Welcome to week three of our review of the Obscure Muscle Car Garage, and this time we are looking at the Obscure Muscle Cars that I highlighted and were produced during the 1980’s, 1990’s and the beginning of the 2000’s. We are going to see what vehicles made it into the Garage from the three remaining American Manufacturers, and then I will pose a question at the end of this posting… Which one of these entries should be given the boot (or possibly none at all…). During this time period, there was certainly no lack of performance machinery, just not all of it produced in this country. Remember, as the Obscure Muscle Car Garage motto goes, there won’t be any obvious Muscle Cars like the Challenger, Corvette, or Performance Mustang. However, there were plenty of “Left-of-Center” nominees that were voted into the Garage, but maybe they really don’t belong. So, it is now time for you to consider who to throw out. Ready? GO!


Let’s start with a fan favorite, the 1984-85 Ford LTD LX. This was a car produced by Ford that no one could have ever imagined going into production, but it did because of the Bob Bondurant Racing School of High Performance and their need for a sedan that could be used at the school that had similar handling and performance characteristics of the then current Fox Bodied Mustang GT. It was a success at the school, so it went into serious production a few months later. Friend of Hooniverse Scott Chamberlain owns one, and 75% of the readers that voted agreed that this is an Obscure Muscle Car. Read the original article here, and decide whether or not this entry should stay.

Related to the LTD LX, the Lincoln Mk VII LSC was one true Hot Rod Lincoln, and blew everyone away when it was introduced in the fall of 1983. This took the tried and true Ford 5 litre V-8, and it started out with 165HP, and went up to 225HP in a short period of time. The car was also striking to see, and this was the Luxury Fox Body of it’s time period. 69% of you agreed that this was a true Obscure Muscle Car, so take a look at the original article here, and see if this Hot Rod Lincoln stays in the Garage.

While we are on Fox Bodied Fords, and in a post that I should have broken up into three separate entries, we come to the Turbocharged Ford Mustang SVO, the Turbocharged Thunderbird Super Coupe, and the Turbocharged Merkur XR4Ti. This was during Ford’s experimental phase of developing Turbocharged Muscle Cars to have the thrill of a Muscle Car with the fuel economy that a 4-cylinder theoretically provides. This was a controversial posting, but when it came time to vote, our readers chose to admit these new wave Muscle Cars, by a margin of 55%. Read the original article here, and see if you’ve had a change of heart.

One of the more interesting posts on this subject was the one in which I proposed that the 1994-96 Buick Roadmaster Estate Wagon was an Obscure Muscle Car. Here is a car that originally had a truck engine as the engine of choice under the hood. However, 1994 came along and the good folks at GM decided to drop in a de-tuned version of the Chevrolet Corvette LT-1 V-8, and suddenly… Powah! It was a most unconventional choice for the Garage, but 57% of you that voted seem to agree with me that this is indeed an Obscure Muscle Car. Read the original article here, and see if we made a mistake.

It wasn’t only Ford that experimented with Turbocharged Four-Cylinder Power, as Chrysler was producing a powerhouse of it’s own in the form of the 1992-93 Dodge Daytona IROC R/T. Dodge managed to wrestle away from GM to supply identical cars to the International Race of Champions for the 1991 racing season, and to celebrate, the Daytona was enhanced with a 224HP 16-valve, OHC 2.2 Litre 4-Cyl engine, and this car could move. It was basically a K-Car underneith, so it is the perfect Muscle Car Formula of taking a pedestrian vehicle, and making it roar. 54% of you agreed, and it was inducted into the Obscure Muscle Car Garage. Read the original article to see if maybe it really shouldn’t be included.

One of the most controversial entries into the HOMCG is this one, the 2005-08 Pontiac Grand Prix GXP. This is basically a cobbled together performance car that GM though they needed to compete with the new for 2005 Chrysler 300 and Dodge Magnum, both with the 5.7L Chrysler Hemi under the hood. So GM dropped a version of the venerable 5.3L V-8, tuned it to produce 303 HP, and produced a Muscle Car that is driven by the front wheels. Pontiac was the first to do this, followed by Chevrolet with the Impala SS and Monte Carlo SS, and the Buick Lacrosse Super. The Pontiac was voted in by a margin of 42%, while the others didn’t make it… See the original article here, and see if it should join the other three that didn’t make it.

So, those are the new wave inductees. It is now time for you to vote one of these out… or not. Once I run the entire review, which should take 7 weeks, we will see how many of the vehicles will be thrown out of the Garage. Remember, you can make a difference here, so continue to follow this series, and tell me how much you seem to like it (or not…)
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Please Note: All Images are screen grabs from around the web. If you want credit for any image, please let me know in the comments section. Thank You…