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This burgundy 1976 Ford Torino made local headlines after being stolen from a driveway, but the real story is what it represents: the final model year Ford ever built a car under the Torino name before renaming the whole lineup LTD II for 1977. Only 193,096 were built that year. Here is what made the Torino’s last stand worth remembering.
This 1964 Mercury Monterey wears the Marauder name, but that badge meant three different cars and two different engines that year, and only one combination makes this survivor genuinely special. Its FE-series 390 has reportedly never been rebuilt or swapped in six decades of ownership, a rarity among full-size 1960s Mercurys that mostly got driven hard and scrapped. Read on to find out which version of the Marauder package is actually hiding under this hood, and why full-size Mercury collectors still consider it one of the era’s best-kept values.
Getting real drag wheels onto a modern Camaro, Mustang, or Challenger is nothing like bolting slicks onto a classic Chevelle, and that fitment gap is what Race Star Wheels built its business around. From a single design launched in 2009 to Friction Stir Fusion welding and a partnership with Pro Stock stars Greg Anderson and Jason Line, here is how one wheel company earned its place on serious drag cars, and what that means for the weekend racer.
This custom-built 1979 Pontiac Trans Am pushes the factory’s final big-block V8 to 450 horsepower, more than double what the original W72 400 ever made from the factory. Read on to find out why 1979 was the true last call for Pontiac’s biggest engine, and how a modern build manages to respect that swan song while blowing past it entirely.
The Dodge Challenger Hellcat’s supercharged 707-horsepower engine turned nearly every drag strip in the country into an unofficial record chase. Racers like Jason Epling and the HHP-built TopCat pushed the factory-based combination into the 7-second and then 8-second range within a couple of years of its 2015 launch. Read on to find out just how far the same basic engine architecture eventually went.
A 30-year barn find just resurfaced wearing one of the rarest factory engine combinations Ford ever built — a triple-carbureted 406 big block that fewer than 124 full-size Mercurys ever received from the factory. Paired with a factory 4-speed and a special-order 4.11 rear axle, this Monterey is a genuine sleeper hiding inside a plain-looking family sedan. Read on to find out what made this engine option so rare, and what a numbers-matching survivor like this is worth today.
By 1972, Chevrolet’s Nova SS package had shrunk to a single 200-horsepower engine choice as insurance premiums and emissions rules squeezed compact muscle cars industry-wide. This particular Nova ignores that history entirely, running a full roller 358 cubic inch stroker small block backed by a Centerforce-clutched T-56 six-speed, a 12-bolt rear geared at 4.10, and Baer brakes with 13-inch front rotors, all wrapped in factory-subtle PPG toner black paint. Read on to find out how this build turns a limited factory package into a genuine pro-touring sleeper.
When Fiat Chrysler finally attached a price tag to the Durango SRT, the 475-horsepower, 12.9-second-quarter-mile three-row SUV suddenly looked less like an expensive halo vehicle and more like a genuine bargain. Executive Tim Kuniskis called it America’s fastest SUV, and the numbers backed up the claim in ways few family haulers had ever matched. Read on to find out exactly what the sticker included, and how Dodge justified putting Hellcat-adjacent performance into a school-run vehicle.
Dodge’s Demon shipped on genuine drag radial tires straight from the factory, a first for any production street car, but those tires were too wide for the main assembly line to handle. Read on to find out how Dodge solved a manufacturing problem nobody had ever faced before, and why owning one comes with a strange winter-storage rule.
Most 1969 Chevrolet C10 pickups left the factory with a small-block six or a 350 doing the work. This one didn’t take the usual path — a 396 big block sits under the hood, a combination Chevrolet built but never pushed hard in its truck lineup. Read on to find out why a big-block C10 is a rarer find than most people assume.
Ford needed to sell 500 street versions of this car just to legally race it in NASCAR, and the result was a low-key muscle car with a nose job so subtle most buyers probably never realized they were driving a rolling aero experiment. Underneath a bench seat and column shifter sits the story of how badly Ford wanted to beat Chrysler at Talladega Superspeedway. Read on to find out just how far the aero wars actually went.
This 1959 Corvette left Chevrolet’s factory with a 283 small block, but it now runs a 350-based 383 stroker wrapped in a bold Packers green and yellow rally wrap over what used to be plain silver paint. That combination signals a car built for driving and attention rather than numbers-matching judging classes. Read on to find out what Chevrolet actually offered in 1959 and how far this particular Corvette has strayed from it.
Ford built the two-seat Thunderbird for just three model years, and 1957 was the last chance to buy one. Most left the factory with a straightforward 292 or 312 V8, but a rare supercharged F-code option pushed a documented 300 horsepower and ran 138 mph at Daytona. Read on to find out how few of these Ford actually built, and why 1958 changed the Thunderbird forever.
Nancy and Bob Dunbar’s original-owner 1969 Pontiac GTO Judge carries more than just decades of careful care — its bright Carousel Red paint exists because of a General Motors turf war between Pontiac and Chevrolet that project manager John DeLorean simply refused to lose. Only the first roughly 2,000 Judges built that year wore this exact shade before Pontiac expanded the color palette. Read on to find out how a color dispute shaped one of Pontiac’s most recognizable muscle cars.
Only 468 of the 37,344 Chargers Dodge built for 1966 left the factory with the 426 Street Hemi under the hood, and fewer still got the four-speed this fastback needed to use all of it. This is the story of the year Chrysler finally let its feared race engine loose on the street, and why almost nobody actually bought one. Read on to find out just how close this combination came to never existing at all.