New small muscle cars

The latest muscle cars are small: there’s the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X, the new Subaru WRX STi, and the Mazda3 MPS or Mazdaspeed. Despite being small, all these cars are very quick, although the Mazda3 loses out with only 260 bhp and front-wheel drive.

It is actually quite twitchy, especially in the wet, with the car turning offline if you have a bit of lock on. Just put your foot down, and the turbo comes in with a whack – stacks of power at any speed – and just a couple of degrees lock are enough to send the car scuttling off to the kerb or the wrong side of the road! Not so bad in the dry but can be a problem in the wet.

Even so, this is a very quick hatch and quite a muscle car. The other two are much quicker – one whole second to 60 mph – but are much more stable thanks to four-wheel drive, and a chassis that has been further developed.

Fast Muscle Cars

Muscle cars might look like ordinary tin boxes – in fact they are not much different – but they certainly perform differently. In truth, some muscle cars are only about going fast in a straight line. A car like an old Camaro, Firebird or Mustang with a hot engine will not handle well, and will hop about over poor road surfaces.

On the other hand, a muscle car like a BMW 650i is quite svelte, so long as you don’t look at the ugly tail, goes very well, and handles too. It qualifies as a muscle car, as it is not quite fast enough to be a supercar. The Jaguar XF V8 is another great muscle car.

Also, there are a number of hot hatches that qualify as muscle cars, because they are so much faster, and handle better than ordinary hatchbacks. Consider the Ford Fiesta ST (or XR4) which is surprisingly quick and a very practical day-to-day car.

The traditional muscle car is a fairly compact coupe or sedan with a large engine. Nowadays, the same results are obtained with a turbo or supercharger – as on the Golf GTi, Jaguar XF V8 or Ford Shelby GT500.