The following is a list we've
compiled of the fastest accelerating* production cars (F.A.P.C.) and trucks built by any
major manufacturer for the North American market. Although the list includes a lot of newer prestige vehicles that
cannot be defined as 'classic' or 'muscle' cars, they are definitely collectors
and destined to be classics. The data was compiled from the results of independent tests
conducted by several major publications in the U.S. and Canada.**
We've simply taken the quickest quarter mile elapsed times and listed
them in order from quickest to slowest. We didn't bother
including any vehicles with a quarter mile time of more than 14 seconds.
Trivial? Yes, but still intriguing. Why?
We did it simply to satisfy your curiosity. Accurate? Not necessarily.**
That largely depends on possibly hundreds of factors that need to
be taken into account during testing, including weather, altitude,
drivers, traction, etc.
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* Why are we listing
acceleration and not top speed? Simple, top speed is only for
bragging rights, it'll never be used in the real world. Acceleration,
on the other hand, is used every day and these test times can be duplicated
on any strip in North America.
** We cannot be held
responsible for errors or omissions, if you notice any please let
us know. The ** within the
list denotes that
these were the factory horsepower ratings; some of these engines were grossly
& highly
underrated (for insurance reasons), dyno tests on some of them have shown anywhere from 575 to
710
horsepower in stock form. Also, where we see the **;
some of these times may have been attained with drag radials, but claims are
that everything else was completely stock on these vehicles. Where you see a
in the list,
feel free to click it to see more information on the vehicle.
*** Most muslecar fans are aware of this
controversial and now infamous article on the
'64 GTO in Car
& Driver. We know that these times were attained by using a highly massaged
ringer of a car (modified by Royal Pontiac in Royal Oak, Michigan), but we
are including it anyway to remain true to our format (times from major,
non-biased, publications). The car actually had a 421 Super-duty
installed under the hood prior to the test. But it's here anyway, and
besides, the inclusion will make a great conversation piece.
Given the nature of this list, we get
a lot of requests from people asking to add a vehicle or move one up on the
list, we kindly ask the public to simply point us in the direction of an
article in a major, non-biased, publication that has better test times to
back up the claims, before
adding, or moving any vehicle up in the list.
We kindly ask any interested parties to please
refrain from copying this data for use on other websites but rather link back
to us to help support the non-profit Classic Car Registry service and our
parent company. We'd be glad to return a reciprocal link. To exchange links, please click
here.
Sources: AM - Automobile, CC - Car Craft, CD
- Car & Driver, CI - Cars Illustrated, CL - Car Life, HPC - Hi-Performance
Cars, HR - Hot Rod Magazine, MCR - Musclecar Review, MT -
Motor Trend, PHR - Popular Hot Rodding, PM - Popular Mechanics, RT - Road & Track,
SA - Supercar Annual, SS - Super Stock,
W - Wheels
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