What about the 1957 Golden Hawks? There was a Studebaker dealer in this town who sold a lot of supercharged Hawks and those Hawks kicked everybody's butt.

The 1957 Golden Hawk with the super charged 289 produced 275 bhp. This is about 100 hp less than the super charged fords in 1957. About 10 hp less than the 283 injected scruby.  Remember Ford wasn't telling the truth about their hp ratings assuming it was for insurance ratings so people could afford to buy their cars. Stock fords with the SC were dyno'd in the 370 to 382 hp range and Frank Rice's 57 super charged custom 300 proved this out as did Holme & Moody's Race Shop.


-Gary Burnette-

Some of this info is out of Motor Trend April 1957 and it shows the Rambler Rebel 327 Bendix eletronic fuel injection rated at 288 bhp which is a little above the Golden Hawk but not by much.


-Gary Burnette-

A muscle car is defined as a high  performance   big engine  in a  intermediate car  A Chrysler 300 was not a intermediate!
The olds  and  Hudson hornet would have fit the  bill though so I would say the 1949 Olds was the  first Muscle car! 

 
 One thing  to keep in mind with the power rating of the Rambler the hp of the engine was 288 as installed in the Ambassador
 When it was installed in the Rebel it had compression increase  from 8.5 to 9.5 and the cam was changed from juice  lifters to solid
It don't take much speculation  to say that the power had to be up from the  Ambassador engine but the rating stayed the same!

Comparing a Race prepped engine to a street factory engine  is not a vary  fair comparison Why not  compare a race engine to a race engine or a Factory stock engine to a factory stock engine1  Not a race engine to a stocker! 

That's what I did. For example a stock 312 on a Tbird (small 3200 to 3300 Lbs light weight for ford)  intermediate custom 300 some what larger and the larger Fairlane weighing more of course. Stock dynoed 370 to 380 as opposed to the 300 rating used by ford. This has already been verified on Frank Rice's engine etcs. The race engines on the other hand were producing 450 to 500 with super chargers according to race car legends Banjo Matthews and others. All the cars mentioned are muscle cars in my opinion.


-Gary Burnette-

      370 hp for a  factory   engine is blown right  out of perspective   The  engine was  rated at 300 hp and  were  known to  make as much as 340!  
My uncle had a 1957 T bird with  a super charged  312 and  I used to own a 1966 289 with  Paxton super charger   hp  the mustang would eat the T  bird a live and it  was 325 hp! 

Frank Rice's 1957 ford custom 300 is a stock 312 with a Paxton dynoed at 370 hp and runs in the thirteens in the 1/4 mi. Others on this form know this as fact because they and myself watched him do it and we have raced together as well. The cars were equipped with 3 speed T-85 transmissions 3.70 rears for 57 and 3.92s for 56. It takes a lot of power to put one of these cars in the 13s.



-Gary Burnette-

Keep in mind if the super charger is not set up correctly then the outcome will not be optimum. I not arguing just expressing what I've seen, been told by Nascar racers, and what I've read and heard from others.


-Gary Burnette-