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Car and Driver’s own testing crowned the 1965 Shelby Cobra 427 the quickest car of the 1960s at 4.3 seconds to sixty, edging out legends like the Hemi Charger and Corvette 427 further down the list. Period testing standards were far looser than today’s, with factory-tuned engines and sticky rubber skewing plenty of these numbers. Still, this list captures exactly how far a handful of cars pushed acceleration in a decade that had no rulebook for it yet.
A rendering promising 435 horsepower and a return to showrooms is exactly the kind of story muscle car fans want to believe, but does the paper trail back it up? We dug into where the 2017 Ford Torino revival rumor actually came from, and the answer says as much about internet car culture as Ford’s real plans. Along the way, we revisit what made the real Torino GT and Cobra genuinely special the first time around.
During the Bosnian War, a Danish Special Forces veteran ran humanitarian supplies into a war zone in a 1979 Chevrolet Camaro modified with aircraft-grade stealth paint, armor plating, and thermal imaging, but no weapons at all. Helge Meyer made over 100 runs where UN convoys couldn’t get through, carrying medicine and toys to children instead of ammunition. It’s one of the most extraordinary true stories to ever involve a Camaro, and the car survives to this day.
The 2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon didn’t just add horsepower to the Challenger lineup — it handed street buyers a piece of drag-strip-only technology that had never been offered on a production car before. Between its Trans Brake, Torque Reserve system, and a horsepower figure that flirted with four digits, the Demon turned heads before it ever left the showroom floor. Here’s a closer look at the numbers and technology that made it one of the most talked-about muscle cars of the decade.
The 1969 Corvette ZL1 option cost almost as much as an entire base Corvette, which explains why Chevrolet only ever sold two of them to the public. Just 71 cars total left the factory with a genuine ZL1 engine, split between Camaros and Corvettes. A discovery of the original block tooling decades later gave GM a way to build the engine again.
Jeffrey Harkins bought this 1969 Ford Ranchero already dressed up as a low-rider, sagging on the wrong springs with side pipes bolted on for looks. Eight months of real work later, from suspension to floor pans to a swapped-in Mustang 302, it sits proud and ready for its first show. It’s a reminder that the best rescues aren’t about paint, they’re about undoing somebody else’s bad decisions first.
Six decades after Russ Snowberger wheeled his own cars around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, his son John has taken on the job his father never got to finish. This 1952 Indy-style racer sat quietly for decades before the Snowberger family decided its story deserved a second act. What emerges is less a restoration than a homecoming, one built from memory, patience, and a name that once ran with the best at the Brickyard.
Before it became the most famous crime-fighting car on television, the 1955 Lincoln Futura was a $250,000 Ghia-built concept car with a double plastic canopy and a 300-horsepower V8. A decade later, George Barris pulled it out of storage and turned it into the original Batmobile. Here’s the real story behind the car everyone’s been trying to guess.
The first car ever to wear the Dodge Charger name was built to introduce America to the 426 Hemi, but the engine slated for it got pulled at the last minute to save a race team’s season. What actually powered this showcar for years was a secret hiding in plain sight. Decades later, a full restoration finally gave it the Hemi it was always supposed to have, and turned it into a seven-figure piece of Mopar history.
Most Batman fans never knew George Barris built a Batmobile purely for drag racing, powered by a blueprinted Holman & Moody 427 side-oiler and driven by ‘Wild Bill’ Shrewsberry. It ran the quarter-mile in about 12 seconds at nearly 117 mph while touring dragstrips across North America from 1966 to 1968. Here’s the real racing story behind Batman’s other car.
When Chevrolet’s SS sedan went out of production, the brand needed a new face for its NASCAR Cup program fast — and it turned to the Camaro ZL1 to fill the void. The race car wears ZL1 styling cues but hides a purpose-built 5.8-liter engine that shares almost nothing with the supercharged 6.2-liter under a street ZL1’s hood. It debuted during 2018 Daytona Speedweeks wearing car number 8, a quiet nod to Chevrolet co-founder Louis Chevrolet’s own racing number.