Wuzak, on 19 Apr 2020 - 04:55, said:
Or anything with smog controls and unleaded fuel in the 1970s.
I made my first visit to N. America in the mid 1970s to visit my friend in Montreal. His old Chrysler Valiant broke its crankshaft in Toronto so we had to hire a car, and got an Oldsmobile Cutlass with a big V8. i was so excited, for about ten seconds , before I realised that if we had any rice puddings with us, that car couldn't have helped us remove the skins. It was dire - on a downwards gradient, i got it up to 75mph and that was all she wrote. It was the height of smog controls and the like and I doubt if the car had more than about 120bhp, in a chassis weighing nearly 2 tons.
Back home, I jumped into my 75bhp 1300cc Escort GT and reveled in the performance by comparison.
Oddly, we hired two more cars that trip. The next was a 6 cylinder Chevvy Nova which was ugly as sin, but nicer to drive and a lot livelier. Finally, we had a Chevvy Monza with a 2.3 litre 4 cylinder and that was perversely the best and quickest of the three. I remember driving back to Montreal from the Canadian GP at Mosport, using dirt back roads and hitting 80+mph, and the car handled it well. except that any bumps set off the warning buzzers that were so prevalent back then and the only way to stop it was to slip the car into Neutral and back into Drive. Not really recommended at high speed on gravel!
Edited by BRG, 28 April 2020 - 12:51.