The All-American Muscle Car: The Birth, Death and Resurrection of Detroit’s Greatest Performance Cars

194 Pages·2013·97.54 MB·English

by  Joe Oldham

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ll - A m e R i C A n
A
t h e
the Birth, Death
and Resurrection
of Detroit’s Greatest
Performance Cars
Joe Oldham Jim Wangers Colin Comer
◆ ◆
David Newhardt Randy Leffingwell
◆
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CONTENTS
Introduction
7
By Darwin Holmstrom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Chapter 1

GTO: The Birth of the Muscle Car
11
By Jim Wangers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Chapter 2
Birth of the Pony Car
37
By Randy Leffingwell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Chapter 3
When They Were Just Cars
67
By Joe Oldham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Chapter 4
Muscle Car “Enhancers”
121
By David Newhardt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Chapter 5
Modern Muscle Déjà Vu, Sort of
159
By David Newhardt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Chapter 6
Blue-Chip Muscle
167
By Colin Comer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Photo Credits 187
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Index 188
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
About the Authors 192
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Introduction:
Real
Muscle
Darwin Holmstrom Cars
hen John Z. DeLorean and his cadre of
W
enthusiastic miscreants took it upon
themselves to bolt Pontiac division’s Panther Party. In retrospect, the muscle car seemed
hottest engine into a mid-sized chassis, relatively harmless.
disobeying orders from the top of General Motors’ But not to the suits running General Motors,
food chain, they created something that should never a company that found itself under assault on
have been and will never be again: the muscle car. two fronts. First, the Automobile Manufacturer’s
The time was right for anything that symbolized Association (AMA) still enforced a strict ban on its
a raised middle finger thrust at society. The Rolling members participating in racing. This ban proved
Stones were recording their first album, a collection to be symbolic, since the AMA had no teeth which
of horny American blues songs that were considered with to enforce it, and both Ford and Chrysler openly
far too “negro” to be played on American radio. Ken defied the ban whenever it suited their corporate
Kesey made preparations to hit the road in his psy- purposes, but not GM. That was because of reason
chedelic bus Further and bring his acid tests, par- number two: the federal government was threaten-
ties in which participants were dosed with LSD-25 ing to break up GM because the company’s overall
and tripped balls, from San Francisco to the entire share of the auto market was so large that it was on
nation, and Huey Newton and Bobby Seale were lay- the verge of becoming an illegal monopoly, according
ing the foundation for what would become the Black the antitrust laws of the day. This was no idle threat;
the U.S. government had broken up Standard Oil a
half century earlier for the very same reason. Thus
There are muscle cars, and then there are muscle cars. The one-of-a-
GM obeyed the AMA ban not because of some sort of
kind Shelby Super Snake was the most muscular of the breed.
7
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devotion to good citizenship, but rather because the economy cars, could afford to ignore this vast, afflu-
company had nothing to gain from the publicity that ent, and hungry market.
racing attracted. The classic muscle car era, which began when
Either way, GM was not receptive to the inno- the first Pontiac buyer checked the GTO box on the
vations that DeLorean and his own band of merry Pontiac Tempest option order list and ended when
pranksters were about to unleash on the automotive the last Super Duty 455 Firebird rolled off Pontiac’s
scene, so they had to bring the results of their off- assembly line in 1974, was something that should
hours engineering exercises—the Pontiac GTO—to have never been. In hindsight, who can legitimately
market through the back door, offering the GTO as an argue that giving teenage boys lightweight cars
option package on the Pontiac Tempest. stuffed full of big-block V-8 power, crude handling
What the cadavers occupying the top floors of abilities for harnessing that power, and virtually no
GM’s corporate headquarters failed to grasp, the braking power to bring the festivities to a halt once
motoring public bought in droves. The GTO was a everything went south, which it did more often than
huge success, as were its successors like the Ford not, was a good idea?
Mustang, the Dodge Charger, and the Chevrolet Even though building these cars for kids was
Camaro. The GTO anticipated a new breed of per- unwise, like giving heroin to Keith Richards or a
formance car aimed at a new breed of buyer: the race car to James Dean or Marilyn Monroe to a horny
Baby Boom generation, tens of millions of young president, the resulting cars were pretty damned
buyers entering the auto market each year. And no cool. The cars might have been overpowered, poor-
car company, not even mild-mannered American handling death traps, but unless a person has driven
Motors Corporation, builders of the humble Rambler one of these outrageous machines, he or she has
8
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never really lived. The muscle car was something driver in as much comfort as he or she would find
that should never have been, but those of us who in the luxury suite of a five-star hotel and keeping
love them are damned glad they existed. him or her as safe as it is possible to be in a moving
Likewise the muscle car is something that never vehicle. These are wonderful cars, but they are not
will be again. Sure, we have cars today that will the same. They do not raise their middle fingers in a
outperform the classic muscle cars in every measur- rousing “fuck-you” salute to authority the way real
able way. We have faster cars. We have better han- muscle cars do. Real muscle cars don’t have nineteen
dling cars. We have more comfortable cars. We have airbags. Real muscle cars don’t have traction control.
safer cars. We have cars that can run through the quar- Real muscle cars don’t even have power steering or
ter mile fifty percent quicker than cars of the classic air conditioning. Instead they have big engines for
era. We have cars that will halve the time a classic people with big enough clackers to use them. And
muscle car took to get through a slalom course. We that’s about it.
have cars that will do all this while coddling the What more do you need?
9
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