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A six-week strike almost changed what came standard under the hood of every 1968 Ford Torino GT, and this cream convertible carries the 390 four-barrel V8 that serious buyers stepped up to instead. With only 5,310 Torino GT convertibles built that year, it’s a genuinely rare body style. Read on to see what almost derailed the model year before it started.
The 1962 Ford Falcon didn’t get the V8 many buyers were hoping for, but it got something almost as interesting: a mid-year facelift, a Thunderbird-inspired roofline on the new Sports Futura, and Ford’s first four-speed manual transmission, a floor-shifted gearbox built in Dagenham, England. See the Gateway Classic photos above and get the full story on what made this often-overlooked Falcon such a pivotal step toward the V8 era just around the corner.
Ford spent $2.2 million developing a folding hardtop for a Lincoln that got cancelled before it ever reached showrooms — then repurposed the whole system for the 1957 Fairlane 500 Skyliner. Seven motors, 610 feet of wiring, and a 48-second roof transformation later, it became the most expensive Ford you could buy that year.
Ford wanted to sell 20,000 of these in 1956 and fell well short — all because of a trunk-mounted spare tire that delayed the whole launch. Behind that famous “Continental kit” was also a bigger, more powerful V8 and a 12-volt electrical system that quietly reshaped the Thunderbird for the rest of its run.
This 1951 Chevrolet Deluxe wears the trim level that outsold nearly everything else Chevrolet built during the 1940s. Underneath its stainless-trimmed body sits an engine architecture that would eventually become famous in its own right. Here’s the history behind Chevrolet’s best-selling postwar sedan — and the six-cylinder that outlived it.
Buick never marketed the Riviera as a muscle car, but tucked under its elegant hood sat a 425-cubic-inch Nailhead V8 with a nickname that hinted at something more aggressive. Here’s the story behind the Wildcat 465, the rare dual-quad Super Wildcat option only 2,122 buyers ordered, and why this personal luxury coupe deserves a second look from muscle car fans.
New emissions rules were reshaping every engine bay in Detroit by 1975, and the Pontiac LeMans found itself right in the middle of that shift — still offering a genuine 400-cubic-inch V8 alongside its first catalytic converter. Here’s how Pontiac balanced compliance and horsepower in one of the most transitional model years of the era, plus a closer look at the car pictured here.
The 1969 Porsche 912 was the last of its kind — a four-cylinder alternative to the 911 that briefly outsold its six-cylinder sibling before Porsche folded the nameplate away for good. Built on the same stretched wheelbase and flared fenders as that year’s 911, it’s now drawing steady collector interest for being simpler, cheaper to maintain, and increasingly rare. A well-kept example today can bring well into five figures.
This 1967 Plymouth Belvedere carries the 383 cubic inch V8 that powered Plymouth’s mid-size lineup below the range-topping GTX and its 440 or 426 Hemi. Overlooked next to its more famous siblings, a well-preserved 383 Belvedere is becoming one of the more attainable ways into genuine 1967 Mopar muscle. See the details that make this survivor worth a second look.
1970 was the year GM finally let Oldsmobile drop its biggest engine into the Cutlass 442, after years of a corporate ban on big-block mid-size cars. The standard 455 made 365 horsepower, but the W-30 option pushed that to 370 horsepower and a sub-15-second quarter mile. See the seven Cutlass body styles offered that year and the Rocket V8 that finally gave the 442 room to breathe.
Ford’s Model T didn’t just put America on wheels, it accidentally created the first speed parts industry, as owners raced to make the affordable, mass produced car go faster than the factory ever intended. This 1917 style Speedster replica carries that tradition forward, pairing a vintage body with a Ford flathead V8 and 3-speed manual gearbox. It offers a glimpse at how the earliest hot-rodding instincts still shape builds a century later.
This 1947 Mercury started life as Ford’s answer to a price gap between its own lineup and Lincoln — a modestly powered flathead V8 coupe built for buyers who wanted more than a Ford without paying for a Lincoln. Decades later, this restomod swaps that original 100-horsepower flathead for a Corvette-sourced LT1, proving the body’s lines were worth preserving long after the original mission Mercury built it for had faded.
This 1952 Plymouth Cranbrook was Plymouth’s flagship nameplate in an era when performance meant a heater that worked and a radio that played, not a stoplight win. Built during a year when the Korean War cut Chrysler’s civilian production nearly in half, this well-optioned example is scarcer than its 1951 twin — and its 97-horsepower flathead six tells you everything about what mattered to buyers in 1952.
Buick spent the 1960s building the most civilized cars in GM’s performance catalog, then produced a 455 that made more torque than anything else on the American market. The Stage 1 package was ordered by relatively few buyers and was almost certainly underrated by the factory on purpose. This Gateway Classic Cars gallery shows one. Read on for why the torque figure mattered more than the horsepower number.