Maximummuscle

It’s fair to say that the muscle car craze born in the ’60s hit a crescendo at the end of the decade, with the final flurry of high-performance models hell-bent on outdoing one another both in showrooms and on the dragstrip, as detailed in last month’s C&SC. With a pretty specific brief to concentrate on – ‘1970, The Pinnacle of Muscle Car Power’ – authors Mark Fletcher and Richard Truesdell’s latest offering seeks to celebrate those last road warriors of a dying breed from a time before soaring insurance premiums, increasingly severe emissions regulations and the rising cost of fuel began to weaken the mixture as the decade progressed.

Maximum Muscle sets the scene very effectively with a look at the drag racing, Trans-am and Nascar-inspired machines that dominated the streets Stateside in 1968 and ’69, before rounding up the best of the best from the following year. All of the iconic names are covered, from Boss Mustangs and Camaro SSS to Superbirds and Chargers, along with a few of the less well-known models (in the UK, at least) from the likes of Oldsmobile, AMC and Buick. It’s all beautifully illustrated with recent but high-quality photography and eye-catching design, despite the challenges of completing the book during lockdown. GM

£32 Mark Fletcher and Richard Truesdell, Motorbooks. ISBN 9780760366783