Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hi, I'm Eddie Alterman. Welcome to Detours, a special
Speaker 1: series from Car Show where we go on extended drives,
Speaker 1: run additional interviews, and sometimes put my sociological theories to
Speaker 1: the test. This week, I sit down with muscle car
Speaker 1: guru Mike Musto, who didn't totally agree with my hot
Speaker 1: take that the GTI was Generation x's gto. Then we
Speaker 1: talk about the ever expanding category of the muscle car,
Speaker 1: the possibility of an electric version, and how car culture
Speaker 1: ultimately bridges all of these rigid taxonomies. Anyway, thanks Mike
Speaker 1: for joining us. Yeah, of course that this is fun. Man,
Speaker 1: I do this all day too. But I'm glad. I'm
Speaker 1: glad we're immediate to discuss this hot topic. Yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: So you listened to the episode, you heard my maybe
Speaker 1: specious argument. What do you think I think? I think
Speaker 1: you know, there's there's definitely merit there. I think that
Speaker 1: for if you were a kid and you grew up
Speaker 1: in the you know, the eighties and then and the nineties,
Speaker 1: and you were I think a lot of it has
Speaker 1: to be based on one year demographic to your location,
Speaker 1: because I like where I grew up. Like when you're
Speaker 1: talking like Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island a GTI was was like, okay,
Speaker 1: like it's small, doesn't have a va, it's mind you
Speaker 1: better in every single way than any Mustang Camaro or
Speaker 1: Grand National on the street. It just well, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get crushed for saying that, but that's the truth. Right.
Speaker 1: It was compact, it was fast, it was this, but
Speaker 1: it didn't have what I was looking for in a car.
Speaker 1: Balls well you can't even say that because it had balls,
Speaker 1: but it had it had different balls, right, it had
Speaker 1: different balls. The balls were we were more compact and
Speaker 1: they were more like ball bearings at tighter to the body,
Speaker 1: tighter to the body. Yes, yeah, I mean I grew
Speaker 1: up in this Midwest axis John Hughes country. You know,
Speaker 1: we didn't want to drive the cars our dads drove
Speaker 1: because our dads had Bonnovilles and Catalinas and right then
Speaker 1: four four twos and you know, so we wanted something
Speaker 1: that was like not homegrown. We wanted, you know, something
Speaker 1: that was a little bit more cosmopolitan in a rice
Speaker 1: of course, of course, yeah, I mean we you know,
Speaker 1: it's interesting like at that time I was on I
Speaker 1: was out on on Long Island and going kind of
Speaker 1: back and forth to the city into Brooklyn and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. And street racing was still very big, right,
Speaker 1: so you still had the guys with the Grand Nationals
Speaker 1: and the Camaros and the Fox Body Mustangs and the
Speaker 1: you know Fbody transams that were just coming out in
Speaker 1: the early nineties where people were freaking out. It was
Speaker 1: always like the I had a good friend, my friend Paul,
Speaker 1: he had a GTI and he would just look at
Speaker 1: us like, why are you wasting time with this? With
Speaker 1: these big stupid things, And we were just like, because
Speaker 1: they're amazing and they're huge, and they're bates and macho
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, and he's like, all right, like
Speaker 1: I don't get it, but that's fine. But there was
Speaker 1: the one thing that the GTI couldn't do will drive burnout,
Speaker 1: And it was like, well, useless, useless car if I
Speaker 1: can't do a donut. Well, my one sort of quival
Speaker 1: with that is if you're on the snow, you could
Speaker 1: handbrake revector really easily. He just jammed that thing up
Speaker 1: and slide around. But it was not like it was
Speaker 1: not power over steer. It was not you know, light
Speaker 1: up the tires and right. A lot of smoke, right,
Speaker 1: but you know, a massively fun car. And I think
Speaker 1: it was. I think the GTI was my first, um
Speaker 1: real revelation into what a front wheel drive car could
Speaker 1: be from a performance perspective. I remember the first time
Speaker 1: I drove my buddies car and I was like, oh
Speaker 1: my god. It was just because there was nothing, There
Speaker 1: was no bad part. Everything was like, oh, this is fabulous.
Speaker 1: And with it with you know, a third of the
Speaker 1: horse power, right, because it was like and the steering
Speaker 1: wasn't that corrupted. There wasn't terrible torque steer because you
Speaker 1: had lower horse power, you weren't like maxing it out,
Speaker 1: and there was good grip up front. Again, I think
Speaker 1: a lot of it has to do with where you
Speaker 1: where you were at the time when the GTI was introduced, right,
Speaker 1: I think that's that's where kind of the impression lies.
Speaker 1: And there they just weren't that many. I mean, I
Speaker 1: was fortunate where I had a couple of buddies and
Speaker 1: I had one whose father was a Volkswagen dealer, and
Speaker 1: so he would always bring g TIS home and he
Speaker 1: would get the latest edition, latest model, and you know,
Speaker 1: the muscle cars were still faster. There's no question about it.
Speaker 1: I mean in a straight line, they were still faster,
Speaker 1: but when it came down to going left and going right,
Speaker 1: oh my god. The GTI and I think at that
Speaker 1: point it had like one ninety five series tires or
Speaker 1: like max of like a two fifteen, which was huge
Speaker 1: back of the day. It was a It was an
Speaker 1: eye opener, and it was I think one of the
Speaker 1: first cars that I was like, Oh, this is this
Speaker 1: is what performance driving is supposed to be. And it
Speaker 1: was like that little light bulb went off. But back
Speaker 1: then I just didn't want to admit it because I
Speaker 1: just didn't want to admit it, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: My friends would be like, you know what you're talking about, Musto,
Speaker 1: You're the worst. We hate you now, so we'll speaking
Speaker 1: about that like that sort of the credibility factor, you know.
Speaker 1: Like I'm saying, muscle cars are a very specific thing
Speaker 1: because I've gotten roasted so many times for like calling
Speaker 1: the Dodge Charger a muscle car. They're like, it's not
Speaker 1: uscle car, dude, it's got four doors, you know what.
Speaker 1: I think The definition and the muscle car was always
Speaker 1: what it was always intermediate sedan, biggest motor you could
Speaker 1: clump into it. That's a muscle car, right, yeah, and
Speaker 1: kind of a body type that doesn't really exist that
Speaker 1: much anymore or if at all. The two door sedan.
Speaker 1: That's that's exactly correct. Sure. I mean when you saw,
Speaker 1: you know, when the gto first came out, and then
Speaker 1: you had like, you know, the Lamans, and then you
Speaker 1: had the chargers, and you had the uh you know,
Speaker 1: Barracoutas and Mustangs were more pony cars. Um. But Chevelle,
Speaker 1: Monty Carlos things like that, um, they were. They were
Speaker 1: all muscle cars. And I think the definition changed a
Speaker 1: little bit based on the body. Like I remember, like
Speaker 1: one of my cars that I had when I was
Speaker 1: back in New York. I had a sixty nine Pontiac
Speaker 1: Grand Prix SJ with a four twenty eight, and that
Speaker 1: thing was a stump puller. I mean that it was.
Speaker 1: It was gold on gold on old triple Goal and
Speaker 1: it had fourteen inch wheels with wheel covers on it.
Speaker 1: But my god, it had five hundred pounds for you
Speaker 1: to torque and it would roast the back tires for
Speaker 1: like a quarter mile. But people would be like, well,
Speaker 1: it's not a muscle car. I'm like are you insane?
Speaker 1: You know, it's a luxury muscle car, but the definition
Speaker 1: is still very much there. Right, there's a weird orthodoxy
Speaker 1: to the whole thing. No, it's just got to really
Speaker 1: conformed to this thing. And to me it's it's beautiful
Speaker 1: that like the definition has expanded, you know, like I
Speaker 1: get into sometimes they get into like, uh, like I
Speaker 1: got this rs etron GT out here. Oh yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that's a muscle car. That thing's insane. Man. This is
Speaker 1: the one part that people fail to understand, and the
Speaker 1: purists get really mad. They always yell at me all
Speaker 1: the time. I'm like, the Germans make some of the
Speaker 1: best muscle cars ever ever created. So back in again,
Speaker 1: this is back from the East Coast days. I had
Speaker 1: any thirty nine and five Yeah okay, now I don't
Speaker 1: care who you are, five leader V eight, four hundred horsepower,
Speaker 1: manual transmission, d hour slides for days, rear drive, burnouts, donuts.
Speaker 1: That was the quintessential German muscle car, right, Um, the
Speaker 1: fifty five AMG totally, god totally, even the you know
Speaker 1: when the RS six came with the with the V ten,
Speaker 1: with the Lamborghini V ten and oh my god, fabulous, right.
Speaker 1: It took an engine from higher up the food chain,
Speaker 1: higher up the line, from the Lamborghini through it in
Speaker 1: a Savan instant muscle car. Absolutely yeah. And I think
Speaker 1: again the purists get all pissed off because the purists say,
Speaker 1: you know it was it has to be American blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. Now listen, Americans, I'll give we invented the
Speaker 1: muscle car. There's no question about that, right um, and
Speaker 1: we've we we have in a sense kind of perfected
Speaker 1: it and set the blueprint for the rest of the
Speaker 1: world to follow. The rest of the world has their
Speaker 1: own ideas of what a muscle car is and more importantly,
Speaker 1: what it can aspire to be and evolved to be.
Speaker 1: And I think many different countries have put their own
Speaker 1: spin on it. Obviously the Germans with the m cars
Speaker 1: amg stuff stuff like that. Um, you know you look
Speaker 1: at things like you know, the holdings and stuff that
Speaker 1: they had in Australia and granted their their gms, but
Speaker 1: they're straight muscle cars. The U that's a muscle truar
Speaker 1: like totally you can't argue that. And like I'll I'll
Speaker 1: die on that hill. I'll go up against anybody that
Speaker 1: wants to fight me on that. I love that, But
Speaker 1: muscle I also love it. You're like, you know, it's
Speaker 1: gotta do donuts, it's gotta be able to it's it's
Speaker 1: gotta break traction, right, that's yeah, yeah, Like everybody, I
Speaker 1: used to have a I've had a couple of transams,
Speaker 1: and my last trans am was I had an eighty
Speaker 1: one three h one Turbot transam, which was a proper
Speaker 1: ship box, and then I had a seventy nine with
Speaker 1: a four h three in it, And I'm like, they're
Speaker 1: not muscle cars. Everybody's like, you got such a kickass
Speaker 1: muscle car. I'm like, it won't break the tires loose
Speaker 1: to save its life. So no, I'm like, one hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty five horsepower does not constitute a muscle car. Now.
Speaker 1: Now like a four fifty five, Like a bullnose trans
Speaker 1: am with a four fifty five talking superduty. Okay, I
Speaker 1: can get behind that. But you know, they there was
Speaker 1: this time period in the kind of the later seventies
Speaker 1: up to the early eighties where it was stickers. It
Speaker 1: was bravado from a visual perspective, but there was nothing
Speaker 1: under the hood. So they transformed into really nice boulevard cruisers,
Speaker 1: and that's that's okay, um, But I would never put
Speaker 1: those into the muscle car category. I just wouldn't, so,
Speaker 1: you know, um, but there, you know, I think the
Speaker 1: muscle cars are such an ingrained part of American history
Speaker 1: and of the automotive world as well. And you you know,
Speaker 1: back in the late nineties, early two thousands, when the
Speaker 1: import craze kind of came on, right and you had
Speaker 1: kind of fast and the furious, that was such a
Speaker 1: pivotal moment, I think because it introduced you know, I
Speaker 1: can't really say kids, because you know, it was more
Speaker 1: than twenty years ago, but it changed the perception and
Speaker 1: introduced when the muscle car was to a whole new
Speaker 1: generation of people, right. And I remember taking a Focus
Speaker 1: RS from Europe before it was on sale the US,
Speaker 1: so the rsum in that that generation was never on
Speaker 1: sale in the US. It was a special car that
Speaker 1: Ford had there, and I took it to the Pomona
Speaker 1: Roster Show. Oh my god, and people just like wanted
Speaker 1: to light it on fire. They were so pissed. Right,
Speaker 1: But that's good. How are you doing right? Right? That's good?
Speaker 1: You have to you gotta shake people up. And like,
Speaker 1: I never understood the whole purist thing. I never understood
Speaker 1: the whole like I only like Ford or only like
Speaker 1: GM or only like Porsche. And I'm like, well that
Speaker 1: you just want tacos every single day for the rest
Speaker 1: of your life? What is the exactly why? What? Right
Speaker 1: is spice of life? It totally is. And it's you know,
Speaker 1: these people out there that just they want to die
Speaker 1: on this mountain of Ford or Chevy. I'm like, get
Speaker 1: a get over yourself, man, what are you thinking? No,
Speaker 1: it is so provincial. It's like that's all they've been
Speaker 1: exposed to, so like, and they don't want to open
Speaker 1: their minds to like, hey, maybe you know, uh bmw
Speaker 1: M five is the greatest thing you've ever driven and
Speaker 1: it fits you perfectly and that's you know, you would
Speaker 1: love it. But they never open themselves up to that experience.
Speaker 1: And I think you know, automobiles are Automobiles are very
Speaker 1: much like food, right. You have to be willing to
Speaker 1: go outside your comfort zone. You have to be able
Speaker 1: to try something. If you don't like it, that's okay,
Speaker 1: you don't. You don't have to like it. I don't
Speaker 1: have to like sushi. I don't have to like steak,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna try it to make an exact exactly. No,
Speaker 1: you got to it's it's a life half lived. Otherwise, Yes,
Speaker 1: I completely completely agree. Um, you know, but the cool
Speaker 1: part is now at the technology everything is evolving to
Speaker 1: the point where, um, you know, speed is no longer
Speaker 1: speed is no longer really relevant because because with evs
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, you have this, you know, petrol
Speaker 1: is never going to catch up to evs. We know that,
Speaker 1: you know, when you're going zero to sixty and two
Speaker 1: seconds in an EV I don't know if that's I
Speaker 1: wouldn't categorize at any type of a muscle car because
Speaker 1: it's you know, like a tesla, because you lose the
Speaker 1: visceralness of it. Yeah, no vibration, no sound, Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I think it it has to have some type of
Speaker 1: theater behind it. And if there's no theater, there's no anything.
Speaker 1: And it was last year we had gone to an
Speaker 1: event up at Sonoma Raceway and it was one of
Speaker 1: the first kind of e events, you know, only events,
Speaker 1: performance events, and the autocross was going on behind me,
Speaker 1: and the drag races were going on in front of me.
Speaker 1: The problem them is you would hear you would hear
Speaker 1: tires squeal, right, and that's it. And there were beautiful
Speaker 1: cars ripping around the Trace Racetrack, but as soon as
Speaker 1: you turn around, you could ignore it. And as soon
Speaker 1: as you could ignore it, it disappears. It's forgettable. And
Speaker 1: if you really like cars, if you like cars for
Speaker 1: what they offer, Um, I think you have to have
Speaker 1: that that theater in there somewhere, that kind of it
Speaker 1: keeps you interested. More of my chat with Mike Musto
Speaker 1: after the break, we're back with Mike Musto. You know,
Speaker 1: I think from a muscle car perspective, though we are
Speaker 1: at the last. Um, I think we are at the
Speaker 1: last bashion and muscle car it is. And the reason
Speaker 1: I say that is that I don't know I want it.
Speaker 1: So Dodge is coming out with an electric muscle car, right,
Speaker 1: the muscle car. Yeah. Um, if anybody's gonna knock it
Speaker 1: out of the park, it's gonna be there. They have to,
Speaker 1: they can. They have to knock it out of the
Speaker 1: park or it's finished. It's dead. Right. You have to
Speaker 1: throw so much power of that thing to overcome the
Speaker 1: weight of the battery, the mass of the battery. I'm
Speaker 1: kind of excited to see what happens there because it
Speaker 1: has to be an excess of a thousand horse power.
Speaker 1: It just it has to be that. But it's got
Speaker 1: to have theater. It has to it has to have theater.
Speaker 1: Like if I don't walk up to it, I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, this is this is kind of cool. And
Speaker 1: if they hit the start a button and there's no
Speaker 1: sound and I will listen, I'm all for artificial rumbling.
Speaker 1: I don't care what you do, but make me go, oh,
Speaker 1: that's okay. Let me get something like a scalded banshee. Yeah,
Speaker 1: give me, give me something, Give me something that makes
Speaker 1: me understand, Like I want to get into that and
Speaker 1: I want to drive it, and I want to have
Speaker 1: that theater and I want the hairs on the back
Speaker 1: of my neck to stand out right. That's I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know how you do that with a NV
Speaker 1: because I've never experienced one that does that yet. I
Speaker 1: just just have it, I know, right, I mean they
Speaker 1: go really quick and straight line like Tesla plaid, kind
Speaker 1: of amazing. But then it tapers off and it doesn't
Speaker 1: make a noise, and you know, I don't know they
Speaker 1: got to do it otherwise. Yeah, you know, are these
Speaker 1: hellcat bates the last of the crazy ass? I think so.
Speaker 1: I think that, you know, Dodge, they played it right,
Speaker 1: and they played it right due to lack of funds.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, that's sactly GM and four and had all
Speaker 1: the money. Dodge was like, we really don't have any money,
Speaker 1: but we've got this monster motor and it's been their
Speaker 1: game since the nineteen sixties, right, I know. And they
Speaker 1: have this old um basically Mercedes E class chassis that
Speaker 1: they inherited from Diameward Chrysler that goes back to ninety six,
Speaker 1: and they just keep evolving and working. Work sometimes like
Speaker 1: a lack of resources is the surest way to get
Speaker 1: something cool or innovative, like Mini for example, they had
Speaker 1: like no money when they started out. Yeah, but the
Speaker 1: marketing was incredible because they had to They had restrictions
Speaker 1: and they had to be smart about it. And I
Speaker 1: think you're sort of seeing the same thing there, like,
Speaker 1: you know, what do we got, guys. We've got this big,
Speaker 1: stupid gas guzzling VA. We've got this old expensive rickety
Speaker 1: Mercedes chassis. Let's just make it nuts. And they've been ridiculous. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and let's call m Musco because he's gonna love it's back.
Speaker 1: And everyone does. Everyone does, And I mean we've got
Speaker 1: a serious healthcare problem in Detroit. We do. They're everywhere,
Speaker 1: and they're a loud as fuck and they're they're incredible.
Speaker 1: But you can I can hear them from my house.
Speaker 1: You hear them ripping down telegraph. It's it's such a
Speaker 1: distinct sound. But do you do you remember in the
Speaker 1: eighties when the fox Bodies were out, Yeah, five LX
Speaker 1: Fox Body GT. You could hear you could hear a
Speaker 1: five leader Mustang from seven eight blocks away, and you
Speaker 1: knew exactly what you're like us Mustang. I know exactly
Speaker 1: what it was exactly. It just had that sonic signature
Speaker 1: that like you could tell what an air called Porsche
Speaker 1: sound right, that's right, you know. And but when that
Speaker 1: like you hear a hell caap like rip into the
Speaker 1: higher revs. It is it's percussive and it's crazy and
Speaker 1: it sounds like somebody just smashing through a wall. I'll
Speaker 1: do it. It It sounds like war. And I mean that's
Speaker 1: the most addictive, like that the super Charge, Like I
Speaker 1: give them credit, man, I really do because they they
Speaker 1: just capitalized on it and they said, you know what,
Speaker 1: bigger bad, It's like the bionic car, right, bigger bad
Speaker 1: and stronger, faster or whatever that slogan was back in
Speaker 1: the day. And they've they've they've they've recaptured what the
Speaker 1: muscle car was, right, Mustang and Camaro morphed into straight
Speaker 1: sports cars like cars M three nine eleven fighters, you know,
Speaker 1: Zo one Camaro unbelievable track car punch is so funny
Speaker 1: above its way, it's it is a true racing car. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not a drag car. It's like it can do
Speaker 1: everything right where the where they I think that the
Speaker 1: Dodge cars are just straight out like nope, straight line,
Speaker 1: We're good. Yeah, we're gonna be done here. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: and I mean you do they turn? Sure? I mean
Speaker 1: I I've raced them like I race them in one
Speaker 1: Lap of America and then many many times and like
Speaker 1: you know, you got forty five pounds, right, So at
Speaker 1: some point physics just throws the middle finger up at
Speaker 1: you and goes, yeah, that ain't happen, Like good effort,
Speaker 1: that right, right, We're gonna try, but probably not gonna work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's that's okay, because again, don't waste your time
Speaker 1: putting dive planes on that Challenger. No absolutely, not, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: just just just just go straight. It's so straight, do burnouts,
Speaker 1: do whatever you want, like, you know, it is amazing,
Speaker 1: But that's a muscle car to me, right, And there's
Speaker 1: still still a market for It's still a huge appetite
Speaker 1: for it. And the amazing thing is muscle cars were
Speaker 1: such white guy stuff for so long, like the whitest
Speaker 1: white guy stuff. Oh yeah, and now it's so multicultural.
Speaker 1: It's great. It's the great equalizer. And I've always said
Speaker 1: the automobile is the greatest equalizer in the world. I mean,
Speaker 1: I see it on Woodward, I see it on six
Speaker 1: ninety six. I see guys out in Challengers and Chargers,
Speaker 1: Hellcats and demons, just ripping it up, having the time
Speaker 1: of their lives. And that's really what it's about. And
Speaker 1: you know, like, if you were to think about what
Speaker 1: a midsize speaking of this evolution idea, like if you
Speaker 1: think about what a midsize sedan is, right in the sixties,
Speaker 1: what was a mid size sedan. It was two door, small,
Speaker 1: V eight or V six, rear wheel drive. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean like my charge, my sixty eight Charger was an
Speaker 1: intermediate that was a mid size, right, So what's a
Speaker 1: midsize car? Now midsize car is drive hybrid, right, right,
Speaker 1: but we still call it like, oh, that's a mid
Speaker 1: size family car. Right, But it's changed so much, changed
Speaker 1: with the times. Corvette's another great example, Like if you
Speaker 1: think about the first you know, C one was at
Speaker 1: blue flame six, right, yep, very very h kind of
Speaker 1: modest performance car, more like a Thunderbird's right, that's right.
Speaker 1: And now look at like now it's a McLaren theater,
Speaker 1: but it's still Corvette. Yeah, well it's it's the evolutionary
Speaker 1: process is a wonderful thing. And I think people they
Speaker 1: get hung up on generally one specific model that was
Speaker 1: relevant at the time it came out to the time
Speaker 1: that they were at in their life. Right, it made
Speaker 1: an impression upon them in one circumstance of whatever reason.
Speaker 1: It just kind of red stamped in their head like
Speaker 1: this is the only one that is good and whatever
Speaker 1: the case is. Um, But evolution is a wonderful thing.
Speaker 1: When you see how these manufacturers have evolved these cars.
Speaker 1: It's okay that a definition changes, It's Okay, that technology advances,
Speaker 1: and it's okay. If you don't like it, that's yeah,
Speaker 1: that's fine, but you do have to accept it, right.
Speaker 1: Anybody who doesn't accept it basically is just lying to themselves, right,
Speaker 1: They're just like, how many vehicles can get away with
Speaker 1: not changing? I can only think of one, the Jeep.
Speaker 1: Everything else, right, I mean nine to eleven has to change.
Speaker 1: Nine to eleven, that's right. Cool. You know, the accord
Speaker 1: has had to change dramatically, hybridization and all that. You know,
Speaker 1: everything has to keep evolving or else it just it
Speaker 1: falls off the face of the the earth. Yeah. Well, this
Speaker 1: is amazing Mike. As always, you always deliver. This is
Speaker 1: fucking awesome. Thanks for the end of the time. So
Speaker 1: do I oh, anytime you want to wrap back, Carson,
Speaker 1: I'm all it. I love it. Thanks for listening to
Speaker 1: that conversation with Mike Musto. You can find more of
Speaker 1: Mike on the Hemmings hot Rod Barbecue podcast, which includes
Speaker 1: a recent interview with me. I'm Eddie Alterman.