28 August 2011

American muscle




It now looks like this after more than 18 months of restorative motor works.


It’s good enough to be featured in an American movie.  The muscle car has been a consistent presence in mainstream American cinema.  It’s been as big a star as its human co-stars.  

Transformers wouldn’t be as interesting without Bumblebee.  


Steve Mcqueen had to have his potent accessory in Bullitt, also a Mustang. 


Thelma and Louise’s final act wouldn’t have been as dramatic with a Toyota.  


Christine, Stephen King’s killing machine, was scarier as vintage.



One of my fave muscles cars as a kid was Cleopatra Jones’ Corvette.  You’re a child of the 70s if you knew the 6-foot-2 machine gun-toting, karate-chopping Tamara Dobson who played Cleopata.  She was the inspiration for Beyonce’s character in Austin Powers.  No other action heroine in the 70s was a cool as Cleopatra.  She wore the sexist outfits (furs, short shorts, pantsuits, ponchos) and drove a sleek Corvette that had a personalized “CLEO’ plate. 



The muscle car:  one of America’s greatest contributions to pop culture.  No other accessory represented masculinity, power, youth, freedom and excess.  The Philippine equivalent was the lowly Minica which was in many a comedy film.  It even upstaged Vilma Santos in Vilma and the Beep Beep Minica (it could climb walls!). 




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