Knudsen and the 400 inch rule was GM....Chrysler and Ford never went along with it....by 1969, GM was producing a 455 in the Olds and the ban was down the tubes
Yes, Daytona, you are absolutely correct. Chryco didn't
have to follow that ban, but in keeping marketable with a comparable product, the Challenger was envisioned to be a.) that stopgap in the void created by the Camaro and Mustang, and b.) a lithe maneuverable platform, similar to the A-body. The car wasn't intended to have the R/B powerplant, because frankly, in 1967, it wasn't needed. The Camaro had the 396, The Mustang had the 390. Now, Oldsmobile essentially gave Knudsen the finger when they built the built the Hurst Olds. Money walks, 442s were a hit, and the ban was lifted. This gave Chrysler a paradox, albeit a small one. The big gun was originally going to be the 383, but in engineering and styling making concessions to each other utilized that bigger b-body box, so if needed be, the big guns could be fitted in that compartment. The Chassis was still intended to be the B motor's home, but throwing bigger torsion bars on the front of the car had little effect on the fact that 716 lbs. of pig iron in the nose was up front-combined with a shorter overhang in the back than its B-body bretheren. I remember an installment on John Sloan's article "Challenger Confidential" back in '94 on HPM, where a exec took a big block home one night to awaken to a light dusting of snow, and the nose-heavy car just spun and spun that rear tire. Even with the longer wheelbase than the 'Cuda, the Challys still had that problem. Again, my avatar picture is a 1967 sketch of a car envisioned to be a chassis more akin to an A-body, with a tightly packaged 383 sitting lower and farther behind. Like I said, concessions changed that. Dodge, in a sense was making a Camaro from Chevelle parts, not Nova parts.
KFD
