It probably depends on when you were raised and where, I remember the 1958 Chevy Impala, Bel Air and Biscanyes(SP?) with the 348 Tri Power, the 1958 Pontiac with fuel injection and others starting the muscle car wars, not the 1964 Pontiac GTO, they started the pony car wars
1962 Chevy 409 4 speeds, 413 and 426 Max wedges, 1961 406 tri power Fords, the 389 Pontiac Tri Power and later 1964 421 dual quad Pontiac in full size cars and the later 19631/2 Galaxy 427 dual quad Fords were in my mind the hay days of the muscle car wars
The 1964 pony cars made by all three major brands started the down sizing of the muscle cars to pony cars with bigger more powerful motors in 1965

Sure, it’s not the same. But, when any old lady can run in the 9’s with her factory 4-door Tesla, it makes our “muscle” look very slow in comparison. What’s next for Telsa? 8-second, 7-second cars off the showroom floor? The times are exponentially changing.

New charger is supposedly coming for the crown = 8 second ET's

1) 1973 Chevy Vega
2) 1973 Ford Pinto
3) 1975 Chevette

pull up with a hemi/6pack/ls6/etc to a red light with a tesla next to you and race him to the next light and tell me it aint a muscle car

In the span of say 1963 to 1973 the quickest 1/4 mile heavy hitters were the big blocks. The 440 six pack (A12 Roadrunner) was a hell of a car along with the Buick GS 455. Both of these engines were smaller port high velocity headed engines where the Hemi and 454/427 were big port high RPM engines. From what I have read the torque of the GS455 was a reliable no fuss way to win a drag race stock against stock. Same with the 440 mopar and the Pontiac and Oldsmobile HP offerings. The Chevy and Hemi needed some distance to build that higher RPM power. Its too bad they didnt make more stage 1 455s and its a shame that big 455 Pontiac motor didnt come about 4 years earlier.

Well if that's the only criteria then put your Tesla up against a Haybusa and tell me it's not a musclecar.

How about we take a hemi/6pack/ls6/etc and race a tesla cross country?

How finely do you want to slice the turd here?

We all know the definition of a musclecar and a Tesla doesn't fit the definition. Anyone saying otherwise is, at best, delusional.

Be careful with the word "all".

The first known use of the word "muscle" to describe a car was auto writer Tom McCahill who, after the road test of a '55 Chrysler 300, said "Detroit has finally built a car with true Muscle."

https://www.hagerty.com/media/market-trends/muscle-cars-before-the-gto/

Tom McCahill was the first thing I read when I got my hands on my dads copy of Mechanix Illustrated back in the 50's.

I think the OP needs to qualify it by saying "classic muscle car", or "American muscle car". There are cars such as various Porsche 911 turbo models that will beat most muscle cars in a 1/4 mile as well as run away from them on any sort of road race track but they are usually lumped into the "exotic" category rather than muscle car. I think eventually there will be some sort of "EV" category also.

If the OP asked "which production car accelerates the fastest" then the answer would most likely be the Tesla Plaid although there might be some super low production exotic that I don't know about.

There is no "authority" on what a muscle car is but there is probably a rough consensus among experts that it started with the GTO and ended with the SD Trans Am so Pontiac has the bookends of the era.

Actually, that does make sense. I wonder what the MSRP will be?

More affordable than the Ferrari guys that had just run things, Tavares (new CEO) just said they are a middle class brand and that must be saved. Under the Italians they cranked prices 10k per year it seems "higher transaction prices" stake holders (Euro) screamed. That may end hopefully. They lost me as a customer, not paying 90k for a scat pack, they can go **** themselves. The charger/challnger 392 is a 45k car before discount, same as the trucks

Hey: a Cadillac Escalade could do the same: call that a Muscle car?
I'd call it a Performance car, that better identifies all the newer high HP vehicles out there.
Everybody is offering a Performance car these days: Hyundai, Honda, etc.
Not just cars but trucks/SUV's.

There's no definitive answer to the question as originally posed.
Heck, a lot of folks can't agree on what a musclecar is or what "powerful" means.
Some of the cars provided to the magazines were tweaked & optimized as well, and then beaten as hard as possible by the testers.
So, what car, and when it was tested, and the conditions at that time, could skew the results.
Heck, I've owned a bunch of stock 383 Road Runners, and some were markedly stronger than others.

driving a hemi/6pk/ls6 cross-country.... u do have deep pockets

They weren't Made, Nor Marketed, for Griswald family to go to Wally World.
So moot point

Yessir.
New cars are boring.

Post a vid of a Tesla running 9.99

9.20's

read the original post... i stated stop lite to stop lite... someone wrote cross country... hence the comment of 'deep-pockets'... gotta read...