Cruisin’ season is drawing to a close as autumn approaches and you’ve gone through another summer without the right wheels to make your mark.
But you don’t have the funds to build a street rod or buy a classic Packard roadster. The solution: A muscle car.
Muscle cars are hot at collector-car auctions, but prices have not soared out of control like they have for ’55-’57 Chevrolets. Besides, you can use a muscle car as an everyday driver and you can get parts for it.
“The best place to buy a muscle car is at the Auburn (Ind.) Kruse International Classic Car Auction Car Corral or at a meet like Carlisle (Pa.),” says Don Morton, whose firm, A&M Specialists in Detroit, has long been in fleet management and whose background includes service with Hurst Performance, when it developed the Chrysler 300-H and the Hurst Oldsmobile 4-4-2.
“The thing about a place like the Car Corral or Carlisle is that there is a wide selection of cars right there and usually you can find the owner to talk to. That’s important. The more you know about that particular car, the better you’re going to get along with it.”
But what is a muscle car and why does it have such an allure?
“I love ’em,” says Gary Cowen, of Rochester Hills, Mich., owner of a ’70 Chevelle SS with modified 396 V-8 and a ’67 Plymouth GTX with a special 440 V-8 engine that’s undergoing some work. “They’re fun to drive and I love their looks and the sound they make.
“I couldn’t afford this when I was young,” he said, gesturing toward his Chevelle with its hood up revealing its mighty chrome-encrusted engine. “Now I can. Guess I’m reliving my youth.”
You can get an argument started at any car club meeting about how the muscle car came about.
Some say muscle cars were the logical extensions of the high-compression ’49 Cadillac and Oldsmobile Rocket 88 engines that launched the horsepower race of the ’50s.
Some go back farther and claim that the old Ford flathead V-8 of the ’30s was what the early hot-rodders used to power their creations and that the muscle cars were Detroit’s bid to reach the hot-rod crowd.
Others, such as Jim Wangers, say it was an unconventional group of executives at Pontiac in the late ’50s and early ’60s who developed a car aimed at the sons and daughters of the post-World War II hot-rod generation. The bad-boy aura was part of the charm of the GTO and the muscle cars that followed.
Muscle cars have graduated from slightly suspect used cars (“I wonder how this was driven?”) to darlings of the collector car market. The car usually credited with kicking off the 1964-71 muscle-car era was the Pontiac GTO, or the Goat.
But all automakers were involved in the horsepower race and the muscle car was merely the mating of a smaller, compact or intermediate car with a big-block V-8, usually defined as an engine of around a 400-cubic-inch displacement (cid) or more.
The muscle car is usually tightly defined by collectors that way. Thus, a Chrysler 300-letter car certainly has a lot of muscle, but it is full-size so it doesn’t qualify. A Corvette has a lot of muscle, but it is a sports, not a muscle, car. A Cadillac with a large high-compression V-8 is a high-performance luxury car, not a muscle car.
Muscle cars were cheap and easy to build and work on, so had great appeal to racers and young owners in general. A guy with a Plymouth GTX, an Olds 4-4-2 or a Ford Torino Cobra, could challenge the big, expensive machines–and usually beat them.
(New, a ’64 GTO convertible cost $3,081; a ’70 GTO Judge (a 400-cid engine and Judge logos) convertible listed at $3,829; a ’71 Dodge Charger R/T with 440 Magnum V-8 cost $3,777; a ’70 Plymouth Road Runner Super Bird, $4,298; ’70 Plymouth Road Runner convertible, $3,289; ’70 Plymouth Satellite GTX coupe, $3,535; ’70 Ford Torino GT Cobra, $3,270; ’70 Oldsmobile 4-4-2 convertible, $3,567; ’70 AMC Javelin SST Trans-Am, $3,995; and a ’70 Buick GS-455 convertible, $3,871.)
As the ’60s wore on, the makers took note of the “win on Sunday, sell on Monday” relationship between racing success and market success. Chrysler Corp. used its muscle cars to crack the South, where it had traditionally not sold well. As Road Runners and Super Bees raced well on Sundays, Plymouth and Dodge dealers sold well the rest of the week.
“The GTO represented everything we tried to say about Pontiac after the decision was made in 1957 by Semon (Bunkie) Knudsen to change the division’s stodgy image,” said Wangers, part of the team that put a big engine in a small car to achieve the fun of an inexpensive performance car.
Unlike the other participants in the GTO’s birth–Knudsen, Pete Estes, John DeLorean, Bill Collins and Jack Humbert–Wangers did not work directly for General Motors, but was on the Pontiac advertising account at MacManus, John & Adams. Wangers now heads Automotive Marketing Consultants Inc., Warren, Mich.
Introduced in 1964, the GTO was an instant hit. So, other General Motors Corp. divisions rushed to market with Olds Cutlass 4-4-2, Buick Gran Sport and Chevrolet SS models.
Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Corp. jumped in with the Plymouth Satellite GTX and Road Runner, Dodge Charger and Coronet Super Bee and R/T, the Ford Torino Cobra.
The most successful rival to the GTO, Wangers said, was the Plymouth Road Runner, introduced in 1968 with Chrysler’s 426 “Street Hemi,” which put out 425 horsepower. “The Road Runner threw a scare into Pontiac, and it brought out the Judge option for GTO the following year in response.”
Muscle cars drew heavy fire from the safety establishment, the insurance industry and the emerging environmental movement, which said muscle cars were polluters because they burned so much fuel.
Insurance rates on muscle cars could easily run more than your monthly bank payments. So cars came out with lower power ratings. That might explain the 366-h.p. rating of the Judge, one of the all-time great GTO’s. The performance of this Ram Air V-8 suggested more than 366 hp. It was a handsome car with clean lines and a molded front bumper. Only 6,833 Judges were built in 1969.
The fun came to an end in 1972, when the federal government mandated that all cars should run on regular (low-octane) or unleaded gasoline. This ruled out the high-performance monsters. For example, the two versions of Chrysler’s 440-cubic-inch Magnum V-8 were cut to 280 and 330 horsepower, down from 370 and 375 in 1971.
Road Runners, GTOs, 4-4-2s and Super Bees were marketed, but they weren’t muscle cars any more. By 1974, the GTO Judge and Road Runner were history, as were the AMX, Chevy Super Sports and big-block Torinos.
There has been a resurgence in interest in muscle cars in the last couple of years, but prices are still reasonable, ranging from about $10,000 to $20,000 for units in excellent condition.
A first-year 1964 GTO convertible in excellent condition is worth about $20,000, but a ’70 or ’71 GTO Judge will fetch $30,000 and up, according to Old Cars Price Guide.
At recent Kruse auctions in Arizona and Michigan, Plymouth Satellite convertibles with 426 Hemi engines have brought $64,000. A ’70 Plymouth Superbird sold for $34,000. But if you don’t have to have the ultimate engine, you can get into a muscle car for less.
For example, at the same auctions (keeping in mind that cars sold at reputable auctions are generally in excellent condition–no junk here), a ’71 Dodge Charger with 440 V-8 sold for $8,250, a Chevelle SS 396 changed hands for $8,750; a Ford Torino 390 GT for $5,100; a ’66 Chevy Nova SS for $17,500; a ’70 Ford Shelby GT500 for $17,500.
That’s a lot of bang for the buck.
POWER PACKS
Here is a sampling of muscle cars and the engines that give them their power:
1964
Chevrolet Chevelle SS 327/300 327-cid, 300-h.p. V-8
Chevrolet Impala SS 409 409-cid, 425-h.p. V-8
Oldsmobile 4-4-2 330-cid, 310-h.p. V-8
Pontiac Tempest LeMans GTO 389-cid, 325-h.p. V-8 (389-cid, 348-h.p. V-8 optional)
1965
Chevrolet Malibu SS 396 396-cid, 325-h.p. V-8
Chevrolet Nova SS 327 327-cid, 275-h.p. V-8
Dodge Coronet 500 273-cid 235-h.p. V-8
Ford Mustang 289/271 289-cid, 271-h.p. V-8
Pontiac Catalina 421 Tri-power 389-cid, 290-h.p. V-8
Shelby Mustang GT350
1966
Buick Skylark Gran Sport 401-cid, 325-h.p. V-8
Chevrolet Biscayne 427 427-cid, 425-h.p. V-8
Dodge Charger Hemi 426-cid, 425-h.p. V-8
Ford Fairlane 500XL 427 427-cid, 425-h.p. V-8
Plymouth Satellite Hemi 426-cid, 425-h.p., Street Hemi V-8
1967
Chevrolet Camaro SS 396 396-cid, 375-h.p. V-8
Chevrolet Impala SS 427 427-cid, 385-h.p. V-8
Dodge Coronet R/T 440 440-cid, 375-h.p. Magnum V-8
Mercury Comet Cyclone GT 427 427-cid, 345-h.p. V-8
Plymouth Barracuda 383 383-cid, 325-h.p. V-8
Pontiac Firebird 400 400-cid, 325-h.p. V-8
1968
Chevrolet Camaro Z28 427-cid, 425-h.p. V-8
Chevrolet Nova SS 396 396-cid, 325-h.p. V-8
Dodge Coronet Super Bee 426-cid, 425-h.p., Hemi V-8
Ford Torino GT 427 427-cid, 390-h.p. V-8
Plymouth Road Runner 426-cid, 425-h.p., Hemi V-8
Shelby Mustang GT500
1969
Chevrolet Nova SS 350 350-cid, 300-h.p. V-8
Ford Fairlane Cobra 428 428-cid, 360-h.p., Super Cobra Jet V-8
Ford Mustang Boss 429 429-cid, 375-h.p. V-8
Pontiac GTO Judge 400-cid, 350-h.p. Ram Air V-8
Pontiac Firebird Trans Am 400-cid, 330-h.p. V-8 with
1970
Chevrolet Camaro SS 396/375 396-cid, 375-h.p. V-8
Chevrolet Malibu SS 454/360 454-cid, 360-h.p. V-8
Dodge Challenger T/A 340-cid, 290-h.p, Six Pack (three, two-barrel carburetors) V-8
Ford Mustang Mach 1 429/375 429-cid, 375-h.p., Boss V-8
Ford Torino 429/360 429-cid, 360-h.p., Thunder-Jet V-8
Pontiac Firebird Formula 400/345 400-cid, 345-h.p. V-8
1971
AMC Javelin AMX 401 401-cid, 330-h.p. V-8
Dodge Demon 340 340-cid, 275-h.p. V-8
Ford Mustang Boss 351 351-cid, 330-h.p., Boss V-8
Mercury Montego Cyclone/Spoiler 429-cid, 370-h.p. V-8
Plymouth Cuda 440 440-cid, 385-h.p. Six Pack V-8
Plymouth Road Runner Hemi 426-cid, 425-h.p., Street Hemi V-8
Source on engine sizes: Standard Catalog of American Cars 1946-1975
