 |
A handful of 1969 Camaros left the factory hiding a secret: an aluminum 427 ZL1 engine ordered through a fleet-vehicle paperwork loophole that let dealers dodge GM’s own ban on big blocks in mid-size cars. Only 69 were built, each one costing more in engine surcharge than most base Camaros cost outright. If the blue car above is packing one of these motors, it’s sitting on a small fortune.
The 1963 Corvette Sting Ray was a complete reinvention — new chassis, independent rear suspension, hidden headlights, and a split rear window that lasted exactly one model year. Put one in the hands of Alloway’s Hot Rod Shop, a place known nationally for black paint and a stance that looks like it is trying to get under the pavement, and the result is a specific kind of collision between two design philosophies. Read on to find out what makes that combination work.
Nobody at this drag event could identify the mystery vehicle drawing a crowd – until 1320video tracked down the owner and got the hood open. It turns out to be a Local Motors Rally Fighter, essentially a sand rail in body panels, hiding a supercharged LS3 V8. Watch to see it make a pass nobody expected.
Few names are more closely tied to Monster Energy-liveried drift machines than Vaughn Gittin Jr., whose partnership with the brand dates back to 2010 and helped turn a factory Mustang platform into a full-time competition drift car. Formula Drift itself only dates back to 2003, yet muscle car platforms quickly became the backbone of the sport. This image captures exactly the kind of sideways moment that built that reputation.
The 1966 Dodge Charger was strange enough that buyers walked past it on the showroom floor, and Dodge built barely 37,000 of them. Two years later a redesign sold nearly triple the original projection, and within another year the nameplate needed a hand-formed aerodynamic nose just to stay competitive on NASCAR superspeedways. The production numbers behind that turnaround explain more about the Charger than any highlight reel does.
By 1973 the American luxury convertible market had narrowed to exactly one survivor, and the Cadillac Eldorado was it. Lincoln had walked away in 1967 and Chrysler’s Imperial followed a year later, leaving Cadillac alone with a 500-cubic-inch V8, front-wheel drive and no competition to undercut it. Then one of them paced the Indianapolis 500. Read on for what it was really like to own the last of a dying breed.
A 1969 Dodge Charger gets a modern supercharged Hellcat V8 transplant in this build, appropriately named ‘Reverence,’ from the specialists at Cleveland Power & Performance. The test drive captures how a decades-old muscle car icon behaves with more than 700 horsepower now sitting under the hood. Watch to hear exactly what a Hellcat swap sounds like packed into a classic Charger this size.
An 84mm turbo poking through the grille tells experienced drag racers everything they need to know before the engine fires. This Mustang carries an LS swap and runs in the eight second bracket, which requires roughly four-figure horsepower and a chassis certified to match. Read on for why the boost curve matters more than the peak number, and why consistency is harder to achieve than speed.
The 1970 Boss 302 exists for one reason: Ford needed to beat the Camaro Z/28 in Trans-Am racing, and the rules said it had to sell street versions to do it. The engine that resulted borrowed cylinder head technology from an entirely different Ford engine family to solve a breathing problem, and production more than quadrupled between the first and second model years. Read on to find out what changed, and why the 1970 car is the one enthusiasts chase.
Ray Brownfield’s red 1966 Mustang convertible looks like a straightforward restoration until you ask which 289 is under the hood. Ford sold three completely different versions of that engine in 1966 behind identical fender badges, and the spread ran from 200 horsepower to 271. Brownfield has owned the car since 2005 and turned the restoration around in five months. Read on to find out why that single engine question changes what the car is worth and how it drives.
The 2017 Camaro 1LE was not one package but two, and the cheaper version turned out to be the surprise. A $4,500 box on the V6 coupe bought suspension hardware pulled from the SS, a limited-slip differential, and skidpad numbers that embarrassed cars costing twice as much. The V8 version went further still. Here is exactly what each one included, what the two setups did differently, and why the 1LE became a cult badge almost immediately.
A meme comparing how fast a sports car burns through tires versus a truck has circulated muscle car forums for years, and it’s funny because it’s mostly true. The real explanation involves more than just horsepower on a spec sheet. Read on to find out what’s actually happening at the tire’s contact patch.
Ford moved 105,932 Mustangs in the United States during 2016, finishing well clear of both the Chevrolet Camaro and the Dodge Challenger and extending a winning streak that had already run several years. The interesting part is not the margin but what was happening underneath it, because Chevrolet had just launched an all-new Camaro and Dodge was selling a car whose basic architecture dated to 2008. Here is what actually drove those numbers.
A turbocharged, LSx-swapped Chevrolet Nova SS launched so hard at SCT Indianapolis that its front wheels left the ground entirely, dragging its rear bumper for roughly half the quarter mile — and losing its hood along the way. Viewers immediately noticed the near-cinematic violence of the moment and the driver’s cool head in keeping the car straight. Watch the full run, and the wheelie that had commenters wondering if a wheelie bar should be mandatory.