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Mercury Racing spent decades building engines for boats before it decided to sell one for cars. The SB4 7.0 starts life as a GM LS7 block and then gets something no factory small block ever had: dual overhead cams, 32 valves, an 11.7:1 compression ratio, and an 8,000 rpm ceiling, all rated at 750 horsepower on 91-octane pump gas. It ships turn-key for 32,995 dollars. Read on to find out what it actually takes to make a small block spin that high.
Pontiac named this muscle car after a TV punchline and painted the first 2,000 examples a color buyers weren’t allowed to refuse. Loud stripes, a towering spoiler, and a Ram Air V8 under the hood made it impossible to miss on the street in 1969. Only 6,833 left the factory that year. Take your best shot at a caption before reading the story behind it.
One photo, one mystery car, zero easy answers. This guessing game challenges muscle car fans to identify the year, make, and model of a classic ride using nothing but a single shot. Some details give it away fast; others are designed to trip up even lifelong gearheads. Think you know your metal? Take your best guess before reading on.
Long before car memes existed online, muscle car culture was already built on the same kind of good-natured ribbing — chalked onto staging lanes, printed on bumper stickers, or scrawled across club newsletters. The photo above is just the latest version of a tradition that’s been running for as long as these cars have existed.
A dashcam mounted on a Fayette County road captured a three-car collision that has since been viewed more than 2.75 million times — not for the impact itself, but for what the drivers did in the sixty seconds after. One kept recording. Another crossed traffic to check on the woman who caused the wreck. The internet has spent years arguing about what should have been done differently. Watch to see why so many viewers came away impressed instead of angry.
A photo of classic muscle parked bumper to bumper reignites a debate that never really settles: if the gate swung open and you could drive off in just one, which would it be? The obvious answer isn’t always the smartest one, and the reasons enthusiasts give for their picks reveal a lot more than horsepower preferences.
This original 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS396 commercial captures the car at the exact peak of its production run, right before insurance costs and emissions rules reshaped the entire muscle car segment. Behind the pitch is a genuinely confusing engine-naming quirk and a horsepower range that stretched from daily-drivable to weekend track weapon. See how Chevrolet sold an icon before anyone had officially agreed to call it one.
Sammy Miller’s 1984 run at Santa Pod dragstrip in a car called Vanishing Point covered the quarter mile in 3.58 seconds at 386 miles per hour — and it wasn’t burning gasoline to do it. The car ran on hydrogen peroxide, pressurized air tanks, and a chemical reaction that produced 14,000 pounds of thrust. There’s an even faster desert run buried in the same story that never made the official record books.
A handful of 1969 Camaros left the factory hiding a secret: an aluminum 427 ZL1 engine ordered through a fleet-vehicle paperwork loophole that let dealers dodge GM’s own ban on big blocks in mid-size cars. Only 69 were built, each one costing more in engine surcharge than most base Camaros cost outright. If the blue car above is packing one of these motors, it’s sitting on a small fortune.
TFLcar puts a 2015 Ford Mustang GT up against a six-figure 2016 Jaguar F-Type R in a track-and-drag-strip mashup that was never supposed to be a fair fight. One car costs a fraction of the other, yet the straight-line result raises real questions about what that price gap actually buys. Watch to see which V8 gets to the end of the strip first.
Few names are more closely tied to Monster Energy-liveried drift machines than Vaughn Gittin Jr., whose partnership with the brand dates back to 2010 and helped turn a factory Mustang platform into a full-time competition drift car. Formula Drift itself only dates back to 2003, yet muscle car platforms quickly became the backbone of the sport. This image captures exactly the kind of sideways moment that built that reputation.
This 1970 Chevrolet Nova SS pairs a numbers-matching 350 four-barrel with a Muncie four-speed, a 12-bolt limited-slip rear end, and believed-original mileage in the mid-70,000s. It’s the kind of sleeper build that hides serious performance behind understated styling. Watch the full walkaround to see exactly what’s under the hood.
After seventeen years sitting in a Texas barn, this rare 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass Calais – factory four-speed manual, factory Power Astro-roof – gets a shot at running again from the team at Classic GBody Garage. It’s the first chapter of a build they’ve dubbed ‘Project Ratlass.’ Watch to find out if the engine still turns over.