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Buick called its 1986 Grand National’s turbo V6 ‘under-rated’ in its own brochure — then proved it a year later by handing 547 cars over to an outside shop for a transformation the factory couldn’t build itself. The result, badged GNX, put up numbers that worried owners of contemporary Ferraris and Porsches. Officially rated at 276 horsepower, independent testing suggested Buick was still underselling it. Read on to see exactly what changed under the hood.
CHP Captain Matt Guthrie and former Commissioner Spike Helmick join Jay Leno’s Garage to walk through five pursuit-rated cars spanning four decades of California Highway Patrol history, plus the department’s then-new Ford Explorer. Beyond nostalgia, the conversation digs into what actually separates a genuine pursuit vehicle from a civilian model with a light bar. It’s a rare, firsthand look at police fleet engineering most drivers never get to see up close.
The fifth-generation Camaro returned for 2010 with five trims, a 426-horsepower SS, and a 550-horsepower LS7 concept car that eventually became a 69-unit COPO production run. It paced the Indy 500 three years running and became the dominant Chevrolet on NASCAR grids by 2013. Read on for the full breakdown of engines, trims, and racing pedigree behind the Camaro’s comeback.
E.L. Cord built cars that looked like nothing else on American roads — no running boards, hidden headlights, front-wheel drive borrowed straight from Indianapolis race cars. Twice, in 1929 and again in 1935, his innovations wowed showrooms and auto show crowds before mechanical problems and bad timing cut production short. The 810/812’s “coffin nose” styling is now considered decades ahead of its time. Read on to see how ambition outran what Cord’s factory could actually deliver.
The Auto Archaeologist uncovers a genuine Mopar aero-warrior lineup hiding in a Midwest barn: a Plymouth Superbird, a Dodge Charger 500, and a Talladega, sitting together and largely forgotten. These are three of the rarest, most historically significant muscle cars Chrysler ever built, all found in the same place at the same time. The condition ranges from rough to seriously deteriorated, and the video doesn’t shy away from showing exactly how much work — and money — it would take to save them. Watch to see what years of barn storage did to some of Mopar’s most legendary aero cars.
Everyone knows the 426 Hemi, the LS6 454, the 455 HO, the Stage 1, the W-30 — the five or six names that dominate every muscle car retrospective. OldCarMemories.com went looking for the V8s that matched or beat those legends and got left out of the story anyway, and found that marketing budgets, not dyno sheets, decided who became famous. Read on to find out why cubic inches won the conversation and what that means for collectors today.
Fast Lane Classic Cars in St. Charles, Missouri turned driver Tom Abbett loose on a rotating lineup of Ford, Chevy, Buick, Pontiac, and Plymouth muscle for nearly fifteen straight minutes — no superchargers, no turbos, just big American V8s including a 572 Hemi and a 427 Corvette viewers still praise for its sound alone. It’s less a single car review than a moving soundtrack of what Detroit and Fast Lane’s shop floor sound like together. Watch to hear which engine note sticks with you longest.
Pontiac built only 157 Ram Air IV Firebird hardtops for the 1969 model year, just 55 of them Trans Ams, and this freshly restored Firebird, pulled from The Brothers Collection, carries its original numbers-matching example paired with a 4-speed Muncie. Muscle Car Of The Week walks through what makes the RA IV’s idle and powerband so distinct from lesser Pontiac V8s. Watch to see one of the 102 standard Firebirds that got it.
By 1973, most of Plymouth’s real performance had already been regulated away — except for one engine nobody expected much from. Bud Lindemann puts this Cuda 340 through a full road test, and the stopwatch tells a story that surprised buyers who’d already written off the smog era. Watch to see exactly how quick a detuned Mopar could still be.
Ford built the Boss 351 for exactly one model year, and Jeff Ball’s grabber lime 1971 example draws out some serious quarter-mile debate in the comments — including the claim that it actually beat a 429 Cobra Jet Mustang in a straight line. Lou Costabile gets the full story at the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals in Rosemont.
This 1969 Chevrolet Nova SS runs a performance-built 396 with Edelbrock aluminum heads behind a four-speed manual, and RamblinAround caught it cold-starting, driving, and doing a proper burnout at Fast Lane Classic Cars. Viewers as far away as Argentina and Australia flooded the comments with specific memories of owning one just like it. One detail keeps coming up: the nostalgic squeak of a well-worn clutch pedal. Watch to hear what a real, driven 396 Nova sounds like fifty-plus years on.
Dodge built the 1969 Super Bee to be the cheap muscle car — stripped trim, no chrome flourishes, and a sticker price built to undercut the competition. But buried in the order form was an engine option serious enough to worry cars costing thousands more, one that only 1,907 buyers ever found. From the base 383 Magnum to the ultra-rare Hemi, the Super Bee proved a bargain car could still hide a genuinely dangerous engine bay. Read on to see what separated the budget Super Bees from the legends.
Detroit Speed dropped a blown modern HEMI into a 1969 Charger and built out 830 wheel horsepower, a number so high that TheSmokingTire had to publicly correct its own original estimate. Viewers immediately compared it to Roadkill’s notorious General Mayhem, just cleaned up and sent to finishing school. Watch the full build.
Ford stopped building its flathead V8 in 1953, and it still hasn’t gotten the memo that it’s supposed to be forgotten. Decades later, flathead-powered cars were still setting land-speed records at 300 mph, built by hot rodders working the same engine that once powered ordinary Ford sedans. Read on to find out how a design this old became the engine that built the entire hot rod movement.
Studebaker rarely shows up in muscle car conversations, but in 1955 the independent automaker’s flagship President Coupe was a legitimate rival to the Ford Thunderbird and Chrysler 300, armed with a 259-cubic-inch V8, a four-barrel carburetor, and a driver-focused three-speed manual with overdrive. A strong public reaction to a handful of Speedster show cars even pushed Studebaker into limited mid-year production. See what made this overlooked flagship worth a second look.