Thread: 1950-1960 street car

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Okay 'old' great ones, heres the deal. Im looking for some inspriation for a new project and am going old school! What i want to know is what was the fastest car you ever saw run on the streets in the 50's to early 60's and i dont mean the LS6 cars or COPO. Thanks in advance!!

marc

The early 60's Chevy 409s were pretty awesome, but the most radical were the lightweight Ford Thunderbolts and Superstock Mopars in about 1965, though not many of those actually made it to the street. There were some pretty amazing "product development" pieces that found their way onto Woodward avenue in Detroit. Street racing factory engineers!

Almost forgot about the '62 Super Duty Pontiacs, 421 Cu in and aluminum front ends

Seems to me that Olds had some pretty fast Rocket 88s too.

Pat

Probably not the fastest around back then but one of the mid 60's fastest car I saw was the 66 nova with the L79 327 rated at 350HP. The car was light and would easly do the quarter in 12 seconds with street tires. Again not the fastest but it was pretty cool for that time period.

The 53 Studebaker held the record for the fastest stock bodied car for a long time and maybe still does. It doesn't matter what your engine is, put it in a 53 Stude and it'll go faster. put a Blown Hemi in one and you'll have the fastest car in town. Just don't put a gasser front end under it or you'll tip it over.

I got stopped in 1962 on the penn. turnpike. I was doing about 80. The trooper was driving a hopped up 55 Ford with a
332. It had no markings. While he was writing me up, I ask him
what he hadn't run down. He said he didn't even try to catch
the stude. hawks.

balaam

As the responses indicate, it's all a matter of personal taste. Just a couple thoughts.

What you see in the "rat rod" movement (admit it, that's what got you started thinking this way) is a cartoon caracature of reality. Not all cars on the streets in the '40's & '50's were rusty, bomb canned pieces of crap. By the '60's there was an economic shift and fewer people were building cars from scrounged parts. Thus the Muscle Car era was born, and buying a hot car emerged.

You can go to a Barnes&Noble, or Borders bookstore and go to the "transportation" or "automotive" sections. You'll likely find a number of books there that are reprints of period correct publications (such as Hop Up magazine), or collections of photographs taken during that era to get a flavor of "the real world". Or go to www.motorbooks.com for Classic Motorbooks, they've got a bunch too. Dean Bachelor, Andy Southard, and others have period accurate books. Now granted, the vehicles shown in the magazines will be the better quality cars of the period, but it at least makes the point that not everything was a POS, and that people then had both building skills and taste. Not everyone was a failed corn binder mechanic that could only cobble a car together.

Once you look through all that stuff you'll learn that there was a broad range of interest then too. People really haven't changed that much as far as car lust goes, their choices were just a bit more limited.

Originally posted by Streets
Fastest thing on ANY street is a 1961 "Henway" Triple "S" Coupe....

OK, Streets.........I'll bite........Whats a "Henway"?

BTW...I know the answer

Early 60s supercar..........thats when they had "Real" cars. I am partial, but I would have to say 62 Super Duty 421 Pontaic Catalina

Well this is just nostalgia, but I speak of the '53-'56 era. Many of my friends had '41 Fords and I still like that grill style, but they are scarce now. There were some pretty nice looking '39-'40 Chevy coupes but they had a vacuum shifter that was incredibly slow. The "baddest" car in my high school was a '46 Ford Tudor owned by a social butterfly GIRL whose uncle put a 4" Merc crank in the flathead for her. On the street I was driving a slightly bored '47 Ford convert whose main virtue was orange paint with wide whites, but it was quicker than the '41s which had 3 1/16" bore compared to the '47 which had 3 3/16" + 0.030". While we all thought we had hot cars because Hot Rod magazine showed almost exclusively flathead Ford V8s, we knew to keep an eye in our mirror for '50-'55 Olds 88s, '49-'53 Mercs, and, believe it or not, '49-'50 Hudson Hornets! Although the Hudsons only had flathead straight six engines they knew they were on the edge of bankruptcy and hogged out the bore for a total displacement of over 300 cu. in. and believe me they were FAST! Even today if you could find a Hudson Hornet and repro parts I think it would be a good street car. I believe in 1950 or 1951 Hudson dominated NASCAR because that was before the uniform displacement rule (now 355 cu. in. ?) and each company could race their actual "stock" engine even if it was larger than competitors. Still overall If I had a choice and a time machine I would like to have a '55 Olds 88 hardtop with the second color panel on the rear fenders. I recall seeing 300 HP Chrysler Fire Power sedans but they were so expensive and heavier that they did not apply to the youth market until the engines were used in other bodies. The Olds 88s were the street champs and had larger engines than the early Chevy 265s, although I was shocked to find out that my '47 could not keep up in any category with the '55 Chevy. Ford made a brief comeback with the '57 Y-block which was a good NASCAR engine in '57, but then when the Chevy 327 followed the 283, Ford sadly flopped with that dang long water pump in the 289 and most Ford fans started the Chevy-in-a-Ford movement. Ford had a chance to keep the Ardun patent which was designed for Ford flathead V8s, but they just paid off the Duntov brothers and let the idea go to Chrysler which then made hemis for Dodges, Desotos and Chryslers. A very interesting piece of history might be found if you had a 239 Dodge hemi engine and put it in an early Ford, because it is pretty obvious that the Dodge 239 is basically a copy of the Ford 239 59-AB block, except with five mains instead of three and with the hemi heads copied from the Ford-Ardun design. There were also a few Model-A coupes with flathead V8s in the area of Pennsylvania where I grew up, but few roadsters because of cold winters. Well there you have my wish list for "interesting and fast street machines from the '50s:

1. '55 Olds 88 hardtop

2. '50 Hudson Hornet two door

3. '47 Ford convert with '55 Dodge/Desoto Hemi

I can afford to waste time on this nostalgia this evening because I really did install my 4-bar Maverick rear in my '29 roadster frame today. At least I can get all the parts for a '29 roadster even though I will probably freeze my afterparts during winter here in Virginia! I am certainly NOT one of the "hot rod greats", but maybe my age gives some perspective from the '50s and I hope my '29 Tupperware roadster will be my "TIME MACHINE". This is a GREAT forum where we can get answers from the true hot rod greats and I am very glad I just happened to find this forum.

Best Wishes,
Don Shillady
Retired Scientis/teen rodder

Don, good response, but just to keep the kid straight, Hornets, and their 308 ci six didn't start til '51. I think there's a pic of one somewhere in the gallery.

58-63 Chevy W-block? (348 or . . . Four Speed, Positraction, Dual-Quad four-oh-nine) How about the Z-11 427 based on the W-block. Hayden Profitt and Dyno Don Nicholson did pretty well with them. Not bad for a truck motor.

'64 Ford Thunderbolt? (Bob Taska Ford)

Max Wedge Mopars, Stage I, II and III?

Early 60's .. . GTO?

Any of the lot could have been the "fastest" given the right tune.

I know that the fastest car I ever saw in the late 50's and early 60"s was Delmar Christensen's 631/2 Ford 427 dual quad , 4 spd Galaxie. Carindal red in and out and run like stink on Sh$t.

Well thanks for the kind words, I guess my brain was frozen in the very early '50s. I think there were a few '52 Hudsons, but they went out of business in 1953? "Bob" is correct, the 308 cu. in. six cyl was in '51 and that was the year Hudson was a terror on the NASCAR tracks. I am replying to remember another bankruptcy hot rod, the 1955 Packard 400. I saw a Packard 400 V8 lap the field after only about 5 laps at the old Hatfield 1/2 mile track just N.E. of Phila. on the N. J. side. Again Packard knew they were close to extinction and tried the same trick as Hudson did in that they came out with an enormous V8 in 1955. However there were few of them on the street. Still those who remember should tell you that the Hornet was a very fast car at a time when there were few cars on the street with engines over 300 cu. in. displacement. However as I recall, the Olds 88 was 331 cu. in. but there was some problem putting that engine in a Ford frame because of the location of the starter on the Olds engine and so very few Olds engines made their way into a Ford. The fastest car I actually rode in at that time was my cousin's '51 Merc, but that later paled by comparison to my Dad's '69 Chev 350. Well enough nostalgia, I need to worry about choosing wheels, installing rear coil-overs and then (!) the tedious job of installing brake lines on the '29 frame. Sorry to chat so much, but I am DELIGHTED to find this forum?

Best Wishes,
Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teenage rodder

Tom McMullens 32 highboy when he had the blown sbc in it. he won AA/SR at the Winter Nationals with it, but I don't remember the year. Maybe 65

Which reminds me . . . McMullin's 32 is the most over-reported, over-covered, over-photographed car in the hobby. No disrespect to the late Mr. McMullin.

I gotta give Tom McMullen credit for changing the course of hot rodding with his 32. At the time it came out everyone was building stock looking resto-rods and Volkswagen powered T-buckets. I was glad to see that I wasn't the only one still into traditional hot rods.