Surrey Muscle was born in 1995, our first club meet being in February of that year, so we have been going now for over 15 years. I had already owned my Oldsmobile for 6 years and been to numerous shows, cruises and events when I realised that whilst i appreciated all the forms of machinery i came across it was muscle cars that really excited me. I thought wouldn’t it be great to be able to fill a car park just with muscle cars, and that really is how Surrey Muscle evolved. I found a suitable venue, TJs diner in Ewell, and then started to pass the word around, even got some flyers printed and stuck them on the windscreens of every muscle car I came across at places like Wheels Day and Guildford and Chelsea Cruises. About 12 people turned up on that first night and, amazingly, most of them and their cars are still with us today, and whilst they are now considerably older their cars are alot faster!

The club grew from strength to strength until at our peak we had over 25 members, and we could have doubled that but i was insistent that this was a muscle car club so turned away lots of people that turned up in Rods, English cars or cruisers, a few had already crept in to the club but were eventually weeded out, then as the years rolled by people came and went until the club was finally reorganised and streamlined after Phil Caswell, of Hi Tension fame, decided to start his own club taking most of the Chertsey contingent with him, leaving us with 10 Hardcore members, 8 of which and their cars have been with us virtually since day one. More than just members we have become very close friends having been through so much together and that is what makes the club so strong and successful, it is also why we don’t encourage people to join up anymore, we have been there, done that, and now feel that the balance and quality of cars in the club is just right.

The theme of the club has always been based around performance rather than matching numbers so it wasn’t long before we started drag racing on the street then at the strip, and the time slips showed that we had cars performing 13 to 15 sec quarters. At the time i thought that was pretty quick and ,back then, would never have believed that today half of the cars in the club would be running 9s ! The years of experience gained from racing, breaking engines, gearboxes and axles, trying different combos, helping each other out, and eventually selecting the right parts and combinations have brought us to where we are today in being one of the fastest and most successful muscle car clubs in the UK.

Over the years we have gained a reputation for being a hard partying wild bunch and were notorious for our antics in the clubhouse rather than anything else, but over the last few years we have proved what we are really all about on the drag strip, and the results are starting to show. We have one completely road legal car nearing the 8s and another that won the Mopar euronats backed Powertour in 2009 against some stiff opposition, so are now being taken seriously, or at least should be if you are in the other lane ! Overall Surrey Muscle has evolved to exceed all my expectations and we will continue to be a force to be reckoned with and that’s because what we do isn’t just a hobby, it’s a way of life.