Posted: 12/11/2005 11:16:53 AM EDT
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Ill go first. From experience I would have to say Dodge Ram w/ 318 engines. Big heavy piece of crap that cant haule or tow anything past 2,000 pounds. 
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Agree to disagree here...my dad has a '97 Chevy 3/4 ton with a 305 and an auto. Very excellent truck/motor combo. my personal choice is...ford 7.3 diesel from the late 80's..my dad had an '89 with a non-turbo for a service truck...what a turd. Also the ford 2.3 four banger and the early 80's 3.3L six they stuck in the Ford Fairmonts. |
Try the '82-87 camaro with that POS motor. 98 horsepower in a 3300Lb car 
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Any 1960's Dodge Polara/Plymouth Fury with a slant six. This was the poor working man's big family car. For those unfamiliar, the Polara and Fury was the same size as the Chrylser New Yorker... in other words, a huge hulking boat. Favored by highway patrols (but with a Hemi or 440 wedge), or those who liked "big heavy cars for highway driving." |
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Way back in the late 70s a friend bought a ford maverick for his wife. It had a small V8 with a auto trans. When you started it on a cold morning it would go to a fairly high idle. It had drum brakes all around with little or no power boost. When you kicked in reverse to back out of the drive or a parking space you had to kick it into neutral to stop it . Literally could not slow it in reverse with the shit brakes it had. Only had it for a month and it had been backed into stuff 4 or 5 times. Pisser was that the tempeture had to be just right for the high idle to kick in . Of course when it was warm it wasn't too bad so the dealer wouldn't do anything about it. My friend sold it for a big loss (money he didn't have at the time) before somebody he knew got killed with it. I personally owned a 1976 (bought new) 3/4 ton chevy with the big 6 (292?). With the smog crap on that truck it only got about 10-12 MPG no matter how I drove it. At the time I worked for a guy who had a 60 series chevy straight truck with a boom crane on it.This truck had a 120ft steel boom,generator,battery rack and all sorts of tools in built in boxes . This truck must have weighted 4 or 5 times what my pickup weighed and it had the same engine except it was a tapped out oil burner with 150K mi on it. We would sometimes travel to jobs with both trucks and this heavy damm truck would hardly use more gas than I would going down the the highway one behind the other ! |
Hate to be a nitpicker here but... There were 2 hemi 4 door cop cars made. They were for the FBI, and rarely used. 383s and 440s were common cop motors though. 
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Also the early Ford Ranger and it's 2.9 liter V6. Crank it up and you can nearly listen to the head cracking if you turn the radio down.
I like those 454's they had no horsepower, but monster torque in a light truck. The 2.8 was a V6, but gutless. A friend has an S-10 with nearly 300K in that little 2.8. I hate the 4.6 Ford. Had another friend that bought one of those. Boy, were we in for shock when we realized that the rearmost spark plugs couldn't be changed without pulling the motor. |
Stock-for-stock, the '99-'04 4.6L engines made 260 HP vs. the old 302 making 225 HP. Hot-rodding, on the other hand, is s whole different story. 
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I know those are the published numbers, but I long believed the HP numbers of the 5.0 were intentionally understated by Ford. The 80's 5.0 would run the 1/4 mile in 14.3. The 4.6 had significanly higher HP, on paper, but was slower. |
4.6l also has a nasty habit of blowing plugs out of the heads it's happened twice in my 2000 cvpi. |
Please define, in objective terms, what you believe to be "quick." For example, my wife has a 1997 Toyota Tercel 1.5L that supposedly makes 98 HP stock. It is FAR from "quick." |
You've got that backwards, the Vega had an aluminum block & iron head. Early-mid 70's tech just wasn't ready for unlined aluminum cyl bores. The iron sleeved ones weren't bad. Only Chevy car worth having IMHO.
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Negative. '99-'04 4.6L SOHC Mustangs would run right at 14.0-14.1 in the 1/4 with ANY kind of a competent driver behind the wheel. ETA - 5-speed manual, of course.
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While underpowered, I've got an 86 my son is now driving with235K on the original engine and second tranny. If it were'nt for the rear main (damn one piece seal) leaking, it would still be pretty tight. Of course, recent ice storm in Dallas finally over taxed the windshield wiper motor. Not to mention, of course, the oil pressure light started coming on at idle, so it may finally be time. |
Quick as in very light and not slow. The Festiva could hold its own on the expressway, and around town. It didn't feel like a dog or slow, but the 5 speed manual might have helped things a bit. And the festiva was rated at a blistering 64 HP! |
Don't quote me on this, but IIRC the 4.2L Inline 6 in my parent's Chevy TrailBlazer is all aluminum, and it is good so far. |
My first car was a Dodge Polara 500 with HiPo 383 man that thing was fast My pick would be the Toyota Motorhome |