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EngineLabs handed two teams an identical $9,999 budget and one instruction: build the strongest engine possible, Ford’s Coyote for one, GM’s LS3 for the other. The result is less a definitive winner and more a clinic in budget-build tradeoffs, big pushrod displacement against high-revving overhead cams, cheap aftermarket parts against premium modular components. Even the comments split along brand lines, with one self-described “Ford guy” breaking ranks to praise the LS3 outright. Watch the full build to see which philosophy actually made more power for the money, and decide for yourself which side of this rivalry your own garage falls on.

Van Hurst’s father once owned this 1969 Chevelle COPO — before it left the family, disappeared for years, and turned up again through nothing more than an internet search. Built through Chevrolet’s Central Office Production Order loophole, the car was deliberately disguised as a base-model Malibu to hide its 427 big block from the crowd. Between a Chilean sighting decades ago and a trio of Calgary neighbors who bought sister cars together in 1969, this COPO’s story stretches well past its own build sheet. Watch the full reunion.

MotorTrend pits a numbers-matching 1969 Pontiac GTO Judge against a twin-turbo, 750-horsepower 2006 GTO inside Ken Lingenfelter’s personal collection, then asks a simple question with no easy answer: which one would you actually want to drive? The Judge brings 1969 history and mechanical honesty; the modern car brings more than double the factory horsepower. Watch the comment section split right down generational lines.

Plymouth built the Superbird to win NASCAR homologation rules, not showroom popularity contests — and dealers struggled to move them when they launched in 1970. USClassicMuscleCars caught up with a raw, uniquely restored example at the MuscleCars and Corvette Nationals in Chicago, and its road back from unsellable oddity to seven-figure icon is worth understanding before you watch the interview.

A 1967 television commercial for the Pontiac GTO sold horsepower the way modern car ads almost never do – through swagger, identity, and a voice actor’s delivery that viewers are still praising decades later. One commenter even traces BMW’s Ultimate Driving Machine slogan back to what Pontiac was already doing here first. Watch to hear the pitch that built a legend.

KFLY67’s tour of a sprawling Oregon junkyard has racked up nearly half a million views, and the comments do more identifying than the video’s own description ever attempts — a red Chevelle worth real money, a misidentified California Special Mustang, and a four-speed ’66 Chevelle buried among roughly 600 other cars. Watch to see what regional enthusiasts have already spotted for themselves.

Filmed in 2007 for a television series most viewers have never heard of, this segment captures a 1971 Plymouth Cuda’s 440 Six Pack coming to life under Legendary Motorcar’s care. The triple-carburetor setup gives the big-block a distinctive burble that Mopar collectors can pick out by ear alone. See why this specific engine badge still commands serious money and even more serious attention.

Ford bet big on a total redesign for the 1972 Torino, and the Gran Torino Sport wore that gamble best — longer hood, bolder grille, and a hood scoop that meant business. Buyers could step up from the base 302 V8 all the way to a 429 big-block. The payoff: Ford outsold Chevrolet’s Chevelle for the first time since the Torino nameplate launched in 1964.

The 1969 Firebird Trans Am existed for exactly one model year in this form, wearing a color combination buyers couldn’t change and stripes that ran straight over the roof, a look Pontiac never repeated. This Ram Air III 4-speed example from The Brothers Collection pairs that one-year-only styling with a functional hood feeding a 400 cubic inch V8. See what made the very first Trans Am look and drive like nothing else on the lot.

Buried inside the largely forgotten 1994 film F.T.W. is a car chase sequence that has taken on a life of its own online: a 1969 Plymouth Road Runner driven hard through real stunt work rather than sanitized for the camera. Viewers in the comments zero in on the Shaker hood and the rare 440-cubic-inch four-speed combination, calling it one of the best-optioned Road Runners ever put on film. Watch the full clip to see genuine period-correct Mopar muscle pushed to its limits.

The Road Runner and GTX get all the glory from Mopar’s B-body glory days, but the Plymouth Satellite built the platform underneath both of them. Debuting in 1965 with bucket seats and V8 power standard, the Satellite could be optioned all the way to a 425-horsepower 426 Hemi. It’s the same bones as the legends — without the legend price tag.

Ford didn’t build the Torino Talladega to sell to the public — they built it because NASCAR’s rulebook demanded a minimum production run before the aerodynamic bodywork could race. About 750 were made, every one running the same 428 Cobra Jet, C6 automatic, and stretched nose. On track, it paid off with 29 NASCAR wins across two seasons.

Steve Beck bought his 1965 Shelby GT350 for $900 on his eighteenth birthday, hoping it would help him land his first job as a mechanic — it did, on the spot. Hagerty’s Breakdown series traces decades of vintage racing and track days at Willow Springs that followed, plus more than a few speeding tickets along the way. Fifty years later, Beck is still driving it hard. Watch to see why he never let this one go.

This 1963 Ford Thunderbird Landau wore its formal-wear styling on purpose, right down to the padded vinyl roof and faux landau bars meant to evoke old coachbuilt luxury cars. A genuine Limited Edition variant that January came in one color combination only, maroon over white, and leaned even harder into the elegance angle. Under all that formality sat a 390 V8 making up to 340 horsepower, plenty for a personal luxury coupe built to cruise rather than race. Ford sold over 12,000 Landaus that year, making this one of the more attainable classic Thunderbirds to find today.

Photographed under moonlight, this 1972 Chevrolet Nova SS represents the exact year Chevrolet trimmed the SS engine lineup down to a single small-block, right as insurance surcharges and emissions rules killed big-blocks industry-wide across Detroit. Nova SS orders actually climbed that year anyway, nearly doubling from the year before. Read on to find out why buyers kept checking the box even as the engine choices narrowed.


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