The Origin of True Muscle Cars

Muscle car is the name used for a wide variety of high performance cars. Generally, the term muscle car pertains to the American front wheel drive mid-size cars that were manufactured in the late 60s and early 70s. These cars were equipped with powerful and huge V8 engines or the 2 straight-4 engines that share a common crankshaft. These cars were sold at an affordable price for drag racing and street use.

With this in mind, muscle cars can be easily distinguished from the usual 2-seat sports car and the expensive GTs that were projected for road racing and high-speed touring. Muscle cars were a result of the American automobile wars between the late 1960s and the oil crisis in the 1970s.

Those cars were made with huge engines that consumed considerably huge amounts of gas generating close to 500 horsepower. Although handling was poor in many models, the price was considered affordable and the design was quite aggressive. It is important to point out that the cars that remain from this era, are worth a considerable amount of money when they are in good shape. A few of the iconic muscle cars include the Chevrolet Camaro, Dodge Charger, Pontiac GTO, Corvette and the Chrysler Hemi Cuda.

Aside from building originally and historically on American soil, these cars were also manufactured in the fast developing countries such as South Africa, Australia and the United Kingdom. However, the American models usually hold the most value for collectors.

One drawback to these cars is that they were made for straight-line speed and they did not have a sophisticated chassis. Also, they did not have the veracity in engineering works or the desired flexible look of high-performance European cars. However, there are different opinions as to whether high performance compacts, full-size cars and pony cars can be considered as muscle cars.

The debate about the estimation of the origin of these muscle cars is still on going among car enthusiasts but it was the 1949 Oldsmobile Rocket 88 that acquired the interest of car aficionados when it came to power and speed.

If you are hungry for more articles on old school cars please visit William's blog, MuscleCarMonster.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=William_Jason