Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Favorite Muscle Car...

I'm partial to 67 GTOs, but this is what I have:

2002 Z-28 (last year of production 35th Anniversary edition), 320BHP 5.7 Liter. Not a bad ride. High maintenance Blonde optional at extra cost (LOTS!) jorge

A '66 Chevelle SS396 2-dr HT in bright red still makes my palms sweat. Almost had one but thought $800 was too much money for it .

Had to settle for a '57 Chevy 210 2-dr post that started out w/ a 235 CI six in front of a slush-glide tranny and ended up with a 350 CI 275 HP V8 in front of a Turbo 400 tranny. Also had a '56 Chevy Handyman w/ a 'Vette 283 and a 3-on-the-floor.

1965 Shelby GT 350. Really regret selling it in 1974

Ths Camaro should be able to out run her!

My wife has 1967 Mercury Cougar GT with the factory 390 in it.

I am kind of partial to corvettes but have never owned one. I do have a 1967 GMC short box pick up with a small block in that makes real decent HP that is itching for a restoration. Right now it's just a rat rod but the motor has the double bump heads on it, it's probably out of a late 1960's Camaro.

Groan...

I was denied owning anyone of them...

Graduated High School and then was saddled with putting myself thru college, on my own. So instead I drove VWs I'd buy for $50.00, fix the engine in them.. drive them 50K miles and then sell them for a couple hundred and do it all over again.

Closest thing I ever came to a muscle car was my first car. My mom bought it from an E3 in her office at the Pentagon, who just got orders for Vietnam.. she paid $300.00 for it.

It was a 62 Pontiac Tempest. She brings it home, and I look at it... paint all faded, snow tires on the back of it, body dings etc...looked like crap..

Mom tells me to drive it around the block.. and tells me 'it's real peppy for a 6 cylinder...so I start her up.. sounds like it needs a muffler... mom says "we'll get it a new muffler... just drive it and see how you like it!"

I drive it up the street, around the corner.. to where I hit a stop sign in our residential neighborhood.. all clear, no one around.. out of sight from mom..

We'll see how peppy it is for a 6 cylinder I think...So I floor it.. for about 1 second... it takes off and is going in every direction but straight...

I pop the hood, and to my amazement and glea..the fender wells were cut out of it..shoe horned into it, is a 421 Pontiac engine with the coveted '6 pack' on top of it..

Sweeeet!

that ride lasted 30 days..not from wrecking it.. mom found out about the 'big engine' and promptly relieved me of the keys..
and gave me the keys to a 4 year old VW, which became my getting stuck with VWs for many years as I put myself thru college...

in retrospect, I wonder if she didn't save my life tho...
in those 30 days, I drove that 421, like I was bullet proof.. probably prevented a young moron from being chiseled off of some tree somewhere...

and then there is the time in 1980, I have the opportunity to buy a silver with black strips, bucket seats, black interior, 4 speed 1970 SS 396, that had 20K original on it. It had the 425 horse 396 in it...and the sticker from the window still in the glove box...price from the original owner.. $3500. just what they had paid for it in 1970.

go show my wife of one year the car, and her response was 'and where do you expect to park that???'.. In the garage of course...

"you're not parking that in MY garage! and expecting my car to sit in the drive way all winter!"

hindsite I should have known it by then.. instead of 8 years later, 3 kids later taken away from me.. and 22 years and counting of paying her child support, spousal maintenance etc..

oh the stupid things we do in life...

1966 Shelby GT350 289 HiPo
1968 GT500KR, 427 side oiler
1969 BOSS 429

Odd ball, 1967 Couger 390 GT, first muscle car I helped rebuild.

Lastly, soft spot for the 1964 Galaxie 500 XL convertible, 427 side oiler, 4 on the floor. This was dads car.

I didn't think they did a 425 horse 396, so after a little digging.....

1965 was the only year for the 396/425 engines, available in both Corvettes and any of the full size cars (Impala's Biscaynes, Bel Air's, Caprice). The 427 was introduced in '66. The top Chevy engine in '66 was the 427/425 available only in Vettes and the full size cars. There was also a 427/390 engine for Vettes and full size cars. Top engine for Chevelles (excluding dealer installed or COPO's) was the 396/375 through 1969.

And....


While true that the 396/425's and 396/375's engine specifications were the same, exhaust manifolds excluded, there is no evidence that any 396/425 rated Chevelles left the factory in any year.

Gotta love the new muscle for daily driving! Heck, you can even sit in them for a long time. Now that I'm old and soft, I can get a cushy seat AND 400 hp/400ft. lb. of torque.

My favorite has always been the 1968 Mustang GT Fastback, but I've got no time to fool with old cars. No time and no money sure do rule out a lot of things. (grin)

My old 1971 GTO and 2005 GTO. Had a 1969 GTO as well, but would have to dig to find those pictures.

AALf,

I am not the expert on muscle cars.. as the most I ever got to do was drule over them..

however since that was one of my TWO favorites...I always knew the deep specs on those..

back in those days, when the insurance companies started charging a premium on Muscle Cars, which they defined as a vehicle having a motor HP ratio vs weight...

so a 4000 lb car, if it had an engine with over 400 HP it was defined as a muscle car, and the owner got a big premium add on top of his insurance coverage...

so the highest horsepower 396, was rated by the factory as 375 horsepower, after the insurance companies did this... as Detroit knew that could potentially hurt sales..

in actuality, it was still a 425hp engine, they just 'rated' it at 375 HP, to get under the insurance industry's attempt to undermine their car sales..

in 69 and 70, the 396 was available rated at 325, 350 and 375 HP in the Chevelle SS...

in 70, the then new 454 was available and rated at 365 horses and 450 horses..

In high school, I knew this spoiled punk kid, whose dad was an attorney. the kid had a TR 6 for a car as a junior in HS, and then he decided he wanted a 396, so his dad bought him a Blue with white strips and black interior, bucket seats, auto 70 SS 396 with the 425 HP motor... he beat the crap out of it for 6 months, and then decided he wanted a Corvette with a 454 in it..

Dad said no, so he went out and totaled the Chevelle on purpose.. so dad bought him the Covette he wanted..

Me and him never got along.. but after that happened, I pissed him off on purpose, so that he took a swing at me, in front of witnesses...so I proceeded to beat the crap out of him....

my motivation wasn't from him taking a swing at me, because I had set it up to piss him off enough to do so.. I bet the crap out of him, being pissed that he had gone out and totaled the car I drooled over daily in the parking lot...

kinda of like for a high school kid, beating the crap out of the guy who dumped the girl, and broke her heart.. when you dreamed of her every day...

but hey, that was high school mentality..
only trouble it got me was an hour in detention... and I was instantly the hero for the day, or everyone in school that disliked that A Hole punk..

of course, that punk went to Harvard and became a lawyer...

I just hope our forum buddy Issac isn't that kid grown up..
since that occurred in Fairfax Co Virginia..

My muscle car, years ago; a '67 GTX, 440 and Torqueflite;
http://www.allpar.com/cotm/photos/GTX/GTX.jpg
Mine was white with black roof.
My brother's was a '68 Torino GT 390 just like this:
http://www.musclecarcalendar.com/FeatureCarsHome/68TorinoGT/JA10.jpg
And baby brother had a '69 Road Runner with the 383 (balanced and blue-printed)and torqueflite. That thing would chirp the tires on the one-two upshift.
http://mimg.ugo.com/200808/26662/69RoadRunner.jpg
As to favorite, there are to many stellar cars to list. In order of preference: Mopar, Ford, GM. In reality, they all rock!

My senior year in HS bought a 66 Chevelle SS 396..layed down alot of tires before I got rid of it...lookin for a pic!!

Was it the 421 with the nascar Aluminum heads, or iron heads?


I forgot, my second car was a 64 Lemans 326 HO That I had to get more torque, so I pulled a 389 from a junkyard car and added a turbo 400 (1964 had the 2 speed auto's) and it would do a burnout through the upshift to third.


First was a 56 Chevy 1500 that we pulled the straight 6 for a 283...


Allen

1969 plum crazy roadrunner 383 4-speed out in the garage on a tender just waitin for a pretty day.

1969 RR 528 Keith Black blown alcohol hemi w/a lenco waitin on summer.

1970 Cuda 509 TFX hemi sheet metal tunnel ram hat injected on alcohol also waitin on summer.

Mopar or no car LOL

Gunner

Hmmm.. You looked kinda normal back then...what happened??

my 1971 monte carlo.....bucket's & auto on the floor

Ohhh, yeah, they did.. Not very common, for sure, but I remember a few offered..

That a Ford! he said muscle car!!