time slips????

Settin' here watch some old black and white movies like Hot RodGang and Dragstrip Girl got me to thinking. What where the time slips of the hot rods back in the '50s and '60s . I know today alot of the street cars are in the 11s-12s . So i was wondering what these cars in theses old movies ran. What was an average time in a souped-up street driven jaopy?

 

mostly they were concerned with mph, not et

 

Fifty years ago, if your street driven car ran in the 14s, you were considered fast.

 

First over 200 mph run at San Fernando was a 205 cranked off in 1963.
I believe the track record had been sitting at 198-199 mph for a while.

There had been several, in fact quite a few, over 200 mph runs in other parts of the nation as well as at several other SoCal strips.
We figured 200 mph would be broken before too long, but were surprised to see it surp***ed as far as it was.
Fueler records at SF Dragstrip had slowly notched forward for a while, but far as we were concerned, 205 shattered the previous mark.


The 205 mph run was interesting to watch.
We were in C/Gas and sitting in the pit grandstands.

The fueler didn't light em up real hard at first, then the smoke went away and it seemed to be grabbing traction with just a light wisp of smoke coming off each rear tire.

The front tires were just barely kissing the pavement and would leave the pavement now and then, but only by a couple of inches or so.

We knew we were seeing something special although we didn't realize at the time that smoked in runs were about to become a thing of the past.

The track announcer called several people to the timing stand to witness the clocks.

When he announced the time, the crowd was on it's feet cheering and applauding.

Interesting days and fun times . . we won C/Gas which put a nice spin on the day....

 

In 1963 my Olds Rocket powered 50 Ford coupe was cranking 100 mph in the 13.90's.
It wasn't too far from running the streets and cranked off consistent 99's @ 14.31 in street trim.

The main thing we looked at to determine how fast street driven cars were, could it turn 100 mph?

100 was the measuring stick of the day although cars that ran in the mid-high 90's were well respected.

 

The best ET any thing I ran back in the 60's would be 15 or 16 but mostly 20's and boy was it fun. That would be at the Wednesday night grudge races at Lion's in Long Beach, Ca.or Orange County Raceway near El Toro Marine Base, Ca. (Tustin)

 

In the summer of 1965 a local guy bought a new Chev. Impala convert.,factory 425 hp.396,4 speed and 4:11 posi.we drove to Casper Wyo.drags and he made a p***,14.92 et,don't recall mph.
Street tires and full ash trays,was FAST for the day!
glider.

 

Madmak-

C9 is pretty right on. In the 50's it was all about MPH - and any street-driven car doing a hundred - at any distance - was fairly stout. A quarter-mile time over a hundred was quite a feat - even for many purpose-built racers.

Way into the 50s, there was widespread belief that 150 mph could never be topped. Lloyd Scott did that in the twin-engined "Bustle Bomb" late in the decade.

Many of the little T-buckets and so forth, like you see in the old movies, weren't really good drag cars, as they mostly fishtailed badly off the line, due to lack of traction and "stone-age" Model T style suspension.

I would say that during the 60s, 13 - and even 14-second times (on the street) were kick-*** in most places.

I had a (stone stock) 283 C.I. 1966 Nova that ran 15.30s in the quarter at just under a hundred mph.There were some cars that could beat it, but most street racing then was just "stoplight" stuff, where you ran through first and second gear, then let off the gas, so a quick "leave" was as important as raw power.

There were one or two high 12-second cars around (Springfield, MO), but they weren't daily drivers. Of course there were many exceptions - especially in the larger cities around the country.

Remember too, that in the mid-to-late 60s, a teen with a wealthy (and stupid) old man could buy a pretty nasty 348/409 Chevy - or even a 426 street hemi - off the showroom floor, so there were some powerful and quick cars around for sure.

Still, any street-driven car that could surp*** 100 mph in the quarter was formidible on the street.

 

And don't forget, we didn't have any tires in the 50s. My brother had a 49 Ford with a brand new 56 Olds engine, could almost make 100 in the quarter. But boy, could it burn rubber!!!.........OLDBEET

 

In the 50's and maybe the very early 60's, there were not any good clocks for et's. I think it was Chrondak (sp?) who first came out (early 60's?) with a set of clocks that could do both et and mph.

I'm old enough to to know - I worked at the Charleston RI drag track in the mid to late 50's and early 60's.