It Came From Facebook

A picture showing the Starsky and Hutch Torino, Dukes of Hazzard Charger and Smokey and The Bandit Trans Am; asking which we'd prefer.

In stock form, the Charger is the best muscle car.  But I'd never own another genuine MOPAR again if my choices were General Lee or Smart 4 Two.  Great engine, horrid electrical systems.  MOPAR gave Lucas a run for their money on failures.

Painless Wiring didn't get started making EFI swap harnesses, just sayin...

I'd own a modern Dodge with a Hemi™ in it.  I'd own a classic MOPAR with a complete to AC-Delco wiring conversion (Painless' bread and butter for a long time).

That leaves me with the smog motors from Ford and Pontiac...

Well, the Pontiac is easiest to fix.  So readily fixed that the producers of Smokey and the Bandit fixed even the hero car.  It took me years of watching the movie before I recognized what I was looking at and why it's impressive.

Right after Bandit picks up Carrie and she intones the verbal incantation, "Does this thing move?" the Trans Am takes off and chirps the tires in the 1-2.  That chirp left 20' marks!  If you keep watching, he chirps 2-3 as well.

The Trans is my choice of the three, but like the MOPAR, I would have to have it fixed.  Of the three it's the easiest to get handling well.  This is, of course, until the memories of the Silver Camaro start to override the nostalgia and remind me how much owning a 2nd Gen F-Body is Love-Hate.

The Torino is the car I want to like (because I liked the show).  But I just can't.  There's nothing wrong with the looks to me, or inherently with Ford.  It just doesn't trip the lever.

Fords, like GM's, are easy to work on and have lots of parts available to make things better.  GM beat Ford to the punch on the simple means of meeting smog rules, so there's a lot more plumbing in there, but nearly all of it is discarded when you're fixing the problem and unless you live outside the US where they still check for that crap, there's no reason to keep it.

As an aside on smog shit, Hot Rod or Car Craft once did an article about getting better mileage from your hot rod.  They took it down to a CARB testing station to see what the emissions were before and after.  The only thing left of the emissions system was the catalytic convertors and it was cleaner at the tailpipe after the mods.  It almost failed in stock form and passed with flying colors with a new engine tuned up well.  The inspector, however, said the car would still fail because it didn't pass the visual inspection that looked for the outdated vacuum controlled emission equipment, intake and carb.

h/t Tam's Facebook