Definition
According to Muscle Cars, a book written by Peter Henshaw, a "muscle car" is "exactly what the name implies. It is a product of the American car industry adhering to the hot rodder's philosophy of taking a small car and putting a large-displacement engine in it. The Muscle Car is Charles Atlas kicking sand in the face of the 98 horsepower weakling." Henshaw further asserts that the muscle car was designed for straight-line speed, and did not have the "sophisticated chassis", "engineering integrity", or "lithe appearance" of European high-performance cars.
However, opinions vary as to whether high-performance full-size cars, compacts, and pony cars qualify as muscle cars.
The following is a list of classic muscle cars and their manufacturers (along with each make's corresponding pony car, where applicable):
| Manufacturer | Pony car | Muscle car |
|---|---|---|
| AMC | Javelin SST | Machine |
| Buick | none | Gran Sport |
| Chevrolet | Camaro | Chevelle SS |
| Dodge | Challenger | Charger RT |
| Ford | Mustang | Torino GT |
| Mercury | Cougar | Cyclone CJ |
| Oldsmobile | none | 442 |
| Plymouth | Barracuda | Road Runner |
| Pontiac | Firebird | GTO |
Read more about this topic: Muscle Car
Famous quotes containing the word definition:
“Although there is no universal agreement as to a definition of life, its biological manifestations are generally considered to be organization, metabolism, growth, irritability, adaptation, and reproduction.”
—The Columbia Encyclopedia, Fifth Edition, the first sentence of the article on “life” (based on wording in the First Edition, 1935)
“Beauty, like all other qualities presented to human experience, is relative; and the definition of it becomes unmeaning and useless in proportion to its abstractness. To define beauty not in the most abstract, but in the most concrete terms possible, not to find a universal formula for it, but the formula which expresses most adequately this or that special manifestation of it, is the aim of the true student of aesthetics.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“Mothers often are too easily intimidated by their children’s negative reactions...When the child cries or is unhappy, the mother reads this as meaning that she is a failure. This is why it is so important for a mother to know...that the process of growing up involves by definition things that her child is not going to like. Her job is not to create a bed of roses, but to help him learn how to pick his way through the thorns.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)