I have two regrets about my high school career: one, for a two week period during my senior year I had mullet and looked a hell of a lot like a roadie for Metallica, and two, I never had a muscle car. I guess I could look at my latter regret as a fortunate choice. Had I driven a muscle car, I probably would have spent all my time dating cheerleaders, flunked out of school and wound up working at 7-11 still driving that muscle car but unable to afford gas for it. Instead I drove a yellow 1972 Toyota Corona station wagon, got good grades, and went to a lot of Metallica concerts by myself.

Now I can afford a muscle car, but I just can't do it. There's something pathetic about a twenty-something guy revving his '69 charger at all the stoplights, trying desperately to get someone to race him. So I strongly recommend to all you teens that want a 1970 Cuda to do it now.

The muscle car could have only been produced in America. Only the twisted grown up teenagers in Detroit could have delivered such overpowered machines to teens at a Tasty Freeze manager's salary price. It was John De Lorean (yeah the same guy who came up with the stainless steel Back to the Future chassis) who stuck the first big block engine in a mid-size Tempest and marketed it as the 1964 Pontiac GTO.

By the next year every American car manufacturer had realized the pure adrenaline testosterone equation meant huge money. Chrysler, Dodge, Plymouth, Ford and Chevrolet all tapped into the emerging speed-hungry youth market. They were all striving to out do each other. No other time in automobile history has produced more whacked out models, names, and colors than the muscle car years between 1964 and 1973.

Ask any gearhead at any local garage what the best muscle car was and they'll each give you a different answer. The 1970 Plymouth Superbird, which was a Roadrunner with a bizarre nosecone and a clothesline over the tail ranks as one of my favorites, but I'm also kind of partial to the 1970 AAR Cuda (I'm a sucker for orange and black). But who could rule out the Plymouth Fury 426 Hemi or the Dodge Challenger Daytona.

The list goes on an on. The Dodge Superbee was bad ass fast, but could it beat a guy with a baby mustache behind the wheel of the Judge? What if Bo and Luke Duke in their Charger met up with Starsky and Hutch in their Torino? Quite frankly, I would put my money on Bo and Luke on a country course but on a crowded street hands down it would have to be Starsky. What if a pimple faced kid behind a 1970 Chevelle SS LS6 met up with TV's superstar David Hasselhoff in his talking Trans Am? That's a hard question because on one hand you got K.I.T.T. the thinking-talking car, but and on the other hand you got a idiot with a 450 hp engine (pretty much the same engine they put in the Space Shuttle). I'd go with the kid.

The downfall of the muscle car was that big gas-guzzling-smog-producing V-8. 1973 saw a tough new emission law that choked that spine tingling power. Clean Air clean shmair! And then they added safety features. Safety shmafety! But don't worry because it seems there are more muscle cars out there now, than during the sixties.

Just drive to any Circle K around midnight, or a video arcade that still has a Defender or a Centipede and you'll see them. Unfortunately there a lot of people looking for them these days. Those days of finding a Chevelle LS6 abandoned in a barn are over, the Japanese have once again put the squeeze on the market. But from all the stories the guys down at the corner garage tell me, its well worth it. And can you really put a price on all the envious stares and dates you'll get? Screw your grades and your career because 7-11 is always hiring!