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Muscle car owners have a running joke about loving their ride more than anything else in their life — and it isn’t entirely a joke. This piece looks at why gearhead devotion gets compared to marriage, why the meme keeps resurfacing generation after generation, and what the humor actually reveals about what it takes to finish a build.
John Hennessey took a completely stock 2017 Camaro ZL1 and ran it to 173 mph — in fifth gear, through the factory six-speed manual — just to see what Chevrolet’s supercharged brute does before any tuning. Along the way the fuel gauge drops fast enough to watch in real time. Is the manual actually leaving speed on the table versus the 10-speed automatic? Watch to find out.
MotorTrend’s Generation Gap lines up a 1987 Buick GNX, the turbocharged legend of the 1980s, against a 1969 Chevrolet Chevelle that looks like it belongs to somebody’s grandmother. The twist is what hides under the Chevelle’s plain sheet metal: a rare COPO 427 rated at 425 horsepower. It is 1980s tech versus 1960s cubic inches in a head-to-head sleeper showdown. Watch to see which era wins.
A 1955 Chevy launches down the track at Pikes Peak International Raceway and then gets loose in a way that makes your stomach drop. For a few seconds the clip is genuinely alarming, which is exactly why the ending lands so hard. This is a dramatic reminder of how far drag racing safety gear has come, and why the driver was able to walk away unharmed. Watch to see the moment of relief.
From across the Belvidere MOPAR show field, this 1971 Plymouth GTX looks like a clean 440 car in all the right colors, until you notice the one detail in the roof that stops collectors mid-sentence: a factory sunroof. Owner Kirk Phillips explains to Lou Costabile how a car built for export ended up back in the States, and why it is such an unusual survivor. Watch to hear the whole story.
A single unlabeled photo hides a specific answer: this is a 1966 Chevrolet Nova, the first year of a total redesign that gave the car its sharp-edged, semi-fastback look. Under the hood, a rare L79 350-horsepower option turned an affordable compact into a genuine NHRA threat — one built in far smaller numbers than most SS badges suggest. See what else made this year’s Nova stand apart.
It started like any other burnout competition run: a Camaro, a cloud of tire smoke, and a driver looking to put on a show. Then the razor-thin margin between spectacle and disaster vanished in a heartbeat. This clip is a fast, hard lesson in why the best burnout artists make it look so easy, and why the physics of a burnout can turn on a driver in an instant. Watch to see how quickly it went wrong.
This guess the year, make and model post hides its answer in the details, the car pictured is a Dodge Charger 440, one of the most feared muscle car engines of its era rated at 375 horsepower and 480 pound-feet of torque. The real challenge is nailing down which model year is pictured, since Dodge tweaked the Charger’s stripe and scoop details across several seasons of R/T production.
Ken “Big Stick” Godsey brought a tribute to the legendary Ronnie Sox 1964 A/FX Mercury Comet to the NHRA Holley Hot Rod Reunion at Bowling Green, and the crowd was waiting for one number to hit the board. This is a car built to honor the golden age of Factory Experimental drag racing, and the run that followed marked a milestone every A/FX racer respects. Watch to see the pass unfold.
Pontiac built the first-generation Firebird for only three model years, from 1967 to 1969, before a full redesign — and each year left its own visual clues behind. The 1969 model brought the biggest changes of the run: a longer, wider body and a distinctive one-piece Lexan front bumper-grille, along with the mid-year debut of the Trans Am package. Spotting which year a given Firebird belongs to often comes down to details as small as the grille shape and bumper design.
The fastest way to feel four decades of progress is to put both ends of a bloodline nose to nose. In this Generation Gap matchup, Davin’s 1968 Pontiac Firebird with a 320-horsepower 350 faces Matt’s 2010 Lingenfelter Trans Am, a 655-horsepower modern Camaro in Firebird disguise. The spec sheet suggests a blowout, but nostalgia and character do not show up in numbers. Watch the old and new fight it out.
Handing someone a list of the five best Camaros is like handing them a lit match in a fireworks factory, and V8TV knew it. Built to mark fifty years of the Chevrolet Camaro, this countdown pulls genuinely significant cars from The Brothers Collection, from first-gen Z/28s to COPO 427 monsters, and dares you to accept the order. Whether you agree or not, it will make you defend your favorite. See who takes number one.
This 1969 Pontiac GTO looks like just another handsome green convertible until you learn the build sheet: the high-revving Ram Air IV 400 backed by a four-speed, in a drop-top body. Just 59 were built with that exact recipe. Freshly restored and unveiled at the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals from The Brothers Collection, it sits at the very top of the factory muscle car pyramid. Take the full tour.
That wide, menacing Charger in the final scene of Furious 7 has a name, a builder, and a number that beggars belief. 1320video ran into Tom Nelson of Nelson Racing Engines at SEMA and got the story behind “Maximus,” a 1968 Dodge Charger making 2,000 horsepower on an 18-inch-wide tire, with over 2,000 hours poured into the bodywork alone. Hear how the movie’s wildest car came together.