Top 5 Muscle Cars

I’ve chosen to make a list of the top muscle cars for this Project. I’m personally very passionate about muscle cars, and there are many different great makes and models of muscles. But for the sake of this project, we will stick to 5. Each of the following cars have been icons of their times, and to a vast extent, their companies owe their current growth and popularity to these cars.

1. Pontiac GTO: Known as the “First True Muscle Car”, GTO is a high performance car built by Pontiac from 1964 to 1974. Pontiac general manager Elliot Estes approved the GTO (as an option to the Tempest model) despite violating the GM policy due to its 5.4L V8 engine. It became a great success, and marked the beginning of the muscle cars era. Even today it is loved and considered one of the most famous muscle cars ever.
   
   
2. Ford Mustang: Probably the most famous of all muscle cars is Ford’s Mustang series. Mustang saw a great deal of success, and inspired a whole new breed of muscle cars, the pony cars. Mustangs have become the dream of every car enthusiast. Many movies, e.g. Gone In 60 Seconds, and computer games have featured this car, adding more to it’s popularity.
   
   
3. Chevrolet Camaro: Chevrolet’s Camaro has been the number one competitor of Ford Mustang ever since they were built. In fact, Camaro is categorized as a pony car, which means it was initially inspired by the Ford Mustang. Despite its great success in the 60’s and 70’s, Camaro was always beaten by Mustang in terms of sales. Nonetheless it is a wonderful car, and it is back to compete with Ford’s Mustang Shelby GT500. Look out for the new Camaro around the end of 2007 and/or beginning of 2008.
   
   
4. Dodge Charger: Have you seen The Dukes of Hazard? Yes? Then you have seen a Dodge Charger. A wonderful car indeed! Even though Charger entered the battle of the muscle cars a couple of years later, it left a great impression on the competition.
   
   
5. Chevrolet Chevelle: Another great muscle car from Chevrolet is the Chevelle. This car was below Camaro in Chevrolet’s product line, therefore was lower in terms of performance. It is still one of the favorite among the muscle fans.
   
   

There you have it, the top 5 muscle cars of all times. Of course, there are other cars that I have missed which probably deserve to replace one or more on this list. This is based on my knowledge (which is quite limited) and opinion. The cars 1 to 4 are quite similar from a performance perspective. They were all mounted with V8 engines and were built as high performance vehicles. My personal favorite muscle car is the Dodge Charger, then the Ford Mustang, preferably a 1969 Shelby GT500, followed by a 1969 Camaro SS.