The Greatest Forgotten Muscle Car Of The ‘80s | HotCars

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What comes to mind when we say classic American muscle cars and the eighties? IROC-Z Camaro, Fox Body Mustang, Pontiac Fiero, Firebirds and Trans Am, Corvettes, and Buick Grand Nationals are instant recall, for they looked good and carried their V8s with pride, even if the ‘80s V8s were catalytic convertor-strangled.

The Chevrolet Monte Carlo is not a big contender on the powerful car list, but right on the periphery of it all, there’s the Monte Carlo SS. But even more refined than the Monte Carlo SS was the Monte Carlo Aerocoupe, specially built to let the Monte Carlo compete in NASCAR.

Was it the greatest muscle car of the ‘80s? Well, not quite, but with less than 6,300 built over two years, this is one of the greatest forgotten muscle cars of the ‘80s.This means the Monte Carlo Aerocoupe could be one of the fifteen cool buys on the classic car bazaar. Here’s our reasoning…

The Chevy Monte Carlo began its life as a 1970 model, as an answer to Pontiac’s Grand Prix, a massive but personal luxury car. Horsepower ranged from 250 to 360 depending on the trims bought, and though this was a heavy car, it did well on the road. It’s second generation started in 1973, and this was one car that climbed up the sales charts. This, despite the Arab oil embargo that was killing the sales of classic American muscle cars, according to DriveTribe. In fact, in 1974, the Monte Carlo sold a record 300,000, making Chevrolet one very happy company at the time.

Remember, the ’70s was also the time Chevrolet made the Vega, counted amongst its worst cars. So any car with good sales and an even better brand value was good news for Chevrolet.

Also, while this was a full-sized and somewhat heavy two-door coupe, it was Chevrolet’s favored car for stock racing.

Reason enough for them to introduce the Monte Carlo SS (as in SuperSport) in 1980, making it a stock car racing favorite of many big names. The success of the Monte Carlo SS made Chevy step up its NASCAR game in its fourth generation and introduced the Monte Carlo Aerocoupe in 1986, by tweaking the Monte Carlo SS several steps further.

RELATED: The Greatest Forgotten Muscle Car Of The ‘70s

In 1986, Monte Carlo made the Aerocoupe by basically twisting the body of the SuperSport, the SS into a more aerodynamic shape. The rear window was sloped further and the trunk lid became shorter to sport a flatter spoiler than before, and the trunk also used struts rather than hinges to close to further save on space.

For 1986, only 200 of these were made, because that 200 was the

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By: Arun Pundir
Title: The Greatest Forgotten Muscle Car Of The ‘80s | HotCars
Sourced From: www.hotcars.com/the-greatest-forgotten-muscle-car-of-the-80s/
Published Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2020 15:45:04 GMT

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