Anyone remember Sunoco 260?
 

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcQX3QibtMQ"]1970s Sunoco Dry Gasoline Commercial with 260 octane! - YouTube[/ame]

I remember back in the day when you would pull into a Sunoco station and you would dial-in the octane level that you wanted. Actually you would sit in your car and wait for the attendant to come to your window and ask you what you wanted. While he was pumping your gas he would also wash your windshield and check your oil. I think 260 amounted to about 108 octane.
Those were the days!

Why so much octane for old low compression V8's? haha I wish they had this now though!

@WNDSRFR
http://www.racegas.com/fuel/index
I'm pretty sure you can still find it at specific stations near a track or something.
They were transitioning to unleaded fuels around the early 70's

Guess- unleaded fuels made less power, also carburetors, and drag racing for fun wasn't frowned upon as much as today. Lean it out=more chance for knocking, but more power. Higher octane= more power and less chance to knock.

E85 gave me ~10-15hp over 91. Imagine a car with 2x the cylinders and 3x the displacement. 20-30hp from switching to high octane doesn't sound too unreasonable.

I remember. LOL
but you don't gain HP from octane unless the engine is running poorly on lower octane fuel.
And many hi performance V8's in the day had high compression as is today. It's just more prevalent in daily drivers now.
Back then you built your high compression engine or ordered it from the factory.

Old engines were not low compression. I took one of my 327 Chevy engines and bumped it from factory 11.5:1 to 12.5:1. Old leaded premium was great gasoline. Many American v8 engines exceeded 10:1 stock. Several muscle cars came with 12:1 and greater.

I've got a few cans of it at home (260GT plus), they still make and sell it.

A lot of the guys in my area ran it in their cars. Many of us had Jahns pistons which were cast and thus relatively inexpensive compared to the ForgedTrue pistons that the pros used. I had 12 to 1 pistons in my Chevy as did a lot of other guys and there was a great big Sunoco station in the heart of downtown Bethesda, MD, where we got our gas.

I had an old Willys CJ5 with a built 225ci V6 and 5.38's in the diffs that ran ~12:1. I had to run octane booster and lead additive or it ran like crap. A couple of times when I was down on the California coast I filled it with 108 and that thing would do fkn wheelies! Wish I hadn't wrecked it...

When I built the 440 magnum up for my Coronet R/T I took an engine that came stock at 11:1 to almost 14:1. It ran great on leaded but barely even ran on low octane unleaded. I am pretty sure if I had pushed it I would have ended up with a basket full of smashed engine parts in a hurry.

When I had that Jeep here on the east coast I couldn't get leaded fuel or lead additive so I actually parked it for a short time. I had to have a friend out west send me a few bottles just so I could drive the thing without it being a backfiring, smoke snorting animal.

I have a 1955 Chevy pickup hot rod. It runs a 327 Chevy engine (modern Dart Pro 1 Aluminum heads) with 10:1 compression on 64cc heads and flat top Keith Black hypereutectic pistons. No problems with unleaded premium 93 octane as long as I don't lug it. But it is marginal. Race gas works lots better. It had 11.5:1 forged pistons when I goit it and would rattle with the old stock cast 64cc heads. This engine (340 dyno HP) really needed premium.