Description
By: Consumer Guide .
American muscle cars are some of the most exciting vehicles ever built, and no book captures their awe-inspiring glory better than Muscle Car Chronicle. Nearly 1500 color photographs and fact-filled captions showcase hundreds of muscle cars, from 1949 to the present.
Marvel at the majesty of the 1960 Chrysler 300F's Cross-Ram induction manifold. Revel in the legendary power of a 1962 Chevrolet 409 Bel Air Sport Coupe. Celebrate the charisma of a 1966 Shelby Mustang GT-350. And hang on as Buick's 1970 GSX takes you for the ride of a lifetime. It's an insider's view of their world, organized in a fun-to-read year-byyear style. Handy timelines give you an overview of each period's highlights and significant developments.
Original photographs—some never before published—examine in detail the styling, engines, and interiors that made these cars so special.
Artwork from the manufacturers' archives gives a definitive look at showroom-fresh cars inside and out, and even goes behind the scenes to reveal muscle prototypes.
Historic racing photos from the files of the National Hot Rod Association showcase muscle cars in the heat of battle and follow the increasingly radical modifications that led from barely modified production models to the outrageously altered Funny Cars.
Brochures and ads are reproduced to show how automakers promoted muscle to a power-hungry public. To-the-point captions separate the hype from the reality. Each vehicle's development is traced, and the features that made it a success—or a disappointment—are explained.
Period road tests are quoted—not only for acceleration figures achieved by hot-shoe reporters of the day—but also for insights into how these cars cornered, stopped, and drove.
Authoritative charts show which high-performance engines were available in which cars and give detailed specifications of each motor, including horsepower and torque, rpm, carburetion, and compression ratios.
Muscle Car Chronicle traces the development of these wondrous machines from their early roots to the present day.
The story begins in the early 1950s, when automakers began offering larger and larger engines in their production cars. The big power was largely reserved for the biggest cars until Pontiac stood the motoring world on its ear with the 1964 GTO, which put a large-displacement V-8 into the midsized Tempest body and set the blueprint for all true muscle cars to come. Other manufacturers quickly followed with their own big- engine intermediates.
It was a time when virtual race cars, such as the Ford Thunderbolt and early Dodge Hemis, could be driven right off the showroom floor; when whimsical names like Road Runner and "The Machine" hid no-nonsense mechanical toughness; and when mysterious-sounding codes like Z-28 and 428 CJ-R required no translation.
There's never been a more exciting way to follow this saga, from the 1949 Oldsmobile Rocket 88 that reigned at the dawn of the muscle age to the current horsepower war that has seen the rebirth of the GTO, the rise of in- house factory performance divisions, and the inclusion of big-time muscle in everything from import-inspired "tuner" cars to family sedans, pickup trucks, and even SUVs.
They're all here, and more, in Muscle Car Chronicle.
