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A 1967 Camaro carrying Chevrolet’s ZZ502 crate big block makes 502 horsepower and 567 lb-ft of torque, and none of it came from 1967. The engine was designed decades after the car, yet it drops into the same bay as though it had always belonged there. The hard part of the build is everything behind the engine. Read on for what it takes to make a 502 swap work as well as it sounds.
No prep racing strips away the traction compound that normal drag strips depend on, which turns a thousand-horsepower pass into a wrestling match. A helmet cam mounted inside BoostedGT’s Ford lines up against Flaco’s twin-turbo LSx S10 at No Prep Mayhem in Wichita. Two very different formulas, one very slick surface. Read on for what makes this format so much harder than it looks.
This green wagon is hiding its year, make, and model behind some deliberately similar styling cues from Plymouth’s B-body lineup, the same family that spawned the Belvedere, Satellite, and GTX. Get the grille shape and taillight details right and the guess gets a lot easier. Take your best shot at the year, make, and model before checking the comments for the answer.
In 1955 Chevrolet and Ford both launched a two-seat American convertible, and only one of them was seriously trying to build a sports car. The Thunderbird outsold the Corvette by better than twenty to one in the first year alone, which should have ended the argument permanently. Instead it saved the Corvette. Here is how the softer car won the showroom, why GM refused to read that as a defeat, and what happened to both nameplates afterward.
Keeping a hot rod or muscle car roadworthy depends on more than just good wrenching, it depends on an entire parts and restoration industry working the way it should. When that supply chain is healthy, everyday driving a classic gets a lot less stressful. Here’s a look at what that actually means for owners keeping these cars on the road.
Pete Calandra has owned this 1969 Buick Electra 225 convertible for forty-five years, ever since buying it in the middle of a snowstorm. Now restored in gold paint and shown at World of Wheels in Rosemont, Illinois, the car has been preserved to a condition its owner intends to keep far away from winter roads for good. As Buick’s full-size flagship, the Electra 225 was built for comfort and presence rather than speed, and this one carries a rarer credential than horsepower: a single owner for nearly half a century. Watch to hear the story behind one of the longest-held cars on the show floor.
At a small cruise-in show, a brand-new Shelby GT350 Mustang ended up parked in a grove of trees next to rat rods and restored classics, and that mix is exactly the draw. Local cruise-ins don’t need velvet ropes to pull a crowd; they just need cars people actually love. Here’s what keeps events like this one going strong.
In the early 1960s, when factory racing was not technically supposed to exist under General Motors’ own corporate policy, a handful of very specific cars still rolled off assembly lines built almost entirely for the drag strip. This 1962 Chevrolet is one of them, and if you did not know to look for it, you would swear it was just another Impala. The debate over exactly what engine it is hiding still is not fully settled. Watch to see why even longtime owners disagree.
Real 1970 Plymouth Superbirds are nearly impossible to buy — Plymouth built fewer than 2,000 to satisfy NASCAR’s homologation rules, and survivors now sell for prices most enthusiasts will never reach. So The Brothers Collection built their own from a plain 1970 Plymouth Satellite, recreating the wing car’s nose cone and towering rear wing on a more attainable platform. Featured on V8TV’s Muscle Car of the Week, the build raises a real question about what a tribute car needs to get right to earn respect. Watch to see how close a handmade Superbird can get to the real thing.
Tom Derych spent his teenage years launching a 440-powered Dart Sport down New York National Speedway, and fifteen years looking for a real muscle car to replace it. He found a Sublime Green 1970 Charger at a show in 1989 with a blown 440 that looked spectacular and barely ran. What he built from it displaces 472 cubic inches and wears 1966 iron Hemi heads. Read on for how the combination came together.
Only a handful of Camaros in Chevrolet history have led the field at the Indianapolis 500, and in 1969 about 3,675 buyers got to park a street version in their own driveway. Every one of them was a Dover White convertible with orange houndstooth inside, because the Z11 package left buyers almost nothing to decide. What did vary is what sat under the cowl induction hood, and that single difference is what separates a nice car from a six figure auction headline today.
A 1969 Chevelle SS wearing both 396 and 454 badges is telling you two stories at once, and only one of them came from a Chevrolet assembly line. The bigger engine did not reach a Chevelle engine bay until the following model year, which means every car labeled this way has a decision buried somewhere in its history. Here is what Chevrolet actually built in 1969, why the 454 swap became so common, and how to tell which one you are looking at before the money changes hands.
A Sunday night at Larry’s Fun Fest, an event that has drawn crowds as large as 5,000 to Great Lakes Dragaway in Union Grove, Wisconsin, turned tragic when three men were shot near a food vendor. Authorities believe the shooting stemmed from an ongoing rivalry between gang members from the Chicago and Milwaukee areas rather than anything connected to the racing itself. Two men died at the scene, a third later at a hospital, and the shooter was not immediately caught. Read on to find out what’s known so far.
Humberto Garcia of Meadowdale Performance Garage in Carpentersville, Illinois, built his shop around one specific memory: his father bringing home a new Lincoln when Garcia was a boy. This 1972 Continental Mark IV in Rose Diamond Fire Metallic, powered by Ford’s 460-cubic-inch V8, is a showcase of that focus — a personal luxury coupe restored with the same care most shops reserve for muscle cars. Shown in Carpentersville, it makes the case that Lincoln’s design ambition deserves the same collector attention as flashier nameplates. Watch to see why one family’s memory became a whole shop’s specialty.