Muscle Car Fan

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1970 was a terrible year to sell a Road Runner. Insurance surcharges were biting, sales fell by more than half, and Plymouth’s own new compact was quietly stealing its customers. The company responded by keeping the Hemi on the order sheet anyway, adding a functional hood scoop system, and building a handful of cars so rare that survivors now define the model. Here is what actually happened to the Road Runner in 1970, and why a bright yellow survivor is worth a second look.

John Wischmann set out to run 7-second quarter-mile passes at every stop of Rocky Mountain Race Week in a twin-turbo big-block Camaro, then drive it on public roads to the next track and do it again, without a single mechanical failure. Viewers keep comparing the turbo whistle to a screaming eagle, and the launches show almost no wasted motion or tire shake. Reliability and speed are not supposed to go together at this level. Watch to see whether this build proves that wrong.

Pontiac built 72,287 GTOs in 1969, the highest total in the model’s history, but only 759 of them received the Ram Air IV. A subdued blue car parked indoors gives away nothing about which of those buckets it belongs to. Here is what separated a base 400 from a Ram Air III from the round-port Ram Air IV, what the Judge package actually cost, and how to verify a car rather than trusting its badges.

Dennis Ermi’s 1968 Plymouth Road Runner wears a custom Pearlescent Orange and Black paint job and hides a 472-cubic-inch big-block built to make somewhere around 1,000 horsepower, numbers that have nothing to do with the nameplate’s budget-muscle-car reputation. Ermi has owned the car since 2009 and built it up gradually, the paint and engine work both added well after purchase. Viewers keep coming back to one detail in particular: the blower whine. Watch to hear it for yourself.

A small-block Chevy engine builder with decades of grease under his fingernails sets out to settle one of the hobby’s oldest arguments: which factory cylinder heads are actually worth chasing, and which ones are budget-build traps. Casting numbers, camel-hump chambers, and a warranty-replacement secret tied to the 1969 Z/28 Camaro all make an appearance. Viewers with their own engine-building histories have kept the debate going in the comments for over a decade. Watch to find out which heads made his list, and which ones did not.

Shot on a public street during Ocean City, Maryland’s biggest car week, this decade-old clip pits a Chevy S10 against a Camaro in an impromptu street pull that was never part of the official Cruisin’ Ocean City schedule. The self-deprecating title warns you how it turns out before you even press play. Watch to see why over a million people have clicked on a shaky, unbranded phone video anyway.

The 1970 Plymouth Superbird was not styled, it was shaped by a wind tunnel and a NASCAR rulebook, and every strange proportion on it exists for a reason. Fewer than 2,000 were built, three engines were offered, and only one of them is why collectors chase these cars today. Dealers could barely give them away when they were new. Read on to find out how a car nobody wanted became one of the most valuable Mopars ever built.

Edelbrock built its reputation on performance parts cast entirely in the USA, and this video takes cameras inside the two foundries where that happens — molding, pouring, machining, and final inspection, all in one place. Former employees who’ve worked the exact stations shown, from furnace operator to CMM inspector, weigh in in the comments with details the video itself doesn’t spell out. It’s a rare look at where a trusted name in muscle car parts actually comes from.

For a few short years at the end of the 1960s, win on Sunday, sell on Monday pushed Ford, Mercury, Dodge, and Plymouth into a genuine aerodynamic arms race, producing cars as strange-looking as they were fast — this MotorWeek retro review rounds up the Torino, Cyclone, Charger, and the wildest of them all, the wing-and-nose-cone Plymouth Superbird. One commenter still remembers passing on a Limelight green Superbird back in 1985, long before it became a six-figure collector car. Watch to see the machines NASCAR eventually had to legislate off the track.

A 1967 Ford Fairlane GT and a 1969 Plymouth GTX go head to head at Palm Beach International Raceway, and the gap between them, 11.41 versus 11.25 seconds, turns out to be closer than the numbers suggest. Both owners showed up in the comments to keep the argument going years later. Watch the quarter mile that started a rivalry neither driver has let go of since.

A private collector’s classified ad seeking any 1968-1972 Plymouth Road Runner or GTX, project or finished, highlights just how differently these two closely related muscle cars are remembered decades later. Built on the same platform but aimed at completely different buyers, telling them apart takes more than a glance at the badge. Read on to find out exactly what separates a genuine GTX from a Road Runner, and why the distinction matters so much to serious buyers.

This 1971 Ford Custom 500 spends less time on a showroom resume and more time sliding sideways through a Southern back road, doubling as the getaway car in Burt Reynolds’ 1973 chase picture White Lightning. Stunt driving from the golden age of practical car chases, with Ned Beatty playing the corrupt sheriff chasing him down. The chase still pulls in six-figure views decades later, proof that a full-size sedan can be just as thrilling as any factory muscle car when the right driver is behind the wheel.

Ranking the greatest muscle cars of all time was always going to start an argument, but slotting a Mercedes-Benz Brabus Bullit 800 into the number three spot sent this comment section into open revolt. Viewers debate what actually counts as a muscle car, what got left off entirely, and whether horsepower numbers alone should decide the list at all. See which cars purists say are missing.

No scoops, no stripes, just dog-dish wheels and a stripped interior, this 1963 Plymouth Sport Fury looks like nothing special until you learn what is under the hood: a 426 Max Wedge Super Stock V8 making an advertised 415 horsepower. One commenter says with modern tires and race gas, it would run 10-second quarter miles today. See why Mopar collectors call these early B-bodies brutes.

A twelve-year-old fell in love with this generation of Mustang after watching a red one chase a Bond villain in Diamonds Are Forever, and this 1971 Mach 1’s 429 Super Cobra Jet is exactly the engine that backs up that on-screen reputation. The bigger, heavier redesign split fans the moment it launched. See why so many of them ended up owning two or three anyway.


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