Well by definition a muscle car is a car that has a huge power plant. These cars were less about finesse like their European counterparts and more about cubic inches. There was a relatively small window of time in American car making history where a car could legitimately be called a muscle car. You are essentially looking at a time period from about 1964 to probably around 1974.

Some cars to consider that, if optioned correctly, would definitely constitute a muscle car. This list is by no means complete:

Corvette, Camaro, Cutlass, Mustang, Chevelle, GSX, GTO, Boss, Shelby, Barracuda, Road Runner, Duster, Javelin, AMX, - to name a few.

Essentially these cars were existing body types that benefited from the public's demand for horsepower, and the car makers desire to feed that need. You can find examples of any of the above makes that have puny, underpowered engines, so you have to do you homework before you can truly label it a muscle car.

There are also some other cars that are either lesser known, lesser powered, or outside of the timelime listed above that can be argued to be a muscle car, in fact the AMX and Javelin probably fall into that category. And great example of a muscle car that was manufactured outside those dates but would still qualify on the other criteria can be found here at http://www.helium.com/tm/254956/buick-grand-national -sleeper - the Buick Grand National.

Learn more about this author, M.L. Brooke.
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