Customer Reviews

Muscle: America's Legendary Performance Cars

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I've bought all of Randy Leffingwell's muscle car books. The first muscle car book I ever bought was his "American Muscle," which was also one of the best. I even bought his recent book "Porsche 911: Perfection By Design," even though I am not that interested in foriegn cars. It's a great story, with great photography.

But this is Leffingwell's best book yet, which is saying a lot. It's also the best work to date by Leffingwell's long-time photography partner David Newhardt, and again, that is high praise, since Newhardt is one of the best photographers in America. I've read a couple of essays by Darwin Holmstrom in "Harley-Davidson Century," and while they were very good, this book is even better.

I usually try to find a fault with a book to keep the authors' heads from getting too big, but it's hard in the case of "Muscle" (although the word "acknowledgements" is spelled wrong on the table of contents). The book makes me want to do something really stupid like go out and buy an old muscle car.

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.

When my editor and friend Darwin Holmstrom proposed this title, I jumped on the assignment. Several years ago he and I had discussed the idea of looking at the auto business from the perspective of how each car maker motivated the other. It's not exactly copycat engineering. Our book dug deeply into the stories behind the products and the motivation behind Detroit's anxious and enthusiastic adoption of what had been the chief influence of hot rodders: the unfulfilled need for affordable speed. Detroit found it could make the cars, market them, warrantee them, sell them, and reap the profits from them, and for several years - and again now - we all enjoyed a Golden Age. This book puts this particular niche of high-performance, no-compromise automaking into the context of the times and the competitors. Darwin and I worked our photographer friends David Newhardt and Mike Mueller (and there even are a few of my images in there,) to exhaustion finding and shooting rare, significant machines in interesting locations.

I'm a cheap bugger and almost always shop at Amazon to save money, but I found a copy of this book at Autobooks when I visited Burbank over the weekend. Owner Doug Stokes said it shipped early. I was going to order it from Amazon, but it looked so great I couldn't wait and bought a copy at full price. It was worth every penny. The photography was so stunning that if you looked at it too long it might burn the corneas of your eyes. Best of all, it included tons of photos of rare and important but seldom-seen muscle cars, images unavailable anywhere else. The text was as good as the photos. In his foreword Jim Wangers calls this one of the best books ever written on the subject. As usual, Mr. Wangers is correct. If you care at all about American performance cars, you must buy this book.

My father has this book. I'd looked at the beautiful photographs but had never read it. I visited my father over the holidays and forgot to bring a book, so I started reading it and I was hooked. I'm not a muscle-car afficianado, but found this a gripping, well-written, and humorous story about American society. I read the entire book cover to cover, enjoying every page.

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.

This book is an embodiment of an era where cars were cars they were full of muscle and speed. In the 60's baby boomers had an obsession and need for speed that exploded in the form of factory muscled cars. Muscle cars were what distinguished post war boomers to a new generation that wanted what they wanted and got it. Muscle chronicles this tumultuous period with absolute truth. The automobile was what was used to define one's self esteem in driving and this book depicts that period of baby boomers cars within it in absoulte detailed perfection. From street racing to hot rod racing through to the new breed of muscle cars this book brings to life the history of American muscle cars. Exquisite photography and exact text that transports your mind into an era that was really sssmoking!!hot! A must read for anyone with a serious passion in muscle car history this book captures that essence in significance of that era. These cars started a revolution in driving for racing car drivers and marque collectors alike of models that continues today, these cars dating back 40 odd years are as treasured and as valued as they are today. They reignite the passion in the need for speed within the vibrancy of the art that has made their mind and bodys transform into the model,s they produced. These cars were fast, loud and so thunderously good looking they defined the driver for what he was and they also defined a generation of baby boomers in that they started a revolution in what was to become a war of design and speed.As the mask would say from the (1994) fantasy comedy movie they are SSSSSMOKIN'hot in mythic proportions of appeal for the driver on the road driving.

I just get into muscle cars a few years ago, and I ordered this book as a reference book. It was a good decision, I learnt so many new things from this book...
I definately recommend it to any beginner, or even advanced muscle can fan.

Great read and some amazing photography. Bought a second one as a gift for someone else.

My dad really seemed to like it, and he's hard to shop for. We had a 66 Mustang and a 67 Camaro, so this book is very cool, and brought back a lot of memories.