Barely any Brakes
Just about every other car on the road will have a shorter stopping distance than an old 4 wheel drum A-body.
As a mechanical engineer, I fail to understand that point. The best you can do is apply the brakes to just before the tires skid (then coeff of friction goes down), and drum brakes can easily skid the tires. Of course nobody can do that, so the technique of "pumping the brakes" i.e. press until you skid, back off, press again. Anti-lock brakes do that faster than you could, but initial studies showed that they weren't effective in practice since the pulsing scared drivers who then lifted the pedal. You must train yourself to jam the pedal and hold it. Try a wet parking lot, and it does feel "wrong" when the anti-lock motor kicks in. Anyway, not all "modern cars" have anti-lock brakes. At least with my 1996 Voyager, it was an option (I have it).
There are a few other modern features in brakes. If a 67 or earlier A, you are advised to install a dual MC with separate front & rear tubing. Even better is the "X pattern" on the latest cars (left-front w/ right-rear, ...). But those only help mitigate failures and only if the warning lamps work, otherwise people can be driving around with half-brakes and not know it, which could be worse than a single pot where any failure is obvious.
For optimal braking, it is important that the brakes be balanced right to left. Indeed, they used to test that in FL vehicle inspections when I was young. One might make an argument that drum brakes are harder to balance since the "self-jamming" effect makes them touchier to variations in lining friction, but I haven't read that. It seems disks are more exposed to oil and road debris which could affect the pad friction. The main place where disks shine is that they cool off faster, which is important in multiple brakings from high speed, or "riding the brakes" on a long down-hill. The later is stupid, but the main reason disk brakes were mandated in 1973, to counter unskilled drivers.
I know that magazines give specs on braking distance for various cars. There are many variables in that, mostly in the tires used. I read a recent article where special snow tires gave half the braking distance on snow as All-Season tires. That is tremendous, and much more significant than the brake design. Slicks give much better traction on dry roads, but watch videos of road racers sliding off the road when it started raining, which is why they are outlawed for street driving. When you look at old figures for braking distances for Darts, keep in mind those were with narrow, bias-ply tires. I doubt there is much difference with "modern cars" today, if you use similar tires. Brakes have not changed much in 40 years. I have never run into anything in 38 years of driving, though many idiots have run into me (most had no insurance). I always maintain a safe distance. I have had enough "sudden stop" scares in freeway driving to know to stay back. If you run into someone, it is automatically your fault unless you can prove they changed lanes with no signal. Many studies have shown the main cause of accidents is idiot drivers, not poor vehicles. That is the reason most states no longer have vehicle safety inspections. If you want to see real idiots, watch the guys who speed on icy roads in 4 wheel drives, thinking they have special powers. Don't all cars have "4 wheel braking"?
