Muscle Car FC

The GTX was a high-content muscle car with an assortiment of big-block v-8s. It shared a new Belvedere body - including a special hi-po hood - with the Road Runner.
For '68, the Super Commando 440-cid V-8 again came as standard equipment in the GTX. It had a 4.32 x 3.75-inch bore and stroke, hydraulic valve lifters, a 10.1:1 compression ratio and a single Carter AFB four-barrel carb. [i]Car Life[/i] road tested a 375-hp 440-powered GTX with automatic transmission and reported a top speed was about 121 mph. This version of the GTX did 0-to-60 mph in 6.8 seconds. It could cover the quartermile in 14.6 seconds with a 96-mph terminal speed. [i]Car Life[/i] described the 440 GTX like this, "Exciting, enjoyable, extremely capable ... to those who like supercars, they just may be the epitome."
Plymouth built 17914 GTX hardtops and 2026 GTX ragtops in '68. The numbers were surely higher than those for '67 models. However, they paled in comparison to the 44599 Road Runners that came off the assembly line.
For $605 extra, you could get the 426-cid Street Hemi stuffed into your GTX. Hemi-equipped GTXs continued to be rare, with only 410 hardtops and about 36 ragtops believed to have made

"Standing before you is the car you've always wanted" said a December 1969 Hot Rod magazine ad showing the Rebel "Machine", which bowed at the NHRA World Championship drag races two months earlier. Ad copy warned, "Incidentally, if you have delusion of entering the Daytona 500 with the Machine, or challenging people at random, the Machine is not that fast. You should know that. For instance, it is not as fast on the gateway as a 427 Vette, or a Hemi, but it is faster on the gateway than a Volkswagen, a slow freight train, and your old man's Cadillac".
The Machine's "standard stuffs" included a four-speed gearbox. Hurst shifter, a hood tach, Ram-Air, H.D. suspension, low-back-pressure dual exhausts, styled wheels, highback buckets, and disc brakes.
The first 100 cars were white with blue lower beltline stripes and hood. The upper body sides were red striped. Red-white-blue stripes ran across the rear fender tips and deck. "Machine" emblems decorated the front fenders and rear trim panel. For buyers who didn't like the color scheme, AMC said "you can order the car painted in the color of your choice". Such cars had silver striping and a blacked-out hood. "The Machine" was an AMC-Hurst joint venture. AMC built 2326 Rebel Machines.

The hit of the season in Ford's mid-sized line for '69 was a low-buck muscle car called the Torino Cobra. Designed to steal sales away from Plymouth's Road Runner, the Torino Cobra was offered in notchback and fastback models with the 428-CJ V-8. Also standard was a four-speed gearbox, an H.D. suspension, and cartoon decals of the coiled-snake Cobra emblem.
The idea of a "stripper" car at budget price had great appeal to many people, but there were those who liked their muscle cars with a bit more spit and polish, so Ford also offered the same goodies, as optional equipment in all '69 Fairlanes - not just the Fairlane Torino models.
Few, if any, such engines made their way into base Fairlanes, since this series did not offer the fastback style. This model was merchandised in the Fairlane 500. Of course, you could also get a 428-CJ in the regular hardtop, if you wanted a "sleeper" type muscle car. One of the buff books tested a '69 Fairlane Cobra two-door hardtop with the 335-hp 428 V-8. It gave the price of the car as $3139. The hot Fairlane moved from 0-to-60 in 6.3 seconds and did the quarter mile in 14.5 seconds.