How are today’s as/ah cars different

Dartnut said
Not disagreeing with you at all here, but by them being crudely built I was referring to the hammered in inner fender on the passenger side for valve cover clearance, the rear wheel openings being radiused using a torch in places, the wheel alignment was terrible, and the engines were just good enough to move the cars under their own power.
Anyone who bought one of these cars knew they weren't ready to run at the track as delivered.
The first thing to go would have been the tires and wheels to be replaced by their rolling stock of choice, then the engine would have been taken apart and blueprinted, then wheel alignment issues would be addressed, then body and paint...........just to start with.
The cars were just a good starting point for the racers who bought them.

My brother almost got one of the original SS/A cars in the early '80s from a guy in Washington state.
It was a real BO 4 speed car, and he was going to trade him straight across for his Superbird.
We saw the car in real life, and the owner explained about how they had to be breathed on when they were new to make them safe and competitive, as he had been around them since he was young and talked to several people who owned them from day one. As far as I know, he still is racing one to this day.
BTW, the value of both cars at the time was agreed to be $8,000 each!
Boy, times have changed...........

Ya I purchased mine for $4.000. And the radius on the wheelwells on my car were done nicely and looked like factory but side to side was not exactly the same but real close. I know they were never modified by anyone because I striped the car. I actually stood at the fence where they were parked and at the time thought what the hell are these all about. The front end alignments looked good on them sitting there. But I'm sure they weren't 0/0/5 but what you probably don't know is Chrysler sent out new fabricated upper control arms to most of the racers to correct bump steer. I also watched a number of guys load them up on trailers and not one sounded like it barely ran. Although some of them came with street hemi pistons and not the 12.5 to 1's. One of our customers made the cams for them. The original Camcraft not the one of today. He used to bring me cams all the time and said here try this one out and see how you like it. Half of the time I didn't even get the specs on them. Yes they needed paint because they were really just primed light gray and the front ends were black primer. And yes if you were racing S/S you built your own engine. The windows worked well with the seatbelts. And the horn did work! And I just remembered when I got mine in the driver door was regular glass, the thin stuff didn't last too long in that door. They were great cars.