(first posted 1/27/2016) This comparison road test confronts two of America’s most known Pony cars- in their highest performance models.
Scanned from R&T’s 1984 December issue. And note the respective project engineers are present, both photographed driving their “own” cars.
Ah 1985, I was 7 years old and so enamored with cars I was starting to memorize useless information like the hp and torque ratings of Detroit’s small block V8 engines. Only Ohio State vs Michigan was a more bitter rivalry than Chevy vs Ford in a county that had one factory belonging to each company within a 1/2 hours drive.
So are you missing at least a couple of pages???
The second to last page is marked 52 and the last scanned page is marked 55.
Advertisements? I’m surprised there isn’t a page with a table comparing stats for both cars though.
Sorry about that- I was sure all was uploaded.
Anyway, it’s fixed now. Enjoy!
My uncle, who always appreciated a performance car, factory ordered a 1986 IROC-Z. He was able to get one of the few manufactured that year with a 350 instead of the usual 305 underhood. It was red and had a T-roof. I only got to ride in it once.
Umm, the 350 wasn’t released for public consumption until the 1987 model year. There were 50 prototype cars built in 1986 but all were crushed after testing.
U are correct
I bought a 305 Iroc from a family member who was a salesman at a FL dealer. I was told, again and again, from Ohio, Michigan, and FL dealers that no 350 Camaros or Firsbirds were coming anytime soon. As I approached my home town 10 days after I bought it, I passed a Pontiac dealership where a truck was unloading a bunch of Trans Ams. Every single one of them was a 350. Needless to say, I was not happy about it. On top of it never having enough power to satisfy me, even after mods, the car had endless engine control and sensor issues, and when it was cold, the creaking and moaning interior drove me nuts. I had a custom dual exhaust made for it with dual cats and it sounded great, but it generated only a little more power than stock. I had the car 8 years and finally decided that it was time for it to go, and I sold it to a guy who lived nearby. He traded it in a couple of years later when his wife was about to give birth to their first kid. Last I saw it, about 2012, it still looked new, having never been driven on salty streets, and it was owned by one of the service writers from the long gone dealership I had it serviced at.
We had a few guys in the hood back in the day with IROC’s and 5.0’s.
The IROC’S handled better and the Mustangs did EVERYTHING ELSE better.
Those mid 80’s GM’s were fine if you got a good one but they tended to be lemony…
One die hard GM guy had a beautiful 85′ or 86′ IROC LOADED, best looking thing in the hood, and it just kicked his ass.
I wish i knew what that color was… greyish blue…. With every option..
Great looking car.
After it left him stranded AGAIN and this time on a freeway overpass on a HOT Houston day he was DONE and bought an 87′ 5.0 and he still has it!
He’s been a Ford man ever since and has an 800hp Shelby Snake at the moment.
I think the Mustang has aged better, the lower cladding on the IROC really screams cheese nowadays.
I’m not enamored with the steering wheel on either car, but the IROCs is particularly bad.
So if I had to pick I’d go for the Ford, but knowing how they are in the snow I’d pick the IROC for winter use.
My wife had an ’88 IROC, and trust me, it wasn’t any better than a Mustang in the winter. She was passing a car one day, hit some black ice and ended up on top of a guard rail. Damage to 3 corners, 2 wheels, and the exhaust to a 6 month old car. We kept it for 3 years and only had trouble with the fuel injection. I have to say it was fast! And that’s coming from me, a die hard Mustang man.
I share the sentiment re: aging, but I also feel like the new-for-’82 Camaro looked more “modern” at the time than the vintage-1979 Mustang.
All through the 80’s and into the 90’s I thought the Mustang was the better-looking car, but for some reason this generation of Camaro is growing on me.
Exterior only though. The interiors were terrible in my opinion, far worse than the Mustang. Bad quality, unattractive, and even a lousy seating position.
Every magazine that compared the Mustang to the F Cars in the 80’s came to the same conclusion– The Mustang is faster and cheaper but the F Cars had better handling and cost more. As a young guy back then I’d have loved to own any of them.
The Mustangs were also much more livable in daily use. The sleek, low lines of the F-body looked great, but they also meant a less comfortable driving position and more difficult entry and exit.
I came one flat black hood decal away from buying an 85 Mustang GT. All I could envision is how awful the hood of the car would look after 4 or 5 years worth of weather and carwashes (because the decal covered damn near all of it), and the salesman had zero interest into looking into whether it could be deleted.
The joke was on me, because the car I bought instead (VW GTI) only stayed with me for 2 years. That may have been the toughest new car choice I ever had to make. Both of them were extremely good at what they did, and they did two extremely different things.
I was never an F body fan, and have heard several folks say that these were horribly shaky structures. Unsurprisingly, a car mag from the 80s didn’t mention this.
Those F bodies were fairly tight for the first 10000 miles but they loosened up quick.
80’s Vettes were bad from the get go..
I remember a guy i worked with got a brand new 85′ black vette and he took me for a shake down run on what was a terrible road in Houston at the time and i just couldn’t believe the sounds coming from that beautiful piece of crap.
It sounded like the thing was falling apart and i distinctly remember a crunch sound every time it upshifted but it was quick…
It felt quick anyway.
It had 80 miles on it.
Oddly despite my midwest location the handfull of 3rd gen Camaros and Firebirds I ever drove has had T-Tops, and pretty much every bad trait I’ve seen referenced since I vividly recall from those cars. I always assumed the fixed roof versions weren’t as bad.
+1 on seeing T-tops. I think that having T-tops “back in the day” must have made you the absolute coolest guy in the HS or vo-tech parking lot regardless of how cool the car was, if my father’s stories are to be believed.
Even back in ’81, when I started thinking about buying a used T/A, I knew to stay away from T-Tops. My friend’s T/A had endless leaks and wind noise coming from them. Later on, I was at the local Pontiac dealer and they had a new T/A parked on the stairs in front of the showroom, and neither of the doors could be opened as the car had twisted itself. The salesman who was moving the car had to pop the rear hatch to get into the car. When he got it off the steps, the doors opened fine. My Iroc had to T-Tops and a friend’s T/A did, and my car was light years better. His car would do all kinds of weird things when going over train tracks or a road that had lots of dips in it. Mine was fine, just the interior creaked.
Yeah, we’ve talked about this before, but my ’84 GT was painted flat black down the middle the hood and it was impossible to keep looking nice in the mid-90’s when I owned it. I used plastic/rubber trim restorer on it but that would never last more than a few washes.
Flat back has made a comeback now but you’d never get me to buy it.
They actually make a special spray wax for satin/flat finished paint that kept the black painted hood area on my 84 GT looking great. You just couldn’t use regular wax on it or it would ruin the finish.
Car and Driver had a Camaro of this vintage as a long-term test vehicle (I can’t remember if it was the IROC-Z version), and the car basically fell apart during the time that they had it. The article didn’t hesitate to list all of its problems, some of which were quite serious. I believe this was the car that needed to have its rear axle replaced.
I remember that one, it was an ’82 or ’83 Z-28. Nearly disintegrated on them.
Though, C&D still praised the newer I-ROC’s and 20th Trans Am, shortly after.
IIRC, the long term test Camaro had major problems with the auto transmission.
When I ordered my 1984 Z-28, I made sure to get the L-69/5 speed combo, even though I had not driven a manual much up to that point. I never had a problem with the trans in my car, and the engine ran for 244K miles before I parked the car, without an overhaul or a clutch replacement. I did wear out the rear coil springs though …
Before she had the IROC my wife had an ’86 Z28 305 with a five speed. That car was fun to drive. I really liked the five speed. We purchased the extended warranty ( for the last time) and at 32K miles the clutch just went away one day when she was driving 55 on the highway. We did not abuse the car at all. GM would not cover it under the extended warranty even though I complained to the zone office. The guy on the other end of the phone said that it was a normal wear item and the failure at those miles was not uncommon. I pointed out that 90% of the driving of that car was done on rural highways and that the clutch on my ’79 Malibu lasted until 89K miles even though I did abuse it. That didn’t sway them.
Both these Camaros were t top cars. They didn’t feel a bit flimsy to me. In fact, the last one she had, a 91 Z28 convertible also very solid. The only other problem we really had with the last two was failure of fuel injectors. The ’86 had a four barrel carb.
That C&D article was sub-titled “A 25,000 mile tale of woe”. It was one of the worst long-term test cars they ever had.
Here is what I was able to find from that:
Delivery:
Paint was “atrocious”
Transmission balked at reverse and upshifting
11,700 miles:
Transmission failed, replaced
~15,000 miles:
Differential failed, replaced
20,000 miles:
Engine management computer failed, replaced
Rear suspension rebuilt
25,338 miles:
Further misc trouble, test ended early and car returned
Yikes.
Evidently they did improve quality dramatically by 1984 in response to this test and again in 1991 when they revamped the factory.
It wasn’t so much that the factory was revamped as it was the location. After 1987 all F-body production was consolidated at the Van Nuys plant which had always been a little better than the F-body’s “home” plant, Norwood, Ohio.
That’s not saying much, given how epically bad QC (and absenteeism and general labor relations, all of which were cited by GM as reasons for closure) was in Norwood.
Mark, I read somewhere that they updated the welding robots or something like that in ’91 for the final two years which improved structural rigidity. I couldn’t find the details again though.
The 1980s were a terrible time for GM. I believe that the 1984 Chevrolet Corvette and 1986 Buick Riviera that Car and Driver had as long-term test cars were almost as bad as that Camaro.
Don’t know about the Riviera, but the 1984 Corvette is widely regarded as one of the most trouble-prone, used Corvettes one can buy. Hence, the reason they’re also one of the cheapest. They’re easily spotted, too, with turned-down tailpipes and no CHMBL.
From a pure aesthetic standpoint I give it to the F body, I agree about the dated GFX, but even without they had sleek but attractive lines, Whereas the Mustang hatch next to the Camaro looks like an Escort EXP does next to a Mustang. The framed door glass, taller stance and cluttered hatch spoiler(the black test car hides the numerous cutlines) just, well, spoil it. (This in a nutshell is why I’m a LX Notchback fan)
The Mustang wins where it counts though, the 302H.O. always trounced Chevy’s 305, the 350 was necessary to get a leg up on that motor, but for the value of the Mustangs in this time period you could dump that savings into mods and still trounce the best Camaros in a drag race. Inside it’s no comparison, both are dated 80s interiors today but I implore anyone reading this, go to a junkyard with a Foxbody Mustang and a 3rd Gen Camaro and tell me with a straight face the Chevy isn’t worse. The materials Ford used in these Mustangs were supurb for what they were, they hold their color consistently, their shape, they don’t crumble with the slightest touch and subjectively it’s just a better design – look at the speedo/tach placement between the two and tell me which one is more logical!
I thought the interiors on my Mustangs looked and felt cheap as hell. But they did hold up reasonably well.
Matt is 100% on-point.
The notch was also a tad lighter and thus a tad quicker. The mail slot notch is my favorite ponycar of the 80s. Drop a modern Coyote motor with upgrades into a stock looking mailslot notch and you’ve got a nice little sleeper.
I have always assumed auto magazine reviews were designed not to offend advertisers, and this particular comparo is a prime example.
“Each car has its strength, both are great”…yada, yada yada……all while the marketing minions who write checks at Ford and GM are kept happy.
I would be leaning towards the Ford Mustang LX as a DD, with some nifty engine mods and a quiet exhaust. I’m too damned old for Flowmasters now!
Back when these were new, I worked with a couple of guys who drove IROC Z’s. They were very preppy and very 80’s looking and always razzing us about getting with the times. To raz them back we started calling their cars IZOD’S instead of IROC’S , as in the alligator brand shirts that they wore half of the time. The longer the joke went on the madder they got.
I-ROC’s became a joke by the 90’s, aka “Tony IROC” as a dated 80’s HS character/stereotype/trope.
Around here it was Gino Camaro and Tony Mustang from Tony Creek.
Ha, I remember going out to look at some Tony’s new Mustang in the Saltfleet parking lot with a group of classmates.
Everyone was impressed but me…
had two of this gen Camaro…both lasted well…the Mustangs were faster…but it always seemed like the Mustang was what would have happened if GM had canceled the F body and then modified a Monza to make a Camaro when pony cars came back….
Looking at these now, as depicted contemporaneously, the Mustang looks much chunkier and yet somehow more modern (1980s modern) than did the Camaro. The Camaro looks to my eye like a legacy 1970s style, whereas that version of Mustang very much screams 1985!!!!! to me. It’s funny, because as a kid we were a GM family (despite that LeBaron GTS). It wasn’t until adulthood I started to appreciate the Fords from back then. Truth be told, though, neither one of these interested me as a kid. Honestly. I really liked really big cars back then (still do, I suppose!), and the fact that these were fast didn’t really matter to me.
Well, the Fox Stangs went on to a huge aftermarket following, dedicated magazines/clubs, and a Racing Association, NMRA.
Most Chevy fans mainly stuck to first gen Camaros for fandom.
During the 80s and early 90s, many highway patrol agencies like the California Highway patrol were using 5.0 HO Mustangs (mostly GL or LX) notchbacks as pursuit cars. At that time the 4 door cop cars (Ford LTD, Dodge Diplomat and Chevrolet Impala/Caprice) can only muster 110-115 miles per hour. Where as the Mustang can do 130-140 Miles per hour.
With this gen Mustang, the people at Ford Mustang have been jumping for joy after the Dodge St. Regis fiasco.
A 318 St. Regis with a light bar had a hard time topping 90.
Twenty years ago I bought an 87 Mustang GT . I tried to get my dad to drive it.
I told him cmon you gotta drive this fast car. I couldn’t get the old fuddy duddy to drive it.
I used to sit in it at work with the door open and the engine running just to hear the exhaust rumbling. At least I was smart enough to take some pictures of it.
Camaro x Mustang, I like them both but I always lean towards the Ford. Well, not here, I don’t like the Fox body Mustang, I think it’s the siliest of them all. Come on guys, Ford even killed the running poney emblem on those cars. I even think the Mustang II has more “persona” than the Fox.
Here I would get the Camaro, even if it is a certified lemon.
Mustang II had more persona in looks yes, but Fox was a far superior Mustang and almost single-handedly revived pony cars.
That’s what I appreciate about the Fox Mustang, the Mustang II tried way too hard to look like a 65 and the constraints of the platform it was based made it look cartoonish. The Fox was a clean slate, it fit perfectly in the Mustang mold without reverting to ten dozen retro touches to scream “look at me, I’m a Mustang!”. I don’t care for the 05-14 Mustangs for the same reason.
The thing I never got, Camaro ditched it’s first generation styling and identification after three years, then ditched it again a few years later, and again and again. Hell the Barracuda in it’s short life looked nothing like it did when it started in 64 by the end in 74, yet those cars get embraced throught their cycles, some even more so in later updates. Mustangs OTOH it’s like heresy if you publicly admit preferring the styling of any incarnation between 1968 and 2005, as if the Mustang was supposed to be an American 911, I just don’t get it.
I was in the middle of college at the time of this comparison test, and it amazes me that a number of base engined econoboxes of today could match the 0-60 times of these cars.
It honestly doesn’t seem all that long ago, especially if you go back yet another 31 years and compare the advancements made during that earlier timeframe.
I’d forgotten how sluggish the cars we drove once were, yet we never seemed to have trouble keeping up with traffic, and merging onto freeways. Today, people think cars are “unsafe” if they can’t get to 60 in under 10 seconds.
My first Mustang was an ’80 with the 2.3 and 4-speed. I would literally have my foot to the floor almost any time I was accelerating. The GT was a revelation. But today most full size pickups could outrun it and even minivans could keep pace.
My first Mustang was also an ’80, and at my father’s insistence it had the inline six and automatic.
Believe me, it was NOT an upgrade from the 2.3. After Cadillac came out with their variable displacement engine I called it “Ford’s 4-6-8,” because it had the smoothness of an inline six, the power of a four, and the fuel economy of a V8.
The mustang was the better car. The Chevys feel apart. My friend had a Chevy 305 in one of these and it looked fast, but I out ran him on a straight road in a 78 Ltd Ford coupe. The mustang was a way better car that took all kinds of abuse and was easy to modify. The 302 Ford was a way more durable engine than a 305 Chevy. Those camaros had the cheapest plasticity interiors ever seen.
Well in all fairness the 305 came in several variety’s during the 80’s so it greatly depends on which one that Camaro had. Many came with the 150-165 HP LG4 305 4BBL Caprice motor which was more show than go. The L69 in this test was much quicker and ran better than this article states in other instrumented tests of the F-body. Low 7 second 0-60 times were the norm. And for the record we have seen just as many blown 302’s as 305’s mostly in in the hands of younger owners!
Aesthetics-wise, GM was years, no – DECADES – ahead of
Ford with their third-gen F-body, particularly the Pontiac.
Along with the fictional Mig-31 in 1982’s “Firefox”, these
coupes REFUSE to age.
The Mustang just looks like a modified ’70s leftover by
comparison. After all, it was derived from the Fox(Fairmont/
Zephyr) platform from the mid-late ’70s. Just shorten
the wheelbase, draw it in side to side by an inch or two,
and voila – the next Dearborn pony car! Just look around
the edges: the ’79-90s Mustang screams ‘Fairmont EXP’!
lol
The Camaro & Firebird(or is that Trans Am, or is it
Firebird??) look to have been ground-up new, with
little or no derivation from anything in GM’s existing
showroom, save for mundane things like radios, climate
controls, and interior/exterior door handles. Oh, and
maybe a block or two.
They remain, as I type, my favorite F-bodies, and,
along with my granddad’s 64 Skylark, remain my
biggest haven’t gotten to drive regrets!
Of course it’s related to a pedestrian compact! Ford simply repeated what they did in the previous decade: Falcon→’64½ Mustang; Cortina→’69 Capri; Fairmont→’79 Mustang. The sales results speak for themselves.
Now GM took a different tack, with sleeker results as you say, & that’s OK as well. Buyers had a real choice.
Unlike some others here, I still really like the looks of those F-bodies. But the Mustangs were better cars hands down.
They remain, as I type, my favorite F-bodies, and,
along with my granddad’s 64 Skylark, remain my
biggest haven’t gotten to drive regrets!
You know what they say, don’t meet your heroes.
XR7Matt:
??
Sorry, went over my head.
You’ve never heard that phrase? Suffice to say some cars(and people) are best admired from afar, the 3rd gen F bodies are a posterchild for that, I liked them until I seriously looked at buying one.
For some reason my impression is that there were a reasonable handful of the 3rd (&4th) gen Camaro in Australia, but basically no Fox Mustangs. I have seen more Group A racing Mustangs (4-5) than street versions!
It would be interesting to compare the stillborn HDT Monza with these. Peter Brock converted the German Monza (imported via GM connection as a rolling shell) to run the tuned 250hp 308 Holden V8, T5 gearbox, Corvette type brakes with the original IRS. The cost to certify the car with its unique bodyshell killed the idea.
Factory conversion to RHD must’ve been the impediment, for the Fox Mustang was exported to Europe at least (Der Spiegel ad: “Der Neue Mustang”).
The current Mustang is now on sale in the UK & Oz; in Britain the V8 is most popular despite cost penalties.
RHD conversion would have been a big impediment for sure; only 200 or so 65-66 Mustangs were factory-converted by Ford until the 2000 Cobra. They could race the Mustang in Group A because it was homologated, it was an international set of regulations, same as with the Sierra that replaced it.
In Australia the V8 is also more popular, I think in the order of 85-90% of sales. All of the 2016 stock had been sold before the first car entered the country.
A buddy of mine had a 85 Camaro with the t-tops. That car would flex, bend, wobble, rattle, and shake over the smallest bump in the road. No matter how fast, good looking, or hot the car was supposed to be, I always made an excuse to ride in my own car to meet up for a baseball or football game. Never felt comfortable in that car!
t-tops…flex, bend, wobble.
How about riding in one with a
solid roof or sun roof?
We had a neighbour who had one of each. Almost. His was the IROC and the wife had a Mercury Capri. That first winter both cars spun into the ditch at the same corner within the same week so after that the Capri got two 50lb bags of sand in the trunk while the IROC got garaged. I do remeber the first ride in the IROC. He was so proud of it that he just had to show it off. The trim on the passenger side a pillar fell off when I shut the door. There was a box on the back seat with a collection of screws and trim pieces that had fallen off. The car had regular dealer visits for power windows, dash lights, door locks and other niggling problems and to sort out what’s in the box. I think the beater Dodge truck lasted longer than the IROC.
While working at Delco Electronics, an engineer that I knew purchased a new ’85 IROC that I got to ride in a few times. It was not pleasant to drive on non-smooth roads (freeway expansion joints esp.), and the wide rubber really gripped the semi ruts in the interstates and would throw the car around a lot (as opposed to the skinnier, higher-profile tires used on non-performance cars of the time).
They sure looked cool when they were new, however!
The F-bodies and Mustangs both were horrible in the winter though. Adding weight in the back plus skinny snow tires was a good idea (that almost nobody did because it didn’t look cool).
I think my ’86 GT has aged well since I ordered it from the factory nearly 30 years ago.
Very nice!
Is that faded flat black on the hood or gray? And is it paint or a decal?
On my ’84 it was flat black paint that ended up oxidized and badly faded by the 90’s, jp above and in other posts said in ’85 it was a decal…and yours does look a bit different than mine. On my ’84 the flat black went all the way down to the front edge of the hood with silver stripes along each side.
It’s gray Phil, and it is a decal. All the trim and accents are gray, at least on the ’86 GT’s. This car, which by the way was my very first brand new car has less than 9,000 original miles on it and has never been driven in any kind of inclement weather, not even a wet road.
Hemmings classic Car magazine did a feature story on it in the June 2013 issue. You can read it by searching “Matchless Mustang”.
Less than 9000 miles in almost 30 years? That’s incredible. Kudos to keeping the car in truly original shape!
Did you buy it with the intent of keeping it low mileage for the long haul, or did that just sort of “happen”?
Ah yes, I believe you posted that here once before. It’s got to be the nicest original ’86 GT out there.
Thanks. It was never my original intention to limit its use or keep it low miles when I first bought it, but it was the availability of other vehicles to use and my fear of New York (now Connecticut) road salt that made it happen.
The one thing Chevy didn’t have that Ford & Pontiac had was a base performance model, these cars really appeal to some people. You could option the sport coupe with most of the good stuff but that LG4 engine was weak.
I think that the Camaro of that era was a beautiful car.
I’ve never owned that generation Mustang but have ridden in them – I can say that in daily life I’d rather be in a Mustang than the stylish but cramped Camaro.
Oddly, the same thing can be said about the new Mustang and Camaro. Camaro might have better track performance numbers, but it is a miserable daily drive. The Mustang is so much improved and superior to use in daily life.
I have a 1985 Trans Am I purchased in 2020 with 45k miles, all original. It’s a great car for what it is, and all of the pluses and most of the minuses described hold true. It’s handling with the factory WS6 package is remarkable even by modern standards. With T tops it is rattley, but most American cars of the era and a few hundred bucks for subframe connectors is money well spent. I personally have no issues with the interior – I like the clean dash lines and the low slung seating position suits the car. It’s roomy up front, cramped in the rear, but it’s a sports/muscle car after all. The 305 is a lump – good torque down low and is quick to about 40mph, then quickly starts to wheez. It’s a great motor for an El Camino but is out of its element here. I had originally planned to keep it original, but I love the looks and handling of the car so much (not to mention the attention it attracts because these were much less common than either the Camaro or the Mustang) that I decided to invest in giving it the ‘go with the show’. A resto-mod with a 383 EFI and upgraded brakes is underway.
I will always think that gen of Camaro is pretty, but I’d rather have the Mustang.
I just like it’s angularity, it’s smallish upright windshield and functional ergonomics (for me anyway). It reminds me of an 80s BMW 3-series in some ways.
It has enough power and agility to be fun without looking so much like a mid-life crisis testosterone-mobile like the newer ones, improved as they are.
The black ’86 up higher in the comments is awesome.
The lead photos of this test looked vaguely familiar to me. I realized this is one of the handful of magazines that I purchased throughout 1984 when I was a 13 year old budding car enthusiast. The Testarossa was the cover article. All the thousands of magazines and articles I’ve read since then, most of which I wouldn’t specifically recognize now, and I remember the one that’s almost 40 years old. It’s amazing how experiences imprint on a young, impressionable mind.
Whatever it’s attributes and weaknesses, that yellow IROC was one of the best looking cars of the era, as least in my formerly 13 year old mind!
The Camaro vs. Mustang battle always seemed to see-saw back and forth, and the eighties’ 3rd gen f-body and Fox Mustang were no different. Car and Driver seemed to put it best when they called the Camaro ‘all numbers but no fun’ and preferred the Ford for its tossibility.
But that would flip-flop with the next generation cars. GM felt the sting and the 4th gen f-body would win the battle with the LT1 350 and six-speed combo. The SN95 Mustang, OTOH, came up short, especially in the early iterations of the SOHC 4.6 that replaced the good ‘ole pushrod 5.0L V8. The worst ones were the heaviest convertibles with an automatic. It got a little better with the DOHC version but you had to ante-up for a Cobra to get it.
IMHO, these cars ended the “Malaise era”* in 1983, with increased HP and performance going forward.
* Of which i am sick of hearing. Maybe brand new cars in mid/late 70’s had less HP, and that was mostly from net ratings v.s gross. Anyone could get a used car and modify to their liking. Not as if suddenly there was “no car enthusiasm” for 10+ years.
The big push out of the Malaise era was the adoption of fuel injection. Initially with throttle body which vastly improved drivability (hesitation, knocking, surge, stalling) via the ECM module (chips to the rescue).
Once GM & Ford mastered the concept, they ran with the ball upping compression ratios, multiport, multi valve, overhead cams, VVT, etc.
Let the ECM do the dirty work.
That, plus body integrity/ rigidity. I was once riding in something from the late
sixties, early seventies(?), and the floor plan flexed so badly the front bucket seats in front of me were both swaying side to side during turns or going over bumps!
Guess I had a subscription to Road and Track back then, I remember the article though I really wasn’t quite the target audience; it was a year before I bought a GTi, and I still had my ’78 Scirocco.
It wouldn’t seem so since I ended up buying another VW the next year, but around this time marked certainly my biggest search for a replacement for the Scirocco. I ended up test driving a wide variety of cars (not these though), including a Bertone X1-9, Alfa Romeo GTV6, Toyota MR2, on the sporty side, but also Mazda 626 hatch, Honda Accord Hatch, Mitsubishi Gallant sedan, and even a Ford Taurus (guess in 1986). It helped me figure out what works best for me as I’ve only owned one car at a time (with slight overlaps when I hadn’t yet sold my prior car, didn’t trade any in). I haven’t really strayed much from what I bought then, though I have a Golf (2000) instead of the ’86 GTi I bought back then. Mostly wanted a car with air conditioning, having moved to central Texas from the northeast and the Scirocco, didn’t have it, and I never added it, just lived until 1986 till I replaced it.
I did test drive a Mustang back around 1980-1981 when I ended up buying the Scirocco, but the dealer tried to sell me what he had, which was a coupe, where I’m a hatchback person, ended up never looking at one again. My brother-in-law (who has owned 10x the number of different vehicles than I) had a 1978 Camero but never one of these. I did ride in one when I went to Del Rio for a wedding (I was in the wedding party) that one of the other relatives had, but never really considered one for myself……oh, forgot I had a friend that had a Pontiac Firebird in the late 80’s who I visited; he’d moved from my city to another one about 1000 miles from where I live and I flew to see him shortly after his move. Only impression it made was the small uneven storage space in the hatch area compared to my VW, which was a smaller car but could carry stuff with more storage flexability. Guess I’m too practical, necessary since I only own one car at a time.