cars

I remember when a classic car was any car over 20 years old.

In the mid ’50’s that meant cars from the mid 30’s, which were pretty old even then. When my friends got their first cars they were flat head Plymouths and 6 cylinder Chevys, or old Dodges.

In 1955 Chevy came out with it’s first really modern V8 and the race was on. Hot Rod people had the ideal of a horse power for each cubic inch of displacement. Now factory cars did that well.

My high school friend Roger said “Dave, think about what OUR kids will be driving.”

The engines got bigger and bigger. The first Chevy V8 was 263 cubic inch if I remember right. Soon there were 440s. GM made a few were made as large as 572 cubic inch with 700 hp. I did not ask how much it weighed.

Gas was cheap, we thought it was inexhaustible and fast was good.

The intriguing thing is that those huge engines went into huge cars, and now smaller cars with very highly refined engines of 140 or 150 inches can produce better performance.

My Dodge pickup has a 4.7 Liter engine. That is 287 cubic inches, pretty small by big standards, yet it puts out 235 hp. When I was a kid such an engine was a dream of big time hot rodders.

On our trip last week the little Cavalier got 33 mpg. The sad thing is that there are not that many cars that do much better now. Even some very small 2 seater cars with tiny engines only get 40.

Maybe we have not come as far as we think.