The Muscle Car Era and Gas Guzzling Automobiles

The muscle car era between 1965 and 1973, finally ended when the 1973 OPEC Oil Embargo began, causing severe fuel shortages around America and ultimately stopped Detroit from building any more muscle cars. A mid size car with a large gas guzzling V8 engine was impossible to sell by this time. Not only was the OPEC Oil Embargo the cause of the end of the muscle cars, but insurance companies started to put huge premiums on these cars, and since most muscle car drivers were young drivers, the squeeze hurt. New emission standards in 1971 caused the auto manufacturers to detune their engines to run on unleaded fuel, bringing the horsepower down also. With these three combinations, the end of a short era had arrived.

The definition of a muscle car is a mid size car with a large and powerful V8 engine. Muscle car popularity exploded in 1964 and 1965 with the new baby boom generation becoming driving age. They wanted power and speed, and the new GTO option on the Pontiac Tempest in 1964 gave them what they wanted. Pontiac planned on selling 5,000 of these models, and over 30,000 were sold. 1965 saw the release of the Ford Mustang, and the rest is history. By 1973 it was over, and Detriot went on to produce smaller and more efficient cars. But that trend did not continue, and I have often wondered why.

After doing some research on this, I found there are probably dozens of reasons, but I believe cheap abundant fuel and the relaxation of the CAFE standards (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) are some reasons. One fact I found researching this is that fuel economy did not actually lower as I thought it had since the 1970's. It has actually stayed stagnant (wikipedia shows this). There was a slight drop in fuel economy in the early 1980's when the price of gasoline dropped dramatically, but it returned to the same level within a few years.

The relaxation of the CAFE standards coincides with the price drop of gasoline, and in the back of my mind I always wonder what our engines would be like today if we would have kept on improving the efficiency of our engines. I enjoy power as much as any other guy in my car, but I don't have a problem squeezing more out of less. Today with overhead cams and other technology, we can get 300 horsepower out of a stock 6 cylinder engine. Even if we would have got a half mpg better a year from the mid 1970's, we'd have added 15 mpg to the engines today. Now the price of gas has soared, and we are stuck with gas guzzlers all over.