The Birth of The Muscle Car ??

The growing public interest in speed and power gave birth to what many regard as the first muscle car, the 1949 Oldsmobile Rocket 88. It was a car any hot-rodder could understand. A powerful new engine in the lighter Oldsmobile body. And the engine was a breakthrough. America's first high-compression overhead-valve V-8, the result of research begun at General Motors well before WWII.

Though GM's Cadillac Division introduced a similar V-8 for '49, it was the smaller, fleeter Olds 88s that grabbed public attention, especially when they started to dominate stock-car racing, which along with drag racing and the beginnings of NASCAR was blooming.

Because success in Detroit never goes unchallenged for long, the Rocket 88s soon had showroom competition and a horsepower race was on. By 1955, most every U.S. nameplate offered light, efficient V-8s. Two of the best remain performance legends to this day.


One was Chrysler Corporation's Hemi, first offered for 1951 and named for the half-sphere or hemispherical shape of its chambers. No less significant was the 1955 Chevrolet small-block V-8, a design so right that its basic engineering concepts are still in production.