it devolves into boys talking about sports and hardcore
Posted by dawnbixtler on 2005-04-18 21:12:46 +0000
The muscle car thread
The muscle car was developed in the 60's, and most people say it started with the Pontiac GTO in '64. Simply put: take your largest engine, and stick it in a lightened sedan, preferably a coupe.
Now, a huge argument can and has been made that AMC (American motor corporation) started the muscle car in '57 with the Rebel (? paging tendiamonds and C. Lemoyne here for verification. It could have been called the Machine). AMC put their 400+ engine on their second smallest chasis, yet the idea did not catch on until the mid 60's.
Muscle cars are all about 0-60 mph. Straight line speed. Torque. Low gutteral, gargling V-8 engines, getting 8 to 10 miles per gallon. Being able to screach your wheels at 40 mph. Testosterone. Muscle.
Many will say that although GM and AMC did this all first, Dodge perfected the Muscle engine with the Hemi V-8, still one of the most adored engines of all time. But the 70's hit. Gas got pricy and emissions became a real concern.
Muscle cars do not care much about handling. They are not Ferraris, that can take a hair pin corner at 50 mph. The Ford Mustang is not a muscle car. It's a pony car. Small, sporty cars that do a bit of both.
I'm spent...
Posted by tgl on 2005-04-18 21:39:20 +0000
Pamsterdam asks: "So... muscle cars are simply crappy-ass sports cars?"
In nearly every regard except straight line speed, yes.
Posted by tendiamonds on 2005-04-18 23:31:13 +0000
Close, but not entirely accurate, Dawn.
What you got right is that the first was the GTO (aka, The Goat) in which GM took it's biggest engine and put it in a mid sized car. This may have been before 64, however. In mid 64, Ford introduced the Mustang, which as you correctly point out, is not a muscle car, but a pony car. The biggest difference between a muscle car and a pony car (I think) is that ponies are made explicitly as that. The Mustang (and Camaro for GM's catchup car) was not a family car with a truck engine in it. And also correct, ponies handle somewhere in the middle.
AMC was _never_ revolutionary with performance. (unless you consider AWD performance) The Rebel came out in the 60s, but The Machine was a one year one off in 1970. More interesting is the SC/Rambler in 1969, which had the same engine in a much smaller car.
Also correct on the Hemi, but Chrysler's 440 was also arguably the _second_ best muscle car engine... in the late 60s you couldn't get a better muscle car than what Chrysler was offering.
Muscle cars died in 1972 with emissions laws, but are on a comeback. My friend, Chappy, out in Michigan, believes that automotive engineering operates in a repeating cycle, and he predicted the comeback we are seeing in such cars as the Dodge Magnum. (Oh, and don't forget that wagons were among the best muscle cars since no body expected something like that to light em up on the boulevard...) Some would argue that SUVs are the modern version of muscle cars, as they are all about penis wagging.
Interesting to note: The Corvette was intruduced as a sports car, but when muscle cars were all the rage, they evolved it into more of a pony, then when emissions happened they made them suck, and then when the 80s happened they made them ugly, and now that sports cars are big again they're sporty... Possibly the Madonna of the automotive world.
Posted by pamsterdam on 2005-04-19 08:09:56 +0000
This is honestly all very fascinating - big thank-yous to DB, tgl, & 10D. I can't help commenting that muscle cars sound kind of like less graceful sports cars with bigger balls.
So muscle cars are cheaper, growlier, tougher, ballasier and more masculine than sports cars, but... are you seriously saying they're faster than the best sports cars? I mean, if you pit top-of-the-line sports cars against muscle cars, that would be like putting a bunch of street toughs into the Olympics, right?
Posted by tendiamonds on 2005-04-19 15:48:13 +0000
Not exactly...
Muscle cars have too much muscle to go fast. They have so much power and such bad suspension that they spin their wheels at the slightest tap of the pedal. This, of course, is more useful for showing off than a Ferrari, which you can't legally get out of second gear in this country... There may be some races in which the top muscle cars would beat mid range sports cars, but they would be in a straight line, and not start from a standstill... I would say that on a dragstrip, a muscle car from 1969 would beat a sports car from 1969.
Whilst on my way home last night, after my last post on this thread, upon my dear motorpickle, it occurred to me that I have a Pony Bike: sporty, but by no means competitive with sport bikes; mid-sized; and just enough too much engine for me to compensate for, uh,... being Jewish.
Posted by tgl on 2005-04-19 15:54:52 +0000
Two K1s over at Duncan's right now. http://www.duncansbeemers.com/
Posted by tendiamonds on 2005-04-19 16:02:39 +0000
Shit! He sold the [url=http://www.duncansbeemers.com/bikes/bikepage.html?bikeID=25]bike[/url] I was going to refer you to!
I tried to get craigulus to come out to get that one.
Posted by pamsterdam on 2005-04-19 16:10:26 +0000
Intriguing - and answers my question exactly. Shame about the term Pony - Muscle might sound dumb, and Sports might be inaccurate, but Pony reminds me of My Little Pony dolls.
This brings to mind [url=http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hoopty]Hooptys[/url]. Is the structure of masculine car dynamics something like this (see below)?
Hoopty - lots of bravado, not much power
Pony - some bravado, some power
Muscle - lots of bravado, quite a bit of power
Sports - less bravado, but usually more power
Posted by G lib on 2005-04-19 17:11:05 +0000
My friend who lives in Murderpan described a hoopty to me most like definition #3:
.
"A hoopty is beat-up, piece of shit car with a rusted-out body, a bad transmission, and an engine that only runs on sunny days"
.
No bravado, no power, but it (sometimes) gets you around a city. You really wouldn't want to drive it on the highway, as it doesn't go above 30 mph.
________________
The Boot Knife of Mild Reason
Posted by tendiamonds on 2005-04-19 17:41:01 +0000
First, the "pony" term: the name is a tribute to the original, the Mustang. Then copied by GM as the Camaro, also a horse. It's an affectionate term, one used additionally in automotive culture to refer to horsepower, "How many ponies you got in there?"
Next: Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! If you want to talk about power, you can only be talking about muscle cars and pony cars... You can have a sports car with very little power, look at the Miata, for example.
Let's see if I can get this set up straight for you:
In the 60s, luxury meant big, in automotive terms. So there were a lot of pimpin giant cars toiling around with appropriate sized engines to haul around their 2-3 ton mass. These cars, that have survived, are Hoopties. (singular is Hooptie, I believe, not Hoopty)
Hoopties were intended to be luxurious, but as with a lot of luxury from recent eras, they aged tackily, and have reemereged as cool in the same way that polyester suits have... anyone?
Then some guy at Pontiac (GM) gets the great idea of taking the appropriate sized engine from their full sized (hooptie) car, the Bonneville, and wedge it into their mid sized (family?) car, the Tempest, and call it a GTO, and invent the muscle car, which everyone copies.
Then some guy at Ford gets the great idea of building a smaller car specifically to hold an oversized engine, and calls it the Mustang, and invent the pony car.
Sports cars, had been around all along.
So if you need to sum it up in a table of bravado and power, you need to add handling:
Hooptie: Lots of bravado, little else special
Muscle: Lots of bravado, lots of power, poor handling
Pony: Lots of bravado, lots of power, some handling
Sports: Lots of bravado, lots of handling, more than enough power
Posted by pamsterdam on 2005-04-19 17:51:46 +0000
This is golden. It explains everything. You, sir, are a prince.
One thing, though: I would put Miatas in the sub-category [i]girls' sports cars[/i]. Cute, zippy, comes in nice colors, handles well, but no real power. Some may say that's sexist thinking, but women do get a head start in the marathon, right? I rest my case.
Posted by tendiamonds on 2005-04-19 18:04:12 +0000
I'll get out there and say it:
All convertibles are girls cars, real sports cars are coupes.
Posted by tommy on 2005-04-19 18:12:06 +0000
In the six months that I have been driving my "new" car (a 1971 Plymouth Satellite), I have had no end of strangers comment to me about how you cannot beat an old Mopar. At least twice a week, I get a new story about how someone, in their youth, had a Satellite or a 'Cuda, and how they would routinely humble all Chevelles, Mustangs, etc.
Muscle cars are so much cooler than sports cars. There are no sports car stories: someone had a lot of money and bought an expensive car that goes fast... big deal.
A muscle car guy will always have a story about how he ripped a 383 out of his dead grandfather's Valiant, bored it out, put a four-barrel (or three two-barrels) on it, and dropped it into this Charger that his buddy from the junkyard got for him. It probably took him the whole summer, and he probably crashed it into a tree within a year, but that's so much more interesting than someone walking into a dealership and dropping 80 grand on a Porsche.
Posted by pamsterdam on 2005-04-19 18:16:43 +0000
I'm with you on [url=http://www.ql-archive.org/gifs/convertible.gif]that one[/url] (expand photo for full excruciating effect).
Posted by tgl on 2005-04-19 18:53:49 +0000
No way I'm getting on a white motorcycle.
Posted by dawnbixtler on 2005-04-19 19:08:16 +0000
Yep, tommy speaks the truth.
Posted by tendiamonds on 2005-04-19 19:16:56 +0000
There was this one time tgl and I closed the Tappan Zee...
Posted by tommy on 2005-04-19 19:28:54 +0000
My favorite muscle (pony?) car story!
Posted by tgl on 2005-04-19 19:54:21 +0000
What about my 260Z, which is clearly not a muscle car; is it a pony car?
It's intended as a sports car, or did the dealer (a middle aged divorcee in Tilton NH) mislead me? This implies an interesting story, which would tip the scales toward "muscle car"?
Just hold on... baby, I'm gettin' you a garage!
Just hold on... baby, I'm gettin' you a garage!
Posted by G lib on 2005-04-19 20:01:29 +0000
TOTAL muscle car.
I've been telling you that for years, and you haven't believed me.
________________
The Boot Knife of Mild Reason
Posted by tgl on 2005-04-19 20:07:22 +0000
The arrival of the tow crew/collection of said Hornet/depositing of vehicle on the fair side of the Tappan Zee toll is not entirely unlike the end of "Time Bandits".
The collection of said Hornet and depositing of the vehicle in front of the Pep Boys in Tarrytown, NY is not unlike...
Posted by G lib on 2005-04-19 20:11:49 +0000
Thank goodness you didn't have a tight white t-shirt with a pack of pall malls rolled up in the sleeve on while telling that story, tommy.
Don't worry, PChippy (and TGL for that matter), your Subaru station wagon is way hott, too.
________________
The Boot Knife of Mild Reason
Posted by tendiamonds on 2005-04-19 20:44:06 +0000
Actually... not either... more of a 70s econobox, which looks meaty by today's standards. Still, the stuff of legends.
Posted by tendiamonds on 2005-04-19 20:47:43 +0000
Sports Car. Period. Not nearly enough power to be a pony, and not superimposed on an existing family car so it can't be a muscle car, which by their nature should be sleepers, at least somewhat... [url=http://www.musclecarclub.com/musclecars/plymouth-superbird/plymouth-superbird-pictures.shtml] Superbird[/url] aside.
The reason it doesn't handle sportily is that it was made in Japan in the 70s... oof.
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