Images: Hemmings

It is hard to believe that we are in the waning weeks of 2010. It has been an eventful year for American car makers as they pull themselves up by the bootstraps and get back to the business of making cars. Of course, many garage gearheads never stopped making menacing rides, and it is just about awards season for those who have labored long and hard on their muscle machines.

Hemmings has just handed out its coveted Muscle Machine of the Year to a blacked-out 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona clone called simply “ANGRIER.”

This menacing machine belongs to Mike Musto and Todd Ford, and it started out life as a simple, hot-rodded ’69 Charger. It has been outfitted with reproduction Charger Daytona parts, though the goal was never to make a clone car, but a badass road racer that just happened to have a nifty nose and huge wing. The engine, originally a 383, is now a 471 backed by a Tremec 5-speed transmission.

It takes more than a big engine to make a quality muscle machine though. Musto and Ford borrowed bits and pieces from modern day muscle cars, like a big brake setup made up of parts from the Charger SRT8, Dodge Viper, and Ford Mustang Cobra. The suspension maintains many original Chrysler components with a few updated parts thrown in, like tougher torsion bars and leaf springs and a larger anti-roll bar.

More than just a show car, this is a legitimate street-legal racer, and well deserving of the award. Congratulations and kudos to Musto and Ford on a job well done.