These cars were the top of the line in performance for their time and now challenge one another for the title of the fastest muscle car.
1969 was a fantastic time for the high-performance muscle and pony cars that we all know and love today. While Pontiac started the muscle car with the GTO, Chevy genuinely brought the full potential of these lightweight sports cars. The Chevelle was an insane car for the time, but the base models were indeed not enough for any true drag racing connoisseur. This birthed the COPO program, initially founded for fleet orders but soon became the go-to path for purchasing a performance vehicle. Of course, this wasn't the only process of finding yourself a fantastic drag strip dominator, which is incredibly prominent with the Mopar brand, whose reputation for speed stands strong to this day. Today, we're going to find out which insane automotive manufacturers truly made the best cars for performance.
Under the hood of the incredible 1969 Plymouth Road Runner, whose driver aims to overthrow his Chevelle competitor, is a massive 440 ci V8. This is no ordinary Road Runner; instead, this is an A12 car that boasts an incredible six-barrel carburetor system. This comes with many other performance features that make the car the perfect vehicle for running up and down the drag strip at high speeds. This car will go head to head against a 1969 Chevrolet COPO Chevelle hosting a powerful 427 ci V8 engine deemed the L27, underrated at 425 horsepower and similar torque. These cars were the pinnacle of performance in their time, but it's hard to say who would win based on numbers alone.
That's precisely why these two vehicles are lining up for a toe-to-toe drag race to determine the indeed faster car. In round one, the Chevelle took the win with an intense 12.15 second quarter-mile time. This was an insane time compared to the Chevelle, who ran a 12.36-second pass. Race number two was an automatic win for the Chevelle as the Roadrunner was given the red light, but the Chevy was lagging behind a bit at just 12.20 seconds. Finally, the tide changed for the Mopar, who finished the third race with a great reaction time affording it the win. So it's clear that the COPO Chevelle was indeed a faster vehicle based on the results of these races.
