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Chevrolet’s internal rules banned any engine over 400 cubic inches in a 1969 Camaro, so dealer Don Yenko found a loophole using fleet paperwork meant for taxi cabs. That workaround produced the COPO 9561 and the ultra-rare 9560 ZL-1, an all-aluminum engine so labor-intensive that only 69 were ever ordered. Read on to find out how a $4,000 engine option ended up quietly outperforming its own factory horsepower rating.
Ford didn’t build one 2013 Mustang, it built three: a 662-horsepower Shelby GT500 chasing 200 mph, a road-course-tuned Boss 302 spinning to 7,500 rpm, and a everyday GT that split the difference. Each one shared the same badge but demanded a completely different kind of driver. Read on to find out which one actually deserved a spot in the garage, and why the Boss 302’s single-year window still matters to collectors today.
Fifth Gear puts two of television’s most famous cars through a real head to head, the Dukes of Hazzard’s General Lee against Starsky and Hutch’s Ford Gran Torino. Host Vicki Butler-Henderson gets behind the wheel of both to find out which screen legend actually handles better once the cameras stop editing for drama. The result says as much about decades of TV car myth as it does about either car.
Ron Smith bought this 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona — one of only 503 built — for a road trip before shipping out to Vietnam. He drove it for over a decade after coming home, then parked it in his father’s lockup for more than twenty years. Restorer Marshall Woolery brought it back, and the finished car has since been featured in Hemmings Muscle Machines. Watch to see the Daytona that waited two decades for its second life.
V8TV’s “Muscle Car of the Week” spotlights a Rally Red 1970 Plymouth ‘Cuda AAR — the numbers-matching, 340 Six-Barrel-powered homologation special built for exactly one model year. Housed today in The Brothers Collection, this AAR carries the tighter steering ratio and unmistakable strobe stripe that set it apart from every other ‘Cuda on the road. Watch to see why collectors call it the sharpest example they’ve found.
Scott Tiemann’s 1965 Pontiac GTO hardtop has never left the family — his parents bought it new, and he’s been the one showing it off ever since, most recently in Fontaine Blue paint at the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals. Under the hood sits the tri-power setup that inspired a hit song. Watch to hear the full story of a GTO that never had to be found, because it was never lost.
Car News Central counts down six of the biggest engines General Motors ever built, from cross-divisional big blocks to modern crate motors capable of 500-plus horsepower. Along the way, longtime GM owners weigh in with their own builds — including a stroked 541 cubic inch monster and a 455 doing duty in a boat. Watch to see which engine tops the list.
According to its uploader, this 1985 Camaro IROC-Z28 was showing just 4.3 original miles before it eventually sold at a Mecum auction for ,000 — a genuine time-capsule survivor of the year Chevrolet introduced Tuned Port Injection and borrowed suspension tuning tricks from the Corvette. Watch to see what a virtually unused third-generation IROC-Z looks like decades later, and why collectors treat single-digit mileage as its own distinct category of provenance.
Barn Find Hunter’s Tom Cotter pulls off an Arizona highway for a cinder-block motorcycle shop and finds a pair of Mopars for sale in the desert — then discovers a set of original big-block Camaros parked nearby. Both Camaros sold quickly after the episode aired, and the comments add their own barn-find stories, from a numbers-matching Impala to a first-gen El Camino fans can’t stop talking about. Hagerty’s series keeps proving how much original muscle is still hiding in plain sight. Watch to see what else Tom finds.
A turbo kit that costs less than $700 has a reputation every enthusiast knows — cheap, common at the dragstrip, and impossible to fully trust without seeing it tested. HOT ROD Network put one through a real evaluation to find out whether it delivers or just looks good in the listing photos. Viewers report gains as high as 250 horsepower for around $1,000 all-in.
The Beach Boys wrote a hit song about it, but Chevrolet’s 409 was only the public face of a much bigger story. Behind the scenes, a secret 427-cubic-inch “mystery motor” was quietly setting records at Daytona in 1963 while Chevrolet stayed silent about what powered it. Read on to find out how a handful of aluminum-bodied drag cars evolved into the 427 that would eventually power Corvettes, Camaros, and Chevelles for years to come.
CNN doesn’t usually cover classic cars, but this 1966 Shelby Cobra 427 Super Snake earned a rare mainstream feature built around its extreme rarity and a documented, unusual ownership history. Built in famously small numbers by Carroll Shelby’s shop, the Super Snake pushed the already fearsome 427 Cobra platform to its absolute limit with almost no concession to comfort. One commenter’s father sold Cobras from a 1960s Ford dealership and had stories to match. Watch to see why this one earned its nickname honestly.
At the 25th Annual Indian Uprising, an all-Pontiac-only show in St. Charles, Illinois, owner Richard Larabee’s Tyrol Blue 1967 Catalina 2+2 stood out enough to take home an award. Lou Costabile records the factory 428 cold-starting on camera, while the comments fill with viewers recalling their own history with the model going back to 1967 showroom brochures. Watch to hear the big block come alive and see why this specific combination of options makes the car so desirable.
A factory 6.1 liter Challenger SRT8 ran six quarter-mile passes against a numbers-matching 1970 Challenger T/A powered by its original 340 Six Pack engine, then the drivers swapped cars for the final two runs. One viewer said the old T/A ran a 12-second pass despite missing a gear, while another swore they’d never seen the modern SRT8 run that slow. A commenter who owns both cars revealed his girlfriend was driving the new Challenger in her first-ever stick shift track session. So which car actually won?
A 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS396 running a factory Turbo Hydramatic 400 automatic squares off against a modified 1951 Henry J nicknamed the Green M&M in this quarter mile nostalgia drag race. Kaiser-Frazer built the Henry J as a stripped-down economy car decades before drag racers discovered its featherweight unibody made it a natural straight-line weapon. Viewers praised the channel’s consistent camera work and asked for more up-close burnout footage. Does decades of muscle car engineering really beat a proper weight-to-power ratio down the strip?