MovieChat Forums > Vanishing Point (1971) Discussion > What is the history of the muscle car?

What is the history of the muscle car?

posted 15 years ago by pullgees
5 replies | jump to latest

I heard you can trace it back to moonshine running and hotrods is this correct? But there must have also been pressure from the UK imports in the form of E Types and AC Cobras though.

[–] linop90 12 years ago

E type is a sports car, not a muscle car. Im not a Jaguar fan, too tweedy englih for me. Bit a lot of people lile them.

The Ac cobra is a different story. the company used ford V8's at first 289 cubic inch motors.
Then when Ford wanted to beat ferrari they shoehorned 427 big blocks in them making them a classic.
Henry Ford 2 couldnt take Ferrari saying no to Ford buying his company. so in the usual American tradition. they complain outspend Ferrari big time and practically buy Le Mans.
Then they dont continue making sports cars, they leave to make exploding pintos.

Eat the Neocons.

[–] SunCanyonRoad 11 years ago

Some "claim" the Muscle Car era started with the 1964 Pontiac GTO and ended with the de-tuned, catalytic converted smogger engines in 1974.

But basically a "Muscle Car" is any American 2-door coupe equipped with a high-performance V8 engine built from the early 1960's to the early 1970's. There are exceptions here and there to include certain cars not in this "era" or meeting these "peramiters" as this as it's not an exact science. My personal favorite Muscle Car is the 1968 Dodge Charger R/T.

"Im telling you when my boss sees these figures he's gonna have a stroke."
- Rudy Russo

[–] tugboatphil 9 years ago

I agree with your 10 year window for the Muscle Car era. One of the exceptions to the naming would be the "Pony" Cars, which were muscular, but generally had the small blocks on small frames. Named for the Mustang, but including Camaro, Firebird, Barracuda, Cougar and such.

Muscle Cars were the larger framed, 2 door versions of family sedans with the beefed up big blocks. Plenty of power to spare, with enough room in the backseat for a good time at the drive-in.

[–] liscarkat (18410) 4 years ago

They were a big deal from the '50s through the '70s. Today they actually put sound systems into new cars to give them fake muscle car exhaust sound. Look it up, I'm not kidding. We live in wimpy times.

[–] MikeCable (1846) 4 years ago

The way I see it is that cars were getting bigger and bigger in the 1950s and being fitted with bigger engines to retain some decent performance. Eventually people got the idea to cram these huge engines into the smaller cars to create big performance.

This started to become commonplace as options on models in the early 1960s but it wasn't until Pontiac introduced the 2-door GTO version of its midsize Tempest range, which was really an all-round sports package with a factory-fitted high-performance tuned engines along with high-performance suspension for matched handling.

Then the smaller (compact) Mustang GT came along a year later and had the perfect size and feel for the emerging muscle car scene, and ran away with record-breaking success. The 1973 oil crisis, rising insurance premiums and increasing safety requirements put an end to the muscle car scene for a while.