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Eighteen cars rolled out of the display lot and into judging that Friday, but only one would walk away wearing the title every builder in the country wants on their resume. Getting selected as a Street Machine of the Year finalist already puts a car in rarefied company at Goodguys’ PPG Nationals, the largest event the organization runs all year. Past winners have ranged from twin-turbo restomods to meticulously built first-gen pony cars. What does it actually take to win? Read on to find out.
Chevrolet built the supercharged 6.2-liter LS9 for exactly one car, the 638-horsepower Corvette ZR1, and then builders started putting it in 1969 Camaros. The engine is the easy part; it already has forged internals, dry-sump oiling, and an Eaton blower. Everything the factory bolted around a 1969 unibody is what has to be replaced to survive it. Read on to find out what an LS9 swap actually demands underneath the sheet metal.
Two black Chevrolets separated by fifty years: a 1969 Chevelle SS, whose performance package cost 348 dollars as an option box, and a 2017 Camaro ZL1 with 650 supercharged horsepower and a 198 mph top speed. The modern car wins every measurable contest, and it is not close. But the comparison gets far more interesting once you look at what each car cost relative to everything else on sale that year. Read on to find out which one was the better deal.
February 2017 produced a pony car sales result almost nobody predicted: the Dodge Challenger, on a platform already a decade old, comfortably outsold the freshly redesigned Chevrolet Camaro while the Ford Mustang took the month outright. The numbers said something uncomfortable about what buyers actually want from a muscle car. Read on for the figures and what they revealed about the segment.
This full-size Mopar spent the late 1960s as the most common sight in American police fleets, chosen by departments from coast to coast over anything Ford or GM offered. Under the skin sat heavy-duty everything: reinforced suspension, semi-metallic brakes, and an electrical system built to run radios and light bars all shift long. Buyers could option as little as a 230-horsepower 318 or as much as a 375-horsepower 440 wedge. See if you can identify the year, make, and model wearing the badge.
Dodge spent months teasing the 2018 Challenger SRT Demon before admitting what it had actually built: a factory drag car with 840 horsepower, one seat, and a set of DOT-legal drag radials. The NHRA reacted before the car ever reached a customer. Read on for what the Demon really was, why only about 3,300 were built, and what those cars are worth now.
Mike Finnegan went from a Hot Rod Magazine staff editor to one of the most recognizable builders in automotive video, after a road-trip film shot with David Freiburger became Roadkill and spawned Hot Rod Garage, Faster with Finnegan, and Engine Masters. When MotorTrend Productions closed in November 2024, he moved everything to his own YouTube channel and kept going. Read on to find out how a builder who refuses to choose between hot rods and art cars stayed relevant for more than a decade.
There’s a sound that doesn’t need subtitles to be understood anywhere in the world: the uneven, chest-thumping burble of an American V8 idling at a stoplight. Compilations built entirely around that sound circulate constantly in muscle car circles, and enthusiasts often recognize the engine family from the exhaust note before a single body panel appears. This one is a tribute to exactly that sensory appeal.
A single customer commissioned Hennessey Performance to build out both a Camaro Z/28 and a Camaro ZL1, combined for roughly 1,650 horsepower, then arranged access to a private airport runway to settle which one was faster. It is a rare look at two very different performance philosophies from the same brand going head to head with real stakes. Even a self-described Mustang fan in the comments couldn’t argue with the result. Watch to see which Camaro wins.
A 1968 Ford Falcon left the factory with an inline six or a mild small-block and no ambitions whatsoever. The car nicknamed Dirty Bird shares the body panels and nothing else. Behind the nose sit two turbochargers large enough to see from the starting line, feeding a 449-cubic-inch small-block making a claimed 2,600 horsepower. Read on for the combination and the eighth-mile numbers it produces.
Two cars, parked side by side, and suddenly everyone in the comments has a strong opinion about which one they’d drive home. Red or blue isn’t just a paint choice in muscle car circles, it’s practically a personality test. This one’s an easy scroll-stopper, but the real answer usually has less to do with color than with what’s sitting under the hood.
There’s a decades-old argument about which brand of American muscle actually deserves bragging rights, and at a test track outside Las Vegas, you can settle it with a stopwatch instead of an opinion. This roundup covers the Richard Petty Driving Experience’s American Muscle Car Challenge alongside a 145-car Barrett-Jackson consignment, a packed holiday cruise-in, and a widow’s tribute to her car-loving husband.
Anyone who has spent time near a car show or a garage door propped open on a Saturday knows the sound: gearheads debating horsepower, cubic inches, and quarter-mile bragging rights like it’s a matter of public record. It’s a shorthand language built from decades of shop talk, and newcomers pick it up simply by listening. This look at muscle car culture explores why those conversations never seem to end.
A burnout meant to entertain the crowd at Wayne Downtown Days went sideways in barely two or three seconds, sending a classic Camaro out of control on Michigan Avenue. What stopped it from reaching spectators wasn’t a barrier or a safety plan — it was a parked Ford Flex sitting at the curb. No one was hurt, but organizers didn’t downplay how close it came. Read on to find out what happened and why it keeps happening at cruise events nationwide.
Muscle cars run on a simple formula: big power, small price. Japan never quite matched that formula until Infiniti’s 2018 Q50 Red Sport 400 showed up with 400 horsepower, four doors, and a price tag tens of thousands below what a GT-R or RC F demands. First-drive reviewers loved the power but split hard on one specific detail. Here’s what stood out.