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This 1967 Dodge Coronet R/T carries a factory badge and a nowhere-near-factory heart: a 528 cubic inch Ray Barton Hemi making more than 809 horsepower on pump gas, backed by a TorqueFlite automatic and 3.55 gears built for real street use. One viewer joked the car needed eight gas station stops just to survive filming. Behind the joke is a genuinely serious build from one of Mopar’s most respected engine shops. Watch to see what 809 pump-gas horsepower actually looks like in motion.
The Pigeon Forge Rod Run has filled Tennessee’s Parkway with flathead V8s and muscle car chrome for more than thirty years, but it began in a hotel parking lot in 1983, when organizers expecting a few hundred cars watched roughly 1,000 arrive. The region’s taste for fast cars runs deeper still, back to moonshine runners outrunning the law on Smoky Mountain roads. Read on to find out how a car club’s cruise-in grew into one of the Southeast’s biggest gatherings.
This 1979 Camaro Z/28 wears T-tops, flat black stripes and a Procharged small block sending more than 600 horsepower to the rear tires. The factory version made 175. That gap is the entire story of the second-generation Z28, a car that sold in record numbers during the worst period for American performance in living memory. Read on for how it managed that and why builders still start here.
By 1973 the muscle car era was supposed to be over, and Pontiac had not been told. That model year produced the Super Duty 455, an engine with four-bolt mains, forged rods, and dry-sump provisions wearing a production badge. It almost did not reach customers at all. Read on for what separated a real SD-455 from every other big-inch Firebird, and what a loud startup usually means underneath.
Dodge did what no other muscle car maker had tried when it gave the Challenger GT all-wheel drive, pairing the system with the 305-horsepower Pentastar V6 and an eight-speed automatic. The front axle engages automatically in freezing temperatures, when the wipers come on, in Sport Mode, or the instant traction is lost, then disconnects to protect fuel economy while keeping a rear-drive feel. Read on to find out how Dodge built the first factory muscle car that does not have to hibernate every winter.
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.
When Carroll Shelby’s partnership with Ford ended in 1969, Ford quietly re-tagged leftover 1969 Shelby Mustangs with 1970 VIN plates under FBI oversight, creating a strange final chapter for the GT350 badge. Only 789 of these “1970” cars exist across GT350 and GT500, and just 10 GT350 convertibles combined a 4-speed manual with air conditioning. Read on to find out how a leftover-inventory loophole became one of Shelby history’s most talked-about footnotes.
A tubbed, twin-turbocharged 1957 Chevy is not where anyone expects to find refinement, yet this build from Bryant Boats and designer Eric Brockmeyer makes the case. An all-fiberglass body, an Art Morrison chassis, Wilwood 14-inch brakes, a twin-turbo aluminum Brodix engine, and a Lenco four-speed add up to a Pro Street car engineered to work as a whole rather than simply launch hard. Read on to see how every ingredient was chosen.
A 1968 Chevrolet Camaro street machine carries the second-year styling changes most people miss, and underneath there was an SS package that could be ordered with a big block strong enough to end arguments at a stoplight. Chevrolet built well over two hundred thousand Camaros that year and changed almost nothing, which turned out to be the right call. Read on to find out what separates a 1968 from the car that launched the nameplate.
A $75 option box separated a good 1978 Trans Am from a genuinely great one, and most buyers never knew it existed until a salesman pointed it out. The W72 T/A 6.6 package turned Pontiac’s standard 400 into a real performer, arriving the same year a certain black Trans Am made its star turn at the movies. Read on to see what made the option worth checking.
Ford engineers had followed an unwritten rule for eighty-three years: production V8s do not rev much past 7,000 rpm without something breaking. The team behind the 2016 Shelby GT350 decided that rule no longer applied, gave the 5.2-liter Voodoo V8 a flat-plane crankshaft, and tuned it to 8,250 rpm. The result made 526 horsepower with no turbocharger anywhere in sight. Here is how they built an engine that could survive it.
For 1970 only, Chevrolet let a mid-size Chevelle carry a higher factory horsepower rating than any Corvette on the order sheet. The LS6 454 was rated at 450 horsepower, and just 4,475 SS454 LS6 Chevelles were built across every body style. Historians estimate as few as 20 to 25 were convertibles. Read on to find out what made this Cortez Silver drop-top one of the rarest Chevelles ever built.
The 1967 Dodge Coronet R/T arrived with a 440 Magnum as standard equipment, which meant the buyers who checked the box for the optional 426 Hemi were deliberately walking past 375 horsepower to get something angrier. Very few did. The resulting cars are among the rarest Mopar muscle machines of the era, and this Brothers Collection example shows why. Read on to find out what made the combination so uncommon.
Shelby American had not built an all-new concept car in roughly a decade, so expectations pointed toward more boost and a bigger number. Instead the company hand-built new fenders and quarter panels, stretched the rear track nearly four inches, and fitted adjustable coilovers. Read on for why a firm built on drag strip legend suddenly cared this much about cornering, and what happened to the concept afterward.
This black 1967 Chevrolet Chevelle SS 396 trades its factory bias-plies for drag radials, and the difference shows the moment the light turns green. Chevrolet built 63,006 SS 396s that year across three engine options, topping out at a rare 375-horsepower L78 that only 612 buyers managed to order. The car pictured here wears the classic black paint and a stance built for the strip. Read on to find out which 396 is hiding under the hood and what modern rubber does for a big-block Chevelle.