Muscle: America’s Legendary Performance Cars
October 30, 2008
In the 1960s three incendiary ingredientsdeveloping V-8 engine technology, a culture consumed by the need for speed, and 75 million baby boomers entering the auto marketexploded in the form of the factory muscle car. The resulting vehicles, brutal machines unlike any the world had seen before or will ever see again, defined the sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll generation. This was a generation of people with excessive appetites for hedonistic pleasures, and the cars they drove provided hedonistic pleasure in wretched excess.Muscle: Americas Legendary Performance Cars chronicles this tumultuous period of American history through the primary tool Americans use to define themselves: their automobiles. From the street-racing hot rod culture that emerged following World War II through the new breed of muscle cars emerging from Detroit today, this book brings to life the history of American muscle. Featuring exquisite photography of classic muscle cars by top photographer David Newhardt and a text that pulls no punches, Muscle: Americas Legendary Performance Cars is the definitive muscle car history.
Customer Review: Great Cars of the 60’s
Excellant pictures. Very good content. Brings back a lot of fond memories. Great edition to the coffee table and helpful with the restoration of my 1968 Firebird convertible
Customer Review: Muscle Car Culture
It cannot be overemphasized that this book is different from all the Auto books that have come before. It doesn’t only talk about the cars, but puts it in the context of the popular culture of the times. But you can’t just flip the pages, you have to dig right in, and start reading to realize this. You can read the whole book, or upon seeing a muscle car you like, just start reading anywhere.
This book is FUN! This book will help you to relive memories. This book will take you back, in a good way. You remember the 60’s and 70’s, the heady joyful times they were in terms of cars. It tells the big stories of the GTO, Mustang, Charger, Camaro-Firebird , and `Cuda-Challenger. Less popular cars are covered, not in depth-i. e. Ford Falcon, Dodge Coronet, and Chevy Nova.
When reading, I remember what I knew about the cars at the time, but I am given new behind the scenes information. It is like going back to an old hobby, and finding out secrets you never knew. It takes me back to my youth, my teens and twenties, and it’s not that easy to get there anymore.
One disagreement I have is the term ‘wretched excess’. I don’t think we thought of it as wretched excess at the time, we were just having fun. As far as free love, drugs, and of rock’n'roll partying without much limit-it was only later that we learned the consequences, through bitter experience. Yet in a way we knew, but didn’t want to know. Isn’t that’s what late adolescence is all about?
So maybe now we can call it wretched excess, but it is like a married man looking back at his crazy college years. We didn’t really know much about the environment, cocaine, marijuana, or STD’s then. You have to remember, there weren’t any pollution controls on cars in the 60’s, and it wasn’t really until the 80’s they started to get controls that worked without draining the engine.
A guy commented that Ford is under-represented. Even if that is true, the Mustang is over-represented. Yet that is true to the time. Back in the day Ford WAS the rock and roll Mustang. Everything else was your parent’s car. All other muscle cars have bit the dust-Mustang the sole survivor, is maybe even better today. My only disappointment, Mercury Cougar isn’t covered.
This book is unlike any car book you have read before, it is breaking new ground. It is a good read. It isn’t just specs and numbers, this book has heart. You will feel you are getting to know the movers and shakers of the automotive world of the time, as well as getting the popular view.
I thought `if there is one thing I don`t need it`s another muscle-car book`, now it is my favorite. Buy from here…
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