A43 ATTITUDE!

IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT, we’ve spent more years lamenting the demise of the original muscle car era than the period itself actually lasted. Factory performance started heating up in the late ’50s, caught fire in the mid-’60s, and was a smoldering pile of ash by the mid-’70s. Performance cars died, seemingly overnight. Blame the insurance companies, the gas crisis, or whatever other influences played a part, but an often-overlooked factor was that a big chunk of the “youth market” those muscle cars were aimed at simply grew up. They started families, bought station wagons, and moved on. Others traded their GTOs for Grand Prixes as personal luxury came into vogue. Times change. But a movement as influential and far-reaching as the first muscle car craze isn’t likely to