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Car show etiquette has real unwritten rules, and this meme is poking fun at the fastest way to break one: parking too close, or worse, taking up two spots. From revving bans to a strict hands-off policy on other peoples builds, heres what actually separates a respected regular from that guy at every cruise-in.
Oldsmobile built just 357 Cutlass SX cars for 1971 and then dropped the option entirely. The SX was never a separate model, only the Y79 package, and it came with exactly one engine: a 455 making 320 horsepower and 460 lb-ft of torque at 2,800 rpm. It wore almost nothing to announce any of it, and that was deliberate. Read on for why Oldsmobile built a fast car designed to look like nothing at all.
Ford loyalists and Chevrolet diehards have been arguing about the 5.0-liter Mustang and the TPI Camaro since both cars were new, and the argument has never actually been settled with the engines on a dyno. That is exactly what this shootout sets out to do, starting with baseline pulls on a 5.0L HO 302 and an LB9 TPI 305. The numbers are smaller than modern muscle. Read on to find out what these two engines really made.
A Precision 98mm turbocharger is roughly the size of a dinner plate, and bolted to a small-block Ford it turned this Cobra into a 2,200-horsepower payday worth $12,500. Getting a street-based V8 to survive that kind of boost means rebuilding the engine around the turbo rather than the other way around. Here is what actually goes into a build like this one.
A 1955 Chevrolet convertible custom called Payback takes the body that introduced the small-block V8 to the world and rebuilds it with modern intent. Only 41,292 Bel Air convertibles left the factory that year, and decades of hot rodding have thinned that number considerably. Read on to find out what made 1955 the most consequential year in Chevrolet history and what it takes to earn a name like Payback.
This 1963 Chevrolet C10 pickup, complete with an old-school cooler riding in the bed, comes from the single most significant model year in the C/K line’s early history. Chevrolet threw out the front suspension, deleted part of the frame, added new engines, and switched to an alternator, all in one go. Read on to find out what the company was chasing with that many changes at once.
Some cars earn the word badass through decades of backyard engineering rather than a marketing plan, and this hot rod is one of them. Its lineage runs back to the dry lake beds of Muroc and El Mirage, to Ford’s 1932 flathead V8, to Hot Rod Magazine’s 1948 debut and the NHRA’s founding in 1951. Read on to find out what separates a genuinely badass hot rod from a car that only looks the part, and why no factory has ever managed to build one.
Ford’s 1967 Mustang Fastback topped out with a 390-cubic-inch V8, and the 460 did not exist in any Ford product until the following year. This custom build drops 7.5 liters of 385-series big block into a shell wearing Bullitt-style fastback proportions and Eleanor-style silver paint, riding on chrome Cragar S/S wheels. Read on to find out what has to change to make that swap survive.
Jeep took the supercharged 6.2-liter Hellcat V8 out of Dodge’s most unhinged muscle car and bolted it into the Grand Cherokee, then rebuilt the driveline, brakes, and cooling system to survive it. The result runs 0-60 in 3.5 seconds and the quarter mile in 11.6, with a tow hitch attached. At $85,900, the value argument was the whole pitch. Read on for what made the Trackhawk possible and what to know before buying one used.
The 1966 Fairlane was the year Ford re-engineered the car to accept a big block, and the GT and GTA came standard with a 335-horsepower 390. The difference between the two badges comes down to a single letter and a single component. Convertible production across the whole lineup barely topped 13,000 cars, and the performance versions are a small slice of that. Read on for why this one keeps getting overlooked.
Chevrolet built just 10,100 Nova SS models for 1967, and the strongest engine on the order sheet made 275 horsepower. This one carries a 632-cubic-inch big block making four digits on the motor alone, with nitrous on top, a transbrake, and a parachute for the 160-mph shutdown. Roughly $160,000 separates the factory car from what it became.
The 1968 GTO was a complete redesign built around a gamble: a body-colored, energy-absorbing Endura front bumper with no chrome at all, something no mass-production car had tried. It won Motor Trend Car of the Year and reset how intermediate coupes were styled. A handful survive today still wearing factory paint, and that is not an accident. Read on for what makes an unrestored survivor worth more than a restoration.
Ford did not build a new engine to make the 1965 Mustang quick. It reached into a completely different car’s parts bin, pulled out an engine that had already been proving itself elsewhere for two years, and charged a serious premium for the privilege. Only a tiny fraction of buyers ever checked the box, and the horsepower figure attached to this car deserves a closer look than it usually gets.
Chevrolet has closed the book on the Camaro, ending a long argument over whether the car ever lived up to its affordable muscle roots. Owners fought a shuddering eight-speed, cooling problems at idle, and visibility that made parking a guessing game — none of which appeared in the brochure. Chevy answered by making the car better rather than cheaper, and it worked everywhere except the showroom. Read on for what a returning Camaro would have to fix.
Enthusiasts have called the third-generation Thunderbird the Bullet Bird for sixty years, and the nickname has nothing to do with how fast it was. It described the shape. This 1963, built by Manns Restoration and named Black Bullet, takes that missile-shaped body and fills the engine bay with a modern DOHC Coyote V8, a 9-inch rear on 4.11 gears, and Wilwood discs at all four corners. Here is why the Bullet Bird is such a good canvas.