Supercars Annual '69

[Kitdy]

dog ear, how many GB is your collection of magazine scans/data total?

[dog ear]

dog ear, how many GB is your collection of magazine scans/data total?

That's a loaded question, there Kidy.

My Pictures Files where I actually keep all my (currently) magazine scanned documents is 12.5 GB. It contains approximately 40,137 pics.

My Documents File are huge. 60 GB with 335,535 files. LOL

Then I have my videos on Ant.com that totals approximately 45 GB.

That only covers what |I have on my laptop. I have 6 large boxes of soft and hard cover books tha I intend to scan and include in my libraries.

At one time, I could have rivaled Fleets magazine stach but when I went to college, an aunt of mine decided to clean house and burn approximately 1,000 magazines.

[dog ear]

dog ear, how many GB is your collection of magazine scans/data total?

My road test database is only 1GB.

[Kitdy]

My road test database is only 1GB.

What format is it? Can you give us any more info on this database?

I'd love it if I could get a copy somehow.

[Kitdy]

That is a truly amazing and valuable trove.

Do you have any more recent scans, for example, Car and Driver from the 80s and 90s?

I used to keep my old magazines, and over the years I have had quite a few subs. I made the right choice in getting rid of nearly all of them as they would have taken up so much space and I would not have reread them. If only at the time I got rid of them, I could have used a rapid scanner a la Google's to store all the data electronically.

[dog ear]

That is a truly amazing and valuable trove.

Do you have any more recent scans, for example, Car and Driver from the 80s and 90s?

I have not scanned many articles (yet) from the 80s / 90s, because you can get that info fairly easily off the net. I only scan modern stuff out of personal interest.

I do have articles on Vettes, Mustangs, etc., but not a whole lot on foreign models. My database includes most of the road tests for Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Jaguar and other exotic sports cars, and when I obtain newer specs, I store them and eventually, I update the database accordingly. It is all very time consuming.

In the case of modern magazine road tests and other interesting articles, I usually download the web page for future reference, totalling several thousand pages of material. Every so often I sift through those web pages and input that raw data and thus update my road test database. When I am finished entering the updated specifications from those web pages, I will cut, copy, and paste that which is of interest to me, into a new document. In this way, I discard a lot of unessential information.

Through the years, this process has proved very fruitful in as much as obtaining solid reliable information and specifications that people find benefical.

[dog ear]

My road test database is in Excel.

[dog ear]

Hey Fleet, that June, 1970 C&D test was one of their better ones.

Like I said earlier C&D got better as time went on, especially in the 68-72 time period.

[Fleet 500]

Hey Fleet, that June, 1970 C&D test was one of their better ones.

Like I said earlier C&D got better as time went on, especially in the 68-72 time period.

Yes, remember, though, that was an ad which appeared in C & D. With Sox & Martin doing the driving.

Anyway, here is another tests which is among my favorites. A 1969 Plymouth Road Runner with 440-6 bbl and 4-speed transmission. With (professional) Ronnie Sox driving, it runs a 12.98 @ 111.66 mph 1/4 mile!

[dog ear]

Hey Fleet, I dig the 440 Six Pack / Six BBL itself I would have liked to have owned one back in the day, but they were not very good street going machines. For one thing; you would not have had that hood for long. Somebody would have stolen it first chance they got. Same thief probably would have lifted the carbs and intake at the same time.

I drove in a few Six Packs / Six BBLs in my time and every time I went away with mixed reviews. Each car was vastly different in state of tune. They never did perform the same. Some bogged off the line if you gave them too much gas; while others had a flat spot just off idle. It amounted to the same thing; problematic carburetor adjustments.

End carbs were vacuum-controlled and not well synchronized to the center carb from the factory. You really needed to re-jet and screw with the end carbs vacuum in order for them to work properly. Not many people knew how. You had the same kind of thing with duel four barrels. Multiple carbs were not very practical on most of those big blocks, unless you went to mechanical linkage, and performed a re-jet. After that, you attacked the ignition and modified the distributer timing with less advance, more initial and more total. Once you went that far, you might as well buy headers and slap them on and forget about it. Then you had a solid base to play with the big boys.

I actually preferred the Dodge Super Bee over the Plymouth Road Runner for one very good reason. Gauges were much better in the Bee. They were standard high ticket Charger items. Styling was a toss-up between the two.

Another thing! I have a lot of road tests on the first year 440-6 ‘Bee and ‘Runner, and that June 1969 Drag Racing magazine article struck a chord while reading it. The claimed 12.98 ET @ 111.66 mph got me thinking. It seemed too good to be true so I checked my data files and came away with a smile.

While the times are out-of-sight, you should know that that particular RR was almost certainly a 'ringer.' Those times were not factory stock I can assure you. The car was definitely 'super-tuned,' and modified.

I will post two interesting articles here that feature the very same car and tell the same story. Both magazines categorically state that the car in question was not stock.

I am not sure if the exact same car pictured in the two articles I am posting is the same vehicle in the June 69 Drag Racing article you posted. All three articles elude to a red car being tested but the plates are different in your article. That in itself is meaningless because the manufacturers switched plates at will. Otherwise identical cars may have different paint jobs and either manufacturer or dealer plates installed for various tests and or reasons. Same thing happened with wheels and tires. All can and did get switched for marketing reasons.

If any of you should want to read Super Bee articles I can post some. Let me know.

Here is the first article from JUne, 1969 Super Stock & Drag Illustrated magazine.

[Fleet 500]

Hey Fleet, I dig the 440 Six Pack / Six BBL itself I would have liked to have owned one back in the day, but they were not very good street going machines. For one thing; you would not have had that hood for long. Somebody would have stolen it first chance they got. Same thief probably would have lifted the carbs and intake at the same time.

I drove in a few Six Packs / Six BBLs in my time and every time I went away with mixed reviews. Each car was vastly different in state of tune. They never did perform the same. Some bogged off the line if you gave them too much gas; while others had a flat spot just off idle. It amounted to the same thing; problematic carburetor adjustments.

End carbs were vacuum-controlled and not well synchronized to the center carb from the factory. You really needed to re-jet and screw with the end carbs vacuum in order for them to work properly. Not many people knew how. You had the same kind of thing with duel four barrels. Multiple carbs were not very practical on most of those big blocks, unless you went to mechanical linkage, and performed a re-jet. After that, you attacked the ignition and modified the distributer timing with less advance, more initial and more total. Once you went that far, you might as well buy headers and slap them on and forget about it. Then you had a solid base to play with the big boys.

I actually preferred the Dodge Super Bee over the Plymouth Road Runner for one very good reason. Gauges were much better in the Bee. They were standard high ticket Charger items. Styling was a toss-up between the two.

Another thing! I have a lot of road tests on the first year 440-6 ‘Bee and ‘Runner, and that June 1969 Drag Racing magazine article struck a chord while reading it. The claimed 12.98 ET @ 111.66 mph got me thinking. It seemed too good to be true so I checked my data files and came away with a smile.

While the times are out-of-sight, you should know that that particular RR was almost certainly a 'ringer.' Those times were not factory stock I can assure you. The car was definitely 'super-tuned,' and modified.

I will post two interesting articles here that feature the very same car and tell the same story. Both magazines categorically state that the car in question was not stock.

I am not sure if the exact same car pictured in the two articles I am posting is the same vehicle in the June 69 Drag Racing article you posted. All three articles elude to a red car being tested but the plates are different in your article. That in itself is meaningless because the manufacturers switched plates at will. Otherwise identical cars may have different paint jobs and either manufacturer or dealer plates installed for various tests and or reasons. Same thing happened with wheels and tires. All can and did get switched for marketing reasons.

If any of you should want to read Super Bee articles I can post some. Let me know.

Here is the first article from JUne, 1969 Super Stock & Drag Illustrated magazine.

Yes, the carbs on the 440-6 bbl engine were hard to adjust. For most people, a big 4-bbl would be more practical. And I would prefer a regular hood. Not only because it's less likely to be stolen but because it's easier to lift to check the engine.

I also prefer the Super Bee. As a rule, I prefer Dodge over Plymouth, even though I currently own a Plymouth. The Dodges seem better appointed on the inside.

The '69 Road Runner was almost certainly supertuned (no big deal; many owners themselves did that). I remember reading that particular Road Runner used in the test was checked for internal mods after the test and none were found. A stock (except for things like bigger jets in the carb and fiddling with the timing and vacuum advance) '69 400-6 bbl Road Runner or 440-6 Pack Super Bee was certainly capable of times like 13.5s and 13.4s with an amateur driver. So it's possible for it to run low, low-13s and possibly high-12s with a professional drag racer. Remember we are talking about only bare tenths of a second and reaction time can make a difference as well as shifting ability.

[dog ear]

Here is the 2nd article from June, or July, 1969 Hot Rod magazine.

[Fleet 500]

Here is the 2nd article from June, or July, 1969 Hot Rod magazine.

Thanks for posting that. I don't have that one. Those 440 wedge engines were very strong!

[Kitdy]

Ringer's ain't just a thing of the past either; Ferrari hots up their press cars.

Chris Harris has been blacklisted by Ferrari after an expose he wrote for Jalopnik a few months ago.

The funny thing about it is that he said he had driven customer Ferraris and they were fantastic; Ferrari was needlesly paranoid.

[Fleet 500]

Ringer's ain't just a thing of the past either; Ferrari hots up their press cars.

Chris Harris has been blacklisted by Ferrari after an expose he wrote for Jalopnik a few months ago.

The funny thing about it is that he said he had driven customer Ferraris and they were fantastic; Ferrari was needlesly paranoid.

Yeah, good point. I can see that happening especially with exotic, expensive cars. Also, I remember seeing an article in which some hi-po cars tested could not reach the claimed top speed by the manufacturer.