Muscle Car Fan

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What Color To Paint it? Army Serviceman Buys 71 Charger To Put 572 Hemi In

by Pat C

An Army aircraft mechanic stationed overseas bought this rust-free 1971 Dodge Charger sight-unseen, with plans to drop in a 572-cubic-inch Hemi built for over 800 horsepower. Before the media blasting and undercoating are even finished, one question remains unresolved: stick with factory-correct yellow, or go full restomod with flat black and bold stripes? The build taps into a growing wave of big-block Charger restomods that trade numbers-matching originality for modern muscle and serious street presence.

Virgil Exner

1965 Shelby Powered Mercer Cobrat By Virgil Exner

by Pat C

A magazine assignment to imagine a forgotten luxury nameplate reborn somehow became a fully functional one-off, built on a genuine Shelby Cobra chassis and dressed in copper and brass. Commissioned by a metals trade association rather than an automaker, the Mercer-Cobra combined retro coachbuilt styling with real Shelby performance underneath. Decades later, it sold for $660,000 at a Monterey auction. How does a concept car built to promote copper end up among the most valuable one-offs in Shelby history?

Street racing event at Union County on March 11th.

Win Prize Money at Drag Shootout Union County Drag

by Pat C

A flyer promising prize money at a March drag shootout doesn’t tell you much on its own — but the track behind it, an NHRA-affiliated eighth-mile strip built for grudge racing and small-tire shootouts, has plenty of story to it. Door-crasher format, cash on the line, and a community that shows up test-and-tune after test-and-tune. Here’s what actually happens when the tree drops and real money’s riding on it.

Boss 429 Mustang

This Hoss Is The Boss, 1969 stock 500 hp Boss 429 Mustang! Built by Kar Kraft

by Pat C

Ford rated this Mustang’s big block at just 375 horsepower, a figure almost nobody who drove one actually believed. Built to satisfy NASCAR homologation rules and assembled outside the factory by an outside engineering firm, this car packed race-bred internals most buyers never fully understood. Discover why enthusiasts still debate its real output decades later, and how a Hemi-inspired head design ended up under a Ford hood.

Classic red Shelby Cobra with hood open at a car show.

0-60 The 12 Quickest Cars of The 60’s as Tested by Car & Driver

by Pat C

Car and Driver’s own testing crowned the 1965 Shelby Cobra 427 the quickest car of the 1960s at 4.3 seconds to sixty, edging out legends like the Hemi Charger and Corvette 427 further down the list. Period testing standards were far looser than today’s, with factory-tuned engines and sticky rubber skewing plenty of these numbers. Still, this list captures exactly how far a handful of cars pushed acceleration in a decade that had no rulebook for it yet.

1952 Indy Car with open cockpit and yellow-blue paint.

1952 Indy 500 Car John Snowberger Restores His Dad Russ Snowberger’s

by Pat C

Six decades after Russ Snowberger wheeled his own cars around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, his son John has taken on the job his father never got to finish. This 1952 Indy-style racer sat quietly for decades before the Snowberger family decided its story deserved a second act. What emerges is less a restoration than a homecoming, one built from memory, patience, and a name that once ran with the best at the Brickyard.

426 Hemi

1964 Dodge 426 Hemi-Charger Concept Car

by Pat C

The first car ever to wear the Dodge Charger name was built to introduce America to the 426 Hemi, but the engine slated for it got pulled at the last minute to save a race team’s season. What actually powered this showcar for years was a secret hiding in plain sight. Decades later, a full restoration finally gave it the Hemi it was always supposed to have, and turned it into a seven-figure piece of Mopar history.

Blue NASCAR race car with number 8 on display at an event.

2018 Chevrolet Nascar Camaro Will Dominate The Track

by Pat C

Chevrolet’s 2018 NASCAR Cup Series entry borrowed its ZL1-inspired styling from the street car but almost nothing else, running a purpose-built racing V8 instead of the supercharged engine buyers could actually order. The switch came after the Chevrolet SS, its predecessor, was discontinued with little warning. Read on to find out what makes the Cup car’s engine so different from anything on a showroom floor.

Classic Junkers

Man In British Columbia Selling 300+ Classic Junk Cars For 1.45 Million

by Pat C

Mike Hall listed his five-acre British Columbia property for $1.45 million in 2017 — house, shop, and more than 300 vintage cars included in one package deal. Instead of a quiet sale, the listing went viral and turned into Rust Valley Restorers, the TV show that made Hall’s ever-growing junkyard famous. Here’s how a guy who couldn’t count his own car collection ended up on television because of it.

Bright red vintage hot rod car with exposed engine on display indoors.

What are the Biggest Mistakes People Make When Buying a Muscle Car?

by Jack Harmon

Buying a muscle car should be exciting, not a crash course in what you should have asked before signing the check. The buyers who get burned almost always make the same handful of mistakes: trusting an unverified “numbers matching” claim, falling for a glossy paint job hiding rust underneath, or skipping the pre-purchase inspection to save time. None of these mistakes are expensive to avoid, they just take a little patience most buyers don’t have in the moment. Here’s what actually protects you before you hand over a deposit.

Classic red muscle car parked on grass with trees in background.

True Stories of The Muscle Car Fan 1970 Chevelle Restored

by Pat C

A 1970 Chevelle originally built with a 396 sat outdoors in Indiana for twenty years after a work injury stalled its first restoration attempt. In 2012, a grandfather and grandson struck a deal to finish the job, eventually digging the car’s original SS wheels out from six feet of dirt in a collapsed shed. Read on to find out what powers it now.

Vintage Plymouth cars lined up at an outdoor event under a blue sky.

50’s-70’s American Street Racers. Where are they now?

by Pat C

From the mid-1950s through the 1970s, street racers ruled the boulevard, the drive-in, and the local dragstrip, marking their best times in shoe polish on the windshield for the whole school to see. Crashes, license suspensions, and new laws eventually ended the era, but a surprising number of cars survived, quietly passed down to children and grandchildren who still race them today. Read on to find out where this culture actually played out.

Classic 1967 AMC Marlin in two-tone red and black with polished wheels.

Fast Eddie Drives’68 Hurst HEMI Dart: The World’s Fastest Muscle Car?

by Pat C

Ed Wheeldon, known on the drag strip as Fast Eddie, once turned down a $250,000 offer for his 1968 Dodge Dart, a genuine factory Hemi Super Stock he still races at Eddyville Dragway for a $200 appearance fee. Mopar Max Magazine later put him on its cover after the car ran a best pass of 6.501 seconds. Few six-figure Hemi drag cars still see the strip today. Find out why Wheeldon insists on keeping his in the game.

Red classic car parked indoors with a bright light source.

Houston Flooded Olds 442, Repair or Salvage

by Pat C

Terry in Houston had roughly a thousand miles on a frame-off restoration of his numbers-matching 1965 Oldsmobile 442 when the floodwater arrived. The question he posted to a club page is the one every owner dreads: repair it, or take the insurance money and let it go. There is no clean answer, but there is a right order to think about it. Read on to find out what actually happens to a freshly restored classic once the water recedes.

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