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This 1979 Pontiac Trans Am, photographed courtesy of Gateway Classic Cars, runs a 403-cubic-inch V8 backed by a Turbo 350 automatic. The catch is that Pontiac did not build the engine, Oldsmobile did, and no manual transmission was ever offered behind it. Yet 1979 turned into the single best sales year the Firebird nameplate ever had, with more than 211,000 built. Read on to find out how a car with a borrowed engine outsold every version that came before it.
This 1976 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, photographed courtesy of Gateway Classic Cars, runs a 350 cubic-inch V8 with a three-speed automatic. Its model year sits at a hinge point: the big-block 454 had just disappeared from the lineup, catalytic converters had arrived across the board, and the most powerful engine offered made 175 horsepower. Chevrolet then sold 353,272 of them. Read on to find out why the personal luxury coupe did not need horsepower to dominate the mid-1970s.
By 1972 the GTO wasn’t a standalone model anymore — it was an option package on the Le Mans, its trademark Endura bumper no longer exclusive and its horsepower quietly dropping year over year. By 1974 it had drifted even further, becoming an option on the compact Ventura and drawing comparisons to a Chevy Nova in drag. Read on to find out how the car that arguably invented the muscle car category spent its final three model years fighting to stay recognizable.
A 1968 Firebird and a modern Trans Am conversion making 655 horsepower have almost nothing in common except a badge, and on paper the comparison is over before it begins. Swap the keys, though, and the verdict gets far less obvious. Here is what separated Pontiac’s early F-body from its modern namesake, why the older car still wins arguments it should lose on numbers, and what got lost in between.
This restored 1949 Ford F1 pickup carries a badge that predates the famous F-100 name by four years, a detail most casual truck fans get wrong. Buyers configuring one in period chose between a flathead six and a flathead V8, the same engine architecture that made Ford’s cars famous. Read on to find out which one this particular truck got.
Lee Iacocca took over Ford’s day-to-day operations determined to give buyers more reasons to visit a showroom, and the 1962-1963 Thunderbird Sports Roadster was part of that push — complete with wire wheels borrowed straight from genuine sports cars, a fiberglass tonneau cover, and an ultra-rare 345-horsepower Tri-Power engine option that lasted barely a year and a half. It also involved Elvis Presley, a collapsing wire wheel, and a name change that almost happened but didn’t. Read on to find out how it all fit together.
Pontiac badged this LeMans engine a “350” even though it actually displaced 353.8 cubic inches, a naming quirk that’s followed the model for decades. A full 1968 redesign turned the LeMans into a genuine cross-shop for buyers eyeing the pricier GTO. Read on to find out why the numbers on the badge never quite matched what was under the hood.
Pontiac hasn’t built a car in years, but a Tallahassee shop called Trans Am Depot will still sell you one — by starting with a fifth-generation Camaro and spending eight weeks turning it into a Hurst Edition Trans Am tribute, gold logo, shaker hood, and all. Between the base conversion, a fully optioned Camaro donor, and a supercharger kit, the final bill can climb past $100,000. Read on to find out what that money actually buys, right down to the carbon fiber sill plates.
The C4-generation Corvette had something to prove — and it did, in ways most owners never fully realized. Between 1984 and 1996 it introduced a completely redesigned platform, brought in British firm Lotus Engineering to help build the 375-horsepower ZR-1, and quietly set a 24-hour, 175-mph endurance speed record along the way. A separately built twin-turbo version, the Callaway Sledgehammer, pushed even further, hitting 254.76 mph on a closed track. Read on to find out how an era known for plastic panels and a flawed anti-theft key also became one of the fastest Corvette generations ever built.
A nineteen-inch nose cone and a wing tall enough to see over the roof were not styling decisions. They were the price of a NASCAR rulebook, and Plymouth built nearly two thousand street cars purely to satisfy it. Under the aerodynamic theater sat an engine range topping out with the 426 Hemi, though the 440 Six Barrel came closer to matching it than anyone expected. The whole program lasted exactly one model year. Read on to find out why.
Chevrolet sold its 1947 Fleetmaster looking almost identical to a prewar design, and buyers starved for new cars snapped it up anyway, driving nearly 265,000 units out the door in a single year. Under the hood sat a dependable inline six nicknamed for the color of its exhaust flame. Read on to find out why a company could get away with selling the same car twice.
James Dean died behind the wheel of a 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder nicknamed the “Little Bastard,” a car that vanished so completely after a string of bizarre incidents that a million-dollar reward has never brought it back. Historians still argue over how much of the wreck’s dark legend is even true. Read on to find out what actually happened on Route 46, and why the car’s disappearance still hasn’t been solved.
The 1939 Ford Deluxe quietly said goodbye to a signature styling cue while introducing Ford’s first four-wheel hydraulic brakes and a reworked flathead V8 with a new head bolt pattern. It was the last of its kind in more ways than one, from its rumble seat to its crank-out windshield. Read on to find out what changed under the hood and what disappeared from the lineup for good.
By 1967 Buick’s personal luxury flagship was hiding something the badge never advertised: an entirely new big-block V8 that quietly retired an engine family the division had built since 1953. The switch happened with almost no fanfare, buried in a model year better known for the Riviera’s sculpted sheet metal than for what sat beneath it. The engineering behind that swap is the more interesting story. Read on to find out what made Buick walk away.
Dodge arrived to the pony car fight five years late and compensated by building an engine bay that would accept nearly anything Chrysler made, from a slant six to a 426 Hemi. This 1971 Challenger runs a 440 big block with a four-speed, which puts it one rung below the top and in the sweet spot for anyone who wants real E-body performance without a Hemi price. Read on for what the numbers actually say.