I got into a WWE-style debate the other day with a reader who insisted his V6-powered, AWD Charger sedan is a “muscle car” – chiefly because he’d hotted up the V6. This is something like insisting a Frisian horse is the same as a Clydesdale because both are horses.
And they ask me why I drink!
. . .
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back in 76 i bought a rusted out 68 roadrunner. 383, 3.23, 3 on the tree, bench seats… so a family car or a muscle car? I darn near lost my license in that puppy… not to mention nearly wrapping it around a pole one winter. I would say muscle but…
Hi Warren!
Definitely a muscle car. Intermediate coupe, big V8 and RWD with a manual transmission. The bench seat is not a disqualification. Many muscle cars were available with bench seats. They are fine for running the quarter mile!
I’ve always felt muscle car was like punk rock, a pretty specific reaction that existed in it’s real form for a very short time.
Like how Plymouth Belvedere turned into a Fury in 1958. The Tempest became a GTO. These are cars that handled like shit but were ubiquitous. Big engine, but the extra stuff and keep ’em cheap.
I always saw it really as a two-horse race between MOPAR and GM. Ford invented the pony car, which I think changed the whole dynamic in emphasizing handling and making a car comfortable in reverse, like in a 4 cylinder Mustang. Fun car, handles good, cheap. They stuffed big engines in cars like the Galaxy but they were chasing police cruisers more than muscle cars.
Thusly, like punk really only existed for a couple of years it spawned a WHOLE lot of good and interesting music in post-punk, new wave, etc. There’s only a small number of real muscle cars and then a lot of refinement, marketing departments, manufacturers chasing drag or stock car eligibility.
I’d never call a Trans-Am a muscle car. That’s meant to be a knock on the car or your point. I just don’t think it’s right to stretch the term to the point of rendering it useless.
Eric, you shouldn’t waste time nor bandwidth on these pretentious, posing TWITS that throw money in a pathetic attempt to buy some latter-day “homage” to what we ALREADY HAD a half century ago!
Roger that, Douglas!
I didn’t step into that battle, he has a HOT ROD, which is a distinguished and honorable thing. But that’s a technicality, bench races among gearheads often get heated.
My definition of a muscle car, is an aspirational thing, a factory hot rod which is made exclusively of low tech, low cost parts which the owner might reasonably have built by himself. It was not originally a high dollar exotic, nor did it incorporate technologies beyond the 1970 level.
I’ve had plenty of fast, powerful cars. Like women, every one has quirks, different things to like, love, be annoyed about, and hate. But the only real muscle car I’ve owned was my 70 GS455 Stage One convertible. And I do miss it.
Even on vehicles which were decidedly the antithesis of a muscle car, like the vehicle driven by CIA operative Jade Wade about St. Petersburg, Russia, ca. 1995, a 1963 ZAZ 965 A Zaporozhets, a license-built version of a Fiat 600: “She’s an ugly little bitch, but she’ll get ya there!”, after hitting the engine with a SLEDGE HAMMER.
Several years ago I noticed a nice ND Miata RF in the parking lot at work. It was metallic black with cream leather interior. I’m not a fan of black cars but, it was pretty sharp.
The Head Cheese of our operation came into the studio where we were working and was bragging about his “Porsh”. Seems he got it because of the others in his condo parking garage. I asked where it was and he pointed to the ND. I said, “That’s a Miata.”. He shouted, “NO IT’S NOT IT’S A PORSH!”. I just chuckled in reply. He went ballistic. Had he not been spending so much money on cocaine he probably could have gotten a Boxster…but…noooo…
That’s hilarious, Mark!
No doubt you remember the Porsche 914, which was mocked as the Poorsche. I always kind of liked it.
In ’74 I was considering the 914 vs. x-1/9. I bought the X because it was $2k less. However, I paid more than that on maintenance in the last year of the 30 months I owned it. The road salt took it back to the Earth as well.
You can also easily drop a flat 6 in it as well for those that can afford it.
Yup. I always liked the 914. I tried to buy one on the used market, but they were always so rusty.
I recall a “Two and a Half Men” episode where hapless Alan is gifted a two-seater by his mother, Evelyn. The Porsche (“Por-Sha”), which, although Candy Apple Red, is derided as a “girl’s” car. As “payment”, Alan is asked to double-date with the boozy daughter of a client that Evelyn’s trying to close a huge real estate deal with; the floozy ends up, hammered, driving away with Alan’s car and wrecking it. The live news coverage commentator isn’t sure of the identity of the driver, but figures since it’s THAT Porsche, must be a woman!
Porsche cars are much like the TIGER TANKS that Ferdy Porsche submitted…maintenance headache! The Waffen Amt Pru 6 had the good sense to reject each of them, though the first time, almost 100 chassis had been given the “go ahead” to produce, and since they weren’t going to be made into the Porsche version of the Tiger tank, they were reworked into a self-propelled assault gun intially known as the “Ferdinand”, but later termed the “Elephant”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elefant
Although these vehicles had a very powerful main weapon, and racked up an impressive number of tank kills, they proved ill-suited for front-line operations without a secondary weapon to deal with stalking infantry, losing too many to tank hunters at Kursk in July 1943. The survivors were sent back to the factory to be reconfigured, most went back to the Eastern Front where they were mainly used to deal with enemy armored breakthroughs.
The second time, Krupp had produced 50 turrets IAW Porsche’s specs, as he was sure he’d win the contract. When he didn’t, so as to not have to scrap them, as they fit the Henschel vehicle also, they were used on the first 50 tanks that rolled out of the Kassel factory, these are often mistakenly termed “Porsche” Tiger, though Krupp made the turrets and main guns while Henschel made the chassis. THey do look “bad ass”, but have a ballistic weakness about the left side where the commander’s hatch requires a “bulge”, and the front mantlet had a shot trap which the Henschel turret design did not.
The genuine irony is, even though your coke fueled boss-boi bought what he thought was a “porsh”…
He actually got a much more durable, lower maintenance, and probably a lower priced Japanese car, that offers as much performance as any similar “porsh” is capable of offering, with his drug fueled driving abilities.
Ignorance and cocaine for the win!!!
In this rare case, at least…
YMMV….
He could always rebadge his “Porsh’, like my buddy who rearranged the letters ‘SUZUKI’ on the tailgate of his vintage Samurai to spell ‘SUZI KU.’
But that would require a certain warped sense of humor which likely would elude the grim, driven frenzy of a cokehead.
I recall, while schlepping pizza as a side gig for the great Round Table Pizza over 30 years ago in Sacramento, seeing some 25-ish attractive blonde with a fine rack, driving a red Miata, with the vanity plate “4TOPLSS” and the plate frame read, “Sometimes I like to go topless!”
Somehow I suspect she hadn’t purchased the vehicle with HER funds…
First clue he is a know-nothing is that he pronounced it “Porsh”. Knowledgeable people pronounce Porsche “Por-shuh”. The other perhaps even more often mispronounced car marque is Willys, commonly pronounced “Will-ees” rather then the actual “Will-iss”. This goes back to when they were still being produced. John Willys reportedly said of that: “I don’t care how you pronounce it as long as you buy my cars.”
He was an absolute twit. He was eventually fired after some 3AM shenanigans. Card access and cameras in the halls will get you every time.
I always considered my 1972 VW Karman Ghia as a poor man’s Porsche. Not as a 911 but as a 356. The specs of the Karman Ghia and 356 were nearly identical. I bought my ’72 Karman Ghia(stick shift) new(cash) in 72 and paid $3,200 for it. Was it worth it when you could buy a brand new Beetle for $1,995 back then? It did get good gas mileage, especially when I was making min wage in factory jobs. It did look sharp but in retrospect I should have bought a Ford or Chevy full size van as sleeping in the Karman Ghia was not very comfortable.
I had a class mate there in Winter Park whose daddy got her a ’73 Ghia. She was good-looking, but nothing special over the other girls, but damn, she was always NICE to me! I shoulda kept in touch…supposedly, at age 67, she still has the sporty VW…and when she grew UP…well…DAYYYUUUUMMMM!