Interesting facts about muscle cars

February 23, 2012 | In: Facts about cars

What do we think when we hear about a muscle car? I relate muscle cars to hundreds of horsepower, light weight, all under the hood of a classic 1960s, 1970s car. The term Muscle Car wasn’t even used until the late 1970s, in the 1960s there were often called “Super Cars” if called anything at all. Therefore, the actual definition of a muscle car, or which models were muscle cars, is a topic that is often disputed.

Since the end of World War II, the Americans started to have an insatiable urge for fast, powerful cars. In the 60s, car consisted almost entirely in muscle cars, and the heart of the construction was situated in Detroit.

But things started to change in the 1970s, and muscle cars nearly vanished. But they came back in the early ’80s to begin an exciting new high-performance era that’s still going strong, thanks to huge technical progress since the 1964-70 “golden age”. Indeed, many modern muscle cars outgun their revered 1960s ancestors yet are thriftier with fuel, pollute much less, and are far superior for handling and safety.

A muscle car, by the strictest definition, is an intermediate sized, performance oriented model, powered by a large V8 engine, at an affordable price. Most of these models were based on “regular” production vehicles. These vehicles are generally not considered muscle cars, even when equipped with large V8s. If there was a high performance version available, it gets the credit, and not the vehicle that it was based on.
Examples: Buick GS, Chevrolet Chevelle SS, Dodge Charger R/T, Ford Torino/Cobra, Plymouth GTX, Plymouth Road Runner, Oldsmobile 442, Pontiac GTO.

Let’s face it. It doesn’t matter if you’re from the USA, or from Europe, a muscle will always turn heads on the streets, not just because it sounds like a dinosaur, but is also a beautiful thing to look at.