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A growing number of Camaro builders have decided the ceiling on a usable street car sits around 400 horsepower, not four figures. The Pro Daily approach borrows suspension and brake thinking from pro touring, keeps the air conditioning and reliability of a real driver, and puts the money into everything except peak output. The result routinely out-drives cars with twice the power. Here is the reasoning behind it.
Every 1967 Shelby GT500 that left the factory carried a 428, not a 427. So when a GT500 shows up with a genuine side-oiler under the hood, the first question is whether you are looking at a very good engine swap or something considerably rarer. There is exactly one factory answer to that question, and its story involves a test track, a set of tires, and a car Ford was afraid to sell.
Scottie fell for this 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Custom, nicknamed ‘Split Second,’ before its hood was even open at the 2017 Detroit AutoRama, and the stack-injected 327 waiting underneath only sealed the deal. Built around Corvette’s famous one-year-only split rear window, the car blends vintage styling with a modern, iPod-integrated interior. One viewer called it the only C1 Corvette they have ever genuinely liked. See what makes ‘Split Second’ stand apart from typical Corvette customs.
In 1987, a hand-built car with no factory badge beat Ferrari, Porsche, and Lamborghini to become the fastest production car in the world. Built in a small German garage by tuner Alois Ruf, the twin-turbo Ruf CTR reached 211 mph and earned the nickname ‘Yellowbird’ after a hair-raising magazine test made it an instant icon. Its record didn’t last forever, but the story behind the car that beat the giants at their own game is one most muscle car fans have never heard in full.
A British Columbia rock scaler spent forty years quietly amassing more than 340 vehicles on five acres near Tappen, from a DeLorean to a rare 1966 Pontiac Beaumont SD and a 1968 Chevelle SS396. Now he wants out, but only as a single package, house and restoration shop included, for roughly Can$1.45 million. Who has the space and the nerve to take it all at once? Read on to find out.
Project Deep South is a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air rebuilt the way tri-five Chevys have been rebuilt for sixty years, by keeping the shape and replacing nearly everything else. An LS3 sits where a 235 cubic inch straight-six once lived, the chrome is blacked out, the paint is candy apple, and the stance is set low. Here is why this particular body became the default canvas for American custom car building.
Three second-generation Camaros sit together, and they split two-to-one between Pro Touring and Pro Street. That ratio is not an accident, because the 1970 to 1981 Camaro has spent decades being pulled in two completely opposite directions by builders who cannot agree on what the car is for. One side wants corners. The other wants a clean sixty-foot time. Read on to find out why this particular body keeps ending up on both sides of the argument.
Park a 1968 Camaro RS beside a 1969 SS and most people see two versions of the same car. They are not. One year separates a subtle, almost European-looking coupe from the aggressive, creased shape that became the definitive first-generation Camaro. Understanding what changed, and why RS and SS were never the same kind of option, explains why these two cars command such different money today.
A 1969 Camaro making close to a thousand horsepower would normally be the headline, but on this build the supercharged 416 small-block is almost the least interesting part. Hand-laid carbon bodywork, machined billet hardware, a completely re-engineered chassis, and a six-speed manual describe a car meant to be driven hard rather than trailered. Here is what went into it, and why builds at this level change what the rest of the market can buy.
Michelle Bongiovanni’s classmates at Penn State did not believe her, and it is hard to blame them. She spends weekends running eight-second quarter miles in a Mustang that Ford builds specifically so it cannot be registered for the road. The Cobra Jet is one of the strangest things a manufacturer sells: a factory-built drag car with no VIN for street use and no pretense of being anything else. Read on to find out how a Mustang ends up like this.
This C7 Corvette kept its Stingray silhouette and almost nothing else. Between the frame rails sits an Outlaw 548 HEMI force-fed by two 102mm Precision ball-bearing turbochargers, a combination credited with 3,500 horsepower and capable of a 4.05-second eighth mile on its very first outing. It is a Chevrolet body wrapped around a Chrysler idea, riding on a tube chassis, chasing traction every bit as hard as it chases power. Read on to find out how a car like this actually works.
On paper the fifth-generation Camaro ZL1 has no business hanging with a Challenger SRT Hellcat down a quarter mile. The Hellcat brings 707 horsepower to a fight the ZL1 enters with 580, and the trap speeds tell the same story. But drag racing punishes anyone who trusts a spec sheet, and this particular pairing produced a result Mopar fans did not enjoy. Read on to find out where the horsepower advantage actually goes.
Held every May on the Indiana State Fairgrounds the week before the Indy 500, Dana Mecum’s Original Spring Classic has grown into one of the largest muscle car auctions in the country. Its 30th anniversary sale set a then-record $55.6 million across 1,208 cars sold, headlined by a $1.45 million Porsche and a Vault Find Corvette that drew a moment of silence for its late owner. Less than a decade later, the same event was moving over three times that much money.
A 1969 Chevelle carrying a 540 cubic inch big-block and a pair of turbochargers is not a factory car with upgrades. It is a purpose-built drag chassis wearing a 1969 body, with an aftermarket block, forged internals, a fuel system that costs more than most project cars, and a chassis reinforced from firewall to bumper. Here is what that combination actually requires, and why builders keep choosing this shape to wrap it in.
Bobby at Alloway’s Hot Rod Shop says there are only two engines like this one anywhere in the world, and it lives under the hood of a 1955 Plymouth Savoy that looks almost stock at first glance. Between the Art Morrison chassis, a custom interior from Pro Auto Custom Interiors’ Steve Holcomb, and that over-500-cubic-inch polished aluminum Hemi, this build hides serious ambition behind restrained styling. Watch to see how ScottieDTV’s camera uncovers what makes it so rare.