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A single tribute photograph of a 1966 GTO carries more weight once you understand what it is actually mourning. Not one car, but an eighty-three-year run that ended with a white sedan rolling off an assembly line in January 2010. Pontiac did not fade away quietly, it was a casualty of the 2009 financial collapse that cost General Motors several brands at once. But this GTO is the car that proved what the badge could do. Read on to find out what GM gave up.
Forty-two years after the original Boss 302 was built to win a Trans-Am race, Ford brought the name back with one very specific goal: beat a BMW M3 around Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. Around the same time, Chevrolet revived the ZL1 badge — a name that started with one Illinois dealer’s odd request for fifty aluminum-block Camaros — on a supercharged, 550-plus horsepower Camaro built using suspension technology borrowed from the Corvette ZR1. Read on to find out how two of Detroit’s oldest names ended up chasing the same import.
The Malibu spent nearly a decade as a trim level before it was ever its own car — riding as the top of the Chevelle lineup from 1964 through 1972 and quietly picking up the SS-396 package, front disc brakes, and a full restyle along the way. When it finally split off as its own model in 1973, the depth of what had been built into that trim for a decade suddenly became obvious. Read on to find out how a badge became a bloodline.
A 1966 Ford Mustang with 408 cubic inches under the hood is not a car Ford ever built, because the biggest engine on the 1966 order sheet displaced 289. Somewhere along the way an owner decided the factory had been too conservative and added more than a hundred cubic inches of small block. Here is what Ford actually sold during its record breaking year, how a 408 stroker gets built, and what changes about a first generation Mustang once the numbers stop matching.
The Corvette almost didn’t survive its own first decade. Built from fiberglass because postwar steel was scarce, sold in a color palette limited to white, and slower to stop than it was to go, the original 1953 Corvette came close to cancellation before Ford’s Thunderbird forced Chevrolet’s hand. What followed was a rapid string of changes — a real V8, a fuel-injected small-block, a bored-out 327 — that turned an awkward experiment into the car GM couldn’t afford to kill. Read on to find out how it got there.
Only two examples of this coachbuilt Bentley were ever built, and their paths diverged almost immediately, one preserved in a factory museum, the other sold into a private American collection. Design No. CT150 stands as one of the last projects James Young of Bromley completed before its coachbuilding era ended for good. Read on to find out why this rare Bentley debuted at the Geneva Motor Show before its first owner ever saw it.
Dodge built the 1968 Dart GTS around a 340 small block, offered a 383 to buyers who wanted more, and flatly refused to put a 440 in the car on its own assembly line. Roughly fifty of them got one anyway, through an outside shop working under Dodge supervision. A clean, documented example is one of the harder cars in the Mopar world to verify. Read on for what to check before you believe the ad copy.
Only a few hundred genuine 427 Cobras were ever built, and nearly all of them disappeared into collections and auction houses decades ago. That means essentially every 427 Cobra you will actually see in traffic or at a track day is a replica, and this Factory Five built example makes the case for why that is not a compromise. With a real 427 side oiler, aluminum heads, dual quads, and roughly 2,400 pounds to move, it does the thing the original was famous for.
This 1929 Ford Model A carries the flathead four-cylinder and three-speed manual that helped Ford sell a million units in barely over a year, a pace nobody expected after the aging Model T. Its features list, from an electric starter to four-wheel brakes, felt like a genuine leap into the modern era for buyers at the time. Read on to find out what made this car such a turning point for Ford.
There is a problem with the spec line on this 1936 Chevrolet pickup, and it is the kind of problem serious collectors actually enjoy. The truck runs a 283-cubic-inch V8, an engine Chevrolet would not introduce for another twenty-one years. It is a restomod, and the story of how a Depression-era work truck ended up with Chevy’s most famous small-block is far more interesting than the numbers. Read on for what actually came in a 1936 Chevy pickup and why builders keep reaching for the 283.
This 1974 MG Midget carries the same 1275cc BMC A-series engine family that once powered the Mini Cooper S to rally wins across Europe, only detuned to 55 horsepower for U.S. roads. Seven months into the model year, U.S. regulations forced MG to bolt on oversized rubber bumpers factory workers nicknamed ‘Sabrinas.’ Read on to find out why this exact transitional model year matters so much to Midget collectors today.
A cracked, sun-baked steering wheel is one of the fastest ways to undercut an otherwise correct restoration, and unlike most classic car parts, there’s no factory reproduction sitting on a shelf waiting to be ordered. Instead there’s a small network of specialists — from a Georgia shop that duplicates factory urethane finishes to a Pennsylvania restorer who’s spent decades perfecting wood-rimmed wheels — each with their own approach to bringing a ruined wheel back to something close to new. Read on to find out which one fits your car.
Ford took a gamble in the spring of 1964 that most of Detroit thought was reckless, and by 1965 it had sold 559,451 Mustangs and invented an entire class of American car. Buyers could order the same 289 V8 in three distinct states of tune, from a 200-horsepower two-barrel to the 271-horsepower HiPo K-code. The car pictured here runs the milder end of that lineup through a Cruise-O-Matic automatic. Read on for what separated the C-code, A-code and K-code cars, and why originality now matters more than restoration.
How a buyer phrases a single question to a seller can be the difference between an honest answer and a defensive “nothing’s wrong.” This entry breaks down the top mistakes collectors make when buying a muscle car, from rushed test drives to skipping legal history checks that are now fast and easy to verify. Read on to find out which habits separate confident buyers from ones who overpay.
Most muscle car fans walk right past the 1968 Oldsmobile 98. It is full-size, formally styled and built for executives rather than stoplight duels, yet under that hood sits a completely reengineered 455 Rocket V8 making 365 horsepower, more than the 442 wearing the division’s performance badge that same year. One body style in the lineup is rarer than almost any 442 you will ever see at a show. Read on for the numbers behind the most overlooked big-block Oldsmobile of the era.