There was a little dust-up of a conversation on Street Legal TV’s FaceBook page concerning whether full-sized machines like Furys, Impalas, Galaxies, and Catalinas can be considered “muscle cars.” While tempers may flare, opinions be shared and explicatives be shouted, the question remains the same: Is a muscle car defined by its chassis and body type or by its performance?

If it’s the latter, then by all means, Pat Spangenberg’s (owner of Rod & Competition Specialties) outrageous ’66 Impala Super Sport definitely qualifies. Consider the following, this massive 4,000 pound Impala rides on stock suspension, 10-inch wide tires, and is propelled by a 540 cubic inch big block Chevy making 961 at the flywheel (naturally aspirated) and with the aid of a 400 horsepower nitrous fogger, snorts out closer to 1,400hp at the track. With a 3-inch exhaust system running through $40 Dynomax Turbo mufflers, Pat claims, “It’s so quiet you could drive the thing to church.”

We don’t know about church, but we do like the idea of driving it 154mph through the traps, good for 8.77-second time slips! Pat assures that his big green beast gets plenty of street miles in between its 100 or so passes over the past few of years.