So guys just curious - is a Monte Carlo SS 5.3 considered a “muscle car” ?

 

The problem is finding an agreed upon specific definition of muscle car as the use of the term varies by age of the person, their familiarity with cars, and where they're from.

I'd imagine if you blanket asked a bunch of people at random, they'd say no just because its not 60s/70s. If you subdivided it into classic muscle and modern muscle (in the hopes of getting a more positive response from the latter by expanding the scope), I'd bet you'd still get a lot of people that would say no just because of being FWD.

Personally I wouldnt go around calling it that as IMO youre inviting people to give you crap for it since its a fairly loose interpretation of the term.

 

At every car show I've entered mine into, it is treated as the red-headed stepchild of the show, because of the FWD..... So I stopped. I didn't buy it for others' approval. However, it sings a nice tune as it rolls in and it always had a crowd around it...

 

Personally I would say no. I would rather call it a car with some muscle... Even tho the "muscle cars" from the 60's and 70's would get walked all over by it in every way.

Reminds me of the 90's grand sport Corvettes. They can compete with supercars of the same era but you just cant call it a supercar.

 

From wikipedia,
"The Chevrolet Monte Carlo is a two-door coupe that was manufactured and marketed by the Chevrolet division of General Motors. Deriving its name from the namesake Monegasque city, the Monte Carlo was marketed as the first personal luxury car of the Chevrolet brand."

It's always been marketed as a luxury car and not a muscle car. SS sales were never that great to begin with. They definitely have muscle. Mines just an LT and I call it a sport coupe depending on who I'm talking to.

 

I agree with that! Back in the DAY............Lol I am old. but Chevy made Muscle Cars that you could order right out of the box I owned a few Chevelles, Z/28 Camaros, I even had a 71 Monte Carlo for a little while. I thought that would keep the chics from sitting on my console and they just loved the hot cars I had.. Ha, ha a little disappointing, So if you want an original muscle car the era is 64 to 72. 69 and 70's were the best.


This is the 69 Chevelle that I once owned this is a Muscle Car

 

Well I just wanted it to be considered because compared to a ‘71 Nova SS 350 that only had 270 horsepower.

 

I do think that marketing also shifted a good bit through the years too. The advertisements I've seen for 5th gen + cars have much less emphasis on the luxury side / features than the original cars had.

It made more sense back in the day - that was the differentiating focus of the monte vs the other 2 door RWD cars. But by the end the monte was standing as the lone coupe (besides the corvette which is for a totally different market) in the lineup.

The hard part with using horsepower in comparison on modern cars is you can get 300 hp in a Civic or a Ford Edge these days, so the 300 hp alone isn't a great qualifier.

If you think its a muscle car, certainly call it what you want as its your car. I just think you'd be very likely to run into a lot of disagreement - especially by the purists that think FWD ruined the monte.

 

Can’t disagree with the point of FWD -