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A Plymouth Fury wasn’t even a real model in 1956 — it was just a gold-trimmed performance trim you checked on a Belvedere order form. By the mid-1960s it was hiding a 365-horsepower “Street Wedge” V8 in a full-size body, and by the mid-1970s it had swapped that muscle for cruise control, a digital clock, and a six-barrel-optioned GT package along the way. Read on to find out how one nameplate lived several completely different automotive lives.
This 1970 Mercury Cyclone Spoiler II was built to race the Dodge Daytona and Plymouth Superbird on NASCAR’s fastest tracks, using the same aerodynamic-war engineering, before a rule change ended the entire aero era before it ever competed. Owner Steve Honnell preserves the genuine 1-of-1 car alongside its period jacket and factory stereo, complete with the 429’s unmistakable 12.5:1-compression growl. Watch to hear a NASCAR weapon that never got to fight.
Nick’s Garage pulled a rare 1970 Dodge Challenger T/A Six Pack out of nine years of storage and waited until after closing to attempt the first start alone. A 340ci engine that’s sat that long can seize, hydro-lock, or simply refuse to catch — and the only way to know is to turn the key. Watch to see which way it goes.
A rare 1970 Yenko Nova — one of only 175 built with the solid-lifter LT1 350 — lines up against a car most fans would never expect to see at a drag strip: a supercharged 1964 Studebaker Challenger R3 known on the Pure Stock circuit as “plain brown wrapper.” One car carries a legendary tuner’s name. The other carries a Paxton supercharger and a reputation for embarrassing far more famous machinery. Detailed specs, a genuine underdog story, and a finish line that does not care which badge looks better. Watch to see which one gets there first.
Chevrolet planned to build one hundred Grand Sport Corvettes in 1963. Only five ever left the factory, and all five still survive in private hands today. That’s just the beginning of the story of the second-generation Corvette’s five model years, which moved from a one-year-only split rear window to a factory 427 so powerful Chevrolet wouldn’t put the real horsepower number on paper. Read on to find out how the Sting Ray earned its reputation.
The 1974 Torino tried to be two cars at once: a muscle car still carrying a Cobra Jet option, and a brand-new luxury model, the Gran Torino Elite, built for buyers who’d rather have a power sunroof than a four-speed. Federal bumper mandates added inches and pounds, a one-year seatbelt interlock law came and went, and the fastback body style vanished for good. Read on to find out how one model year captured the entire identity crisis facing American performance cars in 1974.
Dodge didn’t build the Charger 500 to win car shows — they built it to win NASCAR races, flush grille and all. Bud Lindemann puts this 426 Hemi example through acceleration, braking, and cornering tests loaded with one-liners that are still quoted decades later. Watch to see why enthusiasts call it the holy grail of Chargers.
This 1965 Plymouth Barracuda, nicknamed 43 Jr. after Richard Petty’s drag racing days, carries an ownership history few restored muscle cars can match. One viewer’s own childhood memory of hearing the car fire up in a small Virginia parking lot fills in a chapter the car’s current owners, brothers Rich and Ron George, could only partly document themselves. Now restored at Richard Petty’s own garage and displayed at his museum, the story comes full circle. Watch the full history.
Rick Campbell spent fifteen years restoring this 1970 Boss 429, chasing exact factory accuracy rather than showroom shine — down to preserving its original California emissions equipment. That patience earned it one of only two Authenticity Awards ever given for the model, shared with a 1969 Boss Mustang rather than a fellow 1970. Built originally to homologate Ford’s 429 big block for NASCAR, this Grabber Blue example is as much a research project as a restoration. Watch the full walkaround.
Hagerty’s Stefan Lombard walks through exactly what to check before buying a Chevrolet Chevelle, from structural rust to hard-to-find trim pieces, in this buyer’s guide built for first-time classic car shoppers. The comments add their own layer of expertise, mapping out the Chevelle’s tangled generational history year by year. Whether you’re chasing a big-block SS or a modest small-block driver, watch before you shop.
Most Batman fans never knew George Barris built a Batmobile purely for drag racing, powered by a blueprinted Holman & Moody 427 side-oiler and driven by ‘Wild Bill’ Shrewsberry. It ran the quarter-mile in just over 10 seconds at roughly 120 mph while touring dragstrips across North America from 1967 to 1968. Here’s the real racing story behind Batman’s other car.
This 1969 Plymouth Road Runner A12 was Chrysler’s original pilot car — the very first A12 package ever built, tested and tuned by Mopar legend Ronnie Sox before it landed a feature in Super Stock Magazine. Under the fiberglass hood sits a 440 Six Barrel rated at 390 horsepower, backed by a four-speed and 4.10 gears. Chrysler called it the fastest A12 ever built. Watch to see what earned it that title.
Two months before any other Ford product carried it, the FE V8 made its debut in the unlikeliest of cars: the all-new 1958 Edsel. From there it split into truck duty, police-package cruisers, and factory tri-power setups shipped loose in the trunk, before a redesigned block gave rise to the short-lived but influential 406. Read on to find out how a workhorse engine family quietly built the foundation for Ford’s most feared big-blocks.
For years, Detroit street racers only knew the Black Ghost by reputation, a black 1970 Challenger R/T SE with a 426 Hemi that beat them and vanished before anyone learned who was driving. Gregory Qualls knows exactly who, because it was his father, an off-duty Detroit police officer. After decades in storage, the car resurfaced, earned a spot on the National Historic Vehicle Register, and inspired a full documentary. Hear the son tell the story only he can tell.
Roland Cassidy assumed the pitch was too good to be true: a numbers-matching 426 Hemi Superbird with 10,000 original miles, one owner, and a complete paper trail back to a Maine dealership in 1971. It had been sitting untouched in a Massachusetts barn since 1990. Read on to find out what he had to throw in to close the deal.