The sweet sound of rumbling engines. The wafting gas fumes, squealing tyres, and beating hearts. Dick Ahlstrom hoists up the star-spangled banner to salute the muscle cars of old, when US kids used up more fuel on a trip to the shops than an average power station today
Cougars, Mustangs, Barracudas and Impalas. Listen carefully and you can hear the growls, snarls, and the sound of red-blooded animals. The names conjure up images of untamed beasts - dangerous, yet exciting. Just what the car-makers wanted.
These are all US production models which at at one stage or another were classed as "muscle cars" offering the option of a big block engine.
Nowadays car owners fret about the cost of a litre of fuel, the miles per gallon (mpg) of open road driving and how much tax you'll pay for your 2-litre sedan.
But in the days before the first oil crisis, when you could get a gallon of premium (leaded, of course) for under 30 US cents (33 cent), a big block V8 is all any American kid could have asked for.
US auto manufacturers traditionally favoured the big block engine with displacements running from, say, Ford's 289 cubic inches (4,738 cc) up to the beasts, the Chevy 454s (7,442 cc). At least part of the reason was that the cars themselves were so outrageously heavy at two and three tonnes and more.
The steel in fenders and body panels was like armour. The bumpers actually bumped and didn't bend, chrome-plated steel, none of your namby-pamby, plastic, body-coloured bumper stuff.
The manufacturers in Detroit had to put in a decent engine to push around all that steel and, of course, you needed something that could handle the big open roads. We were all encouraged to "See America" during the 1950s through the 1970s by taking to the highways and letting the wind get in our (short cropped) hair.
Of course, as soon as kids started getting their hands on cars in the 1950s and later, an industry grew up around the business of making the car look good and go faster.
Customisation was the way to go and every cent of your summer job money was invested either to get your first car or improving the look and speed of the beauty you already had in the driveway.
I was one of the first kids in my high school class to turn 16 and get a licence and quickly had a car available. Sadly it was not a big block muscle car, just a tired, leftover sedan owned by my parents and used to go to the store, pick up younger brothers and sisters and run errands. At least I was driving.
Meanwhile, other friends were buying into cars and several soon traded up into the muscle car category.
All of the manufacturers - Dodge, Plymouth, Mercury and Buick - had their big engines (we then almost always called them motors) but there was a particular attraction for Fords (probably because of the Mustang) and Chevrolets (because of Impalas, Malibus and Corvettes).
One friend had a 1968 327 (5,360 cc) Chevy Malibu which came stock with 325 bhp and a zero to 60 mph in six or seven seconds. Of course, this could always be improved on with a few extras.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s we all wanted "four barrel" carburettors - Webber if we could get them. Hurst was the most popular brand of shifter and then you needed magnesium alloy wheels so it looked hot and "glass packs", blown-out silencers which made you as noisy as an out-of-tune truck.
These engines were really made to go, no doubt about it. Even straight off the assembly line they offered tremendous horse power and enormous torque. You needed big tyres to avoid fishtailing everywhere when accelerating away.
You added to this with your Webber four barrel. A standard stock carb had two barrels or openings, about two or three centimetres each across, just under the air filter. The four barrel had much larger two-plus-two ones, which kicked in when the throttle was pushed to the floor.
All carbs were fitted with vacuum advances and, on a four barrel, it sounded like a Hoover in heat, such was the sound of the suction. The petrol shot into the carb was as if it were fired from a paint sprayer and at such volumes. It was just as well fuel was cheap.
The four barrel carb really made the engine growl, a sound to make any male teenager's heart skip a beat.
And that carb bite - the car literally lifted up off its springs a few centimetres as it raced forward. A turbocharger on a small block European model does the same thing today. You would be plastered back in your seat as if you were in an accelerating jet airliner. The noise boomed out, alerting every cop within five miles that there was a punk with a fast car breaking the speed limit. So these little "takeoffs" were usually done very late or very early, often on a quiet back road where you wouldn't get caught. It worked because we never were.
Everyone wanted a particular model but the engines themselves were also famous. The Chevy 427 (7,000 cc, imagine, seven litres - consider the road tax) was a hero motor which you would probably want in a Corvette fitted with glass packs or a Cherry Bomb muffler and Webber four barrel.
Ford also had a 427 offering 425 bhp at 6,000 revs, 480 foot/pounds of torque at 3,700 revs. You might want to see that in a flashy Mustang.
Two other friends also had Malibus, both 396 cubic inches (6,490 cc) and the thing to do was to head for the nearest town and drive back and forth along the main street, there to be admired by the women (or so we thought).
Of course, there were those who wanted another kind of motoring. One friend drove a 1967 Triumph Spitfire and I had an MG-B, offering a paltry 1,760 cc or so.
I loved coming up along side a muscle car at a traffic light, racing the engine a bit to indicate I was ready for a drag race. I could usually provoke the driver into a race which, of course, I had no intention of joining, pulling away nice and easy in my little open-topped English sports car.
Those were the days, but they ran out of petrol pretty quickly when the first oil crisis hit in the mid-1970s. The father of one of the guys with a 396 decided to buy a so-called "economy" car because of its good fuel consumption. This was a "little" V6 which, as I recollect, was about 260 or 280 cubic inches and did an astounding 13 miles to the US gallon of fuel. That's economy for you.