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Old Car Trivia..Wanna Play?
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Yep, GM tried something that year. An airbag was, indeed available that year. I don't think many were sold. I did hear a funny story about two guys who were in one of those "pull your own parts" junkyards years later. They were removing some interior parts when the air bag went off.
I guess they ran a half a block, swearing in spanish the whole time. The guy who owned the junkyard thought it was pretty funny!
These guys probably had no idea what an air bag even was at the time!
I know the answer both from magazine articles and from personal experience. I had one, and it was the only car I ever owned that could understeer and oversteer at the same time--and often did. When I bought it it was making a racket from the bellhousing like a really bad throw-out bearing. I drove it home, ID'ed the engine and found out that the 326 had been replaced with a two-barrel 389. I brought it to a mechanic who actually made it work, something I didn't think was possible. I guess that was a fast car, but I never really wanted to find out. If the handling and brakes didn't kill you, the exploding transmission would.
On the other hand, a properly set up 326 Tempest could really run. There's a great road test of one in Car & Driver.
Had a friend in high school who acquired a red '62 Le Mans with four-speed and four-barrel. A great-looking car, and a strong runner while it lasted. Unfortunately he thought it was a Mustang, and soon scattered the transmission doing burnouts.
1Which car had the longest bed capacity with the tailgate up?
2.Which make had the largest V8 option and how many cubes was it?
3.Which one had more rated horsepower, and what was it?
4.What was the only interior color offered on the '59 El Camino?
5.Which of these two pickups sold the most for '59?
1.El Camino
2.Ranchero-352 c.i.
3.El Camino-315 h.p.
4.Gray
5.Chevrolet sold the most.
This was a fun topic, but interest seems to have dropped off a bit' like some other topics as well. Anyone out there? C'mon!
Ok I'll try one more-that's it.
Why was the 1936 Cord designated as the model 810 by the factory?
I think the Cord story you are referring to is corrct except that is was for the 810's announcement on August 10th--which didn't come out I think until the following February. The 812 was the supercharged version of the 810, but I'm not sure of why that number was chosen...maybe they had ANOTHER August announcement?
For trivia to be fun it really shouldn't be "micro-trivia"...the answers have to have lots of general interest for people, I think...the size of boltheads or whatever isn't all that exciting to the general public, just to carnuts like us.
The Tempest "rope drive" driveshaft made the BEST prybar! Every shop tried to get a salvage one for that purpose.
Had one in the gas station where I worked. We used it everyday for something or other.
The owner just about put out a reward for it's return when it got ripped off one night!
By the way, I never answered the fascinating Tempest trivia question I posted. The '63 Tempest 326 had the same exterior dimensions as the 389, but you couldn't swap a 389 into a Tempest because the tail of the 389 crank was too short to meet the Tempest input shaft. Isell and I may be the only two people still living who remember that the '61-3 Tempest had a swing-axle transaxle much like the '60-4 Corvair. A bellhousing was bolted to the back of the Tempest engine, with clutch and input shaft, but the shaft connected to a flexible driveshaft ("ropedrive"), which connected to the transaxle. Because of this drivetrain, the '63 Tempest 326 had a unique crank with a longer tail.
I know this because I bought a '63 V8 Tempest with what sounded like the world's noisiest throwout bearing. After driving it home I ID'd the engine code and discovered it was a 389, not the stock 326. That rattling noise was the input shaft not meshing completely with the tail of the crank. I took it to my mechanic who did the impossible and got it to work.
By the way, that was the only car I ever owned that would understeer and oversteer at the same time. Quite a handful, especially in the wet. It was also the car on which I learned that a quart of ATF in the crankcase will free up a few ponies from a sludged-up engine.
I remember looking at a brand new 65 Malibu SS on the lot, black on black, with the 327/350 and all the goodies. Man, did I want that car!! But 4000 bucks was out of my reach then...
The only performance figures I have for the 375 say it did the quarter in under 15 seconds at around 100 mph. But there's lots of road tests to look up: Car life 9/65; Motor Trend 7/65; Motorcade 9/65; Popular Hot Rodding month unknown; and an "eastern hot rodding magazine, name unknown". The 327/350 may be tested in the 12/64 Motor Trend. A 300 hp El Camino did 15.9 at 87, but I'd guess the 350 would be almost a second and 4 or 5 mph faster.
Just found a '68 Chevy II 327/325 that did 16.47 at 86 mph. Seems slow. A '68 Nova 396/375 did 14.5 at 101.1, which seems more like it.
It was interesting back in those days, the late fifties, early sixties. A person could order almost anything! You could have a '59 Chevy four door Biscayne with a 283 fuel injected engine, three speed on the column with overdrive, etc.
Very rare cars that probably still exist.
Here's one...What year was power steering first offered by Chevrolet?
Now...the 352...hmmm...maybe 1964?
My guess for the oddball small block is the 351M. I don't remember all the details, but I know it uses the tall 400 block. Built from maybe '74 on, replacing the 351C. Has the same bore and stroke as the 351C but the taller block means 351C intake manifolds won't fit. 400 intakes will fit, but there isn't much choice in the aftermarket.
Here's some FE trivia. For three years the 352 was the biggest engine offered in a Ford passenger car. The last year, you could order a 360 hp version that lapped Daytona at 150 in "stock" form. What year was it?
It was the 255, which showed up in some of the early Fox platforms. Teeny valves, and skinny bearings (low friction, don't 'cha know), and heads that didn't lend themselves to any sort of work rendered that puppy to the backwaters of blue oval history.
The '69 Mustang probably offered the 200 and 250 sixes (250 is a stroked 200), 302W, Boss 302 (first year), 351W but not 351C (not until '70), 390, 428 CJ/SCJ (from mid-68). I think '70 was the first year for the 429. Tunnel-port 302 was a '68 engine as I recall.
Why all the engines? I'm not a Ford expert, but Ford was transitioning from engines that didn't breathe (351W, 390) to engines that should have breathed but didn't (tunnel port) or breathed too well (various Bosses). The 428CJ was a great street engine but old tech.
That's not to say a 454 won't FIT, in the later, 1978-87 El Camino ;-) I've seen a few of them at car shows.
-Andre
Still, they were problem prone. Mechanics of the day HATED them and called them junk.
So I guess it was fitting that the Brits would buy the engines from Buick!
The Land Rover engine has been modified over the years to be sure, more emmision stuff, fuel injection etc, but the basic block and internal parts are pretty much the same.
Didn't Studebaker make a "bearcub" V8...at I think 228 CID? But you know, that might have been just before your 1955 deadline!
2009 BMW 335i, 2003 Corvette cnv. (RIP 2001 Jaguar XK8 cnv and 1985 MB 380SE [the best of the lot])
2009 BMW 335i, 2003 Corvette cnv. (RIP 2001 Jaguar XK8 cnv and 1985 MB 380SE [the best of the lot])
Yeah the original Stude V8 was just barely over 200 cubes (232?), then they went to the 259 and 289 around '55. Lots of small V8s in those days: 239 Ford Y block, 241 Dodge, 250 Rambler, 256 Mercury, 260 Plymouth. Even the 265 Chevy was initially intended to be a smaller displacement.
Speaking of the aluminum 215, there's another engine based on that design, the 300/340 engine used in the '64-7 Skylark. In '64 the heads and intake were aluminum, and even the 340 used the same size valves as the 215. One reason no one ever wrote a song about the 340.
So, in a way, I guess the current 3.8 is another offspring of the old aluminum 215 V-8?
-Andre
Okay, it says both V6 and V8 came out in '61. The V8 was designed first, then six months before introduction date GM decided it needed a cheaper engine so they chopped two cylinders off the 215, bored and stroked the result and out came the 198 V6. It was bored and stroked to 225 CID in '64, when the 300 also came out. Both engines are offshoots of the 215, which is why they have the same bore and stroke.
The V6 was re-introduced in 1975 as a 231, a 225 bored out so it could use the same pistons as the Buick 350. During the '80s it also came in 252 and 183 displacements. The Buick 350 was a bored 340 (itself a stroked 300) with much-improved heads similar to the Buick 400/430/455.
The 3.8 has been thoroughly massaged since this V6 book came out in 1982--thin wall casting, improved heads--but it's still based on an engine that was probably on the drawing boards around 1959.