Camaro HistoryFirst Generation1967-1969 Introduction: After two years of watching the Ford Mustang enjoy tremendous success, General Motors finally launched its entry into the pony car segment, the Chevrolet Camaro. Although available with a mediocre six cylinder for volume sales, the Camaro could be equipped with several V8s and a myriad of performance options. Then, of…
1964-1973 Chevrolet Chevelle SS History Introduction: The Chevrolet Chevelle SS represented Chevrolet’s entry into the hot midsize muscle car battle. The Chevelle SS was the high performance version of Chevrolet’s Chevelle, and had its own line of engines and performance equipment. At first caught napping with just a 327 V8, the Chevelle SS would soon…
The Buick Wildcat started production in an interesting way. Like many other muscle cars of the time, it wasn’t originally its own model. Instead, it was a subseries of the full-size Buick Invicta which was in itself a conglomeration of the Buick Century and Buick LeSabre. Not even its name was unique to the model,…
The Buick Skylark was born out of celebration for Buick’s already storied history in 1953. At that point, the General Motors’ cornerstone company was celebrating their 50th anniversary and wanted to create something special as a result. That’s exactly what they did. Initially introduced alongside other GM specialty convertibles like the Oldsmobile 98 Fiesta and…
1969-1971 AMC History By the late 1960s, AMC was stuck. Its only offerings in the muscle car market were the two seat AMX and the pony car Javelin, and the rest of its lineup was considered by many enthusiasts, a bit boring. Therefore, to add some excitement to its lineup, AMC offered three special vehicles,…
1978-1987 Grand National / Regal T-Type History The Grand National/Regal story is one of triumph and evolution for Buick. In the mid-1970s, Buick was falling behind the times in keeping up with the mid-size luxury offerings of Chevy and Pontiac with the Monte Carlo and Grand Prix respectively. A few years down the line, Buick…
There have been many arguments over the greatest engines of the muscle car era. Some were tuned for horsepower (top speed) while others were tuned for torque (acceleration). Still others were seriously under-rated to keep a low profile (imagine that today) and keep insurance agents guessing. I have included a profile on some of the…
Perhaps the most debated definition in the car community is what exactly is a muscle car. The term wasn’t even used until the late 1970s. In the 1960s they were often called “Super Cars” if called anything at all. Therefore, the actual definition of a muscle car, or which models were muscle cars, is a…
The following chart identifies the block, crankshaft, and cylinder head casting numbers for Buick’s made between 1962 and 1979. Keep in mind this is information has come from many different automotive resources, and may have some misprinted numbers as well as omissions. All these numbers are trademarks of the manufacturing car company. These are able…
Among muscle cars, there always were a few that, for whatever reason were a little more rare than others. This list shows the rarest factory built production muscle cars. These are cars that ANY buyer could walk into ANY dealer and conceivably order. One off cars for company executives, dealer modified cars (Yenkos, Baldwin-Motion, etc.)…
