The 307s and 350s of that era couldn't pull a robin off its nest.  

see2xu wrote:

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The 307s and 350s of that era couldn't pull a robin off its nest.  

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I'll take it from this post that you've never driven a Pontiac-350 then.
I will stick to my guns in believing that these are grossly under rated engines.

The 1973 & 1974 Pontiac draivtrains were exactly the same;
The day my brother bought his 1973 Formula 350(2bbl/TH350/2.73:1 open rear).
That car would move much better than it should have on paper;
It also had ABSOLUTLEY NO issue roasting the tire(s)!

FYI: there were no 350 4bbl Pontiac engines built between 1970 & 1974 - except for the 74 GTO. The 350/4bbl came back for 1975, was gone again for 1976, but appeared in it's "swan song" year - 1977.

Back to 1974 GTO's, when released, a magazine had a head to head test against a 1964 (389/4bbl) GTO;

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In its May 1974 issue, Cars magazine compared a well-optioned '74 GTO complete with four-speed manual transmission and 3.08 gears to a '64 GTO with a 389 four-barrel engine, automatic transmission, and 3.55 gears. Pontiac performance legend Nunzi Romano of Nunzi's Automotive in Brooklyn, New York, was on hand to perform the comparison. With Romano behind the wheel, the '74 posted a best quarter-mile pass of 15.72 seconds at 88 mph, while the '64 model was slightly quicker, turning 15.64 at 90 mph. Zero-to-60-mph times for the two were similar at 7.7 and 7.4 seconds, respectively. But even though the new model was not as quick, writers raved not only about its performance balance, but also how much ride and handling had improved since its inception.

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That's pretty darn respectable in my opinion.