|\/|U$CUL@r MUSCLES

classic muscle cars

Classic Muscle Cars are typically defined as high-performance vehicles with powerful engines, most made between 1964 and 1975. Learn about more than 100 of our favorites, including Chevelles, Chargers, Mustangs, Road Runners and GTOs.

1960 Chrysler 300F

The 1960 Chrysler 300F was one of Chrysler's first muscle cars. It came with a big-inch V-8 engine and a dual-quad cross-ram setup that was a visual treat. Learn about this muscle car.

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1961 Pontiac Ventura 389

The 1961 Pontiac Ventura 389 is a true collector's car. This muscle car was race-ready with the trademark split-grille. The 389 was all business: combining beauty and function. Learn about the Ventura 389.

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1961 Chevrolet Impala SS 409

Chevy built 491,000 Impalas for 1961. Only 453 had the Super Sport package, and of those, just 142 got the 409-cid V-8. But word spread quickly. Learn about the 1961 Chevrolet Impala SS 409.

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1969 Chevy Camaro Z28

It wasn't the fastest, but with single-season styling and a unique combination of brake, engine, exhaust, and induction options, the 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 was arguably the most desirable Z28 of all. Learn more.

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The Hot Rod Era

The Muscle Car Era featured cars and trucks built between 1964 and 1972

Brass Car Era - Antique Car Era - Vintage Car Era - Classic Car Era - Hot Rod and Roadster Era

Muscle Cars are a product of the Classic Car Era. They evolved from the feverish consumerism that followed World War II, when bigger and faster were always better. Muscle Cars evolved by accident at a time when Detroit was trying to stop the invasion of imported cars with new, light-weight models like the Corvair, Falcon and Valiant.

Pontiac GTO

But as the national highway system grew and gasoline became plentiful, Americans wanted more power. More speed. And in 1964 Detroit bowed to consumer pressure by putting big block V-8's on mid-sized chassis, and giving them names like Camero, Firebird and Barracuda, common household names of the Muscle Car Era.

However, despite America's love for horsepower, the Clean Air Act of 1970 called for pollution control devices that hampered performance. And then the oil embargo of 1973 limited the supply of gasoline. By the time congress passed the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) rule in 1978 the Muscle Car was gone forever.

The classic car era

The Classic Car Era featured cars and trucks built between 1946 and 1972*

Brass Car Era - Antique Car Era - Vintage Car Era - Muscle Car Era - Hot Rod and Roadster Era

The American automobile industry began about 1900 and drove the US into the Industrial Revolution in the 1920´s with replaceable parts and the assembly line. The first fifty years was an unruly time with an "anything goes" attitude by manufacturers and consumers alike. These were the years of The Great Depression, two World Wars, and the birth of labor unions. There were no government regulations and little regard for pollution or vehicle safety.

1955 Chevrolet Nomad

As the American people recovered from the Second World War they embraced the role of consumer and the annual parade of fancy new cars. For the next ten years the automobile designers lead the way with bigger, better and more powerful cars and factories retooled for new methods of production. Price wars eliminated many small companies, a significant recession put consumers on edge, and the Big Three emerged as kings.

The Classic Car Era began in 1946 as the Cold War, the Communist threat in Cuba, civil rights and Vietnam brought new strife and concerns to the American people. The 1960´s also brought new concerns for Detroit. As foreign automakers imported a new breed of compact, more efficient cars American automakers responded by dropping their trademark fins and consumers eagerly accepted GMs´ all new Corvair, Fords´ Falcon and Chryslers´ Valiant. The smaller cars went faster and the introduction of the Big Block V-8´s assured Americans that the horsepower war was still on.

By 1964 the Big Three had stuffed V-8 engines into their mid-size cars and the Muscle Car was born with names like Camero, Firebird and Barracuda. Throughout this new profusion of speed and visual marketing AMC managed to hold on to a distant fourth place but in 1966 Studebaker closed its doors.

The American automobile industry was knocked to its knees in the 1970´s by two significant events. First, the Clean Air Act of 1970 practically killed the use of high performance engines over the next few years. And then the oil embargo in the winter of 1973 encouraged consumers to conserve gasoline. By 1978 Congress had passed the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) rule and Detroit was scrambling to comply. The gas-guzzlers of the past were replaced by smaller, more efficient vehicles modeled after the ever-present imports and an all new race for fuel economy supremacy began - marking the end of the Classic Car Era.

* The Classic Car Era does not necessarily define classic cars. For instance, many DMVs and define a classic car as any vehicle over 15-25 years old and the Classic Car club of American says classic cars were produced between 1925 and 1948. The Classic Car club of American says: "e;A CCCA Classic is a ´fine´ or ´distinctive´ automobile, either American or foreign built, produced between 1925 and 1948. They are also sometimes called ´Full Classics,´ or just plain ´Classics´ (with a capital "C"). Generally, a Classic was high-priced when new and was built in limited quantities. Other factors, including engine displacement, custom coachwork and luxury accessories, such as power brakes, power clutch, and ´one-shot´ or automatic lubrication systems, help determine whether a car is considered to be a Classic.quote;

V!ntage hot $hots

VINTAGE CAR SHOW




FLORIDA CLASSIC VINTAGE SHOW

Vintage Hot Rods Snaps

BMW 507 Roadster

BMW 507 Roadster

By Jack Nerad for Driving Today

Sometimes great cars achieve significant commercial success. Witness the Model T Ford and Volkswagen Beetle as obvious examples. Other times, great cars make virtually no impact on the market, save to point the way for others to follow. The Cord 810 and Chrysler Airflow are prominent examples of this phenomenon. Sadly, the BMW 507 roadster also falls into this significant but ill-fated category. Born in the glory days of the true sports car, raised with a distinguished pedigree and built to the highest of standards, the 507 failed miserably at achieving commercial success, which is a great shame considering its many virtues.
To set the stage for the entrance of the 507, let us travel back in time to the immediate aftermath of World War II. Like most of the war-ravaged German auto industry, BMW was in tatters. Its auto manufacturing facilities, what were left of them after Allied bombing and occupation, were in Eisenach, behind the rapidly closing Iron Curtain of Russian-occupied East Germany.
In BMW's hometown of Munich, the heavily damaged factories were equipped to build only motorcycles, so re-entering the car business after the war was a lengthy and tortuous process. It wasn't until the tail end of 1949, four years after the war in Europe had ended, that the BMW motorcycle plant resumed production in any meaningful numbers. And it wasn't until 1951 than BMW offered its first postwar car model, a sedan whose prewar lineage was depressingly obvious.
Once motorcar production began, however, BMW made rapid progress. In fact, in true business terms you might make the claim that BMW's progress was too rapid. Despite the fact that the Europe of the early Fifties was still in a desperate economic slump, struggling mightily to rebuild, BMW seemed bent on hitching its fortunes to luxury cars. With this dubious strategy in mind, the company unmasked its first production aluminum-alloy V8 engine in 1954, despite the fact that the super-sophisticated offering was likely to find few buyers. The 502 sedan that used the new engine was largely a sales dud, which then sent BMW execs scurrying off in widely disparate directions.
At the 1955 Frankfurt Motor Show, BMW continued the logical extension of the 502 theme with the 503 coupe and cabriolet and, the subject of this profile, the 507 Roadster. Almost in tandem with those introductions, though, BMW unveiled the Isetta Motocoupe, a cross between a car and a motorcycle that borrowed heavily on a similar Italian vehicle. A prestige car the Isetta certainly was not, but it would gain for BMW the volume that the 502, 503 and 507 would never provide.
Many lay the creation of the 507 Roadster at the door of estimable car importer Max Hoffmann, who is credited with the success of a number of European brands in the tumultuous postwar market in the U.S. Hoffman usually had a great sense of what would sell, and he persuaded the BMW brass that a roadster version of the 502 would offer the company a great chance to compete with the likes of Jaguar and Mercedes-Benz in the mid to upper echelons of the prestige car market.
Hoffmann wielded a great deal of power because the European sports car manufacturers, including the above-mentioned marques plus Porsche, Ferrari, Maserati and Aston Martin, were dependent on the American market. Most of those companies sold more than 50 percent of their production in America, because the struggling European economies, some hobbled by incipient socialism, just weren't producing the requisite disposable income. So Max bent the ear of the BMW executives, and they bought his message.
It was a reasonably easy sale, because the mechanicals for the 507 Roadster were more or less in place. The key component was the lovely little 3.2-liter all-alloy V-8 engine. While some might tell you that 3168 cubic centimeters is too little displacement to get the advantages of the V-8 configuration, the engine was one of the technical marvels of its day. Without stressing the little two-valve powerplant in the least, it produced 150 horsepower at 5,000 rpm in its original form. Later examples were tweaked to produce 160 horsepower at a headier 5,600 rpm, and when the compression ratio was bumped from 7.8:1 to 9:1 the diminutive engine was said to deliver 195 horsepower. In a vehicle with a lightweight aluminum body, that made for stirring performance versus the other sports cars of the age.
The chassis -- no simple affair -- was constructed of tubular and box-section steel. It was similar to the chassis of the 502 sedan, but cut down and otherwise altered for sports car use. The front suspension was independent, using unequal-length A-arms with torsion bars as the springing mechanism and telescopic shocks for damping. The rear was less dramatic: a "full-floating" live axle sprung with torsion bars.
Of course, styling is crucial to the success of a sports car, and BMW's initial attempt at styling what would become the 507 was given the thums-down by Hoffmann and others who saw it. Pressed for time (and talent), BMW turned to an outside designer who was a protégé of legendary industrial and auto designer Raymond Loewy. Count Albrecht Graf Goertz, who had come to America to work with Loewy, reportedly got the assignment by drawing up some sketches on spec and submitting them to the BMW board. However the deal came to be made, the good count was thrust into a fast-moving project. He and his team completed the design work for the lovely aluminum body in a very short span, and the BMW craftsman picked up the gauntlet and completed the 507 prototype in time for display at the 1955 Frankfurt Motor Show.
By any measure, the BMW 507 is a gorgeous design. It is exceedingly low and thin in section, giving it a spare, athletic look, like a marathon runner. Largely bereft of the chrome that was ladled onto American designs of the same period, the 507 did offer the highlight of small chrome grilles tastefully integrated into the front fenders behind the simple round wheel cutouts. This treatment was so elegant that BMW designers copped it virtually intact for their recent Z8 roadster. At the front, round headlights flank the widened but still recognizable BMW "kidney" grilles. The rear is even simpler with a chrome trunk handle and thin chrome bumper interrupting the meld of fender and trunk. Twin exhausts peeked out from underneath the spare body.
Inside, the 507 was equally purposeful. The simple painted metal dash contained round clock, tachometer and speedometer plus simple radio and heater/vent controls. The two bucket seats, though low in the body, placed their occupants relatively high versus the very low door tops.
With its stunning good looks the 507 wowed the attendees at the Frankfurt Motor Show. But it would be almost a year before BMW could get the car into production and then into showrooms. Along the way the complicated nature of the chassis and engine necessitated a high list price. While there was little question as to the 507's beauty, buyers found that the could purchase the Mercedes-Benz 300SL for slightly less money, while a top of the line Porsche of the era was even less expensive. And, of course, both of those cars had racing pedigrees, while the 507 had none.
Dissuaded by the hefty price tag, luxury sports car drivers stayed away from the 507 in droves. Though production continued into 1959, only 252 of the startling little beauties were built. Oddly, Elvis Presley, noted more for his fondness for massive Cadillacs, was the biggest of the big-name buyers. After the financially disastrous 507 experiment, BMW would shy away from true open-top sports cars for decades.

Porsche 911

Porsche 911

By the mid-1950's Porsche had come a long way from the backwoods operation it had been in the grim aftermath of World War II. In the midst of horrible adversity, Ferry Porsche had somehow established his company as a genuine auto manufacturer and had begun to create an international reputation for innovation in the sports car arena.

Moving from the wilderness of Gmund back to Stuttgart in 1949 was a giant step, sending Porsche on its way to making the transition from oddball upstart to solidly successful sports car manufacturer. Despite being relatively new to the marketplace, Porsche street machines gained distribution to many countries around the world.

Various versions of the 356 were the basis for Porsche's early commercial success, but Ferry Porsche was convinced that for his cars to win greater acceptance in the marketplace victories on the racetrack were not just desirable; they were crucial. He was also realist enough to understand that the 356 had definite limitations as a racing car. To address those limitations Porsche decided that an entirely new design was needed.

But before Porsche engineers could get going on the race car project, Porsche ran into an unexpected cash flow problem and, by late 1951, it was teetering on the edge of receivership. Redemption came from an unexpected source - Studebaker.

In the spring of 1952, the venerable but still inventive American car company contracted with Porsche to develop a new model for sale in the United States. That model never materialized, but the design fees kept Porsche afloat when it might well have gone under and, further, it helped finance Porsche involvement in racing. (The sports car that Studebaker eventually brought to market, the Avanti, was very un-Porschelike in styling and engineering.)

Porsche's early racing efforts were aided immeasurably by Walter Glockler, a Frankfurt-based Volkswagen dealer who built a series of racing machines powered by VW engines. By 1953 Glockler and Porsche were cooperating so closely that Glockler's race cars bore Porsche badges, and later that year the Frankfurt dealer helped Porsche launch its famed 550.

The 550 was exactly what Ferry Porsche had been aiming for from about 1950 onwards - a true racing machine that could carry the Porsche name to glory at famous racing venues like Le Mans, Pebble Beach and Mexico's Carrera Panamericana. Like most racing cars that campaign more than one season, the 550 was a work-in-progress. Originally equipped with a pushrod VW engine fitted to a ladder frame, the 550 eventually used Porsche's Ernst Fuhrmann-designed four-cam engine in a rigid space frame to cut a swath through sports car racing in the mid-Fifties with class wins at Le Mans and in the Carrera. Amateur racer James Dean was at the wheel of a 550 Spyder and on his way to a central California race when he met his Maker in September 1955.

As the Fifties came to a close Porsche introduced the 356 B, a deftly altered version of the original Porsche model and a version that some claimed showed definite American influence. Among these touches were bigger bumpers and a heavier dose of chrome.

While purists decried the changes, the cash registers at Porsche dealerships rang like never before. It also provided the inspiration for an entirely new Porsche model that would eventually replace the beloved 356.

The seeds of the 356 replacement began to be sown as early as 1956 when Ferry Porsche issued a directive to designers and engineers contemplating a new model. Their germination accelerated rapidly on June 9, 1960, when Porsche management approved the decision to develop a six-cylinder engine for passenger car use. Up until then Porsche had been a company that relied on four-cylinder power, be it of Volkswagen origins or the significantly more robust four-camshaft wonder designed by Ernst Fuhrmann. By 1960, however, it had become quite clear that a bigger engine was necessary to remain competitive in the marketplace. That year, for instance, the Chevrolet Corvette offered a fuel-injected 283 cubic-inch V-8 that developed 290 horsepower. Despite the fact that the Corvette's suspension was far less sophisticated than the 356's, with that amount of horsepower on tap, the Chevrolet could leave the Porsche sucking dust.

Late in 1961, the heat under the new project grew when the Porsche managing committee sanctioned the creation of an all-new body for the 356. To be designed by Butzi Porsche, one of Ferry Porsche's sons, the re-design was to be a two-seater, not a two-plus-two, with the extra space given over to luggage room.

What emerged at the 1963 Frankfurt auto show was something quite different. Instead of being a re-bodied 356, the concept car that graced the show stand that year was completely new. It had a new engine - a horizontally opposed air-cooled single overhead cam six cylinder. It had a new suspension - rear swing axles giving way to a much a more sophisticated arrangement of semi-trailing arms and torsion bars. And it had a new body - an exterior that suddenly made the 356 look dated while, at the same time, carrying on in its tradition.

The body Butzi Porsche designed for what would become the 911 is, without question, one of the most stellar automotive creations in history. The word "timeless" is thrown at designs with cliched regularity in the car business, but none can doubt that the 911's body is one for the ages. Penned more than 35 years ago, it looks absolutely contemporary today. And while the early Sixties did offer some attractive designs, none of them had the staying power of the 911. (If you need proof , consider this: the 1963 Buick Riviera, 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray or 1965 Ford Mustang, while all well-drawn cars, would seem absurd if they were offered to the public today, yet the 911 would fit in as well now as when it was new.)

First shown to the public wearing prominent TYP 901 tags, the model designation of the new Porsche was changed to 911 because Peugeot held the European rights to all three-digit model numbers with a "0" middle digit. Though it debuted in late 1963, it wasn't until a year later that the first production 911's started appearing in showrooms. The amazing thing is that, even in these days of rapid innovation and incredible competition, the model's appearance in Porsche showrooms has never stopped. It has been one of the few constants from the Johnson administration through the Clinton years.

Critics will debate this assertion for months on end, but arguably the greatest 911 of them all was the Carrera 911 RS of 1972-1973. Only a little over 1,500 of these specials were produced, but they have created a saga that still lives 25 years later.

With the flat-six bored out to 2.7-liters, the Carrera RS offered 210 horsepower at 5100 rpm, which was fed through a close-ratio five-speed gearbox to the rear wheels. With the RS body lightened from the standard 911 curb weight of 2,200 pounds to under 2,000, this lightweight rocket could accelerate from zero to 60 miles per hour in just 5.6 seconds. Top speed, aided by the odd Burzel rear spoiler, was 150 miles per hour.

The Carrera 911 RS, in nearly streetable form, won the 1973 24 Hours of Daytona. It was just one of hundreds of memorable racing victories for the 911, part of a tradition that continues to this day and shows no signs of slowing down.