The Muscle Car and the Tyrannosaurus Rex-a Study in Similarities

When you saw the headline you probably wondered, what is this guy smoking? Just think about it for a moment, neither one of them is still being produced or producing others and besides being a big part of our culture, they were the biggest and baddest of their kind. Who hasn't heard of the T-Rex (as he's better known as) or a GTO? I think by the end of this article you'll agree with me, at least a little bit, that there are at least some similarities.

First of all let's take a look at how T-Rex could have evolved. I would imagine the 1st dinosaurs were fairly small, egg layers and most likely plant eaters. Suppose (you really have to use your imagination) there was a nest of newly hatched reptiles and as usually happens the most aggressive got the most food and grew to be the biggest. Now suppose the mother wasn't able to bring any more food (for whatever reason) to the babies. They would probably start fighting over what ever scraps they could find and the largest one might take a bite out of one of the others. Finding he or she liked it he would eventually eat all the rest of them. By then be he would be big enough and bad enough to take on the world. Now suppose this same scenario happened close by but with one of the opposite sex. I think you can get the picture of how T-Rex evolved. Eventually some outside forces caused the T-Rex along with all the other dinosaurs to die out, exactly how is the center of much debate about the subject, but it was also outside forces that caused the demise of the muscle car..

Now then we come to the muscle car evolution. Of course we know how the muscle car died out. It took the muscle car roughly 60-70 years to evolve in comparison to the millions for T-Rex, although the life span of our subjects compared to the overall span of existence could be similar. We know the muscle car existed for approximately 9 years or about 12% of the life span of the automobile up the end of the muscle car. It's possible the T-Rex was around for the same percentage of time.

When the automobile became more than just an idea, it was inconceivable to anyone that eventually it would become the fire-breathing monster machine called the muscle car. Let's examine how this happened. The first machines that qualified as an automobile car had less than 20 horsepower while the advertised horsepower of the most powerful production muscle car was 450 horsepower in the 1970 Chevy 454. Of course today you'll find modern cars with even more but we're talking about the classic car age.

I would say the horsepower race really started in 1955 likely due to the rivalry between Ford and Chevrolet, even thought Oldsmobile had an overhead V8 clear back in 1949. In 1954 Ford came out with an overhead valve engine followed by Chevrolet in 1955 and Mopar in 1956. Chevy's was larger than Fords and the Mopars were even bigger and away went the horsepower race. Even though the horsepower was starting to climb at a dizzying rate, the engines were still being put in the standard configuration of the bigger the car the bigger the engine.

1959-1960 was when the compact car made an appearance (and set the stage for the muscle car along with the bigger engines) with the Big 3 all having them. The American public had a taste of horsepower and now they were asked to go back to little 6 cylinder engines. Needless to say it was a tough sell for the compacts, but their day was coming.

Things were pretty static for the next few years with the horsepower wars marching along. Chevrolet had the 348 CI engine in 1958 and then made it into the 409 in 1961. In 1962 it was the first production engine to hit 1 horsepower per 1 cubic inch. They got to a 396 CI in 1965 and the 427 in 1966. In 1970 they were up to 454 CI.

Ford engines were kind of lagging behind until 1961 when they came out with the 390 CI and then a 406 CI engine in 1962. In 1963 they were up to 427 CI and 428 CI in 1966. The biggest one, the 429 CI came in 1969.

Mopars were up to the 392 Hemi in 1958 and the 413 Wedge replaced the Hemi in 1959. In 1966 they came out with a 426 Hemi and in 1967 a all new 440 CI monster. 1971 was the last year for these engines.

Meanwhile Oldsmobile jumped into the horsepower race with a 330 CI engine in 1964 and a 400 CI in 1965. In 1970 they came out with their biggest at 455 CI. Buick pretty well stayed out of the race until 1963 when they came out with a 401CI and 425 CI engines. In 1967 the 430 replaced the 425 CI. Their huge 455 CI debuted in 1970. Pontiac brought out the 389 CI in 1961 with a 400 CI and a 428 CI coming out in 1967. Their big 455 CI came out in 1970.

During all of this engine one-ups-man-ship the boys at Pontiac used a GM technicality to their advantage and stuffed a 389 CI into a Tempest. Although this was reported as the first muscle car the Olds had the 442 and a number of other models had bigger engines for 1964 and earlier years.

Looking back, because GM dropped their engine cubic inch restrictions in 1970 most of the cars increased the cubes to even bigger sizes. I imagine this is one reason the insurance companies put huge premiums on the muscle cars. 1970 was also the year that the government passed the Clean Air Act. Those two things started the down hill slide of the muscle car and then the oil crisis finished them off. By 1972 all the manufacturers except Pontiac had thrown in the towel and that year is generally regarded as the real end of the muscle car era. The Pontiac TransAm came out as a muscle car in 1973 and 1974 but it was a fairly toothless monster.

If you follow the auctions or keep up with the prices of muscle cars you'll see that they are getting their revenge for being killed off in the prices they're bringing nowadays.

Hopefully no one will take this article too seriously and challenge me on my suppositions and treatment of history. I think the engine and car facts are correct but if not don't get too bent out of shape over it. It's intended to be entertaining rather than a absolute correct treatise of history.

Just like the T-Rex the muscle car had a brief but illustrious life in the overall scheme of history. They both packed a lot of dynamics into the short time they were on earth and will both forever be a part of history that is engrained in our hearts and minds.