A little help... So I have been pouring through some old drag news newspapers for 1964 and I am curious what is the difference between S/S (S/SA Automatic) and SS/A(SS/AA automatic) I have seen the superstocks marked as both and in the literature... Any Thoughts thanks
I see that you have not had many hits on this but I'll try to help. I raced a SS/JA car 1968- 70. SS/ =Super stock The next character was the class ABCDEFGHIJ etc. Cubic inches and weight. The added A indicated automatic. Sometimes I got into HS/A and had some kinda fun!
Your S/S would be "S"/Stock, if it was an automatic trans car, then "A", for automatic, would follow the classification. The prior poster is correct with SS being Super Stock, with the same classification of "A" if it was an automatic trans car. Manual trans cars were't "noted" however. So, you're actually referring to two separate classes, Stock and Super Stock. The classes have changed GREATLY over the years, and the old (prior to 72) Stock classes were actually composed of THREE "levels" of Stock; Top Stock was "A" to "F", Junior Stock "G" to "N", and Little Stock "O" to "W", but even those "levels" were juggled around from year to year (CONFUSING!!!). Things are even more confusing now, and far more screwed up. Butch/56sedandelivery.
I have to correct myself here. It was not cubic inches to weight but advertised HP to weight that established a class. The factories would oftentimes underrate the HP to gain advantage. And I did not cheat in HS/A it was H/SA, I could run 1 1/2 seconds under the record . I raced on the same track as Gordon Collett and after he made a couple of passes I tried to get the other lane as the asphalt was rippled up in the lane that he used !
George think of S/S or S/SA as more of a early to mid 60's "Factory Experimental" that morfed into A/FX and then into Funny Car. The racers who stayed with carbs and gasoline became SS/# or SS/#A using the previously explained advertised horsepower divided into factory shipping weight to determine your class. The racers who got tired of the numbers game, breakout racing, and politics went and started Pro Stock. I absolutely love Stock and Super Stock. You're bound to see just about anything running in it.
Uh,I Don't think so, a S/S or a S/SA car would have been something like a 60 falcon with a 144 inch engine. Might maybe run the 1/4 in 22 seconds, not a F/X or anything like that.
Super/Stock was a class in the early sixties for the cars with the high output engines such as the 348 Chevy and 352 Fords, then came the higher horse 348 and the 390/401 Ford which led up to the 409 and 406. To keep these new engines from running with the older engines they added Super Super/Stock. This carried over sometimes into the early '63 era at some tracks. Super Stock was just the highest class in Stock. They later converted to the Super Stock/with a letter designation for cars with some differences than the standard "Stock/with a letter designation, which fell its on eliminator. It was a lot about sanctioning body and track rules in some places. This is from a Southern point of view. I helped with a '62 Ford with a 2X4 "406" and we often ran against a '62 Chevy 2X4 409 in SS/S and there was a '61 390/401 Ford that ran S/S at the same track. 427 and 426 wedge Mopars also ran SS/S, a 413 Mopar was still a S/S.
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