So just how good was the A-Body back in its day?

Growing up in the 60's, magazines like Popular Mechanics and Mechanix Illustrated (Tom McCahill) would do comparisons between the different brands. Say a 6 cyl Valiant vs. 6 cyl Nova vs. 6 cyl Falcon, and of course a similar Rambler. I would alway read the article hoping to see the Mopar win in the end. You can probably find some of these on the Net.

Chrysler was known for their engineering and I think it shows up in the cars they built. In my opinion, it just seemed that they never took the cheapest way out, but put a few extra $ in their parts to make the car better. First with putting alternators on the 60 Valiants and of course the Torqueflites were a better tranny than any of the others. Things like superior, more costly, cast iron in their engines, forged roatating engine parts, use of aluminum-especially die cast parts, better timing chain sets, shaft mounted rockers, FULL instrumentation, and better suspensions than the competition that really worked. Companies like GM seemed to care more about the bottom line. The mono leafs used in the novas and camaros were terrible compared to the Mopar rear springs which are more sophisticated than people give them credit for. The front half is pretty much a built-in traction bar. Look at what a poor schmuck has to do to make a 60's mustang front suspension work correctly. That goofy front coil spring above the upper control arm is just wrong and the gemetry is bad. I always say a chebby was built for the lowest common denominator. And back in the day, those chebby guys always had to replace the press-in rocker studs with screw-ins when adding a heavier valve spring and throwing on some kind of rear traction device. Occasionally, I work on brand X vintage cars now, and I honestly can't help but feel sorry for the owners because the Mopars are better in so many subtle ways.

But some of the things I didn't like on the Mopars were the skinny wheels and tires that were tucked well inside the body lines. Too bad they didn't have the money to convert to the BBP for the 67 A bodies. The small pattern was safe enough alright, but it limited the after market wheel selection for sure.

One more thing, back then Mopar had just under 50% of the cop car market country-wide.

Just my opinions.