- 168
- Milano, Italia
Hello everybody
During some hopeless hours of studying yesterday I came out with one of the typical questions which make you lose concentration and write notes about car specs instead of trying to understand how much work in joules is needed to make an adiabatic cylinder full of biatomic gas gain a 20% increment in volume.
The question is: of three hypotetic men back in 1970, one from Japan, another from the US and the last from Europe (Italy), which one could, for the same amount of money, get the fastest production car?
I made some conversions and "historical research" and found out that a Charger R/T with the 440 engine costed something like 4000$ that year, a Toyota Celica was 2600 and an Alfa Giulia 1600 GTA (from '65, but I think in 1970 was being produced yet) 2,500,000 Italian Liras, which equate to 3205$ approximately.
So I fitted them with N2 tyres and opened some time trial sessions at Motorland to make some tests. Someone should ask, "Why didn't you take the 240Z instead of the Celica?" because I didn't think about it when I made the challenge and by now I realized I haven't got it in my collection.
Well, I got this results: the Charger R/T won with a 55.917, the Alfa came second with 56.767 and the Celica didn't manage to go faster than 57.020.
But, apart from the times, I came out with some driving impressions about these three cars:
The Charger
Obviously this was the fastest in the group, having much more horsepower than the other two put together. Surely N2 tyres aren't the best option to move 380HP and 1600kg of mass, but it performed better than I expected. There's massive understeer when entering a corner, this due to the excessive weight, and even avoiding wheelspin the car isn't very accurate even in long corners, where I expected it to be faster than the others. Actually, in many of the corners it was slower by 2-3mph than the Celica and 3-4 than the Alfa Romeo. But after all, the amount of torque is impressive, and gaining speed going out from a corner won't ever be a problem. Here in Europe every car book says firmly that Muscle cars were something horrible to drive; well, maybe they lack precision and a really sports car handling, but they aren't so terrible. This one, at least.
The Celica
This car is probably one of the worst-looking coupes of the 70s I've ever seen. It's like they said to the designer, "Take the general lines from a Hemi 'Cuda and reduce its size by 20%." Quite horrible. It isn't really bad to drive, but neither good. The suspensions are too soft, and it's a pain to rapidly change direction, because the car constantly fails to keep the direction you want it to follow. Sometimes it seems it has much more weight than it actually has; on the other hand, it feels quite safe in the long corners as it slightly understeers and I think it's got the best braking system of the bunch.
Alfa Romeo Giulia GTA 1600
Probably one of the best-looking coupes of the 60s, the Alfa Giulia is quite a brilliant car for its age, maybe thanks to the little weight (745Kg) and to the 1600 engine which delivers just the right amount of power. Entering a corner isn't too easy, however, as this car hasn't very good brakes and, even if it weighs 200kg less, it has to be slowed down a little before the Celica; as a consequence, sometimes it happens not to enter the turn with the nose perfectly aligned and this makes you lose a little time. However, it's easy to keep it under control so, after a lap or two this isn't a problem anymore. The impressive side of the handling of the Giulia comes when you enter a long corner (long if compared to the other ones in the track), such as the 3rd turn (long one) or the last one. In both this corners, you can predict with extreme accuracy where the car is going to go, and calmly choose the line to follow; both avoiding oversteer and drifting (with N tyres everything's possible) the car doesn't lose balance and keeps going exactly where you wanted it to go. This is by far the most pleasant to drive of the 3, even in other tracks, and maybe the only one who successfully manages to be driveable with normal tyres (the Charger is justified, the Celica doesn't).
So, if you had the idea of buying a sports car with not too much money in 1970, you'd better be in Europe of in USA, because Japanese cars of the time seem to me quite ugly and, what's worse, a bit slow. (However I forgot to consider the 240Z)
So, this wasn't a real serious comparo report, but more some talk about 3 cars I presume I'm not the only to have driven. If you've driven the same cars or other ones from similar period, this could be a good place to discuss them.
P.S.: I know my laptimes are quite slow, but I'm quite sure the results would be the same with any driver: Charger-Alfa-Celica.
During some hopeless hours of studying yesterday I came out with one of the typical questions which make you lose concentration and write notes about car specs instead of trying to understand how much work in joules is needed to make an adiabatic cylinder full of biatomic gas gain a 20% increment in volume.
The question is: of three hypotetic men back in 1970, one from Japan, another from the US and the last from Europe (Italy), which one could, for the same amount of money, get the fastest production car?
I made some conversions and "historical research" and found out that a Charger R/T with the 440 engine costed something like 4000$ that year, a Toyota Celica was 2600 and an Alfa Giulia 1600 GTA (from '65, but I think in 1970 was being produced yet) 2,500,000 Italian Liras, which equate to 3205$ approximately.
So I fitted them with N2 tyres and opened some time trial sessions at Motorland to make some tests. Someone should ask, "Why didn't you take the 240Z instead of the Celica?" because I didn't think about it when I made the challenge and by now I realized I haven't got it in my collection.
Well, I got this results: the Charger R/T won with a 55.917, the Alfa came second with 56.767 and the Celica didn't manage to go faster than 57.020.
But, apart from the times, I came out with some driving impressions about these three cars:
The Charger
Obviously this was the fastest in the group, having much more horsepower than the other two put together. Surely N2 tyres aren't the best option to move 380HP and 1600kg of mass, but it performed better than I expected. There's massive understeer when entering a corner, this due to the excessive weight, and even avoiding wheelspin the car isn't very accurate even in long corners, where I expected it to be faster than the others. Actually, in many of the corners it was slower by 2-3mph than the Celica and 3-4 than the Alfa Romeo. But after all, the amount of torque is impressive, and gaining speed going out from a corner won't ever be a problem. Here in Europe every car book says firmly that Muscle cars were something horrible to drive; well, maybe they lack precision and a really sports car handling, but they aren't so terrible. This one, at least.
The Celica
This car is probably one of the worst-looking coupes of the 70s I've ever seen. It's like they said to the designer, "Take the general lines from a Hemi 'Cuda and reduce its size by 20%." Quite horrible. It isn't really bad to drive, but neither good. The suspensions are too soft, and it's a pain to rapidly change direction, because the car constantly fails to keep the direction you want it to follow. Sometimes it seems it has much more weight than it actually has; on the other hand, it feels quite safe in the long corners as it slightly understeers and I think it's got the best braking system of the bunch.
Alfa Romeo Giulia GTA 1600
Probably one of the best-looking coupes of the 60s, the Alfa Giulia is quite a brilliant car for its age, maybe thanks to the little weight (745Kg) and to the 1600 engine which delivers just the right amount of power. Entering a corner isn't too easy, however, as this car hasn't very good brakes and, even if it weighs 200kg less, it has to be slowed down a little before the Celica; as a consequence, sometimes it happens not to enter the turn with the nose perfectly aligned and this makes you lose a little time. However, it's easy to keep it under control so, after a lap or two this isn't a problem anymore. The impressive side of the handling of the Giulia comes when you enter a long corner (long if compared to the other ones in the track), such as the 3rd turn (long one) or the last one. In both this corners, you can predict with extreme accuracy where the car is going to go, and calmly choose the line to follow; both avoiding oversteer and drifting (with N tyres everything's possible) the car doesn't lose balance and keeps going exactly where you wanted it to go. This is by far the most pleasant to drive of the 3, even in other tracks, and maybe the only one who successfully manages to be driveable with normal tyres (the Charger is justified, the Celica doesn't).
So, if you had the idea of buying a sports car with not too much money in 1970, you'd better be in Europe of in USA, because Japanese cars of the time seem to me quite ugly and, what's worse, a bit slow. (However I forgot to consider the 240Z)
So, this wasn't a real serious comparo report, but more some talk about 3 cars I presume I'm not the only to have driven. If you've driven the same cars or other ones from similar period, this could be a good place to discuss them.
P.S.: I know my laptimes are quite slow, but I'm quite sure the results would be the same with any driver: Charger-Alfa-Celica.
