Just Sad: The 10 Wimpiest Muscle Cars Ever, The 1978 Ford Mustang King Cobra had a V-8, but it only produced a meager 139 hp. 10 wimpiest muscle cars ever, There’s a dead zone in the history of performance cars between the hairy-chested muscle cars of the 1960s and the rebirth of power in the mid-1980s: the 1972-82 “malaise era,” when machines were so strangled by new emissions rules that their performance levels were an embarrassment to even today’s compact cars. Automakers slathered flashy paint and taped racy stripes and stickers to the hoods of the cars, but these 10 just couldn’t get’er done at the dragstrip.

Ford’s legendary performance car hit its nadir with the downsized Pinto-based Mustangs of 1974-1978, called Mustang II. Although this generation of Mustang came with a V-8, it was a 302 cid V-8 with a mere 139 hp. Yes, you read that right. Second-gen Mustangs pumped out just 19 more hp than you’d get from the 1.6-liter four-cylinder in today’s Ford Fiesta.