Modern Muscle

Modern Muscle-cars. Some think the entire notion is a farce. Others embrace the technologically advanced, although very few pavement pounders Detroit has given us in the last 10 years or so.

The very notion of "muscle car" was derived from a no-frills intermediate sized auto with a big car engine. There are those who cannot accept an auto as a muscle-car when the price tag on such a car could be in excess of $30K. Still others can't fathom a muscle car with air-conditioning, cruise control, and just about power everything.

I can relate to those purists, but, on the other hand, I drool at the site of a new Pontiac GTO, the new generation Mustang, and the '94-'96 Chevy Impala SS. There are many of you out there who are just like me. I like the modern muscle-car just as much as the traditional variety. What's really amazing is how most of today's Detroit muscle is faster and at the same time more fuel efficient than yesterday's iron.

Why is it then that Detroit doesn't seem to keep these cars around for very long? Aside from a few perennial speedsters like the Mustang and GM F-body, most of the muscle out there is usually introduced as a special edition and is gone in just a few years. Even now, the just-mentioned F-body Camaro and Firebird have disappeared from GM's line-up. They join the '94-'96 Impala SS, and Buick Grand Nationals in a long line of gone-but-not-forgotten drag-strip terrors.

If you look beyond the traditional V-8 car, even the GMC Syclone/Typhoon, Dodge Ram SS/T and Dakota R/T have vanished. The future of the Ford SVT Lightning is even up in the air at the moment.

As you've noticed, most of the casualties are GM models, but the case is the same across all of the big three. However, GM seems to be the offender time after time. Daimler-Chrysler seems to be coming around by putting the 340-plus horsepower Hemi in just about everything but the Neon. The current Ford Mustang is pure genius. Still, it's too soon to know if these will become victims of the same modern muscle car curse.

The excuses the Big Three use to justify the axing of such vehicles ranges from "the buyers want family cars and SUVs" to the increased popularity of imports. The most common excuse is that there is no interest in the consumer market for these cars.

I don't believe that this logic holds water... well not exactly anyway. These cars are very popular amongst those exposed to them. In my opinion, the real problem is the lack of exposure of these cars to those who would be interested in them.

What is it that made the muscle-cars of the 60's and 70's as popular as they were? It was quite simply grass-roots racing and its exposure to the public. Drag-racing, road-racing, and stock-car racing were wildly popular. And the exciting part? You could walk into a showroom and purchase pretty much the same car you watched win the races on the weekend.

Everyone has heard the slogan "win on Sunday, sell on Monday." Even if the potential buyer thought that the race-version of the model they saw win on the weekend was impractical, it was still enough to get them into the showroom to purchase a more practical version of that model, or even a different model all-together.

Detroit needs to bring these cars back, and bring them back for good. The Camaro and Mustang have both shown that we can have lightning quick cars and still meet increasingly stringent EPA standards.

But how will they get the exposure? Well, it all is easier said than done, but it can happen. Mid-size family sedans are mildly popular in the American car market, but suffer from competing with their import counterparts. Why are these even selling when they're usually more expensive than their Japanese brethren? Quite simply, NASCAR. These models get the most racing exposure. No one can relate to the, and I use the term lightly, pro-stock drag cars. And as for road-racing? There's not much happening there that the Big Three are even remotely involved in, unless it's a Corvette or a Viper. And, let's be honest, how many out there are interested in road racing?

My suggestion is to put the "stock" back into stock car. Daimler-Chrysler is on the right track by putting the rear-wheel drive Charger back into NASCAR's Nextel Cup series. Can the manufacturers make a race car that more closely resembles the actual production car? Both GM and D-C are putting V-8's back into the intermediate sized cars. Rear-wheel drive and longitudinally mounted V-8's would be the next step.

In this technologically advanced world, I'm sure the race-car builders could design a tube-frame chassis that could fit factory sheetmetal (and yeah... I mean real sheet metal). Sure the cars would be heavier, but maybe this would be a more viable way of slowing the cars down as opposed to restrictor plates on feather-light cars.

Drag racing is getting there. Yes, NHRA and IHRA are the biggest draw, but organizations like the NMCA/PRO are gaining popularity. In this case, corporate sponsorship would be a bad thing. However, if the manufacturers built a car based on a currently available model, that was just about race-ready and "not for street use" (i.e. the 1960's Super-Stock Dodges), and could compete in the NMCA, perhaps a buzz would build around these cars that would bring more people into the showrooms.

Sure, I'm not an engineer. I'm sure I'm oversimplifying it all. I just think that in this market where "retro" cars are the latest rage, maybe a "retro" approach to marketing and selling cars would give our American car companies a boost, and bring back more cars that enthusiasts like myself want to buy.