Dodge Dynamite!: 50 Years of Dodge Muscle Cars

Since the 1950s, Dodge has produced a series of charismatic performance cars that have given the company a unique reputation among American car makers. The original Charger and Challenger and the more recent Viper and Caliber SRT are outstanding examples of the company’s commitment to cars of high performance and aggressive styling. Peter Grist’s pictorial history of these typically American machines gives a fascinating insight into their ancestry and evolution and celebrates the huge impact they have made on the road and on the track. His account is an exciting introduction that will appeal to everyone who is interested in American automobile history. When the first Dodge performance cars were conceived in the early 1950s, they were a brave step for a company that was well known for its dependable saloons and pickups. Peter Grist describes this change of direction and the radical new thinking that resulted in the creation of the innovative Dodge ‘Hemi’ V8 of 1953. This remarkable engine provided the power for the first sporting Dodges and led to the race-bred D-500 series of 1956, the first Dodge Muscle car. The author includes illustrations of Dodge’s styling experiments.