Chrysler .. first musclecar ??
 

Has anyone seen that Chrysler commercial that claims it had the first muscle car ?

What is that thing in the commercial ? R they serious ?

I think they are thinking the 300 series was the first muscle car. It had power, but it was a land barge. They do have some cool cars in the commercial. I like some of them, too bad I can't afford any of them. David

I've heard that commercial as well, and of course they're wrong. :) If they want to split hairs, Buick arguably built the first muscle car way back in the late 1930s, when they took the big straight 8 engine out of a Roadmaster, put it in the smaller and lighter Special body, and called it the Century.

humm..my father has a 1939 century

I do agree with mopar having the first muscle car with the 300 series in 1955. sorry goat boys. It had 300 hp obviously and w/in 2 years had almost 400hp in the 1957 300C 392 hemi w/ dual carbs. the 1960F Nascar versions had over 400, but they made around 12? of them so finding one is rare. 4 speeds too.

the 300 put down respectable time and won many racing events. I think chevy had 260hp or so in its 210, but I believe the 300 won the power to weight ration even at 4000-4500lbs. keep in mind, a lemans/gto isn't exactly a light car. (but gutting everything can be made lighter). corvette is a sports car, mustangs and camaros are pony cars.

But when was the phrase "muscle car " first used and on which car. It's easy to look back & say this or that should have been called a muscle car.

They were referring to the 300s they were making in the late 50s, yeah they put thier 392 firepower hemi in them, and they had power, but I have seen these cars, and they are HUGE!! And Heavy as a Freight train.

Pontiac gets the credit for the muscle car, big motor in an intermediate chassis is what started the whole thing, So Many thanks to the GTO and TEMPEST

First 300s were the 331 cid Hemi (3 13/16ths bore x 3 5/8ths stroke) Top speed was supposed to be 130, fast in 1955.
392 came along in 1957 and was a tall deck motor.

I agree with this. I think chrysler did have the big motor idea first, but the car they put it in certainly was no "muscle car." There's a specific "look" to a muscle car as well. Sleek...mean...etc.

Yeah they are making alot of claims(LoL).I didn't know The GTO was A Chrysler.:confused:

Anybody got a road test (1/4 mile ET ) on the 55 Chyrsler?

One listing I found shows the '55 Chrysler C300 weighing 4,005-4,145 lb.
That same book states that the 300 was "... unabashedly created for NASCAR racing"- which would almost justify Chrysler now referring to it as the first "muscle car". However, it was not the first mass-produced American car designed for NASCAR racing- things like Hudson's "Twin-H Power" and "7-X racing engine" preceded it by a couple of years.

The earliest that I can remember the term "muscle" car was probably in 1972 in an article in Car and Driver magazine which was basically about "the end of the Detroit Muscle Cars". I do not think that was the first time the term was used however.
Dave

Got The Original Musclecar
 

I beleive that the shirt I designed, Says it all........

Yeah, I saw that about Chrysler saying they were the first muscle car on tv the other night. Horse Hockey, the may have had the hemi first but it wasn't in any street "muscle" car that I can remember. 4 and 2 door humungus family cars maybe, but nuthing like the GTO. They needed a motor like that just to move them down the road. LOL

But ol Carroll Shelby got Ford going back in 65 and 66 with his GT350s.... a year later than the 64 Goat. To me the 64 GTO(:first:) really started it all. Everything after was just to catch up with GM.

ehhhhhhhhhhhhuhhhhh term muscle car came from sticking a full size car engine into a mid size car cald the GTO.....

A quick archive search....
 

"Officially offered for sale on February 10, 1955, the first Chrysler 300 was athletic-looking, but it didn't have a letter at the end of its name. With 300 horsepower aboard, it was among the quickest cars of its time, getting to 60 mph in just 9.8 seconds, according to a test in Mechanix Illustrated by "Uncle Tom" McCahill, who also spurred the car up to a full 130 mph."

"The 389-cubic-inch, four-speed-equipped GTO we tested for our January 1964 issue went 0 to 60 in 7.7 seconds, clearing the quarter mile in a not-really-all-that-fast 15.8 seconds at 93.0 mph."

If Chrysler considered the 300 a muscle car, then why on earth didn't they place it into competition with the SS Chevelle, GTO, GS, 442 instead of their intermediate line of cars such as the Satellite, Coronet and so on?

The only way a Chrysler 300 could be considered a muscle car is if your definition of a muscle car is based solely on some arbitrary horsepower number. If that's the case, with a little digging you could make any car a muscle car based on whatever your arbitrary number is. Maybe the Stutz Bearcat was the first? Or the Cord?

My definition is more along the generally accepted lines of an intermediate sized car with an engine originally designed for full sized cars, some handling and performance upgrades, special badging, etc. all packaged and marketed as a performance car from the factory. In other words, the perfect description of the '64 GTO
Certainly not a full sized car like the 300, Cadillac, Lincoln, etc.

Who made / created the first v8? I know Pontiac made one before Chevy... But was Pontiac the first car company out with the v8 motor.

Cadillac was first, Pontiac was last
 

"The United States can be considered the "home of the V8" — it has always been more popular there than anywhere else, and it is certainly now the preferred arrangement for any large engine. With the recent exceptions of the Dodge Viper's V10, the similar Dodge Built Ram Tough V10, and the Ford Triton V10 engine of the same arrangement, there are practically no large engines in the US of post-World War II design that have not been of this type.

A full decade after Britain's 1904 Rolls-Royce Legalimit, Cadillac produced the first American V8 engine, 1914's L-Head. It was a complicated hand-built unit with cast iron paired closed-head cylinders bolted to an aluminum crankcase, and it used a flat-plane crankshaft. Peerless followed, introducing a V8 licensed from amusement park manufacturer, Herschell-Spillman, the next year. Chevrolet produced a crude overhead valve V8 in 1917, in which the valve gear was completely exposed. It only lasted through 1918 and then disappeared. They would not produce another V8 until the introduction of the famous small block in 1955.

Cadillac and Peerless were one year apart again (1923 and 1924, respectively) with the introduction of the cross-plane crankshaft. Lincoln also had V8 cars in those years.

Ford was the first company to use V8s en masse. Instead of going to an inline six like its competitors when something larger than an inline four was needed, Ford designed a modern V8, the famous Flathead of 1932. This engine powered almost all larger Ford cars until 1953, and was produced until around 1970 by Ford licensees around the world, mostly powering commercial vehicles.

After World War II, the strong demand for larger status-symbol cars made the common straight-6 less marketable. A straight-8 engine would introduce problems with crankshaft-whip, and would require a longer engine space. In the new wider body styles, a V8 would fit in the same engine space as a straight-6. Manufacturers could simplify production and offer the bigger engines as optional upgrades to base models.

In 1949 General Motors responded to Ford's V8 success by introducing the Oldsmobile Rocket and Cadillac OHV. Chrysler introduced their FirePower 331 cubic inch hemi-head V8 in 1951. Sales were beyond all expectations, so Buick followed in 1953, and Chevrolet and Pontiac introduced V8s of their own in 1955."

Source: Wikipedia

The first Muscle car--Big engine -light body - 64 GTO nuff said.

War Eagle by your own definition you just named the 62 Dodge Dart 413 Max wedge! Slightly heavier than the 64 Tempest but a power to weight ratio NEVER matched or exceeded by any Pontiac sold to the public.

BUT in fairness to back you up:
I was recently reading a September or October 1968 Super Stock magazine article introducing the new 1969 models and they DID refer to the 64 GTO as "the original super car"

Cool--over the years I've read many magazines--most of them referred to the 64 GTO as the first Musclecar.

The big difference with the Dodge Dart's claim is that it wasn't mass produced in that configuration. I think it was a special order and wasn't even covered by a factory warranty IF I recall correctly. I've even seen one restored with the reproduction window sticker that stated the voided warranty information.
If you look at al the cars that are universally accepted as 'muscle cars', they were all mass produced and marketed the same way regardless of manufacturer. I'm talking:
Road Runner, GTX, Superbee, Coronet R/T, Charger R/T, GTO, SS Chevelle, GS, 442, Torino GT, Cyclone GT...I'm sure I missed a couple but they were all similar sized, similarly marketed, similarly equipped. Not fullsized cars and not 'Pony' cars.

Doesn't mean other cars are not high performance cars...but the term "muscle car" fits those above and only those in my concept of the term.

first, smirst. can you say BEST!?! or at least how about most recognizable? i can't count how many times i've heard people make nice comments about brand x cars, just to follow up with "what is it?" or call it somthing it's not. you'll be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't recognize a gto, and they always have a story to go with it. "I, or, my father, uncle, neighbor, etc. had one and man was that car fast!" if you can find one, park a 55 300 some where and see how many people can tell you what it is, then distinguish it as a muscle car. HA!

Umm... maybe because those cars were still about ten years in the future???

Some research would be required for a good answer, since the dawning 20th century brought such rapid development of the internal combustion engine- many examples disappeared quickly. Certainly one of the earliest (and most successful) V8s was Glen Curtiss's engine, built later in fairly large quantity for his airplanes. I believe it was 1908 when he set a speed record (120+ MPH?) on a motorcycle with one of his V8 engines. [Try that on raggedy-ass cotton-cord tires, you real men!]

Edit: After looking it up- it was 1907 when Curtiss set the record at 136 MPH- on a very rickety-looking machine!

...and PMD marketed it as such. Those old fat slow early MOPAR "s"-boxes never had that in mind when they produced and marketed them. Plus their suspensions where comlete crap.... Well actually Mopar never did have good suspension... and Ford... ok this is another topic! haha

Muscle cars as we call it today are defined by years made... somewheres around 1964 - 1972. But more importantly it's mid-sized car (as interpretated in the era built) with a front and rear seat, two door, V8 or large engine, good power to weight ratio, aggressive looks. Buy definition the 2004-2007 GTOs are muscle cars... the four door challenger/charger thing is not....

MOPAR is lying again... And being greedy too! They had their share of good stuff and did well in history - That commercial would make someone think that they did everything first and was the best at everything... well that's the far from reality. :)

They made a couple super low production cars that did very well. The company as a whole back in the hay day of Muscle cars produced a 1/3 of what GM did... because the company was broke and people like the GM products better.

Someone mentioned Hudson. If memory serves me correct they introduced the Hudson"Jet" in '53 or '54. It was a smaller intermediate car and could be had with a police option...a 300+ C.I. 6 banger with Twin-H power(dual carbs),high comp. head and a few other enhancements..Basically the same motor that tore the NASCAR series up for years in the full sized Hudson's prior to to the big V-8's..It (JET) was originally made for a down sized econo car...
One feature that was expressed was by being a narrow car it could slip through city traffic.
My Dad loved his Hudsons...had a 52 with Twin-H power....I could tear up the Ford & Merc boys with it !! He always wondered why the cops would follow him around :police:
One other thing.....someplace I have a mag. article that claims Pontiac was the first stock car to hit 200MPH on a "closed circuit" race track !!! GUess I'll do some digging for my own sake...
Still......64 GTO is my first choice for first Muscle Car...

You seem to have completely missed my point Jack.
THEY are the ones claiming it was the first muscle car. If they had honestly felt that all those other cars that I just mentioned were the same thing that they had already done a decade before with the 300, you can count on it that they would have pointed that out THEN... in the 1960s....not 40 years later in 2007.
They are very aware that the 300 and those other cars are not comparable in the least.
It's just a convenient revision of history and probably good marketing right now to claim to be first with the muscle car just like Ford is now calling their "Pony car" the only remaining "muscle car" in their recent ads.

By the way, I owned a '68 Chrysler 300 and believe me, it was designed to be on the same level as Cadillac and Lincoln, not the LeMans and Chevelle.

Greg I know personally 2 people that bought max wedge cars new from the dealer( I was a kid then but remember the cars well). They had no special connections they just knew what to order. Chryslers biggest mistake was not marketing it! Also the Max wedge while rare didnt always go in a stripped down car. In 1969 my brother bought a 64 Dodge Polara from a used car lot. Nice bucket seat interior radio etc. Underhood 426 stage III complete with iron headers cross ram and factory aircleaners. My brother got it home pulled the engine (for his RoadRunner) and called the junkyard. YUP he still kicks himself. Even the headers went to the junkyard. I never understood why he didnt put his 383 in there and sell the car, he claimed he didnt want to waste the time back then. He married shortly there after and the RoadRunner went bye and he was drivin a Falcon! Happened to a lot of guys back then. His most missed car was his 65 GTO followed by the 67GTO convert. He got beat up by the RoadRunner that replaced the 67 and bought it from the guy. Pontiac played the right cards in 64 with the GTO the car was just what the young crowd wanted. Timing and execution perfect. Super Car.

I didn't mean to say that you couldn't order a Max Wedge Dart...Only, as you pointed out, you had to know what to order and the dealer made certain exceptions with the car in that it was something of a factory race car.
With the GTO, you could go to any Pontiac dealer and see maybe 15 or 20 GTOs on the lot, pick up the brochure, see the commercials every night during prime time, etc. It was a factory, mass produced performance car, marketed as such.
All that is part of the muscle car phenomenom, in my eyes anyway and all the cars I mentioned in the earlier post, including Mopar and Ford, fit that definition as far as I know.

I Could be wrong but I think that was Fireball Roberts that hit 200 mph In his 421 SD Cat .

Yep, I agree. Alll those Road and Track magazines I had from the mid to late 60s said the same..... 64 GTO was the 1st muscle car. Too bad they got thrown out. :cry: But I guess most of us did stupid stuff like that, or Mom did it for us when we weren't around. Right now I have over 10 years worth of Mustang Monthly magazines my wife wanted me to throw out. Nuthin doin, just in case I lose my mind and get a 67 or 68 Mustang. LOL

Well, no one read the latest Mopar Enthusiast, because they pretty much rag on every make in their "Confessions Of A Mopar Junkie" section lol. I got the feeling that they never made a slow car while reading it. :pound: One guy even states no GTO ever ran with a 413. Now that's not nice. Why can't they just accept the GTO is the 1st Musclce Car and be done with it. :D Oh btw, I only bought it because I wanted to see what the 25 fastest Mopars were, honestly. :noidea:

Not sure of year.Might have been prior to the 421's....but I think it was Fireball driving one of Smokey's cars....
They wern't called "The Demon's of Daytona" for nothing !!!:first:

That story of the remake of Fireball Robert's car he won with in 62 at the Daytona 500 was great. Page 58 of the Nov issue of P Pontiac. I would love to have a SD 421 like that. More Grrrrr for the Prrrrrrr. LOL

He was drving the famed winged Superbird

http://pictures.topspeed.com/IMG/cro...305/8-7_7w.jpg

Buddy drove for Dodge,
 

It's like splitting hairs I know, but he drove for Dodge, it was a Hemi Powered Dodge Daytona.

http://www.cottonowens.com/press.html

Fireball might have, and probably did hit 200 mph down a straight but not for an entire lap, that's what Baker's record was.

Pontiac had Delorean, all it needed to "define" and market a musclecar.

Maybe they're thinking of this one. LOL http://www.diseno-art.com/encycloped...h_belmont.html


I did see this car at the Hagley Museum Car Show Sunday the 16th. WOW, it is one good looking car. It's a 1 of 1 seeing Chrysler saw fir to destroy it's twin. Also met the owner, she trailers it around the country to various shows. Not sure if it'll be seen around here again as there are 3 collectors trying to buy it from her. Last offered price was 3 million bucks and she said No.



A young kid at the show saw it and said to his dad, "That's the biggest Corvette I've ever seen!" True story.

I saw that junk on TV as well.... the muscle car started with the GTO...
IT ended with the Grand National...

GTO is the ALPHA the Grand National was the Omega.

Nothing before fit the mold and nothing after either.

ok, so i'm a bit late on this; but didnt the 63 buic riv have a 389? a friend owns one of these and i've never measured, but it doesnt look any bigger than my lemans. why wasnt this the first musclecar? was it front wheel drive?

They came with either a 401 or optional 425. It was actually considered a fullsized coupe. I looked up the specs and it was 208 inches long and nearly 4,200 lbs. The '64 GTO was nearly that long but I'm sure it wasn't that heavy.
The Riviera was certainly a performance car by any standards but Buick considered it a full sized 'Personal Luxury Car".

One of my first cars was a 64 Riviera with the 425 engine, which I drove from around 1975 - 1980 . It was an incredible car. In 75-76, I also had a black 65 GTO tri-power 4-spd. The GTO was a brute, with no a/c, manual drum brakes and manual steering. The Riviera was very quick but refined, way ahead of it's time. I'd love to have another Riviera.