A few of the popular automotive magazines have listed what they think are the definitive muscle cars. Motor Trend, Road & Track and Car and Driver all have their own lists of cars for specific years. If you wanted one of these cars today you would probably have to look for one that has been restored, or if you wanted to restore it yourself, the best place to look would probably be junkyard muscle cars for sale.
Motor Trend determined that these are the muscle cars from 1962-1967: Dodge Dart, Plymouth Fury, Ford Thunderbolt, Buick Skylark Gran Sport, Dodge Coronet, Plymouth Belvedere, Chevrolet Chevelle Malibu SS and Oldsmobile Cutlass 442.
The Dodge Dart was one of the muscle cars for sale manufactured by the Dodge division of Chrysler from 1960-1976 in North America. It was a full sized car in 1960 and 61, a mid size in 1962 and a compact car from 1963-1976. A funny story is the the project planners named the car the Dart but executives didn’t like the name and demanded an expensive research program which came up with the name Zipp. It was immediately rejected in favor of the first name, Dart. The Dart was also fortuitous as a new military aircraft nicknamed the Delta Dart was top in people’s minds during the Space Race in the 1960s. The Dodge Dart was a popular car and appeared in many movies and TV series. Some of the shows are Breakfast at tiffany’s, That ‘70s Show, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, CHiPs, The Beverly Hillbillies to name a few.
The Plymouth Fury was manufactured by the Plymouth division of the Chrysler Corporation from 1956 – 1978. It was a premium model to showcase the line. The 1958 Plymouth Fury is the car in the novel Christine based on a novel by Stephan King about a malevolent automobile. Several Fury cars were destroyed during the filming of the movie.
The Buick Gran Sport or GS was a high performance option on many Buick models. For a Buick with the reputation as a boring, old people car, the muscle car is the ‘typical’ muscle car. Some of these original models can be found at local Sioux City cars websites.