L
LUKE'57
Guest
If the '65 Ford front snout under the Fairlanes set the tone for underpinnings on the first generation of today's "downsized" cars then this little Chevelle spelled out the rest of it. Take a smaller car with a smaller engine and the power to weight ratio and improved handling will overcome the horsepower difference and be just as fast.
With cars today making a mockery of the speeds that the huge 427 cubic inch engines ran it still wasn't as bad as actually having one of those big honkers and still getting outrun by a little ol' 327 in a car made by a company that wasn't even officially involved in stock car racing.
On July 12,1966 the handwriting was on the wall and no one really realized it for what it was. That was the date that Bobby Allison won his very first major league stock car race. And he did it in a car that gave away 100 cubic inches to the competition.
The rules called for cars to weigh 9.36 pounds per cubic inch and that engine allowed Bobby's Chevelle to be almost 1000 pounds lighter than the big block cars. The fact that this was the kind of setup that Bobby had been using for years on his short track cars didn't hurt either on the .333 mile paved oval where handling was crucial.
Here's another fine GatorBuilt rendition of an historic car from racing's past- the little Chevy that could.
With cars today making a mockery of the speeds that the huge 427 cubic inch engines ran it still wasn't as bad as actually having one of those big honkers and still getting outrun by a little ol' 327 in a car made by a company that wasn't even officially involved in stock car racing.
On July 12,1966 the handwriting was on the wall and no one really realized it for what it was. That was the date that Bobby Allison won his very first major league stock car race. And he did it in a car that gave away 100 cubic inches to the competition.
The rules called for cars to weigh 9.36 pounds per cubic inch and that engine allowed Bobby's Chevelle to be almost 1000 pounds lighter than the big block cars. The fact that this was the kind of setup that Bobby had been using for years on his short track cars didn't hurt either on the .333 mile paved oval where handling was crucial.
Here's another fine GatorBuilt rendition of an historic car from racing's past- the little Chevy that could.