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This 1970 Pontiac GTO Judge convertible carries the Ram Air IV 400 and a Muncie four-speed, a combination so scarce that Pontiac historians still argue about how many were actually built. Judge production was small, convertible Judge production was smaller, and the Ram Air IV narrowed it further still. Some tallies put surviving examples in the low double digits. Read on for the numbers, the documentation problem, and why this spec sets the ceiling for the entire GTO market.
Justin’s ProCharged C7 Corvette had to survive daily driving and 10-second quarter-mile passes on the same set of parts, which is a much harder brief than it sounds. Getting there meant multiple teardowns and finding the platform’s weak links the expensive way, before the car finally debuted at Street Car Takeover’s 2016 season opener in Phoenix. Read on to find out what a centrifugal blower actually does to a mostly stock C7.
This 1969 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray wears one of ten factory colors offered that year, and most people could not name it with the car in front of them. Behind the paint question sits a more interesting one: 1969 was the best-selling Shark-bodied Corvette to that point, and it offered an engine option that exactly two customers in America ever bought. Read on for the production figures, the color chart, and the ZL1 story.
At the 2016 Goodguys Nashville Nationals, more than 2,500 hot rods, muscle cars, and customs filled the infield at Nashville Superspeedway for a weekend billed as “America’s Favorite Car Show.” The event doubles as a proving ground through the Tanks, Inc. Hot Rod of the Year competition, which includes a 100-mile reliability run on real roads. Closing time brings its own reward, when hundreds of engines fire up at once for the drive home.
A Corvette lining up against a Blue Angels F/A-18 Hornet sounds like a foregone conclusion, and over enough distance it absolutely is. But the test was a sprint to 100 mph, not a race to top speed, and that distinction changes everything. The ZR1 nicknamed Blue Devil brought 638 supercharged horsepower and carbon ceramic brakes. Read on for why the short-run format made this closer than it had any right to be.
Seven identical 1970 Dodge Challengers were built for a single Quentin Tarantino stunt sequence, and most of them did not survive the shoot in driveable condition. One of the survivors now lives in Finland, legally registered, dents and all. It was never even the most dangerous car on that set. Read on for how a purpose-built stunt car ends up street-legal on the other side of the Atlantic decades later.
A company in Sweetwater, Tennessee that normally molds fiberglass boat hulls built the body for this 1957 Chevrolet as a single continuous shell, working from an Eric Brockmeyer design. Underneath sits an Art Morrison chassis, a twin-turbocharged 540-cubic-inch all-aluminum Brodix, a Lenco four-speed, and Wilwood 14-inch brakes. Read on to find out what happens when boat builders decide to build a Tri-Five.
A Fox-body Mustang assembled from an LSX swap, an 88mm turbo, and whatever else worked became one of the most feared street cars in Houston, and it got its name out of pure spite toward a rival called White Devil. By the time it lined up against a 1,500-horsepower twin-turbo Lamborghini Gallardo, it had already beaten cars worth ten times what it cost. Read on to find out how a junkyard budget gets you there.
A 2016 Lamborghini Aventador Superveloce rolled into an ordinary Scottsdale Cars and Coffee meet, and Lou Costabile’s camera was there to catch it. The SV badge is not just trim, it marks the most track-focused, weight-stripped version of Lamborghini’s V12 flagship, and reactions in the comments came from as far away as Cairo. Watch to see what happens when an exotic this rare parks next to the regulars.
For a few months in 1966 you could walk into a Hertz counter, hand over a driver’s license, and drive away in a Shelby GT350 built to Carroll Shelby’s own specification. A thousand of them went into the rental fleet in black and gold. The stories that came back are the reason the program did not last. This black-and-gold 1966 is a tribute to those cars, and read on for why the originals are so hard to find intact.
By 1973 nearly every American manufacturer had detuned or killed its performance models. Buick quietly kept the Stage 1 package alive, pairing a 455 V8 with one of the strongest torque figures left in an American passenger car. Only 728 buyers ordered it, and this one adds the low-take-rate Sun Coupe roof on top. Read on for what Stage 1 actually delivered in 1973 and why the numbers get confused with the 1970 GSX.
A 1970 Chevelle convertible built around a supercharged LS9 sounds like a one-line spec sheet, but the engine is arguably the least modified thing about this car. Every panel has been reworked, and the LS9 it borrows comes from the C6 Corvette ZR1 with 638 horsepower from the factory. The Chevelle it replaces was already the most powerful car Chevrolet ever sold. Read on for what a build like this is really chasing.
Buick’s 1958 Roadmaster was the division’s flagship in its final year under that name, a 219-inch statement car with a 364 “Nailhead” V8 making 300 horsepower and 400 lb-ft. Behind it sat Flight Pitch Dynaflow, a triple-turbine automatic with variable-pitch stator blades that changed its own gearing continuously. Only 14,054 Series 75 cars were built. Read on to find out why a Denver-to-Detroit run is exactly what it was engineered for.
Every May, a park in Van Nuys, California fills with more than 700 Mopars, 300 swap-meet vendors, and close to 10,000 spectators, and the cars everyone photographs are the E-bodies. Barracudas, Cudas, and Challengers built across a five-year window that produced some of the rarest muscle cars ever sold. Read on to find out why a platform that lasted barely half a decade still anchors the largest Mopar gathering west of the Mississippi.
210 episodes into covering the Brothers Collection, Muscle Car of the Week finally ranks the convertibles — pulling from a 1967 Mustang K-code, a 1964 Plymouth Satellite 426 Wedge, a fuel-injected 1959 Corvette, and a 440 Six Barrel ‘Cuda in Tor-Red. Each car represents a different era and manufacturer’s approach to open-top American performance. The comments are already split over which one deserves the top spot. Watch to see the full lineup and decide which convertible you’d pick.