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A record crowd of 90,000 turned out when Barrett-Jackson brought its collector car auction to Mohegan Sun Casino for the first time. More than 500 vehicles sold for over $26 million, led by a 1969 Chevrolet Corvette L88. See what made this Northeast debut one for the record books — and why it’s still growing.
A stroked LS3 and a ten-mile traffic jam near the California-Nevada line were all it took to strand Project Orange Krate, the Chevy High Performance 1971 Camaro, on the shoulder of Interstate 15 after the 2017 Holley LS Fest West. With Vette and Street Rodder editor Brian Brennan in the passenger seat and no working fuel gauge, it became a lesson every pro-touring builder eventually learns: horsepower changes your fuel math more than you think.
When longtime dealer Bob Taylor retired after 37 years running his own classic car shop, he didn’t just sell off the inventory — he mentored his successor into building a new showroom nearby. The result is a 6,500-square-foot space in El Paso that feels, by Taylor’s own admission, eerily similar to the shop he just closed. Read on for the story behind the handoff.
Pontiac built 72,287 GTOs in 1969, the highest total in the model’s history, but only 759 of them received the Ram Air IV. A subdued blue car parked indoors gives away nothing about which of those buckets it belongs to. Here is what separated a base 400 from a Ram Air III from the round-port Ram Air IV, what the Judge package actually cost, and how to verify a car rather than trusting its badges.
Before it was restored to street legal condition, this 1969 Plymouth Road Runner ran the Detroit-area drag strips as Agent Orange and built a local reputation on wheelies. Underneath the drag history sits the highest-production year the Road Runner ever had, during the stretch when Plymouth’s stripped-down bargain muscle car was collecting awards. Read on to find out how a no-frills price leader ended up outselling everything around it.
For years General Motors banned engines larger than 400 cubic inches from its mid-size cars. When that rule lifted for 1970, Chevrolet immediately dropped a 454 into the Chevelle SS, and it arrived in two very different forms. The LS6 got the headlines at 450 horsepower, but the LS5 outsold it and outlasted it. Here is what separated the two engines and why an original LS5 survivor matters.
A 1951 Chevrolet 3100 pickup looks like the simplest truck in the world until you learn that collectors can date one almost to the exact year from two small details. This was the fifth model year of a design that made every competing truck look obsolete overnight, and 1951 got changes that mattered more than their size suggests. Read on to find out what separates a 1951 from the trucks built on either side of it.
Brainerd International Raceway traces back to 1968, when it opened as Donnybrooke Speedway carved through the woods of central Minnesota. Its Muscle Car Series crowns a champion across three races rather than one, and last year’s Outlaw Class came down to a single point between three drivers. Read on for how modern doorslammers running six-second quarter miles at over 200 mph trace back to the same platforms that ran the 13s in the 1960s.
Rumors of a modern Plymouth ‘Cuda revival have circulated in the Mopar press for years, but the original nameplate earned its legendary status the hard way — starting as a compact Valiant-based fastback in 1964, then gaining a 425-horsepower 426 Hemi option by 1970 after fifty factory race cars tested the combination in 1968. Genuine Hemi Cuda convertibles now sell for seven figures at major auctions. Read on to find out why Dodge keeps circling back to a nameplate it retired decades ago.
Dearborn Steel Tubing built 21 Mercury Comet A/FX cars for 1964, each with a NASCAR-derived 427 High Riser rated at a deeply understated 425 horsepower, fiberglass hood, fenders, doors and bumpers, and Plexiglas windows throughout. At roughly 3,200 pounds they ran 11.3 to 11.6 at around 125 mph. Dyno Don Nicholson, Ronnie Sox and Jack Chrisman all drove them. Read on for what separates a documented original from a very good tribute.
A black-and-gold 1978 Pontiac Trans Am built to Burt Reynolds’ own specification crossed the Barrett-Jackson block in Las Vegas in 2018, weeks after the actor’s death, and brought $192,500. Two other 1978 Trans Ams in the same sale, mechanically similar but with no connection to Reynolds, sold for a fraction of that. The gap is the whole story of how provenance works in the collector market, and why the Bandit car mattered in the first place.
The crew running the Texas Grim Reaper showed up to their first no-prep event with $50,000 on the line and a 522-cubic-inch big block Corvette wearing a screw-type supercharger loud enough to make spectators cover their ears. They made the finals anyway. Here is why that combination works on a surface with no traction compound at all.
No 1966 Chevelle ever left a Chevrolet assembly plant with 496 cubic inches under the hood, because that number simply did not exist on Chevy’s big-block order sheet yet. So a car wearing SS 496 badges is telling you something about the person who built it rather than the factory that shipped it. Here is what Chevrolet actually offered in 1966, and where a genuine 496 really comes from.
A carburetor rebuilding shop shouldn’t still be in business in the 21st century — fuel injection took over new car production decades ago. But a quick drive past a fading Coke sign in Little Rock is a reminder that classic cars, old farm equipment, and stubborn collectors have kept this particular trade alive long after Detroit gave up on it.
At Heartland Park Topeka, one driver has built a reputation for treeing the field, out-reacting seasoned competitors off the line, in a nitrous-fed K5 Blazer nicknamed Open Container. He runs the truck with hand controls, and the comment section keeps circling back to one word: respect. See the runs that have fans asking if there is anyone he cannot beat off the line.