Pacific Muscle Cars

[j2k4]

Memories...

Thanks, Milt.

Only pics of any of my cars that survived my divorce are in my garage; the rest are in the ether.

[HilbillyHomeboy]

Oh lord, that Road Runner is truly badass. Wow! I was born too late...

Jeremy

[j2k4]

Wow! I was born too late...

Jeremy

Yes, you were.

Slightly.

[Street_Chally73]

Mmm, an A-12 RR!!


Sent from the garage

[Alan92RTTT]

This is a thread about muscle cars. Their is no call for personal attacks.

If you have an issue please report the post and ignore it. Let Jeremy or myself take a look and deal with the issue. We do have jobs so it might take a while before we can look so just let it go and wait for us to deal with it.

Stay on topic

[95gto]

I thought this was a thread about the automobile equivalent to a chupacabra

[anyonebutme]

My post dissapeared.....and it was totally on the level.

Back to pacific muscle........has nothing to do with american muscle, its about a Japanese plain car that the factory stuffed in a more powerful engine than necessary. It has muscle. All the people butthurt about a term that didn't originally apply to 70% of the cars people call muscle cars today need to get a life. Z28 wasn't a muscle car by definition (it was originally designation for the trans am spec iirc)...the SS was closer but the chassis was a "pony" car size. People over the years tended to mold the term to fit ALL american v8 cars of the decade.

Cars like the Nissan skyline gtr and gts fit this bill nicely, they are plain Japanese cars stuffed with tons of HP and options by the factory........wow, sounds like exactly what Pontiac did that coined the term to start with.

BTW, NO mustang technically can be called a muscle car. Just putting that out there.

[HilbillyHomeboy]

Sorry ABM, the cow catcher sometimes snags "good" posts, too. Thanks for re-posting.

Jeremy

[R/T93]

He is talking about the trans am racing series not the firebird hence the trans am spec phrase he used.

[j2k4]

The term "Muscle Car" - as I recall - was applied retroactively as the phenomenon of the '64 GTO (big-cube sedan) demanded explanation in the markets after Pontiac's core design/engineering people talked themselves into sneaking it past their bosses into production and then reporting tidy sales as a follow-on.

There are lots of rumors about that end of things, but the term issued from the media/car-enthusiast crowd, and it was a natural; lots of "Murrica" appeal.

I think, though, the umbrella of "Muscle car" has to be applied from a different perspective.

If we can agree, at least, that the term popularized with the GTO (Pontiac specie), then proceed to apply the simple Muscle Car formula of "Large-Cube Sedan", everything that follows is a big-block sedan.

I know this is not the case, cuz having had an SS396 Camaro to start, with roughly ten other BBC cars, and finishing with a '73 SS454 Chevelle and not even venturing into BB Fords, Buicks, Oldsmobiles, Pontiacs and Mercurys I've owned, I cannot look at a Camaro and see a sedan.

Nor a Firebird, a Mustang, or a Cougar.

I've had more small-block Camaros, Mustangs, Firebirds and Cougars than big-blocks by far, and if I limit my offerings to a '68 Z28, a '70-1/2 Z28, a '69 Boss 302, a '70 Cougar Eliminator, and a '71 Boss 351 Mustang, I can tell you that those were Muscle Cars.

I wouldn't suggest it as a standard, necessarily, but I've always thought a street car that could get inside 14 seconds was worth that status.

So-

Body type kills the 'sedan' issue, and hot small-blocks address the matter of inches.

My two cents, at any rate.

Small blocks also, for the price-difference, gave a lot more people access to the action, and in the spirit of Obama...