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Finished just three days before Cruisin the Coast, this 1967 Chevrolet Impala SS is a near-stock restoration done right, no over-the-top paint, no wild stance, just a full-size Chevy brought back close to how it left the factory. 1967 was the SS package high-water mark, with over 76,000 hardtops and convertibles built before it became an option-only trim. Take a closer look at what makes a just-finished-in-time build this satisfying.
This Chevelle wears Medium Garnet Red, one of the meanest factory colors Chevrolet ever put on a mid-size car, and backs it up with a genuine SS 396 four-speed combination that most 1966 buyers didn’t actually order. Chevrolet built three different versions of that 396 engine, and nearly a third of buyers paid extra for the hottest one. Of the 72,272 SS 396s built that year, the overwhelming majority left the factory with an automatic. Here’s why a real stick-shift 396 deserves a second look.
Oldsmobile’s factory 442 came with a 400-cube V8 good for 345 horsepower back in 1965 – solid for the era, but nowhere close to what a determined builder can squeeze from a stroked big block today. This Cutlass F-85 skips the factory recipe entirely for a 461-cube big block under the hood, built with autocross duty in mind rather than a concours trophy. Oldsmobile itself only leaned into the 442 formula that year after watching Pontiac’s GTO take off. Here’s why a clone built for speed might make more sense than chasing a numbers-matching original.
A 500-horsepower Shelby GT500 and a naturally aspirated Corvette Z06 look like a mismatch on paper, but horsepower doesn’t tell the whole story. The GT500’s supercharged 5.4L and Tremec six-speed put up serious numbers, while the C5 Z06’s featherweight 3,118-pound curb weight keeps this fight closer than the spec sheet suggests – and sometimes closer in the Corvette’s favor. It’s a real-world lesson in why power-to-weight beats raw horsepower.
Tom Lembeck has owned fourteen different 1970 Plymouth Cuda convertibles — and on My Car Story with Lou Costabile, he explains why this Jamaica Blue example with its 440 big block is the one that stuck. It is not the rarest paint color or the flashiest restoration; it is the engine bay that separates this car from the other thirteen. Two decades of ownership later, Tom still calls it his favorite. Find out what makes a collector’s fourteenth car outrank the first thirteen.
Chrysler didn’t build the 426 Max Wedge to win parking lot arguments – they built it to win at the drag strip, and this 1963 Belvedere is proof the plan worked. With up to 425 horsepower from a purpose-built cross-ram V8 and a factory push-button TorqueFlite behind it, cars like this “Asphalt Angel” were never meant to be everyday drivers. Decades later, survivors like this one are some of the rarest factory muscle Chrysler ever built.
A ten-year-old Monday night car show, a Viking Blue 1972 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme Convertible, and an owner who has kept the same car for nearly three decades — Lou Costabile’s My Car Story finds a genuine grassroots gathering in Skokie, Illinois worth a closer look. Watch the cold start and listen to the 350 small block come alive.
Chevrolet sold a record 86,307 Chevelle SS 396s in 1969, but not all of them were created equal. Buried in that total are more than 9,000 buyers who checked the box for the 375-horsepower L78, and a much smaller handful who went further still with the aluminum-head L89. A survivor this clean deserves a second look under the hood, because the gap between a base L34 and a genuine L78 is the difference between a nice cruiser and a numbers-matching legend.
A ’63 Impala rolled into Cruisin’ The Coast riding low on airbags, wearing a set of wheels with real presence, and none of the show-polish that usually surrounds a car this iconic. It’s not chasing a numbers-matching 409 plaque – it’s just an honest, clean driver built to actually be used. That same year, Chevrolet’s SS package finally became its own full-blown model, and buyers responded by the hundred thousand. Here’s what makes a bagged, stock-interior cruiser more interesting than half the trailer queens at the show.
A ’67 fastback wearing unmistakable Eleanor styling cues hides a secret under its louvered hood: a supercharged Coyote 5.0 making more power than most factory big-blocks ever managed. Step inside and there isn’t a single traditional switch in sight – just an iPad running the entire car from the center stack. It’s the kind of build that splits a room of purists and modernists right down the middle. Here’s what makes “Tomahawk” more than just another Eleanor clone.
A 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T in blue with a black convertible top might look understated at first glance, but the matching-numbers 383 and factory Hurst Pistol Grip four-speed underneath tell a different story. This is a genuine survivor with its original drivetrain intact, backed by one of the most iconic shifters ever bolted into a muscle car. Here’s what makes this combination so special to Mopar collectors.
Twin-turbo Viper V10 swaps into first-gen Dodge Chargers have become something of their own subculture, with builds chasing bigger numbers every year. This Custom claims 1,300 horsepower, among the biggest figures yet for the swap. Getting a factory Viper V10 to survive twin turbos and four-digit horsepower takes serious engine work most builders never attempt. Here’s what separates this Charger from the pack chasing the same swap.
A 1977 Chevrolet Malibu with a believed 44,xxx original miles doesn’t announce itself the way a muscle car does, but that’s exactly what makes it interesting. Found by Country Classic Cars in Staunton, Illinois, this Malibu spent most of five decades parked rather than driven, leaving it straight, clean, and largely untouched by time. It’s a reminder that originality, not horsepower, is sometimes the rarest thing a classic car can offer.
Ford built 56,819 Torino GT hardtops in 1970 but only 3,939 GT convertibles, and this M-code 351 example with factory air conditioning and a deluxe interior sits near the top of that already tiny pool. The Cleveland-block 351 traded the old Windsor’s heads for a canted-valve design that finally let a Torino breathe at real RPM. Bright yellow paint and a drop-top roof only make this rare survivor harder to walk past.
Say “Shelby GT500” and most Mustang fans picture one number: 428, the Police Interceptor big-block that separated a real GT500 from every other big-block fastback Ford built in 1967. This beautiful fastback raises the obvious question: genuine GT500, or a 390 GT dressed to look the part? The two get confused constantly, and the real answer usually comes down to a data plate, not a paint job.