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Most drag cars keep their turbochargers hidden under the hood. This 1966 Chevy Nova pushes a pair of 76mm turbos straight through the grille for anyone to see, backing up that bold styling choice with genuine performance: builds on this same combination have run 8.80 seconds at over 157 mph while still qualifying as street cars. Read on to see what it actually takes to get a decades-old small-block Chevy platform into 8-second territory without giving up its street manners.
As Dodge wound down production of its most unhinged sports car, D3 Performance Engineering decided the Viper deserved a proper send-off. Starting with a track-focused Gen V ACR, the shop added an F1X Procharger and a Nitrous Express kit to push the V10 past 900 horsepower, then took the car to the most demanding stretch of asphalt in the world to prove it. The result: D3 now holds the record for the quickest Gen V Viper on earth.
This thirty-minute compilation from Vantaa Cruising, a recurring car meet in Tikkurila, Finland, captures a night of burnouts, custom hot rods, and modified American muscle that one Oregon-based commenter admitted could never happen back home. There’s not a single Mustang in the lineup, but there is a rubber duck mounted as a hood ornament. Watch to see how seriously Finland’s underground muscle car scene takes American car culture.
This 1969 Chevrolet Corvette still wears its original factory gold paint, but everything else has been built to be heard as much as seen — a big block V8, chrome side pipes, and a 1970s-flavored velour interior. Recent work on the brakes and front suspension means it’s set up to actually be driven, not just displayed. The walkaround and test drive show exactly why owners call this kind of build a conversation starter. Watch and listen to those side pipes in action.
This 1966 Pontiac GTO convertible carries PHS documentation tracing it back to Moody Pontiac in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and it left the factory with the 389 four-barrel, power steering, power brakes and factory air conditioning. 1966 was the year the GTO stopped being an option package and became a model in its own right, and buyers responded by making it the best-selling muscle car in America. The convertible was always the scarcer half of that story. Read on for what separates a documented survivor from the clones.
Phil Martin’s 1966 Pontiac GTO, finished in Charcoal Blue with its original-spec 389 V8, is the kind of rebuild that earns unprompted praise — one commenter simply called the restorer ‘an artist.’ Filmed at Rosemont’s World of Wheels show, it’s a car that captures exactly why the GTO became the template for an entire genre of American performance cars. The comment section has turned into its own trip down memory lane. Watch to hear the 389 come to life.
For 1968, Ford let Shelby buyers order a GT350 with the top down for the first time, and just 404 convertibles were built, making it the rarest body style in the entire 1968 Shelby lineup. It also marked the year the GT350 changed engines, swapping the legendary 289 High Performance for a 302 that Shelby purists were not expecting. Production had moved out of California entirely by this point. Read on for what a 1968 GT350 convertible really represents.
Don Yenko wanted 427 cubic inches in a Camaro and Chevrolet’s own corporate rules said he could not have it, so he found a way around the rulebook that eventually turned into a factory-sanctioned program. This Olympic Gold 1969 example represents the year the arrangement finally went legitimate, with the big block installed on the assembly line instead of in Yenko’s shop. Roughly two hundred were built. Read on for what actually changed between 1968 and 1969, because most people get it backwards.
A plain four-door 1970 Plymouth Satellite with Chrysler’s 440 Super Commando big block hiding under an ordinary hood embarrassed a BMW driver who never saw it coming. Built on the same platform as the Road Runner and GTX but wearing none of their badges or bravado, this sedan is a textbook sleeper — read on for how a grocery-getter body ended up packing genuine street-fighting torque, and why cars like it are becoming harder to find and pricier to own.
An LS6 under the hood, a Detroit Speed chassis underneath, Wilwood brakes at all four corners, and black paint so deep it looks wet standing still under the lights at Pigeon Forge — this 1969 Chevrolet Nova splits the difference between numbers-matching restoration and full resto-mod better than almost anything else on the field. Read on for what separates this build from the rest, right down to the Stinger hood tying it all back to 1969.
Peggy Szarzynski’s husband Dennis gave her this 1970 Chrysler 300 convertible as a birthday present, not realizing it would become one of the last full-size Chrysler convertibles ever built. Finished in red with the brand’s distinctive hidden headlights and fuselage styling, it’s a rare survivor from an era before gas prices sent most of its kind to the scrapyard. Watch to hear Peggy’s full story.
The 1968 Plymouth Road Runner was built to bring performance back to buyers who could not afford a GTX, which makes the 426 Hemi option one of the strangest contradictions Detroit ever offered. A stripped-out car with rubber floor mats and a cartoon bird on the fender could be ordered with the most feared engine in America. Car and Driver clocked one at 13.54 seconds at 105 mph straight off the showroom floor. Read on for what that combination actually cost and how few buyers took it.
Chevrolet built the 2014-2015 Camaro Z/28 as a purpose-built track weapon, dropping the Corvette Z06’s 505-hp LS7 into a chassis reworked with spool-valve dampers, a wider front track, and massive brakes. Semi-slick Pirelli Trofeo R tires — a production-car first — gave it grip few pony cars could match. GM originally planned thousands of units but hand-built just 1,801 at its Performance Build Center, making this naturally aspirated homage to the original Z/28 one of the rarest, most track-focused Camaros ever sold.
Dan Burback spent four years transforming a brand-new 2012 Shelby Mustang GT500 into a custom-bodied tribute to the 1967 Shelby GT500, keeping the modern supercharged drivetrain fully intact underneath. Fans at a Chicago-area cruise night called it the cleanest swap they’d ever seen. Watch to see how a modern supercar disappeared under fifty-year-old sheet metal.
Carroll Shelby turned a family sedan platform into a three-time SCCA B-Production champion, reworking the Mustang’s chassis, brakes, and suspension before ever touching the engine. The reworked Windsor 289 made 306 horsepower, Ken Miles debuted the prototype with a win at Green Valley Raceway, and just 34 dedicated GT350R race cars emerged from the 562 built in 1965. That original formula still shapes every fast Mustang built since, and a documented, numbers-matching GT350 remains one of the most sought-after collector cars from Detroit’s muscle car era.