I've seen here and out in public the whole metric vs. Harley vs. Sportbike thing. Yesterday I was watching Desert Car Kings and they rebuilt a '68 Charger 383. When they were done, they took it down the 1/4 mile. It ran in the 19's !!! Granted that is super slow even for a base Charger of the time. Bottom line was that it looked super cool, sounded super cool and could do burnouts at will. Every stock muscle car with the exception of the special big motor ones, will get beat by a V6 Camry. Most guys would still want one though. I remember my 67 Mustang, and I wish I still had it. It had a 289 and it was slow by todays standards. It had chrome in all the right places, the exhaust sounded sweet and it would shake the car when you revved the engine. I believe Harleys have been and still are like those muscle cars. You don't buy them for their performance, its for the satisfaction you get when you ride one.

 

I agree.

I was telling a friend of mine that Harleys aren't as fast as sport bikes, but the reason they lose in a race is because the race isn't long enough. Put a Harley against a sport bike in an 800 mile speed limit race, and a Harley will win every time.

 

I would give up any of my new cars to have my '67 mustang again. Drum brakes and all. My '69 firebird would be second.

 

About 10 years ago a co-worker gave me a '69 Firebird it had a 350 with auto trans and the center console,that I gave to my son. It was as close to a barn find as you can get. We got it running and he used it as his dd for a few years. But all his friends had newer cars with fi and working AC, and he decided he wanted that to. So he sold it at a profit, and bought a newer car. He loved that car just like everyone loves their first.,,

 

My first (and last) real performance car was a 66 Corvair.

Don't laugh, this sleeper had a fliped rear end (to bring the engine into the passenger compartment), removed the rear seat, added a Chevy small block V8, Hi-perf 12.5-1 pistons, 1/4 race cam, Holley 650-4, headers, 60's on the front, 50's on the rear, rumbled like a Harley and would smoke the tires till you said stop. Not for the timid.

Did the 1/4 mile in 8.4-5 and was typical looking except for the tires (and the big venturi sticking up where the back seat was).

It was a blast for 1 year.

 

Id love a GT500 or the new Boss 302. Old stangs look cool but performance wise they just don't match up. Another you have to consider is those old cars get terrible gas mileage.

 

scariest car I ever owned was a 1969 Pontiac 428 Grand Prix SJ. That thing would fly, and I could outrun the V8 mustang of the 80's in it. All of my Pontiacs were fast compared to my Chevys. The Chevys sounded like there were going a million miles an hour when you stepped on it, but in reality they were just creeping away

 

Exactly. Race me on a road trip from San Diego to Miami and let's see who gets there first. I can do 800 mile days, day after day. How many on sport bikes can do this?

The two are utterly different machines with little in common other than that they have two wheels. One is a racing machine with a headlite and license plate on it and the other is a coast to coast touring machine built to run 200,000 miles or more. Find me a sport bike with 200k on it...

When I get back from the road trip to Illinois that I'm currently on my Road King with have over 75,000 miles on it. It's just barely broken in and is running better than it ever has.

 

My dad and I rebuilt a '56 Ford Thunderbird growing up, he gave me the title to the car when I graduated. That car was the envy of all my friends. It was two toned green and had glasspacks for exhaust.
It was louder than any harley on the road and you could hear me coming from 15 miles away. Nothing in the world was sweeter than that car.

I lost it in a divorce to my first wife. Some how the judge decided that it was concidered community property and she got that car while I ended up with a '79 Nova. Grrrr.

She ended up selling that car for $1,000 to a kid who ended up wrecking it 2 weeks later.

That is an extremely sore subject with me, even 20+ years later.....

It was fast, loud and had style, but our 2010 Mitsubishi would defiantly bet it on the long haul.

It got 8mpg when hot-rodding it, 11mpg on the freeway.

 

Just like my '53 H-D- it's a 74 cid, 4 speed, rigid frame, 6 volt- but when you ride it the feeling has a quality to it the new bikes can't match.

It's kind of a hot rod, but in the old sense- like a jalopy, all fun and cool.