Muscle Car Brake Upgrades. Bobby Kimbrough
patented the disc brake in 1902, which was little more than soft copper brake pad linings that moved against a metal disc, transferring heat better but screeching brutally when applied.
Another British inventor, Herbert Frood, developed brake pads using asbestos as the lining. This quieted the braking action and gave Frood acknowledgment as the inventor of the brake pad by having developed a more efficient frictional surface. Asbestos was used in brake linings into the 1980s, when health concerns forced the mineral’s removal from the automotive industry.
In the United States, one of the first to manufacture drum brakes was the A. H. Raymond Co. of Bridgeport, Connecticut, which opened in 1902 as a four-man shop that built brakes, brake linings, and clutch facings. Renamed Royal Equipment Co. by 1904, the company continued to improve brakes, particularly with a natural silica material called asbestos and copper-wire brake lining known as Raybestos.
These Raybestos brake linings were sold as double acting brakes. Advertising reported the double action as the ability to stop forward or backward motion. This claim left motorists believing that stopping in both directions was impossible before.
Duesenberg began putting brakes on the front wheels as well as the rear wheels in races during the 1915 events. This allowed the cars to carry speed longer before braking to enter corners. This setup required the driver to use a separate foot brake and hand brake to control the braking. A unit that combined both brakes into one pedal to operate the four brakes didn’t come along until 1919.
Chrysler Corporation Muscle Cars Front Disc Brake Offerings
Shown here is a 1970 Dodge Charger R/T. The standard engine on the R/T was the 375-hp 440-ci 4-barrel. For a few hundred dollars more, consumers could have the 425-hp 426-ci Hemi. For 1970, there was also the 390-hp 440-ci with a trio of Holley 2-barrels.
Dodge 330 1962–1964: Front and rear drum brakes were offered.
Dodge 440 1963–1964: Front and rear drum brakes were offered.
Dodge Challenger 1969–1974: Front disc brakes were standard.
Dodge Charger 1966–1975: Front disc brakes were an option from 1967.
Dodge Coronet 1965–1975: Front disc brakes were an option from 1967.
Dodge Dart 1959–1975: Front disc brakes were optional in 1965 and standard on the Swinger in 1970. They did not become standard on all models until 1976.
Dodge Lancer 1961–1962: Front and rear drum brakes were offered.
Dodge Polara 1962–1964: Front and rear drum brakes were offered.
Dodge Super Bee 1968–1971: Front and rear drum brakes were offered.
Plymouth Barracuda 1964–1974: Disc brakes were optional starting in 1965.
Plymouth Belvedere 1955–1970: Front and rear drums were offered. Front disc brakes were optional from 1967 on.
Plymouth Duster 1970–1975: Front disc brakes were standard on 318 and 340 models starting in 1973.
Plymouth Fury 1961–1964/1974–1975: Front and rear drum brakes were offered from 1961–1964. Front disc brakes were standard from 1974 on.
Plymouth GTX 1966–1971: Front and rear drum brakes were offered. Front disc brakes were optional from 1967 on.
Plymouth Road Runner 1968–1975: Front disc brakes were optional from 1968.
Plymouth Satellite 1964–1974: Front and rear drums were offered. Front disc brakes were optional from 1967 on.
Plymouth Savoy 1962–1964: Front and rear drum brakes were offered.
Plymouth Superbird 1970: Front disc brakes were offered.
Plymouth Valiant 1960–1975: Power front disc brakes were available in the Scamp package in 1974 and later. ■
Ford did not offer hydraulic brakes until the 1940s, so many of the 1932 Roadsters seen today with hydraulic drum brakes are perfect examples of the earliest OEM-style brake swaps.
Hydraulic Brakes
About the same time, Malcolm Loughead (Lockheed Corporation) designed the first hydraulic braking system. Mechanical brakes, which were a simple design, required more effort from the driver, and unless the system was maintained frequently, the brakes did not apply pressure to all wheels evenly, causing control issues.
The Model A Duesenberg was the first production car to use four-wheel hydraulic brakes in 1921. Very few cars used the four-wheel hydraulic brakes in manufacturing until 1923. Chalmers began offering this as an option for the fairly steep price of $75, which is about $1,053 today.
Walter P. Chrysler, a product of the Chalmers company before starting his own car company, used the four-wheel hydraulic brakes based on the Chalmers system, but Chrysler’s were fully redesigned. Incorporating rubber cup seals in place of the leaky rawhide seals that Lockheed used, the Chrysler hydraulic brakes were more dependable. Loughead allowed Chrysler to use his design as long as he was able to use Chrysler’s improvements.
The new system was referred to as the Chrysler-Lockheed hydraulic brakes and was used in Chryslers from 1924 to 1962. Undeterred by the cost to make such a system, Buick and Cadillac also began to make four-wheel brakes standard equipment on their cars. Car builders that did not want to offer the four-wheel brakes made outrageous claims that they were unsafe. By the end of the decade, it was clear that four-wheel brakes were not only here to stay, they were the standard.
As hydraulic brakes continued to improve, more and more manufacturers opted to use the hydraulic brake system over the durable mechanical brakes. Chevrolet and Ford were holdouts until Bendix, the company that supplied General Motors with mechanical brakes, bought out Lockheed and began manufacturing hydraulic brakes. General Motors then switched to hydraulic four-wheel brakes for all of its cars in the mid-1930s. Ford continued with mechanical brakes until the early 1940s, when it finally adopted the hydraulic brakes. Ford was the last automaker to do so.
Strangely enough, mechanical brakes are still common on many muscle cars. Parking brake systems, such as this Wilwood brake system, still use brake shoes and cable actuation for the parking brake. Brake shoes work well in this fashion because they are only used to hold the car in one spot and not to slow the car down at speed.
Chrysler’s Crown Imperial was always a top-of-the-line luxury car, but it could have been argued that it was an early entry into the muscle car market. Advances in power and braking made the Crown Imperial a favorite to many, but high cost and extravagant styling moved the marquee out of the muscle car arena before the movement even began. This 1957 example shows the tipping point when luxury won out over performance in the nameplate.
Post-War Developments
Disc brake technology improved in large part due to the automotive industry borrowing designs from World War II aircraft. Chrysler’s 1949 Crown Imperial and the 1950 Crosley Hotshot are the most notable of these examples.
Initially, the hydraulic brake master cylinders were a single-reservoir-type system. In the early 1960s, the hydraulic brakes and hydraulic clutch