[taximan]

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

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

[dblsprt68]

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

[Stuart]

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.

[takid455]

Originally Posted by Stuart

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.

[Old Goat Racer]

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.

[RARON455]

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

[455Grandville]

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.

[64-389]

Originally Posted by RARON455

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...

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.

[judgera4]

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

[Old Goat Racer]

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

[Jack Gifford]

Originally Posted by RARON455

... Heavy as a Freight train...

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.

[dhcarguy]

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

[Sirrotica]

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

[GT182]

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() really started it all. Everything after was just to catch up with GM.

[roadrage david]

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

[BR57]

Originally Posted by old goat racer

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

"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."

[Greg Reid]

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.

[triathlonx13]

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.

[BR57]

Originally Posted by triathlonx13

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.

"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

[Wareagle]

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