Mopar Cars

Reviews

This book is a good pic book and hi quality pics and some good info but limited in scope since it seems to focus an some models with alot of pics and not all models or small few pics on certain car models. Alot of good info in it though.

Having read the somewhat mediocre reviews on this site I've decided to order the paperback edition, but was so thoroughly impressed by the contents and presentation that I traded it in for the large format hardcover edition. Having purchased most of the books on american cars published by Motorbooks (Mustang, Corvette, Chevy SS, Camaro to name a few) I can confidently state that this book stands with the best of them. The organization is very nice, with chapters arranged by Mopar body types (B-bodies, E-bodies, etc.) and manages to provide a nice coverage of each topic without overwhelming the reader with unnecessary technicalities. The photography is simply superb, in the best Motorbooks tradition. The book covers all of the landmark Mopar muscle cars, the Viper and some of the most recent efforts. However, do not expect to find information on newest SRT-8s, Chargers/Magnums etc as the book was published before their production started. Highly recommended not only Mopar fans, but anyone with interest in classic muscle cars.

I loved Randy Leffingwell's Mustang and Corvette anniversary books and praised them in my site reviews. I was attracted to Mopar Muscle since I wasn't as familiar with the Dodge/Chrysler/Plymouth sport coupe and sedan lines from the 1950s to the '70s as I was with Chevys, Fords, and Pontiacs. Robert Genat takes off where Randy Leffingwell left off. Genat has a lot on his shoulders writing this book. Mopar Muscle looks at not one, but many vehicles offered by Chrysler for a half-century. Genat has a lot to pack into a hardcover book and he does the job ably. Genat starts with the Chrysler C-300 and its founding role for muscle cars. From there, Genat looks at Dodge and Plymouth offerings in the late 1950s and early 1960s and takes a big bulk of the book writing about the famous Mopar machines from the middle 1960s to the early 1970s in great detail. Genat has some weaknesses. Genat focuses on the classic Mopar lines from the 1950s to the early '70s and, from there, skips over to the Viper in the early '90s. Genat overlooks almost two decades of weakened, but important machines. He does not mention the 1970s and '80s Chargers, the Chrysler/Shelby projects, or the 1990s Stealth and Talon. Genat also fails to mention much about Chrysler's racing efforts. The book ends short before recent SRT efforts and the new Charger. The photography is excellent, but the variety is severely lacking. You could be reading about a Barracuda and have page after page of only Chargers. Genat has a fine book. It's not perfect, but when are books ever? Mopar Muscle may not live up to the light the way Leffingwell's books did, but he does a good job nevertheless.

what can I say? WOW.... this is a very nice book with hundred of color pictures and lots of great info.... a must of all true MOPAR guys.

A general look at Chrysler performance cars from the past and present with splendid photographs (courtesy of David Newhardt). The book looks at all the muscle/pony cars that Chrysler developed and built over the past 50 years and discusses each models development and year-to-year changes. As well, the author, to his credit, did not lament over the past and all that was lost (as some authors do) but instead also discussed new and exciting models Chrysler had been releasing over the past couple of years (300C, Crossfire, etc). And did I mention the photos were fantastic? However, the book does have some failings and it's mostly due to the writing and the layout. Although the author should be credited on giving a comprehensive view of Chrysler's performance cars (new and old), his actual text leaves much to be desired. I found the writing on each model to be quite dull at times as the major focus of the author was only on the model itself (discussing yearly changes and additions to the option list) and not on the actual industry and trends that inspired their development. I found that very little was spoken of Chrysler's competitors who had major impacts on the models Chrysler created and released. Paragraphs detailing year-to-year changes just didn't make for exciting reading (I'm sure there are technical books which would give more comprehensive detail on the yearly differences between models if that were ones desire). This was especially apparent when the earlier models were being discussed. By the time the author arrived to the present however, he had begun providing more details as to the how's and whys of each new models development. This was, again, to his credit. The other issue I had was that I found most of the pictures did not match up to the text (regardless of how dull it was). For example, the author was discussing the Chrysler 300G to L but only provided pictures of the 300F (about a dozen pictures of the same model taken at different angles). Another was where the author showed a number of pictures of the '69 `Cuda 440 but only dedicates one sentence to the car (which basically said the car was offered in '69). Although I do understand the difficulty in aligning photographs and in fact even obtaining some photos, I still believe more effort was needed here. There is nothing more frustrating then to be looking at photographs that are almost 10 years behind the text as well as reading about models with no available pictures (maybe I've never seen a 300L before). Overall, the book does a decent job of covering all the major models and providing a reasonable amount of detail. The pictures were excellent and there was some decent textual coverage of the models. It just got a little tedious after a while.