By 1968, people were wondering what happened to Solstice. There had hardly been any news regarding them for nearly a decade. However, the truth was that Solstice was very much alive and kicking. During the years between 1961 and 1968, we had been trying to develop a car that does
everything. It had to be comfortable, look awesome, sound equally as awesome and be
extremely powerful. Thus, after many years of failed tests and destroyed engines, the Fleetwood was born.
Named after the town in Lancashire, the Fleetwood was our attempt at making the perfect car for the 60s. It featured a 2 door design that seemed to be popular at the time, had 4 seats, a 4 speed manual transmission and a
massive 426ci V-8 engine.
Originally, we had planned for the car to have a 2.8L I-4. It very nearly made it to production, but reliability became a huge problem, and there just was no market for 2.8L Inline 4 engines. So eventually we just came to the conclusion that we should just screw it and put the biggest engine we had in there. Performance wise this car was unmatched for its time. It could take you from 0-62 MPH in 6.1 seconds, 50-75 in 3.1 seconds and could run down the quarter mile in just 14.10 seconds. Cornering however... let's not talk about cornering.
The engine was a brand new 426ci, cast iron V-8. What separated this engine from the rest at the time was the fact that it didn't use an OHV system, like all of the previous Solstice engines had, and most of the American V-8s had at the time. It creates an incredible 428 horsepower @ 5000 RPM & 469 ft-lb of torque @ 3900 RPM. The thing that really made us love this car was its incredible sound. Have a listen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4qGBYq8 ... e=youtu.be