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They call it Deathtrap, and it was built for one of drag racing’s most unforgiving formats: small tire, where a narrow drag radial has to absorb everything the engine makes. The Fox body Mustang has become the default chassis in this class for reasons Ford never anticipated when it built the platform as an economy commuter. Read on for why turbos suit the format, and why the converter matters more than the horsepower number.
Chevrolet had two versions of a new 454 big-block ready for the 1970 Corvette, and the wilder one was advertised at 460 horsepower. It never reached a single retail buyer — a labor strike had already shortened the model year and the LS7 was deleted from the order sheet, leaving the 390-horsepower LS5 as the only 454 anyone could actually order. Read on to find out why a Bridgehampton Blue four-speed roadster from that year sits at such an important point in Corvette history.
Randy Smalley waited two years before finally buying this 2017 Shelby GT350R, and when Lou Costabile asked why he pulled the trigger, Randy’s answer was just two words. The white-with-stripes Mustang has racked up over 50,000 views and split opinion in the comments, from praise calling it a “grand slam” for Ford to a sharp-eyed viewer who spotted a panel gap near the headlight. Was the wait worth it, and was the build quality up to the price tag?
1320video found one of the more unhinged builds on the street car scene: a Mini weighing barely 1000 pounds with a 250-horsepower Suzuki Hayabusa motorcycle engine wedged inside. Fitting two adults is described as a genuine squeeze, and the power-to-weight math puts it well past most factory muscle cars. One commenter’s verdict – fun once, horrible – says everything about what riding along is actually like. Watch to see this featherweight terror in action.
Pontiac did not offer a GTO convertible for 1972, which left one option for buyers who wanted open-air performance: the LeMans Sport Convertible, orderable with any of the three GTO-spec engines including the 455 HO at 300 net horsepower. Pontiac built roughly 3,400 to 3,500 of them at a $3,225 base price, and 1972 was the last year the body existed. Read on to find out why the market still undervalues them.
This 1970 Dodge Charger R/T pairs the 426 Hemi with a rare EB3 Light Blue Metallic and black vinyl top combination — one of just 56 Hemi Chargers built with an automatic transmission that year. Read on to find out why so few buyers said yes to the Hemi’s steep price tag, and how the engine paid off on Dodge’s most successful NASCAR season yet.
Mercury built the 1969 Cougar Eliminator to look like a street brawler, then sold most of them with engines other than the one this car carries. Only 260 buyers out of 2,250 checked the box for the 390 four-barrel FE big block, making it the quiet outlier in an already uncommon package. Here is why the underdog engine deserves a second look.
Plymouth built exactly five 1971 ‘Cuda 440 Six Barrel convertibles with a four-speed. Not five hundred, five. That number is the result of a perfect storm: a top-tier engine option, the rarest body style, the least popular transmission choice, and a model year in which the entire muscle car market collapsed underneath it. Read on for how a car this specific ever got built and why 1971 is the most consequential year in E-body history.
The 1972 Chevrolet Nova spent decades as the muscle car nobody fought over — overshadowed by flashier Camaros and Chevelles wearing louder graphics and bigger reputations. That’s changed fast, with clean, numbers-matching examples climbing from bargain-bin prices into serious five and six-figure territory. Built on the same platform as the Camaro and packing a genuine Chevy V8 under its unassuming body, the ’72 Nova never needed to shout to earn respect. Read on to find out why collectors finally caught up to what this sleeper always offered.
A 30-year barn find just resurfaced wearing one of the rarest factory engine combinations Ford ever built — a triple-carbureted 406 big block that fewer than 124 full-size Mercurys ever received from the factory. Paired with a factory 4-speed and a special-order 4.11 rear axle, this Monterey is a genuine sleeper hiding inside a plain-looking family sedan. Read on to find out what made this engine option so rare, and what a numbers-matching survivor like this is worth today.
Chevrolet built the 1966 Corvette’s 427 big-block for one reason: Shelby’s Cobra was embarrassing American racing, and something had to answer it. Only 5,258 of the 27,720 Corvettes built that year came with the range-topping L72 427/425, a solid-lifter monster that could reportedly outrun its own factory horsepower rating. That scarcity is why numbers-matching L72 cars still command serious money at auction. Few options ever turned a sports car into a legend this fast.
This piece imagined a future where cars drove themselves and the real money went to companies nobody thinks of as automotive: chipmakers, mapmakers, data brokers. Years later, names like Mobileye, Nvidia, and Waymo prove the theory more right than wrong. Here’s how that unlikely list of winners actually played out.
When the camouflage came off the Camaro ZL1 1LE at the Nurburgring, Chevrolet was chasing a number that had stood for six years and belonged to a Dodge. The 1LE package pairs 650 supercharged horsepower with a manual gearbox, spool-valve dampers borrowed from endurance racing and tyres that barely qualify as street legal. How close did it get to the Viper? Read on for the lap time and the hardware behind it.
Nobody can agree on the exact specs of any single General Lee because The Dukes of Hazzard chewed through somewhere between 200 and 300 Dodge Chargers over its 1979-to-1985 run, with only about 18 surviving in driveable condition. Stunt coordinator Al Wyatt Sr. built the fleet around lessons learned from an earlier film, and the welded-shut doors that became the character’s signature trait were pure structural necessity. Read on to find out why a genuine survivor is rarer than winning a drag race.
Schwartz Performance took a dented California 1969 Mustang fastback, spent roughly 1,400 hours on it, and handed the finished car away to a stranger at a Las Vegas trade show. Under the Boss-inspired paint sits a 444-horsepower Coyote Boss 302 crate engine, a fabricated G-Machine chassis, and a GT500-spec brake package. Read on to find out how a brake company ended up building one of the more serious restomods of the SEMA era.