers down. Lifespan of an ls6 before needing refreshing about 60k.  Read not to long ago an old new comparison article and its said a v6 corolla has better 0-60 1/4 mile times then a 389 gto. There's 4cyl cars made today that will whip some of the old "GREAT MOTORS" of yesterday.  Id bet about any car made in japan or America or germany today would whip any buick with that aluminum v8.  It wasnt even considered a performance motor in the early 60s. But as usual theres facts posted by some and opinions by others. So im out of this one. Like I said its real easy. If it was such a great motor in its day why haven't we seen a single hot rod powered by one shown here. Heck i can dig up hotrods with ford flat head v8s that put out more hp then that motor did. Shake my head at some here. First to bash American cars and but foreign but come to the defense of a mistake the American car manufactures had. Whats next defense of the vega, pinto, gremlin, hornet. I guess you could argue that pinto motors found themselves in IO boats so they must have been great. Land Rovers or any british car with a high consumer guide reliability rating. SHOW ME THE MONEY! Now see what you can pick apart in that post and ill let you have the last word. Bob at least has some experience with muscle cars. Stick to tanks  

One of the simple formulas for performance is "pounds per horsepower".  For instance, where the small block Ford (289 cu. in.) was a very good performer in the Ford sedan, in the Cobra it was a major performer.
  Of course, I suppose in today's cars, 289 cu. in. would no longer be considered a 'small block' any engine.  Of such is progress..   

[Bob Riebe]

Lloyd stop comparing engine, chassis, tire, drive-train components of 30-60 years ago with that of today that LEARNED from those of that era, the analogy is bogus.
Putting today's rubber compounds on any of the old cars would drop a second off of their quarter mile times.

One can for far less money, and auto rags have run articles showing the cost, build cars/egines that equal current machines rather than buying one of the 50 plus thousand dollar current machines.
Hot Rod magazine built , as close to exact replicas as possible, a few years back, duplicates of the Z-28 and Boss 302 engines.
The Chevy had a little over 350 HP on the Dyno and the Ford a little over 370.
Their rating was actually approx., what the tires were putting on the road , plus or minus a few.

There are not as many home garage mechanics as there were even 40 years ago, but as I said , you can equal the performance of most Detroit or over sea hot cars with 70 to 30 year old cars easily if one has the desire to do so.
If Detroit's whiz-bang cars were the end all, there would not be ignition and carburretion systems for sale now to convert LS, new Hemi etc. engines to distributors or carburettors because people want to and do not want to have deal with factory computer systems.
As my sig. just found out replacing the computer controlled wind-shield wiper system on a 2004 Grand Marquis will cost close to 400 dollars.
When the Mopar Hell Cat systems need work, your 70 thousand dollar vehicle will get thousands of dollars more expensive.

Many of the articles exist because they are about items whose manufacturers pay to advertise in the magazine.
Even one of the Hot Rod editors said the magazines are over full of LS and Ford Modular based engine articles.

Car and Driver learned fifty years ago what happens when you do not kiss the ass that pays your bills and 90 percent of the advertisers canceled when they printed and article base on pure fact, not Detroit hype.

[ironglows]

  From Bob...
  " Lloyd stop comparing engine, chassis, tire, drive-train components of 30-60 years ago with that of today that LEARNED from those of that era, the analogy is bogus.
Putting today's rubber compounds on any of the old cars would drop a second off of their quarter mile times."

    My thoughts too, as soon as I read the Charger rebuttal!  Like comparing the Model "A" Ford, to '58 Chevy Corvette..and that would only be about 30 years difference...

  Back in that era, a sought for goal was 1 hp per cubic inch.  No question, today that seems anemic by today's standards. 
 
  During the Model "A" hey days, the Stearman biplane was cutting edge, today we have
 mach 3 fighter planes. In addition, we are sending out space rockets and bringing them back home in one piece, with or without passengers.

 Surprising , what a few decades of research can do !
 

[Lloyd Smale]

There are not as many home garage mechanics as there were even 40 years ago, but as I said , you can equal the performance of most Detroit or over sea hot cars with 70 to 30 year old cars easily if one has the desire to do so.
If Detroit's whiz-bang cars were the end all, there would not be ignition and carburretion systems for sale now to convert LS, new Hemi etc. engines to distributors or carburettors because people want to and do not want to have deal with factory computer systems.
As my sig. just found out replacing the computer controlled wind-shield wiper system on a 2004 Grand Marquis will cost close to 400 dollars.
When the Mopar Hell Cat systems need work, your 70 thousand dollar vehicle will get thousands of dollars more expensive.

Well bob as you know doubt know there hands down more conversions out there to make carbed motors electronic fuel injected then conversions for fuely motors to go back to carbs. Compared to fuel injection a holley is about like putting a garden hose on top of your manifold. Yup it would cost some coin if you had to replace a hellcat motor but if in the 70s you blew your hemi at todays dollar the price would be pretty close. Even the price of the purchase would be very close and your getting 10 times the car. Also that 400 dollar part your buying with inflation would have cost you about 55 bucks in 1968. Bottom line is sure things cost more to fix today. Inflation caused that not technology. Bottom line is if you took any car of the 60s and ran it 200k and factored in the cost of keeping it running at todays rates a hellcat would be the bargin of the century. Like ive said your getting the performance of a pro stock race car in the 60s easily destroying any car even modified back then that would last more the a few thousand miles at a price that factoring in inflation is about the same. Same goes for any car or pickup. things cost more to fix, but you make more money and they dont break NEAR as often. By the time you match a new cars ability to last 2-300k you had to not only repair but probably replace your car at AT LEAST TWICE back then. tell you what you do. You buy a 60s muscle car build it to the level sticking with carbs and a distributor and the original block that will even woop my 392 at a track and build it so it will run on pump gas and so that you can drive it a 1000 miles cross country to get here and if you beat my buddys hellcat charger bone stock ill give you my challenger. Im sure he will even crank up the stereo and turn the ac on for the wooping. Bring up a stock 70s muscle car that even MIGHT make the trip without repairs and ill run you with my ram. Now i love old muscle cars. Dont think for a second that if someone came here and offered me a nice ls6 like the one i owned or a hemi cuda for my challenger i wouldnt jump and and down. But im not so naive that id think i was getting a faster or better car. Just the opposite. But like you i have a bit of nostalsia too as do many others or you wouldnt see mint ls6s or hemis going for over a 100k.  by the way they made bias ply slicks back then and soft rubber cheaters and mickey thompsons that had all the traction a drag radial has today and about the same short lifespan. I was LUCKY to get a summer out of them. You might knock some a second at most off those times back then with a set of slicks or drag radials but to be fair let me do the same with my challenger because launching at anything over 3k is just a smoke show on street tires and it will even go sideways with a 1 to 2 power shift. Like i said its putting down to the tires almost a 150 more hp then a ls6 or a hemi. A set of tires aint making that up.

[Lloyd Smale]

what is it your drive??? Any more advice or opinions drawn from your vast experience with American muscle cars? Your analogy with a Stearman compared to a modern jet does apply though. You an put all the lipstick you want on a pig but its still going to get ate by a wolf. Only way a 70s muscle car is going to run with a new one and do it reliably is to transplant a new drivetrain into it PERIOD. Its like comparing a flint lock rifle to an ar15 in a gun fight. About all mine shares with a 70s hemi is that stupid shifter in the console. If i would have bought it new i surely would have been an automatic because todays technology has made them shift better and faster then any mans brain could. Well at least it came with a duel disc clutch so im not crawling under it ever year to put a new clutch and pressure plate in it like my old muscle cars. that tires and oil and plugs, points and carb rebuilds, adjusting solid lifters, couple broken axles ect ect took alot of my beer money. they were like the snowmobiles and harleys of the day. you spent about an hour or two  wrenching for a couple passes down the quarter mile (if you were lucky) Yup those were the days. Thats the reality of it. Not a memory that has selectively forgot all those hours and just remembers that pretty chevelle sitting in the driveway. you know, the one you owned but needed to borrow dads car to take a 500 mile trip because you were afraid youd break down or couldnt get good enough gas because every town didnt have a Sunoco station. The reason you had to carry some octane boost and a full tool set and a set of plugs and points in the trunk. Yup the good old days.    Either you experience the same or just didnt drive muscle cars back them and got your knowledge from a computer. Anyone thinking you could bolt on a few parts and stick it in a time machine and compete with todays cars is smoking crack. 

  From Bob...
  " Lloyd stop comparing engine, chassis, tire, drive-train components of 30-60 years ago with that of today that LEARNED from those of that era, the analogy is bogus.
Putting today's rubber compounds on any of the old cars would drop a second off of their quarter mile times."

    My thoughts too, as soon as I read the Charger rebuttal!  Like comparing the Model "A" Ford, to '58 Chevy Corvette..and that would only be about 30 years difference...

  Back in that era, a sought for goal was 1 hp per cubic inch.  No question, today that seems anemic by today's standards. 
 
  During the Model "A" hey days, the Stearman biplane was cutting edge, today we have
 mach 3 fighter planes. In addition, we are sending out space rockets and bringing them back home in one piece, with or without passengers.

 Surprising , what a few decades of research can do !
 

[ironglows]

what is it your drive??? Any more advice or opinions drawn from your vast experience with American muscle cars? Your analogy with a Stearman compared to a modern jet does apply though. You an put all the lipstick you want on a pig but its still going to get ate by a wolf. Only way a 70s muscle car is going to run with a new one and do it reliably is to transplant a new drivetrain into it PERIOD. Its like comparing a flint lock rifle to an ar15 in a gun fight. About all mine shares with a 70s hemi is that stupid shifter in the console. If i would have bought it new i surely would have been an automatic because todays technology has made them shift better and faster then any mans brain could. Well at least it came with a duel disc clutch so im not crawling under it ever year to put a new clutch and pressure plate in it like my old muscle cars. that tires and oil and plugs, points and carb rebuilds, adjusting solid lifters, couple broken axles ect ect took alot of my beer money. they were like the snowmobiles and harleys of the day. you spent about an hour or two  wrenching for a couple passes down the quarter mile (if you were lucky) Yup those were the days. Thats the reality of it. Not a memory that has selectively forgot all those hours and just remembers that pretty chevelle sitting in the driveway. you know, the one you owned but needed to borrow dads car to take a 500 mile trip because you were afraid youd break down or couldnt get good enough gas because every town didnt have a Sunoco station. The reason you had to carry some octane boost and a full tool set and a set of plugs and points in the trunk. Yup the good old days.    Either you experience the same or just didnt drive muscle cars back them and got your knowledge from a computer. Anyone thinking you could bolt on a few parts and stick it in a time machine and compete with todays cars is smoking crack. 

  From Bob...
  " Lloyd stop comparing engine, chassis, tire, drive-train components of 30-60 years ago with that of today that LEARNED from those of that era, the analogy is bogus.
Putting today's rubber compounds on any of the old cars would drop a second off of their quarter mile times."

    My thoughts too, as soon as I read the Charger rebuttal!  Like comparing the Model "A" Ford, to '58 Chevy Corvette..and that would only be about 30 years difference...

  Back in that era, a sought for goal was 1 hp per cubic inch.  No question, today that seems anemic by today's standards. 
 
  During the Model "A" hey days, the Stearman biplane was cutting edge, today we have
 mach 3 fighter planes. In addition, we are sending out space rockets and bringing them back home in one piece, with or without passengers.

 Surprising , what a few decades of research can do !
 

  Hey; thanks Lloyd, for making my case of what a few decades of research, experience and production can do!

  What do I drive...well, I drive a Jeep Patriot SUV.  The top speed anywhere I normally drive is 65 mph, and although I don't usually press that limit by much, the Jeep will handle it easily.  Besides, I am not inclined to use public highways for racing, anyway !
.

[Bob Riebe]

by the way they made bias ply slicks back then and soft rubber cheaters and mickey thompsons that had all the traction a drag radial has today and about the same short lifespan.

Tire compounds Lloyd that have changed and are what makes a difference.
When I made an effort to be a motor sports journalist way back in the seventies and eighties; talking to the boys in the pits about tires they said, both road race and sprint cars, that tire compound choice was what made the difference between running up front and being an also ran.

Tire compounds since then have made a huge , huge difference.
I remember when Bill Thomas and Nickey Chevrolet brought out the first of the dealer special big-block Camaros, beating Yenko and all the rest, the highest performance street tire at the time were ,huge for the time, 8 inch. recaps from Casler, a company long gone.

Here is an article on the article:


Vintage Road Test: Bill Thomas & Nickey Build a 12-Second 1968 Chevrolet Camaro 427
From the Archives: Nickey/Thomas 427 Camaro
Super Chevy, Drew Hardin, May 30, 2017

How do you build a 12-second 1968 Camaro? Bill Thomas made it sound so easy: “Well, we took this 425-horse 427 engine assembly, stuffed one of our 550 hydraulic cams into it, added a few handling pieces to the suspension and clamped on a set of tube headers, and the results sort of tear your head off.”

When Jim McFarland profiled this car for the March 1968 issue of Hot Rod magazine, Thomas was an old hand in the Camaro conversion game, having been one of the first to transplant a 427 into the ponycar soon after its 1966 introduction. And the 12.50/113.21 this Camaro turned at Irwindale Raceway was done, said McFarland, “with all the restrictive smog equipment yet devised for a Chevy still intact: belting, air pump, emission tubing and a 3911 Holley ‘smog type’ carburetor…and with 3.7:1 rear gearing, open headers, a set of Casler 8-inch cap, 28-1/2-inch-tall soft-wall tires and 5,500-rpm shift points. Could be that this combination will turn out to be the strongest street rig you’ll have an opportunity to drive this year.”

Chevrolet helped with the process, offering multiple leaves in the rear spring packs for the ’68 model year rather than the ’67’s monoleaves. Reinforcements were still needed to maximize traction, though. Thomas added traction bars and recommended extra welding to add beef around the rear spring perches. He also installed a 1-inch front sway bar “for greatly improved ‘feel’ of front-end activity,” McFarland said, and heavy-duty shocks all around.

The engine received Thomas’s RR-550 hydraulic camshaft; 2-inch-diameter, 36-inch-long headers dumping into 3-1/2-inch diameter, 10-inch-long collectors; Champion N9-Y plugs gapped at 0.028-inch; and timing fixed at 38 degrees at 3,000 rpm “with 10 degrees of this in the distributor,” McFarland said. “The transmission was a 2.56 1st gear Muncie with stock shift linkage, and a 10-1/2-inch street/strip Schiefer Rev-Lok clutch and flywheel assembly.”

McFarland made some three dozen quarter-mile passes in the car, which weighed 3,440 pounds (“spare tire and no driver”). On street tires and with the 427 capped, “the car netted a consistent string of 14.0’s, 102’s. This was, of course, with street tires and absolutely no bite,” though the torquey big-block was able to clean the clock of a Ram-Air GTO that fellow HRM staffer Eric Dahlquist was testing at the same time. “We found that the Camaro would open almost a car length of daylight lead during 3rd gear acceleration. It was impressive.” Open exhausts and the Caslers brought the car to its 12.50s, even with “grandma shifts and the self-imposed rpm limit of 5,500.”

Based on his experience working with the magazine’s ’67 Camaro project car the year before, McFarland felt it “perfectly safe to extrapolate this performance to determine what you could expect the car to do in serious competition.” By shedding some weight, swapping the rear gears to 4.88s, mounting wider slicks, “a little chassis attitude work” and upping the engine speed to 7,200 rpm before shifts, “this $4,000 street-legal car (we drove it on the street every day we had it) is capable of 11.30s and speeds in the neighborhood of 122 mph! And we recall when 13.50 would clamp down a victory in D/Gas almost anywhere in the country.”

Thomas “has everything you need for the package,” said McFarland, “and you can literally build the car over the phone when you’re ordering. As soon as the average performance enthusiast gets wind of the car’s potential, simple mention of the completed package will be strong enough to dent a fender. The car just wants to run.”

[Lloyd Smale]

well Bob now if you want a 12 second camaro you by the middle ground ss and your wife can do that. If you want 11s you buy a zl1 and do it with a full exhaust and like i said the ac running on pump gas and can drive it 200k. Heck you can do 12s with all season radials. best time of 12.50 with a bunch of mods. open full race  headers cam clutch regeared tranny and slicks. That was there best time Take that ss camaro to a tuner put a cat back and a k&n filter and a tune and you doing low 12s. comical how they call times like that tearing your head off back then (and had to use race tires to do it) Make it fair. If your 60s car gets slicks then give the same to the modern car which puts out much more hp and needs them even more. Now if anything im suprised at the poor perfromance it put down. string of 14s??? I would have expected a car set up like that to break into the 11s. Either something was amiss or that guy just couldnt drive. Just the fact theres a second and a half differnce between is best and worse time about tells the story of someone who cant drive.

Heck A 6 cyl camaro today will run in the low 14s with little or no work.  Keep in mind to thats a L79 which is basicaly the same motor as a zl1 other then its cast. Radical motor to start with then the ran open headers. Not the big blocks that were normaly on the street. I believe they made less the 2k of them. I heard 1500 went in cars and 500 were kept for spares and warantee. In its day it was basicaly a race motor more then a street motor. Nothing a normal guy would want to live with day to day. If that tore there head off my 392 would have it left in the last town and a hellcat would have it in another state. Redeye or a demon in a different country. Put the same amount in todays dollars into mods that they did to that 427 and there head would have been on mars.

 Theres cars today that will run numbers that pro stock cars did when we were young and do it on street legal tires. We can argue this all day long but those sad numbers you posted just reinforced my side of it. Heck truth be told old iron glows partiot would give 289 mustangs and low end 327 camaros fits in the quarter mile. In the mid 70s and 80s we pined for the good old days. Late 80s gave us back performace. 2000s gave us 70s era beating cars. 2020? Those 70s guys only wish they had a time machine so they could come here to witness the golden age of muscle cars. Doesnt take a hairy chested redneck to drive one either. With a 5 minute lesson your wife could run low 12s in an automatic car. betcha that camaro made so pretty sounds though going down the track. Ive heard many newer exhausts and have yet to hear the music a good old big block made a 5000 rpm. Most of them like mine sound more like some italian sports car. I have an exhaust on mine that sounds about as close as ive heard but it makes that sound at the expense of massive drone at low rpms. So much so its getting yanked off next summer. I guess back them we ran headers and header mufflers and just didnt care. To old for that crap today.

Want to really here a sweat sound come hear my buddys 69 302 z28 power shifting at 8000rpm while it runs a high 14 quarter mile. sounds like a nascar cup car. But even that little sweet small block would get its but handed to it by a 6 cyl camaro or challenger or a turbo 4 cyl mustang. But youd look cool loosing. All i know is i had a ls6 chevelle with a 4 speed and 411s. best time it turned and thats with mickey thompson cheater that i ran on it was a 12.8 on a prepped track and it probably averaged around 13. Put on a set of those hard bias ply tires of the day and it was a 14 second smoke show. Now i dont think anyone will argue that the ls6 chevelle was at least in the top 5 of fast factory cars in 1970. Many say it was the quickest, other then those low production factory race motors and cars from tuners like motion, yenkoo, mr norm ect that would possibly break into the 11s but sure didnt come with a 3 year warantee.  Dodge sells a model called the 1320 6.4. kind of a hellcat without the hellcat motor. Comes right from the factory with drag radials and box stock will break into the 11s with a 3 year warantee. Id bet my house that mine would run a good 1/2 a second quicker then my ls6 even if i stayed on radials and the ls6 was on drag radials. Cool thing is probably still will at a 150k and get an EASY 25mpg going to the track with the ac on. By the way i havent got grease on my white t shirts since  87 when i bought my grand national. Gas oil and tires. Heck you can go a 100k on a set of plugs today.  Good old days my ###. Dont know why some of you wont look at the facts. Bob i wish you could come here and just drive my 392 once. I guarantee it would plaster a smile on your face like it would anyone that liked fast cars and youd see the light. All this said we wont even start to compare top end speeds because that would be a complete blow out. A hell cat will turn 11s and still top out at 200 mph faster then even the fastest ferrari or lambo from the 70s buy 20 mph. Show me ANYTHING that could make more then a city block reliably back the that could do that. My car cruises in 6th gear 90mph at 2000rpm. My ls6 would be turning twice that. I just saw that chysler is bring out a 702 hp hellcat 4x4 pickup next year. God is good! Id sure love to have that motor slapped in a 72 short box chev back in the 70s. I wouldnt have had to work as a lineman!!!!! They would have wrote songs about it.














 

[Lloyd Smale]

What do I drive...well, I drive a Jeep Patriot SUV

yuppers

[Bob Riebe]

well Bob now if you want a 12 second camaro you by the middle ground ss and your wife can do that. If you want 11s you buy a zl1 and do it with a full exhaust and like i said the ac running on pump gas and can drive it 200k.

 I just saw that chysler is bring out a 702 hp hellcat 4x4 pickup next year. God is good! Id sure love to have that motor slapped in a 72 short box chev back in the 70s. I wouldn't have had to work as a lineman!!!!! They would have wrote songs about it.

So what?
You are comparing then and now heads-up which makes no sense, i.e. apples to oranges.

Cars from 1965 would eat cars from 1975 on any race track -- so what the comparison is not valid .
As I said for the money it takes to buy a Hellcat anything most competent home mechanis could buy and build a  sixtie to eighties vehicle that would perform heads-up.
Aston Martin is now building a 390 in. cu. V-12 supercar that has over 1,000 hp without a blower, but to compare that to an Aston Martin V-8 powered car from the eightie or nineties, or even to a Hellcat which it will eat for lunch is just plain silly.

[Lloyd Smale]

thats about like saying the 243 is the best deer rifle made but your not allowed to use the 06 to compare it too. The original post was about how great that pos aluminum buick motor was. Like i said it sure was no game changer like the flat head ford v8 or the small block chev were. Now those were game changers. The buick aluminum v8 is hardly a blip in the annals or motor technology. It was just a mistake Gm wasted money designing. Because of the loses people paid more for cars. well Bob now if you want a 12 second camaro you by the middle ground ss and your wife can do that. If you want 11s you buy a zl1 and do it with a full exhaust and like i said the ac running on pump gas and can drive it 200k. You keep saying that comparing isnt fair. Thats my point. There is NO comparison. Todays cars are hands down more reliable and light years better performing in every aspect. All thats left of the 60s is nostalsia. IF comparing isnt fair then theres sure alot of unfair articles on the internet and in every car magazine today. When you have a new king you compare him to the old one and God bless the new king. Its a win win for everyone that loves cars. Like i said you can pick up a used hellcat with low miles for a bit over 40k. About the price of stripped down pickup. A new ss camaro, challenger or mustang for a bit less then a new 4x4 pickup and own a car that will about blow away anything from the past. You kind of sealed the deal when you posted the lame results they got with an about pure race 427 in a camaro that weights AT LEAST 500 lbs less then my car and thats being very generous. A motor the factory wouldnt even warantee and called an off road motor. A race motor and even then they modded it and barely got it into the 12s.

Id love to have my 340 duster, my ss396 impala, my gtx, my ls6 and especially my grand national back. they were all very cool cars but short of the slightly modded GN NONE of them would even scare a 12 second car. Fact of life is like i told you my buddy said. Memories are faster then the actual cars were. Cars handled so poorly and had such vague steering that they just felt faster then they really were. Like i posted earlier I saw a test where a 389 goats low 15 times were compared to a toyota corola and came  up short. Now granted id rather have the goat but im not going to try to bs anyone into thinking its a fast car because it makes noise.

Now if anything is silly its that auston martin comparison. It MIGHT be 2 percent faster then a hell cat but you could probably buy 4 hellcats for what it cost. Its as overpriced as one of those getto cruising land rovers that are bought for status not reliability and practicality or performance. There to pull up to the golf course or a drug deal not to get you to camp come deer season.   Were talking muscle cars and muscle cars guys like us can actually afford. Not some country club rich man that would pee his pants if he actually took that aston martin or any exotic to its limits. I bought my challenger for 25k earlier this year. It had 17k on it and was absolutely mint. In 60s money that's probably less then 2k. You can easily dump that much on a side by side or a harley. thats a hell of alot of performance for the money.

Like i said this is HANDS DOWN the best era ever for muscle car guys. Just wish i was a bit younger so i could enjoy it longer. 20 years from now when electric cars are the norm THIS is the era that will be looked back on Cars like Grand Nationals, hellcat redeyes, a few of the special edition mustangs and even cars like the iroc camaros are already going up in value every year. If you look at the auctions for the most part the 60s and 70s cars went up in value and a few years ago hit a plateau and those guys who paid BIG money for cars like hemi cudas and ls6 chevelles and the rarer vettes now have cars worth a 1/3 less then they paid. I think a good reason that happened is people finally realized that unless they want a museum piece there buying basically dinosaurs. Use to be it was the only way to get a fast car and you could claim you owned a car from the golden age of muscle. Now you pay 80k for an ls6 and the pimple faced kid down the block with his 5.0 mustang daddy bought him will spank you. So compare i will. Just like the fans of those cars like to compare them to the cars of the 70s and 80s or the 50s for that matter.

 But to end all of this ill go back to the origins of this post and ask AGAIN if that motor was so great where are all the hot rods and quarter mile victorys and salt flat speed records it held? Id bet 3/4s of those piece of engineering marvel motors were in the junk heap before them made 70k and are part of what gave land rover its "fantastic" reliability record. Boat anchor and not even a good heavy one. Buick made some great motors through the years. The nail heads were cool, the gs 455s were one of the quickest if not the quickest muscle car of the 70s. the 3.8 gn motor that set the american performance world back into gear and those 3.8 naturaly asperated later v6s that would run for about ever and still would compete in gas milage with the new higher tech motors there using. That wheezing 155 hp unreliable 215 wasnt a pimple on the but those motors. Yup gm wanted to buy it back. So what that was the 70s when the fuel crisis hit and gm and ford had no problem with dumping junk like the pinto and vega on dealer lots and chrysler had the abortion called the K car and even AM was still alive and gave us the gremlin and pacer. Yup that motor would have fit in just fine with the junk they produced them.


Ill let you have this one now. You know that not one word ive posted in this entire thread is wrong. You know cars, ill give you that but this aint my first rodeo! Ive owned them and raced them and wrenched on them since i was old enough to drive. I dont own a sport utility or mini van and never will. Ive never owned ANY car or truck that hasn't been over 65. That's second gear in my srt and could give a rats ass about gas mileage or pollution or eco friendly anything. I appreciate anything be it a car, truck, 4 wheeler motor cycle, snowmobile ect ect that has a power to weight ratio enough to make me smile when i hit the gas and pray my mind and body hold up for another 20 years because if so your going to see a 85 year old man blowing by you in your sport utility on the highway with a big smile plastered on his face. Probably a couple guns laying in the back seat to boot. Im not even prejudice when it comes to speed.  Heck id even take a ride in one of those turbo woopy tee do in my suburu things or would love to get ahold of a Nissan gtr once. Quit pineing for the past and go out and buy yourself a cheap used muscle car and start again walking the walk instead of talking the talk. Two hours behind the wheel and youd forget the 60s.
 
[/quote]So what?
You are comparing then and now heads-up which makes no sense, i.e. apples to oranges.

Cars from 1965 would eat cars from 1975 on any race track -- so what the comparison is not valid .
As I said for the money it takes to buy a Hellcat anything most competent home mechanis could buy and build a  sixtie to eighties vehicle that would perform heads-up.
Aston Martin is now building a 390 in. cu. V-12 supercar that has over 1,000 hp without a blower, but to compare that to an Aston Martin V-8 powered car from the eightie or nineties, or even to a Hellcat which it will eat for lunch is just plain silly.
[/quote]

[ironglows]

One day in 1965 I was driving a Ford Fairlane staff car on the autobahn, between Frankfort and Darmstadt Germany.  Back in 65 the Fairlane was a compact car..  I drove in the right lane, since Military was limited to 80kph (about 50mph), while others had no speed limit.
 
  In my rear view mirror, I caught sight of flashing headlights, perhaps a mile and a half or 2K behind.  This was the the signal that somebody was overtaking at well over 100 mph.  This was a regular practice by drivers who could do so..causing a parade of Mercedes, Lambos, Ferraris, Porsches etc.

  It was only a few seconds, until the overtaker was upon me, and could have been my undertaker. When he passed me with that Aston Martin DB4 (James Bond car), he rocked my Fairlane like no others ever did, when I travelled the autobahn.