For some of us who came of age in the late 80s, "musclecars" were always overpriced.
And although I've always liked musclecars, C-bodies were not a consolation prize for me. I'd always liked them
in addition to basically anything Mopar. The East Side of Metro Detroit probably has the highest concentration of Chrysler products in the nation. It's not uncommon, even in 2020, to see a small parking lot that is 90-100% Mopar. I could probably throw a rock right now and hit a Plymouth Acclaim that refuses to die. It's actually one of the things I DO like about Michigan. I took this for a survivor-car FB page. Only after I took it did I realize the age of everything parked around the Voyager.
View attachment 366623
I started attending Mopar shows/swaps as a kid with my dad who
likes cars, but isn't the type to rebuild an engine over the weekend. For a long time, there were two local camps... The musclecar guys who essentially looked down on anything that wasn't '62-'70 B or E-body. For these guys, an A body or a 71 Roadrunner was being "accepting". The second group were essentially the local W.P. Chrysler club. For them, anything after 1962 was some kind of kid's-car/junk/modern garbage.
Example: 1996 and I drove my freshly restored '77 NY'er coupe to the Las Vegas Nationals...
View attachment 366616
(Not mine, but almost identical) They didn't want to let me onto the grounds because it was a Cadillac. I literally had to tell the dimwit to read the emblems. Months later, an almost identical situation played out at a local WPC annual show.
I guess that's why I have to laugh at the snowflakes who get so easily offended on this site. Wait until some drunk Corvette-owner-turned-Mopar-guy tells you "your car sucks" or some old fart with a flathead Plymouth just makes a grunt noise and waves his hand like you're the druggie-grandkid who listens to the rock music. Grow a set and just laugh at the douchebags. I guess that's also why I tend not to care for the folk who try and turn their C into some kind of sloppy-seconds musclecar. I'm good with increasing any aspect of performance, just not tacky visuals. And if you have no clue how the OEM parts worked, but want to change them because "what you heard", I won't have any respect either.
Oddly enough, I never took it out on the cars themselves. I
really like pre-war stuff. I've flipped a lot of ABEs (but haven't held onto them because I know the prices will crash) I've owned Metric Mopars, but for much the same reason (poor investment) I haven't kept them around too long. Thus the main constant for me has been the unloved and under-appreciated C-body. $2500 in 1990, $2500 in 2020, with a few exceptions, but miles of smiles.