American Muscle Cars at the World of Speed Museum

My trip to the World of Speed Museum was a family trip. I heard they were having a Mopar exhibit and knew we had to go.

I knew we had to go because we had been a Mopar family, even though I had never really understood what that meant. There was a certain similarity among certain cars that we had, and some guys I hung out with were way more excited about that than others (really just Scott). I have always been the family member the least into cars, but I knew at least some cars would be familiar.

They were, but also the exhibit did a good job of creating a context for me. First of all, that opening sign. Motor + Parts = Mopar. I guess I figured "motor" had to be a component somehow, but I hadn't known that - it was just a word people used a lot.

Though that Dodge and Plymouth and Imperial and all of these things are Chrysler built but we don't call all of them Chryslers? That still seems pretty weird to me.

The displays of the cars themselves were fine. You could see the bodies and engines, and they all looked immaculate. That is good, and I bet for people who work on cars it is great.

The thing that helped me most, though, were the signs. They included two in particular that I don't have good shots of.

One was about the Pontiac G.T.O. itself, credited with starting the tradition of muscle cars. The big thing is the increase in engine size, but even the name links it to the Grand Tourer Racing class cars. They aren't really related, but giving someone a more powerful and faster (also louder) engine and making them think of racing is something that captured the imagination of drivers and become very popular.

Suddenly "Little GTO" by Ronnie & The Daytonas made sense; not just the lyrics, but also why the song would be written, and why you would be excited about that particular car.

Many of the placards were informative (Oh! That's what "hemi" means.), but one in particular intrigued me without too much specification.

It was about John DeLorean. Yes, his name evokes gull wing time traveling cars and cocaine, but before that he was a General Motors executive and managed the development of many of these cars, including the G.T.O. and the Firebird.

When cars started moving toward great fuel efficiency, economy, and maybe even safety, there was a quote from DeLorean. I think it was something about how they would put a smaller engine in the G.T.O. over his dead body. (This is where I wish I had a legible photo.)

But it made me wonder, if they had kept the G.T.O. big and loud, would he have foundedthe DeLorean Motor Company and put out the DMC-12? And I feel like the answer is probably, because he had kind of an ego, but I can only speculate. Perhaps for the sake of the Back to the Future franchise, fuel economy has really worked out.

Oh, and maybe for the planet too. That could be good.

The Mopar exhibit ended in December, but it was being replaced with a Corvette exhibit that will run through April 15th.

We had one of those once too!

http://www.worldofspeed.org/