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A black 1972 Monte Carlo does not announce itself the way a Chevelle SS does, and that was entirely the point. Chevrolet built this car to compete in the personal luxury coupe boom, not to win stoplight races. Yet a genuine 454 big-block sat on the order sheet that year, listed alongside power windows and a padded vinyl roof, and 1972 turned out to be the final year of the original car’s styling.
By 1973 the Camaro Z28 had lost its solid lifters, its high compression, and its Holley carburetor, and it was rated at 245 net horsepower. It also gained air conditioning availability and kept one of the best chassis of any American car of the era. It was the last Z28 before the 1974 bumper regulations changed the shape for good. Read on for what was really left inside the badge.
Chevrolet spent most of 1964 insisting it did not need a Mustang rival, then spent the next two years building one in a hurry. The 1967 Camaro arrived on an all-new F-body platform with everything from a 140-horsepower six to a 375-horsepower 396, plus a homologation special called the Z/28 that only 602 buyers ever received. Here is what made the first year the one collectors still chase hardest.
Plymouth built 108 Hemi ‘Cuda hardtops for 1971 and just eleven convertibles, which is why this specific corner of the Mopar market operates on a completely different scale from everything around it. The car in question has covered 2,010 miles since new and was custom-ordered with the desirable boxes already ticked. Whether that adds up to a seven-figure asking price depends less on rarity than on paperwork. Here is what actually drives the numbers.
A nicely restored 1979 Ford F150 4×4 with the 351 V8 sits in a smaller corner of the market than most people assume, because the four-wheel-drive V8 combination was never the volume seller. This was the last year of an entire F-Series generation, riding on a front suspension design Ford had already trusted for fourteen years. Read on to find out why that suspension stuck around so long and what makes this configuration worth seeking out.
By 1965 Chevrolet had already solved the question of how to make a Corvette go fast. The harder problem was stopping it, and the four-wheel disc brakes that arrived that year were so far beyond the drums they replaced that Chevrolet offered buyers a cash credit to refuse them. Almost nobody took it. Then, in March, a 396 big block appeared on the order sheet and changed the conversation entirely. Here is what made 1965 the pivotal Sting Ray year.
A one-minute trailer for Fate of the Furious sent shockwaves through the muscle car community in December 2016 — buried in the fast cuts was a widebody Dodge Challenger nobody had officially seen before, wearing a Hellcat-inspired face months ahead of its real reveal. Fans also spotted a modified Charger and a widebody Plymouth GTX sharing the frame with a Lamborghini and a Subaru WRX STI. Read on to find out what Dodge was quietly teasing before it was ready to talk about it.
Sweden’s underground street racing scene has thrived for decades thanks to a legal quirk that makes catching drivers in the act nearly impossible. Big-block, nitrous-fed American muscle cars including Camaros and Monte Carlos routinely run quarter-mile passes in the 9-second range at over 1,000 horsepower on public roads. The Stockholm Open, tracing its roots to 1982, turns this underground culture into an annual spectacle.
A C7 Corvette-bodied Pro Mod once trapped 249.49 mph in a 5.73-second quarter-mile pass, a run fast enough to be billed as the world’s fastest Pro Mod. The reality of NHRA’s record books is more nuanced, with quicker elapsed times and higher top speeds held by other doorslammers. Here’s what that blistering run means for the Pro Mod class, and how it stacks up against the true outright records.
The 1987 Buick Grand National made 245 horsepower and 355 lb-ft of torque from an intercooled, turbocharged 3.8-liter V6, with peak torque arriving at just 2,000 rpm. The intercooler that arrived for 1986 is the single component separating these cars from the largely forgettable 1984 and 1985 versions. Roughly 20,193 were built in the final model year, and the famous Lamborghini comparison actually belongs to the 547-car GNX. Read on for what to verify before buying one.
For 23 months straight, the Ford Mustang outsold the Chevrolet Camaro every single month — until one September, when Chevrolet edged ahead by just 148 units, 6,577 to 6,429. The swing came right as Ford halted Mustang production over a sales slide, while new 2017 Camaro ZL1s were posting 554 rear-wheel horsepower on customer dynos. Read on to see how one of America’s oldest rivalries flipped in a single month.
The letter K in the fifth VIN position marks a 1966 Mustang as a Hi-Po 289 car, and almost nothing visible from the outside can prove it. The differences are internal: a solid-lifter camshaft, higher compression, a distinctly thicker harmonic balancer, and a rev range no ordinary 289 could reach. Fewer than 6,000 were built that year. Read on to find out how to tell a real one from a very convincing copy.
Back in 2016, word started spreading that Dodge might drop the V8 from the Challenger and Charger in favor of a twin-turbo V6 — a rumor most Mopar fans, including this outlet, dismissed outright. Years later, the debate turned out to be an early preview of exactly where the industry was headed. Read on to see how a rumor once written off as internet noise ended up getting the last laugh.
A plain teal-blue 1967 Ford Custom 500 looks like nothing more than a forgotten full-size sedan — until the hood comes up. Owned since 2005 by Jeff Schwartz, whose company builds custom chassis for high-horsepower builds, this Ford hides a stroked big-block FE engine and a six-speed manual behind a deliberately understated exterior. Watch to see exactly what’s behind the restraint.
Restomod builders spend years blending classic muscle car looks with modern reliability, and then Dodge handed shoppers a finished version of that dream on a new-car lot. The Challenger held its retro shape for its entire production run while Mustang and Camaro moved on. So what was actually still missing from it? Read on for the case enthusiasts made, the answers Dodge gave instead, and how the argument ended.