Muscle Car Special Editions

“Get one before one gets you!”

Motion Performance’s catchy sales pitch for builder
Joel Rosen’s Phase III Specialty Muscle Cars sums up the
escalating performance scene in the late 1960s. Special
edition muscle cars were essential to keep pace. Joel and
other independent car builders (Carroll Shelby, George
Hurst, Dick Harrell, Mr. Norm, Jim Wangers, etc.) did what
the factories couldn’t do: take the muscle car and turn it
into a tire-burning monster.

Although the Pontiac GTO established the muscle car
category in 1964, a host of corporate safety restrictions
restrained factories from offering turn-key race cars off
the showroom floor. Independent car builders enhanced
appearance and amplified performance in an attempt to
do what the manufacturers wouldn’t. Motion Performance
issued a written guarantee: Phase III cars would run the
quarter mile in 11.5 seconds at 120 mph!

Some of the most iconic nameplates in automotive
history were applied in this era with names that included
Cheetah, Black Panther, Royal Bobcat, Super Hugger,
Manta Ray, Super Snake, Deuce, Fast Track, and The
Machine. How did manufacturers stealthily promote these
special edition muscle cars as “halo cars” while pretending
not to endorse them? What happened to these innovators
when factories assimilated their ideas? It’s all covered
inside.

Muscle car historian Duncan Brown takes us through
these special edition muscle cars, their creators, and the
behind-the-scenes forces that shaped these wild beasts
into legends that left a lasting legacy.

• Special edition muscle cars are very valuable and were
the fastest cars of their era
• This book gathers all of the best special edition muscle
cars from each manufacturer and places them into a
single publication
• Never before seen and very rarely heard of special edition
muscle cars are unveiled in this book

About the Author

Duncan’s history of muscle cars takes us back to a time
of excitement. Muscle cars are a jolt of lightning: a daring
statement from an optimistic time. Chronicling these cars
uncovers the people who sparked the movement and
brings us back to that era. Muscle Car Special Editions
is Duncan’s second book published by CarTech. His firs book was Lost Muscle Car Dealerships.