The first car my father bought was a Fiat 500, which was traded for his Kreidler moped and three piglets, because my mama was pregnant and the cattle trader he did business with, said he shouldnt move his pregnant wife around on the back of a moped. He was right offcourse.
Anyways, a few years after, my father became a reknown pig breeder and sold his breeding gelts all over the country. Therefor he needed a trailer and a car capable of towing one.
His first "real" car was a Ford Taunus 2.3 liter V6. He thought a six pot would be the proper engine to tow. Boy he was wrong, it pulled 80 in 3rd, but when shifting to 4th it died down back to 60 pretty quick. After a year he changed it for a
B21 powered Volvo 244, which was a smaller four cylinder, with (compared to other gas engines) a boatload of torque. On the drag strip the Taunus would win by three car lengths because of its higher power at screamin'high revs, but the Volvo had a flat torque curve.
Most older gas engines (at least in Europe) were tuned for max horsepower for the given engine displacement, which in the time of single carburettors and 2 valves per cylinder, meant that there was no torque at low rpm. Engines like the Volvo
B21 and B23 had low maximum power but a much wider torque band. UNLESS you went for the high-end carburettors that were not found on most average joe production models.
I think the old flathead V8's despite their low power to displacement ratio, put out a similar or even better torque figure (i mean the flat curve, not absolute numbers) than nowadays fuel injected, variable cam high performance engines.
Also, other cars didnt go fast either so you wouldnt notice you were slow when towing.
