5 Things About The Muscle Car Community That Irritate Me #blogpost

Being a part of the muscle car community is pretty cool for the most part, but sometimes there are things about it that get under my skin. Here they are…

One: Muscle Car Rice

Before you start a flame war in the comments, hear me out first. The kind of rice I’m talking about is taking a gorgeous interior and exterior of a car and throwing it all out the window in the name of being modern (the Mustang pictured above is a good example of that). Just go look up custom classic car interior, you’ll see what I mean. I’m OK with making people making minor to moderate changes in the interior and exterior, but drastically altering it is a no no in my book. People should retain the stock look of the cars more (but upgrade the shoddy brakes and tires for goodness sake).

Two: Brand Snobbery And JDM Hatred

Not only do muscle car enthusiasts throw crap at Japanese and European cars, they do the same thing with each other. By the amount of roasting fellow muscle car enthusiasts do to each other, I’m surprised they haven’t been served on a plate for Thanksgiving. They also aren’t too kind with enthusiasts outside their circle, creating a hostile atmosphere. In the words of the Beatles, perhaps in this situation “love is all you need.”

Three: Too Many V8’s

That’s right, I said it; sometimes I feel like the muscle car community should diversify a little bit with it’s engines. Believe it or not, you can get used to chrome carbureted V8’s after a while. I really like cars like the Buick GNX and muscle cars with truck turbodiesels are rather admirable. Heck, I’ve heard some old American inline sixes sing like a bird in Argentinian racing leagues, maybe we need more of that. Is it really that bad to be a little different every now and then?

Four: Overvaluing Cars

This problem is somewhat universal in the car community, but it does apply to muscle car culture. I understand that people love cars like the Plymouth Barracuda, Ford Mustang and Chevrolet Chevelle. However, if you were to remove nostalgia from the picture, classic muscle cars objectively aren’t that great. I remember seeing the factory welds on a classic Dodge Challenger once and they weren’t pretty at all. I don’t want to pay 6 figures for a car that has technology that’s older than a floppy disc.

Five: Undertired Or Overpowered Cars

I love burnouts as much as the next guy, but cars that can burn the rear tires with ease can sometimes be a real pain in the rear to keep hooked up when driving. In a Hellcat, you can’t truly floor it 90% of the time on the street without the TCS turning on or the rear tires going up in white smoke; either the Hellcat needs better tires or (heaven forbid) less power. However, if I had to choose in between those two options, I would go with better tires.