Muscle Car Fan

Posts By: Kiril

Technician spray painting a car body inside a controlled booth.

How to Hire a Muscle Car Painter & Avoid Losing Your Car to Paint Purgatory

by Kiril

A muscle car that vanishes into a paint shop for months or years, with the painter asking for more money and returning fewer calls, is one of the most common horror stories in the hobby. It happens to careful owners too, because the warning signs look like ordinary shop life. This guide covers how to vet a painter, why the workload on the shop floor matters, how to structure payments around progress, what to put in writing, and how to recognize a shop in trouble early. Read on to find out how to keep your project out of paint purgatory.

Classic red and black muscle car parked outdoors.

1970 AMC Javelin Trans-Am: The Mark Donohue Homologation Special

by Kiril

AMC built exactly 2,501 Javelins in one specific configuration for 1970, and the number was not a marketing decision. SCCA rules required 2,500 street cars before the Trans-Am racing version could run its new ducktail spoiler, so AMC built one extra to make the point. Roger Penske brought Mark Donohue over from Chevrolet that year, and the pairing put a company most people had written off onto the podium.

Classic black 1967 Chevrolet Camaro parked outdoors.

1967 Yenko 427 Camaro

by Kiril

Most Yenko Camaros were built to dominate the dragstrip, but this 1967 example from The Brothers Collection was optioned for open-highway cruising instead, a distinction V8TV’s Kevin Oeste unpacks in Muscle Car of the Week episode #199. One viewer recalled passing on a comparable Yenko for $100,000 decades ago, a decision that looks costlier every year. Find out how a cruiser-spec Yenko’s story differs from its drag-built siblings.

Dodge Charger 1970 SpeedKore TANTRUM 9L Twin Turbo

by Kiril

SpeedKore built this 1970 Dodge Charger around an engine that was never intended for a road: a 9.0-liter, quad-cam racing V8 from Mercury Racing’s boat program, twin-turbocharged to 1,650 horsepower on race fuel. It debuted at SEMA, appeared in a Fast & Furious film, was gifted to Vin Diesel, and has been offered at $699,000. Here is how a marine engine ended up in a muscle car body.

Man standing next to a classic white convertible car outside a store.

Just Cool Cars: This early Pontiac GTO is an original

by Kiril

Pontiac’s planners expected to sell about 5,000 GTOs for 1964. They sold 32,450, and General Motors dropped its displacement cap on mid-size cars the following year. That is how the muscle car era actually started, and it started as an option package that skirted a corporate rule. A genuinely unrestored early example, still wearing its factory paint and drivetrain, is worth chasing precisely because so few survived intact.

Classic muscle car with flame decals and raised front end.

1969 Chevelle Gasser: Straight-Axle Attitude on a Muscle Car Body

by Kiril

A gasser’s nose-high stance was never about looks. It came from straight-axle front ends built purely to shove weight onto the rear tires at the drag strip, a style NHRA had largely legislated away by the early 1970s. This 1969 Chevelle wears it anyway, trading factory SS composure for something closer to a Tri-Five drag racer’s attitude. That is a deliberate choice, and it says a lot about what the builder wanted.

A classic car on a quiet forest road at dusk.

This C2 Corvette Stingray Is A Sacred Monster

by Kiril

Mathieu Houtreille’s Ermine White 1965 Corvette Stingray has covered plenty of back roads outside Luxembourg, but it is the story behind the wheel, passed down from his father Jean-Luc at car shows decades ago, that turned this Petrolicious film into one of its most shared. One viewer says it convinced them to buy their first sports car. Watch to hear why.

Crowded indoor event with people gathered around tables and computers.

Check Out the Amazing Stories Behind These Barn Finds & Hidden Gems at the 2016 MCACN Show

by Kiril

Each November, automotive archeologist Ryan Brutt assembles roughly 25 to 30 of the rarest unrestored muscle cars in the country for the Barn Finds & Hidden Gems display at MCACN. The 2016 lineup included a NASCAR homologation Charger 500, a factory GTO funny car, and a turbocharged 1962 Oldsmobile Jetfire. What sets the section apart isn’t just rarity, it’s the documented story behind every single survivor.

Classic white Ford car with rally decals on display at an indoor event.

Car Craft’s Picks of the 2017 Mecum Kissimmee Auction

by Kiril

Mecum’s 2017 Kissimmee auction moved nearly 2,000 cars over ten days for more than $86 million, but the muscle car story wasn’t about factory options, it was about competition history. Vintage drag racers from two significant private collections stole attention from the seven-figure Hemis that had defined the previous year’s sale. The results showed real racing pedigree can outweigh raw rarity at auction.

A classic blue muscle car parked in front of a garage.

This 1968 Ford Mustang Pro Touring Build Rewrites the Fastback Rulebook

by Kiril

A 1968 Mustang fastback is already one of the most recognizable shapes Ford ever built, so what does a pro-touring build actually change? Almost everything you cannot see. Modern stroker small-blocks, independent front suspension, four-piston brakes, and a chassis stiff enough to use real tires turn a fifty-year-old body into something that runs with contemporary performance cars. Here is what separates a serious build from a repaint with wheels.

Classic black Dodge Challenger muscle car from the 1970s.

Barrett-Jackson’s 2017 Scottsdale Auction Will Feature an Extraordinary Docket of Rare Mopars

by Kiril

Barrett-Jackson’s 46th Annual Scottsdale Auction rolled a deep run of rare Mopars across the block in January 2017, and one lot in particular had the rest of the docket looking over its shoulder: a 1970 Plymouth Hemi ‘Cuda listed as one of only fourteen built, carrying documented race history and national records. Here is what made that car, and the Mopar run around it, worth paying attention to.

Front view of a classic blue muscle car with prominent grille and license plate.

5 Vintage Convertibles You Can Score for Under $10,000

by Kiril

The vintage convertible daydream usually dies at the price tag, but it does not have to. Alfa Romeo Spiders, Volkswagen Beetle cabriolets, and even 1970s and 1980s Mercedes-Benz SLs still trade for under $10,000 in the right condition, while the muscle-era American droptops most fans grew up wanting left that bracket long ago. The catch is what a cheap convertible can hide under fresh carpet and a decent-looking top. Read on for which models are still affordable, why they stayed that way, and what to check before buying one.

Classic gold Pontiac GTO parked outside a building.

Tiger Gold 1965 Pontiac GTO 389 4-Speed

by Kiril

This Tiger Gold 1965 Pontiac GTO isn’t just another restored classic — it’s a rolling argument for why this car, more than any other, deserves credit for starting the muscle car era. Built with the desirable 389 V8, a close-ratio four-speed manual, and a limited-slip differential, it represents the GTO the way serious original buyers actually ordered it. V8TV’s Muscle Car of the Week series tracked down this survivor and its story. Watch to see why enthusiasts still can’t agree on much except that this car changed everything.

Vintage yellow convertible car displayed at a car show.

Plymouth Sport Satellite 1968 Convertible

by Kiril

A 1968 Plymouth Sport Satellite convertible looks like a GTX that forgot to put its badges on, and that resemblance is doing a lot of work. The Sport Satellite was brand new for 1968, slotted above the plain Satellite on a freshly redesigned B-body, and what it could and could not be ordered with says more about Plymouth’s 1968 strategy than any brochure ever did. Read on for what was really under that hood.

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