True HP of the 8 most powerful classic era muscle cars

Quite a bit more than I would have guessed in every case, although I suspect you might need to resort to engine blueprinting and tuning to get those figures given the huge amount of factory slop you could expect in those days.

Beautiful cars, but LOL, do they sound like a can full of marbles at low RPM.

To each his own, I'll take a low rumbling V8 over a high pitched sewing machine any day.

Factory cams in all of those. Yeah right. LOL Sure sound good though!

None of those numbers really mean a lot. People blame the gas crunch and lower compression for the huge drop in HP after '72, but it wasn't as bad as all that. What really changed is how HP was figured. Before that, it was gross HP. They put the engine on a dyno, with it's best tune, no filter, no exhaust, no a/c, no alternator, no nothing. You got high numbers. After that, they went to a standard which was based on a factory engine, with accessories, intake/exhaust etc. It naturally results in a lower number. Take a car today and measure HP by the old method and you'd end up with some crazy high numbers.

It's very hard to compare the figures from those cars to today's cars as well as performance. Whatever Motor Trend got from the car when new doesn't tell you what it's capable of by today's standards. They would've picked up a LOT of time in the quarter mile with modern tires, so certinaly 0-60 doesn't mean much unless you take a factory perfect restored car and measure everything by today's methods and modern tires for performance. Handling...maybe a little better due to grip, but the old suspensions and brakes still need updating.

Performance cams tend to do that when building them. My brother had a 1968 Dodge Charger with a 383 magnum. He only upgraded his carburetor and talk about take off.
He smoked a dozen sets of rear tires in couple weeks.

Today`s E-cars would blow the doors off all of them.

To add to what Raw Kryptonite said ;

https://www.hagerty.com/articles-videos/articles/2013/08/13/Horsepower

One thing the original musclecars had going for them is that they were relatively affordable for the most part, with the average price being around $22K in today's dollars. You can't even get something like a Civic SI type car for that today.

Certain special models were of course considerably more expensive, but even those were cheaper than you can get a comparable car for today, where even a base Mustang GT starts around $40K.

Challenger was so sexy.

There's the old way of measuring HP, the new way that measures it at the crank but in consumer form, and then HP at the wheels, each being lower than the previous.

At the crank, my '18 Mustang GT using current methods is rated at 460hp, stock, and that's just the plain old GT, not some special edition. The GT350 puts out 526HP at the crank, and the GT500 puts out 760.

It wouldn't surprise me if transmissions and differentials are more efficient now, and more of that power makes it to the wheels. Of course cars are heavier now, so that will limit the actual performance.

I was always Team 'Cuda

I'm generally not a Ford fan but I really like the '70-'71 Torino.






It's too bad you don't see many of them around.

I've always been a Mustang guy, even though many of those cars look great (the 'Cuda was one of my favorites as a kid as well). The '69 Boss 302 is my favorite '60s Mustang:

I noticed one flaw in that "formula" right away though...

When comparing power via the dragstrip quarter mile times don't matter nearly as much as trap speed.

Times are HUGELY (in racing terms) affected by reaction times at the tree.

Trap speeds are not.

I used to do a bit of motorcycle drag racing (street bikes, not true drag bikes).

EDIT: Hah, I should have read the whole article before posting, it addressed exactly what I said: "As a drag racer will tell you, the mph figure is the better indicator of horsepower than ET"

"Wow, I could have had a V8!"

^ You have to be old enough to know where this came from.

Where my favourite American muscle car is the Challenger R/T

A friend had a 351 Mach1 Mustang fastback and at that time I had a 1600cc DOHC Fiat 124 Special T, when he took the car out on to the local straight away and lined up against my little Fiat and then we floored the cars, I watched him in my rear view mirror all the way to the end of the straight. He was not a happy chappie
He sat there spinning the wheels and by the time he got moving I was almost over the horizon, the Mustang should have eaten the little Fiat for breakfast but it didn't, that little Fiat beat a lot of bigger and supposedly better cars, and you would never know there was anything special about it, but the engine was one hot twin overhead cam twin twin choke webber carbs and a close ratio gearbox with limited slip diff or the rear, man it could shift, and it had excellent road holding too.


Looking up the 0-60 times the Fiat was 7.2 and the Mach1 was 6.1s, so a little difference but not as much as I thought, and there is about a second difference over a 1/4mile, not bad when you compare the 5.7 litre mustang to the 1.6 litre fiat.

And lets not forget that the factories were lying through their teeth about the true HP for most of their cars due to insurance regulations.

Case in point, the Ram Air IV Pontiac 400, listed as 366 HP when in reality it was over 400 HP.

Ford and Chrysler were doing the same with their 429's and 440's respectively.

V8's are great, but some inline motors can sound pretty good too, as well as V12's...

I’ve always been infected with a love of cars. Had a couple hot ones. My old muscle car was a1970 or 71 383 Magnum Roadrunner. Then I had several other nice cars like 280Z, Mazda RX-7, Porsche 944, 1984 Corvette, 1989 Corvette convertible, 199? BMW Z3, 2001 Jaguar XK8 convertible (still have). But none have had the excitement of driving as my 2006 Maserati GranSport Spyder CambioCorsa. Fast, nimble, good handling and ride, very cool F1 transmission and shifting, etc.











Never had a car that got the head turns and attention as the Maserati. The engine sound alone gets people to turn to see it.

If I ever won the lottery or otherwise came into a decent amount of money, I would at least consider doing a vintage restomod build.

The car themselves should mostly be cheap within another couple of years, as their owners pass and the younger generations have little interest in them.

I don't know if I could put up with a vintage musclecar again though, the basic platforms are pretty dated even with extensive mods.

Love my 2002 Lexus LS430 V8. Put in sports mode and kinda scary.

Indeed. I agree. If you would drive one of those older cars that we think of so fondly, you would find them pretty disappointing. Suspensions and brakes were so bad.

I agree a full blown restored would be ideal. An old Jaguar E-type body on a new frame, suspension, brakes, engine and some of the modern with a nicely done panel of old style gauges.

Electric is the future, so that might be the thing to go with on a restomod.

In the '70s I had a '69 Chevy Malibu 350 and it would scare me sometimes.

If I were to buy a classic muscle car, I would restore it to original condition, because to me, the only reason to have it would be for nostalgia. My current Mustang is a nice-driving car, so I don't really see the point in buying an old car and upgrading it to be almost as good as the car I already own.



And it has a digital instrument cluster and a 10-speed auto I like that I think would be difficult to duplicate in a resto-mod.

Yes, but restomodding is about getting the styling of the old car. I look at new cars and would rather have a Jag E-Type for style. That is why restomod is appealing. A good looking car with all the new mechanicals.

Almost all new cars are ... the same. Jellybeans with wheels.

And let’s face it; when we assess a car, we first look at it. If it looks good we will get into looking at all the particulars. If it doesn’t look good we almost always care no more.

I agree that looks have a lot to do with the appeal of a car, but I think for the older stuff, for me, it's more about the nostalgia I guess. A guy I work with has a '69 Camaro with LED lights, new engine, completely revised suspension, etc., and for some reason, that is just not appealing to me. I'm sure it drives a lot better, but it just loses the connection to that car for me.

The thing with driving a vintage car is that you're not really in control of your vehicle, but only somewhat influencing it. Between the vague steering, bouncing, rocking suspension and brakes that are only effective at parking lot speeds, you're at the mercy of other drivers.

The idea with a restomod isn't so much to get it on par with a modern car, but at least improve those areas to the point where you're not just a spectator.

Count me in with the purists (to an extent).

If you're going to own and operate a Model T, you're not looking to upgrade it, you're looking to have the original.

Now, taking a 60's muscle car and modernizing it like crazy - I'm not against that concept, but it just seems a bit dumb unless you really have the time and money to blow, and a major passion for a certain model of car. There's far better equipment out there for driving nowadays, even in muscle car flavor...

Far as I'm concerned those old muscle cars were good for one thing only - acceleration in a straight line, and they weren't even all that good for that!

They're antiques now. But I have nothing against restoring antiques, hell I just put in about 3 weeks of work restoring some seriously vintage cast iron skillets... (except THOSE work as good or better than a lot of modern kitchen gear!)

The idea for most when it comes to restomodding is not to try to turn a vintage car into a Koenigsegg, but to improve the basic qualities of the vehicle, while also reducing the amount of scrounging for typically rare and expensive vintage parts that you'd have to do if you were restoring it to stock condition.

I'd probably be OK with just tweaking the brakes and maybe the suspension, but I've seen it where people basically have the original body as a shell on a whole new car, and I'm sure the cost was crazy, and I just don't see the need for that. For me, when I see an old Mustang or Camaro, I just remember being a kid and thinking how cool they were, and I'd like to have that connection.

I think that during the '80s and most of the '90s, the '60s cars took on an almost mythical status because the newer cars performed so much worse than those that came before. During those years, only people who had the '60s cars really owned performance cars. I've looked up some of the retro-Motorweek videos on YouTube, and they talk about cars of the '80s being quick with an 8- or 9-second 0-60 time, clearly adjusted for the times.

For a modern car that looks like a '60s muscle car, the current Challenger is the ticket:

As much as I LOVE hot exhausts, I have to agree.

0-60 in <3.0 anything seconds is scary fast.

Hmmmm...solar carports...

Currently we are getting Gas Monkey on TV here, they have just taken delivery of a test mule 2015 Dodge Challenger R/T and are in the process of stripping out the engine etc. and installing it in a '71 428 Challenger

We had part one last night and part two should be tonight

I owned a 67 Cougar with the 289 4bbl high perf engine. It could go like a bat out of hell but you couldn't turn it or stop it. The most fun car I ever had was 71 Austin Cooper S with all the mods I could do it and still make it drive able on the street. There was no dyno available so I have no idea of the hp ( maybe 90 or 95 ) but it weighed about 1300lb. I could smoke most V8s off traffic lights up to about 50-60 mph and If I could make it to a sharp turn they could never catch me.....but the little thing ate tires and needed oil rings and valve stem oil seals about every 20K miles. I loved that little monster.

Now my "toy" is a 2004 Jag XK8. It looks almost as good as an E-type but is much more comfortable and is reliable. I did not go for the XKr ( supercharged ) version so I would not have the extra moving parts to maintain. It's about 300 hp and is set up as a GT. At 70mph it's turning at about 17-1800 rpm in 6th gear. I love the thing

Great car Archie. You must post pictures.

I have a 2001.

This is what my son is working on, he has repaired the tin rot in the bodywork, made new panels and put them on, done some work on the engine, got it through the tough vehicle tests here in Belgium and driven it sparingly over the winter. Now that the weather is improving it is time to give the car a full respray and to that end we are removing the engine following weekend so the painter can get full access to the engine bay for the respray. He is also planning on getting the engine detailed too while it's out.

The car is a 1992 BMW 325iX touring all wheel drive, quite a rare car and even rarer to find one with a still working 4x4 system, usually the centre coupling slips and does not drive the front wheels.



Not quite a muscle car but still a nice one to drive.

Nah, not disappointing. Just different!
Don't forget, a car that didn't come with power steering and power brakes isn't the same as a car that has them but they don't work. You can still palm steer a car from a stop if it doesn't have power steering, but it does take getting used to. LOL
I do remember the lean in these cars turning, but you can get used to a lot.

A couple of my barges from back in the day. '66, just a 289 though and my '78 Firebird that had an engine swap for a 455. Air shocks (leaky of course) and traction bars in the back baby!

Oh man, I'd driven cars without power steering before (and they have a lower "gear ratio" on the steering wheel), then I had this Ford E-350 van suddenly lose power steering once.

It was so hard. I thought (obviously incorrectly) I was going to break the steering wheel, and that was at like 30mph. When I came to a stop it was exponentially harder.

I still had to get home, and adapted, but at anything less than 10mph it was #%&*$# near impossible to steer. I was VERY thankful I'd had experience with true manual steered cars when it came time to park...

My '84 Mustang had power steering, when you put your foot on the brake it would dump the vacuum and if the engine was still cold it could stall the engine if you were at low speed, coming up to a 90 degree right turn between two walls on a single track Scottish road and suddenly no power steering, really gave me a fright the steering went from finger tip light to trying to move the world hard, it was only about 1 turn from lock to lock.

I can never seem to get photos to appear in posts. Can somebody give me a step by step please ?

I

That Ford E-350 van did something even worse later - the master cylinder sprung a leak so I'd have to add brake fluid almost every day. Then one day the THROTTLE started sticking WHILE I ran low on brake fluid!

And that thing had a 460! And I was running it with no cargo, so it was remarkably fast for a van! After that I shut it down for good and sold it!

There are a couple of ways to get photos to appear.

1. If you click on the Full Editor button, there is an attachment manager - using that, you can upload a photo that is saved on your PC into your post, and you'll need to add some text in the normal post window. That will make it appear as Raw Kryptonite's post shows the photos.

2. Find a photo on a website, and determine the direct link to it. That can vary from website to website, and if there is a photo, I think in most browsers you can right-click on the photo and you'll see a menu option that might be something like Copy Image Link (it varies by browser). Do that, then here, you can either use the menu button in the full editor, or just put [img] before the link and [/img] after the link, like this: [img]ImageLink[/img]

I use these guys for my images.

https://postimages.org/

Anyway, one automotive trend I'm not crazy about is "LS all the things", that is, swapping a GM LS V8 into absolutely every vehicle that can accommodate one.

Yeah, the LS may be the most cost effective V8 design ever, and can handle big power even in factory trim, but its just blasphemy to put them into non GM vintage musclecars, not to mention Porsches, Ferraris, Toyotas, etc.

I did not buy my LS430 for any of that, the reliability of the this generation car is unreal. Many of them with over 500 thousand miles on them still running like new.
And luxury like no other car made. That is what I bought it for. All seats heated and cooled, rear seats recline with massage. Mark Levison stereo is unreal. Could go
on all night listing them.

Just not into muscle cars anymore. Just my Lexus.

You mad about that kickass Fiero on Page 1? I've also heard of Northstar conversions.

GM killed the Fiero just as it was being perfected (1988), dammit. And I'm not over it yet.

Fieros are a great candidate, but c'mon, Mustangs and Toyota Supras?

This is my mustang engine
A before and after

My 2004 XK8 https://simhq.com/forum/tmp/22907.jpg

or you can get a mustang fox body for 7 or 8 grand and put a 150 dry kit on it and dot slicks.. smoke em all

They are beautiful cars Archie. Such sleek clean lines. I see yours has the windscreen for top down cruising.

How many miles ?

Back in 2004 I went to the Motor Museum at Gaydon, it was part of a trip that I took as part of the XPower Forums, an online MG club

James bond's adversary:

On looking for the above pictures I came across this one of my car being featured at a rally event, we were being hosted by WSR (West Sussex Racing) the official team that built the MG ZR rally cars and the ZS Touring car, they were also the team that brought Ayrton Senna to the UK before he became a F1 sensation.
Second pic is the MG ZR rally car
third getting a seat in the ZS Touring car
Fourth pic, running up a modified Mustang engine before being crated up and sent off to MG to be fitted to a MG SVR
Fifth is a MG SVR

The wind blocker came from Amazon. About an hour for initial set up. It folds down when not in use and removes entirely in 10 seconds. It does not interfere with raising or lowering the top.

I bought the car with 113,000 miles on it. The guy was having trouble selling it because of the "high mileage". It was maintained by the Jag dealer and the miles were mostly from driving back and forth from Ontario to Florida. ( basically an easy, low rpm cruise for the V8) I now have about 140,000 on it. Wife and I have been all over eastern Canada, New England and as far west as Indiana and Ohio.
It's the best GT car I have ever driven. Smooth, quiet, and with plenty of power when needed. It also can go a LONG way on a tank of fuel. Cruising at 65-70mph I have gone almost 500 miles.

That MG Xpower SV(maybe the name as a concept?) was my desktop pic for years.

They were a production car, hand built in MGR's Sport & Racing's workshops, there were a few different models, the base model had the 2V 4.6 engine, the engine in the picture is the 5.0l DOHC Mustang Cobra engine, the heads and valves have been modified to suit the lower spec EU fuel that you get from the pumps here, they also made a supercharged version and then there was one for the race track too. They were going to make one with 700hp but MGR went bust just before then.

When I picked up my ZT260 I got to drive the SV as the garage had just taken delivery of a demonstrator, 4 point racing harness for both driver and passenger and no airbags needed, and yes they are quick.

A few years and 28k miles later I fitted my ZT260 with a Kenne Bell 1.7l supercharger to bring the hp up to 400, still it is a big heavy saloon and not a race car, but, with a 170-180mph top speed and a 4.1second 0-100km/h time it is no slouch either.

MG did make a ZT500 prototype with the 5.0l DOHC engine and 500hp but they had to remove so much from the engine bay, like the aircon etc. they decided it was too extreme for a production model, plus the bigger heads on the DOHC meant that the bonnet and firewall had to be modified to get the engine in. Just at the end MGR made a supercharged version of the 260 called the ZT385 using an Eaton Rootes charger, there were two production cars made and sold before they went bust I have some parts from one of the prototypes including the carbon fibre bonnet but the underside of it had to be butchered to give enough clearance for the Eaton supercharger as it is much taller than the KB one I have on my car, in total there were 42 ZT260s fitted with the KB Supercharger with 400hp and 3 ZT260s fitted with the Eaton with 385hp.

Pretty stout for being naturally aspirated.

I'd put one into my hypothetical 1970 Torino.



Of course, 1100 horsepower is really nothing special anymore, where street driven 2500 horsepower cars and 500 horsepower motorcycles are not unheard of.

It's a great looking car, I was pretty disappointed it wouldn't be sold here. IIRC they threatened a factory nitrous system option to push close to 1000hp.LOL
Found my old wallpapers.

yeah it is, was looking for my book on the SV but it must be back in Scotland.

The nitrous one was 700hp, and then the nitrous on top to bring it up to over 1000hp, insane but I like it. A couple of friends had SV/SVRs ond one guy also had a Mini Metro 6R4, he said bring a gallon of Shell V-Power 100octane and I give you a run for about 100meters along the road that car was insane I didn't even have the time to get frightened I was too busy struggling to sit up straight in the seat


Edit:
6R4 in action


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwvDFvLiIqQ


Rear mounted engine in Jerry's 6R4

Definitely get that. Shocks, springs, brakes, bushes, ride height, tyres are all the basics most people upgrade when owning an old tough rig to make it a bit pointier. No use having all that grunt when she handles like a brick. I imagine most of us remember the hours spent laying under cars with mates and a few beers chasing better handling. I like getting in an old muscle car...and she feels like an old muscle car.

I would still like to totally upgrade an oldie to more current standards though, i'm too old now to appreciate every bump in the road and would like to be able stop in a hurry if need be without leaving half my tyres on the tarmac and skid marks in the cabin.


I much prefer the smaller side of muscle cars though, easier to get them to handle decently..and go fast

This was my '76 LH Torana, threw out the six snd slotted in a nicely worked 350 chev i built to a Smokey Yunick build with around 475hp , TH350 tranny and 9" diff combo. OMP harness seats, battery in the boot full velour interior and the slr5000 dash Went like the clappers and handled nice for what she was. Bit understeery though but the chicks loved that paint job I would love to do another Torrie.




'74 HJ Pemier with a baby block 253, she was my highway cruiser, spongy ass suspension, what one would call floaty. When you went over a bump you got to enjoy it for another minute nearly got seasick. She was a cool rig though, used to be the tow car for a local legend drag racer in Darwin in the '80's.




This was my first baby in the early '80's. '69 HK Premier, left over velvet dash and roof lining from the '70's. Even the interior of the glove box was velvet! Really clashed with those stock door trims, but i thought she was cool. Another small block but we slotted a celica five speed manual in as the original box and stick was terrible. I made sure she had a tacho on the dash even though anything above 4500 rpm was just noise and no power lol.

I really don't get that. I can't speak for cars, but motorcycles, 500 horsepower? Most powerful bike I ever rode had 175, and I sure never felt like it needed more power. I (and a group of riders who rode that thing) unanimously agreed "this is enough". We were all in our twenties and really testosterone loaded too. And most of us had track experience. And dirtbike experience.

I could see the use for 1100 horsepower in a car, but 2500? On the street? Makes no sense to me unless you want to be the king of all burnouts, or want to go 250mph (on the street?!)...

Because, sheer excess.

Maybe someone wants to do a burnout *while going* 250mph on the street!

Or go down the track in under 6 seconds

Red Victor 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0An-lpPXws

Followed the progress of Andy and the Red Victor team for quite a number of years, also chipped in some cash to help them make the 5 seconds with a street legal car that is taxed insured and passed it's MOT. RV3 makes upwards of 3,000hp

A true power cruiser.



Yikes.

Okay, that V8 bike is the only street legal motorcycle I've ever seen that I would be almost afraid to ride. Matter of fact I'd probably be more intimidated by that thing than a full on nitro burning top fuel drag bike.

That is just completely nuts!

I'll try Archie.

I use the attachment manager

I upload a picture from my computer with that. I right click on the image I uploaded and copy image address.

I close the attachment mgr, then press "insert image link" on the commands bar (or whatever it is)

I paste the address I copied from the from the image in the attachment mgr.

Then post your stuff to the forum.

Here's the weirdness...

Edit your post right away.

It will be an [img][/img] address for the pic..like

"https://simhq.com/forum/tmp/22987.jpg" no quotes or bold, that's me

When you edit it, you change the image code from

"https://simhq.com/forum/tmp/22987.jpg"

to

"https://simhq.com/forum/files/22987.jpg"

You should get a "full" size pic (not more than 2mb) like this AFTER you edit the image address in the post.





Yep.

A total pain in the ass!

Sorry about the non car art stuff. No pics of my old Saturn melting in the sun here in sunny FL. Only pic I had quick access to that was less then 2mb.

Today my son is getting a good lift out of this, lifting the body off the front engine and subframe

Is that a BMW?

Yes, a 1992 E30 325iX touring all wheel drive.

It belongs to my youngest son, he has been restoring it for the past year.

It needed quite a bit of body work replaced and there are lots of bits not available any longer, and because it is the 4x4 version the body and running gear is just slightly different than the standard 325 so he has had to fabricate quite a bit. The engine is good, and the 4x4 system works, it passed it's motor vehicle test last summer and he was driving it up to last weekend. Now it is time to get the bodywork resprayed and he needs to get the engine bay done too, that's why the engine is out. While it is out he is going to replace all the bushings and rubber mounts while he has easy access to them. just now the car has a lot of red undercoat on it.





This was taken over a year ago when he started working on it. the bodyshell in the background is a spare for my MG ZT, was bought when MG Rover went bust just so I had a spare.

This turbo SV belongs to John, he was racing at the European king of drag, run what you brung at Chimay in Belgium

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktH94QsZ7Fs

Wee update:

There was a slight score in one of the cylinders so it had to be re-bored, now my son is rebuilding the engine, it's just about ready to start the re-assembly

^^^

That's a nice looking engine.

Project mission creep is a real thing.

I am more interested in that portable gantry......looks manufactured...is there a brand and model number????

The newest Mercedes G-Wagon AMG 63 does 0-60 in 3.9 secs.........scary fast in a giant concrete block of an SUV....

Looks like a home built engine stand to me, the factory ones are typically painted and have wheels.

The engine stand is home built, not by my son but by one of his friends for a 4 cylinder engine, the 6cyl BMW is just a little big for it, mounting the engine sideways on it worked

The gantry is manufactured and is "portable" it belongs to my son's work and can be put up and taken down by one person, I'll get him to get the details when he comes home tonight. From what is written on it, it is made in Germany.

I don't have a lift in my garage only a pit which is fine for a lot of jobs but I'm finding that with the likes of my Range Rover that to do work on the engine you have to take the body off the chassis, I've seen the garage doing it and they can have the whole body off the chassis in a couple of hours and it is much easier to work on the engine running gear/drive train.

Engine safely home, he rebuilt it in the workshop of his work over the holiday weekend here. Middle son driving his forklift.

It's made by Schilling,

https://www.dlhonline.co.uk/by-brand/schilling

This is the one we were using: https://www.dlhonline.co.uk/by-bran...-model-load-capacity-1000-kg-and-1500-kg

https://www.schillings.com.au/

If I had the motor apart like that, I'd be tempted to do a little head porting and a cam swap at the least.

The parts are on the way, well new cam anyway, there are limits on what you can do to vehicles here, the vehicle has to remain standard, when he registered it, he imported it from Holland, everything was noted down even to the spec of the wheels.

Same when I got the 318i in Germany it was a pain in the butt getting it through the test, the tester did not put all the details in the system and the vehicle licence dep. rejected the car as not meeting standards, had to go back and tear a strip off the tester about it as it was on the original documents and he never entered it into the computer, lucky I took a photocopy of all the docs and could show what was missing.

We got a set of M Sport wheels for the 318i, they are an optional fitment to this model but as I had steel wheels on during the inspection they will have to be on for the next inspection. Oh the joy have a search for Auto Keuring Belgium test on You-tube to see what they put the car through, first time I was there I thought they were trying to tear the wheels off with the machine as it pulls, presses, twists and vibrates the suspension to make sure there is no play in it.

I wouldn’t like living with that kind of restrictions on vehicles.

It's why my cars are still registered in the UK, especially for the MG with it's supercharger, at least in the UK you can get a single vehicle approval for a highly modified vehicle and the MG is not modified enough to require that

When I took in the 318i to the test station in Belgium they listed everything that was in the vehicle, all the documents, the med kit, toolkit, etc. and it means that when I go for it's yearly test they will be looking for them and also that they will be noted down if/when I sell the car and the list given to the new owner.

In Germany there are ways to get round the type approval with the right documents, I remember a lass having to get the right docs from the manufacturers to accompany the mods she had done to her Mustang for drag racing, it took a while but eventually she was able to get it road legal.

For me, in the UK, as long as I have declared the mods to the insurance and they pass inspection/emissions then there is no problem. With my Subaru WRX STi PPP, the PPP part is Prodrive Performance Pack, takes the 2 litre turbocharged engine up to 305bhp at the wheels and it also came with a new exhaust, headers and new suspension. I had no problems with the insurance about the power hike they were on the point of refusing insurance over the suspension mods. Great car to drive but man it was like riding on a pair of 1950s metal wheeled roller skates plus it needed 100octane fuel, and I had to keep a 24 pack of octane boost it the pocket in the trunk beside the water tank for the intercooler spray just in case I could not find 100octane petrol.

My Scooby the day I chopped it in for the Range Rover.

You can't soup up your own car ? That's amazing

They almost made that the case in Canada in the early '2000s, after a speeding street racer in a "riced out" car collided with and killed an RCMP officer.

All aftermarket modifications to motor vehicles were to be banned, right down to tinted windows and the like.

Only the prospect of major public outcry and the considerable lobbying resources of SEMA was able to prevent it.

There are tuned cars, and a very small tuner scene in Belgium, Talking with my son's friends it seems like they return their cars to standard for the annual test and then put all the stuff back on after the test. But you hardly see altered vehicles at all, a few 4x4s around here that are lifted, but lowered riced out style I can remember 1 in our area in the past 15 years.

One of my son's friends has a Toyota Supra which is a Jap import, it has a restricted engine and top speed for the Japanese market and it is right had drive which last Xmas caused a bit of a stir. My son's friend and girlfriend along with my son and girlfriend went to a nightclub, my son's friend was not drinking as he was driving but the rest had a good dram in them. When they left the nightclub in the Supra they got about 100meters down the road when they got pulled over by the police for an alcohol check, of course they went to the left side of the vehicle and the girlfriend of my son's friend rolled down the window and had to blow in the tester which of course gave a very high reading, now my son was filming this from the back seat, the officer told the lass that she could not drive and that they would have to impound the vehicle at which point the car erupted with laughing and the officer then had his first proper look in the car and seen it was right hand drive, so, the officer went round and my son's friend blew a clear reading on the tester and they were allowed to go.

Later my son sent the video to his friend and he posted it up on Facebook or some such and the police seen it, a couple of days later they were at the door for my son and charging him with bringing the police into ill repute or some such, it took a lot of talking and a lawyer to get the charge dropped.

The video was funny though