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This C6 Corvette runs a 549 cubic-inch V6 fed by two 98-millimeter turbochargers, the product of roughly seven years of development. Building a six by deleting two cylinders from a big-block V8 is not vandalism, it is a real drag racing practice that trades cylinder count for a shorter, narrower engine with enormous per-cylinder displacement. Here is why the math works, what the C6’s rear transaxle brings to it, and why the seven-year timeline is the real story.
Jay Leno owns hundreds of cars, but few tell a story as understated as his 1966 Dodge Coronet, a boxy family coupe hiding one of the most feared engines Detroit ever sold to the public. That small “426 Hemi” fender badge marks the first model year Chrysler offered the Hemi as a genuine street engine rather than a race-only exotic, sold in just three B-body nameplates. Read on to find out why a car this plain-looking still commands serious respect from collectors like Leno.
Rows of Ferraris and Paganis against a backdrop of Renaissance architecture is exactly what you’d expect from an Italian Cars & Coffee — until a pack of growling American V8s rolls in and steals the show. Here’s the story behind how muscle car culture found its way into one of Europe’s most exclusive car meets, and why it fit right in.
Shelby rated the 1965 Cobra 427 at 410 horsepower in street trim and roughly 485 in competition specification, numbers that made it the fastest American road car of its era. So where does a figure like 575 horsepower come from? The answer involves continuation cars, modern crate engines, and a shape that never stopped being built. Here is how to tell the original numbers from everything that followed.
Restore a Corvette too close to perfect and purists call foul; restore it too loose and you lose the numbers-matching value collectors chase. This decades-old argument over Corvette restoration standards, factory-correct versus “better than Detroit ever made it,” still splits owners today. Read on for both sides of a debate that has no clean answer, and the questions that help you pick your own.
Two nearly identical turbocharged Mustangs, two well-known names from the online street racing scene, and a Houston backstreet that had hosted plenty of grudge matches before this one. Chris Hamilton’s BoostedGT went up against a car nicknamed Black Jesus in a race that came down to a margin thin enough to guarantee a rematch.
Don Dames’ 1970 Chevrolet Nova wears Green Mist paint and runs a six-cylinder rather than any of the big-block options that usually headline Nova stories. It sat in storage for years and emerged roughly 80 percent original, a survival rate that eludes almost every Nova built for straight-line speed. Read on for why the six was actually the most popular engine that year, and why honest survivors like this one are getting harder to find than restored SS cars.
A green Road Runner sits against a plain background, daring Mopar fans to name its exact model year from the details alone. Plymouth built this car across three closely related seasons, and the differences are subtle enough to trip up even seasoned collectors. Read on to find out which year this one actually is.
This widebody 1973 De Tomaso Pantera hides a serious trick under its flared fenders: a Ford GT front end grafted onto an Italian mid-engine body, backed by a 351 Cleveland V8 and a ZF five-speed transaxle. Ford sold the Pantera through Lincoln-Mercury dealers for just a few years before an oil crisis and warranty headaches ended the partnership. Read on to find out what it took to merge two very different Fords into one genuinely double-take build.
This 1972 Ford Gran Torino Sport arrived during the one year Ford dared to redesign the Torino from the ground up, then walked the styling back within twelve months. Under the hood sits a 351 Cobra Jet, a Cleveland-block V8 carrying real Boss 351 lineage. Here’s why this specific model year stands apart from every Torino before or after it.
Built in the year everyone blames for killing the muscle car, this all-black 1971 Pontiac Firebird Formula 455 still hides real teeth: a 335-horse HO big block, 480 lb-ft of torque, and a heavy-duty three-speed for anyone who ordered it to be driven hard. Overshadowed by its Trans Am sibling’s spoilers and stripes, the Formula was and remains the second-gen Firebird’s best-kept sleeper secret.
This 1966 Dodge Coronet claims to be one of just seventeen 426 Hemi cars ever built — a number worth digging into before you take it at face value. Mopar’s own Hemi Coronet production records are murkier than you’d expect. Here’s what the real numbers say, and why it barely matters once you hear it run.
A 1967 Chevrolet Camaro SS could leave the factory with a 295-horsepower 350 or a 375-horsepower 396, and the difference between them matters far more than anything the badges on the fenders suggest. The SS package brought genuine hardware, including upgraded suspension and cooling alongside the higher-output V8, rather than just the bumblebee stripe. Read on for what each engine actually ran, how to tell an RS from an SS, and why documentation matters more than the model year.
Ford built two completely different 1969 Mustang Mach 1s that looked identical parked side by side, and most buyers had no idea which one they were driving home. Same badge, same stripe, same scooped hood, same displacement on the fender. The difference came down to a single character in the VIN. This Acapulco Blue fastback settles the question the moment its hood comes up, and the answer explains a lot about how Ford sold the Mach 1.