Lack of charisma can be fatal.
Visca Catalunya!
Do you have a link with info on that '59 Allemano? I would like to read up on it. Do you know what rear axle ratio it had?
As for the Pontiacs, they had 3.90, 4.30 and 4.56:1 rear axles, that's why they were faster than the other cars I posted which had much milder gearing.
In fact, I've read that the top two things you can do to a '50s-'70s American car to make it faster is to change to a lower rear axle ratio and put on a set of headers.
As an experiment, a muscle car magazine hopped up a '71 Plymouth Satellite with a 318 V-8. They did things like put on a bigger carb, dual exhuasts, wider tires, etc. They found that just installing a set of 4.30:1 gears replacing the factory 2.93s made the car 1 and 1/2 seconds faster in the 1/4 mile. Just by changing the rear axle ratio!
'76 Cadillac Fleetwood Seventy-Five Limousine, '95 Lincoln Town Car.
Lack of charisma can be fatal.
Visca Catalunya!
After checking that site and others, I have found that only 34 '59-'65 Maserati 5000 GTs were built and only 2 in 1959. This, of course, compared to the tens of thousands of Cadillacs/Lincolns/Imperials/DeSotos built. So the 5000 GT could be considered a (very) limited production car, maybe even an exotic.
I did find out that the rear axle ratio of the 5000 GT is 3.54:1 and that several sources list a weight of around 3,600 lbs.
This one Maserati 5000 GT - Supercars.net lists a weight of 3,642.
'76 Cadillac Fleetwood Seventy-Five Limousine, '95 Lincoln Town Car.
There were different bodies made by italian coachbuilders for the 5000 GT, which might explain the differences in weight you find.
And the Maserati might be a limited production car but I quoted it because it had a similar power to weight ration yet much bette performance. It's not Maserati's fault if the Americans didn't know how to make it better...
Lack of charisma can be fatal.
Visca Catalunya!
Yeah, it could be the different bodies.
Again, gearing makes a big difference in performance. And in some cases, you are comparing that car with 3.54:1 gears to Cads/Lincolns/Imperials with 3.00 or 3.07 gearing. Also, you are comparing with cars that have a relatively mildly tuned engine. The engines in the Cad/Lincolns/Imperials were not high-performance engines, whereas the Maserati's was.
As for the American's "not making it better," those driving the early '60s Pontiacs would probably have something to say about that!
'76 Cadillac Fleetwood Seventy-Five Limousine, '95 Lincoln Town Car.
THe Chryslers seem to be goingthrough the slalom at a much slower speed
"Kimi, can you improve on your [race] finish?"
"No. My Finnish is fine; I am from Finland. Do you have any water?"
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