What is a muscle car?

What defines a muscle car? Over 1,000,000 people on this planet wonder what a muscle car really means.

Out of those one million, I am the first one to have finally figured this whole "muscle car" thing out.

One funny thing about muscle cars is that during the Gen X era (1965-1980), pony cars were NEVER officially referred to as "muscle cars." Regardless, Detroit still had the guts to fit 350-400ci+ (5.7-6.6L+) engines into the higher-end pony cars.

Mecum Auctions has this stunning picture of a gorgeous 1969 Mustang Boss 429

Mecum Auctions has this stunning picture of a gorgeous 1969 Mustang Boss 429

There's two types of pony cars:

▪︎ 'small'-body pony cars (the Mustang; all of the F-Body triplets—the Camaro, Firebird and Trans Am; plus the Barracuda and Javelin)

▪︎ BIG-body pony cars (Cougar and Challenger)

Are there any other muscle cars besides the big-cubed pony cars and the captain-obvious family sleepers?

Sure! Sports cars and grand tourers too have made exotic-car performance accessible at usually half (but give or take a quarter) the price of their European rivals.

See: Chevy Corvette and Ford Thunderbird started it all, along with AMC AMX and Jensen Interceptor; all answers to Alfa Romeo, Jaguar, Maserati, and Porsche.

But Shelby Cobra and its spiritual successor Dodge Viper, along with Corvette L88/Z06/ZR1 versions truly took this all to the next level. All answers to Aston Martin, Ferrari, and Lamborghini.

Starting price is between $30,000 and $100,000 for each muscle car, but don't worry about it if it's a bit higher — as long as it's not obviously in the same bracket as the big-name exotics.

By the way, the Chrysler 300, Maserati Ghibli and Quattroporte are all basically the Dodge Charger underneath, even if two of those are technically "Italian." The Trofeo twin-turbo V8 used in those Masers make them a 'tweener, faster than Scat Pack and slower than Hellcat.

Maserati's 3.8L V8T is a Euro VI-compliant 5.3NA equivalent, which means it is actually not as easy to modify as any HEMI (5.7L+).

That's why muscle = displacement > power!