When the kids move out, I quite racing triathlon, and my wife tells me I need a new hobby I’ll be looking to find my favorite car of all time. 1966 Chevelle Malibu Super Sport. I’m 46 and have lusted over this model since I was in junior high school.
My uncle had one of those back when I was a boy. It was dark colored and he could put $4 worth of Gulf or Union 76 gas in it and the gas pump fuel meter would run all day while the money meter would hardly run at all. Plus, we’d drive away with a six-pack of drink glasses or a couple of really nice beach toys.
There are some pretty amazing cars out there right now. I came very close to buying a Camaro RS last year (got a Golf GTI instead). The sound the V-6 made was pure music, had some serious get up and go (only a few tenths slower to 60 than the V-8 model from a few years ago) and the handling was fantastic. Ended up not buying it due to the lack of visibility out of it. The sill comes up really high, and checking over your shoulder doesn’t reveal much. And the back seat is unusable except for children.
I know what you mean about the Camaro. One Chevy dealer I was working with had a very large annual allotment of Camaros, so I got to spend some time in them. Serious performance for not a lot of money (relatively speaking) when it came to the V6 – and even the V8s, in the right model, weren’t scary expensive – but that back seat was cramped quarters and good luck seeing anything when looking over your shoulder, as you’ve noted.
As I read this Broadway in Red Lodge and side streets are packed with a couple hundred muscle cars and antiques. Some are definitely trailer queens, but they do shut the aiprport here down for drag races tomorrow morning.
I just picked up a Challenger Scat Pack. 6.4L. 485 HP. Love it!
Now, my 500 awhp WV Golf R is my race car. It is “faster” than the Challenger. But I sure love my American muscle.
There’s something about the rumble and the feel of an American V8, whether small-block or big-block, that’s for sure. It’s what I grew up on, being from Detroit, and it wasn’t anything to cruise Telegraph Road on a Saturday night in your ride, just waiting for someone to challenge you, light-to-light.
If you know anyone who is looking for a 2012 Boss Mustang, my brother has one for sale. Nice car but he’s more Eurocentric and just bought a second hand Lotus Evo so the Boss has to go. But we are definitely living in the second coming of American muscle cars.
That’s funny, because I bought a junkyard 2012 Coyote engine out of one of those so that I can plop it down into the 1968 Ford Mustang fastback that’s my next restomod project. I’m buying the cleaned-up full body from a place out in Arizona that specializes in that thing (that’s so I can have the actual VIN and not go through the certification and registration process in Michigan for one of those Dynacorn bodies). Then it’s all about restoring/modifying it, including cutting out the shock towers, going with a Mustang II IFS in front and modern rear suspension, the Coyote engine and a more modern interior, so that the spousal unit will drive it LOL!.
It’s going to need beefing up in the subframe area (subframe connectors, etc.), because those Mustangs simply weren’t designed to deal with that kind of horsepower and torque, at least initially. But it’s still not a technically difficult mod to pull off, not with Ford Racing and all the parts they sell especially for this application (wiring harness, etc.). The trickiest part will be fitment of the engine, the electrical system and fuel system, and fitting the proper transmission set-up (you can’t go with the contemporary transmission without a lot of cutting and welding to the tunnel and so forth.
That’s the resto/mod project I’m keeping into my golden years. I was considering doing a Bullitt build, but that’s been done to death, if you ask me.
because I bought a junkyard 2012 Coyote engine out of one of those so that I can plop it down into the 1968 Ford Mustang fastback that’s my next restomod project
The tech available today is stunning. For a year (until it was rear-ended) I had a Volvo with a 2.0L engine with a turbo and a supercharger. It pushed 300 HP, and could get 36 MPG on the highway. Killer stereo.
The new Camaro is built on the same platform as the Cadillac ATS, which has fantastic handling. Reports on the new Mustang are that the handling is killer as well. That’s the first Mustang since the fox body that looks good to me. I’ll pick one or the other up used (gently I hope!) in another 2-3 years.
“There’s something about the rumble and the feel of an American V8, whether small-block or big-block, that’s for sure.”
In total agreement, but IMHO the best use of an American V8 was always implanted into a lighter more nimble British or European car. Then you had the best of two worlds. I’ve owned a couple of examples - 1966 Sunbeam Tiger and currently have a hotted up 1980 Triumph TR8. Ford Pantera’s were also a great example with Italian style and and American V8. Always dreamed about owning an AC Cobra, but that will never happen. The original 60’s American muscle cars always had the engine and went like stink in a straight line, but handled like trucks and had crappy brakes. Not the same with the new generation. My brother’s 2012 Boss Mustang could compete in the handling department with any of the Euro high performance sedans and cost less. The new Corvette is an amazing car, albeit still a bit on the heavy side.
I had a 1973 Plymouth Barracuda. 15 inch formula ones on back with Gabriel highjacker shocks. 10 inch on the front. Red and black, bucket seats and slap stick shifter. God I loved that car. Sold it while I was floating around 9 months at a time in the Navy. I still miss that car.
Was it in Plumb Crazy Purple?
Most over-rated color that Chrysler ever offered. Yeah, it’s nice and it stands out, but it’s been done to death.
For my money, the best looking Mopar I’ve ever seen was a Charger 500 in B-5 metallic blue. Not that was a sharp car!
Nice little blurb, BK. I grew up at the exact wrong time to be a muscle-head: turned 16 in '93, so about 3 years after the scene exploded. My brother is 5 years older than I am, bit he was still able to find good runners for reasonable prices when he got his license (he had a '72 Duster and a '73 'Cuda). When I got mine: you couldn’t touch any musclecar for less than $1500, which in '93 to my 16 yo self might as well have been 50k.
Now, I make pretty decent money, and there are new varients of muscle cars to ne had wherever I look. But I can’t bring myself to spend that kind of money. Maybe in another 5 years these new ones will be a glut on the used car market…
Oh well. If there’s one thing that never gets old, it’s day-dreaming about cars…
I kinda hoped that it would grow up to be a Camaro
I liked those Vegas. Well-conceived, though poorly executed, cars, especially for the time in which they were born. And the Cosworth Vega fetches decent money used, to this day.
My first car was a '68 Olds Ninety-Eight with the biggest V8 they put in those cars back then. My dad – who was an electrician at a GM plant at the time – gave an assembly line worker $150 for it and then charged me $10 a week until he got his money back. That was good money in 1976. It ran really well, didn’t have any rust and everything in it worked (it had all the toys, as they said back then). Plus, it could get up and go, too. I recall several instances when my buddies and I would get off work on a Friday, in the summer, and head up I-94 to Metro Beach, north of Detroit, doing more than 100 mph in it. On those old bias-ply tires and with no one wearing a seat belt. God looks out for drunks and fools, sir.
This time in car history is hard for me. I am not an American Iron buy by a long shot but I have a special deep burning hatred for the Corvette. UGH!!! However the new is so good and it makes me bristle to confess that storied waste of time has finally grown into what it was always meant to be. I don’t want one but damn is that car good.
I thought of this thread yesterday. Driving home I saw this rig or a similar year in absolute mint condition. It looked like it just rolled off the showroom floor. It must have been rebuilt because it looked flawless. Fortunately I wasn’t driving so as we passed it my face was pressed up to the window like a little kid starring.
Agreed, there are more very good cars now than ever. Minivans today perform almost as well as muscle cars of the 60’s… certainly small sedans or hatchbacks can be had that run circles around everything from that era. They are safer, more efficient, faster, brake better, last longer, almost everything is an improvement.
But they have gotten more computer controlled, less visceral and less analog. And all cars today have gotten huge (and fat).
2015 Mustang vs 1965 Mustang
Imports aren’t immune either. Look at a modern 911 vs the one from the 60’s:
It’s cool to see that car manufacturers have figured out how to produce efficient AND high hp cars and that CAFE standards haven’t brought us to all driving what ever the plural of Prius is.
