Ram Air IV GTO vs Chevelle SS 454 LS6 – 1/4 mile Drag Race Video and Massive Burnout – Road Test TV

A 1969 GTO Ram Air IV, one of only 759 built that year, takes on a 1970 Chevelle SS454 LS6, Chevrolet’s most powerful factory big block of the era, in a quarter-mile pass that ends in a burnout as memorable as the race itself. An original LS6 owner in the comments confirms the car’s biggest weakness was never power, it was getting that much torque to the pavement. The Ram Air IV gives up 80 horsepower on paper but does not give up the fight. Watch the full run to see how it closes the gap.

Some engines get remembered as legends. Others get remembered as the answer nobody expected, the option box on the order form that almost nobody checked but that quietly out-performed the cars everyone assumed would win. This race puts one of Pontiac’s rarest, most overlooked factory options against Chevrolet’s biggest of the big blocks, an engine so powerful that period owners have spent fifty years describing the same problem: it made more torque than the tires of 1970 knew what to do with. One of these two cars is about to prove that underrated does not mean slower.

An Underrated Engine Meets Chevrolet’s Biggest Big Block

The Pontiac in this race is a 1969 GTO built with the Ram Air IV option, an engine package so limited that Pontiac only installed it in 759 GTOs that entire model year, a fraction of total GTO production. The Ram Air IV’s 400 cubic inch V8 carried a factory rating of 370 horsepower, built around round-port cylinder heads and a more aggressive camshaft than the standard Ram Air III option, tuned specifically to make its power higher in the rev range rather than off idle.

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759 Built, and Almost Nobody Remembers

Its opponent is a 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS equipped with the LS6 454, Chevrolet’s single most powerful factory big block of the entire muscle car era. Chevrolet built 4,475 LS6 Chevelles that year, a larger run than the Ram Air IV GTO but still a genuinely rare option relative to total Chevelle production. Rated at 450 horsepower with a solid-lifter valvetrain and 11.25:1 compression, the LS6 needed premium fuel and a driver who knew how to manage that much low-end torque without simply melting the rear tires. That compression ratio alone put the LS6 firmly in race-fuel territory by later-1970s standards, one of several reasons GM would never build anything quite like it again once emissions regulations reshaped the entire big block lineup within just a few years.

What an Original LS6 Owner Says About That Burnout

One commenter who identifies as an original owner of an LS6 Chevelle, having purchased the car new in February of 1970, described exactly that problem from personal experience: the LS6 was more than fast enough, but getting it to actually put that power to the ground through period-correct tires, regardless of which brand or compound he tried, was a constant fight. That firsthand account lines up precisely with what the video’s own title promises, a massive burnout that has as much to do with tire technology as it does with driver error.

Two Different Philosophies for Making Power

Pontiac built the Ram Air IV around an entirely different philosophy than Chevrolet’s brute-force approach with the LS6. Where the 454 leaned on sheer cubic inches and low-end grunt, the Ram Air IV’s round-port heads and higher-revving camshaft were designed to keep making power further up the tachometer, trading some off-idle torque for a stronger pull as engine speed climbed. On paper it gives up 80 cubic inches and 80 horsepower to the Chevelle, numbers that would suggest a lopsided race in the big block’s favor.

Why the Trap Speed Told a Different Story

The actual result does not play out that way, and viewers in the comments have specifically called the Ram Air IV a highly underrated engine for exactly that reason, noting that it gave the Chevelle all it could handle and even posted a higher trap speed through the lights despite giving up significant displacement. That outcome is a direct result of the Pontiac’s higher-rpm power delivery paying off exactly where it is designed to, in the second half of the run rather than off the line.

What These Two Cars Still Mean to Their Fans

Several commenters used the video as an opportunity to reflect on what these two cars represented in period, with one describing the entire 68-through-72 window of GM A-body muscle cars as simply looking right while also backing it up on the strip. That combination, styling that has aged into genuine design classics alongside factory performance that still holds up against modern comparisons, is a big part of why cars like this Chevelle and GTO remain two of the most collected muscle cars from the entire era.

Just How Rare Both Options Really Were

The rarity gap between these two options is worth sitting with directly. A 759-unit production run for the Ram Air IV GTO means that even Pontiac dealers in 1969 rarely stocked one, and most buyers who wanted a Ram Air GTO ended up with the more common Ram Air III instead. The LS6’s 4,475-unit run sounds larger by comparison, but it still represented a small fraction of total 1970 Chevelle production, and a solid-lifter, premium-fuel-only big block was never going to be an easy sell to buyers who just wanted a comfortable daily driver. Pontiac dealers who did stock a Ram Air IV car often had it special-ordered by a specific customer rather than sitting on the showroom floor, which is part of why surviving, documented examples are so difficult to authenticate today.

More Torque Than 1970 Tires Could Handle

What both engines share, despite their different approaches to making power, is a reputation among period owners for genuinely overwhelming the drivetrain and tire technology available to Detroit in 1969 and 1970. Radial tires were not yet standard equipment, rear suspension geometry on both platforms was still evolving to handle this much torque, and both the Ram Air IV and LS6 required a driver who respected exactly how much power was on tap the moment the clutch came out.

What Fifty Years of Modern Tires Finally Settles

Fifty years on, watching these two engines settle their argument on a modern strip with modern tires available is about as close as anyone gets to seeing the factory’s original intent play out the way Pontiac and Chevrolet engineers actually designed it. Watch how the gap opens and closes through the run, and decide for yourself whether cubic inches or camshaft design deserved to win this one.

See the full video above and join the conversation in the comments.

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