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Old T-Birds, who likes them

George just bought one. If I pick him up for darts on Friday, I. could dent the left hand rear with my truck. No charge.
Maybe I will just tell George I hit it, and he owes me a beer.
 
I thought it couldn't be that bad, with similar specs to a 440 magnum.. so I found a carlife road test. Yikes! 16.75 @85! My Dad's bone stock 68 300 would pull 14.90's @ 95 reliably.
Ahh the perks of being a Mopar guy.
The Ford curse. Ford engineers would make something good, then the bean counters and leadership found a way to make it into a bland, forgettable car. The engine specs are good, 429's had a lot of grunt and spun up better than a 460. I am sure Ford put a rev limiter on it, choked it through a 2" single exhaust with the worst designed manifolds possible, or purposefully changed the intake manifold so it wouldn;t be faster than the Mustang or Torino. Ford loved to detune engines to make their hot rod segment cars look faster. They were doing that all the way into the 1990's. One of their favorite tricks was to put final drive gear ratios in that would make the car do 60mph in first gear and a torque converter that didn;t fit the weight or power level of the car and engine. Bean counters win again! Sales guys like to sell MPG! That 2.45 rear end gear is really thrifty! Luxury, power, and economy! yeah, I am sure it can do all three really well!
It would be a weekend job to drop a full second off that ET on a car like that. Probably too heavy to do better without some more significant modifications. Early 70's Tbirds are hefty, but like most Ford stuff with a V8 the potential is in there you just have to dig away all the Ford management/bean counter BS to find it. That car, blacked out with some chrome magnum 500's and a giant magnusen sticking out of the hood would move out and make everyone look.
 
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