(Words by Charles Wickam – Photos by Internet) – 1970. The Beatles broke up, the Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl, George C. Scott won an Oscar for portraying a WWII war hero and it was the year of my birth. Shockingly, all of these  highly regarded events took place that year. As you’ve read in blogs earlier this week, Dave, Brian, and Chad picked their favorite cars from the year they were born. Dave and Brian didn’t have much to work with being the 80s; I can say that I have been able to drive a number of vehicles from their lists and almost all of them were in the parking lot of the high school I went to. Chad’s picks: Vega, Pinto, Maverick… Did he get dropped on his head when he was birthed? He must have some kind of small car fetish since he does own a Monza. My birthday was yesterday so I wanted a crack at this, too.

But let’s get back to what has been proclaimed THE BEST YEAR IN AUTOMOBILES – 1970. It was a time when the Big 3 were all going head-to-head trying to outdo one another with sleeker styles, brighter colors, and more horsepower. This was a time when you had to been seen in the loudest and fastest car at the local cruise spot and if you had the right combo and could somehow harness the power and torque and plant it to the ground thru skinny bias-ply tires then you were somebody to be revered and proclaimed king of the street. Said proclamations of high horsepower from manufacturers drew the late teen and early twenty-somethings into the dealerships by the thousands with hopes of knocking off the fastest guy in town.

It was difficult for me to pick 11. Heck, I had a hard time narrowing it down to 20 with what I picked but with the emergence of the foreign automakers and their wares landing on the shores of the USA, there were A LOT to pick from, so in no particular order (Since I’m a fan of them all) I give you my picks of what some have called the greatest cars ever produced that were the most powerful and held that honor up til present day.

1.)The cool factor of the big block Corvette  was epic. If you had one you were the man and with 460hp and 490 lb ft of torque it helped push the sleek third gen ‘Vette to 13 second ETs and a MPH close to 110, and if that wasn’t enough you had 11 colors to pick from. Unlike today’s boring Earth tone colors manufacturers shove down your throat you had choices like Daytona Yellow, Laguna Blue, Marlboro Maroon, etc. How cool would you have been in 1970 to have a Marlboro Red ‘Vette at the local burger stand, leaning on your car and smoking a Marlboro?

2.) Probably my favorite car from 1970 is the Plymouth Superbird. An over the top car built with one purpose, to kick ass in NASCAR, which it did handily. In March of that year Buddy Baker, driving his Daytona, lapped the Talladega super speedway with a MPH that topped out at 200. Come on now. Junk tires and what little they had to work with for suspension is what makes it such a badass car to me. But if you wanted to be like Buddy or his fellow racers that drove the Daytona or Superbird you could go down to the local dealer, order one up, and blast off and go from 0-60 in 5.5 and run down the ¼ mile in 14 seconds. Another great thing about them was that you had three engines to choose from, the 440 4 barrel, 440 3×2 carb , and the almighty “bow down and worship me” 426 Hemi with two 4 barrel carbs. After that, you had to pick a color and with choices named after fruit you could find at your local grocery store like lemon, lime, and orange it all had to be mind numbingly good.

 3.) Yenko Nova. What can be said that hasn’t all ready been said?  Don Yenko put together 175 or so of these lightweight street fighters packed with a LT1 350, a choice of four speed manual or  turbo 400, and a 12 bolt rear end packed with 4.10 gears. With 360 horsepower, these cars dipped in the 13s in the quarter just by adding some headers and slicks.

4.) LS6 Chevelle. A neighbor had one of these stashed in his garage when I was a kid and I always enjoyed riding by his house real slow on my bike when the garage door was up. He told me he was the original owner and equipped with a 454 it had 450hp under the hood and ran 13 sec ETs at over 100 mph. With its forged steel crank and connecting rods, aluminum pistons and intake, and solid lifters you could ride this beast hard all night long racing your friends on the local deserted back roads outside town, put it away wet, and not think twice about it. Of course you’d then repeat the next day doing it all over again. It must have been a good time to own a tire shop back then, sales had to be through the roof with a monster like this out on the road.

5.) The Olds 442 debuted the 455 with its 465 hp and 500 ft lb of torque; it had to be a glorious time in the Olds division of GM since they had a ban on engines over 400ci until 1970 when it was lifted. What makes this year even better IMO is that there were no Hurst/Olds that year. Yup, Olds and Hurst were in a love/hate relationship and couldn’t come to terms with a Hurst/Olds model that year so all plans were scrapped, kind of shocking to me to find this out since there was so much success leading up to this.

6.) The Hemi Cuda is one of the iconic cars of that year with its elephant motor belting out 425 hp and 490 ft lb of torque. You were able to go  0-60 in 6.4 seconds and run the  ¼ mile in 13 seconds if you could get the power to the ground and not send the tires into oblivion. With its shaker hood they became highly sought after since you could actually see the engine rumble and put fear into the person who thinks they could challenge you making them have second thoughts.

7.) Z28 Camaro -1970  brought about a new body style designed to race in Trans Am series so for Chevy to make the car as powerful as they could per the rules, the Z28  didn’t have a/c due to the high revving solid lifter cam and came standard with a 12 bolt rear end. It was the last year that a Camaro engine had compression over 9:1 but with its disc brakes standard and low back bucket seats, this car was meant to race and be a contender in the series

8.)Boss 302.  Short and sweet, it was The Boss and it had a 302, plain and simple as that. With its 290 hp @ 5800 rpm 290 lb-ft @4300 rpm 14s @ almost 100 ¼ mile times were the norm due to it having solid lifters a 780 cfm carb hurst shifter standard items in the car. Past GM stylist Larry Shinoda, along with Bunkie Knudsen, were instrumental in the design. On the track with Parnelli Jones behind the wheel of a race prepped Boss, Ford won the 1970 Trans Am title by just one point over Mark Donahue and his AMC Javelin.

9.) The T/A Challenger also threw its hat into the Trans Am Ring as well packing a  340 3×2 carb  “six pak” that made 290 hp 345 lb-ft, which made for 0-60 times in the 7s and  ¼ mile times in the 15s. It was meant to give fits to GM, Ford, and AMC boys and it did with Sam Posey behind the wheel of the famed lime green #76.

10.) Like the Camaro, a whole new Trans Am with new style showed up in 1970. Big news was the  grill and front bumper combo that were made together out of rubber and gave the illusion that the car didn’t have a bumper at all. Adding its chin spoiler and big rear spoiler, the car actually had significant downforce where as the other cars of its day produced lift.  Under the hood was a 400 cubic inch engine that was rated at 345 hp. Combining all that along with its suspension tuning along the lines of the of the Corvette, it helped the car to  0-60 times in the 5 second range and  ¼ mile times in the 13s @ over 100 mph. To make things simple they only offered it in two colors, blue or white with contrasting stripes.

11)Datsun 510 / GT-R. Ok this is a tie and my wild card pick. I really like these two having full knowledge as to what you can do to them and what they are capable of with them being so light. With tuning, these cars were pocket rockets but were only seen on the West Coast being that they were shipped from Japan but you can only imagine the sounds these made screaming thru the Hollywood hills and racing along Mulholland Drive. By today’s standards, these are way better picks in the sub compact field then what Chad chose, so suck on that Reynolds!

There are so many cars that I cut from the list that in some peoples eyes should have been in it like the Pantera, 70 big block Camaro, AMC Javelin, Toyota 2000gt , and Chevy C-10 truck that came with a 402. This was a tough job….go easy on  me!