The difference in mass between...
The difference in mass between the 1967 Camaro and the 2010 Camaro is more than 900 pounds, despite the similar appearance. Other car makers are just as guilty. Thank goodness hot rodders can put today's much improved engines in the lighter cars we favor.
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In Robert Kiyosaki's best-selling financial self-help book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, there's a curious section that deals with car-buying advice. Kiyosaki says most successful people pick cars with the lowest dollar-per-pound ratio. Big trucks, SUVs-and in prior decades-large four-door sedans are the best, he says. Somehow, Kiyosaki claims, you financially come out ahead through the magic combination of residual and scrap value. Detroit must surely ascribe to this philosophy, because they just keep poppin' those puppies out bigger and bigger every year.
My poundage numbers might look a little shaky to some people (taken from the Encyclopedia of American Cars); OEMs use dry weights for calculating rail freight, and those are without driver, with zero options, and completely dry, but they serve a purpose here, and they're the only reliable numbers available. Back in 1965, a new V-8 Mustang had a shipping weight of 2,583 pounds. Twenty years ago (1989), that same base V-8 Mustang GT tagged the scale for 3,194 pounds-an increase of 611 pounds, but with no appreciable increase in passenger load. Today's Mustang GT with a V-8 bangs us for 3,483 pounds-a staggering 900 pounds more.
And the Chevy Camaro? When the 327ci V-8 '67 Camaro hit the showroom in the fall of 1966, dealers paid the rail freight on just 2,920 pounds. Twenty years ago, an '89 IROC-Z nailed us for 3,264 pounds. Next year, the lightest Camaro SS will weigh 3,860 pounds-940 pounds more than at its inception. There was no Dodge Challenger 20 years ago, but a four-door '89 V-8 Dodge Diplomat, the most massive car in Dodge's line-up, only weighed 3,582 pounds. The 2009 Dodge Challenger R/T tips the scale at 4,041 pounds (459 pounds more).
My question is: Where are automakers hiding all this extra crap? I couldn't stuff another 900 pounds in any car I own, and that includes my Dodge Magnum R/T. Short of pouring lead in the framerails, I just can't figure it out. Yeah, I know, crumple zones and airbags, yadda, yadda, yadda. It just wouldn't be safe if we made cars like tin cans like back in the day. Meanwhile, PHR tech editor Liz Miles commutes to work on a Honda CBR 1000RR. It gets 37 mpg and runs the quarter-mile somewhere in the high 9s, so don't even go there.
Here's how it breaks down: The Mustang GT is gaining weight at the rate of 20 pounds per year, Camaro (V-8) at nearly 22 pounds per year, and the Challenger at roughly 23 pounds per year (using the rather generous Diplomat as our milestone). Ugh. I don't even want to calculate what these cars will weigh in another 40 years. The upside is that I'll probably be too old to care.
The one thing that mitigates all this corpulence is the power under the hood. It's gone up at an astounding rate, and thanks to some fine engineering, there hasn't been any hit on fuel economy. In fact, it's better than anything a hot rodder could've dreamed of in 1969. Muscle cars are faster, safer, and more comfortable than they were 40 years ago, and by a long shot, too. Still, it feels a lot like finally scoring a date with the head cheerleader 20 years later, only to find out she's gained 50 pounds.
I can't help but think about what Detroit could do if they put today's powerplants into cars that weigh much less-like 900 pounds less. Lucky for us, we don't have to wonder what that translates into performance-wise. With new-generation crate engines like GMPP's new LSX454, Ford's Aluminator mod motor, and the Mopar Hemi, we get to put 'em into our classic muscle cars, and craft what the Motor City doesn't have the intestinal fortitude to build!