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Boosted Bertha is a 1965 Chevrolet C10 wearing a supercharger and a stance that puts the rocker panels within an inch of the pavement, but the reason a build like this works starts with a decision Chevrolet made back in 1963. Underneath the boost sits a coil-sprung chassis that was already better than anything else in the segment, plus a small-block architecture that takes to forced induction easily. Read on for what Chevy actually sold in 1965 and what these trucks bring now.
David Freiburger genuinely forgot he owned this 1970 Plymouth Duster until it turned up buried in dirt on a California grape farm belonging to Engine Masters editor Steve Dulcich. What followed was a five-day sprint to stuff a salvaged 440 big-block into the car, complete with hammered-on headers and a trunk painted before the engine even ran. Longtime fans still call it the best episode Roadkill ever made. Watch the full build and burnout below.
This 1969 Shelby GT500 crossed the block at Auctions America’s Fall Collector Car Weekend in Auburn, Indiana, as a genuinely all-original example — factory paint, an untouched interior, and a Cobra Jet V8 that’s never been pulled for a rebuild. Cars this honest rarely surface at auction anymore, and this one raises the age-old restore-or-preserve question. Watch to see what nearly fifty years of originality actually looks like.
Lucy is a 1968 Chevrolet Camaro with a big block under the hood and an empty plate in the dash where the radio should be, and that combination says everything about how she was originally ordered. 1968 was the year Chevrolet finally filled the gap in its 396 lineup, cured the wheel hop that plagued the first-year cars, and sold 235,147 Camaros in the process. Read on for what separates a genuine big-block car from one wearing the badges.
Pontiac spent 1968 quietly fixing the Firebird’s first-year problems, dropping the vent windows for Astro Ventilation, replacing single-leaf rear springs with multi-leaf units, and adding staggered shocks. The new 350, which actually displaced 354 cubic inches, came as a 265-horsepower two-barrel or a 320-horsepower HO. Pontiac built 107,112 Firebirds that year. This one still wears its factory engine and interior. Read on for what originality really requires.
Randy Smalley has owned his white-and-blue 2005 Ford GT since it was new, a Le Mans-inspired supercar he still drives through the Phoenix suburbs rather than storing away. Viewers have called its value trajectory ‘appreciating faster than it could even drive,’ a fitting line for a car built to answer Ford’s own GT40 legacy. Nearly twenty years later, the debate over whether the original supercharged V8 beats the modern turbocharged GT is still going strong. See what makes this one worth the ride.
Plymouth built 2,724 AAR ‘Cudas inside a five-week window in spring 1970, purely to homologate the Trans-Am cars Dan Gurney’s team was campaigning. Each got a 340 Six Barrel with three Holley two-barrels, a functional fiberglass hood, side-exit exhaust ahead of the rear wheels, and staggered tire sizes that were an American production first. This one wears the high-impact Moulin Rouge paint. Read on for why it only lasted one year.
Chevrolet built 21,801 Corvettes for 1971 and only 1,949 carried the LT-1 small block, split 1,306 coupes and 643 convertibles. New low-lead fuel rules cut its compression to 9.0:1 and its rating from 370 to 330 horsepower, yet it still ran to sixty in about six seconds. It could not be ordered with an automatic or air conditioning, and just eight cars got the ZR1 package. Read on for why it stayed special.
A Fox-body Mustang never made more than 235 horsepower from the factory, and that was the 1993 SVT Cobra R. This teal example runs a forged 5.3-liter LS with twin 76-millimeter turbos making roughly 1400, after starting life with a single-turbo 6.0 combination. Getting there took a fuel system, a chassis, and a cage that cost more than the engine. Read on for what a build like this actually requires.
Plymouth built well over 120,000 Suburban wagons for 1959, split across Deluxe, Custom, and Sport trims, with the mid-range Custom alone accounting for 53,869 units. They rode a wagon-specific 122-inch wheelbase with torsion-bar front suspension, came standard with a 132-horsepower flathead six, and could be ordered with a 305-horsepower Golden Commando V8. Almost none survived, because families used them up. Read on for what made the Big Fin wagons worth a second look.
Ford built 472,121 Mustangs for 1967, and fewer than five hundred of them carried the K-code Hi-Po 289 with its solid lifters, 10.5:1 compression, and 271 horsepower at 6,000 rpm. This Wimbledon White convertible claims to be one, wearing a GT Equipment Group that was real hardware rather than a stripe kit. Telling a genuine car from a convincing tribute comes down to one character in the VIN. Read on for what to look for.
Tom Bright had owned this Tor Red 1970 Plymouth GTX for exactly three weeks when he brought it to the 26th Annual Belvidere MOPAR Happening in Illinois, and strangers were already giving him thumbs up before he had finished parking. It carries the 440 Six Barrel and a four-speed, a combination far scarcer than most of the people walking past it realized. The GTX was Plymouth’s gentleman’s muscle car, positioned above the Road Runner. Read on for what makes this specific configuration so hard to find.
The 1965 Shelby GT350 only exists because SCCA rules demanded a minimum run of street cars before Ford could go racing in B Production. What Carroll Shelby handed back had no rear seat, one paint color, side-exit exhaust, and 306 horsepower from 289 cubic inches. Roughly 562 were built that first year before the formula softened. Read on for what made the first-year cars different from everything that followed.
A Ford GT40 — the car built specifically to humiliate Ferrari at Le Mans — lines up against a modern 707-horsepower Dodge Hellcat on an Illinois airstrip in this 1320video matchup from Omega Motorsport’s NoFlyZone Midwest. Sixty years of engineering separate these two cars, but only a quarter-mile separates them on the pavement. Watch to see which era comes out ahead.
This 1956 Chevrolet pickup rolled into the 24th annual Auto Crusade car show wearing nearly all of its original 1956 sheet metal — just one small patch panel — under a stance and wheel package that’s already earning it awards. Commenters who know these trucks call it “pin perfect.” But according to its builders, it wasn’t made to sit still. See what a truck built to actually be driven looks like when it’s done right.