Look into this fascinating book to discover the intoxicating world of muscle cars. Includes information on models, facts, and other interesting information on America's pride and joy.
Muscle Cars profiles 66 cars from both the golden age of muscle cars and today's rebirth of high performance. Each car features dazzling color photography and concise text that bring these amazing cars to life. Profiled cars include the 1965 Buick Skylark Gran Sport, the 1966 Dodge Charger 426 Hemi, the 1967 Chevrolet Camaro Z28, the 1969 AMC Javelin SST, the 1969 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, the 1970 Road Runner Superbird, and the 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500. Hardcover, 144 pages Muscle Cars will bring back memories of old favorites and introduce new machines!
Trace the fascinating evolution of American muscle cars -- from their glory days in the early Sixties to the first hints of the modern Muscle Era -- via beautiful large-format photography and informative and insightful text. You'll find not only GTOs and GTXs, but Camaros and Javelins, Mustangs and 'Cudas, Galaxies and Impalas, and even a couple Studebakers •Take a quick trip through the post-1971 landscape to better illustrate how quickly it all fell apart before the first glimmers of a new era of the muscle started to appear in the Eighties.
Relive Oldsmobile’s most potent muscle car offerings when the simple letter W intimidated all takers. Oldsmobile’s foray into the developing muscle car wars of the 1960s came as little surprise to most in the automotive industry. What was surprising was that it wasn’t the first to develop it! Oldsmobile’s Rocket 88 has been viewed by some as the beginning of performance offerings from automobile manufacturers. The 4-4-2 was Oldsmobile’s volley back at the Pontiac GTO, and in 1966, Olds attempted to spike the ball home with its all-new W-30 high-performance drag racing package. During the course of the next pair of decades, Oldsmobile offered the W-code on a host of platforms (the Cutlass, F-85, 4-4-2, Toronado, and Delta 88) with an assortment of engine packages (400, 455, and 350). As muscle cars fell by the wayside during the struggling 1970s, Oldsmobile continued to carry its flagship W-30 all the way through the 1980 model year. This book by muscle car historian and esteemed photographer David Newhardt revisits and celebrates Oldsmobile’s legendary W-optioned performance machines. So, sit down, strap in, and let Dr. Oldsmobile do the driving.
A breed unlike any seen before or since, the powerful, stylish American muscle car defined an era in automotive history. This history traces the rise and fall of these great performance cars from their precursors in the 1950s through the seminal appearance of the Pontiac GTO in 1964 and then year by year to the end in the 1970s. Approachable and nontechnical yet deeply informative, it puts the bygone muscle car in its cultural and aesthetic contexts, describes developments in styling, performance and marketing, and revels in the joys of muscle car ownership in the 21st century.
Just what is a Muscle Car? Road Test magazine asked in June 1967. The answer: Exactly what the name implies. It is a product of the American car industry adhering to the hot rodders philosophy of taking a small car and putting a BIG engine in it. . . . The Muscle Car is Charles Atlas kicking sand in the face of the 98 horsepower weakling. Unconcerned with such trivial details as comfort and handling, the vintage American muscle car was built for straight-line speed and quickly became the ride of choice for power-hungry racers and serious gearheads. In a country where performance was measured in brute force, a quarter mile at a time, the muscle car was the perfect machine. In the intervening years, these down-and-dirty, high-performing beauties have earned their place in the automotive pantheon. As prized by collectors and aficionados as they are by denizens of garages and drag strips, classic muscle cars now fetch upwards of a million dollars at auctions and feature in any story of Americas automotive glory days. The icons of muscle car artincluding Camaro and Chevelle SS, the Hemi and 440-6 Cuda, Challenger, Roadrunner, Super Bee, GTX, Super Bird, Daytona Charger, Super Cobra Jet and Boss Mustang, Talladega Torino, Buick GSX and W30 Oldsmobile 442, and AMX Javelinare all here, on full display in this lavishly illustrated volume, each described in a detailed essay followed by a gallery of portraits and special gatefold presentations that capture the art of the muscle car at its finest.
The All-American Muscle Car provides the ultimate hands-on history of the American Muscle car and where it is now -- Mustangs, Camaros, 'Cudas, Challengers, you name it. When John Z. DeLorean and his cadre of enthusiastic rule benders took it upon themselves to bolt Pontiac's hottest engine into a mid-sized Tempest, disobeying orders from the top of General Motors food chain, they created something that should not have been, and will never be again: the muscle car. The resulting GTO spearheaded a new breed of performance car aimed at a new breed of buyer: the baby boom generation, tens of millions of young customers entering the market each year. The All-American Muscle Car: The Rise, Fall and Resurrection of Detroit's Greatest Performance Cars tells the story of these brutal performance machines through the words of muscle-car icons like Jim Wangers, the man who marketed DeLorean's thuggish invention, Joe Oldham, a legendary automotive journalist who tested these cars when they first came off the production line, often via illegal street racing, and classic-car broker Colin Comer, who has been instrumental in restoring some of the most iconic (and valuable) muscle cars. Top muscle car experts like Randy Leffingwell and David Newhardt tell other facets of the muscle-car story, like the pony-car wars between the Mustang, Camaro, 'Cuda, and Challenger; the ultra-high performance dealer specials; and the rebirth of the modern muscle car. All told, this book provides the ultimate hands-on history of these most American of cars.
This new color edition is essential for the enthusiast who wants to get the most performance out of this new engine design but is only familiar with the older Chevy small-blocks. Covered is everything you need to know about these engines, including the difficult engine removal and installation, simple engine bolt-ons, electronic controls for the Generation III engine, and detailed engine builds at four different power levels.
In 1970, the American muscle car was as fast and outrageous as it would ever get. But the end was nigh, and 1970 Maximum Muscle dives head-first into the storm before the calm. Wherever you mark the beginning of the muscle car era—Oldsmobile’s 1949 Rocket 88, Chrysler’s 1951 FirePower engines, the 1964 Pontiac GTO—one thing is certain: in 1970, the era that had witnessed a parade of gloriously powerful, stylish, and brawny cars apt to make the hearts of even the most dispassionate squares go pitter-patter was sucking fumes. Gasoline shortages, skyrocketing fuel prices, insurance-industry bean counters, rising ecological concerns, and new, more fuel-efficient imports all conspired to consign the American muscle car to an ugly and unseemly denouement. Yet 1970 saw the actual zenith of the cars themselves, the year manufacturers pulled out all the stops and produced the most powerful and stunning machines the automotive world had ever seen. 1970 Maximum Muscle not only explores the factors that led to the decline of the most exciting era in the American automotive industry, it details some of the new models and model options that arguably made 1970 the climax of the muscle car era from engineering, styling, and cultural standpoints. As the war among GM, Ford, Chrysler, and AMC played out at dealerships, dragstrips, and drive-ins, ready-and-willing gearheads drove off dealer lots in potent behemoths like the Buick GSX, Oldsmobile 4-4-2, and Ford Torino Cobra. Muscle car stalwarts like the SS Chevelle, Pontiac GTO, and Plymouth ’Cuda became available with optional LS-6, Stage 1, and Hemi engines, respectively. Manufacturers ratcheted up the advertising hyperbole at the same time, offering performance packages with names like “Six-Pack,” “Ram Air,” and “Cobra Jet,” while spoilers, scoops, hood tachometers, and decal packages were de rigueur. Meanwhile, on the popular SCCA Trans Am circuit, top drivers campaigned more nimble muscle off-the-rack cars like the Camaro Z/28 and Boss 302 Mustang. 1970 Maximum Muscle is an entertaining and rollicking look at the muscle car's peak year!