Agree on the Prowler and Interceptor but the others are very year dependent. Plus not many of us would have ever defined the tepid six-banger Prowler as meriting the label of muscle car. Bizarre and pointless exercise in nostalgia would be closer to the truth. The Interceptor was desperately unreliable but at least it had a huge Chizler bent eight in it.
Agree with Darwin on the Prowler.
What made these come up as the worst? Performance? Reliability? Drivability?
Fine in a straight line, death at the first corner.
And the new generation of Mustangs are as uncomfortable as anything devised by Torquemada.
GASP!
Heretic!!!
Kim – America has hundreds of long, straight, otherwise boring highways. Those metal gods in your apostasy don’t have to handle in the corners the way the piss-burning shitboxes that pass for performance cars in Europe do.
I’m trying to remember how medieval law worked. Let’s see: you can repent and recant and get a modestly painful but quick death. Or, you can stand by your blasphemy and get burnt at the stake (or in a 2018 Mustang). Afterwards, your remains will be dragged out and dismembered, and your brains will be pulled out and stepped on with dirty shoes. Bah – those are mere details; I will defer to Torquemada on your punishment, and pray to the automotive gods to show mercy on your wretched soul. Harrrumppfffff!!!
Back in the real world, I think the big issue now is getting all that horsepower on the road where it belongs. The boys around here are driving those Factory 5 kit cars, Corvettes and even a few Vipers. The damned things develop so much power that wheel hop becomes a major issue, and they fight non-stop over different suspension geometry and ways to deal with it. They burn A LOT of rubber which impresses the tire-biters and bubble-gummers … but it’s an offense to disciples of The Machine.
I dunno why I’m mouthing off about this – I ride motorcycles and therefore am morally and intellectually superior to the lumpen four wheeled proletariat. đ
Assuming you’re referring to any Viper since the 3rd gen: Bullcrap. It’s probably the best road-legal sports car platform to ever built in the US. By a lot.
And while the original Shelby GT350 was something of a train wreck, the current one is the best non-supercar Ford has ever made. Also by a lot. I’ve dropped Ferrari 488s with mine on track days, bone stock.
I could also argue that the current Charger Hellcat/Demon is probably the best true “muscle car” ever made. While it lacks refinement, it’s faster than anything short of a $400,000 Lambo Aventador, and is largely bomb proof.
Meh. I’m not a muscle car fan. To me, driving a muscle car is like chugging cheap beer. I’d rather sip a good Scotch – or drive a proper convertible sports car that can turn.
Current Charger? Or classic?
I still occasionally look for a Popular something magazine article I remember from the 90s where they took a restored (stock) second generation Charger (1968-70) and with only one change, new modern radial tires, ran it against then current Mustangs and Camaros. And it was a fair contest; the Charger had more power, better acceleration, but to the surprise of the testers also did pretty well on the skidpad tests and cornered pretty well too.
Mopars of the time were unfairly saddled with the reputation of being crappy handlers, and to be fair they were harder to set up properly for road manners (proper alignment settings were critical), and so many came with those heavy B/RB/Hemi engines because people wanted them mostly to go fast in a straight line. Even those can handle decently if properly aligned, with good tires, and the (optional) anti-roll bars installed (again, not wanted by straight line go fast purchasers).
And then there were those wonderful bias-ply tires….
Things have come so far since the 90s that any number of current SUVs, let alone sports cars and sedans, can trash any 60s muscle car on a track, skidpad, or dragway. However there are still current vehicles available from the Big Three that will give that gut-bucket shove of an American 400 inch plus pushrod motor accompanied by an anti-social soundtrack of the “swingin'” sixties. They aren’t doing it on the cheap though with current gringo muscle iron costing at least twice as much as those torque monsters of the hippie era. Converting vulcanized rubber into smoke and turning ‘nam worried frowns upside down was a much cheaper proposition fifty years ago.
Real muscle cars were only made for about five years in the sixties. Anything built after the introduction of catalytic converters and all the other polution control crap is at best an imitation. Engine and suspension technology has advanced greatly since half a century ago. Modern fast cars have little in common with either the underpowered unreliable sports cars of that era or with drag racing oriented muscle cars.
I do have fond memories of the ’69 Dodge Charger in which I learned to drive a stick.
The worst muscle cars is all of them – meh.
Agree on the Prowler and Interceptor but the others are very year dependent. Plus not many of us would have ever defined the tepid six-banger Prowler as meriting the label of muscle car. Bizarre and pointless exercise in nostalgia would be closer to the truth. The Interceptor was desperately unreliable but at least it had a huge Chizler bent eight in it.
Agree with Darwin on the Prowler.
What made these come up as the worst? Performance? Reliability? Drivability?
Fine in a straight line, death at the first corner.
And the new generation of Mustangs are as uncomfortable as anything devised by Torquemada.
GASP!
Heretic!!!
Kim – America has hundreds of long, straight, otherwise boring highways. Those metal gods in your apostasy don’t have to handle in the corners the way the piss-burning shitboxes that pass for performance cars in Europe do.
I’m trying to remember how medieval law worked. Let’s see: you can repent and recant and get a modestly painful but quick death. Or, you can stand by your blasphemy and get burnt at the stake (or in a 2018 Mustang). Afterwards, your remains will be dragged out and dismembered, and your brains will be pulled out and stepped on with dirty shoes. Bah – those are mere details; I will defer to Torquemada on your punishment, and pray to the automotive gods to show mercy on your wretched soul. Harrrumppfffff!!!
Back in the real world, I think the big issue now is getting all that horsepower on the road where it belongs. The boys around here are driving those Factory 5 kit cars, Corvettes and even a few Vipers. The damned things develop so much power that wheel hop becomes a major issue, and they fight non-stop over different suspension geometry and ways to deal with it. They burn A LOT of rubber which impresses the tire-biters and bubble-gummers … but it’s an offense to disciples of The Machine.
I dunno why I’m mouthing off about this – I ride motorcycles and therefore am morally and intellectually superior to the lumpen four wheeled proletariat. đ
Assuming you’re referring to any Viper since the 3rd gen: Bullcrap. It’s probably the best road-legal sports car platform to ever built in the US. By a lot.
And while the original Shelby GT350 was something of a train wreck, the current one is the best non-supercar Ford has ever made. Also by a lot. I’ve dropped Ferrari 488s with mine on track days, bone stock.
I could also argue that the current Charger Hellcat/Demon is probably the best true “muscle car” ever made. While it lacks refinement, it’s faster than anything short of a $400,000 Lambo Aventador, and is largely bomb proof.
Meh. I’m not a muscle car fan. To me, driving a muscle car is like chugging cheap beer. I’d rather sip a good Scotch – or drive a proper convertible sports car that can turn.
Current Charger? Or classic?
I still occasionally look for a Popular something magazine article I remember from the 90s where they took a restored (stock) second generation Charger (1968-70) and with only one change, new modern radial tires, ran it against then current Mustangs and Camaros. And it was a fair contest; the Charger had more power, better acceleration, but to the surprise of the testers also did pretty well on the skidpad tests and cornered pretty well too.
Mopars of the time were unfairly saddled with the reputation of being crappy handlers, and to be fair they were harder to set up properly for road manners (proper alignment settings were critical), and so many came with those heavy B/RB/Hemi engines because people wanted them mostly to go fast in a straight line. Even those can handle decently if properly aligned, with good tires, and the (optional) anti-roll bars installed (again, not wanted by straight line go fast purchasers).
And then there were those wonderful bias-ply tires….
Things have come so far since the 90s that any number of current SUVs, let alone sports cars and sedans, can trash any 60s muscle car on a track, skidpad, or dragway. However there are still current vehicles available from the Big Three that will give that gut-bucket shove of an American 400 inch plus pushrod motor accompanied by an anti-social soundtrack of the “swingin'” sixties. They aren’t doing it on the cheap though with current gringo muscle iron costing at least twice as much as those torque monsters of the hippie era. Converting vulcanized rubber into smoke and turning ‘nam worried frowns upside down was a much cheaper proposition fifty years ago.
Real muscle cars were only made for about five years in the sixties. Anything built after the introduction of catalytic converters and all the other polution control crap is at best an imitation. Engine and suspension technology has advanced greatly since half a century ago. Modern fast cars have little in common with either the underpowered unreliable sports cars of that era or with drag racing oriented muscle cars.
I do have fond memories of the ’69 Dodge Charger in which I learned to drive a stick.