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The Top 11 Cars We Wish We Could Have Bought New


The Top 11 Cars We Wish We Could Have Bought New

It’s wishful-thinking time for this Top 11. We’re laying out the Top 11 cars that we wish we were around and able to purchase brand new. Sure, hot rodding is about improving stuff, but this list is made up of cars that were the stock street sweepers, styling leaders, and killer sleepers of their day. Most of this junk is stuff you could have taken to the street races on the first night you owned it, and won.

Here’s our Top 11, what’s yours?

THE TOP 11 CARS WE WISH WE COULD HAVE BOUGHT NEW

1941 Willys Americar: Yes, it’s true that these cars were essentially the cheapest, slowest, most rotten junk of the day when they were new. We’ll grant you that, but has any oddball design aged as well as the venerable Willys? In our perfect world, we’d buy it new as a cheap commuter in 1941 and 20 years later our kid would put a straight axel and blown Hemi in it.

1974 SD-455 Pontiac Trans Am
: It was over, everyone knew it was over, but damn if the Pontiac guys didn’t fight the man until the last possible second. Factory rated at 290 hp, the SD 455 is recognized as one of the best motors of the muscle car era, and despite the low rating, it still made some thunder in 1974. It was a worthy parting shot to the muscle car boom and the few that made it to the streets were untouchable by anything else factory produced in that time frame.

1967 427 four-speed Chevy Biscayne
: One of the ultimate factory sleepers when optioned correctly. The Biscayne was a low rung car that had all the flash and dash of a doormat. Someone at GM had a sense of humor when they allowed big-blocks and 4-speeds onto the option sheet. Savy buyers had a grandma car packing the full firepower of a big-block at the end of their toe.

1936 Chrysler Airflow: The most ahead-of-its-time car ever offered by an US company. It failed horribly and in the process nearly ruined Chrysler financially. We want one because they look cool and we’d be about the only guy in town to have one. This is a car that could have advanced technological development in a big way if it sold, but it didn’t.

1962 Ford Galaxie 406ci four-speed Tri-Power
: This one is an interesting contrast. On the street, this car would kick ass; on the strip, it would not be able to hold its own with the Chevys, Ponchos, or Dodges. All it would take to rule the local stoplight grand prix would be a simple stripping of the badges, or in a more nefarious move, the replacement with less zooty call outs. FE motors are cool and this was the first one to crank more than 400 hp, so it qualifies as a bad Larry, just not as bad as the other Larrys running around.

1957 Supercharged T-Bird: There were only 197 people out of nearly 22,000 who bought 1957 Thunderbirds who ordered the F-code supercharger. We want to believe that we’d have been that smart. This car’s 300 hp would have traded blows with the fuelie 1957 Corvette all day long.

1957 Chevy with Ram Jet FI: Imagine popping the hood on your new pride and joy to show the neighbors and shocking them with the radical looking Rochester FI unit on top of your V8-powered daily driver. Their jaws probably would have hit the ground. Did it have hiccups? Yes. Did lots of people reportedly swap carbs back ontop of their engines? Maybe, but for shock and awe value, and street racing glory (when the unit was working right), this setup would have been impossible to beat.

1962 Plymouth Savoy with Max Wedge Power: The 1962 Plymouth Savoy is an ugly car. Let’s face it right up front. It was Virgil Exner working at full tilt, delivering a look that, still bizarre today, was other worldly in 1962. But as they say, beauty is only skin deep. This thing could look however it wanted so long as we could order the full-boogie, 13.5:1 compression,  420hp, 470 ft/lb “Super Stock 413.” We’d own the street and the strip.

1969 Corvette 427/435hp (L71) four-speed: My own dad, who has been drag racing since the 1970s, said that his single scariest ride in a car came in the passenger seat of one of these baddies. That’s good enough for us.

1964 Lark R2: The single greatest, most underappreciated factory sleeper for all time. It was the fastest compact car produced in the US that year and it came from a brand that garnered the excitement of a toaster manufacturer. With a 9:1-compression, McCulloch-blown, 289ci Stude V8 under the hood, the car would run to 60 in less than 8 seconds and blow the doors straight off of anything in its sales class while hanging close with some of the big dogs of the early muscle car days. It would be awesome to make guys cry with this car at the street races.

1968 Hemi Dart: The ultimate limited-production factory supercar of the 1960s, in our opinion. Deemed unsuitable for highway use, they were limited to drag strip duty only, well, in theory anyway. Steve Atwell drove his original every inch of Hot Rod Drag Week in 2005. Tempermental, finnicky, and more rare than hens’ teeth, being able to score one when they were new would place the owner in speed god status.


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5 thoughts on “The Top 11 Cars We Wish We Could Have Bought New

  1. keezling

    I will always say the 427 Shelby Cobra. For the performance, looks and ability to kill you. And in the end the incredible investment return. Reputation deserved? Maybe. Maybe not. Subject has certainly been beat to death…

  2. Benny B

    The Lark all day long. Those things (2d) are so gorgeous without a thing done to them.
    Though in my own twisted mind, I’d really like to see what one would do with some forged domes in it(N/A).
    Though I guess I’d take a factory-supercharged one.
    I guess.

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