08-07-2009, 10:49 AM
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not antifa
Industry Role:
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: invisible GNC
Posts: 67,583
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Quote:
The automotive safety lobby led by Ralph Nader decried offering powerful cars for public sale, particularly when targeted at young buyers: the power of many muscle cars underlined their marginal brakes, handling, and tire adhesion. In response, the automobile insurance industry levied surcharges on all high-powered models, an added cost that put many muscle cars out of reach of their intended buyers. Simultaneously, efforts to combat air pollution?a problem that grew more complicated in 1973 when the OPEC oil embargo led to price controls and gasoline rationing?focused Detroit's attention on emissions control.
A majority of musclecars came optioned with high-compression powerplants - some as high as 11:1. Prior to the oil embargo, 100-octane fuel was common (e.g. Sunoco 260, Esso Extra, Chevron Custom Supreme, Super Shell, Texaco Sky Chief, Amoco Super Premium, Gulf No-nox) until the passage of the Clean Air Act of 1970 where octane ratings were lowered to 91 - due in part of the removal of tetraethyl lead as a valve lubricant. Unleaded gasoline was phased in.
With all these forces against it, the market for muscle cars rapidly evaporated. Horsepower began to drop in 1971 as engine compression ratios were reduced. High-performance engines like Chrysler's 426 Hemi were discontinued, and all but a handful of other performance models were discontinued or transformed into soft personal luxury cars. Some nameplates e.g. Chevrolet's SS or Oldsmobile's 442 would become sport appearance packages (known in the mid to late 1970s as the vinyl and decal option - Plymouth's Road Runner was an upscale decor package for their Volare coupes). One of the last to succumb, a car that Car and Driver dubbed "The Last of the Fast Ones", was Pontiac's Trans Am SD455 model of 1973?1974. In 1975 its performance was markedly reduced, although it remained in production through 2002 and was made powerful again from 1993 onwards.
American performance cars began to make a return in the 1980s. Owing to increases in production costs and tighter regulations governing pollution and safety, these vehicles were not designed to the formula of the traditional low-cost muscle cars. The introduction of electronic fuel injection and overdrive transmission for the remaining 1960s muscle-car survivors?the Ford Mustang, Chevrolet Camaro and Pontiac Firebird?helped sustain a market share for them alongside personal luxury coupes with performance packages, i.e. the Buick Regal T-Type or Grand National, Ford Thunderbird Turbo Coupe and Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS circa 1983-88.
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1 muscle car made it past 1972.
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