There is currently a campaign against V8 engines, which power American muscle automobiles. The movement of those who want to eliminate these performance cars has been cloaked in progress, but as I’m going to demonstrate, this isn’t exactly a novel or “progressive” trend. American automakers were involved in a horsepower war in the late 1960s. In those beautiful days, enthusiasts of all ages could afford to own something with a tonne of power and miles of style without having to spend a tonne of money. Legends like the Dodge Charger R/T, Plymouth ‘Cuda, and Chevelle SS were born out of it. Not even Buick and Mercury were left out of the action. These vintage muscle vehicles may now command amazing
The Clean Air Act of 1970 was the first blow to American muscle cars. It looked to be a step in the right direction because everyone wants to breathe clean air. Regardless of your thoughts on the act’s objectives, American muscle cars began to suffer from the government’s ensuing regulations on vehicle emissions. But even in the early 1970s, we had some fantastic performance vehicles. CAFE was the second, final blow to American muscle. The Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE Regulations, are a term that almost everyone is familiar with. Congress passed the CAFE law in response to the 1973 OPEC oil embargo, which established new fuel efficiency requirements for passenger cars and light trucks. The law required automakers to achieve average performance for almost all of their product ranges. The outcome
Many consumers quickly traded in their gas-guzzling V8s for more fuel-efficient cars when petrol prices skyrocketed due to Arab OPEC members’ ire over US support of Israel. But few average people have a positive impression of those malaise automobiles from the middle to end of the 1970s. They were nothing more than tools for transportation.
Compared to the cars of the 1960s, most cars produced after the early 1970s were unsightly. There are several explanations for this, but government intervention was arguably the most significant shift. For instance, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) draughted new regulations requiring all cars from model year 1973 forward to feature front and rear bumpers capable of withstanding a collision at 5 mph without damaging any important car components, in response to intense lobbying from the insurance industry. Though the outcome was unattractive, the purpose was good. Automakers have faced hundreds, if not thousands, additional safety standards in the last few decades, which partly explains why so many new automobiles on the road now look
Similar to the early 1970s, a confluence of government rules designed to reduce vehicle emissions, increase fuel economy, and improve occupant safety pose a threat to the enjoyment. Though the government may have noble intentions, the eventual outcome may not only weaken American power once more, but it may also have some dire unforeseen effects that we will all have to deal with. Government regulations are getting stricter, which means the V8 engine might be practically eliminated very soon. According to secret information, Dodge is getting ready to drop the Hemi V8 when the new Challenger and Charger models are unveiled in 2023. Ford dropping the Coyote V8 in the near future and GM starting to move away from the engine would not surprise me.
Similar to previous years, turbocharging is promoted as a substitute for changing cylinders. That is absurd. I’ve had several cars with turbochargers, so I know that they have their share of problems and definitely don’t have the same power as two combustion chambers. To help increase power, some hybrid powertrains may be adopted; however, manufacturing batteries on a larger scale will provide its own unique set of difficulties. Remember that once American muscle vehicles were phased out in the early 1970s, it took the auto industry more than 40 years to produce truly high-performance, reasonably priced muscle cars once more. And now we are about to witness their extinction again. However, automakers, automobile websites, and other sources inform us that high-performance electric vehicles
The truth is that, in the last ten years alone, numerous design advancements have increased the efficiency of internal combustion engines. We could certainly find more ways to advance technology, but it appears that we are only interested in the latest bright object, which is electric vehicles. The problem is, even if EVs aren’t all that new, politicians, public relations firms, the mainstream and automotive media, and others are always saying that EVs are the way of the future for the car industry. If so, why have EV sales in the US for the past ten years remained a tiny portion of total vehicle sales? I’ve been in the business long enough and am old enough to recall an incident from ten years ago when the discussion was oddly nearly identical to.
Some believe the answer is clear-cut: if the market, or people, don’t select the “right” car technology, then they have to be made to purchase it. Government rules play a role in facilitating this. This is evident in the safety technology we drive, which are packed with ever-more-advanced systems meant to keep us safe. In the end, this has led to a 20-year spike in car prices and, astonishingly, a rise in traffic fatalities in recent years. Put another way, it seems that technologies don’t actually protect us, and that they also come at a high cost. There’s no reason to think that the drive to “clean up” automobile emissions won’t result in skyrocketing auto costs.
It’s not exactly new to think that giving up V8 engines and muscle automobiles will save civilisation from some impending global disaster. It’s been carried out before. There was a lot of panic in the late 1960s and early 1970s regarding car emissions bringing in a new ice age. The terror of today is nearly same, with the exception that it is concentrated on the marginally rising global temperatures. Oddly, coastal real estate is more costly than ever in many places of the world, despite the alleged threat of sharply rising sea levels. Wouldn’t the opposite be true if your muscle automobile was actually melting the northern ice cap (which, incidentally, is increasing at a record rate in Antarctica)?
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