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Road racers know corner speeds and heel-toe downshifts, but the language of drag racing — 60-foot times, track prep, the Christmas tree — is its own world entirely. Gears and Gasoline walks into their first drag event admitting they don’t fully understand it, then gets experts to break down what’s actually happening between the light turning green and the finish line. It turns out the simplest form of racing is a lot more technical than it looks.
AMC never had GM or Ford’s budget, but the 1970 AMX Javelin Mark Donohue Edition in factory Big Bad Blue proves the smallest of Detroit’s players could still build something worth stopping for. Owner Roger Nelson has kept this one since 2007, and Lou Costabile catches up with him at the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals to hear the story behind a car named for the driver who beat factory Mustangs and Camaros on the track. Find out what makes this Javelin different.
A bone-stock 1960 Ford Falcon doesn’t sound like the kind of car that gets its own in-depth review — until you learn it was Robert McNamara’s personal answer to the import invasion, and the quiet foundation the Mustang was later built on. Regular Car Reviews gives this unassuming compact the full deadpan treatment its channel is known for. There’s more history hiding under that plain sheet metal than the Falcon’s reputation suggests.
Ten years, four manufacturers, and a horsepower war Detroit never planned on fighting — MaccaIsntDead’s tribute to 1964-1974 muscle cars tries to compress the entire golden era into one sitting. From the loophole that created the Pontiac GTO to the emissions regulations that quietly ended everything, it’s a decade that burned hot and fast before insurance companies and oil embargoes shut it down. Watch to see which cars made the cut.
A Jeep Trackhawk’s supercharged Hemi V8 and a Tesla Model X’s instant electric torque met at Palm Beach International Raceway for a quarter-mile battle that rewrote what world’s quickest SUV means. One car had a 707-horsepower reputation to defend; the other had a claim nobody expected to actually hold up. See which one set the new record.
Jay Leno bought this 1963 Corvette Stingray without ever seeing it in person, then handed the rare, fuel-injected Sting Ray to master restorer Mike McCluskey to bring it back to exact factory-stock condition. It carries the split rear window Chevrolet built for one model year only, one of the most collectible details in Corvette history. Restoring it correctly meant matching factory details most owners would never even notice. See what stock perfection actually required.
A maroon 1966 Chevelle SS looks every bit the numbers-matching survivor sitting under dealership lights, chrome and stance exactly as expected. Pop the hood, though, and a 565-cubic-inch supercharged big-block making a claimed 750 horsepower rewrites the whole story, doubling what the factory L78 ever put out. It’s proof that the best sleepers in the muscle car hobby don’t always hide behind plain bodywork; sometimes they hide in plain sight, wearing exactly the look you’d expect from an original.
Buried behind a barn door in the Midwest sat a collection most collectors only dream about — Superbirds, Talladegas, and a Charger 500, the aero-war Mopars Chrysler built specifically to dominate NASCAR superspeedways. Ryan Brutt walks through the find piece by piece, cataloging decades of dust, original paint, and untouched drivetrains. See what a real barn find of this caliber actually looks like.
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.
Randy Smalley has owned his 2017 Ford GT since it was new, one of fewer than 1,350 examples Ford built with a twin-turbo V6 instead of the V8 or V10 purists expected. Lou Costabile sits down with Smalley in Florida to hear the real ownership story, straight from a buyer Ford actually selected to own one. Hear what living with a modern icon is really like.
Ford Mustang or Chevy Camaro — it’s the question that’s split muscle car fans since Chevrolet built the Camaro in 1966 for one reason: to dethrone the Mustang. What followed was a decades-long arms race of big-block engines, homologation specials, and Trans-Am glory that neither side ever really won outright. Six decades later, the argument hasn’t cooled off one degree, and pulling up next to either one still means somebody’s about to make their case.
A supercharged Hellcat Hemi and Cadillac’s sleeper CTS-V line up for a quarter-mile grudge match that’s closer than either spec sheet suggests. Both cars pack over 700 horsepower from the factory, but putting that much power down cleanly off the line is its own separate contest entirely. Traction, launch technique, and a little luck end up deciding this one as much as raw output does. Watch which factory monster crosses the line first.
Rain kept the crowds a little smaller at the fourth annual Street Machine & Muscle Car Nationals, but it didn’t stop a wild mix of gassers, lead sleds, and Pro Street builds from filling the Fairplex in Pomona. A supercharged 1929 Dodge Brothers coupe running a 452-cubic-inch Hemi shares space with a Batmobile-liveried Camaro and a smoking Oldsmobile 442 burnout. See which build stands out from a packed Southern California show season.
MotorWeek pulled its own vault tape from 1987 to revisit a lineup of GM performance cars built during one of the toughest stretches in muscle car history. The SS badges were back, the numbers were tested the same way they always are, and three decades later the verdict still holds up. See what MotorWeek’s original road test crew actually thought at the time.
A supercharged Ford GT running a 4.0L Whipple takes on a big-turbo Toyota Supra built around the legendarily tough 2JZ block in a street race that pits two completely different performance philosophies against each other. One car leans on exotic factory pedigree, the other on a bulletproof reputation built over two decades of abuse. Both builds bring serious numbers to the line. Watch to see whether supercar money or built-motor grit wins the day.