Classic Cars Guides

How to Spot Muscle Cars

For some muscle heads, it is easy to pick out the muscle cars in a specific area, such as a mixed and crowded parking lot.  However, there are a lot of people that are not able to do that, simply because they are not aware of what criteria needs to be established in order for a vehicle to be considered as a part of the muscle cars genre.  Knowing these criteria obviously would make it easier to be able to determine what does and what does not qualify when it comes to muscle cars.  The first key thing to be aware of is that muscle cars are high performance vehicles.  This means that they are constructed with very powerful engines.  Muscle cars most commonly, but not always, have a V8 engine.  These large capacity engines help to make the muscle cars more distinct and perfect for activities such as drag racing and other similar situations.  Depending on which area of the world we are looking at when it comes to the origin of the vehicle, there are different time periods throughout which the muscle cars were being created and offered.

For the most part, muscle cars are real wheel drive and the car itself is mid-sized.  It can have a place of origin from America or Australia and have been made between the years of 1964 and 1975.  Some models are also from South Africa or alternate countries, but not often.  One of the most common examples of muscle cars would be the Pontiac GTO.  For individuals interested, there is another definition that can be used in order to determine what is or is not a muscle car.  However, it is a less exact definition.  This one defines muscle cars as those which have less than twelve pounds of body weight for each horse power that the engine has.  This can be complicated, however, because of the wide range of weight ratios for cars and other vehicles. 

Recently, muscle cars have come under scrutiny, because of the fact that they have been linked to emission problems, much in the way that SUVs have been.  This is due in part to the fact that these types of machines take in a lot of gas and are not very efficient.  In response to this, a number of car companies have considered releasing different, more fuel efficient and re-designed muscle cars, if there is a strong enough desire from them in the car market.