Ford Torino Talladega V. Dodge Charger 500

[WingCharger]

Okay, I watched a show today on the 1969 Ford Torino Talladega, and I saw the simillarities between it and the Charger 500. I started wondering  who would win one on one in a NASCAR race. BOSS 429 Talladega Four Speed V. HEMI 426 Four Speed 500? What do you think? Equal gear ratios, same tires, etc...


I think the Talladegas look awesome.  This car belongs to a member on here.

[Ghoste]

I love the 500 kid but the record books pretty much speak for themselves.  The Daytona was needed when the Talladega showed the 500 drivers some excellent views of Ford taillights.

[A383Wing]

Was the Boss 429 even an option in the car?   

[Ghoste]

On the street no, it was only available in the Mustang.  He said for a NASCAR race though and that was the place it was built for.

[tan top]

I love the 500 kid but the record books pretty much speak for themselves.  The Daytona was needed when the Talladega showed the 500 drivers some excellent views of Ford taillights.

   yep sad to say  Ghoste is right     

[Ghoste]

There is a lesson to be learned there too.  When Chrysler created the 500, instead of just introducing the thing on race day, they went and promoted it all over the place first and gave Ford plenty of time to prepare a car to beat it.  They weren't so careless with the Daytona.

[Red Ram]

Forgot to include the Matador!

[Mopar2Ya]

The 500 could be bought w/a HEMI though. The 429Boss was just a HEMI copy. It is a nice Phord. The Matador on the other hand. 
Wasn't there a pointy-er front ended Torino prototype?

[Ghoste]

You're thinking of the King Cobra.  There were a couple of prototypes made which still exist but they were intended for the 71 model year and by that time France ended the aero wars.

[69_500]

No offense meant to the Daytona, as we all know it is my all time favorite car. But the 500 had more wins than the Daytona did, and those wins came against cars such as the Talladega and the Cyclone Spoiler II.

It all depends on which track your talking about pitting these two cars at for the one on one race, and who is driving what cars.

I'd take Bobby Isaac in a charger 500 at a track such as Atlanta, Dover, Richmond, Darlington, or any thing like those, over the Talladega. Now if your talkinga about a race at Daytona, or Talladega, and it was Richard Petty in the seat of the Talladega, i'd pick the Talladega.

[Ghoste]

You're right Danny, the 500 did well at the short tracks but as an aero warrior it just couldn't quite keep the Fords at bay.  In truth, the only race that really mattered at the time to Chrysler marketing was the Daytona 500 and that was the one that saw the 500 beaten by the Torino.  After that, the 500 win loss record just didn't matter.
When exactly did the Boss 429 become the Ford engine?

[69_500]

I believe the Boss 429 was raced at Daytona in early 69, i could be wrong though.

Although if you think back the 500 was the class of the field the first race it was in there at Daytona. If it wasn't for a bad tire, the Daytona would have never been built.

[Ghoste]

Of course by bad tire, it means that the Ford team had just made a better choice as far as hardness.  I don't know, I hate to dis the 500 and I think you know that but I still stand by choosing the Boss 429 Talladega over the Hemi 500 in the arena for which they were meant to battle.
To be fair, I don't have a list of finishes for the 500 and I should.  I'm sure that information is easily found with a little effort but I've never taken the time.

[pettybird]

I believe the Boss 429 was raced at Daytona in early 69, i could be wrong though.

Not right away--Doug S will know when NASCAR approved the motor, but the factory race teams painted 'Torino Cobra' on the sides rather than "Talladega" until then...

[hemi68charger]

I love the 500 kid but the record books pretty much speak for themselves.  The Daytona was needed when the Talladega showed the 500 drivers some excellent views of Ford taillights.

That's sort of like saying Obama whipped McCain.. When one looks only at the electoral vote, he did. BUt, when you look at the popular vote, it was pretty darn close...... My point is, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, but the C500 came in second in the '69 Daytona 500 by only half a car length... The reason was Lee Roy Yarbrough had fresh tires and was able to make a last lap sling shot pass to win...

If Charlie would have won, the Daytona probably would have never been born.........  Bobby Issac took 17 victories with him in the '69 season...... That means the '69 Charger 500 fared pretty darn well against the competition..

Troy

[WINGR]

I hear ya Troy. Another important factor in the 69 season is that if Petty would have stayed with Plymouth or been able to run the C500 like he wanted to, than Ford and Mercury would have definatily had a few less wins.

Why, why, why?

WINGR

[Ghoste]

I thought there was already some development work going for the Daytona but as a 70 model and all the 500 loss did was speed up the development?  In any case, I'll stick with my answer unless someone can show me stats where the 500 was outrunning the Blue Oval aero cars on the big tracks.  And didn't Petty switch to Ford after the Daytona came out?  It was the shark nosed car he wanted to run not the 500 is what I had thought?

[hemigeno]

I thought there was already some development work going for the Daytona but as a 70 model and all the 500 loss did was speed up the development?  In any case, I'll stick with my answer unless someone can show me stats where the 500 was outrunning the Blue Oval aero cars on the big tracks.  And didn't Petty switch to Ford after the Daytona came out?  It was the shark nosed car he wanted to run not the 500 is what I had thought?

Ghoste, you're "mostly" right...

Dodge's 1970 (F-series) racecar was already on the drawing board when the '69 Daytona 500 was run.  Granted, it did not have its final design completed until a couple months later, but they were already thinking of what the next salvo in the Aero War was going to be after getting wind of Ford's entries.

Petty switched to Ford just shortly before the 1969 race season began, giving them very little time before Riverside and the subsequent Daytona 500.  The Charger Daytona hadn't been introduced yet - but the King did want to drive a '69 Dodge (the aforementioned well-publicized Charger500).  I guess Richard saw the handwriting on the wall, that the taxi-cab Plymouths were going to have a hard time keeping up even with the Pettys working their magic.  Plymouth told Richard that he was a Plymouth driver and wasn't going to be "allowed" to drive an aero Dodge.  Plus, the Petty clan was chafing quite a bit that Ray Nichels had the lucrative parts distribution contract for the Chrysler racing division.

Danny's right though, the C500 has a better racing pedigree than the Daytona - although almost all of that success was on short-track venues.  The C500 wasn't horribly behind the Talladega in aerodynamic qualitites, but it was admittedly not as good.  The Daytona, on the other hand, had all of them covered (including the Superbird) as far as aero goes.  Doug Schellinger has a piece of correspondence from Ford that conceded this, as their own analysis of the body styles proved.  Don't forget though, that being aero-slick is only one component of being a good racecar.  The Ford teams were just as strong if not stronger in every other facet, and were only behind in the aero department once the Daytona and Superbird came out.  There were lots of other factors that allowed the FoMoCo teams to run with, and often out-perform, their slightly more aerodynamic winged competitors. 

The C500 ended up as a formidable short-track competitor, but was not the super-speedway dominator when compared to the Talladega.  Charlie Glotzbach still nearly won the '69 Daytona 500 in a C500, and it was indeed a tire strategy that beat them that day.  My suspicions are that Dodge had a head-start in getting the C500's race setup perfected, which explains the good showing they had at Daytona.  It didn't take long for the Ford guys to sort out their "new" aerocars though, and after that it became much harder for the C500 to run with them on the superspeedways.

That's my  anyway...

[Aero426]

The 500 was an improvement and a good package, but it was at a slight disadvantage to the Aero Fords on tracks over a mile in length.   The only long track win for a Charger 500 was Isaac in one of the two 125 mile qualifying races at Daytona.    All the others were on tracks 1/2 mile or less.   

Chrysler tipped their hat just a little too early when they announced the Charger 500 would be coming at the fall Charlotte race in '68.    This gave the Ford guys time to react, although the general idea of what became the Talladega had been simmering on their back burner since 1967.

As far as the Boss 429 goes, it was not raced until the Atlanta race in March of '69, where it won right out of the box in Mercury sheet  metal.   The Daytona win in February was with a 427 Tunnelport.  As to Lee Roy's last lap slingshot of Charlie Glotzbach, Charlie has basically said, there was nothing else he could do on that last lap.

Overall, the Spoiler II was the slipperiest of the three non-winged cars, and with the Boss Nine engine, it could really challenge the wing cars on any Sunday.   The BIG difference the wing car had, was of course the rear wing with its ability to tune the car and the side force it generated.  If the wing car got a little loose, the side plates of the wing helped it out.  

[WINGR]

Well said Gene & Doug. Also, a major note of importance as far as the T-Dega's & Spoiler ll's is that they rolled under the rocker panels so it would allow them to lower the car more and still meet Nascar's spec's. I believe that was a major reason why they were so succesful.

WIngr

[Highbanked Hauler]

 Correct me if i am wrong,but i have spent some time looking at the Talladega and the 500 and it looks like the ford is a couple inches narrower.The other thing is because of the pinchweld on the rocker panel that they could drop the car another inch lower. Does anybody know for sure?

[Aero426]

Correct me if i am wrong,but i have spent some time looking at the Talladega and the 500 and it looks like the ford is a couple inches narrower.The other thing is because of the pinchweld on the rocker panel that they could drop the car another inch lower. Does anybody know for sure?

The re-rolled rocker allowed an additional 1" body drop on the race cars.    I have never measured the overall width of my car.   

[Ghoste]

So Doug, Hemi 500 or Boss 9 Talladega in a fight?

[69_500]

Personally I'd still take the HEMI 500 over that Talladega for overall performance. I still think it would be a good race even on a superspeedway though. But when you got the Talladega and the Cyclone II's on Daytona, and Talladega track they were faster than the 500, but not by much. And I think that it at that point all comes down to the teams, and driver's of the cars.

[Aero426]

So Doug, Hemi 500 or Boss 9 Talladega in a fight?

Driver and setup being equal, if the track is over one mile, my money is on the 'Dega.   Those Allison boys look like they are about to settle it.

[Highbanked Hauler]

 It would be interesting to see the results of both of them  in the wind tunnel.

[Ghoste]

Any reliable (not anecdotal) dyno info of what the Hemi and Boss 429 were putting out in 1969 NASCAR trim?

[Aero426]

Ford completed a 500 mile durability test on the Boss 429 at Atlanta Raceway in March 1969 with David Pearson.   Four exhaust configurations were tested with the peak rating of 640 HP at 7250 RPM coming with 4" tailpipes out the back of the car.  With conventional short exhaust dumps, they calculated it at 609 HP.   Both those calculations are corrected for temperature and barometric pressure to achieve comparables.   

[pettybird]

Ford completed a 500 mile durability test on the Boss 429 at Atlanta Raceway in March 1969 with David Pearson.   Four exhaust configurations were tested with the peak rating of 640 HP at 7250 RPM coming with 4" tailpipes out the back of the car.  With conventional short exhaust dumps, they calculated it at 609 HP.   Both those calculations are corrected for temperature and barometric pressure to achieve comparables.   

odd that the full length pipes would increase horsepower?  torque I can see, but at higher RPM's it would seem that the shorter pipes would do better.  they must have had problems with scavenging. 

[Aero426]

There were two variations with the full length pipes.  The difference was in the headers.  Both developed more HP than the short side dumps.   

[Ghoste]

What about a NASCAR Hemi in 69?

[Aero426]

What about a NASCAR Hemi in 69?

I don't have any dyno sheets on a Mopar NASCAR Hemi.  'Bout 600 HP is always the number bantered about.

[Ghoste]

So about the same power in a slightly smaller and lighter car. 

[Aero426]

So about the same power in a slightly smaller and lighter car. 

They all had to weigh the 3900 lb minimum weight.   Maybe the Ford has a little smaller frontal area as Highbank Hauler was mentioning.    The Boss engine has sometimes been mentioned as having just a slight edge on the Hemi for HP.

[pettybird]

i've heard many people speculate that the wing car aero package with modern underpinnings could really fly...  it'd be pretty wild to see what a Roush powered 'dega or an Evernham 500 would have done with all else period correct! 

was there more power available to Isaac for the salt flats runs?

[WINGR]

Since Ford had came up with a new engine for Nascar wasn't it stated that Chrysler considered reworking the Hemi in order to up it's horsepower for the 1969 season but felt that it was too expensive and opted to re-work the cars aerodynamics instead. We all know that the Hemi was far more capable of higher horespower compared to what they were making at that time. If that had happened then I don't think the C500 would have a lost a whole lot of races.

Wingr

[Ghoste]

Yeah, the 5mph edge they were looking for was going to be easier to find in aerodynamics than pushing the Hemi harder.  Interesting considering the rapid way in which the Hemi was (some might say) "thrown" together in time for the 64 Daytona.  The other consideration besides all out power of course was making them run wide open for an entire Sunday afternoon.

[Aero426]

i've heard many people speculate that the wing car aero package with modern underpinnings could really fly...  it'd be pretty wild to see what a Roush powered 'dega or an Evernham 500 would have done with all else period correct! 

was there more power available to Isaac for the salt flats runs?

Good question.  Isaac had some long endurance runs, so I don't think they went with anything exotic.   

[69_500]

I'm pretty sure that when Harry Hyde Jr, was there at the Monster mopar he was talking about the engine was pretty much the same set up they used for races, but that they used a different gear ratio in the rear end. I think it was extremely low, somewhere around a 2.54 or maybe even lower. I have it on tape, but that would take a lot of sorting to figure out what tape, and where on the tape it is.

[WINGR]

I was just looking at some old C500 posts and stumbled back accross this interesting one from awhile back. I wanted to make mention that in many of the C500 race pictures I noticed that they had no rear spoilers on the deck lids, where it seems the Dega's did. I don't believe either one of them had them on the steet cars. I can't help but think that if the C500 would have had a rear spoiler it would have been a big help in the handling department. I also noticed that the Dega's didn't run a front air dams while the 500's did, it seems like that would slow down a car as well. I have heard stories of how the Charger body style lifted in the front before the air dam was added, so they probably had no choice. I would imagine with the angle of the Dega's fenders it helped with the downforce as well as that as the overall cars heigth being down an extra inch they were able to do without an air dam. Just more food for thought.

WINGR

[WINGR]

Anybody have any other thoughts to my last post reply regarding the Dega vs. C500?

[nascarxx29]

Well to begin with Ford had to have had some kind of advantage.To push Chrysler into the 500 development .If it wasnt for Ford there wouldnt be any aero cars

[tan top]

nothing really to add ,  but thinking if the C500s could have run with the twin  4 barrel set up  ,  might have been different   ..as looking at the C500s first race Daytona 500 there was not a whole lot in it , Chargin Charlie was  all over the rear of that torino  as it  crossed the line  

[Aero426]

nothing really to add ,  but thinking if the C500s could have run with the twin  4 barrel set up  ,  might have been different   ..as looking at the C500s first race Daytona 500 there was not a whole lot in it , Chargin Charlie was  all over the rear of that torino  as it  crossed the line  

Glotzbach got blown off by Lee Roy on the backstretch.    Charlie had nothing for him and was a sitting duck.   Lee Roy was just sitting back there waiting.

[tan top]

yeah true        just been watching a video of that race , the way he caught up & blew by him after that pit stop   ..looked like he had more power & better handling in the turn  ... but the shots in the video looked like  Charlie  was all over the back of the torino as it crossed the finish line ,     been watching a few other races ,  the fords & mecurys  ..were so strong compared to the C500s , if a C500 was running first , a ford would drop in behind him , then pass &  proceed to  run away .... on a super speedway ...

[Aero426]

I don't know if it was mentioned before, but Charlie watched the DVD of that Daytona race at the meet in St Louis last fall.   It was pretty funny, because you could see him look up at the finish just to see it turned out any different than he remembered.   It didn't.

[69_500]

I remember talking to Charlie about racing in the 500, and he seemed to think that it was a very nice handling car, but he admitted that the Daytona was a whole other league on the superspeedways.

[WINGR]

Did anyone have any comments on the spoiler thing that I had mentioned before. For some reason the Dega's ran rear spoilers on the race car but not the street versions. I think if the 500's would have had them they would have had more stability on the superspeedway's. Also, I think that the front spoilers, while they kept the front end down they had to have slowed the car down quite a bit. While the Degas and Spoiler 2's didn't use them, probably due to the fact that the front fenders had more of a downward angle and that the car was lower as well.

WINGR

[Aero426]

The rear spoiler question is a good one.   We know that the red Charger 500 test car, chassis 046 had an adjustable rear spoiler blade.   Here it is shown in the Lockheed wind tunnel with the #22 Road Runner getting dropped into the tunnel alongside for the full scale drafting tests.   (They had to drop the full size cars through the roof to get them in.)   The 3/8 scale Plymouth wind tunnel model also had a rear spoiler on it.  So we know they had to have investigated these things.   

[WINGR]

Thanks for mentioning that Doug, I had forgot about that picture. Maybe they found that it slowed it down and there was more of a disadvantage than it was worth. I still think that the front spoiler had to slow that car down alot. It just seems too big, but heck what do i know they were the Engineers.

[Aero426]

Just talking out loud here, a rear spoiler would certainly create some rear downforce, but increase drag slowing the car slightly.   The front spoiler would keep air out from under the car and would help it turn.   Because the front end is nailed down and turns, it would create a loose condition on the rear.   A slightly loose race car is a fast race car.

[WINGR]

Well spoken Doug, maybe that was their plan all along. 

Like I said they are the engineers.

Usually the spoilers are on the rear to give it more stability, correct? 

[hemigeno]

Usually the spoilers are on the rear to give it more stability, correct? 

Yep, that's what they're for.  I remember reading about what Doug mentioned, that the front scoop helped keep air out from under the car.  The same info also mentioned that the scoop increased front downforce, and I think it also mentioned that it created a wedge of air to help get the airstream up and over the hood.

In any event, they were able to create front downforce (i.e. negative lift, for the pocket protector crowd) with the big front spoiler.  Having all the downforce in front and comparably little in the rear makes for a white-knuckle ride.  Like Doug said, slightly loose is fast, but really loose usually means a DNF.  That's one of the reason you see the IIGen Charger oval-track cars all jacked up in the rear - it kept more air on the back end for downforce.  The beauty of the Daytona/Bird shape was that the nosecone's shape (when combined with the front chin spoiler) made for extremely high front downforce numbers that could be balanced nearly perfectly with the adjustable rear airfoil.  I think the rake of most race Daytonas was much lower in the rear for high-speed tracks because the rear wing made it unnecessary to "catch air" at the rear in the same fashion.

I'd have thought a small spoiler at the rear trunk lip of a C500 would have helped out quite a bit, but I'm sure they studied the numbers well enough to know what worked best.  Seeing as how they started working with rear spoilers on the '66 Chargers, Chrysler's engineers definitely didn't forget about them.  There had to have been either a performace reason for leaving them off, or maybe Big Bill France gave them a reason to leave them off - although if he let them play with front spoilers I don't see why he'd have barked about rears.

[Ghoste]

I seem to recall some tale about France going beserk when he first spotted a front spoiler under the Charger until the Chrysler engineers pointed out that he had one on his street car (a 68 or 69 Z28) and convincing him that it was a standard everyday car practice.

[Aero426]

I seem to recall some tale about France going beserk when he first spotted a front spoiler under the Charger until the Chrysler engineers pointed out that he had one on his street car (a 68 or 69 Z28) and convincing him that it was a standard everyday car practice.

That's a true story.   That was Billy France, not Big Bill.   When he questioned the front spoiler on the Charger, it was mentioned "well your Camaro over there has one." 

Also, I agree with Geno's assessment.    I ran the question by Greg Kwiatkowski the other night, and he admitted he had thought about it a lot.   His opinion was that with the front spoiler, the rake angle of the body, and the small ducktail built into the decklid, that they did get some benefit without a rear spoiler.   It's all about the total balance of the car.   

[WingCharger]

They made up for the lack of spoiler on the 500's with the Daytona.

[WINGR]

Thanks for the follow-up info. Doug and Gene, that is something that I have wondered about for awhile. No matter what, they are great cars and have forever staked their claim in Automobile and Nascar history. 

WINGR