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Only 28,800 Mustangs left the factory in 1967 with the S-code 390 big block, out of more than 400,000 built that year, making this Candy Apple Red example a genuine rarity hiding in plain sight. Its one-year-only GTA badge and factory 320-horsepower rating set it apart from the small-block Mustangs most buyers actually chose. Read on to find out why values on these cars have stayed surprisingly reasonable.
Ford poured a million dollars into redesigning the F1’s cab for 1951, giving it a wider body, bigger windshield, and doors that finally kept the weather out. This Forest green survivor pairs that landmark cab with a fully modernized street drivetrain. Here’s what made the Five-Star Cab such a big deal, and why this build makes the most of it.
Most muscle car buyers walk right past the 1970 Pontiac Catalina Sport Wagon, but a well-optioned example could be had with the brand-new 455-cubic-inch V8 in up to 370-horsepower HO tune — genuine big-inch muscle wearing a body built to haul six or nine passengers. Only 113 of the 29,394 wagons built that year came with a manual transmission. Read on to find out why this factory sleeper still flies under the radar.
Ford handed Carroll Shelby a brand-new Mustang platform in 1965 and let him tear it apart — the result was a race-ready fastback most buyers weren’t quite prepared for. Fewer than 600 were built that first year, each one rebuilt with a stiffer chassis, a hotter 289, and none of the compromises a regular Mustang made. Here’s what actually separated a real GT350 from the pony car it started as.
Dan Mershon has owned eleven Shelby Cobras, and he says the 289 is the one that actually looks right – no flared rear fenders, none of the bulk that later kit-car replicas chase. Only 580 289 Cobras were built between 1963 and 1965, including six ultra-rare factory Dragon Snake competition cars. Here’s what makes the original narrow-body Cobra a different animal from everything that copied it since.
Chevrolet almost let its meanest 1967 Chevelle engine disappear entirely, pulling it from the order sheet before quietly bringing it back as a dealer-only option nobody advertised. Only 612 cars ever got the L78 396 that model year, each one built in a narrow three-month window and stamped with details collectors still hunt for today. Rated at 375 horsepower and built to run with Ford and Mopar’s best, it turned a mid-size Chevy into a genuine street fighter. Here’s what made this rare Chevelle tick.
Ford quietly swapped engines mid-year on the 1968 Shelby GT500, and the change turned an already potent muscle car into a legend. Early cars carried the proven 428 Police Interceptor, good for a genuine 360 horsepower, before Ford dropped in the underrated 428 Cobra Jet and renamed the car GT500KR, King of the Road. Only 1,570 KR models were built that year, split between fastbacks and convertibles.
The 426 Hemi wasn’t just Plymouth’s biggest engine option in 1970 — it was a race-bred monster so brutal it got banned from NASCAR before ever touching a road course. Only 666 ‘Cuda buyers checked that option box, and just 14 of those cars left the factory as convertibles. Beneath the shaking hood scoop and the low idle rumble sits 425 horsepower and 490 lb-ft of torque that still turns heads at every cruise-in. Here’s what made the Hemi ‘Cuda’s V8 one of muscle car history’s most unforgettable powerplants.
Pontiac built exactly eight 1969 Firebird Trans Am convertibles, and V8TV has now featured every single one of them, including this fourth car, the one with the lowest VIN sequence number of the group. The eighth car in the set went missing for years before finally surfacing and getting restored in 2016. See what makes this particular Trans Am worth a second look inside an already impossibly rare set of eight.
This Rally Red 1970 Coronet R/T convertible was built during the model’s final year, and only 14 buyers that year checked the one option box that made a Coronet R/T genuinely rare. Whether this car is one of those fourteen or a well-optioned 440 example, it’s a snapshot of a nameplate on its way out. Read on to find out what buyers actually chose, and why almost none of them chose the exotic option.
Plymouth’s 1969.5 Road Runner A12 traded the expensive 426 Hemi for three two-barrel carburetors, a lift-off fiberglass hood, and a genuinely stripped-down attitude – no hubcaps included. Only 615 were built, split between automatic and 4-speed manual transmissions, backed by a 390-horsepower 440 that could turn high-12-second quarter miles in period testing. It was Plymouth’s answer for buyers who wanted Hemi-level intimidation without the Hemi-level invoice.
Everyone remembers the black-and-gold 1979 Trans Am, but this Van Nuys-built example skipped that costume for something far rarer: a one-year-only shade called Atlantis Blue. Built during the Trans Am’s best-selling year ever, it could be optioned with the 400-cubic-inch V8 and 4-speed manual or the smaller 403 depending on the build. Decades later, its rarity – not its fame – is what makes this particular Trans Am worth a second look.
This navy blue 1980 Pontiac Trans Am hides one of Pontiac’s boldest engineering gambles under its shaker scoop: a turbocharged 301 V8, the first forced-induction production V8 built in America. Only about 6,000 of these turbo-equipped Trans Ams were built, every one of them running an automatic and factory air conditioning by necessity. It’s a car that proved horsepower could survive the fuel-crisis era, even if it had to get there through a turbocharger instead of extra cubic inches. Rare, transitional, and easy to overlook.
Only 4,116 examples of the AMC AMX left the factory for 1970, making it the rarest and final year of a two-seat muscle car most casual fans have never heard of. Under its long hood sat a 360-cubic-inch V8 and a four-speed capable of running into the low-14s in the quarter mile. Read on to find out why this scrappy independent’s forgotten sleeper still deserves a spot alongside the era’s more famous names.
For a few months in early 1968, Ford’s legendary 427 side-oiler found its way into the last car anyone expected: a plush, chrome-trimmed Mercury Cougar GT-E. Only 357 of these cars ever left the factory with that engine, making it the final production application of Ford’s storied big-block before the 428 Cobra Jet took over. Read on to find out why this quietly luxurious pony car cousin still ranks among the rarest big-block Fords of its era.