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Chevrolet bored the 396 out to 402 cubic inches, then sold the same engine under three different names depending on which car it went into. In the 1971 Monte Carlo it was badged Turbo-Jet 400. Rated at 300 horsepower with 400 lb-ft of torque, it was a serious engine in a car built for comfort, and almost nobody ordered it with a manual gearbox. Read on for why this combination is so unusual.
Mopar builds exactly one limited-edition Dodge a year, and the 2017 Challenger is the one enthusiasts keep coming back to. Only 160 were made, all with the 392 Hemi, all with a six-speed manual, all with a fender badge painted by hand at the Mopar Custom Shop. Every buyer got a birth certificate documenting their specific car. Read on for the three things that separate it from every special edition before it.
Ford put one engine at the very bottom of the 1967 Mustang order sheet that almost nobody circled: the S-Code 390, a 320-horsepower FE big block that required a redesigned engine bay just to fit. Buyers looked at it, looked at the lighter small-block GT beside it, and mostly walked away. That indifference is exactly why a documented S-Code GT fastback in original spec is now one of the harder first-generation Mustangs to verify and to find.
The badge on this convertible says 1964, but nothing under the hood corresponds to anything Chevrolet actually sold that year. A factory Impala buyer could climb as high as a 409, and that was considered serious. This car runs a built 427 on a full roller camshaft making a claimed 550 horsepower, backed by a four-speed that never appeared on any order sheet in this combination. Here is why that particular engine choice is a deliberate historical joke.
A powder blue 1964 Lincoln Continental convertible represents one of the rarest body styles Lincoln built that year, outnumbered roughly ten to one by its hardtop sedan sibling. The rear-hinged doors that made the car famous also worried Lincoln enough to engineer a safety system most owners never knew existed. Read on to find out what makes a four-door convertible from 1964 this difficult to find today.
After David Pearson took back-to-back NASCAR Grand National championships, Ford and Holman-Moody built him a street Torino Cobra finished in his No. 17 livery. The detail that makes it unrepeatable is the rear spoiler, which was taken directly off the race car he had just driven to the title. Read on for how the car was built, what it ran, and why documentation matters more than horsepower here.
Chevrolet let Ford sell more than a million Mustangs before it put a rival on a showroom floor, which meant the 1967 Camaro had to arrive with an answer for every buyer Ford had already taken. It did, moving nearly 221,000 cars in its debut year. But the SS badge did not mean what most people assume, and the package almost nobody ordered in 1967 is the one collectors chase hardest today. Here is how the debut lineup actually broke down.
Chevrolet built the 1969 Nova SS with the L78 396, a 375-horsepower solid-lifter big block, and then left it out of every official sales brochure. Buyers had to know to ask for it by code. Enough of them did that it accounted for nearly a third of Nova SS production that year. Read on for what the engine really was, why Chevy stayed quiet, and how to tell a genuine car from a clone.
This 1970 Chevrolet C10 hides a 383 stroker under a hood that looks nearly stock, and the red and white paint does a fine job of not giving anything away. The Action Line generation was built for work, which is exactly why so many survived to become street trucks decades later. Read on to find out what Chevrolet changed for 1970 and why these trucks became such a popular build platform.
The name on these valve covers has shown up on three completely different Chevrolet engines across five decades, and every single time it’s meant one thing: this is the Camaro that isn’t messing around. Today’s version makes 455 horsepower and spits flames on overrun, but the badge traces straight back to a drag-strip-born small-block from 1970. Read on to find out what actually connects a modern Camaro SS to a Z/28 from half a century earlier.
Most drivers who want to stop shorter go straight to bigger brakes, and for everyday driving that money is often wasted. The brakes on nearly any car can already lock a wheel; what decides where the car actually stops is the grip available at four small patches of rubber. This article breaks down why tires, tread, age, and construction matter more than calipers, when a brake upgrade genuinely earns its keep, and why classic muscle cars are the clearest example of the mismatch. Read on to find out where to spend first.
In 1968 the hottest engine you could order in an Oldsmobile Cutlass was a 400 cubic inch V8 making 350 horsepower, and the only way to get a 455 that year involved a third-party company working around a General Motors rule. Somewhere along the line, this particular Cutlass got something neither option covers: a supercharged 6.2-liter engine that debuted in a Cadillac sedan four decades later. Here is where that swap really comes from.
An Ohio Ford dealership figured out what Dearborn never offered: a showroom-fresh Mustang GT that runs consistent ten-second quarter miles, sold with financing and a window sticker. Lebanon Ford’s LFP 10 pairs a Roush supercharger with the drag hardware most owners never bother to install. It costs $60,000 and it comes with a serious catch. Read on to find out what you actually get for the money, and what you give up.
Craigslist’s reputation for shady deals is well earned, but that does not mean every listing is a scam; it means you need to know exactly what to check before sending a single dollar. From VIN and trim-tag verification and reverse image searches to pre-purchase inspections, title checks, and safe in-person meeting spots, a few simple habits separate buyers who land a great classic from buyers who lose their deposit. Read on for the full checklist.
A 1972 Chevrolet El Camino and a 1970 Oldsmobile 442 convertible, both freshly restored, represent two completely different ideas of what a performance car should be. One is a pickup built on Chevelle bones with a 454 available; the other carried a 455 making 500 lb-ft of torque and paced the Indianapolis 500. Read on to find out why one of these restorations is far harder to get right.