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Team-built and nitrous-fed, this Junior Class Camaro has done something few no-prep racers manage: back-to-back CHITOWN KOTS titles without a mark on its paint. Built to run bare, unprepped asphalt against a field of dedicated racers, it launches clean enough to look showroom-fresh between rounds. The 1320video crew has followed this build for two seasons, and a third title run is already on the horizon. Watch to see what makes this Camaro different from the cars it keeps beating.
Pontiac named its 1969 budget muscle package after a television comedy catchphrase, dressed it in tri-color stripes and Carousel Red paint, and then fitted a Ram Air III 400 underneath. Only 6,833 Judges were built that year, 6,725 hardtops and just 108 convertibles. The gimmick aged into one of the most counterfeited badges in the hobby. Read on to find out why documentation now matters more than paint on a car like this.
A 1974 Chevrolet Cheyenne Super 10 laid out over 22-inch wheels that read almost like factory hubcaps is a difficult trick to pull off without losing what made the truck appealing in the first place. This one manages it. Read on for what the Cheyenne Super package actually included in 1974, what was on the engine order sheet, and why clean squarebodies have quietly become expensive.
The 2011 Ford Mustang GT, 2010 Chevrolet Camaro SS and 2010 Dodge Challenger SRT8 gave up horsepower to each other in almost every direction, yet the finishing order at the drag strip was never really in doubt once curb weights entered the picture. One of the three carried nearly 500 pounds more than another. Read on for the numbers, the chassis differences, and why the least powerful car kept winning.
Dodge arrived at the pony car party six years late and compensated by offering more engines than anyone else, from a 383 all the way to the 426 Hemi. The Challenger R/T was the sharp end of that lineup, and the cars that stayed with one family instead of getting flipped or raced into the ground are now the ones collectors chase hardest. Read on for what made the first-generation car special.
Under the faded green paint of this 1972 Chevrolet Nova sits an all-aluminum LS2 stroked to 402 cubic inches, fitted with a dry-sump system and twin Rotrex superchargers making 1,160 horsepower and 825 lb-ft on pump gas. Built by Kurt Urban of Wheel to Wheel Powertrain for owner Dru Diesner, it has run 9.25 at 148 mph at Cordova Dragway Park. Read on to find out why the ugliest car in the lane is usually the one to worry about.
Nothing turns heads at a muscle car meet like a hard launch that lifts the front wheels clean off the pavement. It looks like pure chaos, but the physics behind a wheelstand actually explain why some of the fastest cars in the lineup do it on purpose. Here is what is really happening in that split second before the tires touch back down.
A Nassau Blue 1966 Corvette roadster carrying the L72 427, factory-rated at 425 horsepower and 460 lb-ft of torque, headlines Episode 213 of V8TV’s Muscle Car of the Week. The car comes from The Brothers Collection, and viewers split over whether visible exhaust smoke points to needed engine work or whether the car is still a near-perfect judged example. See which side of that debate holds up.
Some cars are rare because a manufacturer decided to make them rare. The 1971 Challenger R/T with the 426 Hemi is rare because almost nobody would pay for it, and then the option vanished before anyone realized what was ending. Roughly 70 were built that year, all hardtops, all with the shaker hood as standard equipment. Finished in triple black, this is about as intimidating as the configuration gets. Read on to find out what actually killed the elephant motor.
Every 1969 Dodge Charger R/T came standard with a 375-horsepower 440 Magnum, and 18,344 buyers were perfectly happy with that. Only 432 checked the box for the 426 Hemi. Same body, same badge, two completely different cars — and the choice said everything about how serious the original owner really was. Here is what separated them, and why the 1969 Charger became the most recognizable shape of the entire muscle era.
Ford put its 429 big-block under a Mustang hood for exactly one model year, and only a sliver of 1971 production actually got it. Fewer still received the Drag Pack that turned a Cobra Jet into a Super Cobra Jet — four-bolt mains, big-valve heads, and an 11.3:1 compression ratio that demanded premium fuel and a careful hand. This Mach 1 is one of them. Read on for the numbers behind one of the rarest Mustang combinations Ford ever shipped.
This 1959 Ford F100 short bed still runs its original 223-cubic-inch straight six backed by a three-speed manual, riding on Cragar SS mags and white letter tires. It comes from the model year Ford stopped outsourcing four-wheel-drive conversions to Marmon-Herrington and started building its own 4×4 pickups in house. Roughly 157,000 F-100s were built that season across every body style Ford offered. Read on to find out why an unmodified base-model work truck has become one of the harder things to find.
Eighteen finalists paraded through the Ohio Expo Center that Friday, each vying for one of the most coveted titles in the street machine world. Goodguys’ PPG Nationals is the organization’s largest annual event, and the walk from outdoor display to indoor judging is where Street Machine of the Year contenders make their final case. Recent winners have ranged from a twin-turbocharged Buick Grand National to a meticulously restored ’67 Mustang, showing just how wide the caliber of competition has become. Only one build from this parade would leave with the trophy.
Chevrolet built the supercharged 6.2-liter LS9 for exactly one car, the 638-horsepower Corvette ZR1, and then builders started putting it in 1969 Camaros. The engine is the easy part; it already has forged internals, dry-sump oiling, and an Eaton blower. Everything the factory bolted around a 1969 unibody is what has to be replaced to survive it. Read on to find out what an LS9 swap actually demands underneath the sheet metal.
Mike Finnegan went from a Hot Rod Magazine staff editor to one of the most recognizable builders in automotive video, after a road-trip film shot with David Freiburger became Roadkill and spawned Hot Rod Garage, Faster with Finnegan, and Engine Masters. When MotorTrend Productions closed in November 2024, he moved everything to his own YouTube channel and kept going. Read on to find out how a builder who refuses to choose between hot rods and art cars stayed relevant for more than a decade.