It all started simply enough. Legend has it that in 1964, the late John Z. DeLorean, possibly bored from a long day dreaming up Pontiacs for middle-class families, looked around the yard in Detroit for something fun to drive home.

There was nothing.
In his frustration, he thought to himself, ”What if I were to put a really big engine in a Tempest? Would that be fun?”

The answer has been coming loud and clear ever since. DeLorean had dreamed up the Pontiac GTO, and just like that the muscle car was born. Originally outfitted with a 6.3-liter V8 engine, the GTO was allegedly a violation of GM policy dictating that smaller cars be limited to a 5.4-liter displacement. Soon enough, however, the law breaker became the law, and virtually every other automaker of the day trotted out small to mid-sized sedans and coupes with big-block engines rumbling under the hood.

Such a simple, brilliant idea – build an affordable, plain-Jane car with a rockin’ engine that goes really, really fast in a straight line – was never meant to last in its purest form. The affordability angle, and thus the essence of the first era of muscle cars, was soon twisted by automaker greed and the desire of buyers to move into more expensive variants of the GTO theme. As with any good idea, the muscle car took on a life of its own, flourished to include ponies such as Camaro and Mustang, then just as quickly died off as safety concerns, emissions regulations, and a looming gas shortage made owning one a decided luxury.

How ironic. After missing for maybe 20 years, the muscle is back, despite today’s safety and emissions laws, and skyrocketing gasoline prices, and with it a new edge as to the meaning. Most of today’s muscle cars are pointed at Baby Boomers, many of whom long to scratch the retro itch with a remake of that lust object of old. There are muscle cars for the common man, ones that mirror the idea of a plain-wrapper sleeper car, and extravagant horsepower kings designed to go fast – and to get attention doing it. These are the muscle cars of the 21st century – a taste of the 1960s with a modern day twist.

The question is to figure out which one is most like what a muscle car ought to be, today. To find out which type of muscle most clearly depicts the romance of today’s muscle car era and the spirit of yesteryear., we spent a long and glorious day traveling in fabulous machines from Chevy, Chrysler, and Ford along winding desert roads. For the Chevrolet SSR, Chrysler 300C SRT-8, and Ford Mustang GT – three wildly different variations on the muscle car theme but each hosting V8 engines and at least 300C horsepower – it wasn’t so much which one was better. Performance alone dictates that the best car of the bunch is clearly and laughably the Chrysler. The question was what kind of muscle each represented, and how each defined the meaning, forty years after DeLorean had that brilliant, romantic and industry-changing idea.