Baby boomers drive muscle-car madness

By Terrence Petty

Associated Press

SEASIDE, Ore. – Gleaming in the sun on a street of this coastal town is the Holy Grail of many a young man in the 1960s and ’70s. It’s a muscle car.

A Plymouth Road Runner, to be precise. Vintage: 1969. Engine displacement: 383 cubic inches. Horsepower: 330. Color: scorch red. It belongs to baby boomer David Keith, and is the second love of his life – next to his wife.

Keith had wanted a Road Runner as a teenager, and bought this one used when he was in college, spotting it in the back lot of a Portland Chevrolet dealership in 1973.

“I had stars in my eyes for this car,” the 53-year-old says.

“Eight years ago I decided either to sell it or redo it. I chose to redo it. We did a ground-up restoration. This is the car of my youth, and I kept it.”

The Road Runner was among scores of vintage muscle cars lining the streets of Seaside for the annual Muscle Beach Cruz – Pontiac GTOs, Dodge Super Bees, Oldsmobile 442s, Chevy Chevelle Super Sports, Ford Torino GTs, Plymouth ’Cudas.

With their big, growling V-8 motors, stripped-down looks and often spartan interiors, these muscle cars were lusted after by young bucks in the Vietnam War era. As baby boomers head into their retirement years, many are lusting again after these relics of their youth.

There’s nothing subtle or refined about muscle cars. They were built to burn rubber, taking off from a standing start like Apollo rockets – dragsters for the street.

With the 1973-74 oil crisis, muscle cars gave way to vehicles that didn’t have to make as many trips to the gas pump and weren’t so expensive to insure. But in the past few years, they have become among the hottest commodities for collectors.

Baby boomers “are realizing they’re not going to live forever,” said Keith Martin, editor and publisher of Sports Car Market magazine and a commentator at the annual Barrett-Jackson car auction in Scottsdale, Ariz.

At the Barrett-Jackson auction, an extravaganza that sells all kinds of vehicles, muscle car sales rose from $6.7 million in 2003 to nearly $40 million this year, the auction house said.

Dana Mecum, another car auctioneer, began specializing in vintage muscle cars over the past few years. “A good friend of mine said ... why don’t you forget about chasing Duesenbergs and Ferraris? Chase what your customers are already buying,” said Mecum, president of Mecum Auctions in Marengo, Ill. At Mecum’s spring auction, sales have risen from $4 million in 2003 to $30 million this year.

There’s so much nostalgia that American car companies have begun making modern versions of these cars. They resemble their ancestors in looks and horsepower. But the new cars outshine the relics in sophistication, technology, cornering ability and gas mileage – which can be more than twice that of classic muscle cars.

Dodge has brought back the Charger and is introducing a new Challenger in 2008. A new Chevrolet Camaro will hit showroom floors in 2009.

Mileage in the single digits was the norm for muscle cars of the 1960s and 1970s, and their braking and cornering left much to be desired.

The Internet makes it easier than ever to find vintage muscle cars, said Tony Begley, owner of ClassicMuscleCars.com, which sells them via the Web.

“Now you may live in Fairbanks, Alaska, get on the Internet and find that dream car,” Begley said in a phone interview from Wauconda, Ill.

Scads of Web sites are devoted to muscle cars. Many go right for the enthusiast’s heart, showing, for example, videos of Shelby GTs, GTOs and Plymouth Superbirds scorching rubber.

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