Muscle Car Milestones

AutoTrader Classics continues the MileStones tradition with a focus on the most American of automotive traditions...the muscle car! We celebrate a time when automakers were busy finding new ways to shoehorn big horsepower into normal cars, all while keeping ahead of each other. These were the machines that powered a generation of gearheads and launched the horsepower wars!

Colorful package distills the essence of the 27 most influential muscle cars from the 1960s and '70s.

A breed unlike any seen before or since, the powerful, stylish American muscle car defined an era in automotive history. This history traces the rise and fall of these great performance cars from their precursors in the 1950s through the seminal appearance of the Pontiac GTO in 1964 and then year by year to the end in the 1970s. Approachable and nontechnical yet deeply informative, it puts the bygone muscle car in its cultural and aesthetic contexts, describes developments in styling, performance and marketing, and revels in the joys of muscle car ownership in the 21st century.

As cool as classic muscle cars might be, they're only as good as the automotive technology of their era. That's where this book comes in. With clear, easy-to-follow instructions, this guide shows how to give your car all the muscle of today while preserving the classic styling of your muscle car. In this updated and fully illustrated edition of his popular handbook, veteran overhauler and automotive writer Jason Scott takes readers through the step-by-step improvements that will add more power, style, and handling capability to any classic muscle car. Full-color photos accompany Scott's detailed instructions, covering bodywork and interior restoration, engine enhancements, transmission and axle swaps, suspension, steering, chassis and brake upgrades as well as many other changes that will restore-or maintain-a muscle cars identity while making it perform as if it were built only yesterday.

This is the muscle car history to own--a richly illustrated chronicle of America's greatest high-performance cars, told from their 1960s beginning through the present day! In the 1960s, three incendiary ingredients--developing V-8 engine technology, a culture consumed by the need for speed, and 75 million baby boomers entering the auto market--exploded in the form of the factory muscle car. The resulting vehicles, brutal machines unlike any the world had seen before or will ever see again, defined the sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll generation. American Muscle Cars chronicles this tumultuous period of American history through the primary tool Americans use to define themselves: their automobiles. From the street-racing hot rod culture that emerged following World War II through the new breed of muscle cars still emerging from Detroit today, this book brings to life the history of the American muscle car. When Pontiac's chief engineer, John Z. DeLorean, and his team bolted a big-inch engine into the division's intermediate chassis, they immediately invented the classic muscle car. In those 20 minutes it took Bill Collins and Russ Gee to bolt a 389 ci V-8 engine into a Tempest chassis they created the prototype for Pontiac's GTO--and changed the course of automotive history. From that moment on, American performance cars would never be the same. American Muscle Cars tells the story of the most desirable cars ever to come out of Detroit. It's a story of flat-out insanity told at full throttle and illustrated with beautiful photography.

In the 1960s and early '70s, the Big Three in Detroit were engaged in a fierce power struggle--a horsepower struggle. Beginning with Pontiac's GTO and Ford"s Mustang in 1964, carmakers looked to get more and more power under the hoods of their lightweight vechicles. They accomplished this by outfitting small and mid-size cars with big, high-horsepower engines.

365 Sports Cars You Must Drive puts you in the driver's seat of a century's worth of sports car legends (and a few rather less legendary), each presented with a fun and informative profile and fact-and-spec box. It's the ultimate gearhead's bucket list and poses the challenge: How many have you driven? Whoever coined the phrase "getting there is half the fun" must have owned a sports car. And the wag who suggested that "it's the journey not the destination"? Probably driving a Lotus or MG at the time. From towering icons like Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, and Corvette to everyman sportsters from Triumph, MG, Sunbeam, and Miata to oddballs like Crosley, Sabra, and DB, sports cars inspire passion and strong opinions as few other vehicles on the road can. In one beautiful book, long-time Road & Truck​ magazine chief photographer John Lamm, along with other top motoring contributors, gives the reader illustrated profiles of every sports car you've ever dreamed of driving! Now, imagine if you could drive a different sports car—any sports car—every single day for a year. Which would you choose?