Customer Reviews

Maximum Muscle: Factory Special Musclecars

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Maximum Muscle is the story of Detroit's high powered muscle and pony cars whose direct design and implementations were borne out of the need to win races. The book takes a general look at how cars such as the Boss 302, Dodge Charger Daytona and others came to be and how successful they were in their respective series. There is some good general knowledge provided about these cars and their development (including the failures such as Pontiac's attempt to enter the Trans-Am series in '69 with their 303 block) as well as the race series they performed in (NASCAR, SCCA Trans-Am series, etc). The author separated the chapters into the different racing series with a chronological view of who did what when and how and included sections on Indy Pace Cars, dealer specific cars and the current state of muscle/pony cars. As mentioned earlier the book does give a good general look at what happened but I found the book does suffer from a lack of detail. Most of the information provided can be considered general knowledge for many automotive enthusiasts interested in that era (i.e. why the Hemi was brought back, why AMC was so successful in the '70-'72 Trans-Am series, etc). I do not mean to bemoan this book as it did a very competent job of providing all the necessary facts. I just expected more thorough detail. Overall the book was well written and gives the reader enough information about an exciting time in racing. If you want more information and detail however, you will need to look at other books that deal with specific manufacturers (such as Phil Hall's "Fearsome Fords: 1959-1973" and Larry Mitchell's "AMC Muscle Cars").