**VIDEO** Muscle Cars Take Over Times Square

Check out these guys burning rubber in their '68 Camaro and '70 Nova 350 in Times Square, New York while the cops were switching shifts.

Great video guys.






Classic Muscle Cars

GM's muscle car won't be 'bawn in the USA'

The new Chevrolet Camaro will be assembled not in America - home of the muscle cars - but at a place called Oshawa, east of Toronto.

The move came after the Canadian Auto Workers' Union agreed to 2500 early retirements to reduce costs at the plant to win the rights to assemble the new car.

Building the Camaro in Canada will save around 2700 jobs. The plant was scheduled to close in 2008 but will now stay open and the decision will save about 2700 jobs.

GM said it planned to revive the muscle car in 2008 with models reaching showroom floors in 2009. The previous Camaro series stopped production in 2002.

The automaker is hoping the car will attract younger buyers and appeal to its traditional customers who crave performance, looks and speed.

Sapa-AP

Motoring - GM's muscle car won't be 'bawn in the USA'

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Since when is Camaro a muscle car?

The mainstream media, print and electronic, have been overwrought this week with news of the Camaro's resurrection at Oshawa.

But almost without exception, they have been hailing it as the rebirth of the "muscle car." Since when is a Camaro a muscle car?

I was there for the birth of both genres and there was no confusion back then as to what was what. The muscle car was born in 1964 in the form of the original Pontiac GTO. Almost concurrently the Mustang was born, and with it the "pony car" genre.

The Camaro is a charter member of that latter club, which also came to include such vehicles as the Plymouth Barracuda, Pontiac Firebird, Mercury Cougar, Dodge Challenger and AMC Javelin. They were all "compact" cars by that era's standards, with a sporting bent that tilted more toward all-round performance, including handling, than to sheer brute force. They all offered V8 engines, but they were primarily small-blocks, and they earned their performance creds on the road-racing tracks of the day.

Muscle cars were bigger — mid-size cars — with big-block engines, typically in the range of 400 cubic inches (6.6 litres) and up. In addition to the GTO, they included such examples as the Chevelle SS, Dodge Super Bee, Plymouth Roadrunner and many more.

Their raison d'être was the drag strip, not the road course, or even the winding sideroad. They were torque-rich, straight-line missiles, waiting to be launched.

I will admit that there was some muddying of those crystal-clear waters of distinction. By the end of the 1960s, more than a few big-blocks found their way into pony cars, and they too were more at home at the drag strip than anywhere else. But they were aberrations of their pony car personas. Not muscle cars. And so it remains.

So says the curmudgeon. —Gerry Malloy


Classic Muscle Cars

Nicole Lyons, black, tough, gorgeous- and burning up NHRA race tracks!

By Rych McCain

At first glance, she is easy to dismiss as just another "Suppa Fine Sista," (as we say in the 'hood), with nothing mentally to offer. But in the case of NHRA Drag Race Car driver Nicole Lyons, looks are especially, "more," than deceiving!

Many racing competitors have misjudged Lyon's foxy, high fashion model looks prior to race time and received the shock of their lives when she handed them their "smoked behinds" on a platter at the finish line. One competing race driver actually quit the sport following a solid "A" kicking form Lyons.

Nicole Lyons is the first Black Afrikan female NHaRA (National Hot Rod Association) racecar driver. She also competes in the PSCA Racing Series, the So Cal Super Street, and the Pontiac Drag Days Series. Her goal is to compete in the BUSCH Series at NASCAR.

This lady is a serious contender who grew up in the racing game. Her dad was the late street racer Jack Davis. He strapped his then two-year-old daughter Nicole into a baby seat in one of his muscle cars and took her down the track at 160 mph. The baby screamed with joy and said, "Daddy, let's go again!" By the time baby Nicole was seven, she actually started driving muscle cars. Her dad took her to the track daily and taught her the mechanics of racing.

Upon his unfortunate death earlier this year, he left her a $1.5 million collection of 13 rare muscle cars. On her offtrack time, this female master mechanic actually builds car engines from scratch. Lyons built her last engine, a 565 Dart Big M with 1,100 horsepower.

Chevy Rumble Magazine glorified this engine because it is currently the highest horsepower single carb engine they have seen. Lyons also restores and enhances engines in her three, Cole Muscle Car Shops (all located in the San Fernando Valley) that she owns with her husband, former Canadian pro-football player Damion Lyons.

Having started driving muscle racecars at an age that most children barely start to learn how to ride bicycles must have made Lyons an unusual child.She smiles and said, "I was an only child and Daddy's little girl. I would do anything to help him out with the cars. Typically, it would be just bringing him some lemonade while I watched him. That's the ropes and you learn the ropes." Lyons continued, "As a child, my friends had positions that were going to be on my race team. My best friend was going to be my crew chief."

Of course the girls grew up and went their chosen ways.

Lyons says that getting her driver's license at age 16 was basically a joke. She laughs about the guy who gave her the driver's test." He saw how I handled the car and said he didn't need to see anymore," she said. What about the guys? How did they handle a foxy teenager with pro racing chops? Lyons lights up:" It's funny. Most of the guys would be in awe of me. They would say that they could never find a girl that was into car engines and racing like I was and they would ask me on a date. I would say, 'Yeah, I might be into that, but some of the other things I might not be into.' From a competitive level, they see what I can do and it's kind of like, well if we can't beat her, join her or take her out on a date," she said.

What kind of feedback does Lyons receive from the ladies" Actually, I receive a lot of positive feedback from women," she said. "I think that they never fathomed racing while growing up and never had the opportunities that I did with my dad to learn about it and be involved with it. You always have your haters out there and I use them for more fuel and keep on pushing."

Lyons main event is the straightaway quarter mile drag, booking at speeds of 160 mph plus. She races in three different brackets-the Super Comp in 8 seconds, the Super Gas in 9 seconds and the Super Street in 10 seconds. Lyons holds a black belt in karate as well. So jumping out of your racecar to get in her face is not too advisable either. Nicole Lyons is winning in the top percent of her races and without question is not only making black history before our very eyes but is also making racing history period!

Classic Muscle Cars