Thread: Stunning engines from USA after-market

Originally Posted by Brian Hjelm

You won't easily find a convertible with genuine Hemi 426 and four speed as it left the factory. Only a handful were made that way and few survive. A+ condition examples have sold at auction over US$400,000

oops, I stand corrected, the ones I looked at were 440ci.............

Originally Posted by twitchy

oops, I stand corrected, the ones I looked at were 440ci.............

Plenty of 440 Challengers about. I suspect many of them started out as an LA series 318 or 340 and have been "value added" by swapping in an RB 440.

Originally Posted by Pedro_The_Swift

You guys might like this,,
YouTube- Dodge Charger 1969 video

That Daytona was UGLY

Dodge Daytona and Plymouth Superbird were built as a limited production run to provide a "production" car base for NASCAR racing.

With a fully race prepared Hemi 426 the existing cars were too damn fast for the aerodynamics of the body and also too fast for the tyres available. 200 mph laps on the super speedways at Daytona and Talladega had the drivers eyeballs shaking to the point of almost losing vision. The droop snoot and big wing stuck them to the track nicely and made them almost invincible. Goodyear improved the tyres to cope. The hump on top of each front guard was not a vent for brake cooling as most first thought, but added after first production as the aerodynamic add-ons were generating so much downforce that the tyres were rubbing on the underside of the guards at the higher speeds.

In 1983 I was offered a Plymouth Superbird from Owatonna, Minnesota, for US$8500. No great demand for them then, just another old car. The Domestic Services Manager hit the roof and the purchase was not made.

What is one worth now? How long is a piece of string. Good ones are over US$500,000.

Brian,
you seem pretty clued on in the US scene, do you know the name of the company that recently bought all the aftermarket stuff for the Buick/rover V8 and is apparently now making new heads that rival Wildcat stuff?

Serg

Originally Posted by uninformed

Brian,
you seem pretty clued on in the US scene, do you know the name of the company that recently bought all the aftermarket stuff for the Buick/rover V8 and is apparently now making new heads that rival Wildcat stuff?

Serg

I have not kept up with the street and rod scene over there. Mostly involved these days with historic racing and speedway and motor cycles. Is someone making aluminium replicas of Buick 350 heads? Have you tried e-mailing the rod and street magazines and the after-market manufacturers trade associations. Buy some US magazines and e-mail the suppliers. Try googling Buick parts. I know you will get 5,000000000000000000000 results but try anyway. If I hear of anything I will PM you.

Originally Posted by PAT303

Yep,American cars are the best,thats why 'Ol Henry got the British to build the GT40 including the engine to beat them crappy poorly made euro thingy me jigs.Americans must have amazing roads if thier cars handle and stop well there.Oh and the europeans have invented some good stuff too,like the motor car and internal combustion engine,both Petrol and Diesel. Pat

Who built the GT40 ?

Originally Posted by Brian Hjelm

........... A wood duck called Rover produced a cheque book and bought it. Then found they could not make it on their forty year old plant and had to redesign the engine to do so...........

A slight exaggeration - Rover started building the engine in the mid sixties, in a factory that started from a greenfield site in 1939. (Their pre-existing factory was destroyed by bombing in the early years of the war) The machinery it was built on would, like GM's have been installed during WW2.

The redesign was not because of inability to build to original design, but because tooling up to do so would not make sense for the much smaller market that would be supplied. Pontiac was supplying a market of 160million people with a mass market car - Rover was selling to the upper middle class in a 40 million market that was impoverished by the massive war debt to the USA which was only finally repaid at the end of 2006, but whose terms greatly impoverished Britain in the late forties and fifties. Quite simply, you do not use the same techniques (and hence design) to build in small numbers as you do in large numbers.

John

Originally Posted by Pedro_The_Swift

You guys might like this,,
YouTube- Dodge Charger 1969 video

That Daytona was UGLY

mightve been ugly, but damn it was fast!