I've had Pontiac's all my life, still have a 68 GTO HT, and a 65 Tempest HT that someone tried to turn into a GTO, sitting in the garage. They are great cars.
About the Chrysler 300 /first musclecar thing, just because Chrysler sez it don't make it so! The term musclecar generally means a smaller car, with a big powerplant. Pontiac took the midsize Tempest/LeMans, put in a 389 CI engine, and made history. The Chrysler letter series cars were full size. Do you call a 56 Studebaker Golden Hawk a "musclecar", because it had a Packard 352 from the factory under the hood?

__________________
Go, and beat your crazy head against the sky.....

The gto was cool.

Too bad; 40years later and they can't get it right.


Anyways, for the pontiac fans:
[LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This Truck Forum Link.



i'm not sure what engine the bonneville (same as impala/caprice)had, but i think the ventura (same as nova) had a 350 although i don't think it was a chevy sbc; i think pontiac had their own 350's?

The Chevy 350 was used in the Ventura from what I can find out. The older Catalina had the 389 standard, newer ones had a 400(not sure who made that one), and the 455. Older Catalinas with optional engines had engines in the 420 + range I know a guy that has a mid 60s rag top, but I can't recall what engine was in it other than it was bigger than a 389, it was the 2+2 body style.

A real waste of a big motor was a 375 hp solid lifter "396" big block in a Nova, it was a cheap big block car but a Chevelle with the same engine performed better all around unless the Nova was equipped with slicks.

The 70's Ventura had all sorts of engines, fromn the 301 & 350 Ponchos to a seriously-bad 265 Poncho V8, to the 231 Buick V6, and I think the 267 & 305 Chevy.

The GTO was not the first muscle car. Period, end of discussion--by any definition, it was not the first. Offhand...

Chrysler C-300 (1955)
Max Wedge Mopars (1962-3)
Studebaker Lark (1962-3)
Hudson Hornet (1951)
Olds Rocket 88 (1949)
Chevy 150/210/Del Rey/Bel Air with the Power Pack 283 (1957)
Rambler Rebel V8 (1957)

That's not even counting the blower T-birds, the rip-roaring Super Duty Ponchos, the Grand Sport Buicks, the 409 Chevys, and the FE-powered Ford Galaxies.

And yes, I'd have to call the 1956 Golden Hawk a muscle car.

__________________
Jarlaxle Baenre
----------------------------------------------------
RIP E. Gary Gygax 1938-2008

You must be an old timer, about the only thing i consider half-fast on your list is the max wedge cars. I'll agree with ya that there were hi-performance rides long before the GTO, but most were 4000+lb. sleds. I don't know who came up with the GTO's as the first muscle car, but they've been coined that for years. I'm no big pontiac fan, but stock for stock none of those cars would be a match for a 64 GTO 389 tri-power 4sp., maybe the light weight max wedge car that was a very limited production car built for drag racing only. You tin indian guys better chime in, cause back in the day I considered GTO's as Gas, Tires, and Oil.

So using your thinking, ANY car that had a large engine, or a "power pak" option, was a muscle car? Then your forgetting the supercharged '37 Cord, the V12 Lincolns, the Dusenbergs, Packards, etc.

This is what Wikipedia says about it, it's generally what's been accepted over the years:

A muscle car is a high-performance automobile. The term principally refers to American, Australian and models from South Africa, and generally describes a 2-door rear wheel drive midsize car with a large, powerful V8 engine and special trim, intended for maximum torque on the street or in drag racing competition. It is distinguished from sports cars, which were customarily and coincidentally considered smaller, two-seat cars, or GT's, two-seat or 2+2 cars intended for high-speed touring and possibly road racing. High-performance full size or compact cars are arguably excluded from this category, as are the breed of compact sports coupes inspired by the Ford Mustang. Other factors used in defining classic muscle cars are their age and country of origin. A classic muscle car is usually made in the U.S. or Australia between 1964 and 1975. Notably, the term "muscle car" did not enter common usage until after production of the cars had essentially ended. During their heyday, print media usually referred to this class of vehicle as "supercars".

All the cars you mention were considered "full size".

Later......

__________________
Go, and beat your crazy head against the sky.....

Yes, anyways, concerning the venturas such as the one driven by Roy Schneider in the clip i posted, i find it fascinating, yet perplexing that each GM division had their own "350" instead of using the SBC 350. Perplexing in that, would it not be cheaper and easier for other gm divisions to simply use the chevy 350 since, by then it was already established as the performance leader in terms of engines? In fact, i believe that's what gm is doing now; Having a centralized division produce the engines, which all the divisions may use.
a) Yes, i know about the "seriously-bad" 265 pontiac; i had one. It was, however, very quiet and dependable.

2)Please explain in greater detail why the 396 would perform better in the heavier chevelle (a-body) chassis as opposed to the nova(ventura/apollo/omega) chassis. We must remember that the nova (and clones) share the same chassis as the camaro/firebirds.

3) Now about the whole "first muscle car" debate:
i fully agree that there were many high performing cars produced way before the GTO came about. However, i believe many (most?) people consider the gto to be the first muscle car in style and spirit. In other words the gto (along with superbee/gnx/SS/442 etc. etc.)was racy. Whereas cars like c300, impala 409, even belair w/rochester FI were cars that had hot engines (nothing wrong with that).

Also, they were full size cars? The exception might possibly be the belair, but at the time they were the largest cars chevy had?

The other thing tying in with the "racyness" aspect of my arguement is that i have no idea what kind of transmissions/rear ends/tires the cars you listed pre-gto were equipped with. The gto and post-gto muscle cars were designed with quarter-mile racing in mind. Whereas the pre-gto cars were fast but not nessesarily designed with brute acceleration (1/4 times) in mind.

The gto and post gto cars had race-inspired 4-speeds, redline tires, hi-po exhaust, beefed up rears, racing stripes etc.

i guess the point of my argument is, does merely putting a hot engine in a car make it a muscle car? No, i say---you've got to make it sort of a street-legal race car. If not in componentry, then in style.

When i think "first muscle car" i think of the gto. Is it truely the first muscle car? i'm not sure.

Are you serious?!

The Rebel was a compact.
The 55-57 Chevys were mid-size (and that's kind of generous).
The MW Mopars were midsize B-bodies, just like the Charger, Coronet, GTX, and Road Runner.
The Lark was a compact (competing with the Chevy II, Falcon, & Valiant).
The T-birds were fricking 2-seaters!

Of course, by your, ahem, "logic", an Impala SS with the solid-lifter 427 & a 4-speed or a dual-quad 409HP 409 isn't a muscle car.

None of the cars you mentioned were performance cars (well, maybe the 140MPH blower Duesenberg). They were high-end luxury cars in an era (before automatic transmissions) where a high-end luxury car included a huge engine, able to do almost everything in high gear. The ones I mentioned were nothing of the sort. They weren't just a car with a big engine...they were designed as a PACKAGE, built to either clean up on the ovals or the sand (Hornet, Rocket 88, C-300, FE Galaxie), on the drag strips (MW Mopars, fuelie 57 Chevy, SD Ponchos, 409's), or as image boosters for the companies (Studebaker, Rebel, Golden Hawk, C-300 to an extent). Later, the 300's did shift a bit, the "beautiful brute" becoming what was probably the first "personal luxury" coupe (think: 1969 Grand Prix, 1970 Monte Carlo).

Of course, Wiki's definition excludes many vehicles widely considered muscle cars. Offhand, the Nova SS, the Bararcudas, the 340 Dart, the Duster/Demon, the Javelin, the Mustang, Camaro, Firebird, Challenger...and many others.

__________________
Jarlaxle Baenre
----------------------------------------------------
RIP E. Gary Gygax 1938-2008

The Buick, Olds, & Poncho 350's showed up at the same time as Chevy's, in 1967 (replacing the 300/340 Buick, 330 Olds, & 326 Poncho). All ran into the 70's...the Olds V8's ran until 1990 (as the 307 in Fleetwoods & B-body wagons). Each division (including Cadillac) used exclusively its own V8's until the mid-70's...Pontiac had its own overhead-cam inline-six until 1969.

__________________
Jarlaxle Baenre
----------------------------------------------------
RIP E. Gary Gygax 1938-2008

a) i didn't know about all those cars because, honestly i'm unfamiliar, generally, with cars produced before say 1965 with a few exceptions. So i didn't know (and still don't) know what size-classifications they were in.


b)the "tri-5's"(also find it fascinating that each gm division had their own version of this car) i felt originally that they were mid-size cars--the malibu/chevelle/celebrity/lumina etc. seemed to have decended from them. However, at the time, if i'm not mistaken, these were the largest passenger cars offered by chevrolet? Also, there were no "compacts" out at the time either. Therefore the size-classification aspect of the muscle car debate is possibly invalid for these cars. (?) But even so, i don't feel this one had the right trans/tires/exhaust etc.---the whole package the really be considered a muscle car. i'm not saying it wasn't fast because it's still much faster than most cars today.

c) The thunderbird cannot, for traditional reasons, be or ever be considered a muscle car.

d) You have a point about the impala SS w/427BB although i'm not sure which one you are referring to---69? Also, the 409 i don't think qualifies because it's really full size and the package, i dont think, qualifies as muscle car. You're close though, very close.
However, the 94-96 impala SS does qualify as a muscle car.


i guess what i'm trying to say is that what make a "muscle car" is that the car must be something more than what it originally was/is:

For example the GTO is really a tempest/lemans with a gto package. A chevelle SS is not merely a chevelle. A GNX is a buick skylark with serious package. The 442, of course, is a jazzed up cutlass. Merely putting a 455 in a lemans does not make it a gto---it's got to have the race package.

The cars you listed didn't have any "alter-ego". In other words, Clark Kent is not superman. Clark Kent as Superman is Superman.

The car, sort of, has to be a "supercar." That, to me, is what make a muscle car a muscle car.