(Not wanting to hijack this thread , I post this here.)
And there you have it, kiddies, a perfect picture of how GM, and Detroit, lost their mojo in the 70's. We went from 400 horsepower, big block monsters in the late 60's/early 70's to unleaded, smog controlled crap with too many hoses running everywhere by the mid 70's - all the sex appeal was gone, and the gas mileage and rising fuel prices were killing us.
Don't get me wrong, the car still has some potential. But I can't resist commenting on this pic - I remember, at age 13-14, looking under the hoods of the cars from this era, with anemic half-horse per cube, at best, and often much less than that, and seeing all the hoses and wires that seemed be rush-job, last-minute engineering, and thinking cars were no longer fun, they were no longer objects of desire - just transportation. It took nearly 15 more years for the sex appeal to come back, thanks to electronic fuel management systems from the late 80's. But for a long time there, car guys in America didn't have much to embrace when they opened the hood.
No doubt, the US Gov't was surely affecting things.
OTOH, it seems like Detroit ignored the looming regulations until the last minute. For example, the ugly cow-catcher, 5 mph bumpers that came out in '73 looked, again, like last-minute engineering. Surely they had time to develop them to be less ugly, no? I know it took until ~78 when they started using the high tech soft plastics to fair in the bumpers and make the cars look sleek and aerodynamic (instead of butt ugly ).
I can't help but wonder if Detroit was betting their lobbyists would prevail and keep the new bumper regs off the table, then got caught with their pants down when the laws got passed.
A 2006 GTO did have 400 HP. Wish I hadn't sold mine.
The 305 HP in a new Impala isn't bad at all but it's not a monster like the 6.0 litre LS2 Goat.
But if you liked your old 3.8 in the Bonneville, you'd love the 3.6 in the current generation Impalas (or any 2012+ from the previous gen.)
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