[Big Dave]

Jamesqf posted;

“…introduced things like variable valve timing & electronic fuel injection, and all of a sudden their engines were getting lower emissions AND better performance.”


Big Dave says:

“All of a sudden” in reality means a twenty to thirty year time frame. When the first anti-pollution regs came out in 1973, car performance fell off the cliff. It began to come back in the mid 90s and had caught up to 1970 levels by the early twenty-first century.

Yup. Today’s cars are better than those of the 1960s – a 2004-2006 GTO will run off and hide from the classic Goat and stop, and handle, and even get better mileage – but we were in the wilderness for a quarter of a century. “Sudden” is not a word that fits this process.