Why were muscle cars named as such?

[skynyrd]

That statement is incorrect.

First of all, tractors? Seriously? At the time, they were quite competitive. I'm not saying they were the best out there, but they were definitely not freaking tractors.

The C1 was built as a sports car, and had the same flaws as pretty much every other sports car out there at the time.

The C2 ended up providing some of the greatest racers they had for years to come.

The C3, while looking amazing/beautiful/etc./etc./etc....not so much. But all three were definitely sportscars.

 

[Vautwin]

As far i remind correctly, the corvette was thought to be a sportscar (c1) designed by a polish immigrant (damn what was the story of the suisse Flag in the Emblem again?), wanted to create a spirtscar but chevrolet got their hands mixed in a little too much and they demanded a cruiser, werent the first even 6 cylinders.(little of topic what was the first turbo car?? The chevrolet corvair) The suspension havent been touched until very long, wasnt the c5 the first not having leaf spring suspensions. These were also not logitudial mounted but from The inside of the axle to the outside near the wheels. Funny system if shown to a European. So somehow yea a corvette is more a sportscar than a muscle.
Wasnt Poney the description for smaller "cars"? Like Camaro and Mustang and challenger which from their size were the Us pendant to a Bmw series 3 and the bigger Charger torino or Barracuda were something like BmW series 5 (first cars that came to mind i know not same Era)

But this whole description seems more beein a name giving to them by fans than really a factory description.

I really doubt that an american Pony or Muscle with stock suspension handled that much worse than a comparable european car of same price. Mind the extra weight in a us Car though. For example if you go to a classic car race weekend you will see camaros give a hard time to XJs Jaguars.

 

[jet1991]

That statement is incorrect.

First of all, tractors? Seriously? At the time, they were quite competitive. I'm not saying they were the best out there, but they were definitely not freaking tractors.

The C1 was built as a sports car, and had the same flaws as pretty much every other sports car out there at the time.

The C2 ended up providing some of the greatest racers they had for years to come.

The C3, while looking amazing/beautiful/etc./etc./etc....not so much. But all three were definitely sportscars.

The stock C3s handled pretty similar to the C2. The C2s were lighter, but the C3s (69 ->) had wider tires. And the C3s came with radial tires from the early 70`s. Power was a little bit higher for the first C3s, but the difference wasn`t that big. Unless you count this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Corvette_(C3)#ZL1_.281969.29
The Corvette race cars were monsters. especially the L88 which was available on both the c2 and c3.

On the Corvette forums were I also frequent, the stock C3 Corvettes are considered to be pretty bad handlingwise. Several people on digitalcorvettes say the C3 can be modified to be faster around a track than a C5 Z06. And of course this is also true for the C2 since the 63 - 68 frame is completely similar and they only did some small updates to the same frame until the C4 came. The C2s were lighter so they could actually be faster than the C3 (modified).

IIRC a famous American magazine started the whole "v8 tractor" with one of their reviews of a late seventies or early eighties C3. I don`t remember the name since I have never read an american car magazine and don`t know them.

Why do I have a feeling someone will put me in the ludicrous claim thread soon?

 

[BlacqueJacques]

My suggestion for the moniker is because the driver used the car`s `muscle` rather than its handling or `finesse`

 

[homeforsummer]

Why do I have a feeling someone will put me in the ludicrous claim thread soon?

As you're a Corvette owner I'd be happy enough that your opinion is as valid on the cars as anyone else's 👍

 

[Cano]

I really doubt that an american Pony or Muscle with stock suspension handled that much worse than a comparable european car of same price. Mind the extra weight in a us Car though. For example if you go to a classic car race weekend you will see camaros give a hard time to XJs Jaguars.

I really have to emphazise this. I've rode in a lot of old sports cars from Europe and, of course, a lot of muscle cars, some of them ridiculously overpowered, and the sensations aren't THAT far off. Of course, there WERE muscle cars that drove really bad... sadly, any B-Body Mopar was a freaking brick... of course I'm talking here of stock suspensions.

But then again, if you saw the Firebird/Trans Ams -which regularly out-handled Corvettes of the era-, the Duster (really), and even the Javelin/AMX which had some of the most competent suspension systems in the muscle car era (not Porsche Boxster, lol, but really good), they could really hold up with some of the most reputed euro sportsters... not to mention the special interest homologation cars like the Z/28, Boss 302, AAR or T/A, which were built with far better suspensions than the standard models.