Mustang

One of the best bellwethers of a person’s will to succeed is how he or she responds to adversity. The act of attaining fame and fortune when the odds are in your favor or, at the very least, 50:50, is well below most people’s noteworthiness thresholds. But achieving success when you’re dealt a bad hand separates the average from the above average.

When Carroll Hall Shelby, who died on Thursday aged 89 at Baylor Hospital in Dallas, Texas, was forced to end a very successful road racing career (in which he won three SCCA national championships and the 1959 24 Hours of Le Mans sharing a factory Aston Martin DBR1 with Englishman Roy Salvadori) in 1960 due to a chronic heart condition that actually left him bedridden for much of his childhood, he could have just resigned himself to taking some soul-sucking desk job, having nothing but memories of being in the thick of auto racing action. But as we all know, that’s not what he did.

There’s nothing like a good rivalry to get a lively debate going. However, allegiances are seldom swapped, regardless of how compelling the arguments that are made may be. Fans of X don’t like Y or its fans, and vice versa.

Two areas in which this is eminently evident are cars and sports. Most guys (and a good many gals) have their favorite automakers and their favorite teams. Rare is the devotee of one that gets along with the devotee of another, and in many cases the companies and teams themselves can’t stand each other. So in honor of that big rugby match (or whatever the hell it is) taking place in Indianapolis this Sunday, we’ve cooked up the following list of what we feel are the 10 fiercest rivalries in the motoring world. Some are between individual models, and others are between entire marques, but all defy neutrality.

Unless you’re living under a rock (and we doubt you are, since very few of them have internet access), you probably know that today is Thanksgiving here in the U.S. of A. And while there are many more recently established traditions observed on this holiday – playing touch football with the relatives in the backyard (or, if you prefer, the alley where the annoying neighbor kid and his buddies like to get together and smoke pot), camping out in front of stores for Black Friday sales, and getting felt up by an airport security screener while you’re still nursing a tryptophan hangover – the root of the last Thursday in November’s significance is giving thanks for the good things and good people one has in his or her life. And dag nabbit, not enough folks these days seem very interested in doing that.

To make things easier, we decided to compile a list of new cars we’re most thankful exist. So even if you can’t get psyched about family and friends who love you and a roof over your head (or maybe you have neither of those things), we’re pretty confidant you can feel some gratitude toward the deity/all-powerful force of your choosing for allowing these rides to be. After all, you do come here for cars and nothing else, right? Anyway, on with the show!

As the 1960s drew to a close, the American muscle car arms race reached its apogee. Engine displacement grew, quarter-mile times dropped, and the performance cars from the Big Three (and AMC) got altogether more raucous. It was truly the golden age of muscle cars…

Or at least, it was the golden age until the segment’s current halcyon days began. The current boulevard bruisers from Ford, GM and Chrysler are not only faster in a straight line and more powerful than their Nixonian Age ancestors, but also handle better, stop shorter, run smoother, require less maintenance, produce barely a fraction of the pollution, use less gas and are much nicer to drive and ride in. And yes, there’s another horsepower war going on, and Ford has just dropped a nuke on the hapless heads of the General and Ma Mopar.