A muscle car is not just any fast car, nor is it a sports car. It’s an intermediate car with a powerful engine. While I’m sure some would argue something else was first (maybe Chrysler 300), it was “invented” when Pontiac put the large-car engine into a mid-sized Tempest. At one time, the Big Three prohibited putting the big engines from the full-size cars into smaller vehicles. Though this could sometimes be overcome by ordering through fleet channels (ie, CPO cars) which had fewer restrictions.
In general, a muscle car didn’t have the upgrades to handling, brakes, etc. that would be expected from a sports car. It was just a family car that accelerated really fast.
Naturally, things evolved over time, and after a few years it gets blurry.
That 225hp was absolutely dominating compared to the 90hp in my 88 Mustang with the 2.3l 4-cylinder. Not enough power to even really test the shitty handling.
My brother had a 90 Ford Escort. It had a smaller 4-cylinder which produced more power, got way better gas mileage, and weighed a lot less. It was far sportier than that Mustang. Also, manual transmission over the Mustangs crap auto.
The Olds 260 had a 2-BBL carburetor, but it used the body of a Quadrajet 4 barrel, but with the rear 2 secondaries blanked out.
Not that it would matter, since the engine was strangled with restrictive porting, super-mild camshaft, and single exhaust with the old pellet-style catalytic converter, it’s airflow requirements could never even nearly approach the need for more carburetion.
There was that odd period in Mustang history where Ford thought of it as a 2-seat econobox with zippy styling and a well-known name. What were they thinking?
5.0 Mustangs were good cars at the time, and 225 HP was decent for that time as well. They competed well with other affordable muscle cars like Camaros, Firebirds, and the Monte Carlo SS. The look, sound, and torque were the main advantages in the 2 Mustang GTs I owned.
OTOH, my parents had a 1979 Mustang 6-cylinder. It was floaty on the road, the tires were skinny, the brakes locked up easily, and the engine when pressed would just roar but nothing would happen.
Agreed. This was a time when many other 5L engines (Olds 307, Chevy 305) and even 5.7L engines were making 135-155HP. I’ve always seen the 5.0 Mustang as the first to exit the Malaise era.
We are everywhere… (Well, actually, I’m really only here. Jalopnik.com is the only other web site I read, but I don’t dare sign up so I can leave comments or I’ll have NO free time).
By the way, I have the slowest car. The first Honda Insight (indeed, the first hybrid). It’s cool and eco-everything, but it has ONE trick: gas mileage. Other tricks like acceleration? Forget it.
I go out of my way to a freeway entrance that’s on a downslope, otherwise, I’ll have a line of angry motorists IN THE SLOW LANE as I try to do 0-60 in 12 parsecs. It’s not safe, as I can’t avoid a problem by accelerating.
I’ll bet part of the problem is that mine has a crappy CVT transmission and an aging hybrid battery. I’m assuming the manual has some pep. My car guy keeps tempting me with engine swaps he’d love to do to it. Got to admit, there are days I’d trade all my green cred for stomping on the GO pedal and having something happen…
I’ve owned two Chryslers: a 1982 Dodge Omni which was a lemon (but its predecessor was a Fiat 128 - i.e. before they quit marketing in the US in the early 1980s) - and it was an improvement over the Fiat. It did not have a lot of get up and go and major things failed on it during the less than 3 years I owned it.
Subsequent cars were a Mazda 626, a Honda Civic, and a Saturn - all more reliable. We sold the Saturn when we bought a Dodge Caravan in 1996 (still had the Civic) and it was actually the first car I’d owned that had enough oomph that I had to watch the speed on the highway lest I go too fast. It too turned out to have some lemonish tendencies though we got 10 years out of it.
All the compact cars we’ve owned have felt like they had trouble accelerating fast enough when merging into heavy highway traffic - to the point where we would always turn off the AC briefly. I don’t think we had that issue with the Caravan, nor with either of our two CRVs, but I still did it on our second Civic (which retired last year at 22…)
