From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!seismo!rlgvax!guy Newsgroups: net.auto Title: Re: Re: Most Powerful Street Legal Car in US Article-I.D.: rlgvax.1096 Posted: Thu Feb 24 21:07:50 1983 Received: Fri Feb 25 07:22:23 1983 Well, something happened in 1973 that made such cars a bit less desirable... Also consider than the 400+ CI engines were not exactly the car companies bread and butter (many of them were detuned racing engines), so as the DOT required more safety and emissions work, the money went to that instead of big-block engines. Of course, Mercedes-Benz still made the 450SEL 6.9 up until 3 or so years ago... Note that 400+ horsepower was SAE gross horsepower until some point in the early 1970's, when GM (and probably the others) switched to SAE net. Making the engine run such useful accessories as fans and generators (and whatever else is involved in SAE net) tended to cut the output a bit; the Car&Driver with the article on the 1984(!) Corvette has a bit on the history of the 'Vette which implies that close to 100 HORSEPOWER was "lost" when GM changed from SAE gross to SAE net. As for the Turbo Carrera, it's not currently being imported by Porsche (although there are compliance shops bringing it in). Guy Harris RLG Corporation ...!decvax!mcnc!rlgvax!guy