Rowdy Muscle Car

I had the chance to drive a late ‘60s Pontiac Firebird with a 455 big block. It has probably been 15 years since I drove a car with a large carburetor and I forgot just how much force it takes to open the throttle. Two of my most recent cars didn’t even have a throttle cable. Instead they had drive-by-wire electronic throttle bodies which feels totally different than the old Firebird and requires little force to move the loud pedal.

Fred took me out for a ride and the car is pretty intense. He mashed the throttle from a roll and the tires immediately broke free. They continued spinning all of the way through third gear. Wow

On the way back he let me drive the car. There were several things that felt quite a bit different from what I’m used to such as: throttle, shifter, steering, brakes… I already mentioned the throttle. He had a Hurst shifter in the car. I’ve heard the name many times but I never realized what made them unique. First off it has two shifter levers. The shorter of the two engages reverse. The other is a T-bar handle with a small finger lever that can be lifted. To get it in 1st gear you lift the finger lever and push the T-bar forward. For 2nd gear you just slam the T-bar back. 3rd gear is quick push forward. Then lift the lever and slam it back to grab 4th gear. There is no way to miss a gate when shifting fast because there are no gates. It just moves back and forth. He even had an electrically actuated over drive. Sweet! I wish I had a similar setup in my car.

This short drive reminded me why I think muscle cars are cool but I would never own one. The car was a rocket in a straight line with gobs of torque and tire smoke to let the on lookers know that you’ve had lift off. All of that power can get you in trouble quickly. Not just with the local PD but also with your own safety. All of that mass made the car slow to turn in and the suspension control was barely adequate. Then there were the brakes. The engine only pulls 6 inches of vacuum and that hardly provides any assistance to the master cylinder. Even with pushing on the brake pedal with all of my might, the car slows at its own pace. Like I said before, the car is very cool but I would never want to own one.