wookie (12/20/82)
When we are talking about the fastest cars just what do we define as fast? Most of the exotic cars from Europe are very fast in both acceleration and handling and are what I consider to be good road or touring vehicals. Here in the U.S. however the old muscle cars were fantastic accelerators but lousy handlers. A case of this is the 1965 Pontiac Catalina 2+2. This is a full size (ie huge and 4400 lbs) Pontiac with a 421 Super Duty engine touting 3 two barrel carbs. (I own one of these beauties!) It is certainly 2+2 in the true sports car meaning of the word. Anyway check the 25th aniversary issue of Car and Driver back in 1980 I believe. There they discuss the fastest cars from zero to sixty for the 25 years they had been testing. The fastest car they ever tested was the Pontiac Catalina 2+2 from 1965 with a zero to sixty time of 3.9 seconds!! (It had been "warmed over" by Royal Pontiac the drag experts for Pontiacs) The car remains unbeaten in their tests to this day. One car did beat it but that was Bobby Rahals Can Am race car which they said didn't count as a production car. The Pontiac even beat out the AC Cobra 289 and AC Cobra 427 which were tested the same year (65). Amazing but it's in print. By the way I too like those good old muscle cars if only they had todays handling! Keith Bauer Bell Labs White Tiger Racing
wookie (12/20/82)
In my message about muscle cars the editor lost a "not" when I said the +2 in the sports car sense of the term! Keith Bauer Bell Labs Murray Hill White Tiger Racing
wookie (12/21/82)
Well I checked the news and sure enough the second message correcting the first message was wrong prompting a third. The Pontiac Catalina 2+2 is "NOT" a real 2+2 in the sports car sense of the word!