Posted on 11/16/2025 6:42:18 PM PST by Duke C.
The Ernst Bros and I have talked about collaborating on an article on American muscle cars for a while. I wanted it to be different from all the “Top 10” or “Best 15” titles you see on the web.
So, we decided to pick just one from the 1964-1972 era and call it the Best Muscle Car of all time.
(Excerpt) Read more at classicnation.com ...
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Yes, you nailed it. The original fastback Mustang was the peak of this genre.
Sorry, but the Mustang, Camaro, Challenger and ‘cuda ARE NOT MUSCLE CARS.
They are all PONY cars. A muscle car is BY DEFINITION a mid-size sedan with a large displacement engine from a luxury/full size sedan.
Not many if any memorable cars of today.
They all look like computer mice.
Have to go with with ‘70 Chevelle. Only because I owned one and it was a great car.
1970 Plymouth Superbird
68 Dodge Charger for me.
Not muscle cars. FAST AS HELL, but real muscle cars were full size cars.
Pony car, not a muscle car. Fast, but different category.
A coon hunting buddy bought a yugo. He got mad cause I asked if it came with a mowing deck.
Another friend had a Boss 302. Compared to everything else, it was SLOW!
1968 Dodge Charger 440 Magnum and 1968 Ford Mustang 390 GT 2+2 Fastback
Ultimately, the quality was horrendous and traded-in for a new 69 VW bug at BobSmith's Hollywood VW.
The showroom floor featured a Porche 911...retail sticker was $5,000.
Technically a mustang is a “pony car”, not a “muscle car”.
While they overlap, they are separate categories.
Pony cars are lighter and top out at 3500Lbs. Handle better. The muscle car are all about straight line, off the line, acceleration and were generally based on a mid sized sedan.
That’s a beautiful car!
Yesterday, we were watching a Mecum auction — probably a rerun. It featured cars from the ‘50s through th ‘80s. Most were muscle cars.
I know nothing about the mechanics of cars, but I know what beautiful looks like. They were works of art!
We’re in the market for a new car, and I don’t GAS about what we buy, or shopping for it, as all cars now look alike now. Hubby can decide, as he has for thr last ten years.
“1966 chevelle SS 396 ...”
My Dad bought one brand new. $3,600. Got a deal on it because it was green. Back then no one wanted a green car.
The article starts by excluding pony cars, then picks a pony car as the winner. My favorite, the 58 Chevy Impala coupe fully loaded, is the most beautiful, fast looking beast to ever roll down the highway. Excluded from the list by age and speed. It would have topped the list for rare.
“I had a ‘73 Ford LTD with a 429 cubic inch motor.”
The 429 was an extremely strong motor, one of the strongest engines ever built. They had just one flaw. For easier assembly on the line engineers decided to use “split” Cam Bearings so they pressed in the block easier. One problem, in hot summer environments a Cam Bearing or two would “spin” out of alignment with the oil feed hole and fry the cam and bearing causing it to lose overall oil pressure and destroy the whole engine. So they just trashed the whole design. When all they had to do was go back to solid Cam Bearings instead. I hated to see that engine go away. I built a few as race engines using solid Cam Bearings and they were hard to beat and rock solid.
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