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This full-size cruiser got a near-total redesign for 1960, sharing only its roof and trunk lid with the previous year’s model. Buick built it around a 364 cubic inch V8 offered in three different tunes, topping out at 300 horsepower with the four-barrel Power Pack option. More than 150,000 rolled off the line that year alone. Did you guess the year, make, and model?
Mike and Jim Ring started painting car bodies as ten-year-olds on the back roads of Spring Green, Wisconsin, long before their small-town gas station business became one of the most respected custom shops in the country. Ringbrothers still handles everyday collision repair alongside the one or two headline-grabbing builds they unveil at SEMA each year. Along the way they’ve collected Chevrolet Best in Show awards, Goodguys honors, and a SEMA Battle of the Builders win.
Chevrolet had less than a year to answer the Ford Mustang, and the Camaro it rushed to market in 1967 ended up defining an entire era of American performance cars. Buyers could order the style-focused RS package with its hidden headlights, or step up to the SS for real hardware including access to the 396 big-block V8. That same year, a Camaro RS/SS convertible paced the Indianapolis 500, and Chevrolet sold 100 replicas to commemorate it.
No-prep drag racing strips away the sticky track surface most cars depend on for grip, turning every run into a battle against wheelspin on bare concrete. At the Conquer the Concrete event at Thunder Valley Raceway Park near Oklahoma City, James ‘Birdman’ Finney turned that chaos into a $10,000 payday. It capped a run that had already put more than $45,000 in his pocket across his previous three major no-prep races.
Choosing between a Tremec TKX five-speed and a Magnum six-speed for a classic car swap comes down to a tradeoff most builders don’t expect: torque capacity versus tunnel space. The Magnum handles up to 700 lb-ft and revs to 7,800 rpm with noticeably smoother shifts, but at 12.25 inches wide it usually demands cutting into a pre-1990s transmission tunnel. The TKX trades some capability for a slimmer 10.5-inch width that often bolts in without any modification at all.
While Pontiac was busy launching the muscle car era with the GTO in 1964, Dodge buyers could order this Dart GT convertible with the complete opposite formula: a 145-horsepower Slant Six built for economy and reliability instead of quarter-mile bragging rights. It wasn’t quick by any muscle car measure, needing roughly 15 seconds to reach 60 mph, but it returned 16-17 mpg and rarely broke down. 1964 also marked the last year for Dodge’s quirky pushbutton automatic transmission.
A supercharged Shelby GT500 and a naturally aspirated Camaro SS look like an unfair fight on paper, with the Ford flagship out-gunning the Chevy by hundreds of horsepower. But drag strip results rarely play out exactly how the spec sheet predicts once real drivers and launch technique enter the picture. That gap between paper power and track performance is why this matchup never stops getting filmed.
The 1968 Camaro Z/28 was not built to look fast, it was built to legally qualify for Trans-Am racing, and that single requirement shaped everything about it. Chevrolet engineers combined two different small-block dimensions to create an all-new 302 just to squeak under the series displacement limit. On track, the gamble paid off with manufacturer championships against Ford, Mercury, and later AMC.
1969 was the single best year Chevrolet ever had for the Chevelle SS 396, with more than 86,000 built, the option’s all-time high. Jerry McLean’s build, aptly nicknamed Rats Forever, keeps that big-block heritage alive rather than chasing a trend, a choice that says as much about the owner as it does about the car.
A big-block engine was never in Ford’s plans for the 1966 Mustang, the factory did not offer one until the following model year, and the shock towers made sure of it. This custom build proves the swap is possible anyway, provided you are willing to rework the chassis Ford built specifically to keep big engines out. It is a build defined by doing what the factory said could not be done.
The Porsche 930 Turbo earned its ‘Widowmaker’ nickname the hard way — a short wheelbase and rear-engine layout that could turn an ill-timed throttle input into a violent pendulum swing at the limit. Born from Can-Am turbo technology and built to satisfy homologation rules, the 930 arrived in the U.S. in 1976 with a 3.0-liter flat-six making 260 horsepower. Later 3.3-liter versions pushed output higher still, cementing the 930’s reputation as one of the most demanding production sports cars Porsche ever sold.
Ford’s 1968 Torino GT paced the Indianapolis 500 in convertible form, then backed up that spotlight moment with a NASCAR championship season and a mid-year Cobra Jet 428 that the factory rated conservatively at 335 horsepower. Car and Driver clocked a Cobra Jet-equipped Torino at 14.2 seconds in the quarter mile. Of the three body styles offered, the fastback proved by far the most popular, with over 74,000 built against just 5,317 convertibles.
The Lockheed U-2 is so difficult to fly that it needs a high-speed chase car, sometimes even a Tesla, sprinting down the runway beside it on every takeoff and landing. Filmed at RAF Fairford, this footage shows two of these Cold War spy planes rocketing skyward while their outrigger wheels drop away. The pilot, sealed in a pressure suit, can barely see out. Find out why this 1950s legend still needs a car to get airborne.
By 1968, the Mercury Cougar had proven its European-flavored take on Ford’s pony car platform was no fluke, backed by three newly added V8 options topping out at a 390-horsepower 427. The rare XR7-G package, just 622 built, paid tribute to racing driver Dan Gurney with unique trim and an available sunroof. Under the polished intake and Hooker headers of a modified example like this one lies a car built during the Cougar’s most ambitious model year yet.
The 1971 Chevrolet Nova SS arrived at the tail end of the muscle car era, when new unleaded-fuel requirements trimmed the standard 350 V8 down to 270 horsepower — the only engine Chevrolet offered that year. Just 7,015 Nova SS models were built, making it one of the rarest Super Sport badges Chevrolet ever produced. Tracing back to 1962 as GM’s compact answer to the Ford Falcon, the Nova proved that big performance didn’t require a big car.