Yea, but did they get 30 miles to the gallon at 70 mph? Just being funny and taking note of how far cars have advanced.
And the air is so much cleaner so who can fault the early initiative to solve that problem even if it sucked the HP out of the early 70s engines.
A 1969 Impala, the best selling model of the era, would do 0-60 in 10 seconds with the 327 V8. Lucky to get 15 mpg.
A new 4 cyl Camry will do 0-60 in 8.5 sec, and get at least 25 gpm.
The past ain’t what it used to be.
I can. The emissions crap ended up burning more gas and improperly burning gas besides during the combustion cycle. The result was worse emissions when the vehicle was under an actual load. In the smog test shop, idling, they were ‘cleaner’. One of my modded Fords actually smogged cleaner than the spec called for for a fully smogged engine. So I know it’s true. When you actually drove the (factory smogged) things, the pollution was worse than ever. Especially considering they never worked properly to begin with from day 1. It was another govt scam to steer people away from big cars and into shoeboxes.
Once tech got to the point (80s) where functional emissions control were doable without making things worse, the 70s tech was almost entirely scrapped. I think Cats are all that remains.
And today of course, with engine management/fuel injection, many cars actually scrub the air. While still making big power.