The relationship between unloaded shortening velocity and Ca2+ concentration was determined for hog carotid arterial smooth muscle cells, freshly isolated by digestion with papain. Cells were exposed to various [Ca2+] for 60 s at 37 degrees C and then stimulated with 10 microM histamine. Cell length was measured by a video analysis system. Shortening velocity was expressed as an exponential rate constant by fitting the cell lengths to the following equation: length = Lmin + (Lmax-Lmin)exp[-v (time-latency)], where Lmax is length before contraction, Lmin is shortest length reached, time is time elapsed after addition of agonist, latency is time from addition of agonist until contraction starts, and v is the exponential rate constant (s-1). Cells shortened substantially, usually reaching one-fourth to one-third of their initial length within 1 min. Shortening velocities of the cells were much faster than published values of maximum shortening velocity in muscle strips from this same tissue. At 1.6 mM Ca2+, v was 0.173 +/- 0.015 s-1. When Ca2+ was increased to 5 or 10 mM, v was not significantly different. However, when Ca2+ was decreased to 0.5 and 0.16 mM, v increased to 0.288 and 0.258 s-1, respectively. The difference between 0.5 and 1.6 mM was significant. The unexpected increase in shortening velocity at low Ca2+ was also seen when 10 mM caffeine was used as a stimulus: v at 1.6 mM Ca2+ was 0.156 s-1, whereas v at 0.16 mM Ca2+ was 0.272 s-1. The high shortening velocities we measured suggest that measurements made on multicellular tissues seriously underestimate the potential shortening velocity of isolated individual cells.