Muscle cars

As you may have already learnt, I have a passion for muscle cars. Classic American muscle cars are, in my opinion, the best. The classic 1960's Mustang, and the Charger of the same year. Beautiful cars, and they can be immensely fast when done right. 

My uncle has a 1970 Dodge Dart Swinger, one of the rarer muscle cars. Originally designed a a little brother to the Charger, The Dart went through several body shapes and engine changes, until the Challenger came along in 1970. It was then that the convertible option was stopped, along with the more powerful 6.3l V8. In that year, all the 2-door Darts were named 'Swinger' for seemingly no apparent reason. The car continued on until '76, when poor sales stopped production in North America. 

1970 Dart Swinger

I don't know how my uncle got hold of his car, but it was a replacement for a similar age Chevy Impala. I never got to see the Impala, but I was told it was an absolute dog. Apparently the engine had no grunt, and the interior was so tatty it looked like a bear had got in there. His Dart, however, is a completely different story. When I first went in it, about a year after he bought it, we were on a trip from Bicester to Santa-pod. I remember driving through Olney and seeing all these other Muscle cars parked up on the side of the road. Not so the road was full of them, but there were enough to be noticed. When we had left the sandwich shop and started the car, the alarms of the two cars on either side of us went off. We then carried on with the cruise, getting admirable looks from all the young kids in the cars we passed, along with their parents. When we arrived at Santa-pod, I couldn't believe the amount of muscle cars I could see. There was a Charger here, a Challenger there, a lot of Vipers and Camaros, all of different ages. We then arrived at out encampment. there were 5 tents that I could see, each one situated next to the cars they arrived in. We had a Plymouth Roadrunner (complete with wacky spoiler) two Chargers, a modern Camaro dressed up to look like an American police cruiser and an Impala. We unpacked our tent and went to enjoy our weekend. In short, it was amazing.

Enough of my story though, I want to explain my passion for these cars. I see them as classic versions of the "RS" versions of cars, the original fast family cars. If it wasn't for these cars, we wouldn't have modern muscle cars, such as the E63 AMG, or the more conventional Camaro

Modern Camaro

and Challenger. These classic muscle cars also seem to find a special place in other peoples hearts, as they are willing to spend tens of thousands of pounds on restoring them, after they have been neglected by their original owners, but also having been subtley upgraded, with new big block V8s, and power steering and brakes to help improve the driving dynamics of the car. In short, they look and sound great, and I'm told they drive great too.

Now, onto modern day Muscle cars. simply put, they aren't as good. The V8s don't have such a deep, throaty roar, and I doubt that they'll be remembered as classics in 40 years time. Even then, the classic Americana that I love will still probably be the cars that every muscle-car enthusiast wants. The modern day interpretations are too focused on creature comforts. Would the original challenger have had a touchscreen infotainment system? No. Heated, electronically adjustable seats? Tyre pressure monitoring? Bang&Olufsen stereo? No no no and no. My point here is that powerful, driver focused cars these days are even more cushy than their grandads, which were family cars.

To conclude then, I think car manufacturers that made classic muscle cars (Ford, Dodge, Chevy to name a few) should just go back to basics with their muscle cars; they should make them as they would have been made 40-50 years ago, and see how much the muscle car fan-base would love them for it. Also, a quick side note, I have a couple weeks of exams now, so my blog posts may not be so large or regular. I ask you to bear with me whilst I have my exams, and I'll get back to normal in a couple of weeks.