…used to have a slogan “Safety Fast”. While British Leyland didn’t mean it in this way, it can be read to say that in a small, open car, 35 mph feels much faster than it really is…you get the thrill of a sense of tremendous speed w/o the danger of actual tremendous speed.
Know what you (Eon) mean about “connection” to the experience…in many modern cars, you can easily hit near triple digits and not really have any sense of it other than what your speedo tells you.
Don’t knock muscle cars though. They’re in a class of their own, and while it’s true they don’t handle (or brake for that matter!), the power they put out (both stock and when modded) is impressive when you consider the cost.
They’re not really like Harleys…most Harleys are NOT fast (VRSC bikes excepted) in the grand scheme of bikes, but real muscle cars are in the car world. Many of the 40 year old ones of the golden age can easily get down into 13 second ETs in the quarter mile, which is impressive to this day.
I love ’em for their wonderfully American character…born for a country of wide-open spaces and straight roads that in many places come in nicely quarter-mile lengths!