[GTOPLACE]

What info are you referring to? 1964? In 1962 the Dodge Dart had a 116" wheelbase,and was much smaller than the other Dodges. The 413 had 2-4 bbl.,11 to 1 compression, 410 HP @5200 rpm and 460 lbs torque at 4400 rpm. In 1963 they punched the 413 out to 426.

[Old Goat 67]

Actually, I couldn't care less. They were a piece of crap then and still are. I swore a long time ago, to NEVER work on any damn Dodge or Chrysler again, EVER.

Used to love whipping those Roadrunner's and GTX's back in the day. Never lost to one of them, ever. Sure was happy that I didn't succumb to the Charger hype back in 67.

[Region Warrior]

Originally Posted by Old Goat 67

Actually, I couldn't care less. They were a piece of crap then and still are. I swore a long time ago, to NEVER work on any damn Dodge or Chrysler again, EVER.

Used to love whipping those Roadrunner's and GTX's back in the day. Never lost to one of them, ever. Sure was happy that I didn't succumb to the Charger hype back in 67.

LOL.
My best friend had a 68 road runner with a transplanted 440.
Another "so called" friend had a 383 "rotor" as we called them.
And a 3rd had a 360 demon.
Aways working on them while i was cruising around.
They hated me and my 68 FB after every race

[gtoric]

Originally Posted by "QUICK-SILVER"

gtoric;
How or does your club recognize 75 to 78 cars? And in the 79 to current "Modern Muscle", what does it take to make the class, was there a ratio change on horse power to weight?

Just curious, seen several articles about the '79' 400 4 speed Firebird/TA being called the last muscle car.

We have determined that there are no vehicles built between 1975 and 1978 that meet the criteria for muscle car. In 1979 only the L82 225 hp corvette qualifies. The next Pontiac, after the '74 SD455 Firebird, is the 1987 Sunbird SE and GT Turbo cars.
The '79 Firebird T/A and Formula 400s were too heavy. The '79 'Vette just made it under the wire with a 11.96:1 ratio. It was about 300 lbs lighter than the F'bird.

[poison heart]

Yeah, Shut Down by the Beach Boys. No way the Dodge would have lost. Those 413s were BAD! So were the '68 roadrunners no matter how many of them you beat. Mopar had it goin on; Chargers, Challengers, Cudas, Road Runners, GTXs, Darts, Dusters, Super Bees, Where as Pontiac only really had Firebirds and GTOs. I'd also bet that a Road Runner or a Coronet "B body" mopar is a lot bigger than a GTO. My friend has 2 '68 satellites and a 67 Coronet. My '62 Cat is smaller than any of his mopars.

The muscle car designation doesn't really mean much. It's just a title. It's like debating "what is a rat rod" Who cares?? I was just curious what the official definition was and why a SD Catalina wouldn't be considered a Muscle Car. Now I know

[Region Warrior]

The Road Runners and Chargers where bigger, but lite.
Unibody like F-bodies.
Thinner body panels. Doors make an echo when closed.
Mopars where the cheapest built cars during the 60's-70's.
Engines and tranys broke on a regular basis.
In my buddies case's, nearly every time they'd try'n catch me, which never happened.

[PONTIAC LARRY]

Originally Posted by gtoric

We have determined that there are no vehicles built between 1975 and 1978 that meet the criteria for muscle car. In 1979 only the L82 225 hp corvette qualifies. The next Pontiac, after the '74 SD455 Firebird, is the 1987 Sunbird SE and GT Turbo cars.
The '79 Firebird T/A and Formula 400s were too heavy. The '79 'Vette just made it under the wire with a 11.96:1 ratio. It was about 300 lbs lighter than the F'bird.

If you even mention a FWD POS in this thread..the defining criteria needs some tweaking..

How about NO muscle cars after 1974 because of the mandated Catalytic converter?

BTW a 79 400 4spd Bird vs a 79 L82 Vette... That Pontiac should take that drag race everytime..superior torque curve.......I believe that Pontiac was the quickest/fastest car in 79 roadtests..

[gtoric]

When it comes to modern muscle, some unexpected configurations do show up. Sorry.

[carbking]

The term "muscle car" seems quite ambiguous.

The most common definition seems to be: "midsize car with big engine".

If "midsize car with big engine" is the accepted definition, then the 1964 Pontiac GTO fails to be the first "muscle car" by several decades.

One "slightly" earlier model that comes to mind would be the 1930 Packard model 734. This was a sports roadster built on the small Packard frame with a high performance version of the large Packard engine.

And before that, several makes in the teens offered roadsters (lighter and more compact) with the large engines (many modified) from their larger closed cars.

But auto magazine writers have never let a good story be confused by a lack of understanding of history. Or maybe, a disregard of history.

Perhaps the 1964 GTO should be referred to as the first muscle car in the 1960's era.

Or perhaps the definition could be changed to:

First Pontiac on a Tempest/LeMans body with a 389 engine.

Don't misread the intent of this post; as I personally like the 1964 GTO (I had 6 of them!); but facts are facts.

Jon.

[SWEETJUDGE]

This is a huge battle between PONTIAC & MOPAR. The 64 GTO is considered the grandfather of muscle cars. Small car with Perf V8, But mopar had them aswell. Bigger better & faster in my opinion. Mopar had wedges & hemis super stock light weights aswell.
Im not sure how or why Pontiac wears the CROWN, but thats the way it is

[poison heart]

I'd probably be a Mopar guy if the whole Mopar scene wasn't so expensive. They had so many cars with good engines in them: Charger, Challenger, Cuda, Road Runners, GTX, Cornet, Super Bee, Dart, Duster with 340s, 361s, 413s, 426s, 440s, 383s. I mean shoot, look at NASCAR, they banned Hemis, Banned 1969 Daytonas, and banned 1970 Superbirds. Come on...those Mopars were FAST. First cars to run over 200 in NASCAR.

[Father&Son73T/A]

Originally Posted by PONTIAC LARRY

If you even mention a FWD POS in this thread..the defining criteria needs some tweaking..

How about NO muscle cars after 1974 because of the mandated Catalytic converter?

BTW a 79 400 4spd Bird vs a 79 L82 Vette... That Pontiac should take that drag race everytime..superior torque curve.......I believe that Pontiac was the quickest/fastest car in 79 roadtests..

This is why I consider the 79 W72 birds the last true Pontiac muscle car,maybe not what the early 400's were,but you gotta respect it for a 220-260hp 335lb torque Pontiac 400...............and in 79.
And yes,in 79 no other stock American car could beat a 79 W72 Firebird,not even the Vette

[Tenney]

The Max Wedge Darts and Savoys that preceded the '64 Goat were mid-sized cars w/big motors, for sure - though factory race cars for the most part.

But the Goat pretty much spawned a sudden trend in mid-sized/big motored street cars - (396 Chevelles, 442's, GS Buicks, 390 Fairlanes, 383/440 and eventually Hemi Coronets/Satellites, AMC Rebels ...).

[SWEETJUDGE]

i butt heads with my mopars buddies on this ALL THE TIME

[poison heart]

Mopar guys think their sh!t don't stink. haha They make excuses for everything. Mopars go hard though

[gtoric]

Originally Posted by PONTIAC LARRY

If you even mention a FWD POS in this thread..the defining criteria needs some tweaking..

Like I said previously, our club has set just a few parameters: years covered (1961-1974); fuel delivery (4-8bbl carb [with a few exceptions like the 2bbl GTOs of '67-'69] or fuel injection); American-built or American-foreign hybrid (Shelby /AC Cobra); pounds per horsepower ratio of no more than 12:1. Frankly, we didn't even consider FWD, because the Toros, Eldos and Rivs were all too heavy to meet our weight to power ratio qualifications.

Early muscle and modern muscle are display-only in our show, but the qualifications still apply, so whether the car is pushed by the rear wheels or pulled by the front wheels is not taken into account in our listing. We are guided by factory supplied numbers. POS or not, the turbo-powered Pontiac is light enough @ 2353lbs and powerful enough @ 207 factored hp to come in at an 11.37:1 ratio. There are more front-drive modern muscle cars: Turbo Sunbirds 1987-'89, Ford Taurus SHO 1990-'92, '97-'99; Dodge Spirit R/T Turbo 1991-'92, Dodge Daytona IROC R/T 1992-'93, Cadillac Allante 1993 (w/Northstar DOHC), Cadillac Eldorado 1993-'99; Eagle Talon TSi 1998; Pontiac Bonneville SSEi, SE, SLE, SSE W/Supercharged 231 1996-'99; Grand Prix GTP & Buick Regal GS w/supercharged 231 1997-'99. When compared to cars of the same time frame, these are muscle cars. Don't fall into the trap of comparing classic muscle cars to modern muscle cars, they are two completelly different animals. It took over ten years for the computer-controlled, sequential fuel injection fuel delivery systems to catch back up to the, catylitic-converter-choked, emmisions-controlled hammer that helped to bludgeon the classic muscle cars into submission by 1974. We recognize only three cars (1979 & 1980 L82 'vette, and the 1984 TBI 'vette) between 1974 and 1985 to meet our criterion. Then in 1985 the 'vette was joined only by the Ford 302HO Mustang and Capri.

We decided to include modern muscle cars into our show because it was an indisputable fact that there were many new performance cars that would just plain outrun our classic iron. How do you think our old school GTOs will stand up to a 2009 Cadillac CTS-V, or even the 2004 GTO? Spectators wanted to see the modern muscle cars, so we created a non-judged class for them.

How about NO muscle cars after 1974 because of the mandated Catalytic converter?

What does the presence of a catcon have to do with the determination of muscle car status? My Grand National will keep up with my '67 GTO just fine.
GN--3285 lbs-306 factored hp, = 10.74:1 torque = 355 lbsft
GTO convertible-- 3683 lbs-335 hp = 10.99:1 torque = 441 lbsft
TTL for torque! Today, catcons are a non-factor for performance cars.

BTW a 79 400 4spd Bird vs a 79 L82 Vette... That Pontiac should take that drag race everytime..superior torque curve.......I believe that Pontiac was the quickest/fastest car in 79 roadtests..

I love the W72 Firebirds of 1979 and agree that they are probably the fastest performance cars of that year.
Both cars are so close to the muscle car cutoff (11.97:1 on the positive side for the 'vette to 12.91:1 on the negatory side for the T/A) that it really boils down to torque figures (270 vs. 320) to determine which is quicker in the quarter mile. They both have respectible performance for the time, but still don't compare to their immediate ancestors the 1974 454 'vette and the SD455 T/A. However, we've never used quarter-mile times to determine muscle car status, because that method is not a reliable, repeatable, statistical base of comparison. Not every car in our listing has a quarter mile time published. Factory weights and hp ratings are published in black and white for every manufactured combination, thus, for the most part weight-to-hp ratio is an indisputable method.

[PONTIAC LARRY]

gtoric,

The advertised Hp/weight is ok for analyzing a single criteria..but everybody is going to have there own definition. The default or "Classic American Muscle Car" term by the majority of people like myself will associate it with 1964-1974 midsize models , the hi-performance full-size models of the early 60's stay in there own group(super car,super stocker?)... "Modern muscle" would be a 1980's up reference , Yes the GN and T-type are exactly that ! FWD cars can be high performance but that term "muscle car" , I don't think so.
All the "Pony cars" are in a sub-group of there own.. and cars without back seats are in the "Sports car " group to me" Corvettes , AC Shelby Cobra , 50's-60's butt ugly ass Chrysler 300's and the like were heavy and not muscle cars.. Muscle Cars are supposed to be nice looking too...did we all forget that..and RWD for god sakes and with a back seat and a solid rear axle...... Go to a Sport Compact Forum if you want to talk about Turbo AWD and FWD cars...the 1975-1979 era is in it own group too....maybe we should call it "smog muscle" LOL

God Bless America

[poison heart]

haha smog muscle! Nice

[Ron Landis]

Originally Posted by poison heart

That makes sense. It's funny that a big ol GTO is a midsize car. Same with like Road Runners. Those are some big ass cars to be considered mid sized. Thanks

when parked next to a '68 Newport! lol It's all relative. Ron

[Old Man Taylor]

"And why would Pontiac cut all ties with racing and then come out with the '64 GTO aka the first muscle car?"


If you are ever at an event with Jim Wangers, ask him this question. If there is time you will hear a good story.