Today we’re
living in what
will likely
prove to be
one of the
great periods
in automotive
performance.
Pattern of Performance
vaunted big-blocks cars of the classic era.
The pattern would emerge again when the gov-
ernment required the automakers to adopt more
elaborate engine management systems, spawning
OBD-II (on-board diagnostics, generation II) for the
1996 model year. The laments over the end of days
for hot-rodding ran heavy—“the computers” were
going to shut us out, or at least, shut us down when-
ever we tried to mess around with anything. It was
all over; this time we were really done.
Only we weren’t. The aftermarket, along with
smart tuning experts,
gured out how to make high-
perfor mance and emissions controls cohabitate. In
fact, as time has gone on, the notion that a vehicle
can’t be both smog compliant and modi
ed has been
largely dispelled.
Today we’re living in what will likely prove to be
one of the great periods in automotive performance.
As I write this, numerous new cars—capable of
producing levels of power never imagined from the
factory during any previous period—sit in dealer
showrooms. They’re easily the most complicated
generation of vehicles yet to exist, but hot-rodders
and tuners are still diving under their hoods.
Another aspect of all this worth pointing out is
that, in just about every era, the previous genera-
tion of performers never really lost their appeal. Try
and buy a genuine “Henry steel” ’32 Ford today
and you’d better have deep pockets. Want a nice ’
Chevy? Same deal. Now Fox-era Mustangs are start-
ing to gain collector interest, and someday there will
probably be a collector market for Hellcat Dodges.
Through it all, the vintage cars maintain their
allure while the newer iterations make enjoying
performance that much easier. The new stuff never
seems to supplant what we’re accustomed to; rather,
the modern machines keep things moving forward.
The 2019 Dodge Challenger Hellcat Redeye on this
month’s cover offers 797 hp with air conditioning, a
great stereo, ample comfort, and a pretty good war-
ranty. It’s an amazing vehicle, and not inexpensive,
yet it will still take many more dollars to buy the ’
Hemi Challenger beside it. In terms of enthusiast ap-
peal, it’s still hard to top an original Hemi car.
We’re devoting some space this month to “Modern
Muscle,” which we consider to be from the last 10
years or so. Detroit has produced more than a few
impressive vehicles during that time to make your
commute a bit more interesting. Plus, grabbing one
might give you a head start on the next collector
boom in 20 years.B
ack when Detroit’s earliest overhead-valve
(OHV) V-8 engines were
rst becoming
salvage-yard material, lots of hot-rodders
began to use them in place of their warmed-
up atheads. In bone-stock form, they could make
prewar Fords move as well as or better than most of
the athead V-8s they’d worked hard to improve.
Once the aftermarket got on board, the overheads
were tough to beat, both in terms of speed and value.
But there were the stalwarts who had no interest
in those “monkey-motion” engines. The guys in this
camp would stay with their tried-and-true atties,
determined to make them faster.
This sort of pattern has repeated as the years have
rolled on—new things come to market, and some
people embrace them while others revile them. The
ones who aren’t interested in the new ways are
either devoted only to what they know, or apprehen-
sive about what they don’t.
Back when Ford was starting to make waves with
the 5.0 Mustang, the ‘85 GT introduced a number of
upgrades that helped the then-new pony run on par
with some of the classics for the original era.
Then, for 1986, Ford introduced port fuel injec-
tion for the High Output 5.0-liter V-8, and suddenly,
it looked like the party that had just begun was
already over. Magazine stories advised aspiring 5.
owners to go out and
nd ’85 models to get the last
of the carbureted, non-computer-controlled cars. The
message was that the high-tech fuel-injection and the
electronic engine management system that made it
work was too sophisticated to be hot-rodded.
With the bene
t of hindsight, we now know that
the Fox Mustang movement took off soon after,
though it focused almost exclusively on the EFI
models. The aftermarket exploded with new parts
and accessories expressly for the injected 5.0, and
hot-rodding in general seemed to get a shot in the
arm as young enthusiasts gravitated to those cars,
becoming educated in tuning and tweaking, and tak-
ing them to the drags.
Around the same time, Buick’s Turbo Regal
emerged as one of the fastest models of the era,
but it was even more complex than the EFI Fords.
A turbocharged and intercooled V-6 was, at that
time, a very unconventional approach to making
power, at least for a muscle car, but it wasn’t long
before another group of enthusiasts got over their
apprehension and dove in,
guring out how to
make the little 3.8 Buicks even faster. Soon they
were challenging times posted by some of theTERRY McGEAN