1968 Match Race '383 Road Runner' vs 'Cutlass 350 Ram-Rod'

In 1966 Bill Jenkins ran a L79 66 Nova against Jere Stahl's 66 Belvedere I 426 Hemi car heads-up in A/stock. They were very evenly matched, neither one of them dominated over the other, both had winning records.

I have heard that Chrysler used the L79 as a benchmark when developing the 340 A-cars.

390 Fords were slugs. In the early 70s I had a 69 340 4sp Dart. It was a quick, responsive, fun car to drive that revved up real quick. I ran heads up against a 390 Fairlane and I had two other people with me.

383 Road Runners are OK cars. Maybe not the fastest thing around, but a lot of fun to drive and as the saying goes, delivered a lot of bang for the buck. They sold well because of the low price and the clever marketing used to sell them. A car with a bench seat could even be potentially cheaper to insure. I knew 3 people who got new 69s, I got to drive two of them, anything with a 4sp and some power is fun to drive.

I also did automotive machine work from 70-73. I got to operate a Kwik-Way boring bar, it is light-years ahead of a Black & Decker cylinder hone. I enjoyed running the various shop equipment we had, it was nice precision work, something a Black & Decker cylinder is not. Also while working there I worked on a number of 327 heads with 2.02 valves, so contrary to a previous post, yes they did exist.