Hemmings Muscle Machines September 2019

Back when Detroit’s earliest overhead-valve (OHV) V-8 engines were first becoming salvage-yard material, lots of hot-rodders began to use them in place of their warmed-up flatheads. In bone-stock form, they could make prewar Fords move as well as or better than most of the flathead V-8s they’d worked hard to improve. Once the aftermarket got on board, the overheads were tough to beat, both in terms of speed and value. But there were the stalwarts who had no interest in those “monkey-motion” engines. The guys in this camp would stay with their tried-and-true flatties, determined to make them faster. This sort of pattern has repeated as the years have rolled on — new things come to market, and some people embrace them while others revile them. The ones who aren’t…

BOSS REUNION TO CELEBRATE THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY In 1969, Ford debuted a Mustang to counter the Chevrolet Camaro’s dominance in the SCCA’s Trans-Am series. Simultaneously, the Blue Oval brand needed a platform to carry its semi-hemi 429-cu.in. V-8, developed specifically for NASCAR. The resulting homologation-special Boss 302 and Boss 429 Mustangs went on to become performance legends and sought-after collectibles, and on August 30-September 1, the Boss Reunion 2019 will honor these (and other) limited-production Boss models. The festivities take place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and begin with daytime events at Pittsburgh International Race Complex, followed by a banquet at the Pittsburgh Marriott North. Featured guest speakers will include Bill Barr, the Ford engineer credited with developing the original Boss 302 engine; Kar Kraft test engineer Don Eichstaedt; 2012 Boss 302…

2020 CHARGER WIDEBODY: FOR HELLCAT AND SCAT PACK — QUICKER, GIRTHIER Turns out, what’s good for the Challenger is good for the Charger: a new Widebody kit becomes available on Charger SRT Hellcat and Charger Scat Pack models for 2020. The new Widebody exterior adds 3.5 inches of width to cover the 305-section, 20-inch Pirelli rubber on all corners, and new front and rear fascias also come as part of the package. Other features include Brembo six-piston front calipers with two-piece front brake rotors and Bilstein three-mode adaptive damping shocks. These changes alone make the 2020 Charger SRT Hellcat Widebody run 2.1 seconds faster on a 2.1-mile road course compared to a 2019 model, and will allow the 2020 model to hit .96 g on a skidpad. That’s about 13…

CAM CORRECTION After reading “Class Transit” in the July 2019 issue of HMM (#191), I felt compelled to provide the correct cam specs for the 1970 GS Stage 1 engine. These specs have been incorrectly stated in numerous publications, giving the impression that the Stage 1 cam was much more aggressive than it really was. This conveys the idea that the Stage 1’s cam was responsible for much of that engine’s unexpected performance. The usual quoted specs for the Stage 1 cam on intake and exhaust are: .490/.490-inch lift and 316/340 degrees of duration. For reasons of space, I won’t bother to go into the several reasons why Buick decided to advertise such bogus numbers. I’ll just correct them instead. Using “Oz” Anderson’s famous Scientific Quadrant Cam Doctor, the correct…

After reading about the 1968 Ram Rod Olds in HMM #190 (“Ram Rod Rocket” ) I have to tell you about mine. In the spring of ’68, my wife totaled our ’67 Cutlass. I had wanted to get the Ram Rod and saw my chance. I went to Main Motors in Anoka, Minnesota, and visited the same salesman who had sold me the ’67. I made out the order with just what I wanted. Two days later he called and said it’s too late and Oldsmobile won’t make the car I ordered. I asked if he could find one at another dealer and he said he tried but there just weren’t any out there. He did have a nice Chevelle with a 325-hp 327 and a four-speed, so I said…

IT WAS A COMBINATION CHEVROLET TEASED, but never actually released — the fuel-injected Corvette small-block in the lightweight Chevy II compact. The basic concept of a small-block-powered compact predated the Chevy II by a couple years — it was a natural extension of repowering lightweight prewar cars with late-model engines. In one of the earliest examples, legendary hot-rodder Wally Parks shoehorned a small-block Chevy in his 1960 Comet (upscale sibling of the Ford Falcon), which was about the same size and weight as the Chevrolet Chevy II that came out for 1962. It made sense. The SBC was the hot-rodder’s powerplant of choice at the time, thanks to its compact, lightweight design and incredible power potential. Chevrolet itself didn’t have a suitable small car, however — the Corvair was simply…