The Muscle Car

Has muscle gone too Far In 1964 Ford released the first iconic muscle car that changed american life style and revolutionized the automotive industry by introducing new style of cars. Such an iconic part of American History didn’t just emerged from the dark or from a simple idea, like an everyday object, everything has a background and purpose being innovated as time goes on. When someone looks at a muscle car they typically think speed, power, and the massive V8 rumbling sound. Yet no one thinks about what is a muscle car, what's the history behind it all, how the evolution of muscle muscle sparked companies rivalry, and the technological advances that have reopened a second age of muscle. Yet in this time and age were automobiles can enhanced …show more content…
Such as the term muscle car, which is one of the most loosely tossed around terms to refer to any V8 powered performance car in the twentieth century. Yet a true car enthusiast would argue that a muscle car by strict definition “Is an intermediate sized, performance oriented model, powered by a large V8 engine at an affordable price.” (Musclecarclub. Com) This clearly demonstrates that the term Muscle car is being loosely tossed around and can't just simply be added to any V8 powered vehicle. This is significant because the strict definition shows that to be classified under the category of a muscle car the vehicle must have certain specifications such as being affordable, powered by a V8 engine, and must be performance oriented other than that the is just being mislabeled. In addition “Muscle cars generally don't care much for handling sophistication: they were all about shoehorning a massive engine into a coupe body, and have a penchant for the drag strip.” (Cartheottle.com) It portrays that a car that is powered by a V8 engine equipped with performance enhancement specifically to go around a track or circuit course is not a muscle car, it also reminds the reader that the strict definition has a fine line that separates performance oriented vehicles from one another such as track cars from muscle car. The importance is that the strict definition of muscle …show more content…
what's even more interesting is what sparked the creation of such an iconic american vehicle. Quite often many tend to believe that the muscle car was created simply to satisfy the need for speed or just a concept from automobile companies, when in reality the muscle car has a much deeper history. For example, “The need for fast car’s started with prohibition during the 1920’s bootleggers and moonshiners wanted to be able to outrun police car so they would often modify their cars.”(gentlemansgazette.com) This shows that the muscle car has a well rooted history since the 1920’s. Proving that the iconic muscle cars not only served a purpose during the age of prohibition to bootleggers and moonshiners thanks to it’s power and its midsized interior that compensated for a large cargo capacity that appealed to criminals looking to outrun law enforcement officers as quickly as possible. Yet even after the repealing of prohibition by the twenty-first amendment during Franklin D. Roosevelt presidency the muscle car remained in the hearts of americans as new style. As a result of the lift on alcohol by the mid 1930’s “When business was not nearly as profitable as it was during prohibition their cars were used for racing. Opening the demand for faster cars for racing.” (gentlemansgazette.com) This clearly demonstrates that after prohibition the muscle car