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After fifty-two years of continuous production, Ford”s sixth-generation Mustang was due for more than a new grille — and the mid-cycle refresh delivered real changes under the skin. A reworked V8, a torquier EcoBoost four-cylinder, a new 10-speed automatic, and the quiet death of the base V6 all landed in the same model year. Here is everything that changed, and why it mattered more than most facelifts usually do.
1970 turned out to be the last real hurrah for Ford’s Mustang lineup before insurance companies, emissions rules, and a fuel crisis reshaped the whole muscle car world. Buyers that year could choose from a 428 Cobra Jet, a 499-unit Boss 429, or a Boss 302 – options that would mostly vanish within a couple of model years. A clean survivor like this one is a snapshot of Mustang at its absolute peak, right before everything changed.
This Plymouth Gran Fury pairs a factory 440 cubic inch police interceptor engine with a custom tunnel ram intake punching through the hood. Factory police 440s were built for torque and durability rather than outright speed, a very different mission than this build now serves. Here is what made the real police package so trusted before anyone touched it.
The Plymouth Barracuda and Dodge Challenger shared the same E-body platform, the same engine lineup up through the 426 Hemi, and the same fate when EPA and insurance rules ended the big-block era in 1974. What set them apart was never under the hood – it was two inches of wheelbase, a different grille, and which showroom you happened to walk into. Which one is the better muscle car has been a real argument in this community for over 50 years now.
This 1970 Chevelle SS 454 carries the range-topping LS6 engine, a rare special-order Hugger Orange paint job, and numbers-matching documentation — and the uploader believes it may be one of the very first LS6 Chevelles built. Insurance companies and factory PR were already getting nervous about advertising 450 horsepower by 1970. Watch to see the case for why this could be the first of its kind.
The Hot Rod Super Nationals has been bringing muscle cars and hot rods to the Canfield Fairgrounds since 1987, and after a decade-long detour to Quaker City Motorsports Park, it’s been back home since 2016. With attendance topping 30,000 over a three-day weekend and collectors driving in from as far as California, this is one of the Ohio Valley’s genuine car culture institutions – right down to the Saturday night cruise into Boardman.
Ford built over 72,000 Mustang convertibles in 1966, but not all of them came with the same heart under the hood – the 289 could be ordered as a mild 200-horsepower cruiser or a genuine 271-horsepower K-code that could actually run with the era’s quicker pony cars. A clean, low-mileage survivor like this one is a reminder of just how much performance range Ford packed into a single model year.
A 1967 Nova wagon isn’t supposed to be a threat at the drag strip, let alone rip 7-second passes with the rear bumper dragging the pavement. Powered by a twin-turbo 540ci big block and built to survive a brutal week of back-to-back racing and street driving, this wagon flipped every expectation about what a family hauler can do. Here’s the story behind one of the most unlikely wheelie machines in muscle car history.
The 1969 Dodge Charger and Dodge Super Bee shared engine options as serious as the 440 Six Pack and 426 Hemi, but Chrysler built them for very different buyers. This piece breaks down the platform, styling, and performance differences between Dodge’s flagship fastback and its budget-minded Coronet-based bruiser — and makes the case for which one actually deserves the edge.
1967 was the first year Ford let the Mustang carry a genuine big-block, and the GT390’s FE-series V8 finally gave the car muscle to match its looks. This red-on-red example is a great excuse to dig into what made the S-code special, how rare these cars actually were, and why the 390 Mustang only stuck around for a few short years before Ford moved to bigger engines.
General Motors controlled more than half the U.S. new-car market in the mid-1960s, and buried inside that dominance was a full-size Chevrolet hiding a genuinely serious big-block. The 1966 Impala SS could be ordered with a 427 making up to 425 horsepower, but only a small fraction of that year’s SS models left the factory that way. Here’s why the big-block Impala deserves more respect than its reputation as a grocery-getter suggests.
Dodge took the vehicle muscle car fans were least expecting to care about and gave it a genuine 475-horsepower HEMI V8, a 4.4-second 0-60 time, and a 12.9-second quarter mile. The Durango SRT isn’t a compromise dressed up with a hood scoop, it’s proof Dodge only knows how to build one kind of performance vehicle: the unreasonable kind.
Mercury’s Cougar Eliminator arrived mid-way through the 1969 model year as a $199.50 option built to give the plush Cougar some genuine teeth, and Mercury only ever built 2,250 of them. Engine options ranged from a mild 351 Windsor all the way up to a 428 Cobra Jet capable of embarrassing cars with far scarier reputations. This piece digs into what actually made the Eliminator special.
The Pikes Peak International Hill Climb has been testing drivers and machines since 1916, and it doesn’t care whether your car was built for the drag strip. This is the story of a 1971 Plymouth ‘Cuda team attempting the 90th running of the Race to the Clouds — 12.42 miles, 156 turns, and a finish line more than 14,000 feet in the sky. Find out what it takes for a muscle car to survive a mountain built to break machinery.
Only a handful of 1970 Hemi ‘Cuda convertibles ever left the factory with a 4-speed manual, and fewer still wore the eye-searing High Impact color known as Lemon Twist. This is the story of one of the rarest combinations Plymouth ever built — a 426 Hemi, a stick shift, and a paint code designed to be impossible to ignore. Here’s why this particular spec sheet has become one of the most sought-after in the muscle car world.