 |
Chevrolet bored the 396 out to 402 cubic inches, then sold the same engine under three different names depending on which car it went into. In the 1971 Monte Carlo it was badged Turbo-Jet 400. Rated at 300 horsepower with 400 lb-ft of torque, it was a serious engine in a car built for comfort, and almost nobody ordered it with a manual gearbox. Read on for why this combination is so unusual.
Ford put one engine at the very bottom of the 1967 Mustang order sheet that almost nobody circled: the S-Code 390, a 320-horsepower FE big block that required a redesigned engine bay just to fit. Buyers looked at it, looked at the lighter small-block GT beside it, and mostly walked away. That indifference is exactly why a documented S-Code GT fastback in original spec is now one of the harder first-generation Mustangs to verify and to find.
The badge on this convertible says 1964, but nothing under the hood corresponds to anything Chevrolet actually sold that year. A factory Impala buyer could climb as high as a 409, and that was considered serious. This car runs a built 427 on a full roller camshaft making a claimed 550 horsepower, backed by a four-speed that never appeared on any order sheet in this combination. Here is why that particular engine choice is a deliberate historical joke.
A powder blue 1964 Lincoln Continental convertible represents one of the rarest body styles Lincoln built that year, outnumbered roughly ten to one by its hardtop sedan sibling. The rear-hinged doors that made the car famous also worried Lincoln enough to engineer a safety system most owners never knew existed. Read on to find out what makes a four-door convertible from 1964 this difficult to find today.
This 1970 Chevrolet C10 hides a 383 stroker under a hood that looks nearly stock, and the red and white paint does a fine job of not giving anything away. The Action Line generation was built for work, which is exactly why so many survived to become street trucks decades later. Read on to find out what Chevrolet changed for 1970 and why these trucks became such a popular build platform.
The name on these valve covers has shown up on three completely different Chevrolet engines across five decades, and every single time it’s meant one thing: this is the Camaro that isn’t messing around. Today’s version makes 455 horsepower and spits flames on overrun, but the badge traces straight back to a drag-strip-born small-block from 1970. Read on to find out what actually connects a modern Camaro SS to a Z/28 from half a century earlier.
In 1968 the hottest engine you could order in an Oldsmobile Cutlass was a 400 cubic inch V8 making 350 horsepower, and the only way to get a 455 that year involved a third-party company working around a General Motors rule. Somewhere along the line, this particular Cutlass got something neither option covers: a supercharged 6.2-liter engine that debuted in a Cadillac sedan four decades later. Here is where that swap really comes from.
A 1972 Chevrolet El Camino and a 1970 Oldsmobile 442 convertible, both freshly restored, represent two completely different ideas of what a performance car should be. One is a pickup built on Chevelle bones with a 454 available; the other carried a 455 making 500 lb-ft of torque and paced the Indianapolis 500. Read on to find out why one of these restorations is far harder to get right.
The Mistress has been one of the toughest cars on the no-prep circuit for years, but Big Daddy Racing wasn’t satisfied with just being fast. This 1320video feature follows a full ground-up rebuild — a fiberglass, tube-chassis car powered by a Morgan and Son big block and a pair of massive 98mm promod turbos. The result is a car built to intimidate before it even leaves the line. Watch to see how the new combination performs when it counts.
Chevrolet restyled the Camaro completely for 1969, then retired the body after a single season when the second-generation car arrived. Under the badge, the SS 396 could be ordered in three different states of tune, topping out with a solid-lifter 375-horsepower L78, plus an aluminum-head option that cost more than 700 dollars and added no advertised power at all. Read on to find out why that made sense.
Ford built the 1969 Boss 429 for one reason: to make a NASCAR engine legal. The cylinder heads were so wide that half-built Mustangs had to leave the factory and go to an outside shop where the shock towers were physically cut and moved. Only 859 were built that year, and the car wore almost no badging to announce any of it. Read on for what Ford was really up to.
Arnold Boris has owned this Trumpet Gold 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado since 2012, and its 40,000 original miles show in every panel. What makes it special isn’t just the paint — it’s the chain-driven front-wheel-drive system Oldsmobile hadn’t attempted since the 1930s, paired with a 425 cubic-inch V8 that could reportedly out-accelerate contemporary muscle cars. See why this design still stops people in their tracks nearly six decades later.
This Candy Apple Red 1968 Ford Mustang convertible pairs the comfort-focused Luxury trim with genuine GT options and a white deluxe interior — a combination rarer than most ’68 Mustang buyers ever chose. Commenters call the sale bittersweet, describing it like watching someone part with a family member after apparently decades of single ownership. One sharp-eyed viewer even catches a missing GT rear valance panel most buyers would never notice. Watch the full walkaround to see what made this particular Mustang worth holding onto for so long.
A supercharged 1970 Dodge Challenger showed up at a Mopar meet outside Helsinki, Finland — and immediately split viewers between those cheering the tire smoke and one who compared its hood-cut supercharger setup to vandalizing a painting. Filmed by European muscle car channel Jamboolio during 2017’s Vantaa Cruising season, the blown big-block Challenger proves American muscle car culture runs just as deep overseas as it does in Detroit. Watch it break traction and decide which side of the originality debate you land on.
Long before burnouts became crowd-pleasing spectacle, they served a practical purpose on the drag strip: heating and cleaning the tires for maximum grip. Trace the tradition from a dusty Georgia strip in the 1960s through fire-enhanced showmanship to today’s purpose-built burnout cars, and you’ll see why this smoky ritual still defines muscle car culture.