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Convertibles get overlooked in the muscle car world, and this scarce 1969 Pontiac Firebird 400 drop-top is proof they shouldn’t be. Pontiac built barely over 11,000 open-air Firebirds that year, and adding the big-inch 400 on top made this combination rare even when it was new. Read on to find out what makes a genuine 400 convertible worth chasing decades later.
A first-gen Camaro convertible rolls up with a push-button ignition and an exhaust note that has nothing to do with 1969 — and everything to do with a build philosophy that swaps factory nostalgia for modern grip and driveability. This pro-touring ’69 keeps the silhouette everyone loves while quietly replacing everything underneath it. Read on to find out what it actually takes to make a 55-year-old convertible drive like new money.
This nearly-finished 1978 Pontiac Trans Am restoration wears the black-and-gold look every Bandit fan recognizes, but its real story is more complicated than the movie fame suggests. From the W72 400 under the hood to the WS6 handling package and the Y82 Special Edition trim, here’s what actually made this car an icon. Read on to find out what set a genuine survivor apart from the thousands of clones that followed.
Earl spent his entire working life saving up for a Lamborghini Miura. He finally bought one, drove it for years, then let it sit untouched in his garage for fifteen years as he grew older. When a determined collector named Jeff finally tracked the car down, he discovered a completely original, unrestored 1969 Miura now valued at $2.5 million. Watch the full story of a barn find fifty years in the making.
Chevrolet built the 1966 Corvette’s 427 big-block for one reason: Shelby’s Cobra was embarrassing American racing, and something had to answer it. Only 5,258 of the 27,720 Corvettes built that year came with the range-topping L72 427/425, a solid-lifter monster that could reportedly outrun its own factory horsepower rating. That scarcity is why numbers-matching L72 cars still command serious money at auction. Few options ever turned a sports car into a legend this fast.
Not every SEMA show car is built to be photographed, this 2016 Camaro SS was built to be tested. ScottieDTV’s coverage reveals it served as the actual development mule for GM’s new LT1 engine before Lingenfelter Performance Engineering added a Magnuson supercharger and reshaped its output entirely. The wheels and exhaust came almost as an afterthought. What LPE actually did under the hood is the part worth understanding before you write this one off as just another show floor build.
This Gen V Dodge Viper wears a twin-turbo setup the factory never built, stacking boost on top of an 8.4-liter V10 that already made up to 645 horsepower stock. Dodge built only 2,427 fifth-generation Vipers before regulations and slow sales ended the model in 2017. What does it take to turn America’s last naturally aspirated supercar into a forced-induction street monster? This build has the answer.
Pontiac built just 759 GTOs with the Ram Air IV package in 1969, and only 59 of those were convertibles, making this four-speed example one of the rarest combinations Pontiac ever offered. The Ram Air IV wasn’t a badge-only upgrade either, it packed round-port heads and an aluminum intake good for 370 horsepower. Here’s what made this engine option worth chasing then, and worth a small fortune now.
This 1965 Fastback did not just carry Addison Lee down the road, it helped point him toward a racing career. Ford built this shape specifically for drivers who wanted more than a cruiser, and every Shelby GT350 that followed started from the same 2+2 platform. Find out what makes the 1965 Fastback such a rare and formative find, and why so few of them exist compared to the hardtop.
This 1965 Ford Mustang 2+2 Fastback rolls out with its rare factory red pony interior intact, a concours-style restoration, and a long list of original options most surviving 1965 cars lost decades ago. The team at MyRod walks through exactly what makes this fastback a reference-quality example rather than just another restored classic. Watch the full test drive to see what is actually loaded onto this car.
“Amazing V8 Sound” doesn’t specify which engine is making the noise, and with a 1969 Dodge Charger R/T, that’s a real question worth asking. Every R/T came standard with a 375-horsepower 440 Magnum, but buyers could step up to the legendary 426 Street Hemi rated at 425 horsepower. Dodge built about 20,100 Charger R/Ts that year, each one wrapped in a body that barely needed to change from 1968.
Hertz rented these Shelby Mustangs by the day back in 1966, and this Candy Apple Red GT350H is proof the “Rent-a-Racer” program wasn’t just a black-and-gold gimmick. Under the hood sits a Shelby-modified Cobra 289 making 306 horsepower, numbers no rental car company had any business handing over to weekend customers. What started as a marketing experiment between Hertz and Carroll Shelby became one of the most legendary programs in muscle car history.
This 1974 Oldsmobile wears Yellow Blaze Metallic paint tied directly to Hurst/Olds fourth appearance at the Indianapolis 500 that year. Fewer than 1,800 production Indy 500 Pace Car package cars were built, each offered with either a 350 or 455 cubic inch V8. Oldsmobile even supplied Delta 88 convertibles for parade duty around the same event.
V8TV’s Kevin Oeste takes viewers through six machines from The Brothers Collection that share one trait: none of them look fast. From a supercharged Studebaker Avanti to a full-size Ford Galaxie packing a factory 427, these are muscle cars built to disappear into traffic right up until the moment they don’t. Viewers have already started swapping their own sleeper stories in the comments. Watch to find out which car in the lineup earns the title of ultimate sleeper.
Turbo Mustangs, a nitrous-fed S10, a Viper, and a twin-turbo Chevy II all showed up to the same stretch of bare Texas asphalt for one wild night of no-prep street racing. Without a prepped surface to lean on, every launch came down to raw nerve and whatever grip the driver could find on his own. It’s the same chaotic, unscripted energy that turned Discovery’s Street Outlaws franchise into a national phenomenon. Here’s what a real no-prep night looks like when the cameras aren’t running the show.