Car stamps pay tribute to classic Detroit iron

Car nuts will love the new, limited-edition series of "Forever" stamps titled "America on the Move: Muscle Cars," though sadly the stamps lack the throaty, thunderous growl of the depicted high-horsepower attention-getters.

The stamps honor five iconic made-in-the-USA models and will be unveiled Friday at the Daytona 500 by seven-time NASCAR champion Richard Petty and his son Kyle.

Images of the Pontiac GTO, the 1967 Shelby GT-500, the 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona, the 1970 Plymouth Hemi ‘Cuda and the 1970 Chevelle SS were rendered by artist Tom Fritz, under the direction of Carl T. Herrman. The U.S. Postal Service previously issued "’50s Sporty Cars" in 2005 and "’50s Fins and Chrome" in 2008.

The Pontiac GTO "ushered in the American muscle-car era in the mid-1960s," according to Postal Service publicity materials. GTO stands for "Gran Turismo Omologato" (or "Grand Touring Homologated," in English).

The car was created when the auto­maker dropped a 389-cubic-inch V-8 engine, which had been built for a full-size sedan, into a smaller Pontiac LeMans. The GTO became its own model in 1966. Equipped with a 335-horsepower engine that could do zero to 60 mph in 6.8 seconds, the so-called "Goat" was available as a hardtop, coupe, or convertible.

Race car driver-turned-manufacturer Carroll Shelby was instrumental in the making of the 1967 Shelby GT-500, which was powered by a 428-cubic-inch, 355-horsepower engine called the Police Interceptor. Only 2,048 were built and a rear spoiler and rocker-panel stripes came standard on the car, while LeMans stripes were optional. The Shelby appeared in movies and magazines and became a bit of a pop-culture icon.

The Shelby GT-500 was reintroduced into Ford’s Mustang lineup in 2007.

The aerodynamically designed Dodge Charger Daytona took the checkered flag at its NASCAR debut in September 1969 at the Alabama International Motor Speedway in Talladega. The production, or consumer-version of the car, bore a 440-cubic-inchMagnum engine. However, a limited number were made with a 426-cubic-inch Hemi, a high-performance engine with hemispherical combustion chambers. NASCAR required manufacturers wanting to qualify for racing to produce at least 500 cars and only 503 Daytonas were produced, initially.

Plymouth’s 1970 Hemi ‘Cuda was the performance-focused evil twin of the standard 1970 Plymouth Barracuda.

The ‘Cuda’s 426-cubic-inch Hemi engine generated 425 horsepower and was advertised as "our angriest, slipperiest-looking body shell wrapped around ol’ King Kong hisself." Fewer than 700 were produced. The auto­maker offered optional stripes denoting engine size, bucket seats and a pistol-grip-shaped shifter handle.

The 1970 Chevelle SS (Super Sport) offered engines in either 396-cubic-inch or 454-cubic-inch size. The latter offered either 360-horsepower LS-5 or the 450-horsepower LS-6, which shot the car to a quarter-mile finish in the 13-second range.

To give you an idea how big a 454-cubic-inch engine is, it would take four 1.8 liter Toyota Corolla engines to equal one Chevelle SS.

Younger folks might also wonder about how much it cost to fuel up such a powerful car. Online research shows that regular (leaded) gasoline cost an average of 33 cents a gallon in 1967 and had soared to an average of 36 cents a gallon in 1970. That means it cost $7.92 to fill the 22-gallon gas tank on the 1973 Chevelle SS.