The Best American Muscle Cars at Pebble Beach

1971 Plymouth Hemi Cuda

Photograph courtesy of Mecum Auctions

Let’s get this out of the way. The 1971 Hemi Cuda is arguably the most muscular muscle car, ever, the icon that acts as a stand in for the entire category. A bombastic 7.0-Liter V8 connected to a pistol-grip 4-speed, surrounded by a leering prow and a coke bottle fuselage, all wrapped in cherry red paint, a spartan black interior, and ridiculous graphics and louvers. When someone says Muscle Car, this is the vehicle that pops into most people’s mind eye. [Mecum Auctions]

1969 Chevrolet COPO Camaro

Photograph courtesy of Mecum Auctions

Chevrolet didn’t want to challenge the dominance of its big-block Corvettes in the 1960s, so the brand intentionally limited power in their more affordable pony car, the Camaro. But with Ford and Mopar stuffing huge engines into their competitors, some enterprising dealers convinced Chevy to use an internal workaround, the Central Office Production Order (COPO) program, to insert the Vette’s 425 hp 427 engine into the Camaro. This is the perfect spec mean, green COPO car. [Mecum Auctions]

1968 Chevrolet Corvette L88 Convertible

Photograph courtesy of Mecum Auctions

Arguably the C3 Corvette, the L88 was a race car for the street, including a massaged 430 hp 427 V8, a four-speed manual, and red line tires, and excluding a heater and a radio (allegedly to discourage the owner from driving it on the street.) Only 20 convertible L88s were made in 1968, and if we were choosing, we’d pick one outfitted in British classic dark green and saddle. It’s a keen way of making a rather unsubtle car a bit subtler. [Mecum Auctions]

1963 Studebaker Avanti R2

Photograph courtesy of Mecum Auctions

Most people don’t think of the Avanti as a muscle car, but the R2 version, with its supercharged, 290 hp 289 ci engine, and its radical aerodynamic shape and lightweight Fiberglas body, was one of the fastest vehicles on the road at the time, able to hit 170 mph in stock form. This one, owned by famed car restorer Colin Comer, is equipped with the perfect period correct turquoise paint, Halibrand spinner wheels, and extremely rare four-speed manual transmission. [Mecum Auctions]

1957 Chevrolet Corvette Fuel-Injected Roadster

Photograph courtesy of Gooding & Company, Photos by Mike Maez

The Corvette got serious about performance in the mid-50s. This C1 is from the first year that the car was offered with fuel injection, a limited-take option that appeared on less than 15% of the Vettes that year, even though it raised the output of the 283 ci V8 to 283 hp. A 3-speed manual, big drum brakes, a rare shade of Arctic Blue, and especially the sleeper “dog dish” hubcaps, make this a proper muscular pick for lovers of America’s first gen Plastic Fantastic. [Gooding & Company Auctions]

6 Stupidly Quick Cars From The New York Auto Show:

1964 Shelby 289 Cobra

Photograph courtesy of RM Sotheby’s Auctions

Carroll Shelby’s winning recipe was to combine massive Ford power with a lithe British body. Here is one of the world’s most original Cobras, owned from new by a single family, and driven less than 15,000 miles total. Bought by a Florida NASA Apollo engineer, the car was meticulously maintained for its entire life by the original owner and his son, who have rare equipment and ephemera dating back to the car’s purchase. A seven-figure vehicle, and deservedly so. [RM Sotheby’s Auctions]

1953 Allard J2X

Photograph courtesy of The Quail, a Motorsports Gathering

The Allard was another British-bodied, American-powered sports car, but from a decade earlier. Though it was built in Europe, its beating New World heart—in this case, a classic hot rodder’s Cadillac V8—gives it pride of place in our category. This particular car was raced by none other than Carroll Shelby at the start of his racing career. Shelby credited his work on this fantastic J2X with influencing his work on the famed AC-bodied, Ford-powered Shelby Cobra a few years later. [The Quail, a Motorsports Gathering]

1954 Cunningham C-3

Photograph courtesy of The Quail, a Motorsports Gathering

Briggs Cunningham was a playboy, the scion of a wealthy family, who spent lavishly on his pursuit of speed, on land and on the sea. So great was his passion, and his fortune, that he established a car company to try to win for America the famed endurance race at Le Mans. He favored potent Chrysler Hemi V8s in his racecars, and followed that practice in this handsome road-going GT, though the lovely body was built by the master Italian coachbuilders at Vignale. [The Quail, a Motorsports Gathering.]

1957 Ford Thunderbird

Photograph courtesy of Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion

Back in the late Fifties, Ford built a pair of souped-up versions of its grand touring boulevardier, the Thunderbird, meant to compete at the Daytona Time Trials on the beach. These cars were known as Battlebirds. Employing aluminum body panels, mag wheels, and a stripped out interior to save weight, and a supercharged Ford V8 backed by a Jaguar transmission to put down massive power, it allegedly made a 200 mph run, but couldn’t repeat the speed on the return run. [Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca]

1991 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme

Photograph courtesy of Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion

Pour some bubbly out for Oldsmobile. The brand sought an identity, nearly every identity, throughout its tortured life: entry-level luxury, people’s car, sport sedan, import fighter. This included a sporadic racing history, especially toward the end of the marque’s life. In 1991 this Cutlass Supreme was driven to victory by Peoria’s own Irv Hoerr. We applaud his audacity as much as we miss Olds. [Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca]