Where European cars feared to tread

[dog ear]

Many of you may have wondered where this tread is / was going? Well, it is one theme that I have not forgotton about on this site. While my focus will center around decidedly 50s - 60s American iron, I invite your input and welcome your opinion. Hopefully, you will also inspire some controversry and post your own personal pictorials / articles / quotes / info on other cars that you feel should be included on this tread. They don't have to be American in origin. If you think that certain cars would have been competitive in both drag racing and stock car racing against American marques then please feel free to enlighten our readers with your selections.

Now then, my next pick for 50s supremacy on drag strips and stock car tracks will be the 1957 Chevy ''Black Widow'' 150 Utility Sedan, or "Business Coupe." It was a special engineering model back-doored out of the Southern Engineering and Development Company; a NASCAR firm with close ties to Chevrolet. You can read all about it in the following links provided below.

http://www.57chevyblackwidow.com/qanda.html
http://1957chevyblackwidow.blogspot.ca/
http://www.oldcarmanualproject.com/b...uide/index.htm

This model Chevy was raced with the infamous 283 in either duel-four barrel or fuel injected form. Both versions were very fast in their day. Street versions were few but the basic engine combo was widely available in other (heavier) models and they were soon to become iconic symbols of Americana.

The engine itself would be modified and engineered by countless racers and capable of enormous feats. It was revered, respected and thrashed in various displacements, but the most well-known bully-boy was the 301. In 1967, Chevrolet designed a new engine that was already under development in the hot rod industry for ten years. It was market specific and introduced as the 302 in the newly developed Z/28 Camaro. It was the ''classic'' hot-rod 301 in bore and stroke, with a more rugged block cast in-house at Chevrolet. The bad-boy had thus become legitimized as a regular production option.

The ‘’Black Widow’’ was capable of mid to high 15-second quarter miles and a top speed of 130 mph. That was heady stuff in 1957. Very few cars were as quick and nimble for the money. Fewer remained as competitive for so long after initial production.