ORIGINAL: crunchyskippy

I'd be willing to bet that if you were old enough to drive back in the mid-to-late 60's you would consider it a sports car. If not, you would classify it as a muscle car.

Personally, the first sports car I really appreciated was the Datsun 280z(x?). That is as far back as my "sports car" knowledge goes. And if I only have two choices to classify my mustang, I'd have to say that the "sporty" 280 out-handled my mustang but didn't have nearly the grunt. Thus I'd be lumped into the younger muscle car group. But I can see how a different perspective would sway that even farther in either direction. Are you in your 20's now? Probably define as 100% muscle. In your 50's now? You get the picture I'm trying to paint.

Thoughts??

A muscle car is a high-performance automobile. The term principally refers to American or Australian models with large-capacity engines produced between 1964 and 1973.

The term muscle car generally describes a mid-size car with a large, powerful engine (typically, although not universally, a V8 engine) and special trim, intended for maximum acceleration on the street or in drag racing competition. It is distinguished from sports cars, which were customarily and coincidentally considered smaller, two-seat cars, or GTs, two-seat or 2+2 cars intended for high-speed touring and possibly road racing. High-performance full-size or compact cars are arguably excluded from this category, as are the breed of compact sports coupes inspired by the Ford Mustang Another factor used in defining a classic muscle cars is age and country of origin. A classic muscle car is usually but not necessarily made in the US or Australia between 1964 and 1975.

An alternate definition is based on power-to-weight ratio, defining a muscle car as an automobile with (for example) fewer than 12 pounds per rated hp. Such definitions are inexact, thanks to a wide variation in curb weight depending on options and to the questionable nature of the SAE gross hp ratings in use before 1972, which were often deliberately overstated or underrated for various reasons.

Another alternate definition involves a car's original design intents. Muscle cars are factory produced automobiles that have a larger engine than was originally planned for in the design and production phase of the original car. Examples of this trend can be found throughout American, Japanese, and European cars of all designs. This includes many cars that typically are not labeled as muscle cars, such as the B13 & B15 (1991-2006) Nissan Sentra SE-R & Spec-V, and excludes other cars typically labeled as muscle cars, such as the Dodge Viper.

The pony car is a class of automobile launched and inspired by the Ford Mustang in 1964. It describes an affordable, compact, highly styled car with a sporty or performance-oriented image.

ORIGINAL: jarrettdad

Really?

While most of the pony cars offered more powerful engines and performance packages, enough to qualify some as muscle cars, a substantial number were sold with six-cylinder engines or mundane, "cooking" V8s, with the high-performance models largely limited to drag racing, road racing, or racing homologation purposes.