By: Matthew Benavidez
Car enthusiast have been around since the first buggy was pulled by a horse. More specifically, a certain type of a car enthusiast is a Mopar enthusiast. Mopar enthusiasts are one of the largest groups of car community in today’s society.
Just like the word brunch, that is a blend of breakfast and lunch, Mopar is also a combination of the words motor and parts. Mopar has been around since the 1920’s mostly selling parts to Chrysler. Just about any motor part for a Chrysler product was using Mopar. This included Plymouth, Dodge, and Chrysler. In modern time, Mopar is under the umbrella of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. Mopar is the main manufacture for this company which also includes Dodge, Jeep and Ram.
While the peak of the Plymouth and Chrysler era in the 60’s Mopar became a regular house hold term to define the types of vehicles. Throughout the car community, Mopar fans have a saying, “Mopar or no car” basically meaning there is no other car that surpasses Mopar type of vehicles.
So what makes Mopar so great and why is it so popular now since the 60’s were so long ago? To start digging deeper, Mopar vehicles happen to have a large history and a lot of ground breaking records of the development of the muscle car. One of the most known and famous part by Mopar would be the Hemi engine that is still used in modern muscle cars to this day. Another historical first for Mopar was that they were the first to produce a car with over 400hp under the new measurement which was the 1992 Dodge Vper.
When compared to other car manufactures such as Ford and Pontiac, Mopar cars also hold some historical significance over them as well. Ford is known for their famous mustang and being known as the pony car, in realty Mopar owns the title to have produced the first pony car by releasing their Barracuda car two weeks before the Mustang came out. The first muscle car is considered to be the Pontiac GTO when looking on paper, but when looking at the details of what makes a muscle car a muscle car, most Mopar enthusiasts would consider the 1956 Dodge D-500 the first muscle car. Other details that have set Mopar apart from others is that Mopar was the only car manufacture to sell a car that didn’t have hoop hinges on them, making the hood completely removable compared to other competitors that made the hood out of fiberglass.
As the years went on entering the late 60’s early 70’s Mopar muscle cars were the first to start using a functional hood scoop. Aside from performance parts, Mopar was also the first to make their muscle cars look more aggressive by incorporating a staggered stance which was making the rear end of the car higher than the front. Lastly, even though carburetors are not used any more on modern cars. Mopar was the first to use a triple carburetor.
Looking back on the history of everything Mopar has done to revolutionize the muscle car. It’s easy to see why Mopar fans are so dedicated to the saying, “Mopar or no car” It is also exciting to continue to see the impact Mopar continues to make with their modern muscle cars as well. It comes to show that the small detail matters a lot to car fans and Mopar continues to focus on the little things to continue making an impact in the car community.