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Ford’s fifth-generation Mustang solved a problem the company had struggled with for years: how to modernize an icon without losing what made it iconic in the first place. Built on an all-new platform but styled after the fastback Mustangs of the late 1960s, the 2005 redesign set the template every American pony car would follow for the next decade. Read on for the engineering decisions behind the comeback.
Jay Leno owns more than 180 vehicles, but when The Drive asked him to pick his favorite American muscle cars, he skipped the obvious answers entirely. His list includes a 1971 Dodge Challenger, a Ford Galaxie 500 with a forgotten 7-liter engine, a 1,000-horsepower Oldsmobile Toronado, and a crate-engined Buick Roadmaster sleeper. Every pick rewards a level of car knowledge most muscle car fans do not have. See exactly why Leno chose these four over anything more obvious.
A small-block Dodge Demon 340 squares off against a big-block Camaro in a quarter-mile grudge match that turns into a genuine wheelstand, the Demon’s front end clawing skyward as both cars fight for traction off the line. Commenters are still arguing over whether outspending an opponent’s engine build counts as a real win, and at least one former Demon 340 owner shows up in the replies to defend the underdog. The gap between the two cars’ elapsed times tells its own story. Watch to see how it plays out.
Dennis Ermi’s 1968 Plymouth Road Runner wears a custom Pearlescent Orange and Black paint job and hides a 472-cubic-inch big-block built to make somewhere around 1,000 horsepower, numbers that have nothing to do with the nameplate’s budget-muscle-car reputation. Ermi has owned the car since 2009 and built it up gradually, the paint and engine work both added well after purchase. Viewers keep coming back to one detail in particular: the blower whine. Watch to hear it for yourself.
For a few short years at the end of the 1960s, win on Sunday, sell on Monday pushed Ford, Mercury, Dodge, and Plymouth into a genuine aerodynamic arms race, producing cars as strange-looking as they were fast — this MotorWeek retro review rounds up the Torino, Cyclone, Charger, and the wildest of them all, the wing-and-nose-cone Plymouth Superbird. One commenter still remembers passing on a Limelight green Superbird back in 1985, long before it became a six-figure collector car. Watch to see the machines NASCAR eventually had to legislate off the track.
A 1967 Ford Fairlane GT and a 1969 Plymouth GTX go head to head at Palm Beach International Raceway, and the gap between them, 11.41 versus 11.25 seconds, turns out to be closer than the numbers suggest. Both owners showed up in the comments to keep the argument going years later. Watch the quarter mile that started a rivalry neither driver has let go of since.
Backspeed Boys set out to build a 650-horsepower LS engine, and by their own account it turned into something closer to a dare than a spec sheet. Viewers who watched it come together compared the assembly to snapping together oversized Legos — until the finished engine made the chassis visibly twist under its own torque during the dyno pull. Built around a forged Eagle rotating assembly and no shortage of machine shop time, this is what happens when a familiar platform gets pushed past its comfortable ceiling.
The Chevrolet Impala carries a name borrowed from an African antelope and a backstory that started as a Corvette-inspired concept car nobody expected to reach production. From a 1956 Motorama prototype to becoming America’s best-selling car by 1965, the Impala’s rise wasn’t guaranteed at any step along the way. Read on to see how a styling sketch turned into one of the longest-running nameplates in Chevrolet history.
This 1971 Ford Custom 500 spends less time on a showroom resume and more time sliding sideways through a Southern back road, doubling as the getaway car in Burt Reynolds’ 1973 chase picture White Lightning. Stunt driving from the golden age of practical car chases, with Ned Beatty playing the corrupt sheriff chasing him down. The chase still pulls in six-figure views decades later, proof that a full-size sedan can be just as thrilling as any factory muscle car when the right driver is behind the wheel.
No scoops, no stripes, just dog-dish wheels and a stripped interior, this 1963 Plymouth Sport Fury looks like nothing special until you learn what is under the hood: a 426 Max Wedge Super Stock V8 making an advertised 415 horsepower. One commenter says with modern tires and race gas, it would run 10-second quarter miles today. See why Mopar collectors call these early B-bodies brutes.
A twelve-year-old fell in love with this generation of Mustang after watching a red one chase a Bond villain in Diamonds Are Forever, and this 1971 Mach 1’s 429 Super Cobra Jet is exactly the engine that backs up that on-screen reputation. The bigger, heavier redesign split fans the moment it launched. See why so many of them ended up owning two or three anyway.
1957 was the year the Corvette stopped being just a pretty face, and this Polo White Roadster carries the 283-cubic-inch engine option that made the case. Bill Kotzum of Corvette Mike Midwest walks through why the rare, temperamental fuel-injected version briefly made this America’s quickest production car. Ford had an answer of its own that same year. See how the two rivals compared.
To legally race its wing-nosed Charger on NASCAR’s superspeedways in 1969, Dodge had to build at least 500 street-legal versions first, whether buyers wanted one or not. This Daytona is one of just 503 built to satisfy that rule, and one of 433 fitted with a 440 instead of the Hemi. Some viewers say it is more than any ordinary muscle car deserves to be called. Here is why the rule that created it still matters.
This 1965 Ford Galaxie 500R looks like any other full-size family car of its era, right up until you learn what is under the hood: a dual-quad 427 side-oiler paired with a 4-speed manual. Viewers are calling it their favorite Muscle Car Of The Week episode yet, and the comment section is already lobbying for more full-size sleepers like it. See the burnout that sealed the deal.
This video calls itself home to “quite possibly the rarest Mustang in the world” — a badge-engineered German-market car called the T5, renamed because Ford couldn’t use “Mustang” in Germany over a trademark conflict. The comments section immediately went to work fact-checking the engine specs and the exclusivity claim itself. Dig into the debate to find out what’s actually true about one of Mustang history’s stranger footnotes.