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Muscle: America's Legendary Performance Cars
Randy Leffingwell
- List Price: $24.95
- Our Price: $18.21
- You save: $6.74 (27 %)
- Used Price: $14.91
- Publisher: Motorbooks
- Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
- Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 Stars
Product Details
Product Description:
In the 1960s three incendiary ingredients--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 likely ever see again, defined the sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll generation. A chronicle of this tumultuous period of American history through its signature automobiles, Muscle: America’s Legendary Performance Cars brings to life the history of American muscle, from the street-racing hot rod culture that emerged after World War II through the new breed of muscle cars coming out of Detroit today. Featuring exquisite photography by top photographer David Newhardt and a text that pulls no punches, Muscle: America’s Legendary Performance Cars is the definitive muscle car history.
- Paperback: 384 pages
- Publisher: Motorbooks
- ISBN: 076033305X
- Dimensions: 9 x 7.9 x 1.1 inches
- Weight: 2.55 pounds
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Customer Reviews
- Muscle America's Legendary Performance Cars
- Avg. Customer Rating: 5 Stars
- We received the book on time and in very good condition. I am enjoying reading it. It was just what I expected.
- Great Cars of the 60's
- Avg. Customer Rating: 5 Stars
- Excellant pictures. Very good content. Brings back a lot of fond memories. Great edition to the coffee table and helpful with the restoration of my 1968 Firebird convertible
- Muscle Car Culture
- Avg. Customer Rating: 5 Stars
- It cannot be overemphasized that this book is different from all the Auto books that have come before. It doesn't only talk about the cars, but puts it in the context of the popular culture of the times. But you can't just flip the pages, you have to dig right in, and start reading to realize this. You can read the whole book, or upon seeing a muscle car you like, just start reading anywhere.
This book is FUN! This book will help you to relive memories. This book will take you back, in a good way. You remember the 60's and 70's, the heady joyful times they were in terms of cars. It tells the big stories of the GTO, Mustang, Charger, Camaro-Firebird , and `Cuda-Challenger. Less popular cars are covered, not in depth-i. e. Ford Falcon, Dodge Coronet, and Chevy Nova.
When reading, I remember what I knew about the cars at the time, but I am given new behind the scenes information. It is like going back to an old hobby, and finding out secrets you never knew. It takes me back to my youth, my teens and twenties, and it's not that easy to get there anymore.
One disagreement I have is the term 'wretched excess'. I don't think we thought of it as wretched excess at the time, we were just having fun. As far as free love, drugs, and of rock'n'roll partying without much limit-it was only later that we learned the consequences, through bitter experience. Yet in a way we knew, but didn't want to know. Isn't that's what late adolescence is all about?
So maybe now we can call it wretched excess, but it is like a married man looking back at his crazy college years. We didn't really know much about the environment, cocaine, marijuana, or STD's then. You have to remember, there weren't any pollution controls on cars in the 60's, and it wasn't really until the 80's they started to get controls that worked without draining the engine.
A guy commented that Ford is under-represented. Even if that is true, the Mustang is over-represented. Yet that is true to the time. Back in the day Ford WAS the rock and roll Mustang. Everything else was your parent's car. All other muscle cars have bit the dust-Mustang the sole survivor, is maybe even better today. My only disappointment, Mercury Cougar isn't covered.
This book is unlike any car book you have read before, it is breaking new ground. It is a good read. It isn't just specs and numbers, this book has heart. You will feel you are getting to know the movers and shakers of the automotive world of the time, as well as getting the popular view.
I thought `if there is one thing I don`t need it`s another muscle-car book`, now it is my favorite. - the best muscle car book
- Avg. Customer Rating: 5 Stars
- the best muscle car book which focusses mostly on the background and the mood of this great car-area with lots of insights
- Great photography, but if you are a Ford fan, don't bother
- Avg. Customer Rating: 2 Stars
- The book is very much GM, and to a lesser degree, Mopar-oriented. With a couple exceptions, Ford muscle cars are generally dismissed. Even the 80's Fox body Mustang, generally regarded as the car most responsible for re-igniting the horsepower wars we see today, is given only begrudging recognition.
The photography is great, especially of stripper, dog-dish-hubcapped examples of classic muscle cars.
