musnicki

I would say anything with over 400 ci block or any car that has double the amount of power that it actually needs is a muscle car....subject to debate.

These cars are light enough to be run with a 150-200hp motor. Stuff a 350-400hp motor in and it's an over kill, ride with me in Hawaii sometime and I'll prove it to you.

To me thats a muscle car, no fuel economy and no sound restriction. It's loud, has a bigger than needed motor and enough power to twist the frame.

Let people tell you if you have a muscle car or a pony car, when you pull up next to them at a light or when you pop the hood of your car.

James

rmodel65

wow necro thread revival....

2+2GT

You have to understand this all came about gradually, and none of it is "official".

Before the Mustang, there were "Super Cars". This would include such cars as the Galaxie and other full-size cars equipped with big engines, such as the 406 3-2V and 427 2-4V, or even, briefly, the 427 SOHC. At that time, these were the factory race cars, and were often modified as "lightweights", with acid-dipped hoods, fenders, and doors. IIRC, some Pontiacs even had round holes cut all over the internal parts of the bodies to remove more metal.

Then came the Mustang. The compact, long-hood short-deck was entirely new, and took it's proportions from the P-51 Mustang, despite all the horses bolted to the fenders. No one had anything to compete with it, other than the Barracuda, which was only kinda-sorta the configuration, and a lame performer by comparison. Suddenly it was modified to more resemble the Mustang, and GM was up nights rushing the Camaro/Firebird into production, with Ford having a 2-year head start. By then, Mustang pretty much owned the category. Auto writers were calling anything similar in size and shape a "pony car".

When word leaked out that GM would be using the 396 and 400 in the Camaro/Firebird, the cubic inch race was on, and the 67 Mustang was redesigned to accept the Ford FE engine, and they literally plopped the 66 Fairlane 390GT engine directly in.

The first use of "muscle" regarding cars, that I recall, was the 1969 Ford "Muscle Parts" program, a three-stage upgrade system for their V8 engines. Within a short time, everybody was calling performance cars "muscle cars", so it's really hard to say which was the cause, and effect.

None of this is official, of course.