Featured Hot Rods AMERICA’S VERY FIRST MUSCLE CAR CELEBRATES ITS 75th ANNIVERSARY!

my HOT ROD 1973 Datsun pickup with a weber and a 2" exhaust would beat a 1949 Olds in the quarter mile.
according the the interweb the Olds did the quarter mile in the 18's. you can call it the first muscle car all you want but that does not make it true.

64 GTO was the first muscle car

 

“Hall of Famer Junior Johnson (Class of 2010) once said the Olds 88 was his favorite car to take whiskey trippin’, as there was nothing on the road that could catch it.”

https://www.nascarhall.com/blog/oldsmobiles-rocket-88

 

“In 1950, Hall of Famer Hershel McGriff drove a borrowed Oldsmobile from Oregon to Mexico, where he won the inaugural Carrera Panamericana.”

https://www.nascarhall.com/blog/hershel-mcgriffs-mexico-magic

 

How many songs were written about a Hudson?

 

If that is your comparison, almost any new hi performance car from the 90's to present will beat a 64 GTO. You need to compare cars of the same era to make a fair comparison.

 

At least one maybe more. Robert Johnson ‘Terraplane Blues’ (1936) also sung by many others including Foghat, and how many animated Olds have starred on the big screen? Doc was a Hudson, while not a terraplane, was a star in "Cars". The Hudson was one of the first iconic power house cars to dominate racing (before drag racing) and were the cars of choice for gangsters due to their get away speed. The muscle car moniker came mostly from drag racing and much later. So if drag racing is the nexus of your world then you can call the 88 the first. But, more in line with the marketing hype the first muscle car would be a car from the later 60s. Nothing against the 88, but it definitely wasn't the first factory car with muscle and arguably may not even be the best all time.

 

Really? So the 1963 Impala with it's optional 400HP 409 wasn't a muscle car? It could run circles around the 389 the GTO had in '64. The '63 chev 409 had 11:1 cr, and solid lifter hi performance camshaft, with larger 2,19" intake valves and a factory aluminum intake. And that wasn't the top option for Chevy in 1963! They also offered an even higher performance 425HP version.
The '64 GTO wasn't the first muscle car, but a lot of people think the same. It had a whopping 348HP in '64, and even the '62 Chevy Impala 409 had 380HP two years earlier!

And if you were really serious in 1963 you could order a 2dr. sedan Biscayne with the high HP 409 too!

1963 Chevrolet Biscayne 2-Door Sedan 409 V-8 Turbo-Fire 425-hp 4-speed close (man. 4) version for North America U.S. (up to October) specs

Chevrolet Biscayne 2-Door Sedan 409 V-8 Turbo-Fire 425-hp 4-speed close (man. 4) , model year 1963, version for North America U.S. (up to October):

• • manufactured by Chevrolet (USA) in United States
  • 2-door sedan body type
  • RWD (rear-wheel drive), manual 4-speed gearbox
  • gasoline (petrol) engine with displacement: 6702 cm3 / 409 cui, advertised power: 317 kW / 425 hp / 431 PS ( SAE gross ), torque: 576 Nm / 425 lb-ft, more data: 1963 Chevrolet Biscayne 2-Door Sedan 409 V-8 Turbo-Fire 425-hp 4-speed close (man. 4) Horsepower/Torque Curve
  • characteristic dimensions: outside length: 5344 mm / 210.4 in, width: 2017 mm / 79.4 in, wheelbase: 3023 mm / 119 in
  • reference weights: base curb weight: 1658 kg / 3655 lbs , more data: 1963 Chevrolet Biscayne 2-Door Sedan 409 V-8 Turbo-Fire 425-hp 4-speed close (man. 4) Specifications Review
  • how fast is this car ? top speed: 227 km/h (141 mph) (©theoretical);
  • accelerations: 0- 60 mph 6.3© s; 0- 100 km/h 6.6© s (simulation ©automobile-catalog.com); 1/4 mile drag time (402 m) 14.7© s (simulation ©automobile-catalog.com), more data: 1963 Chevrolet Biscayne 2-Door Sedan 409 V-8 Turbo-Fire 425-hp 4-speed close (man. 4) Performance Review
  • fuel consumption and mileage: average estimated by a-c©: 23.8 l/100km / 11.9 mpg (imp.) / 9.9 mpg (U.S.) / 4.2 km/l, more data: 1963 Chevrolet Biscayne 2-Door Sedan 409 V-8 Turbo-Fire 425-hp 4-speed close (man. 4) Specifications Review

 

All this is highly subjective...

 

...and really not worth arguing over.

 

Happy 76th

 

Happy 75th

 

Happy 74th to the 88A

 

My dad said he bought a new 49 Holiday and had a shop install headers and a magneto. I didn`t learn this until I was in my 50`s, lol

 

There are a lot of different cars people today call the first muscle car, going back to the Stutz Bearcat, but the term wasn't invented until the 1960s. That's not to say the Olds or the Buick Century or any other car mentioned isn't cool, but they were from different eras.

 

No disrespect to the various 40s and 50s cars mentioned and there were some sweet examples sprinkled throughout that timeline. But they were outliers. The marketing executives were fairly clueless and hadn't snapped to the idea of "we're going to offer a model like this in our lineup every year". The main reason that there were any 'outliers' at all is because an occasional group of engineers was helping out a race team. That also accounts for the Chevy 409 and perhaps a couple of others.
I think the reason the '64 GTO gets the glory and the label is that a lot of stars aligned to create a perfect pivotal point. 21-year-olds began signing car loans in greater numbers for cars that interested them. Mid-size cars were suddenly available everywhere from every maker that could be equipped with full-size engines. A niche that was not in existence before was all of a sudden a hot mainstream market item. The buyers, the marketing peeps, the engineers, the horsepower wars, the "win on Sunday - sell on Monday", and many other factors converged together in a big way. Being a feature item on the menu started with the GTO.
Times then were not like times now. You could take an Options List at the dealer and pretty much have your car built your way.

 

the term "muscle car" was dreamt up by Pontiac for the 1964 GTO.

 

Happy 76th to Kettering Power

 

If you grew up in the early 1950's, the Olds was THE performance car you wanted.
The 'muscle' description was first applied to a later generation of factory performance cars.

 

I learned something new this morning reading about the Olds. Being somewhat of a Mopar guy, I had heard folks saying the first letter cars were truly the first muscle cars. As a kid born in the 60s, when I see/hear the word “muscle car” I immediately think of those from the 60s/early 70s. The important thing here is to remember is any interest in older cars that keeps the hobby alive is all that matters.

 

I'd like to see the provenance showing muscle car terminology was introduced by Pontiac. Can't say I've ever seen Pontiac using it before the car magazines did.

 

look it up.

 

Two decades later in high school, ''Olds Rocket'' was still a name kids attached to any performance Oldsmobile. These cars set the standard.

 

I saw an article yesterday about an electric Dodge Challenger (barf) in 2025 slated to be the first "electric muscle car". I think everyone needs to stay in their lanes. Or do what ever you want. I know what a muscle car is and more importantly, what it is not, regardless of what y'all want to call them this year.

 

Here you go a late teens Stutz Bearcat, 390 cid engine capable of going 100 mph. And if I remember correctly one year three production cars raced at Indy and finished all around the top ten.

 

And "Rocket 88" is considered the first rock n roll song. Not "Little GTO."

 

Here is my 50 Olds memory. In 1955 my Dad bought a new Buick, his buddy had a 50 Olds coupe. The first time we went to visit the guy with the Olds he wanted to try the Buick, so they took them out in the country and lined them up. Long story short, the Buick beat the Olds by about a 1/2 a car length. I was only 4 at the time so Mom wouldn't let me go see the race, I vaguely do remember them coming in the driveway at the Old's owners house, he pulled in, never said a word, slammed his garage door open and started draining the radiator. Dad asked him what he was doing? He said if that Olds would not take a stock Buick, it had to have some goodies in that engine!

 

You might try that yourself.
I have looked it up, and everything lead me to believe it was a terminology started by car magazines, hotrodders, and Pontiac jumped on the term to use also, but didn't initiate it or come up with it first.