Best handling 1950-54 American Cars ?

Anybody have any specs or old road test reports on what 6 or 8 cylinder cars had the best road handling characteristics for cars around 1954?

How did the Cadillacs compare to the Oldsmobiles and other V8 cars? How about the straight 6 Chevy's? In particular looking for OHV cars manufactured '54 and earlier.

Any info would be greatly appreciated.

-scott noteboom

 

Studebaker loewy coupe, from what I remember reading

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They pretty much all handled great if you just stuck to a straight line and didn't panic brake.

But other than that, a wild, and obviously biased guess might be '53-54 Studebaker Coupes?

 

I heard that if a hudson lost a wheel that it would stay balanced and not drag the corner of the car the wheel came off of. I would like to see an old hudson three wheelin, that would be nice to see.

 

Mechanix Illustrated reviewed a lot of cars from that era. Tom McCahill was their guy, he had a lot to say about handling, usually a very colorful report.
If you search (Google etc.) Tom McCahill; many articles and his opinions from that era will come up.
Hudsons from that era worked really well for Smokey and the NASCAR guys.

 

Planning on a Carrera car?
Studebakers. It's a great car for a number of reasons, and it's very telling that they consistently win the La Carrera.
They had V8 engines, manual trans with OD available (my friend ran one in Carrera, with a Ford T-85), and Dana 44 rear ends, which are still plentiful in new vehicles, so Posi and your choice of new gear ratios are readily available.
They were also VERY light. Like over 1,000 pounds lighter than a '54 Buick.

-Brad

 

stude...

 

1st gen Corvette.

 

Stepdown Hudsons. Of course I'm biased having one but it works great.
Lots of neat features,one being a narrower track in the rear and slightly
angled(not quite parallel leaf springs) is really a self correcting design.
Drop a wheel off the pavement and it will pull you back up on the road
with very little input. Of course they worked well in Nascar but they sure
were some cheatin sum bitches even then.

 

I'll put my money on a Hemi powered Cunningham. http://www.briggscunningham.com/lemans52.html

 

heres another Lemans winer (ok half American)

 

The Stepdown Hudsons were by far, the best-handling cars of that time. Their dominance in NASCAR and races such as the Pan Americana and such was hard to beat, until the '55 Chrysler 300s came out.

 

I agree with the stepdown Hudsons. When Packard came out with the torsion ride setup Tom McCahill said it was the absolute best.
I never owned the Hudson but I did have a 56 Packard that handled amazingly well for a 2 ton car of the day.

I also had 2 Stude coupes that got around a corner pretty well. A little heavy in the front though.

 

what were the transmission options in the 1950-54 Hudsons?

thanks for all the info.

oh, and yeah-- i've been talking with my dad about running the Carrera Panamericana...

-scott noteboom

 

if you're gonna race it you need a Dual-Range Hydra-Matic.

Hydra-Matic was 1st offered in Hudsons in 1951,1952 and up are Dual-Range.

BTW all of you who claim a Studebaker will handle as good as a Hudson are obviously smoking banana peels or something

 

54 pontiacs of course!

 

Hudson Hornets undisputably were the best handling of the early 50's and only eventually got beaten by more advanced engines. When you consider what they did in racing with very little money and a outdated flathead engine it was truely remarkable and shows just how far ahead in handling they really where.

 

I'm talking with some friends about doing a '54 Buick Century for the 2010 race. It'll be heavy, and won't handle as well as other cars, but I know Nailheads, have a plan for the chassis, and have access to a clean, complete, running/driving '54 Century that only needs front floors, for $1400.

-Brad

 

I never felt a bump in my 1954 Buick, but turning corners was no easy task.

 

Six cylinder '53/'54 Stude coupes - light (2700 lbs or so) and well balanced. The v-8 cars were a littile heavy in the nose, but latter springs, sway bars etc. fixed that.

 

Fifties and sixties were bad years for handling...some cars had very poor ifs geometry, virtually everything was waaay too softly sprung. Most cars looked like they were going to flip if cornered hard...go to much stiffer rear springs, then much much much stiffer fronts to start, then if there is too much strange camber change as on early GM, just kinda blank out the suspension Herb Adams style with huge anti roll bars and consider the thing a go kart.
Uncle Tom Cahill did a 25th anniversary Mercury road test, in which a '39 Merc was tested against the new '64. The '39 won the handling test...the wretched '64 was illustrated with its door handles practically touching the pavement as it wallowed through the course. Mercury knew it, too...they tried to do this portion of the test with Tom driving the '64 and a factory rep driving the '39.
There are some interesting articles around from the day, showing exactly how pig-in-a-wheelbarrow stockers were set up for NASCAR, and some cars had excellent kits available in the fifties labeled as export parts.

 

Step down Hudsons ruled early 1950s. '53 and up Studebakers (not all of them, just the "Lowey coupes"). Olds 88s weren't bad for their time. '54 Lincolns were referred to as excellent handling in a lot of reviews. Then in 1955 Chrysler suddenly got their shit together and road tests of the era consistently rate them the best throughout the rest of the 1950s.
I used to have a whole stack of Mechanix Illustrated and read them all cover to cover.
BTW, I had a '54 Pontiac in high school and it really did handle pretty good in stock form compared to Fords and Chevies of the same era.
Buicks were lousy. I had a '53 Special and it leaned like a drunk.

 

My '54 Buick handled like a pig, until I did two things. The first was new bushings and end links for the factory sway bar. It's about as thick as my little finger, but it made a world of difference. A thicker sway bar would do it a lot of good.
After that, I put in some fresh springs. 3-inch lowering springs from JAMCO. I don't know if they were stiffer or not, but the car was very nice to drive, and didn't wallow through corners at all.
I suspect replacing the rear panhard bar bushings would also help.

On the Buick, the '54/'55 spindles had zero degrees of caster. On the '56, they were built with 3, 4 or 7 degrees...I don't remember, but it's in my notes somewhere. I read a vintage car review of the '56 Buicks, and the new spindles were designed to help it come out of corners better.

I think stiffer springs, a huge sway bar and adjustable shocks, along with the later spindles, will help my Buick. It'll still be a slug, but its workable.

I point all that out because no matter which car you choose, there's probably a lot of cool stuff you can dig up with some research.

The weak points of the Buick are the rear end and the trans. I haven't solved that problem yet...at least not in a way that complies with the rules.

-Brad

 

Oh yeah, ANY car from the '50s handles WAY better if you lower it a few inches and add bigger sway bars and some decent gas shocks. Even just urethane bushing on the stock front sway bar makes a noticeable difference.
I think lowering makes the biggest improvement, but I couldn't bet money on it because I've always done two or three things at the same time, never one at a time.

 

COME ON


Cadillac!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

 

Probably the single biggest advantage the Hudsons enjoyed then. The
stepdown chassis lowered the center of gravity way more than their
contemporaries. Sway bar up front and a panhard bar WITH the leaf springs
out back didn't hurt either.

 

Yeah, and i happen to have a whole bunch of old, appropriate speed parts for the Caddy too. Ive got lots of experience here with the 331/365/390 base as well.

Temping..... but not sure if the Caddy will be able to handle the curvy speed sections of the race.

Basically i'm looking for reasons not to use a '54 Series 62-- and info from these guys on Hudsons, Studes, etc perhaps could be driving sense into me

-scott noteboom

 

Nash metropolitan?

How did they handle?

( although.. Not sure if they qualify as an American car..)

 

Lowering is tough in the conditions this car could see-- imagine the roughest possible "roads"....

-scott noteboom

 

Caddy, huh? Well Briggs Cunningham did pretty well with a stock Caddy at LeMans in the 50's.