Muscle Car Review – September 2019

SEPTEMBER 2019

Not All Cars Are Created Equal

By Diego Rosenberg

S

ince I have a page
here with my own by-
line, I obviously must
be into muscle cars.
But my history is in classic cars.
I didn’t start off liking muscle
cars. It was something I’ve fallen
into, all the while maintaining
my classic car credentials. And
why not? I’ve never felt I should
be limited by categories, inclina-
tions, or taste, as the latter two
seem to evolve as I get older.
So I got to thinking about
how I have arrived at the para-
digm I have today, and how I
compartmentalize muscle cars
based on certain factors.

Styling
A no-brainer if you think
about it. When a kid sees a car
he likes, it’s the styling and de-
sign that pull him or her in (save
for any influential Hollywood
movies and promotions). The
first cars I remember liking had
hidden headlights. From my
babysitter’s 1967 Cougar to Mrs.
Vinokur’s 1975 Country Squire
wagon to noticing that Mopars
rotated downwards and not up,
nothing made me happier than
seeing a car flip its lids.
Additionally, Nancy and Gerry
Samson’s Cougar piqued my
interest due to its sequential
taillights. Any opportunity for
my mom to pull up behind a
turning Cougar or Thunderbird
was a moment of excitement
for this kid. That, combined
with the AMT 1966 Thunderbird
model I had, started a love affair
with Thunderbirds. Sure, the
two-seaters were cool, but the
four-seaters through 1971 were
what attracted me.
And then fins caught my eye.
Thanks to my friend Brian Dit-
tmar, who introduced me to Tad
Burness’ American Car Spotter’s
Guide series of books, I got
caught up with 1950s Cadillacs.
Bel Airs and Fairlanes were

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familiar, but shark-fin Caddies

razzed my berries.

For a time.

Rarity

And then rarity began to

determine the cars I liked.

Wouldn’t a 1963 Thunderbird

Sports Roadster be more in-

teresting than a 1962 model?

Why not prefer the 1964 Avanti

over the 1963? With my trusty

Complete Book of Collectible

Cars 1940-80 book, the number

of vehicles built influenced my

interests. Only 108 GTO Judge

convertibles built in 1969? Wow,

that’s so boss!

Pontiac

My neighbors’ family owned

Jay Fisher Pontiac, right across

the bridge in Elmer, New Jersey,

so the whole family owned

Pontiacs. It may sound corny,

but those Rally II wheels on

Dr. Smith’s 1977 Bonneville

Brougham caught my fancy,

and it must have rubbed off

on me because I started to get

into Ponchos. The GTO quickly

became my favorite, especially

“Nothing made me happier than to see a car flip its lids”

 A Cougar’s hidden headlights and sequential taillights could get a

kid hooked on cars.

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the Judge. A lady in nearby

Claymont played with GTOs and

gave me my first glimpse of a

Carousel Red Judge, replacing

the Citroën SM as my dream car.

Horsepower

Or was it? When I was 14,

a Ram Air IV GTO popped up

in the classifieds. It wasn’t the

Judge I wanted, but a glance in

my Big Little GTO Book showed

that the engine was rarer than

the Judge package, all things

being equal. So more horse-

power and rarity on its side?

Having saved my pennies for

a few years, the $4,000 asking

price was almost attainable, but

after Dad (who wasn’t into cars)

had it inspected by his trusted

mechanic (“it’s got the wrong

this, the wrong that ...”), he got

cold feet and offered less. Buy-

ers and seller parted ways, but

the imprint had been made:

Horsepower conquers all.

Color

That Judge I always wanted?

Most came in a bright orange,

but Judges were available in

every GTO color. I got keen on

going to the store and looking

through Hemmings for Judges

in other colors, which gave

me the awareness that some

hues were more desirable than

others.

Equipment

A lot of time passed until I ar-

rived at this point. Using Hemis

as an example, I held the opin-

ion that a Hemi is a Hemi, the

king of the hill. However, I even-

tually figured out that it was

a car’s equipment that would

make or break its desirability

among the subset of similar

vehicles. It’s not “four-speed ver-

sus automatic” as much as “did

you know that Sure Grip was op-

tional for TorqueFlite-equipped

Hemis?” The desirability of a

Hemi—or any other car—can be

binding on its gearing. I learned

it was not enough to have a

Hemi, and that some Hemis

were more equal than others,

especially those with a Dana

rear (which meant four-speed

with 3.54 or 4.10 in 1969-1971, or

TorqueFlite with 4.10).

Originality

There has been an emphasis

on originality over the past 10

to 15 years (although perhaps

it’s been longer than I realize

due to my age or naiveté, as I’m

not a restorer). In the not-too-

distant past, plenty of original

cars were restored when it was

fashionable to improve their de-

merits rather than exploit their

originality and the archeology

involved. I’ve never been one

to appreciate chalk marks and

whatnot (how a car was origi-

nally ordered is more interest-

ing to me), but that’s the current

state of the hobby, and I don’t

foresee this will change as the

hobby matures.

How has the evolution

worked for you?