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Ray Brownfield has owned this 1966 Mustang convertible since 1982, restoring it into a Mustang Club of America National Award Winner. Only 72,119 of the 607,568 Mustangs Ford built that year were convertibles, and national-level judging holds them to a standard most owners never attempt. Four decades of patient ownership is written into every detail, the kind of commitment most restorations do not survive.
Modern muscle cars like the Hellcat twins hit numbers the original 1960s and 1970s era never touched, but they get there through supercharging and computer control instead of big cubic inches and low compression. Here’s a closer look at how Detroit’s horsepower war came back in the 2010s, and what changed in the engineering between the original muscle car boom and its modern revival.
This 1979 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 proves the muscle car era wasn’t as dead as critics claimed. Built with a cammed 350 V8, headers, and its original four-speed manual transmission, it wears the black-and-orange color combination that defined the second-generation Z/28 at its peak. Watch the full 4K road test and tour of a survivor built during the industry’s so-called malaise era.
A 1963 Plymouth Belvedere called the Asphalt Angel did not earn that nickname with paint. Under a plain mid-size hood sits Chrysler’s 426 Max Wedge, offered in 1963 at 415 or 425 horsepower with a cross-ram intake, twin Carter four-barrels and compression high enough to require race fuel. Chrysler sold these cars with documentation warning they were not intended for street use. Read on to find out why so few of them survived intact.
Clive Sutton already had a reputation for tuning Mustangs to 700bhp, then his shop decided to go further. The CS800 squeezes as much as 825bhp and 640 lb-ft out of the Mustang’s 5.0-litre V8 using a Stage 2 Whipple supercharger, backing the numbers with a full carbon-fibre body kit and a bespoke interior. Here’s what it takes to build Britain’s answer to the American muscle car.
Cadillac marketed the 1976 Eldorado convertible as its last-ever ragtop, capping production near 14,000 units before quietly reversing course and bringing the convertible back eight years later. The car backing up that promise carried the largest engine ever fitted to a production vehicle at the time. Here’s the story behind the marketing pitch and the numbers that made this convertible special.
Only 63 buyers checked the box on a 1971 Charger R/T order form that guaranteed their car would become a legend: the 426 Hemi, in its final year ever offered in the model. This particular orange, sunroof-equipped example combines two kinds of rarity most Mopar collectors only ever get to chase separately. Read on to find out just how rare rare actually was.
Plymouth never built a 550-horsepower Barracuda — the factory ceiling topped out well under 400 horsepower even at its 1970 peak. So when a modern supercharged build shows up making 550 horsepower and a whine that turns heads at idle, it is finishing a story the factory never got the chance to write. Read on to find out just how far builders have pushed this compact pony car’s engine bay decades after Plymouth stopped building it.
Measuring 225 inches bumper to bumper and powered by a 401-cubic-inch V8 nicknamed the Wildcat 445, this 1960 Buick Electra convertible represented the brand’s new flagship just one year after Buick retired the Roadmaster name. Only 6,746 of these convertibles were built for the entire model year. Read on to find out what made this cream-painted example such a rare survivor.
Ford needed to beat Chrysler’s Hemi on NASCAR’s superspeedways, but the rulebook only required 500 street versions of the race engine, not that they share a body with the car actually racing. That loophole put a 429 big-block into a Mustang engine bay never designed to hold it, built through an unusual two-plant process most owners never expect. Read on to see how a homologation technicality created one of Ford’s rarest, most valuable Mustangs.
This 1970 Chevelle SS convertible wears one of muscle car history’s most respected shapes, but there’s nothing 1970 about what’s actually driving it. Between LS6 mythology, six-figure auction results, and the modern hardware hiding under the skin, this build makes the case that restomods aren’t a compromise. They might be the smartest way to own this car.
Ford reinvented its personal-luxury flagship for 1964 with a bold, squared-off design and a cabin that felt like something out of a world’s fair — and buyers noticed, snapping up nearly 100,000 Thunderbirds that year alone. The convertible added a fully automatic power top borrowed from Lincoln, while a torquey 390-cubic-inch V8 handled the muscle underneath all that formal styling. A handful of ultra-rare special-order cars even packed a 427 V8, though most buyers stuck with the accessible 390. It remains one of the best sales years the Thunderbird nameplate ever had.
A ‘340’ badge stamped onto a black Mopar’s rear quarter panel names a specific car and a specific engine — Plymouth’s Duster 340, built around one of Chrysler’s most respected small-block V8s. The caption treats it as a punchline, but the badge tells a real story: a lightweight A-body built to carry big-block-beating power without the big-block price tag. Read on to find out what made the 340 earn that reputation, and why the Duster carrying it still turns heads decades later.
When Brian Kelly bought this 1970 Road Runner, it was covered in spray-can paint rather than anything close to a factory finish. Six years and a full restoration later, it wears a correct Lemon Twist Yellow over a numbers-appropriate 383 V8 and a Hurst Pistol Grip four-speed. For owner Pat Kelly, though, the real point isn’t the paint or the horsepower. Read on to see what he’s actually chasing behind the wheel.
This 1957 Ford Thunderbird represents the final year of Ford’s original two-seat design before the four-seat Squarebird took over — and this example, toured at Garrett Classics in Texas, wears nearly every desirable factory option Ford offered that year: the 312 V8, power brakes, power steering, power windows, and rare factory air conditioning. Finished in Raven Black over red with its signature porthole hardtop, it’s a strong argument for why the last two-seat Bird still commands serious money today. See what samspace81 found under the hood.