Delph said:Here is a picture of the Muscle
77 Pumpkin said:
cal camara said:
iron cross said:It`s always been called that.
cal camara said:But not on the survey!
zachh said:
Wikipedia muscle car
The Pontiac GTO started the muscle car trend. Pictured is the Pontiac GTO Judge, introduced in 1969.
Muscle cars are high-performance automobiles made primarily in Detroit from 1964 to 1974. Car manufacturers placed large V8 engines in mid-sized cars, giving them quite startling performance and setting off intense competition between manufacturers to produce the most powerful and extreme machine. The 1973 OPEC oil embargo, stricter air pollution laws and insurance premiums killed most muscle car models, though they are actively collected and restored.
Although auto makers such as Chrysler had occasionally experimented with placing a high performance V-8 in a lighter mid-size platform, and full-size cars such as the Ford Galaxie and Chevrolet Impala had high-performance models, Pontiac usually gets credit for starting the muscle car trend with its Pontiac GTO, based on the rather more pedestrian Pontiac Tempest. Spearheaded by Pontiac division president John De Lorean, the GTO proved far more popular than expected, and inspired a host of imitations and a general trend towards performance, both in the true 'muscle car' class of intermediate vehicles, and also the smaller pony cars like the Ford Mustang, Plymouth Barracuda and AMC AMX, and more luxurious and expensive vehicles such as the Buick Riviera.
However, a large part of the appeal behind muscle cars was that they were mostly inexpensive models young drivers could afford. For instance, Chevrolet placed an extremely large 396 cubic inch (6.5 Liter) engine in its compact Nova. In today's terms this would be equivalent to attempting to make a Chevy Prizm with a Corvette motor (though the performance gains would be vastly different in such a project today as smaller, modern engines can use newer technology to produce vastly more power than their same-sized counterparts from the muscle car era). Mopar also had several low-cost models, such as the Dodge Super Bee and Plymouth Road Runner.
Between 1964 and 1970, Detroit auto makers were in competition for the bragging rights to the most powerful motor. Power numbers generally hit their peak in 1970; the Chevelle SS 454 from that year is generally considered to have had the highest advertised output, producing 450 horsepower (336 kW) from a 454 cubic inch (7.4 Liter) engine. By 1971, muscle cars began to fall out of favor and disappear, with one of the last muscle car holdouts being Pontiac's Trans Am 1973 and 1974 SD455 model (while the SD455 was considered the last muscle car, the Trans Am nameplate continued until 2002).
While fast (sometimes extremely fast) in a straight line, most had primitive brakes and suspension (compared with modern vehicles and also European sports cars of the time), and tires which were inadequate to handle the acceleration and speeds the engines made capable. These inadequacies have all been to some degree addressed by after-market suppliers, of course.
Outside the US
Australia developed its own muscle car tradition around the same period, though many were modified four-door sedans rather than two-door coupes. The most famous were the Holden Monaro, the Ford Falcon GTHO Phase III of 1971, the Valiant Charger, and the two highest performance Holden Toranas, the SLR 5000 and the XU-1.
Holden Special Vehicles currently produces high-performance versions of various rear-drive Holden Commodore sedans and Monaro coupes, fitted with highly modified American V8 engines, and are perhaps one of the closest contemporary equivalents to the classic American muscle car — fast, exciting, but relatively crude automobiles (though with far more attention to handling and brakes than the originals).
In the UK, the muscle car itself never gained a significant market, but it certainly influenced British manufacturers, with models such as the Ford Capri and Vauxhall Firenza directly inspired by American designs. Later, both Ford and Vauxhall continued the tradition of producing high performance variants of its family cars, though often these had more subtle styling than the traditional muscle car, though with some notable exceptions. The more European influenced hot hatch has largely occupied this segment of the market since the early 1980s.
In the US, General Motors recently discontinued its Camaro and Trans Am models, leaving the Ford Mustang the last surviving semi-muscle car built in the states. In 2004 the Pontiac GTO returned to the market as a rebadged Holden Monaro imported from Australia.
American muscle cars
Road & Track identified the following models as "musclecars" in 1965:
Other later muscle cars include the following:
- 1964-1965 Pontiac Tempest Le Mans GTO
- 1965-1975 Buick Riviera Gran Sport
- 1965-1969 Buick Skylark Gran Sport
- 1965-1970 Dodge Coronet/Plymouth Belvedere 426-S
- 1965 Chevrolet Chevelle Malibu SS
- 1965-1967 Oldsmobile Cutlass 442
- 1970-1974 Buick GSX
- Chevrolet Camaro
- Chevrolet Chevelle SS
- 1963-1974 Chevrolet Nova
- 1966-1974 Dodge Charger
- 1969-1970 Dodge Daytona
- 1971 Dodge Super Bee
- Ford Fairlane (GT & Cobra)
- 1964-1973 Ford Mustang
- 1968-1974 Ford Torino (GT & Cobra)
- 1967-1973 Mercury Cougar
- 1968-1971 Oldsmobile 442
- Plymouth GTX
- 1968-1974 Plymouth Road Runner
- 1970 Plymouth Superbird
- 1966-1971 Pontiac GTO
See also
- Pony car
- Personal luxury car
- Category:Muscle cars
sports car
n. An automobile equipped for racing, especially an aerodynamically shaped one-passenger or two-passenger vehicle having a low center of gravity and steering and suspension designed for precise control at high speeds.
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WordNet
Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words. The noun sport car has one meaning:
Meaning #1: a small low car with a high-powered engine; usually seats two persons
Synonym: sports car
Wikipedia
sports car
Honda NSX sports car
TVR Tuscan sports car
New style 2005 Ford Mustang
Ruf RGT
A sports car is type of automobile designed for sporting performance. While opinions differ as to the exact definition, most sports cars have two seats and two doors, and are designed to excel at a combination of acceleration, top speed, braking, and maneuverability. Great emphasis is often placed on handling—the ability of the car to remain in the control of the driver under challenging condition such as when the car's tires begin to lose their grip on corners.
A car may be sporting without being a sports car. Performance modifications of regular cars, such as muscle cars, hot hatches and the like do not generally fall in the pure sports car territory.
A large, powerful engine is not required; many of the early British sports cars lacked a powerful engine and did not accelerate as quickly as, say, muscle cars, but were known for having exceptional handling characteristics due to their combination of light weight, carefully engineered/balanced chassis and innovative suspension designs. Lotus is often cited as an example of this approach. On tight, twisting roads, such a car has higher effective performance than a heavier, more powerful car with less cornering ability.
In many situations, the term "sports car" is used to refer to any car with more power or performance than is typical for cars in general. Often vehicles in the muscle car, performance sedan/saloon or grand tourer (GT) category are referred to as sports cars even though they tend to lack the light weight and excellent handling characteristics of a true sports car.
Due to bureaucratic restrictions in the North American market, many sports cars are not available for sale or use in the United States and Canada. In Britain and Europe, a more flexible attitude towards small-volume specialist manufacturers has allowed companies like TVR, Noble, Pagani, etc. to succeed.
Layout
The layout of drive train and engine influences the handling characteristics of a car and is the focus of more attention in a sports car.
Most modern cars use the FF where the engine is in the front and drives the front wheels. Some sports cars have this layout (e.g. Lotus Elan M100), but due to the limitations of front wheel drive, it is not typical in higher-performance models.
Previously FR, front engine driving rear wheels, was common. This form has survived longer in sports cars than in the mainstream and is declared by some to be the "classic" layout for sports cars. The lighter rear-end and rear drive increases the ability of a car to "drift" around corners without losing control.
In search of improved handling and weight distribution other formats have been tried. MR is a layout commonly found only in sports cars—the engine is mounted towards the centre of the chassis, close behind the driver, and powers the rear wheels.
Porsche are the sole users of the RR layout, a rear engine driving the rear wheels. The qualities of their cars are often said to have come about despite rather than because of this layout. The weight distribution across the wheels in a Porsche cannot be seen as ideal as the weight of the engine is outside the car's wheelbase. This would usually lead to extremely unpredictable handling and, indeed, many of their early Porsches did suffer from this. However, Porsche have continuously refined the design and combined their modifications with electronic driving aids like computerized traction and stabililty control which do much to counteract the inherent flaws of the design. Many of Porsche's techniques have been applied to other cars with success.
One option for transferring the power from the engine to the car's wheels is all wheel drive or AWD. Athough some early passenger cars used this technique (e.g. 1966 Jensen FF) it did not gain widespread acceptance until the 1980s. Audi's great rally racing success with their Quattro in the early 1980s as well as Lancia's success with the Delta Integrale legitimized this layout for sports cars. Since then, many of the top-performing cars from marques like Audi, Porsche and Lamborghini, as well as far-east manufacturers like Mitsubishi, Subaru and Nissan, use AWD in performance cars.
Seating
Some sports cars have small emergency back seats that are really only suitable for luggage or small children. Such a configuration is often referred to as a 2+2 (two full seats + two "occasional" seats). Often these seats are only included to lower insurance premiums.
Over the years, some manufacturers of sports cars have sought to increase the practicality of their vehicles by increasing the seating room.
One method is to place the driver's seat in the center of the car which allows two full-sized passenger seats on each side and slightly behind the driver. The arrangement was originally considered for the Lamborghini Miura but abandoned as impractical because of the difficulty for the driver to enter/exit the vehicle. McLaren used the design in their limited-edition supercar the F1 whose performance was so extraordinary that the inconvenience of getting in and out of the car was dismissed by many owners as a minor complaint.
Another British manufacturer, TVR, took a different approach in their Cerbera model. The interior was designed in such a way that the dashboard on the passenger side swept toward the front of the car which allowed the passenger to sit farther forward than the driver. This gave the rear seat passenger extra room and made the arrangement suitable for three adult passengers and one child seated behind the driver. The arrangement has been referred to by the company as a 3+1.
Examples
Well known specialist brands or marques, new and old, are:
Almost all major car manufacturers also make some form of high performance car, sometimes very successfully such as Ford with the GT40, Mazda with the MX-5/Miata, and Nissan with the Z-car and Skyline GT-R.
- AC
- Alfa Romeo
- Alpine
- Aston Martin
- Austin-Healey
- Bricklin
- Bugatti
- Caterham
- Corvair
- Corvette
- De Lorean
- Donkervoort
- Ferrari
- HKT
- Jaguar
- Koenigsegg
- Lamborghini
- Ligier
- Lotus
- Marcos
- McLaren
- Maserati
- MG
- Morgan
- Noble
- Porsche
- Spyker
- Triumph
- TVR
See also
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
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