What were muscle cars used for back in the 1950s?

Muscle car is a term used to refer to a variety of high performance automobiles. At its most widely accepted the term refers to American 2-door rear wheel drive mid-size cars of the late 1960s and early 1970s equipped with large, powerful V8s and sold at an affordable price for street use and drag racing, formally and informally. The term is often blurred, and the Opinions on the origin of the muscle car vary, but the 1949 Oldsmobile Rocket 88, created in response to public interest in speed and power, is often cited as the first of the breed. It featured an innovative and powerful new engine—America's first high- compression overhead valve V-8—in the lighter Oldsmobile body. But in reality the Muscle Car era started in earnest in the 60s, although some 50s cars could be considered muscle cars. Every manufacture made at least one mid sized car with a large V8 in the late 50s. People drove them just like any other car, but sometimes raced them on the weekend. Owning a muscle car was a status symbol for any young man. I get the feeling all the above techno-mumbo-jumbo is a straight copy out of some dictionary or encyclopedia. In the mid 50s, the muscle cars were used as social magnets. More specifically, the rich kids at my and the other local high schools, all drove colourful muscle cars and T-bird coupes to school, to show off and to attract the honeys. Many would spend their lunch hours shining up the 7 coats of paste wax on their cars, and listening to their booming high-powered stereos, surrounded by tons of girls. Us poor kids, if we had a car we could drive to school, drove older wrecks ( paid for with our part-time jobs ) which certainly didn't have that candy Apple showroom gleam. We would spend our noon hours and Saturday mornings on our backs, under our cars, patching up holes in the floors, mufflers and tailpipes, adjusting brakes, or else swapping repair tips and admiring each others customizing trinkets and gadgets. Of course, the chrome had to be polished, to get rid of the corrosion creeping in. Our fingernails never seemed to get clean. We hated the guys [ and the odd girl ] with the brand-new muscle cars. Mainly because they had NO problems picking up girls, wherever they went. Nowadays, the muscle cars seem to be all expensive foreign jobs parked in the teachers' parking lots. Go figure.