How They Kneecapped Cars In The '70s
Imagine large V-8s that made less power than many modern four-cylinders. Four thousand pounds - and 14 mpg.That was the mid-late 1970s, when automakers (especially American automakers) dealt a savage blow to the output and capability of their cars in order to comply with a one-two sucker punch of federal emissions control laws and rising gas prices that changed the marketplace almost overnight.
While the Japanese (luckily for them) didn't make large cars (or V-8 engines) that was what Detroit (unluckily) specialized in. The problem was that Detroit had made a huge investment in car platforms and engine types that were never conceived with either fuel efficiency or low emissions in mind and whose costs had not yet been paid-for over many years of production. They were in a box with no exit and had to run what they'd brung.
But in order to do that, pre-emissions V-8s built for the world of the 1960s and early '70s had to be kneecapped viciously just to be viable in the Brave New World of the mid-'70s - and to buy the domestic automakers time, while they scrambled to engineer new-design powerplants compatible with the changing landscape.
The first thing to go was high-compression pistons.
After 1972, for example, GM wasn't building any V-8s with more than 8.5:1 compression. By 1976, some GM engines had been cut down to 7.6:1 CR - which let them run on unleaded gas with 87 octane ratings but also reduced power output to truly embarrassing levels. In its final year of production, for example, Pontiac's once-formidable 7.4 liter, 455 cubic inch V-8 had been browbeaten to just 200 hp. (Today, the typical 3 liter V-6 produces more power.)
By '76, Pontiac's big-inch engine was actually among the most potent V-8s on the market. The Corvette's base L48 350 cubic inch V-8 didn't even break the 200 hp mark - and the Z28 Camaro was gone entirely.
Driveability problems also became commonplace hassles as a result of the primitive Band Aids that had been grafted onto old-school engine designs in order to get them to comply with the new emissions regs.
The first catalytic converters came in '75. For the most part, these were hugely restrictive and worked just stuffing a potato into the tailpipe. True dual exhaust pretty much ceased to be. The upside was that one could, in those days, go to an auto parts store to buy a hollowed-out "test pipe" that fit exactly in place of the converter - and thereby snatch back anywhere from 10-30 horsepower. But it would be years until high-efficiency cats - and true dual exhaust - made a comeback.
Carburetors were leaned out to the point that cars stumbled and stalled. No more open element (or even dual snorkel) air cleaners. Hood scoops got boarded up. Ignition curves were retarded; intake manifolds were plumbed with clumsy Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR) systems that in the early days frequently clogged up or otherwise malfunctioned and added to the driveability woes. Some cars got Air Injection Reaction (AIR) pumps, which, like the early EGR systems, were crude and trouble prone. But more fundamentally, the engines onto which they were grafted balked at the outrage.
For the coupe de grace, automakers dialed back axle ratios to ridiculous extremes. Overdrive transmissions were not in wide use in in those days, so the only way to cut down engine revs at highway speeds (and thus eke up the MPGs) was to swap out the 3.23, 3.73 (and even higher) axle ratios that had been the rule for gearsets in the 2.42 range.
The wretched result was a fleet of overweight, under-powered, over-heavy gas hogs that (unlike their pre-smog forbears) didn't even have the saving grace of at least being fast when you floored the gas pedal. Instead, you got a sick-sounding vacuum-cleaner noise as the things bucked and heaved and struggled to move forward. Unless you were there and got to drive these things you simply have no idea how bad it was - or appreciate just how good we have it today.
Just try to conceive of a Z28 Camaro with a 5.7 liter V-8 that could only muster 185 horsepower and which, with the wind at its back, might reach 115 mph on the top end. A new Chevy Cobalt with a four-cylinder engine offers better performance - and better economy, too.
It was tough times.
Detroit began to recover in the mid-1980s and today 300 (and even 400) horsepower V-8s are commonplace. There are even a few 500 horsepower berserkers out there (like the Shelby GT500 Mustang and Z06 Corvette). And they get decent gas mileage, too. In fact their numbers (even the worst of them) are as good or better than their counterparts of the Disco Days - despite having double or more the hp under the hood.
But it takes having lived through the darkest days of the mid-late '70s to truly appreciate the currently wonderful state of things. Like those who grew up amid plenty, it's hard to conceive a time of famine.
But it did happen, once long ago.
And it was ugly.
