Muscle Cars. This Was Never Meant to Happen!

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Budding racers could pack up on Friday after work, qualify on Saturday and take home the trophy on Sunday. Oh, and then drive to work on Monday. This form of motorsport and this type of car made motorsport attainable. Something that rather than dreaming about, you could actually take part in, and win.

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On the flip side, you also had NASCAR. The early days of stock car racing added to the fuel that caused this phenomenon to fire up, as customers were after factory-built, easy-to-run, fast metal.

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What this all led to was what is known as ‘core values’. These values are inherent across all aspects of classic and valuable vehicles, whether muscle caras, Ferraris or Lamborghinis. But muscle cars touch that soft spot with collectors because they were affordable when new and could blow the doors off most sports cars of that era and most importantly, they weren’t intimidating.

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However, when all is said and done, value boils down to a few simple yet important factors: rarity, provenance (if it won at the Brickyard, keep it!!), condition.

Will the same situation happen in 40 years from now with the latest batch of mainstream Mustangs, Chargers and Camaros? Who knows? But I suspect not, as the ingredients mentioned above just aren’t there. Sad as it might sound, the history of Muscle cars and what they stood for has been overridden by branding, marketing and the continuing drive for commercial success.

Images copyright Dave Wendt 2010, www.davewendt.com, used with permission

Categories: Road

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  2. Force10

    You should swing by Khalid Bin Hadher’s garage at Performance – I was there last night and, despite their JDM inage, there’s puh-lenty of tasty muscle car love going on there! 😉