BLACK GHOST

If you were young, in love with cars, dreaming of speed and with a little money to spare as the 1960s drew to a close in the USA, your fantasy on wheels was a muscle car. But maybe your tastebuds had been piqued after Lee Iacocca of Ford spotted a niche in the market for something homegrown to take on the European sports cars from the likes of MG, Jaguar, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz and Alfa Romeo, and filled it with the Mustang. It was an instant hit when it was launched in 1964, and led to the ‘pony car’ movement when rival manufacturers responded – but pony cars were nothing like as powerful as muscle cars to begin with.

Muscle cars had their origins in the 1949 Oldsmobile Rocket 88, immortalised by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats, then (probably to a greater degree) by rock’n’roll pioneer Bill Haley. By the late 1960s, they were routinely powered by big-block V8s with 350bhp and more, the perfect