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Chevrolet’s 350 small-block went through four dramatically different personalities in barely a decade — from the 425-horsepower NHRA-rated LT-1 in 1970 to a computer-assisted, 190-horsepower L81 just eleven years later. Tracing the L46, LT-1, L82, and L81 in sequence lays out exactly how emissions rules and changing priorities reshaped one of GM’s most important engines. Read on for the full breakdown, casting numbers included.
This 1968 Ford Mustang Fastback wears the GT500 look down to the stripes, but its VIN tells a more complicated story than the badge on the fender does. A 390-cubic-inch FE V8, Edelbrock heads, and a limited-slip 3.73 rear end back up the build, while a push-button C6 transmission has viewers picking sides in the comments. Watch to see the full walkthrough.
For the show’s 200th episode, V8TV sat down with three-time Indy 500 winner Bobby Unser next to the exact 1969 Ford Torino he drove to victory at Pikes Peak — a car built by Bill Stroppe, Holman & Moody, and powered by a Smokey Yunick-built Boss 429. Unser hadn’t seen it since 1969. Watch to hear him tell the story of a car, and a win, he clearly hasn’t forgotten.
In Queens, one owner has spent decades keeping his 1972 Oldsmobile Cutlass alive, running, and racing through exactly the kind of environment that kills most classic cars: rock salt, potholes, and a driving culture built on aggression. MotorTrend’s House of Muscle profiles Eddie and the car locals call “AY OOH,” a nickname earned through years of street racing rather than a paint shop decal. Watch to see how a car this old survives New York City.
A 1970 Dodge Coronet with a six-cylinder and a stock rear end really was pretty pedestrian by today’s standards – but that’s not the whole story. Order the same car as a Super Bee with the 426 Hemi and the right gearing, and documented runs put it in the 12-second quarter mile bracket at well over 100 mph. Factory horsepower ratings from that era were also notoriously conservative, hiding just how much these engines actually made. Here’s the case for why “muscle cars were slow” doesn’t hold up once you look past the average car.
The AMC Javelin SST arrived for 1968 with safety features its bigger-budget rivals hadn’t even considered yet, plus a 343 V8 that could be ordered with a performance-oriented “Go Pack” four-barrel carburetor. It’s a pony car that out-engineered the competition in ways period buyers rarely noticed, and one that’s genuinely restorable thanks to shared GM parts. Read on to find out exactly what made AMC’s underdog pony car worth a second look.
The fourth-generation Camaro spent a full decade fending off the Mustang, and it did so by repeatedly borrowing engines straight from the Corvette — the LT1, the rare LT4-powered SS, and finally the all-aluminum LS1 in 1998. From a new six-speed manual to a 35th anniversary send-off in 2002, this generation quietly punched above its reputation. Read on for the full engine-by-engine breakdown of how GM kept the Camaro competitive for ten straight years.
Two days before Ford officially unveiled the Mustang at the 1964 World’s Fair, a 22-year-old schoolteacher named Gail Wise drove one off a Chicago dealer’s lot – making her, by documented record, the very first retail Mustang owner in history. Six decades later, she still owns the car. Watch to find out how a Chicago dealership beat Ford’s own launch date.
The Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren pairs a 617-horsepower supercharged V8 with a braking system rated to handle 2,200-degree temperatures and a rear wing that adjusts itself the instant the driver hits the brakes. From the limited-run 722S roadster to the tuner-built 722 GT pushing past 670 horsepower, this is a car built entirely around extremes. Read on for the full breakdown of what makes it one of the most technically ambitious road cars Mercedes has ever built.
During the Bosnian War, a Danish Special Forces veteran ran humanitarian supplies into a war zone in a 1979 Chevrolet Camaro modified with aircraft-grade stealth paint, armor plating, and thermal imaging, but no weapons at all. Helge Meyer made over 100 runs where UN convoys couldn’t get through, carrying medicine and toys to children instead of ammunition. It’s one of the most extraordinary true stories to ever involve a Camaro, and the car survives to this day.
This 1968 Dodge Charger R/T gets billed as a barn find, but the video’s own update note and a skeptical comment section tell a different story. Between a viewer’s $500-to-$50,000 ownership tale and a debate over whether this car was ever really neglected at all, the video says as much about Mopar culture today as it does about the car itself. Watch to see which side of the argument holds up.
At the height of his Hollywood fame, actor James Garner raced a specially built Oldsmobile 442 called the Goodyear Grabber across hundreds of brutal miles of Mexican desert terrain. That race car vanished for decades before resurfacing in 2008, bought for just 1,000 dollars by a buyer who had no idea what he’d found. Read on to find out how a movie star’s off-road racer connects to one of Oldsmobile’s most celebrated muscle cars.
This PHS-documented 1964 Pontiac GTO isn’t just another restored muscle car — it’s running a 400 that no ’64 left the factory with, topped by the rare tri-power induction setup most GTO buyers never ordered, paired with a 4-speed manual for maximum driver engagement. Reviewed in detail by Chris at Collectible Motorcar of Atlanta, the car offers a close look at the exact combination that helped launch the entire muscle car era. Read on to see what made this configuration so special.
Ford’s Y-block V8 got its nickname from its own silhouette, but it carried a hidden oiling flaw that could quietly destroy an engine from the inside, one that Ford’s own racing program solved years before the factory did. Despite the flaw, and a hard displacement ceiling nobody could engineer around, the Y-block gave Ford a real advantage over Chevrolet for three straight years. Read on to find out how the fix worked and where the engine’s limits finally showed up.
Chevrolet’s 1969 ZL1 option added an all-aluminum 427 to the Corvette lineup, priced high enough to nearly double the car’s cost. Only a documented handful were ever built, making it one of the rarest and most valuable factory Corvette configurations of the muscle car era. Read on to see why the option cost so much in the first place.