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Frank Chicherchia owns one of the very few Mopars Chrysler built a genuinely strange factory hood for, and outside its Dodge Super Bee twin, nobody else got one quite like it. Underneath that fiberglass panel sits an engine Chrysler cooked up to poach buyers who wanted more than a 383 but weren’t ready to pay Hemi money. Read on to find out what made this hood different from every other muscle car hood Detroit ever built.
Dressed in conservative, formal styling with no hints of performance, the 1965 Dodge Coronet 500 hid a genuine 330-horsepower 383 V8 under its hood — a true sleeper riding on the same B-body platform that would soon become the fastback Charger. Overshadowed for decades by Chrysler’s Hemi and 440 Six Pack cars, it remains one of the most overlooked ways into real period Mopar performance. Read on to find out what made it tick.
A 1970 Dodge Charger can hide anything from a mild 318 to a snarling 440 Six Pack under that Coke-bottle sheet metal, and the difference shows the instant the throttle opens. Here is what separated the base R/T 440 Magnum from the Six Pack and the Hemi, why the 1970 car was the last and most refined of the second generation, and why collectors still chase the numbers-matching examples. Read on to find out what is really making that exhaust note.
This 1964 Chevrolet C10 pickup has been thoroughly modernized with a fuel-injected LS3 crate engine, an overdrive automatic, Corvette disc brakes at all four corners, and a full custom leather interior. The truck it started as had a 283 small-block, drum brakes, and a vinyl bench. Chevrolet’s 1964 cab redesign gave builders the perfect canvas for exactly this kind of transformation. Read on to find out what GM got right the first time and how this build pushed it further.
The 2016 SEMA Show settled an old argument when the Ford Mustang was voted Hottest Coupe over Chevrolet’s Camaro, even though Chevy brought the bigger display. But the car that actually stole attention that year wasn’t from either factory — it was a privateer rally driver’s twin-turbo 1965 Mustang making more than 1,400 horsepower. Here’s what happened at the show that’s still a reference point for builders a decade later.
David Reese built this 1966 Ford Mustang Gasser back in 2013, and it still runs its 351 Cleveland exactly the way a period-correct gasser should. What makes War Horse unusual isn’t the raised nose or the drag strip runs — it’s that its owner has actually driven it cross-country on public roads. Watch to see how a dedicated race car earns that kind of mileage.
This 1961 Ford Galaxie Sunliner packs a 390-cubic-inch V8 that could be optioned up to 401 horsepower on paper, paired with a stripped-down three-on-the-tree manual and no power assist anywhere. Years before anyone used the phrase ‘muscle car,’ Ford was already quietly building the ingredients for one. Read on to find out what driving a full-size Ford built this way actually felt like.
This widebody Dodge Viper claims a title most builders wouldn’t dare chase: the only air-bagged, wide-body Viper anywhere. With a claimed 1,200 horsepower packed into a chassis never designed for that kind of power, it’s part show car, part street brawler. Here’s what it actually takes to make a build like this work.
Plymouth never built a 1971 Superbird – NASCAR’s rule changes killed the aero-car program before it could happen. Gary and Pam Beimke built one anyway, working from documentation for a prototype 1971 Daytona to complete their own tribute in 2001, followed by a matching Superbird in 2003. Add a sunroof and a Hemi and you’ve got one of the more unusual builds on the Mopar show circuit. Here’s the real story behind the Superbird that was never supposed to exist.
A nitrous-huffing, LS-swapped Chevelle showing up to Pure Street class and out-running the big-block faithful is the kind of pass that starts arguments in the pits. Pure Street doesn’t care what’s under the hood — DOT tires, a full interior, and a car that drives itself home are the only requirements — which is exactly why a swap turning real numbers there matters. We dig into what makes these small-block conversions competitive and how nitrous is closing the gap on traditional big-block combinations.
A blue 1969 Camaro, a first-gen Nova, a ’66 Chevelle, and a full-size Oldsmobile all take their turn peeling out of the same Cars & Coffee lot — and the comments make clear which exits actually earned the crowd’s respect. Two moments around the 1:02 and 3:20 marks draw the loudest reaction. Watch to see which car nailed the send-off best.
A Buick GSX built during a five-month factory window in 1970 raises a genuine documentation question for its current owners — one that even a close look at the car’s trim and colors can’t fully settle. Its Stage 1 engine option carried an official rating widely considered too conservative for what the car could actually do. Here’s the open question at the center of this particular GSX.
In 1965, Chevrolet offered Corvette buyers a fuel-injected small-block that cost nearly double the price of the brand-new 396 big-block, and made fewer horsepower on paper. Only 771 people took that bet, and the option disappeared entirely the following year, not returning to a Corvette for another seventeen years. Read on to see why buyers paid the premium, and how this particular ’65 Sting Ray proved it decades later at Drag Week 2015.
Restoration shop owner Luciano ‘Lucky’ Lacerda built this 1961 Cadillac Series 62 Convertible specifically to showcase his own shop’s work at SEMA, finishing it in a deep green that stands out even at a packed Scottsdale cars-and-coffee. It’s a deliberate choice in a SEMA field dominated by trucks and muscle cars. Watch to see what a restoration shop owner picks when the whole point is to prove what he can do.
A 1971 Chevy Nova originally left the factory with a base inline-six – this one now runs a 406 cubic-inch small block with a full roller valvetrain and a build claiming 572 horsepower to the wheels. Paired with drag radials instead of slicks, it’s built to be raced and driven home the same day. See why the 406 stroker combination remains one of the most popular small-block builds in drag radial racing, and what it takes to make that kind of power reliably.