While it is true that you can make a brick fly if you put enough money into it, if you look back at the facts, you will clearly see that Ma Mopar truly put out the baddest design.... This was true on the streets as well as the 2 main US sanctioning bodies for car racing: NHRA & NASCAR. Cases in point:
1) NASCAR---when the factories started really getting behind the racing effort in the early 60's, it was Moper that brought out the 426 Hemi and quickly started dominating the sport. Then the wing cars were in the stable and the other manufacturers could no longer compete. SO...... NASCAR took the wing cars away and mandated the 426 HEMI's could not run 2 four barrel carbs any longer. Mopar got with Holley and out came the big Dominator carbs. The Hemi's still won. NASCAR made several rule changes to level the playing field between manufacturers. By the time they got them reasonably even, the Hemi was discontinued as a street powerplant and NASCAR was moving to small block engines. The NASCAR folks were ticked at MOPAR for working through the restrictions, and when the rule mandated that all manufacturers had to run a small block, they pretty much ruled Mopar out. The rule was 355 CI max. The Chebbie 350 and Blue Oval 351 were easy to get up to 355, but the Mopar was only 340 CI which was hard to get to the 355 max and keep high rpm, 500 mile reliability. The Mopar 360 was too large, so Mopar bowed out for years until the rules were changed and the climate for Mopars was improved. NASCAR could just as easy made the rule 360 max and ALL the players could have stayed in the game, but they wanted to punish Mopar.
2) NHRA---In NHRA Pro-Stock in the late 60's and early 70's, Mopar had many Hemi Pro stockers that pretty much took everything....SO.... NHRA mandated that Hemi pro Stockers had to start carrying more weight that the other manufacturers. At 1 point, the Mopar pro stockers were carrying close to 500 lbs MORE than the Camaros and Mustangs they were racing. With the extra 500 pounds, the Mopars could qualify, but near the bottom of the ladder and seldom could win an event. Once again, Mopar got out. The rules were so biased against them, they couldn't reasonably compete. They have raised the max CI for ALL cars in Pro Stock and Mopar competes relatively well again. BTW---the Mopar Pro-Stock program has done very well since they were several years behind the others in actual testing and competition.
3)NHRA--Top Fuel---The Mopar Hemi design has been the dominant engine in this catagory for more than 35 years. Other designs have come along and tried to unseat the Hemi as the King, but they have all failed. The Hemi design is the best performance design to date. 8000 horsepower and mid 4 second ET's pretty much sums it up. Nothing else can duplicate this with the same reliability.
To sum it up, other manufacturers have their engines and their followers, but if you want the dominant powerplants/drivetrains, then the choice is crystal clear............. MOPAR RULES!!!!
