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Before it became one of the most collectible Mustangs ever built, the Shelby GT350 existed because Carroll Shelby needed to beat an SCCA rulebook, not just other cars on the racetrack. The fix was as strange as it was effective: a two-seat street car with a full-size spare where the back seat should be. Only 562 were built for 1965, including 34 pure race versions that dominated their class for three straight seasons.
Long before the muscle car era officially kicked off, Chevrolet was already quietly building one of its forerunners: the 1962 Impala SS 409. Buried under that full-size, family-friendly body was a 409 cubic-inch V8 available in a version that hit exactly 409 horsepower, a one-horsepower-per-cubic-inch flex Chevrolet’s engineers clearly built on purpose. It’s the car a Beach Boys song made famous before most people ever got to drive one.
A stock 1979 Camaro Z/28 made 175 horsepower — respectable for an era squeezed by emissions rules and fuel crises, but nothing like the muscle car glory days. Chevrolet still sold more than 80,000 of them, making it the best-selling Z28 generation ever. This particular example takes a different route to make up the difference, swapping in a Procharged small block that finally delivers on the performance the body style always promised.
Ford let Carroll Shelby’s team put a bold name on this car, King of the Road, and back it up with a 428 Cobra Jet under a custom fiberglass hood. The convertible version is the rarest way to get one: only a few hundred were built, and only for a single model year before Shelby pulled the body style entirely. Finding one hidden away in a barn is exactly the kind of discovery muscle car collectors dream about.
Justin Bieber’s Ferrari was just one of many high-profile cars at this Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale sale, alongside NASCAR and Hollywood names on hand for the show. The event traces back to a 1967 local car show turned annual auction empire. Here is how it grew, and why some of the cars on the block that day were not for profit at all.
Chevrolet says ‘Camaro’ comes from the French word for friend. Gearheads have never quite bought it. Dig into the real story behind the name — including the two-thousand-word shortlist, the GM exec who joked about a Mustang-eating animal, and the Spanish word that undermines the whole French theory — and you’ll see why this pony car’s name has outlasted every explanation ever given for it.
This 1964 Chevrolet Biscayne wasn’t a glamour car when it left the factory — it was Chevrolet’s stripped-down, fleet-spec full-size sedan. The turquoise custom build featured on “My Car Story” came out of Alex Levesque’s Automotive Mentor Group, a Chicago shop that has spent 24 years teaching at-risk youth the restoration trade. Watch to see how a mission-driven shop turned an overlooked model into a showpiece.
This Cuda’s Hemi and pearl orange paint are only part of the story; Schwartz Performance also converted the entire car to right-hand drive for a customer in India. The build earned the Woodstock, Illinois shop a second Car Craft Pro-Builder of the Year award. Here is why moving the steering wheel was the least of their problems.
1971 gave the Plymouth ‘Cuda a face it would wear for exactly one model year — quad headlights, fender gills, a grille nicknamed for its resemblance to a cheese grater — right as insurance companies and emissions rules began closing in on cars like it. Order the 440 Six-Pack that year and you got three two-barrel carburetors, a Dana 60 rearend, and a spot among roughly 254 built. It was the last stand for Mopar’s biggest small-car engines.
A restored red 1972 Plymouth Barracuda catches the eye instantly, but the story behind its engine bay is more complicated than the Cuda’s Hemi reputation suggests. By 1972, Chrysler had already dropped its biggest engines from the lineup, leaving the 340 V8 as the top option and production numbers in steep decline. Here’s what actually changed under the hood in the model’s twilight year — and why it still matters to collectors.
A car show that has survived a fire that leveled its original venue, multiple relocations, and more than sixty years of changing tastes has to be doing something right. The Chicago World of Wheels traces back to a 1962 gathering at Navy Pier and now fills the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center every March with everything from restored muscle cars to elaborate customs.
Alloway’s Hot Rod Shop brought a 1965 Buick Riviera to SEMA 2016 that looks nearly stock — until you notice the 19-inch and 22-inch wheels, the dropped stance, and the distinctly non-Buick rumble under the hood. Underneath that familiar personal-luxury coupe body sits a Chevrolet 502 cubic-inch big-block V8 and a Tremec 5-speed manual, riding on an Art Morrison front clip and Currie Enterprises rear end. It’s a build that trades factory originality for shock value, and it worked.
There’s a version of the muscle car dream where a numbers-matching classic turns up for a few thousand dollars and a handshake. There’s also a much more common version, where that same “bargain” hides a mismatched engine, a rusted floor pan, or a repaint covering old damage. Before chasing a low-buck deal, a handful of overlooked checks — starting with the VIN — can be the difference between a great find and an expensive lesson.
This bright green Dodge Charger runs a Procharged Hemi making a reported 800-plus horsepower, complete with a subwoofer-equipped interior built for daily driving, and it still shows up to closed-course airstrip events like the Pikes Peak Airstrip Attack. Few builds actually try to do everything well at once. Watch it prove that a car can be fast, loud, and livable all at the same time.