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Line up a 1968 Charger R/T, a 1965 Shelby GT350R, a 1969 Camaro SS and a 1969 Mustang Mach 1 and you are not looking at four takes on one idea. You are looking at four manufacturers answering the same question in completely incompatible ways, at the exact moment none of them were holding back. Each one won a different argument, and all four are still blue-chip names today.
What turns a brake-and-fuel-line manufacturer’s parking lot into one of the season’s most anticipated car gatherings? Inline Tube’s annual open house has grown from a modest shop event into a magnet for restorers and muscle car owners across the Detroit area, drawing bigger crowds than some sanctioned shows. The appeal isn’t trophies — it’s the chance to talk shop with the people who built the parts holding your restoration together.
Jeff Lutz has a pattern: flat black paint, twin-turbo big-blocks, and Drag Week wins to back it up. His newest build, revealed at the Tri-Five Nationals, keeps that formula but adds bigger turbos and a serious horsepower jump. Here is how this car stacks up against the two that built his reputation.
In 2017, the final model year for the Dodge Viper, driver Dominik Farnbacher took the track-focused ACR-Extreme around the Nurburgring Nordschleife and posted an official lap of 7:03.45, one of the fastest times ever recorded by a car under $400,000. No turbo, no hybrid assist, just a naturally aspirated V10 and a manual gearbox. Watch the full lap that closed out the Viper’s legacy.
Dodge did not set out to build a legend with the Charger, it set out to answer the Mustang. Putting that pony car idea on a bigger intermediate platform produced something the Mustang could never be: a full-size fastback with room for the biggest engines Chrysler made. It took a false start, a redesign, a movie chase scene, and a NASCAR aero war to get there. Read on for how the Charger earned its reputation the hard way.
A 1973 Plymouth Barracuda could never have left the factory with a 426 Hemi under the hood, because Chrysler had already killed the engine two years earlier. That makes this performance-built tribute car something other than a fake, and Mopar collectors have long treated cars like it as legitimate in their own right. Behind the Hemi sits a 727 TorqueFlite, a Dana 60 with 4.11 gears, and Wilwood discs. Read on to find out why the combination works.
Every 1967 Chevelle SS396 left the factory with a big block, but only 612 of them carried the L78, a 375-horsepower engine that was not even available when the model year started. Out of roughly 63,000 SS396s built that year, that is a survival rate that makes documented cars extraordinarily valuable. Read on to find out what separates a genuine L78 from a very well-dressed clone.
Ford built the Mach 1 to be the Mustang that did not need to shout, and buyers responded by making it nearly a quarter of all 1969 Mustang production on its first try. The matte-black hood, the pin tiedowns, and the four headlights were only the surface. What sat behind that scoop, and how conservatively Ford chose to rate it, is where the story gets interesting. Read on for the year Mach 1 became its own thing.
Jack Chrisman’s 1965 Mercury Comet — the altered-wheelbase car credited with launching NHRA’s fuel Funny Car division — turns up on static display at the 2017 Southeast Gassers Association Knoxville event, owned by the family behind Barillaro Speed Emporium. One commenter adds firsthand history, having grown up at Lions and Irwindale and even met Chrisman’s son. See the car that made stock-bodied Mercury look deceptively ordinary.
This 1963 Mercury Comet was bought new at a Tyler, Texas dealership in May 1963 and driven by the same owner into her nineties, accumulating just 45,000 miles along the way. What makes it genuinely uncommon is not the mileage but the order sheet: a base sedan optioned with both the 260 V8 and air conditioning, a combination almost nobody chose. Read on to find out why that pairing was so rare and what it means today.
This show-quality 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air has covered just 42 miles since its restoration, and almost nothing under the skin is what General Motors installed. A 1969 Corvette 350 replaced the original small block, an overdrive automatic sits where a Powerglide once did, and the car now stops on power front discs it never had. The result is a Tri-Five that looks period-correct and drives like it was built this decade. Read on to find out what changed and why it matters.
This 1969 Chevelle looks like a clean pro-touring build until you notice the pair of 76mm turbochargers feeding an all-aluminum 540-cubic-inch big block. Underneath sits a Roadster Shop chassis and Detroit Speed suspension, because a fifty-six-year-old body shell cannot handle this kind of power on factory bones. The combination points to four figures of horsepower in a car that still wears its original silhouette. Read on to find out what it takes to build one.
A viral compilation of street racers colliding with police, some clips pure comedy, others carrying real consequences, has racked up over 11 million views and just as many arguments in the comments. One driver challenges an unmarked Dodge Challenger without realizing it. Another incident, a commenter says, ended in an eight-year prison sentence. Watch to see which moments are funny and which ones are not.
Ford built the Boss 302 engine to satisfy a rulebook, not a showroom, and almost everyone remembers the Mustang that carried it. Far fewer remember that Mercury put the same engine in a Cougar, wearing an Eliminator badge and built in numbers small enough that most enthusiasts have never seen one in person. Read on to find out why Mercury’s version stayed in the shadows.
Mercury had a problem in 1968: everybody thought the Cougar was a Mustang for people who wanted leather seats and a quieter ride. The Eliminator was the answer, and it was not subtle. Competition colors, a blacked-out grille, a rear spoiler, and an engine list running from a Boss 302 to a pair of 428 Cobra Jets. Mercury built it for only two model years and roughly 4,500 total. Read on for the Trans-Am racer Mercury almost did not build.