Mike Hall listed his five-acre British Columbia property for $1.45 million in 2017 — house, shop, and more than 300 vintage cars included in one package deal. Instead of a quiet sale, the listing went viral and turned into Rust Valley Restorers, the TV show that made Hall’s ever-growing junkyard famous. Here’s how a guy who couldn’t count his own car collection ended up on television because of it.
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A 1969 Corvette with the ultra-rare L88 427 — one of only 116 built — lines up against a 1972 Oldsmobile 442 W30, one of just 772 made, in a quarter-mile race between two factory options that were both deliberately underrated on paper. A former 442 owner in the comments insists his car’s true output was well beyond its listed 300 horsepower. Watch the run and the trap speeds that back him up.
From the mid-50s to the 70s, American street racers were the kings of cool, cruising boulevards and racing deserted runways. Muscle cars with sleek lines, custom paint jobs, and engines that left police cruisers in the dust were the emperors of the road—and their drivers raced for glory and the fastest girls. But crashes, the law, or love eventually sidelined most racers. Still, some of these legends have been passed down, with grandchildren now revving those engines at local dragstrips.
Jay Leno had one thing left on his automotive bucket list: a ride in the Hurst Hemi Under Glass with legendary stunt driver Bob Riggle at the controls. What happened on that run turned a routine exhibition into one of the most-watched clips in Jay Leno’s Garage history, with nearly eight million views and a comment section full of people who could not believe what they had just watched. Watch the video and see for yourself.
DragTimes pits a 707-horsepower Challenger Hellcat against a Tesla Model S P100D at a StreetCarDrags.com event — the latest round in what the channel calls a rivalry that ‘won’t stop racing.’ One detail catches viewers off guard: the Tesla actually weighs more than the Hellcat, making its edge purely about how instantly electric torque arrives. Multi-angle GoPro coverage means nothing at the stripe goes unseen. Watch to see whether the V8 finally closes the gap.
Elmer Trett became the first motorcycle drag racer to break 200 mph in 1983, then spent the next thirteen years breaking his own record again and again, fifteen times in all, on bikes he built himself. His fastest pass came in 1996 at 235 mph, with an elapsed time of 6.06 seconds. He died that same year during an exhibition run at the same track where his legend began.
A grandfather who sold used cars for 60 years, a mom who beat the neighborhood Corvette owner in a full-size Pontiac, and a dad who won a drag race at 69 — this is a family where muscle cars run three generations deep. From a Mach 1 Mustang to a Dodge Super Bee to a 2016 Mustang GT painted in a nod to Steve McQueen’s Bullitt car, the cars change but the obsession never has.
Chrysler built the 426 Hemi to win NASCAR races and had no intention of selling it to the public. A homologation rule forced the company’s hand, and for six model years a lightly civilized race engine was available over the counter to anyone who could afford the option and the insurance. Here is what made the Elephant so effective, what the 425-horsepower rating really hid, and why 1971 was the end of it.
The Hennessey Venom GT hit 270.49 mph at NASA’s old Space Shuttle runway in February 2014, a speed that should make it the fastest production car ever built. It isn’t official: Guinness requires at least 30 units to qualify, and Hennessey never got there — accounts of the final tally range from 13 to 29 units, but every version falls short, so the record technically doesn’t count despite the number being real. At 2,743 pounds and roughly 1 horsepower per kilogram, it’s easy to see how the numbers got there in the first place.
Ed Wheeldon, known on the drag strip as Fast Eddie, once turned down a $250,000 offer for his 1968 Dodge Dart, a genuine factory Hemi Super Stock he still races at Eddyville Dragway for a $200 appearance fee. Mopar Max Magazine later put him on its cover after the car ran a best pass of 6.501 seconds. Few six-figure Hemi drag cars still see the strip today. Find out why Wheeldon insists on keeping his in the game.
A 74-year-old retired Ford technician built a private collection of more than 200 cars on his own rural Michigan property, and now a township ordinance is forcing him to sell or scrap 20 of them every month. Ron Dauzet says the pace has turned his passion into a race against the clock, with officials checking his progress in person each month. Two years and roughly 180 cars later, he’s still not done, and not every car has gone to a buyer who wanted it.
Terry in Houston had roughly a thousand miles on a frame-off restoration of his numbers-matching 1965 Oldsmobile 442 when the floodwater arrived. The question he posted to a club page is the one every owner dreads: repair it, or take the insurance money and let it go. There is no clean answer, but there is a right order to think about it. Read on to find out what actually happens to a freshly restored classic once the water recedes.
Named after Garth Brooks’ hit about ditching pretension for good company, the Friends in Low Places Car Truck and Bike Show made it to its sixth year by keeping things simple: an open field, a mix of muscle cars, trucks, and bikes, and no velvet-rope attitude. Grassroots shows like this one rarely make headlines, but they’re often where the most honest, unrestored survivors turn up.
