Torque.... how much is needed for a pickup ?
I see we have somewhere in the vicinity of 750- 800 ft. lbs. of torque in 2014 pickups, with turbo diesel engines. A number of years ago 450-500 ft. lbs of torque was considered a torquemeister. ...
Forum Discussion
Artum Snowbird wrote:
As a teen in the late sixties I remember reading my Father's Popular Mechanics from the late 50's. Tom McCahill used to report on cars then and he tested a 50 something car and I still recall his words as he reported on the engine having just over 100 HP. "I think that the internal combustion engine for automobiles has about reached it's potential, and personally I am glad it has...".
As I was reading this from ten to fifteen years earlier, it was Dodge 440 six pack time, huge Mopar mills... how times change.
Uncle Tom a great auto writer. Many say that he was the innovator of the 0-60 mph performance criteria and the man who developed the modern American style road test. BTW, he wrote for Mechanics Illustrated, not Popular Mechanics.:)
He also indicated that in the late '60's the average hp was around 300. HP did increase annually back then or so it seemed....till '71.
In 1970 one could buy a 450 HP/454 cube (LS 6) Chevelle SS ( a Univ. buddy had one)...a 425 HP/426 Hemi...and Ford had a significantly under rated Cobra Jet 428 cube V8 (335 hp)....that really put out something like 410-425 HP.
Then emissions, different ways of rating power, insurance rates all conspired to drop the average HP of the average '70's, early '80's car waaaay down.
