I like the 442 as it had a BB as late as '76 ...

 

The last muscle car has yet to be built.

As for the related topic of the FIRST muscle car, I say it was the 1936 Buick Century:

From Wikipedia:

The basic formula for the 1936 to 1942 Century was established by mating shorter wheelbase Buick Special bodies to Buick's most powerful eight-cylinder engine. While the Special was powered by Buick's 233 in³ was rated 93 hp (69 kW) at 3200 rpm, Centuries produced between 1936 to 1942 were powered by Buick's inline 320.2 in³ at 120 hp, making them the fastest Buicks of the era and capable of sustained speeds of 95 mph plus, earning the Century the nickname "the banker's hot rod."

 

But they're still making cars that are waaaaaaaaaaaay quicker, so I don't think there is a "last one" yet.
(If you're talking Olds, my '92 SCX is quicker than a '76 in stock trim)

 

I'd like to see which comes out ahead in a tug of war ...

 

That is a good question. If you have to order the fancy wheels, leather interior, and heated seats to get the big engine then it isn't a muscle car.

 

That's a whole different measure. A tractor is a musclecar then!

 

NOW you're done it...

Shades of the Olds ads that claimed the Quad442 was quicker than a 67 442.

 

Ford did offer flathead V-8s, in their N9 models!

 

A 1991 w-41 is for sale(Danvers,Mass), on Ebay.
And the W-41 is car #1!

 

Some of the HP the new cars are putting out is out of control,but pretty cool at the same time.

 

It's not really so much the horsepower cause there were cars in the 70's that had huge horsepower #'s. The biggest difference is the way they are putting the power to the ground.6 and 7 speed auto's that make some250-300 hsp cars relly really freaking quick.

 

I was racing a 'vette and he squirted out of the hole like a bat outa Hell...

 

The last of the "muscle car era" cars was the 73 Pontiac Firebird HD455. This was the last car fitted with the large HP engine due to the "gas crisis" in 73-74. They also rated the hp of this car at like 1600 rpm to keep it under the radar. At 3000 watch out. Pontiac started it and ended it. Now the call em tuners or something. After that emissions killed everything. Even big blocks were starved with dismal HP #s for the cubic inches. I think a mid seventies 455 is rated like 250 hp or something.

 

Kurt, you're talking technology here. 16 years to improve. Besides, not may people bought an A body with a 455 and didn't do something to it. I could say that I can rebuild a '76 455 to be quicker than a modified '92 SCX W41 and it would be true. There's reason that Olds racers look for 455 engines to transplant into their quarter miler and not Quad Fours. I agree that the "Last" muscle car has not been built yet.

 

How can you stop something that was started like this? Muscle cars have evolved technologically and will continue (at least in my lifetime). Too many people (IMHO) are in love with the concept, until perhaps the time that Smart Cars take over the world (NOT).

 

Hmm maby when they have flyen carsthough they could have turbo jet powered ones so no I don't see a end.Anyone see fifth eliment we may have milti passes here soon.

 

The "unsafe" Corvair was winning races ten years after they stopped production but I don't know if you would call a turbo-monza a "muscle car" ...

 

I think that the term we use has changed somewhat , today's cars are referred to as sports cars. I don't know if any car companies will ever try to promote a new car as the modern muscle car , though it's possible. it may have happened in advertising already but I don't know that for sure. They are making some high hsp cars that are fast , even with modern restrictions.

 

Now to me, promoting a modern muscle car sounds like a solid advertising campaign. How could you not resist looking into it, or test driving the car. We "Baby Boomers" would be especially hooked but quick.

 

Not my cup of tea for styling but you can't deny the muscle that $1,550,000 will buy you!!!!

1. Engine: 8.0L Quad-turbocharged W16 rated at (1001 HP)
2. Transmission: 7 Speed DSG sequential
3. Weight: 4162lbs
4. Top Speed: 253MPH / 407.9KMH
5. 0-99.4MPH (5.5sec), 0-149.1MPH (8.6sec), 0-186.4MPH (16.7sec), 0-248.6MPH (50 sec)
6. Base Price: $1,550,000

 

Dodge still builds Muscle cars, Ford has Mustang GT. I have a 97 Dodge Dakota with a 318 has good power with a little work could be made into a toy.

 

Sorry, but NOTHING in the musclecar era can compare to 630+ HP out of an LS9 Vette or 510 HP out of a new Viper. Even Mustangs come with 550 HP now. Keep in mind that these are NET horsepower ratings and the cars are fully emissions compliant. Classic musclecars carried GROSS horsepower ratings, which were, ah, optimistic to say the least.

 

Last musclecar???

Anyone here old enough to remember the 1976 Eldo - the "last" American convertible? How'd that work out for everyone who bought one as an "investment"?

 

True there are SB that have more hsp but the point that I was trying to make is that cars today are much better at putting the hsp to the ground and would have better 1/8 and 1/4 times plus I would feel safer cornering at high speeds in a new corvette rather than a 70's muscle car.

 

The musclecar was a cultural item, so I kinda feel the Super Duty Firebird from 1974 was the last. But that doesn't mean there hasn't been musclecars since then!

 

Considering there has never been a clear definition that has been universally accepted, I think the "cultural" aspect really best puts the term in perspective as it most often considered. Not that it really needs a definition any more than "high performance" does. What was the first (and last) "high performance" car?
As I said earlier, the term "high performance", though meaning about the same thing, doesn't beg for definition like "musclecar" does. And I think that is because of what we *identify* with when we hear the term. And that is quite frankly the '60s *factory* high performance cars. And that does indeed make for a cultural thing.
Like if a '60s Hippie did exactly the same things in the '50s and the '80s, only in the '60s was he a Hippie

 

I 'm thinking the 79 trans am was the last muscle car of the 70's decade.
My Step mom had a bone stock mint 10th anniversary edit. 79 Trans am with the 403 Olds motor. It came out of the hole good but faded fast. I found a vacuume line that prevented the secondaries from opening on the back of the carb. After pulling it off It made a huge difference and would burn the tires out of the hole. I remember seeing her more than once beat a new Quad 4 Olds with a stick that was pretty quick.

 

Fact: Todays cars have performance that beat the muscle car era hands down in handling, cornering, braking, and comfort.
Fact: They beat them so bad, they can do them with the AC on, and a Bose stereo playing your favorite tune with hardly a tweet from the high horsepower engine. They can beat you out of the hole with traction control. They can beat you to a stop with ABS. They can stop, start, or turn on a dime and give you change.

Sorry, but this is reality.

But........
They don't make me smile like a BBO. And never will.
Make mine loud, arrogant, and stinky!

 

As this goes on and I surf around I begin to like the term "Supercar" ...

In this definition you need to have more than your normal car ...

Like a GTO on a Tempest platform ...

Or like a W30 on a 442 platform...

This takes my car out of the running as it is "Just" a 442 ...

 

Trumpet tips ...

...

 

I agree 100%

 

Amen there and if they don't like that then

 

last real musclecar was a 1973 455SD Trans Am.

 

Even though a new Challenger SRT8 blows it away?

By the way, I consider both the Trans Am AND the Challenger to be ponycars.

 

Ponycars shmonycars! They're all Supercars! How is a 442 or a GTO a "supercar" when the Yenko Camaro, that some say is a ponycar, was officially called the Yenko Super Car (sYc)??? I say don't separate ponycar/musclecar/supercar, they're all supercars to me. Some are just bigger than others. Since Oldsmobile (and Buick) didn't make a smaller car, with the same powerful engine (the way Chevrolet, Ford, and Pontiac did), I prefer to lump all the cars into the Supercar category, otherwise, all the fastest cars were technically Ponycars!! I'd like to think that we (442's) are part of the whole group, rather than excluding the fastest cars of the era and labeling them as Ponycars, or whatever.

The last Supercar of that era was the 1974 SD-455 Trans Am. Can't say much for the cars after that for a few years because they had catalytic converters and single exhaust. The next Supercar Era was when Ford brought back the V8 Mustang (was that 1982?), then they continued from there, Grand Nationals, Mustang 5.0's, then another jump occurred with the 1993 Firebird and Camaro with the 275 hp Corvette engines, and it's continued to go up from that time period. Now we have minivans and cruisers with 275 hp! It takes 400+ hp now to make a Supercar.

 

Joe's right whether you agree or not. There were the musclecars, or supercars as they were called, the pony cars and the sport cars. The 442 fell into the musclecar (supercar) group....and hamburgers aren't made out of ham either.

 

I like to think of it as an era and the musclecar era was for about 10 years but as everything that we consider an "era" it's always an afterthought. Then we had musclecars and today we have supercars. Maybe 20 years from now those of us who are still around will be debateing when the supercar "era" started and ended.

 

'64 to '74 ...

I like that idea ...

I live by venice beach and they have a muscle beach . The Muscle Guys have builds that are different than other athletes. Other athletes are quicker, can jump higher etc. ...

What they have are MUSCLES ...

So I'm leaning towards a Muscle Car as having "Muscles", lots of them and little else ...

I like that lots of Olds cars were stripped, radio/heater/ console/etc. delete ...

 

It can't get much better than using the term "Supercar". Is car technology at its peak in the here and now, as this term implies? I don't think so.

 

The majority of Olds' were fully equipped. The cars were more expensive than your average Plymouth, Dodge, Chev, Ford. Olds was for an older crowed simply because the cars were more expensive to buy. If you wanted an engine, a seat and a trunk lid that sounds as tinny as a brass band, you bought a stripped down Plymouth. Fast as Hell, ugly as sin.

I always like Olds because it had muscle lines and good looks. Yes these stripped down cars were fast in a quarter mile. Unfortunately the roads of the world are full of curves and are longer than a quarter mile. I like a car that looks good, is rare enough to only have a handful at car shows, can turn heads, is comfortable to drive, can roast the tires, handle better than most, offer the creature comforts I want and is a leader at the fore-front of technology. Welcome to Oldsmobile....as we knew it.