The Twenty Fastest Muscle Cars

The Twenty Fastest Muscle Cars
By Brian Edwards

From the mid to early 1970’s a new breed of cars ruled the American streets. The majority of these were intermediate sized automobiles with large block engines stuffed inside. At first these cars were called “super cars” and over time they became know more accurately as muscle cars. The quarter mile was the performance standard and weekend drag racing became very popular.

Many of these cars pulled weekday duty as commuter vehicles, taking their proud owners to work and school. But, on the weekend the guys at the wheel were full fledged “amateur” dragsters. For the first time (and many would argue the only time) in American automotive history, high performance vehicles were available to the masses. The average Joe with a decent job could go to his local dealership and drive away with a ground pounding, tire smoking muscle car. Additionally, in a time before complicated emission controls and computer chips, an average Joe could actually working on his pride.

As the list of the twenty fastest muscle cars points out, the majority of the beasts had domesticated roots. The Road Runners, Chevelles and Chargers were all basic family cruisers. What made them special was those wonderfully powerful big block engines. Even the Camaros and ‘Cudas were decent transportation for the young man with a couple of small children. Only the Corvettes and the Cobra were initially created as sports cars.

As everyone over this generation knows, the muscle car became extinct in the early 1970’s. Rising fuel costs, rising insurance premiums and new safety concerns marked the end of this era. Today the original muscle cars are one of the hottest automotive collectables. Men of a certain age are aggressively bidding for the car of their youthful dreams.

So take a look at the list and see who really owned the streets when muscle cars reigned supreme. For more information about all the great Muscle Cars of the past visit Muscle Car Facts.

Rank - Model - - ¼ Mile Time and Speed - - Engine - - HP - - TRANS - - Source

1 - 1966 427 Cobra - - 12.20 sec @ 118 mph - - 427 8V - - 425 - - 4-Speed - - CAR CRAFT 11/65

2 - 1966 Corvette 427 - - 12.80 sec @ 112 mph - - L72 427 - - 425 - - 4-Speed - - CAR AND DRIVER 11/65

3 - 1969 Road Runner - - 12.91 sec @ 111 mph - - 440 Six BBL - 390 - - 4-Speed - - SUPER STOCK 6/69

4 - 1970 Hemi Cuda - - 13.10 sec @ 107 mph - - 426 Hemi - 425 - 4-Speed - CAR CRAFT 11/69

5 - 1970 Chevelle SS 454 - - 13.12 sec @ 107 mph - - 454 LS6 - 450 - - 4-Speed - - CAR CRAFT 11/69

6 - 1969 Camaro - - - 13.16 sec @ 110 mph - - 427 ZL1 - - 430 - - 4-Speed - - HI PERFORMANCE 6/69

7 - 1968 Corvette - - - 13.30 sec @ 108 mph - - 427 6V - - 435 - - 4-Speed - - HI PERFORMANCE 5/68

8 - 1970 Road Runner - - 13.34 sec @ 107 mph - - 426 Hemi - - 425 - - automatic - - SUPER STOCK 12/69

9 - 1970 Buick GS Stage I - - 13.38 sec @ 105 mph - - 455 Stage I - - 360 - automatic - - MOTOR TREND 1/70

10 - 1968 Corvette 427 - - 13.41 sec @ 109 mph - - L72 427 - - 425 - - 4-Speed - - CAR AND DRIVER 6/68

11 - 1969 Charger 500 - - 13.48 sec @ 109 mph - - 426 Hemi - - 425 - - 4-Speed - - HOT ROD 2/69

12 - 1968 Charger - - - 13.50 sec @ 105 mph - - 426 Hemi - 425 - - automatic - - CAR AND DRIVER 11/67

13 - 1970 Plymouth Superbird - 13.50 sec @ 105 mph - - 426 Hemi - - 425

14 - 1968 Road Runner - - 13.54 sec @ 105 mph - - 426 Hemi - - 425 - - automatic - - CAR AND DRIVER 1/69

15 - 1973 Trans Am - - 13.54 sec @ 104 mph - - 455 SD - - 310 - - automatic - - HOT ROD 6/73

16 - 1969 Corvette - - - 13.56 sec @ 111 mph - - 427 L88 - - 430 - - automatic - - HOT ROD 4/69

17 - 1969 Super Bee - - 13.56 sec @ 105 mph - - 440 Six Pack - - 390 - - automatic - - HOT ROD 8/69

18 - 1969 Boss 429 Mustang - 13.60 sec @ 106 mph - - Boss 429 - - 375 - - 4-Speed - - HI PERFORMANCE 9/69

19 - 1970 Challenger R/T - - 13.62 sec @ 104 mph - - 440 Six Pack - - 390 - - automatic - - CAR CRAFT 11/69

20 - 1970 Torino Cobra - - 13.63 sec @ 105 mph - - 429 SCJ - - 370 - - automatic - - SUPER STOCK 3/70

Muscle Car Facts is dedicated to providing information on all the great muscle cars of the past.

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Hot Rod Car Clubs, What They're Doing, Current Events

Hot Rod Car Clubs, What They're Doing, Current Events
By Joe Whyte

All special-interest hobbies have their followings, and hot rod devotees are no exception. Every week in every major metropolitan area across America, you can count on at least a few enthusiast-run clubs meeting up to do what gearheads of all tastes do: race, swap parts, cruise around on lazy weekend afternoons, fill a major venue with its very own auto show, or simply hang out and eat.

Some clubs are dedicated to a certain cars, others to cars of a certain make, others still care not at all. Many have restrictions on age – that is, of cars that are too young. “Young” is an elastic term, and in some cases can stretch to mean anything produced before 1948. Banned, just like that.

Speaking of age, enthusiasm for transportation of decades past tends to be shared by those who can remember them. Most members of these clubs belong to certain generations, and X and Y aren’t among them.

The west coast (especially the south end) has supposedly always been the center of car culture in general and hot rodding specifically. Here are some of the many organizations in Southern California alone, whose very names often paint a telling picture of what to expect:

- Classic Cruisers

- Roam’n Relics

- Sultans of Long Beach

- Ventura Vintage Rods

- Bean Bandits

- FoMoCoMofos

Joe Whyte publishes HotRod.com's Hot Rod articles. His expertise in Muscle Cars and Street Rods is evident is all his articles. Newly publishing Ezine’s online to illustrate and educate auto consumers.

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Hot Rods and Muscle Cars

Hot Rods and Muscle Cars
By Jimmy Wilson

Hot Rods & Muscle Cars

If you are of the 50's 60's or 70's era generation you know that hot rods and muscle cars dominated the average male gender, and yes, even the females couldn't help but turn their heads when a slick vintage car drove by. The times have changed but the desire to see those vintage cars has not. Those who have preserved those classic cars are as appreciated as the disc-jockeys today, that spin the classic tunes of yesteryear.

Hot Rods and Muscle Cars are forever etched into our being as the ultimate personal statements that we proudly display to one and all who see them at car shows or if you should see one pass by on the highway. Hot Rods and Muscle Cars say a lot about what makes America the proud nation we are. To delve into the psychic just a bit, hot rods have always been notorious for rebellion and attention getting tools for whatever the teenage group of the times was encountering. Whether it was rebelling against their parents, or rebelling against the establishment, hot rods and muscle cars are and always will be a nostalgic part of our culture.

Hot Rods and Muscle Cars come in every imaginable shape condition and modification. The amount of customization done to a hot rod is the extension of the builder's imagination and frustration of his views on conventional styling. This in itself is not a bad thing. One can draw from one perspective as a new dimension on life and style in the hallowed United States. A sense of pride in country cannot be dismissed by the mere existence of hot rods and muscle cars.

To catch a glimpse of the ever-popular hot rods and muscle cars one merely needs to ask around their local auto repair shop for any upcoming car shows. The auto mechanics are forever mindful of those elusive hot rods and muscle cars from years gone by. The near forgotten auto mechanics or shade-tree mechanics we choose to refer to them, have all but waned away due to the computer diagnostic age. A mechanic now-a-days must be equipped with all the latest in electrical diagnostic equipment to compete with the dealerships to eek out a living. But fear not, there are still those die hard mechanics who love nothing more than to get there hands on a classic hot rod or muscle car just to rekindle the rumble of those quadra-jets or three duce's in a slick bodied car from days gone by.

We found one gentleman that has taken his love of the classic t-bucket roadsters and set up his garage to produce new roadsters from yesteryear designs. He can build one from his laser sighted frame jig, all the way to completion right from his own shop. Every detail is hand crafted so he knows what went into making the finished roadster. He will gladly build you a custom made roadster for a very reasonable price. It's his way of keeping the tradition and styling alive for generations that missed the golden years of hot rods and muscle cars.

To see more about Hot Rods and Muscle Cars :

http://wealthsmith.com/hot-rods-muscle-cars.htm

Jim is an avid online netpreneur that enjoys sharing his unique finds on the web and off. Visit his latest find: http://wealthsmith.com/hot-rods-muscle-cars.htm

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Hot Rods And Their Relation To American Culture

Hot Rods And Their Relation To American Culture
By Joe Whyte

For a good half-century now, the hobby of hot-rodding typically meant taking a cheap car, taking out any body part that didn’t matter (i.e. roofs, hoods, bumpers, fenders, seats, and other such nonsense), modifying the engine and/or dropping in a bigger one for greater performance (often protruding upwards from the hood), and fattening up the tires for extra traction.

The term is still as accurate as ever. In fact, not even the cars in question have necessarily changed: one very typical image of a hot rod is a muscle car straight from the 1960s (the so-called muscle car golden age), restored to all its glory and then some. It’s not uncommon to take the great ancestors of cars we know today (Mustang, GTO) or ones forgotten by all but a few (Plymouth Barracuda), and send the output of its V8 soaring to 600 horsepower and above. Hot rods can be just as much about customizing as weight-saving (think of flaming paintjobs), and price isn’t necessarily an object: one notable Barracuda (“Hemi Cuda” in hot rod speak) on the cover of a major-name hot rod magazine had every body panel and interior item customized to its owner’s desire. For $340,000.

As for hot rods’ relation to American culture, the link is quite strong. Nearly all hot rods are American and almost always rear-wheel-drive. In our culture, quarter-mile times make the man. Enthusiasts who spend as much time in the present as the past also pay close attention to modern-day production cars like the new Mustang, and the upcoming 2009 Chevy Camaro and Dodge Challenger are currently headline news.

Of course, no rule ever said it had to be a car, per se. Muscular + American seems to add up to enough; Jeep’s Grand Cherokee SRT-8 seems to be a hot commodity, no doubt due to the street cred of its 425-horsepower modern-day Hemi V8. Even the new Chevy Tahoe gets attention.

But some define the genre on their own terms, creating the occasional aberration. One individual dropped a turbocharged-and-NOSed Buick V6 right under the hood of a Geo Metro, for crying out loud. If you can burn through the quarter-mile in 9.3 seconds at 147 MPH, who cares how you get there?

If hot rods are to be defined as speed on the cheap, count on it being a part of our culture as long as Planet Earth has fuel.

Joe Whyte publishes HotRod.com's Hot Rod articles. His expertise in Muscle Cars and Street Rods is evident is all his articles. Newly publishing Ezine’s online to illustrate and educate auto consumers.

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Hot Rod Car Shows

Hot Rod Car Shows
By Thomas Morva

The twenty years between 1945 and 1965 came to be known as the "Hot Rod Era" because the restoration of old cars became almost like the national sport of the United States. Everyone wanted a hot rod and that era spawned multiple different styles and types of hot rod cars.

"Hot Rod" is the name given to any vintage car, but it especially refers to a Ford that has been improved to enhance performance by reducing the weight of the vehicle. For this reason, most hot rods have minimalistic chassis with no roof, hood, windscreens or fenders. At times, the original engines of the car are also remove and replaced with lighter more efficient ones to raise the highest speed capacity of the vehicle. The modeling of a hot rod was considered a work of art and thus individuals loved to exhibit their re-done cars to the public. This generally happened at informal meets and short-distance, alleyway races until the year 1951. In this year, the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) came in to existence to promote hot rod drag racing as a legitimate competitive sport. Apart from a racing event, what the NHRA really created was opportunity for hot rod car shows.

Hot rod car shows occur across the United States and other parts of the world every year. The most popular events are the California Hot Rod Reunion and the National Hot Rod Reunion, both organized by the NHRA. Through exhibitions of hot rods, the shows focus on increasing the popularity of the machines. The shows feature hot rod car swap meets that help prospective buyers and sellers come together as well drag races for different classes of cars. The show is designed to be a family event with many activities such as open-air barbeques and raffle contests. At times, fun fairs based on theme cars and makeshift car memorabilia museums are held to add to the crowd's enthusiasm.

The passes for these events are generally available through on-the spot registration. The average price per day for an adult is about $50 and for a child below sixteen, it is $10.

Car Shows provides detailed information on Car Shows, Import Car Shows, Car Show Models, Classic Car Shows and more. Car Shows is affiliated with New Car Dealers.

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