Muscle Cars are like Dinosaurs

(But not why you think!)

Few things will cause a muscle car enthusiast as much emotional energy as the topic of “what was the first muscle car?”, or “what qualifies as a muscle car?”.  As to the first question, there’s a short answer, and there’s a much longer, more complete answer.  The short answer is the 1964 Pontiac GTO.

My ’64 Dodge Dart 413 is Like a Dimetrodon?

Well, kind of.  Let me explain.  As with muscle cars, the topic of dinosaurs has also proven very confusing to the general public.  Specifically, what is, and what is not, a dinosaur?  There were reptiles that predated the dinosaurs.  These were not dinosaurs, but most people would not make the distinction.  The sea-going reptiles like the plesiosaur and the Ichthyosaur were not dinosaurs, though they existed at the same time as dinosaurs.  To make it even more confusing, they have the “saur” in their names! 

According to the dictionary, “saur” is from the Greek and means “lizard”.  It also says that “dinosaur” means “fearfully great lizard”.  So, there were “saurs” that weren’t “dinosaurs”.  Okay.  But what defines a dinosaur, beside being a reptile and fearfully-great?  Good question.

Dinosaurs were a type of reptile, now extinct, that possessed a particular leg structure that was unlike that of an ordinary reptile.  The legs of a dinosaur were underneath the body, as your legs are, not positioned to the side like a crocodile or alligator.  This allowed increased mobility, with many dinos walking upright on two legs.

So, there’s a natural tendency to lump all prehistoric reptiles into the “dinosaur” category, just like there’s a natural tendency to lump all big-engine, late ‘50’s to early ‘70’s cars into the “muscle car” category.  But where the term “dinosaur” has a scientific definition, and one can say absolutely that this animal is or is not a dinosaur, we can’t do that with muscle cars.  It would be nice to have some sort of a definition, wouldn’t it?

Cool, But Not a Dinosaur

I remember watching cheesy stop-action animated things when I was a kid that featured dinosaurs, including Dimetrodon. Of course, I had no idea that Dimetrodon lived some 200 million years before many of the well-known animals like Tyrannosaurus. In fact, more time separated these two species than separates Tyrannosaurus and us!

It was also contemporary thought that the sails of these animals were used for the regulation of body temperature. (The family Sphenacodontidae contains the genus Dimetrodon, which contains many different species. Now you know.) Later it was realized that if this were true, larger animals should have larger sails, and this was not the case between the Dimetrodon species. It’s now thought that they were used to attract mates, much like a huge variety of amimals do today.

The largest Dimetrodon was way smaller than some of the Tyrannosaurs and other upright-walking carnivorous animals, but at up to 4 m in length and 550 lbs. I’d sure keep my distance. Maybe a good time to have someone accompany you who was a slower runner than you are. (This works for bears, too.)

An Imperfect Definition is Better than None

In formulating a definition of a muscle car, we might consider the following:

• A car from the late ‘50’s to early ‘70’s
• Must have a good power to weight ratio (no 5,000 lb. luxo-barges)
• Must have some element of sportiness (no four-doors)

The first point stands on its own merit.  Nothing earlier than the late ‘50’s would remotely seem appropriate, and by the mid ‘70’s the party was over.  If you referred to a 1977 403 Trans Am as a “muscle car”, I’d hesitate to correct you, but you would be more wrong than right.  This car was indeed “sporty”, but it had a lousy power-to-weight ratio and couldn’t get out of its own way.  This car was “muscle car like”, and while competitive with what was being sold at the time, it would not fare well in comparison to true muscle cars from a slightly earlier era.  No, not black and white, more like shades of gray.

How about a ’66 Chrysler with the new 440cid V8?  Nope.  Too big, too heavy, and not sporty, not to mention no buckets, no floor shifter, no 4 speed, and no performance gearing.  Nice?  Yes.  Responsive? Yes.  But, a muscle car? Nope.  Certainly, a close relative, but not a true muscle car.

There were no four-door muscle cars made during this era.  Unlike today, sportiness necessitated a two-door body, and a hardtop was all the better.  No four-door vehicle made during this time had the qualifications to be called a muscle car.

What about engine size?  Does a muscle car have to have a large displacement engine under its hood?  I’d say a resounding “No”.  That would eliminate a bunch of smaller cars with smaller, high-output engines, such as the 271hp 289 Mustangs, the Boss 302 Mustang, the Camaro Z28, as well as others.  Some of these cars were sporty as hell and could give a big-block car a good run.

The GTO Argument

Most of the pre-’64 performance cars were either large cars with large engines, and hence expensive, or they were small cars with large engines that were conceived and manufactured for the racing crowd.  There was no company who made a conscious effort to create and market a product that had exceptional performance (read “acceleration”) and that was within reach of a good portion of the buying public.  That, dear friends, is exactly what the boys at Pontiac did in 1964 with their GTO option of the popular Tempest.

The formula was simple.  You take a mid-size, sporty two-door and stuff it with an engine that would have previously been found in one of your larger cars.  The 389, not the 326 that had been going into this platform.  Then, add standard or optional equipment like bucket seats, floor-mounted shifter, 4 speed, performance gears, closed rear-end, tachometer, badges, mag-type wheels, performance cams, performance carburetion, etc.  But, with much of this hardware optional, the base car price is kept low. No, they didn’t use the 421, which would have caused the fat-fingered GM boss’ heads to explode. That would have been going too far.

Then, with the full awareness that you have now created a “young guy’s car”, you market it accordingly.  There was some phenomenal advertising from this era, including Pontiac’s tiger theme, Plymouth’s tie in with Looney Tunes (Road Runner) and the Olds “Dr. Oldsmobile” and “Elephant Engine Ernie”.

It Started as a Skunk Works Project

The Pontiac GTO hit all of the points above when it showed up in the fall of 1963, for the ’64 model year.  It was not, however, the result of any high-level corporate creativity by overpaid VPs at Pontiac or GM.

A handful of key people at Pontiac, including one John Z. DeLorean (DeLorean Motorcars; Back to the Future…) were convinced that there would be a huge, younger market for affordable performance cars, and that the recipe for success was simply to take a smaller body, in this case the Tempest, and drop in an engine from one of the larger cars.  Presto!  Instant performance.  Of course, it had to have the options that these buyers might want, such as four-speed manual trans, floor shifter, buckets, etc.  The point was that you could get a smaller, performance-oriented car for just a bit more money than you’d pay for a regular, smaller car.  Finally, stick a name on it that’s borrowed from a super-expensive, ultra-performance, mondo-exclusive European car, the Ferrari GTO 250.

The brass at GM was none too happy when they found out about the Pontiac GTO.  The Pontiac Marketing Manager wasn’t, either.  He imposed a 5,000-vehicle limit, while doubting they would sell anywhere close to this number.  Remember, GM had a bizarre self-imposed “ban” on high performance cars, with the notable exception of the Corvette.  Big cars could get big engines, and that was okay; they had enough weight to haul around that this made sense.  But a big engine in a midsize or smaller car?  No way!  DeLorean and company were convinced enough they had a winner that they decided to take their chances and I guess ask forgiveness later, in the event that they guessed wrong.  Needless to say, the first batch of 5,000 GTOs was gone quickly, and both dealers and buyers were clamoring for more. 

This got the attention of the over-paid pinheads in suits.  Other GM companies quickly implemented the same formula, as did Ford and the Chrysler companies.  Of course, as things would heat up, they weren’t saddled by any such dumb cubic inch limitation as Chevy, Pontiac, Buick and Olds were.

Skunk Works

The Lockheed Skunk Works (or Skunkworks) is legendary for creating cutting edge military aircraft in total secrecy.  It’s research and development led to such aircraft as the P-38 Lightning, the U-2, SR-71 Blackbird, F-117 Nighthawk, and the F-22 Raptor.

The ‘Skunk Works’ name was taken from the ’34 – ’77 comic strip Li’l Abner, by Al Capp.  In the strip, ‘Skonk Works’ was a factory on the outskirts of the town of Dogpatch that made a substance out of dead skunks and old shoes.  The purpose of this substance was never identified.

If you’ve ever encountered a ‘Sadie Hawkins’ dance or other affair, where the ladies’ reverse roles and pursue the guys, you’ve experienced an Al Capp creation.  This has to be one of the very few times a comic strip creation was adopted for real life!

This segment of the auto market really didn’t exist previously, and it quickly developed its own identity and grew at a phenomenal rate.  The fuse was lit and there was no choice but to hang on and go with it.  Pontiac, with their GTO, deliberately took a stab at defining a new market niche, and every muscle car that followed is a reflection of that effort.  What if there had never been a GTO?  It’s anyone’s guess what the auto scene in the ‘60’s would have looked like, but I feel confident in saying that it would have been different than it was.

Here’s the Ferrari GTO. Pretty impressive. Want one? You’re looking at over $1,000,000, if you can find one in the first place.

Looking Back

Maybe another way to look at the muscle car/first muscle car matter is to draw a big circle on a sheet of paper.  The GTO, along with other cars that would soon appear, is smack dab in the middle of the circle.  This circle denotes the realm of muscle cars.  Other cars, like big cars with big engines, might be outside the circle.  A 500 cubic inch, 5,000 lb. Caddy might not be anywhere close to the circle, if it was on the sheet of paper at all.  Other cars would be outside the circle, but closer to the line.  Some cars, like smaller cars with smaller, hi-po engines, might be inside the circle, but well away from the center.  Pre-1964 cars with monster engines that were primarily intended for racing duty would be inside the circle, certainly, but perhaps not at the center.  And, yes, there will be some cars that some would place within the circle, and others would place outside.  It’s not a black and white issue, nor is the answer!

Don’t get too hung up on this diagram—it’s just to convey a concept.

The Late Egyptian Dynasty of Muscle Cars

I was thinking about the cars that came on the heels of the muscle car era, cars that were almost “quasi-muscle cars”.  This would include Camaros and Trans Ams with less than 200hp, as well as a whole host of cars whose main claims to distinction were the gaudy decal graphics that were plastered liberally to the bodies.  These were MINOs, or “Muscle cars In Name Only”.  It occurred to me that these cars were like the latter Egyptian dynasties (I just watched something about this on Netflix!).  Yeah, they were Egyptians, but they were nothing remotely like the earlier dynasties that built the pyramids and who had real world-beating armies.

(Did you know that the Egyptian queen Cleopatra was as far removed in time from the pyramids as we, today, are from her?  Cool, huh? 

What About Today’s Muscle Cars?

Today’s muscle car movement has a few similarities to the original one, but there are huge fundamental differences.  For the most part, eras do not repeat.

What we are experiencing now has sustained itself far longer than the relative handful of years the classic muscle car era did.  In part, I think that’s because the recent movement has none of the earmarks of a fad that the classic era did.  This market segment, performance cars, is a valid and established part of the automotive field.  Most of the players are domestic, and these are not inexpensive vehicles.  The “low buck, big engine” concept is a part of history.  It would be interesting to know what the demographics for this market look like.  I have to think that the average age of buyers is greater than those of the muscle car era.

The word “fad” isn’t necessarily a negative word, although it’s often used in that way.  Fads usually center around inconsequential things, such as toys, bands, clothes, games, etc.  It seems almost sacrilegious to call this great era a “fad”.  But consider this.

It was intimately associated with the ‘60’s youth movement, and everything that entailed.  Sure, there were older buyer’s too, but the vast majority of the muscle car buyers were in their 20’s.  The main tenants of the youth movement were music, style, freedom and anti-war sentiment.  Record numbers of late teens were leaving home to “go somewhere”, that somewhere often being California.  Commercials for all sorts of consumables were targeting the “under 30” demographic.  With muscle car advertising, you rarely saw middle aged people depicted.

The muscle car was a minor player in this overall drama, but it was indeed a part of it.  Where the present movement was a slow buildup from the mid 1980’s, when Detroit was discovering how to make power and still meet emissions standards, the classic era came upon us seemingly overnight.  Pontiac lit the fuse with their “big engine, small(ish) car” concept, and the rest of the automakers poured gasoline on it as they responded with their own offerings.

The market seemed to grow exponentially, as popularity fed sales, which fed popularity.  As with any new, hugely expanding market, it had to reach saturation and then level off.  It actually did far more than that—it imploded.  It had a lot of help in doing that from several sectors, though.  The era didn’t really live long enough for many initial muscle car buyers to trade in and upgrade to newer muscle cars.  The present movement is very different in that regard.  It’s not unusual to find someone who has a late model muscle car, which might be the third, fourth or fifth such car they have owned in the past twenty to thirty years.

The original era died as quickly as it was born, unable to resist the pressure from market saturation, high interest rates, huge insurance premiums, and finally, government regulations.  Die it did, and it had plenty of help to do so.

It arrived overnight, grew at a terrific pace, was hugely popular, especially with younger adults, and then was gone.  That, boys and girls, is a fad.  Not a bad thing, as it happened to be the biggest, coolest fad to ever exist in this country.  All these years later, these vehicles are still being restored, rodded, bought, sold and cherished.  Wouldn’t it be great if every fad was like this?  I’m still waiting for the value of my Beanie Baby collection to come back up.