So what IS a muscle car?

"..a product of the American car industry adhering to the hot rodder's philosophy of taking a small car and putting a BIG engine in it. To balance this out, handling, braking and related essentials are modified to result in a performance machine for the streets. They tack racy names to the car: GTA, GTO, GTX, or just plain GT; R/T, SST, SS, GS or, for the lack of better initials, 4-4-2. They doll the car up with fancy trimmings and put it up for sale."
Strictly speaking the muscle car era was 64-72.. they were factory hot rods, to me that defines a classic muscle car. I like what was said about later model cars with the same type designations and build ideals being performance vehicles...BUT, the argument can easily be made that these newer factory hot rods are muscle cars in their own right. They fit the specs.. smaller car with bigger engine, performance badging, better handling, braking and related essentials...
Are we simply refusing to accept the modernization of the animal.. the evolution? You can't go back, so you move forward, we are in a new era of muscle car. To me, it's classic muscle cars and modern muscle cars. The formula is the same. The names and players are basically the same, Challenger, Camaro, Mustang.
As to the argument of price/value, "$5,000 in 1970 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $33,494.59 in 2020".. you can't buy any of the Big 3's true hot rods for 34k today. In 1970 you could buy a Chevelle SS 454 for about $3500 which is about $23,500 today.. a top of the line factory hot rod today is running in the $80,000 range.. yea, the price/value thing is out the door.
Lastly, the 64-72 factory hot rods were the modern performance cars of the time (aka: muscle car).. you could go to a Plymouth dealer and check the boxes and end up with a 440 GTX.. a true muscle car with some extras... so is a 2020 Dodge/Ford/Chevy (fill in the blank) factory hot rod a muscle car or not? IMHO, yes.