There it was, staring me straight in the face; a giant black mass of convoluted plumbing, wiring and plastic. Occupying well more than its fair share of my ’72 Camaro’s engine compartment, the factory air conditioning was as big an obtrusion as double the cumbersome factory smog equipment already strangling its underpowered 350. I was a 16-year-old thinking, “What do I need this thing for, anyway?” Like nearly all original A/C systems that I knew of, it too didn’t work. Hell, it barely blew any air. The problem was, I had watched my brother extract the very same air conditioning system from his ’69 Chevelle a few weeks earlier and quickly reconsidered the project. When totaled, the entire bulk of the factory A/C system – including the compressor, condenser, controls, wiring and plumbing – weighed in at a couple hundred pounds.

Nonetheless, the vacated space made by an evicted air condenser that would finally allow me access to my rearmost spark plugs and valve cover bolts, not to mention the weight savings from an already bloated F-Body, still could not convince me of committing my daily driver for the necessary down time. I would just have to live with it. Months following, I stumbled across a similarly split-bumpered early second generation Camaro in a wrinkled and earmarked copy of Car Craft. What struck me hardest about the brilliant yellow Z/28 was not its transplanted big block, Spartan interior, or tall wheel-and-tire setup, it was that this Camaro was a non-A/C, radio-delete car. Ordered from the factory as such, the Camaro touted only the essentials and none of the fluff. I was immediately jealous.

There’s a great story to how Ronnie Sox (pictured in this ad) was able to motivate the ’69 1/2 Dodge Super Bee 440 Six-Pack (Code A12) into the revered 12-second class. After hours of testing and swelling pressure from Chrysler “suits,” Sox cracked into the 12’s by cramming through the gears without using the clutch, achieving a 12.93 pass.

What I needed to learn was that “de-optioned” cars weren’t anything new. The factories understood it, drag racers knew it and the wizened street fighters were keen to it: ditching all unnecessary bells and whistles meant less weight to heave off the line, which meant faster times and checkered flags. Fact is, what shook GM more wasn’t necessarily John DeLorean’s desire to shoehorn a 400-plus-cubic inch plant into an intermediate car, but cramming it into Pontiac’s lowest-optioned intermediate, the Tempest. The Tempest – not the LeMans – was the platform of choice as it carried the least acceleration- and speed-eating options (making it cheap!). It came as no surprise to the factories that kids were ordering stripped-down 409 Super Sports and big block Fords; DeLorean just wanted to shrink down the available size.

The same year I purchased my ’69 Dodge Charger, I attended the first-ever Mopars at the Strip mega-event in Las Vegas, NV. I spotted this T7 Tuscan Bronze Charger 500 sitting next to an identically-hued ’69 R/T. Unlike this non-A/C, manual 4-speed, manual steering-equipped Dodge, the R/T beside it flaunted every imaginable doodad Chrysler provided, including a power sunroof, power windows, primitive vacuum-operated cruise control, a 6-way adjustable electrically-powered driver’s bucket seat, interior light package, power disc brakes, anti-sway bars, and rear window defogger. Even its 426 HEMI couldn’t move that much baggage faster than a high 14-second quarter.

Today, I’ve come to canonize the maxim, “Less is more,” particularly when it comes to muscle cars. I beam with nostalgia discussing the ’68 Plymouth Road Runner: a zero-frills/all-performance muscle car offered in limited colors, even fewer interior options, two choices of engines and transmissions (a 383 4-barrel or 426 HEMI backed by either a 727 TorqueFlite or A833 manual), and not a lot else. The following year was even better with the Road Runner 440 Six Barrel and sibling Dodge Super Bee 440 Six-Pack. Known to purists by their “A12” option code, Chrysler neared fanaticism in its quest for no-frills performance: flat black lift-off hoods, black 8-inch steel rims, fixed rear windows and minimal available creature comforts. If it didn’t save weight or improve performance, it didn’t belong on the Six Pack.

No other car embodies the true spirit of what it is to be a muscle car better than the 440 Six Pack Super Bees and Road Runners – at least in my mind. While this might be polarizing to many, I believe that by their very nature, muscle cars were not intended to appeal to everyone. Malibus, LeMans, Cutlasses, Fairlanes, Polaris’ and Satellites were marketed towards families, businessmen, and commuters, not 428 Cobra Jets, triple-carb’ed 427s and 413 Max Wedges. Even more pointedly, I believe true muscle car guys will be more interested in a car with a factory-installed radio-delete plate than electric-coil seat heaters. While I’d never say, “Go buy a Cadillac if you’re looking for air conditioning, leather interior and other limitless accouterments;” not “having it all” implies exclusivity and that is what a muscle car ought to be.

Light ’em up!
-Kevin

Read Past Editions of “Spinning My Wheels” Here!