Muscle cars of '79 ???

My wife has her 1st car yet... a 79 Camaro 350 4 speed... really low miles ( like less than 60,000 ) because she had to put it away when she was younger or she would have lost her license... when we met, I did some upgrades to it, & she drove it a couple summers, then it sat... & sat... & sat

we pulled it out of the machine shed last year... OMG... the red pine squirrels had stuck walnuts everywhere, which we also found out, included the exhaust & somehow they had gotten them in the clutch housing... we found this out, after I got it running, & filled the weather checked tires, & drove it the 9 miles to town, to the shop...

... well... engine tune up, oil change, new battery, new tires, new clutch & fly wheel, & a tranny rebuild, & new custom dual exhaust, & my "old lady" had a smile like the day I met her... this winter we are going to pull the engine down for a full freshening, maybe bump up the power a bit ( at least ditch the lame 79 ish polution control stuff

when we were talking value... I don't think the car is maxed out yet... got me thinking, what were any of the other muscle cars made in 79 ??? I know the Trans-Am ( similar to the Camaro ) I think all the Fords were Mustang 2's by that time ??? Mopar have anything not K car by that time ???

what were the hot rides for 79 ???

There wasnt any. Muscle cars ended with the 74 SD455 Firebird.
79 Camaro 350 175HP max.

the 79 - 81 trans am / firebirds were the ugliest things on the planet. And dont get me started on the hot air turbo 301![S.

Mustang II's were just a pinto

the corvette had 140hp and ran 15's in the 1/4

chrysler had the cordoba or magnum thing at 4800 lbs

I think the only car worth anything in 79 was the toyota supera with an inline 6 and a 5 spd!

Magnum said:

what were the hot rides for 79 ???

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Agreed with dmw. The last muscle died in '74 with the Super Duty T/A. The only hot rides around in '79 would include one Miss Deborah Harry...

Yeah, yeah, yeah the 74 super duty is a killer ride but ease up allready. The '79 Little Red Wagon pick-ups were pretty cool (and word is they smoked the Vetes of the same year), and Jack Roush had a Bad Ass Mustang II street racer. Anything can be made fast, we all know that.

Post some pics I'm sure I'm not the only one that would like to check out your old lady's (meant that most respectively) first car.

I don't have any good digitals of either her or her car in their glory days... but think I have a couple from last years little bit out of storage... the baby blue rear louvers are off in this one... but you get the idea... 58,000 miles on the car in this pic...

my biggest beef, is they all made cars like crap in those days... the stock plastic clips on the door handles break about one in every twenty-five door closings... making some steel replacements before it comes out next time, but those are typical of the build quality back then...

Yeah, they can be made fast, NOT factory fast. We are talking bone stock low compression smog breathers here. Smoking a stock Corvette in 1979 could probably have been accomplished by a quick Schwinn, so not much of a feather in the cap of the ugly Dodge truck. Late 70's factory performance is a bigger oxymoron than jumbo shrimp...

I sort of agree with DMW, except that the muscle car era ended around 1972........

The fastest vehicle in 1979 was a truck....Dodge Lil Red Truck...Thats how lame that year was

Stroker McGurk said:

I sort of agree with DMW, except that the muscle car era ended around 1972

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It did, but Pontiac held on for 2 more years with the SD-455. VERY rare cars, but they went out with a bang...

290 horse for that SD455 was extremely high

Blue Eyed Devil said:

It did, but Pontiac held on for 2 more years with the SD-455. VERY rare cars, but they went out with a bang...

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considering what the average v-8 had then.... yeah it was sad to see the era end....

My bone stock 78 Yamaha RD400 was faster than any car back then. Most bikes probably were,
Not putting your wife's car down I think its cool she still has it. But unfortunatly the Govt had sucked the life out the muscle cars a few years before.

Stroker McGurk said:

The fastest vehicle in 1979 was a truck....Dodge Lil Red Truck...Thats how lame that year was

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you got sumthin against trucks?

Wish I had a 1979 Camaro.Nice car.[dr

To me the last muscle car was in 1970, everything pretty much beyond that (with only a couple of exceptions) were paper tigers. The Government and insurance companies had sucked the life out of all the cars that were once terrors on the streets.

Your 79 Camaro is a cool, sporty car, but not a muscle car unfortunately.

Don

Hurst/Olds

1979 saw the return of the Hurst/Olds on the Cutlass Calais downsized A-body. It was a lot lighter than the "big" Cutlass of 77, and was the only A-body available that year with a 350 cube gas engine (Olds!). It was faster than any other A-body that year (Monte Carlo, Grand Am, Regal, etc.), and was very limited in production numbers.

Was it a "muscle car?" Pointless argument.
Was it a "performance package." Relatively speaking, yes. For 1979, especially.

For those of us who grew up in the 70s and 80s, we like these cars.
For those of us who grew up in the 40s and 50s, not so much.

440shorty

The mustang 2 was made from 74-78. The 79 Mustang was the first year of that "newer" body style. I bought a 79 TA couple years back, had a factory 403 olds motor. It was a dog in the TA, but we put it in a T bucket (thats for sale, btw) and its enough to make that T scootch.

The Fox plaformed Mustangs are probably one exception to the rule that muscle cars died out in about 1979. Ford had a real stroke of genius building those cars and essentially milked the same basic car from 1979-1993. In 1985 I went out to buy a new car and test drove a 5.0 Mustang, It sounded and felt like the cars I grew up loving, but, being a family guy, I bought a new Cougar instead.

They are model a simple, and use the oldest hot rod formula around......light car, short wheelbase, decent Hp, stick transmission, and affordable. The aftermarket also took off and you can build these to be very quick cars. I honestly think of them as the 32 Ford of this generation.

Don

Muscle with no flex.

1970 was really the last of the muscle cars. Even then the government emissions crap started. Low compression, low horse power. Just look at the Mustang II s, or the Vegas. Hated to see the real mid &late 60s muscle go.

Crossfire said:

1970 was really the last of the muscle cars. Even then the government emissions crap started. Low compression, low horse power. Just look at the Mustang II s, or the Vegas. Hated to see the real mid &late 60s muscle go.

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1971 Hemi Cuda?

1972 Chevelle SS 454?

1971 Superbird?

3 of many cars that may test the 1970 as the cutoff year

choppintops said:

1971 Hemi Cuda?

1972 Chevelle SS 454?

1971 Superbird?

3 of many cars that may test the 1970 as the cutoff year

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But one of the cars you listed doesn't exist? What's a 1971 Superbird

[P