Ive had a few friends tell me that back in the day with the early classic Mustangs that Ford lied about how much horsepower the engines made so they could keep insurance down on the cars. I was wondering if anybody as ever heard anything about this? For example Ford rated the 1973 351C 2v at only 177HP. Now i know MT doesnt have that many early Mustang guys but any help would be appreciated.

 

It wasnt just Ford, there where alot of muscle cars that where under rated.

 

I'm probably more knowledgable about the older stangs than most anyone on here and I can assure you underrating HP is an old trick. Certainly ford did it, get any Mustang book covering the older cars and you can read about it, especially the '67-'71 cars.

 

In the case of the 99 cobra you aren't kidding...

 

he said under-rating, not over-rating...

 

in the case of the 1973 351 clevland, i wouldnt have any problems with trusting those numbers.....new fuel emmissions standards were passed in 1971 and the muscle car era began to die with gas shortages and what not.....the technology that was out in those engines was made to increase gas milage and it wasnt perfected thus the low hrspwr numbers....the funny thing is, gas milage was hardly better.

 

And i was implying that ford lying is nothing new....

 

HP numbers were lowered mainly for insurance purposes. Its not an uncommon thing for sportscars.

The 03/04 Cobra's were underrated...so its nothing that stopped from the old musclecar days .

 

Boss 302's were one of the most widely known underated ford vehicles.