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Street Super Stocks by Don Pennington
The years that the auto showrooms bustled with performance machines was a unique time, most likely never to be seen again. It's sad in a way, when you realize that nobody will have the fun with the factory hot rods that we did.
From time to time attempts are made to revisit those days through editorials here and there, usually by "new age journalists" who don't know a J-2 from a W-30. Muscle cars are defined as high performance cars, but not all high performance cars are muscle cars. Beyond that broad and somewhat confusing description exists three distinct types of performance cars from that era.
The term "muscle car" came into being in the late 1960's when the auto advertising was pushing the latest factory packages. The formal manufacturer effort to promote sedan performance big time really began around 1955 when Chrysler thought the general public needed something in addition to luxury, so they slipped a 355 horsepower 354 cubic inch Hemi into the Chrysler 300B luxury offering. The big power ratings necessary to sell cars could only come from the big block large displacement engines, so the race had begun. Other isolated efforts at performance were popping up at Chrysler in 1955 and 1956, and Pontiac with it's fuel injected Bonneville in 1957. But they were all associated with luxury cars, and were not intended to be a full out race applications. It was still 1957 when Oldsmobile offered the J-2 engine, in a stripped down sedan body with standard transmission, high compression pistons and high lift camshaft. The early factory high performance sedan included both small block and big block engines, so when Chevrolet brought out the solid lifter version of the 348 in the late 1957, an application clearly intended for all out racing, the high performance big blocks, the street super stock had arrived.
The First Generation of high performance cars, those intended to be more than smooth idling luxury car versions, began somewhere around 1955 and ran into 1966. There is no question that Cadillac and Oldsmobile had engines that were faster than most in 1949, but they truly were not performance cars. What we call the street super stock, the big block racers in full sized sedans, actually began in 1957 with the 1958 models. Most major manufacturers had big block engines but they really were not intended to be high performance, they we just faster than others because of the engines internal size.
The Second Generation began when significant changes in engine design took place, still using the big blocks, the switch also included mid-sized bodies. Starting generally around 1965 this continued until around 1971, when all the big cubic inch engines high performance engines were pretty much gone from the showrooms. Included in this group were the Mustangs, Comets, Camaros, Firebirds, Challengers, 'Cudas, GTO's, 442's and Buicks with big blocks. This second generation was the group that was responsible for the "muscle car" label.
The Third Generation deviates from the original thinking of big block performance, and is talked about here only to show where the lines are drawn. As styling interests down sized, so did the engines. These were the "pony cars", Mustangs, Camaros et al with high performance small blocks.
Whether you lived on the right or left coast, or somewhere in between, those were the best of times for factory performance. Riding in one of those cars should give you a Mae West "glad to see me" feeling in your jeans. We want tire smoke! Gear banging, wheel hopping tire smoke! It's got to have a Sun tach and a Hurst sticking through the floor. Throw the air cleaners away, we're going real Super Stock street racing.
Auto manufacturers' efforts towards building performance cars have always been around. The earliest auto inventors used the race course as their proving grounds. As the years went by the manufacturers responded to the interests of the buyer which kept performance an option. In the 1970's with the help of legislation and insurance rate increases, the big block big cubic inch performance interest had been offset by the smaller engines, but still were producing good power. Soon horsepower advertising was replaced with fuel economy and fast cars slid to the back burner.
The times that concerns us here begins the 1958 Chevrolet, promoted by the factory as it's first big block performance piece, it was of course the 348 Del-Ray 2 door sedan. Ford was around with a family sedan 390, Chrysler was playing with hemi and wedge powered 300's, Oldsmobile had their triple carbureted J-2 and Pontiac's 389 ran pretty good, but the first super stocker was the Del-Ray. Except for this 348 cubic inch solid lifter 315 horsepower version, the other cars were all essentially V-8 normal production sedans that ran pretty good.
The performance push for these first generation big block cars carried on until 1966. After that all the manufacturers had either moved on to mid-sized muscle cars, the small block powered pony cars or were continuing to produce cars that were not breaking any new or interesting ground. The '58 Chevrolet 348 had put a crack in the dam, and by 1961 Ford had joined the 348's, running hard and selling cars. 1963 was the year when all the manufacturer's had reached a similar place in street super stock development, and their efforts were butting heads on the streets nightly.
The first real signs of multiple brands big blocks racing each other was apparent in late 1959. The ‘60 Ford 352 was around, but not very fast, and the hemi Chryslers were just too heavy. Pontiac on the other hand was competing with the solid lifter Chevs and winning from time to time. The local drags usually saw one or more of each brand butting heads every week-end.
The reason these manufacturers were on the streets at all was that the stock cars contingent was spearheading the parts research at both Chevrolet and Pontiac. When they realized that drag racing was selling cars too, the NASCAR parts started being seen on the streets.
Chevrolet steadily developed the 348 with it's 315, 335, and finally 350 horsepower versions until it was punched out to 409 inches, which hit the streets in mid-1961. Chevrolet marketing experts convinced the powers at be that the public wanted bigger engines with a lot of power. These first 409's were readily available, in fact few were one-off factory pieces for the chosen few, almost all were sold to you and me. The 335 and 350 horse 348's, and the early 409's were the kings of the street until 1962. The only serious challenge they got was from street-gassers, usually if not always small block Chevrolet powered and the odd hot rod. It took a good running modified car to beat the actory hot rods.
Ford began getting closer with the 401 horsepower 390 in the 1961 sedans and Pontiac had started with the 421 super duty engines. Both ran good, but just didn't quite get there first. The lack of a four speed was a big problem for the Ford and slowed the cars considerably. The 350 horse 348's and early 409's versus Ford 401 or the street 421, usually gave the race to the Chevy.
With the opening of the 1962 season, Chevrolet, Pontiac and Ford all brought out bigger guns. The updated 390 became a 406, and had a lot more power, more carburetors and a four speed! Chevrolet updated to truck engine with new heads, cam and carburetion. This 409 was a lot faster than the 348/409 hybrid of '61, and Pontiac had added more camshaft to the new 421. Later that year both Ford and Chevy were to begin an onslaught of parts upgrading, leap frogging past each other, until the third member of the big three started showing some speed. The Pontiacs were having front main bearing problems and just didn't respond as well as the others to drag racing modifications.
The Walter P. group in the early 60's was using a funny looking carb setup on their production cars. The mopar cross-ram with AFB carburetors was a beginning in the development of some bitchin' street stockers. None of these long rammed motors seemed to work very well, and could not keep up with the Fords and Chevys, until a different more serious looking version showed up on the 413 '62 cars. The factory labeled this the "MaxWedge". This baby could run! They were few and far between in '62, but the good ones were killers. When one showed up at a street race, the odds were even or better in their favor. Suddenly by the 1963 model year the mopars were everywhere.
As the Dodges and Plymouths were being "adjusted" by the factory brains, Chevy had pretty much reached the end of it's road as far as development of the 409 was concerned, and was hanging on using the same stuff with only minor performance parts upgrades for the street cars through 1964. The exception to this was a new head and intake design for the 409 which was not readily available. These items were available only over the dealership parts counters in 1962, but few of these items made it to the streets. By the way, you know all the collector hubbub in recent years about the Bel-Air '62 409 bubble top? Nobody wanted that body style back then. We never saw one except in the magazines or on the drag strips being run by national heroes. Everybody had Biscayne 2 doors or SS hardtops. Apparently this body style in the hands of a few drag racers and most NASCAR Chevrolet teams created the beginnings of the bubble-top legend, to be inflated beyond reality some 25 or 30 years later.
Similarly appearing parts to the rare 409 pieces of ‘62 were soon to terrorize the competition as the Z-11 1963 Impala. From the outside the engine looked like a 409, but it was dramatically different and displaced 427 cubic inches. The '62 Chevs with updated parts ran better and usually won, but were not able to keep from breaking rear-ends against the odd new 413 Chrysler wedge and Ford's excellent running 406.
1962 was also the year that lightweight parts started showing up. Chevrolet and Pontiac offered aluminum front-end sheet metal, while Ford produced some fiberglass pieces. Actually there were a few sets of ‘61 Pontiac aluminum fenders that trickled down from the stock car guys, but these were extremely rare even at Daytona.
In 1963 everybody went on a diet. Pontiac got real creative with their version of the Z-11 Chevrolet, which was a 421 super duty powered Catalina hardtop with aluminum body panels and lightening holes drilled in the frame. Dodge/Plymouth cars were equipped with aluminum body panels, as did Chevrolet and then Ford with similar lightweight efforts for the '63 models. The people doing mopar's planning liked fast cars and winning. They began introducing cars and parts that really got the blood boiling. The '63 stable included aluminum body panels, "creative" suspension parts, and hood scoops. Street cars were starting to look like professional race cars, in fact the light weight mopars were often the rule rather than the exception.
Chevrolet had reached into it's bag of tricks for the '63 Z-11 cars. This was the new design "mystery motor" that NASCAR used in the '63 aluminum car, with true cowl fresh air induction. GM's other race horse the Pontiac was holding it's own. For a short time the mystery motored Chevrolets did some drag racing, but politics and parts availability ended that. About this time Chevy and Ford had clearly decided that the Chrysler advantage was too great, and started looking around for a new combination. Ford stayed in serious drag racing with the Thunderbolt, and Chevrolet slid off into the background apparently planning for the upcoming pony car era. The mystery motor was to be seen again, soon.
Ford during this time, kept playing with the 427. The 427's by mid 1963 were now passing the 409's. Typically the 406 ran better than the early 427's. Street racers were usually more concerned about running against a 406 than a 427. Maybe the '62 body was lighter or something. In the early years the 360hp 352's were an option for the Ford fan against the solid lifter 348's, but the Ford didn't really start working good until that 406 showed up.
An area where Chevy had more help than the Fords was after leaving the showroom floor, with a wider variety of speed equipment. This helped the Chevrolets hold off the mopars and Fords for a little longer. But the technology wars were about to catch up.
The lightweight '63 Galaxie was available in numbers to the general public. It did a great job defending the FoMoCo banner and was out distancing many challengers in the summer of '63. These cars used fiberglass front-end, doors and deck lids, aluminum bumpers and inner fender panels. In addition there was lightweight bucket seats, 300 series lighter gage steel frame, aluminum bumpers and brackets and all sound deadner has been removed. The interior got the treatment too, replacing the bulbus front seat with two thinly clad buckets and a paper thin rubber mat on the floor.
Those lightweight Fords were slick. Some serious executive committment allowed the boys in Ford's toy shop to put together this pretty cool piece. The lightweight '63 1/2 Galaxie was the first major complete race car package offered by Ford. The engine was the latest hi-riser 427 with aluminum cased 4 speed and bell housing. A potent package with a rear-end that didn't break, and more and more race parts through the Holman-Moody NASCAR creativity. But even with all this the slant window Galaxie was still having trouble whipping the Dodges and Plymouths.
It was also 1963 when the factories stated putting the big super stock engines in other bodies. Pontiac's super duty went into a series of Tempests and 427 Fords were going into Falcons. A couple of 409 powered Chevy II's showed up, but apparently Chevy was too involved in their next generation to care. Chrysler did not go that route but some privateers installed the Hemi in the back seats of a couple exhibition Barracudas.
The Chryslers had been ruling the roost for some time by late 1964. The 426 Max Wedge had lived up everything the Chrysler engineers and executives had hoped for. Then they got serious. The Hemi arrived. A completely new design of a hemispherical combustion chamber head, these beauties were released to a chosen few in '64 Plymouths. Some milder versions of the engine were produced on Plymouth's assembly line. The car intended for drag racing only had one headlight on each side, otherwise they looked the same from the outside. Initially the performance was a little behind the Max Wedge motors, but that changed quickly.
The evolution of the big motor-small car syndrom continued in 1964. The super performance cars had begun to be unobtainable by the average buyer/racer. The 409's, 426's and 427's we being raced everywhere, but the factories were looking elsewhere to keep their banner highest. The 1964 Fairlane "Thunderbolt" had the 427 shoehorned into it's engine compartment and shared the lightweight thinking of the ‘63 Galaxies. The T-Bolt made all the magazines but you couldn't buy one. This car worked real good and carried the Ford name into the very visible Factory Experimental wars. The Hemi continued to control the action in super stock, and had outdistanced the potential of the Ford, but Ford management didn't care, the T-Bolt was selling cars. Ford made some efforts to get the spotlight back including lightweight '64 Galaxies and a new overhead cam 427 motor, but were not overly successful. FX was where it was at.
The smaller car movement was underway with the new Mustang leading the way. Pontiac had come out with the LeMans bodied GTO with 389 smooth idling power. This was the car that actually started the muscle car revolution. All manner of off-the-wall combinations started showing up, few factory sponsored. With the FX cars evolving to go still faster, Chrysler cracked the production looking car dam with the ultra lightweight Dodges and soon the altered wheelbase injected Hemi powered cars. These were the first funny cars.
Back in 1958 and 1959 Pontiac starting showing interest in performance with their triple carbureted 389 boats. Available in higher compression and better cam, the cars were limited to three speed transmissions, but you could get one in a cheaper body style. Still it was perceived as a luxury type car with a big cubic inch engine that didn't quite run fast enough. 1960 Pontiac upgraded to a racier type street version of their 389, and was using a 4 speed. It ran with the 335 horse 348 Chevys, and stayed a leader along side the them for most of the year, but began to slowly loose ground to the Chevrolet parts upgrading. The three-two's four speed hardtop was a cool street car, but didn't give the owners any power options other than the stock package. Starting in 1961 there was the odd 421 Pontiac around on the streets, but even their '62 and'63 brothers couldn't quite keep up with the pack. They did pretty good at the drags, showing some big NHRA wins, but the street was a different deal. In '63 the swiss cheese Catalinas were released, a couple actually hit the streets. This was Pontiacs effort to compete with the other lightweights for showroom sales. They ran good, but still couldn't quite show the dominance that Ford, Chevy and by 1964, Chrysler was enjoying.
The Catalina's little brother the 421 powered Tempests were the first real super-lightweight big motor factory combinations. Mostly 2 door sedans, these cars hit the magazines big time with the record challenging exploits of Lloyd Cox and Hayden Proffitt. National events saw these cars too, but that was about it. Some wagons were being run by the chosen few, but it really looked like an advertising effort by Pontiac to gain some of the performance sales rather than a foot-to-the-wood charge to be horsepower king once again. At the showroom, the Tempest had a 326 V-8 instead of a 421 that ran pretty good, but used a transaxle to get the power down. Not good. I bet there wasn't ten of those 421 cars in the country despite the NHRA production rule requiring 51. The Tempest had some real street potential, but never reached any success at all. The cost to make the transaxle competitive put the car out of reach for anyone that might have been interested.
The Dodge-Plymouth progression was slower than Ford and Chevy, or at least it started out that way. It showed possibilities years before with the 413 in '62, with some different wedge combinations, but never really got exciting until the max-wedges rattled in. We were all busy racing our Chevys and Fords, then turned around one day and chewing at our heels and soon other parts, was a whole mess of aluminum nosed, basic mopar bodies powered by an orange motor that didn't cycle when you shut it off. These race cars could be picked up at your local dealer, no problem. You didn't get a warranty with them. These cars also came with factory headers (pitch 'em), and an AUTOMATIC transmission! What was the deal with the automatic anyway. You mean no more four speed, no more shifting, no more Hurst sticking out of the floor! Can't be done! Won't work! Wrong. Nearly overnight the 427's and 409's were becoming history on the street and the strip. These cars were everywhere. Dodges, Plymouths...Plymouths, Dodges. It was too much, unless you had one of these slick new pieces, you were most likely seeing red, taillights that is.
The mopar combination stayed pretty much the same from 1962 with the 413's through '64 with the 426 wedge, until the late model hemi motors started showing up in sedans. They ran hard, didn't break, and the payment was only about $124 a month, insurance included. (When did the insurance companies figure this performance thing out anyway, and who was the wise guy that explained it to them?)
When the hemis came out, almost none were available in'64 for the street, but by '65 there was a bunch of 'em. In '64 the wedge would out run the hemi until high gear. Soon the hemi guys got it sorted out, and street racing wasn't fun anymore. That hemi would run away and hide from us all. Fortunately, there was only a few on the street, so the local heroes could still rule. Fords, and especially Chevys would still control the streets, if only by sheer numbers. This is where the world came to an end. To defend their turf, the Ford and Chevy guys started getting weird. In an effort to keep up, they got lighter, more inches, bigger cams and more carburetors. It didn't help much. The only thing to beat the king Hemi, was an occasional hybrid, such as a nasty small block Chevy in a Corvette, a Hi-Riser powered early Falcon, or a roadster or some sort.
Some of the most bitchin stuff happened in those days. Street racing was a kick, curb standing was good too. We just stood there rocking back and forth, balancing on the edge of the curb, waiting to see who would come down the street next. Was it going to be a 409, 427 or 426. Who is going to race who. Where did that car come from? Across town? Who is he? How fast is it? Let's race!
Well, what about the Corvettes, GTO's, Mustangs, Cuda's, Chevelles, and so on. Nope. Not here. First off, all the "pony cars", that being Camaros, Mustangs and so on, are second generation muscle cars, medium and smaller bodies with big inch and small block engines. No question these are blood rushing toys, but not here. Things changed after '65. The styling for full size sedans got bulbous, and the road racing influence was showing up. Corvettes are not muscle cars, they are "sports cars", according to Chevrolet. Out. GTO's and 442's, again too new, second generation. This space reserved for goose bumps brought on by a love of those power plants and the ability to remember how it was, way back then.
So, what does gets in the gate to our pit area? First it must be factory Super Stock combination. Rumpy cam, performance carburetion, four speeds for the most part, and be able to boil tires. Nothing else does it! The club roster looks like this:
1958 Chevrolet Del-Ray 315 Horse 348 1960 Ford Starliner 360 Horse 352 1960 Chevrolet Impala 335 Horse 348 1960 Pontiac Ventura Hardtop 333 Horse 389 1960 Chevrolet Bicayne 2 Door 350 Horse 348 1961 Chevrolet Impala 360 Horse 409 1961 Ford Starliner 375 Horse 390 1961 Ford Galaxie 401 Horse 390 1961 Pontiac Catalina 2 Door 405 Horse 421 1962 Chevrolet Aluminum Biscayne 409 Horse 409 1962 Chevrolet Impala SS 409 1962 Ford Galaxie 405 Horse 406 1962 Plymouth Belvedere Hardtop 413 Max Wedge 1962 Dodge Dart 2 Door 413 Max Wedge 1962 Pontiac Ventura Hardtop 421 1963 Impala 425 Horse 409 1963 Impala Z-11 Aluminum Hardtop 1963 Pontiac Catalina Hardtop 410 Horse 421 1963 Ford Galaxie Lightweight Hi-Riser 427 1963 Dodge Aluminum Polara 500 426 Max Wedge 1963 Plymouth Aluminum Sport Fury 426 Max Wedge 1964 Ford Galaxie 500 Light Weight 425 Horse 427 Hi-Riser 1964 Plymouth Aluminum Belvedere Hardtop Max Wedge 1964 Plymouth Aluminum Savoy 2 Door 426 Hemi 1965 Dodge Coronet "Thin Tin" 2 Door 426 Hemi
Arguably there are other body style/engine combinations that could make the club, such as a '64 Plymouth Aluminum Savoy 2 Door in addition to the Sport Fury. Or a Ventura instead of a Catalina, I personally liked the Ventura better because the interior was tricker. But for powerplants, they are all on the list from 352 Ford to 426 Hemi, there are some horsepower combinations which we would let in too, but these would be slight variations to the ones we listed, but definitely no fakes allowed. We also didn't include any of the "special" factory cars that were custom built like the 990 Dodges and Swiss Cheese Pontiacs. What is on the list are cars that we actually saw on the street.
No doubt about it, there are faster and more sought after cars of that era and the years following. This is all neat stuff, but if you didn't live it, doesn't count. Not here. By the way, the cars in our club are there for one reason, they gave us some great memories. As in the case of some of the one-off factory cars, a tag should be riveted to the dashes of the cars in our pit which would read, "For Street Super Stock Racing Only. No Wax Required".
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