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Mike Lorusso has owned this blue-and-white 1975 Trans Am since 1989, and over three decades he’s pushed the 400 cubic inch V8 to roughly 500 horsepower. This walk-around covers the custom work, the often-overlooked 1975 model year, and one detail about the hood bird most owners still get wrong. Watch to find out what it actually is.
Big Oak Garage’s 1957 Chevrolet 210 post sedan hides a modern LS engine and Wilwood brakes under 68-year-old original paint and a set of new wheels deliberately aged to look decades old. It is a restrained build in a genre that usually chases attention, until the comments reveal a setback during the process that longtime viewers still call heartbreaking. The car came back from it anyway. Watch to see how Will Posey and the crew pulled it off.
Chevrolet’s 283 cubic inch V8 arrived in 1957 and, in fuel-injected form, made 283 horsepower, one per cubic inch, a marketing number too clean to be an accident. That same engine dominated NASCAR ovals so completely it was banned. This Bel Air carries the four-barrel version and a Powerglide, the combination most buyers actually drove home. Here is what made 283 cubic inches a turning point for Chevrolet.
The 429 Cobra Jet was available in the Mercury Cougar for exactly one model year, 1971, rated at 370 horsepower with an 11.3:1 compression ratio that made premium fuel mandatory. Pair it with a four-speed and a convertible top and the production numbers collapse to a level where registry keepers still argue over the exact figure. Mercury built a small batch in metallic blue with white tops purely for press duty. Read on for why so few buyers ever said yes.
Mercury built more than ten thousand Cyclone GT hardtops for 1970, but only a few hundred of them left the factory with the engine that made the model’s reputation. Three different 429s were available, ranging from a smooth cruiser to a solid-lifter drag car, and a well-restored example tells you almost nothing about which one you are looking at until you check. Here is how to read a 1970 Cyclone GT, and why the Drag Pack cars are the ones worth chasing.
Don Yenko’s answer to the insurance surcharges killing big-block sales in 1970 was a Nova that looked like nothing at all, with a bench seat, rubber mats and minimal badging, hiding Chevrolet’s 360-horsepower LT-1 small block ordered through COPO 9010. Roughly 175 were built in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, with 4.10 gears, F41 suspension and an optional hood tach. It was quicker than his own 427 Nova anywhere the road turned. Read on for what separates a documented Deuce from a convincing clone.
On paper the 2011 Camaro SS convertible should beat the Mustang GT convertible without breaking a sweat, since it brings a 6.2-liter V8 and a 14 horsepower advantage to the fight. In period testing it lost anyway. The reason is a number neither brochure put on the front page. Read on to find out why 413 pounds mattered more than 14 horsepower in the battle of the drop-top pony cars.
Ford built its unibody F-100 pickup for only three model years before quietly admitting the design could not do the one thing a truck is supposed to do. That short run is exactly why survivors are rare, and why builders now go looking for them. This one is slammed to the ground, wears a deep ruby paint, and hides a modern Coyote V8 under the hood. Read on to find out why Ford gambled on a one-piece cab and bed, and why it lasted three years.
Only about 70 of the roughly 503 Dodge Charger Daytonas built for 1969 left the factory with the 426 Hemi rather than the standard 440 Magnum. The 18-inch nose cone and 23-inch wing were worth a reported 20 mph at Talladega, and Buddy Baker used one to record the first 200-mph closed-course lap in stock car history. Dealers still could not sell them, and some removed the aero parts to move the metal. Read on for what a genuine Hemi Daytona has to document today.
Ford built over 600,000 Mustangs for 1966, which makes it easy to assume every survivor is interchangeable. A factory four-speed convertible with the 289, the Deluxe Pony interior and styled steel wheels says otherwise, because most convertible buyers took the automatic and skipped the performance boxes. The letter stamped in the engine code changes everything about how one of these drives. Here is how to read a 1966 Mustang properly before you buy one.
The Judge began as John DeLorean’s plan for a stripped-down GTO to undercut Plymouth’s Road Runner, and arrived in January 1969 costing more than the car it was meant to beat. The $332 package brought the 366-horsepower Ram Air III, a 60-inch rear spoiler, Rally II wheels without trim rings, and a name borrowed from a television sketch. Pontiac built 6,833 for 1969, including just 108 convertibles. Read on for why an unverified Judge is really just a GTO.
Before it was restored to street legal condition, this 1969 Plymouth Road Runner ran the Detroit-area drag strips as Agent Orange and built a local reputation on wheelies. Underneath the drag history sits the highest-production year the Road Runner ever had, during the stretch when Plymouth’s stripped-down bargain muscle car was collecting awards. Read on to find out how a no-frills price leader ended up outselling everything around it.
A 1951 Chevrolet 3100 pickup looks like the simplest truck in the world until you learn that collectors can date one almost to the exact year from two small details. This was the fifth model year of a design that made every competing truck look obsolete overnight, and 1951 got changes that mattered more than their size suggests. Read on to find out what separates a 1951 from the trucks built on either side of it.
Dearborn Steel Tubing built 21 Mercury Comet A/FX cars for 1964, each with a NASCAR-derived 427 High Riser rated at a deeply understated 425 horsepower, fiberglass hood, fenders, doors and bumpers, and Plexiglas windows throughout. At roughly 3,200 pounds they ran 11.3 to 11.6 at around 125 mph. Dyno Don Nicholson, Ronnie Sox and Jack Chrisman all drove them. Read on for what separates a documented original from a very good tribute.
The crew running the Texas Grim Reaper showed up to their first no-prep event with $50,000 on the line and a 522-cubic-inch big block Corvette wearing a screw-type supercharger loud enough to make spectators cover their ears. They made the finals anyway. Here is why that combination works on a surface with no traction compound at all.