What exactly is 'American muscle'? In reference to cars.
I’ve always heard this phrase among my male friends, but I never asked what it was because at the time, I didn’t want to appear less manly haha.
So were the muscle cars from the past decades the best in the country or something? Or was there something special about them that put them in a higher echelon of car? As you can tell, I don’t know much about cars. Thanks.
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Pretty much any american car made between 1950 and ‘80 with two seats and a fair amount of torque.
the way i see it muscle cars hit their peak in 1970 these cars were built between 1964 and 1972 there were no emission controls until 1971 (except cars built to be sold in california) they had big engines and ran on leaded gas
Muscle cars are cars from the past that had rather large engines and were fast, the American sports car. They are usually called “American Classics“and are usually older (read: before 1975ish).
Examples : Ford Mustang, Dodge Challenger, Chevy Impala, etc.
Muscle Car Wiki
Muscle cars were old (‘60s and ‘70s) rear-wheel-drive American cars with V-8 engines, generally quite large ones at that. We’re talking 289 cubic inches (~4.1L) at least and >400 (7+ Liters) being fairly common.
Most were two-door models, and all were fairly decent at the drag strip… in their day. Of course, there are many cars on the road now that could beat them, at least in stock trim. It’s a lot easier to get 300+ HP nowadays, and it’s kind of embarrassing to see a musclecar get spanked by a stock Nissan.
They tried to resurrect the musclecar with the new Camaro and similar models over the years, but it just isn’t the same.
Big Engine.
Loud.
Something you could race.
Something you could cruise the boulevard Friday night in, knowing you’ll find a date for Saturday night.
If you drive 4 cyl cars and then drive an 8 cyl you will understand what muscle is all about.
@galileogirl That depends. The WRX STi is not a weak little 4-banger (I’ve seen them >650HP), and I know a street-legal ‘72 Datsun that will eat any muscle car you got for lunch. The Honda S2000 has nearly the power of many older muscle cars out of a non-turbo 4-banger so you don’t even need forced induction to go fast, and if you want torque instead of HP, that aforementioned Datsun has 772 ft-lbs compared to 560 for the ‘09 Dodge Viper. In fact, it’s E.T.s are comparable!
Blackberry, muscle cars began in the mid 50s and continued into the 60s. all the car manufacturers were in competition with each other to build the biggest and fastest production cars possible. gasoline was dirt cheap(28 cents a gallon), so fuel was not a problem for consumers. big engines and heavy car bodies was the order of the day. the bigger, the better. a friend of mine, bought a brand new oldsmobile cutlass convertible, color black. it was a gorgeous automobile. under the hood was a 3-four barrel carburator engine. this car would fly. hard to take off without squealing the tires. it was a reardrive vehicle and simply gorgeous. these were called muscle cars because of the huge amount of horsepower in their production engines. some are still around today. each muscle car had plenty of room inside. they were very “girlfriend friendly”.
@john65pennington Sounds like it was a lot of fun back then lol. Racing and running through gas without a care.
As much as I like the modern cars, I gotta admit that some of the old Dodges are damn cool.
My brother owned a Hudson Hornet. it was the ugliest car i have ever seen. it was a military green color and it looked like a tank. this vehicle weighed at least 4,000 pounds. it had a straight in-line eight cylinder engine. the gas mileage was terrible, only about 8 mpg. thankfully, gasoline was only about 24 cents a gallon. this vehicle had a ride like no other. the car was so heavy that you never felt a bump in the road. i hated it…my brother loved it.
The words I remember my boyfriend saying were,
horsepower, 4 barrel carburetor, hemi, V8, and duals.
The cars were fast and so was my boyfriend.;)
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