Quote:
Originally Posted by unruhjonny
Guess work aside, I really believe that it would be hard to make a strong argument for the early articles and late articles both having the same Trans Am;
These cars debuted in February 1970, and presumably the February/March print date magazine articles were done with pre-production cars built in January or maybe earlier (the press should have seen them prior to the official launch).
Most articles state that the RAIII is the top option - some say "top option at this time";
Yet the Super Stock article irrefutably shows a RAIV car - we all know that the production RAIV cars were all July build date cars - so if the pre-production RAIV Trans Am was replaced with a production car -which was probably tested in April or May for the June articles, that puts it clearly in the time frame of RAIV being off the table for '70 Firebirds.
Then there are the interior pictures that show differences between the Feb/March and June Trans Am's.
I agree that you could have a drastic swing in drivers based on their skill;
I also will agree that a RAIII M21 car should be able to muster e/t's better than mid-fourteens...
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I Had to read that a couple times but answers a lot of questions I had.
I had thought that Feb 1970 was way too early for a RA4 Firebird.
And it would be - in fact most of model year 1970 would be too early.
But very possible that the Feb 1970 road tests could be pre-production RA4 cars, and before they even had a rating (which ended up at 370 later on) so the text uses the 345hp RA4 rating of 1969.
So that puts the June 1970 Car & Driver test of 14.10 at 103.2 as a RA3-068 car.
The 103.2 still seems fast, that's why I wondered what ET_MPH the June 1970 Car LIFE test ran & if it was the same setup or same car.
I also dont have the ?month? SuperStock test, can you summarize that car & its ET_MPH? I know sometimes SuperStock would go a little beyond just setting the timing LOL so did they do any of that?
Much appreciated I'm starting to get a handle on this.
So many 400 variants.