zoomvroom Tech Talk

Battery Electric Vehicles: The Cars of The Future

Everybody is saying that BEV’s are the Cars of the Future. Are they? Well, let’s see! They produce zero emissions and cost less to run per mile than a non-electric car. There is a small infrastructure currently in place to support re-charging. Electricity can come from renewable resources. These cars provide immediate torque and high redlines.

What cars run on electric power?  Starting with the luxury auto-makers; Mercedes-Benz is soon going to do an electric version of its SLS AMG, which would be called the SLS AMG E- Drive. There is a small Californian car maker, Tesla, who makes an electric roadster with quick acceleration, lots of torque (up to 70 mph), and a top speed of 125 mph, all for $109,000.  I just went to a talk about a Tesla!  The other luxury car maker that is going to have an upcoming Electric car is Audi. The new Audi will use the R8 supercar’s components to have an electric version called the E-Tron.  Other automakers that have Electric cars are: Chevrolet, Ford, Nissan, Fisker, Mitsubishi and ZAP.  There is also the Chevrolet Volt, which is the 2011 Motor Trend Car of The Year.  One of the comments from the editors of Motor Trend is “Moonshot, game changer! This car is truly one of a kind.”  It’s direct competitors are the: Ford Focus Electric and the Nissan Leaf.  The Ford Focus Electric is due to come into your local Ford dealer sometime this summer.  The Nissan Leaf is distinctively styled and starts at $33,500 before a Federal Tax Break comes in and takes $7500 of the sticker price.  Toyota will soon offer an electric RAV-4 that is a result of a small merger with Tesla.  There is also the Prius Plug-In, which will be available for a lease next year.  The one vehicle that every American needs is the SmartFor2 E-Drive, which is already on our shores.  Oh! I almost forgot! I am sure that you have seen those teeny little cars driving around your town. In my town, I see a few driving around the downtown part of the city. They are called ZAP cars. They are made by the same company that makes the ZAPPY scooters!  

Problems with electric cars include a long recharging time. The cars have a small range and batteries are expensive. Electricity production in most of the U.S. requires coal, which is a very unclean burning substance.  In the 1990’s GM made 800 EV1 electric cars, which were leased out to Californians and Arizona people alike.

zoomvroom Tech Talk, The History of Autos

Audi Quattro: A Rally Legend and Awesome Concept!

The Audi Quattro was first shown in concept form at the 1980 Geneva Auto Show.  It wowed everybody that saw it, and Audi decided to make it into a production car.  It was meant to compete in many different rally classes such as WRC (World Rally Championships). 

The Quattro was the first of the rally cars to take advantage of the recently changed rules that allowed four-wheel drive.  It then went on to win every rally competition for the next two years.  But, the competition was catching up: Lancia’s Stratos and Ford’s Cosworth-powered Escort were also winning a lot. 

The Quattro had independent front and rear suspension that helped it perform in some of the most challenging climates and terrains on Earth.  It had a five-speed manual transmission with three, yes T-H-R-E-E locking differentials: front, center and rear.  It had a 2.2 liter in-line five cylinder engine that produced up to 510 horsepower in the turbocharged rally versions.  Street cars had to do with just 306 horsepower.  Of course, the Quattro was very light and quick.  It tipped the scales at around 3265 pounds.  That is about 75 pounds lighter than a Chevy Corvette Z06 Carbon Edition! 

The Quattro did not have ABS, but to make up for it, it had very large disc brakes.  Many Quattro’s had air conditioning and 90% of them had leather upholstery.  The Quattro’s that were imported to Canada mostly had sunroofs. 

The racing versions had bodies made out of Carbon-Fiber and Kevlar.  The racing versions’ wheelbase was shortened by 12.6 inches.  In honor of the 30th anniversary of the original Quattro concept, at the 2010 Geneva Auto Show, Audi unveiled the Quattro concept.  The new Quattro concept follows the same idea as the original Quattro: five cylinder engine, Quattro all-wheel drive and copious amounts of Carbon-Fiber.  Dr. Ferdinand K. Piech said “the Quattro concept will definitely become a road car.  It will be a low volume car that will compete with the Porsche 911 Turbo.  Road & Track has already tested the concept against the original.  You can look forward to (hopefully) seeing the new Quattro on the road around 2013-ish. 

My uncle had a 1984 or 1985 Quattro that he had for about 18 years until 8 years ago (he then got a Honda Element).  He was in good company.  Some of the most notable people that have raced the original Quattro are: Walter Rorhl and Michele Mouton.  They both won the Pikes Peak Hill Climb in Utah. 

Attached is the link to Audi of America’s website with the Quattro concept.

http://www.audiusa.com/us/brand/en/exp/progress/Concept_Vehicles/audi_quattro_concept.html

zoomvroom Tech Talk, The auto dictionary. Look it up here!

Definition day!

People often wonder what parts of a car are and what is its purpose.  My job is demystify car words for you.  Today I am covering carburetors.

The carburetor is basically a big blender that mixes fuel and air together before it is pushed into the cylinders.  A carburetor barrel is like a tube or pipe that holds the air inside before the fuel is mixed with it.  The air is in the “barrel”, while the gasoline is in a small container nearby.  A certain amount of fuel is pushed into the “barrel” and the mixture is mixed and pushed out and into the cylinder. The carburetor comes in different sizes: one barrel, two barrel, four barrel and even 10 barrel! The early diesel engines could not have a carburetor, the mixture would “flood” the engine. The early planes had huge 16 barrel carburetors! Some of the best-known carburetor makers are: Holley, Solex-Mikuni, Weber and Edelbrock. Many cars with fuel injection can easily be switched to carbureted power.

zoomvroom Tech Talk, The auto dictionary. Look it up here!, Uncategorized

Alternative Fuels

Before I launch into this, I just wanted to tell you that this is just #1 of a series.  Today’s entry is about Gasoline and Oil.

What is gasoline?

The definition of oil is: any liquid substance at room temperature that is hydrophobic and has high carbon and hydrogen content. Oil can be petroleum based, vegetable based, animal oil based, or essential oil based.  What is oil? Natural Gas and oil make Petroleum, which means “Rock oil” in Latin.  Oil is made up of decaying fossilized sea creatures.  Oil is found as a solid, liquid or gas.  Oil is usually found as a liquid.  When liquid oil is sticky and black it is called crude oil.  When it is found as a clear and volatile liquid, it is called condensate.  When solid, it is called asphalt and when it is semisolid it is called tar.

The three main types of hydrocarbons (hydrocarbons are little water particles that keep oil liquid-ish) are: Alkanes, Aromatics, and Napthenes.  Saudi “heavy crude” oil has more Napthenes in it than in many other crude oils.  Saudi “heavy crude” makes up the bulk of the U.S.’s oil. 

Where do hydrocarbons occur?  Methane is a natural gas that is a simple hydrocarbon that develops bacteria.  It comes mostly from farms, but there are vast quantities of it under the ocean.  Flower and plant smells are produced by hydrocarbons as well.  Perfume makers steam and crush plants to get the essential oils out of the plant.  Human bodies produce hydrocarbons in the form of cholesterol.  Other hydrocarbons in the body are in steroid form of Progesterone & Testosterone.  The hydrocarbons in crude oil have chain or ring shapes.  In 2001, astronomers observed near a dying star some ring shaped oil molecules.

The history of ancient oil:

The first real use of ancient oil was “Bitumen”, or tar.  Bitumen was used to waterproof or glue.  It was the downfall of the burning of Carthage, because all Hannibal’s troops had to do was set fire to 1 house and up went the city. The Persians used a thinner form of Bitumen called “Naft” to fire flaming missiles into battle.  Because it was such a deadly weapon in battle, the Byzantine navy used Naft mixed with sulfur and quicklime, it was called Greek fire. In the Crusades, Jews dumped burning oil onto invading crusaders.  This idea was used back in Europe, where it was not used very often because oil was very expensive. Around the turn of the Common Era, the Chinese invented the first oil drill in Sichuan by using bamboo tipped with iron, they used these drills to look for salt, and when they drilled very deep they found Brine, (salty water) oil and natural gas, no one knows what they did with the oil.

Oil for Light. 70,000 years ago prehistoric people discovered animal oil for use as lamps. The ancient Egyptians used clay bowls that held wicks. The ancient Greeks improved the lamp design by adding a lid to the bowls to protect themselves from burning and sputtering oil.  The 1780’s saw a new design for lamps, which was a long chimney and a circular wick. Also, in the 18th century, America was the first country to realize the importance of whale blubber as good oil for lamps.  Soon the coast of New England was the biggest whaling industry in the world and blubber gave a bright, clean light. Demand for blubber was high.  Kerosene was developed in 1846 by a chemist. Kerosene is highly flammable, and is used for camping stoves and lamps.

The Dawn of the Modern oil age:

For 1000 years the Middle East had distilled oil for Kerosene. In 1853, a Polish Chemist figured out how to make Kerosene on an industrial scale.  In 1856 he set up the world’s first crude oil refinery in Poland. Up to this point people had been using whale oil. Whale oil was very expensive. Kerosene quickly replaced whale oil and everyone wanted Kerosene, especially the U.S. The first oil well was drilled in Azerbaijan in 1847. Many oil wells were sunk in the late 1800’s. In the 1860’s, Azerbaijan was responsible for 90% of the world’s oil and the name for it was the Black City.  In 1930 there were 26.7 million cars on the road in the U.S., now there are 62 million in the U.S.  There was so much money to be made in oil that people called Wildcatters started to drill oil wherever there was a sign of it.  Most went broke, but a lucky few got gushers and got rich.  Texas, Oklahoma and California each got very rich because of copious amounts of oil.  Also during this time, oil was used to make other products like plastic or nylons and Tupperware.

The first oil well in the Americas was discovered in Ontario, Canada. Within a few years, that area of Ontario was covered with derricks (frames for supporting drilling equipment).

The first oil well in the U.S. was in Titusville, Pennsylvania. Water wells there were often contaminated with oil. In 1901, some workers in Spindletop, Texas discovered the first Gusher. A gusher is oil forced up through a drilling hole by its own pressure.  Boomtowns. As oil wells were quickly dug, the workers for the wells needed places to stay. So they started towns. They were tough places built almost overnight. Some were quite literally “boom towns” because of the horrible storage of nitroglycerin often meant that towns could be blown up in a matter of minutes.

The big need for oil started with the big, gas-guzzlers of the 50’s and 60’s.  In the 1970’s, the result was a huge oil crisis.  Now there is even less than before and America keeps on chugging out more and even more gas-guzzlers. America’s dependence on foreign oil has been going on since the 1950’s. In the 1940’s FDR created alliances in the Middle East for oil. There has been a big demand for oil since the 1950’s onward. For a very long time, America and the world thought there was a never ending supply of oil. The 1970’s brought a big oil crisis, like when OPEC drilled less oil, and we started wars based on need of oil.  For example, Operation Desert Storm in the 1990’s.  When the Iraqi’s were retreating they set fire to the oil wells in Kuwait and made the U.S. help Kuwait try and put out the fires, to not make Kuwait’s economy dissolve and make Kuwait environmentally disastrous.  The fires burned for 7 months.

World opinion about U.S oil consumption is bad and many countries think that our environmental policies are going down the drain.  The world is using non-renewable resources.  The huge cost to the environment, the use of energy to move oil around is a problem.  The Exxon Valdeez incident on March 23, 1989 shows that things can be horribly built and take their toll on the environment.

Gasoline engine pictures

V8 engine from a Bentley

4.6L 3-valve SOHC V8 installed in a 2006 Ford Mustang GT

 GM 2.2L 16 valve 4 cylinder DOHC engine from a 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt SS

zoomvroom Tech Talk, The History of Autos, Uncategorized

Germany’s rise from the ashes of WWII

In the postwar years in the continent of Europe, much time was spent rebuilding all that had been destroyed.  London was a shell, France was recovering from bombing and German occupation, and Germany was just a bombed out wreck – a shell of what it used to be.  In Germany, however, things were different because their country was divided in half (kind of like the American Civil War).  The Russians were in charge of rebuilding East Berlin, and the Germans were in charge of West Berlin (with Western help).

Many automakers survived WWII by making vehicles for the military.  Mercedes-Benz was no exception.  They also provided all the cars for the government and military, except for the Gestapo.  To prove that they were rising from the ashes and smoke of WWII, and to show off Germany’s rising economy, they created the 300SL (a collector’s item nowadays).  It was a sleek, gull winged, curvy race car for the road.  It was (and is) very cool.

The SL was originally built to compete in GT3 racing class.  A GT means Grand Touring and the car was designed to be fast and comfortable when touring.  It’s relatively underpowered carbureted engine made 115 horsepower.   That is as much power as a 2011 VW Jetta with 4 cylinders.  That is not a lot of power.  The 300 SL had a dirty secret.  It had a very light tubed chassis that was made out of aluminum and tin.  It only weighed 1600 pounds before racing accessories, and that is really light.  Those 2-seater Smart Cars that are in production today weigh 1875 pounds.   With the roll cage, fluids, and driver, the 300SL racing car weighed only approximately 2000 pounds.  Basically, the 300SL went fast, because it was light.

It won a lot of races.  One of its most famous wins was the Carrera Panamericana.  It was a summer rally through Mexico that ended in 1957, when a driver flew off the road and killed himself. 

Mercedes-Benz decided to make it into a road car.  “SL” stood for “Sport Leicht” (Sport Light).  It was and is best known for being the first ever four-stroke engine car to have fuel injection.  It also kept its distinctive gull wing doors.  Instead of having normal doors, the doors went up and down, instead of in and out.  It came with a four-speed manual and a 3.0 liter in-line six (look at Geeky Speak post for translation).  It was a beauty.  It is considered one of the coolest classic cars of all time (though I wouldn’t say no to a 1970 Lamborghini Countach!  It is so low it could drive under our kitchen table!!).

More than 80% of the 1,400 300SL’s produced between 1955 and 1957 were sold in the U.S.  The 300SL changed the world’s image of Mercedes-Benz from building solid and luxurious cars, to making fast, sporty cars.  The SL was the fastest car of its era.  The auto magazines said it could go 161 mph. 

The German’s have the reputation of being ahead of the auto game, and the SL was no exception.  It was the first road going car that came with fuel injection.  It came fitted with a Bosch mechanical Gasoline direct injection (GDI) system.  The 300SL road car had almost double the power of the race car (190 horsepower).  The oil amount was geared towards racing, it had to have 10 liters of oil on it at all times or it would not function properly.  One of the key roles of helping the SL go so fast was that it had very good aerodynamics. 

Unlike many of the cars of the 50’s, the SL had very good steering and was fun to drive.  One of the reasons being that it had four-wheel independent suspension.  One had to be careful driving it because of the rear swing axle.  It could be very dangerous in the wet and on rough roads. 

It is now one of the most collectible cars in MBZ history because of its technological firsts, gull wing doors and good looks.  Prices have reached U.S. $700,000 for its Gull Wing models.  Sports Car International (a publication) ranked the 300SL the number five sports car of all time.

If you would like to see pictures, go onto the website for the SL, then here it is.  It is very cool: http://www.mercedesbenz300sl.com

One interesting fact is that Mercedes-Benz still supplies parts for every car that they have made. 

Now for its successor: the SLS AMG.  The SLS AMG is the first car built from the ground up by Mercedes Benz’ performance division, AMG.  The SLS is a luxury grand touring super car developed to replace the MBZ SLR McLaren.  The SLS is also the spiritual successor to the 300SL.  It was unveiled in 2009. 

Fun Facts: the SLS is featured as the cover car for the PlayStation 3 racing game “Gran Turismo 5”, and was the safety car for the 2010 Formula One season. 

The engineers decided against auto-closing systems for the doors as they would have added 90 pounds to the car.  Currently, it is made in four different configurations.  The first was the Desert Gold Edition that debuted at the 2009 Dubai Auto Show.  Next was a GT3 racing version.  For the 2011-2013 model years, there will be a roadster version with normal doors and a soft top.  For the eco-minded there will be an electric version called E-Cell that will most likely be a coupe.  Hmmm, could this be a competitor to the Nissan Leaf? Uh, no! Coming up, will be an AMG Black Series version with as much as 661 pounds reduced. 

Coming up soon: fuel injection, four stroke.  That will help decode the article.

zoomvroom Tech Talk, The auto dictionary. Look it up here!, Uncategorized

Geeky Speak

The purpose of this entry is to help in decoding the auto-speak language that many gearheads use (and I used in my previous post).  If my previous post made you want to go outside and bang your head against a brick wall, then, hopefully this post will chill you out!  My mom says that if she and my sister can understand my posts, then everyone should be able to.  I need to make my posts readable to her and my sister.  I shall refrain from any comments… 

Cylinders

Let’s get started with cylinders and how they work.  Cylinders are similar to holes in the engine block.  Except, they are not exactly like that.  Imagine a bottle inside the engine block.  That bottle (also known as a cylinder) has a fist inside of it that goes up and down (that would be called a piston).  Sitting inside the bottle is a mixture of air and fuel. The piston comes up with a lot of momentum and creates an explosion inside the cylinder.  The cylinder really just holds the piston from going too far up and also keeps the air/ fuel mixture inside it to create the explosion. Cylinders keep the air/fuel mixture contained so the pistons can move the mixture out to the exhaust system and keep your vehicle moving.

More cylinders mean more power and usually worse fuel economy.  A V6 is a six cylinder engine that has all of it’s cylinders in a “V” shape.  You can only have an even amount of cylinders to have a “V” shape of the cylinders.  If you have an odd number of cylinders, say 5, then you must have them in an in-line shape. The benefit of a V shape is that you get more power and torque (to be explained another time!), and usually better fuel economy.

CC

CC stands for cubic centimeters.  You can ask “why not cubic inches?”  Well, you can use cubic inches or litres.  You will be left behind because all the big auto media brands use CC’s.  You use any of those three to measure how much (otherwise known as volume) air and fuel can go through the engine in one complete cycle.  That means that they measure how much air and fuel can go into the cylinders in one complete cycle.    Another word for that is engine displacement. 

I always thought that I would have to drag out Algebra 1 sometime or another.  According to my Algebra 1 book “Volume is a measure of how much space is occupied by a solid figure.  Volume is measured in cubic units.  One such unit is the cubic centimeter.  It is the amount of space occupied by a cube whose length, width, and height are each 1 centimeter.”  That brings up some unpleasant memories for some, but not for me.  I like Algebra 1.

Turbochargers

A turbocharger is an add-on power booster that can be bolted onto an engine.  The Turbocharger acts as a small air compressor that compresses the air that goes into the engine.  That means that more air can be added to the engine, it also means that more fuel can go into the cylinder.  That means that the driver is getting more power per explosion inside the cylinder.  The turbo needs a turbine (a turbine is a fan that spins air around inside it until it is compressed) to have all the air pass into the engine.  The turbine spins at 150,000 RPM, about ten times faster than a normal engine.  There is also a waste gate in the exhaust system.  The waste gate lets out all the air that wasn’t compressed.  A turbo can bring the same or better fuel economy to the same engine without the turbo.

Cool turbo trivia: Diesel engines all have turbochargers.  Did you know that a turbine compresses the air in it for just ½ a second and before sending it off to the cylinders?  Did you know that many Formula 1 race teams use two turbochargers on smaller engines to get better fuel economy and more horsepower?  The proof is that McLaren’s Formula 1 team cars get 20 MPG and 1500 horsepower.  That is amazing because a Porsche 911 Turbo street car (I call them big butts!!), only gets 18 MPG. 

I hope that your understanding of the above will elevate you to higher heights of understanding.

zoomvroom Car Culture, Tech Talk, The auto dictionary. Look it up here!, Uncategorized

The American Musclecar; the history and techno-speak of a great style of cars.

Warning:  This post is very technical.  I promise in my next posts to decode the geeky stuff.                  

Just so you know, I am not misspelling musclecar and ponycar!  That is how they are spelled.  So no funny comments, please! 

 There are debates about which car was the first true musclecar.  This is like the chicken and the egg theory.  Which came first?  Some say the Chevrolet Corvette was the first, as it debuted in 1953.  Others say the Ford Thunderbird, which debuted in 1957.  Others say that it was the Pontiac GT0 which debuted in 1964.  I believe that it was the Ford Mustang, as the Corvette and T-Bird didn’t sell in large numbers.  The GT0 started going off the dealership lots when the 69’ Judge edition came out.  (Am I innocent, your honor??)  The Ford Mustang was the first of those to truly disappear off the dealership lots.  The proof is that more than 3 MILLION have been sold since 1965. 

 What makes a musclecar a musclecar?  Well, let me tell you.  A msuclecar is expected to have big, powerful engines and lots of power to do big, smoky burnouts without trying hard.  A musclecar is a two-door coupe with plenty of room under the hood for exhaust systems and a big, rumblin’ v8. 

 From my point of view, the musclecar started out with the Ford Mustang’s launch in 1965.  The Mustang appealed to an audience that was primarily young people in their late teens to their early twenties.  Mostly male.  They all had disposable income.  The Mustang originally came with your choice of a 200 cubic inch (4.0 liter) in-line six cylinder, a 289 cubic inch v8 (4.6 liter) with either a 3-speed automatic, a 3-speed manual (available with the 6 cylinder only) or a 4-speed manual (only with the v8) since the 3-speed automatic was available across the board.  There was also a convertible option and a “normal” coupe style or a fastback style. For three years, Ford’s hugely popular Mustang had no competition. 

 In 1969 the Pontiac Firebird and Chevrolet Camaro came out and were the first true competitors to the Mustang.  Also, the Dodge Challenger and Charger came out and were very popular, but not as popular as the Mustang.  Around the same time, Chevy came out with the Impala, which left the dealerships in herds.

In 1970, Ford introduced its first big engine in the Mustang; the legendary 302 cubic inch v8.  The funny thing was that the 302 was really 301 cubic inches and was therefore not the 5.0 liter v8 Ford promoted it as.  It was 4.9 liters.  Try saying “five point oh” and then say “four point nine”.  Which sounds more appealing?  Five point oh, right? 

Let’s drive over to the Chevrolet dealer and check out the Camaro.  The Camaro had the anemic Stovebelt in-line 6 as the base engine, but that dated back to the 1930’s, so Chevy put in the stuff of legends: the small-block v8.  That engine had become a popular drag/ hotrodding engine.  It also powered the Corvette, the awesome sports car.  The small-block engines had cubic inch sizes from 350 cubic inches (5.7 liters) to 427 cubic inches (7.0 liters).  Trivia moment! Did you know that the Stovebelt in-line 6 was called the Stovebelt after an engineer found out that the belts were the same belts that early gas stoves used? Probably not. 

Dodge, not to be outdone by the Chevy and Ford engines, had the 426 Hemi engine (7.0 liters).  All Chrysler/Dodge products with that engine came with a 4-speed manual transmission with an overdrive.  As on could expect, those cars were very FAST and won a lot of drag races.

Unfortunately, the 1970’s oil crisis meant that the EPA and the government tightened emissions standards and soon the previously anemic six cylinder engines were leaving the dealerships in large numbers.  After the oil crisis, the automakers never really recovered, the engines gave out less and less horsepower and torque.  Dodge’s Challenger became a front-wheel drive fuel efficient car that almost nobody bought.  Legendary car tuner, Carrol Shelby, slapped a turbocharger on it and soon it grew in sales numbers. 

In the 1990’s the automakers started getting back their old fame for their musclecars/ponycars and soon, with the exception of Dodge and Chrysler, started increasing their sales numbers, especially Ford with the Mustang.  The Mustang became so popular that Ford made what some, including me, think was a bad idea.  Ford put a 289 v8 back under the hood of the Mustang.  The 289 was less powerful than the 302. 

When the turn of the century happened, pretty much everything stayed the same until 2003.  In 2003 Chevy shocked fans by discontinuing the Camaro.  For seven years the Mustang had no competition whatsoever.  In 2005, the Mustang was redesigned and had a totally retro design that made it the most popular Ford ever.

In 2010, Chevy and Dodge brought back the Camaro, the Challenger and the Charger.  The Chrysler 300 was Chrysler’s answer to a musclecar and has been a good comeback car for Chrysler.  It had been around since 2005.  The Camaro was much more popular than the Challenger.  Dodge recently put a new 392 cubic inch v8 (6.4 liters) which is 0.3 liters larger than the 6.1 v8 that was previously the top engine in the Challenger.  Ford recently brought back the 5.0, except THIS time it is truly a 302 v8! 

 Today’s musclecar/ponycar offers speed, driving fun, all the modern comforts one expects in a modern car, powerful engines, and last of all, great looks.

Having sat in a Mustang GT500, I can report that it was an awesome experience.  You can tell how much power is in it by how big the speedometer is (175 mph) and the need for a boost gauge.  The interior is nice looking and comfortable, but a few too many hard plastics for my taste.  The exterior is smoking hot looking, especially in red with white stripes.  

The musclecar wars are just beginning with the Camaro Z28 coming out next year and all of the tuned Challengers.  They are also expected to look good in racecar form and win a lot.  The Challenger and Mustang both compete in NASCAR and win a lot. 

This is my brief history of the musclecar.  Plenty of books have been written about the history of the musclecar only.  The musclecar is one of my favorite styles of cars, and besides, I’m male.  I think I’ll just go out and buy a Mustang GT500.  That is, if my mom lets me…