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1970 was the last model year before a looming federal fuel mandate forced every automaker to detune their engines for good, and Buick used that final window to build one of the most overlooked muscle cars of the era. The GS 455 Stage 1 traded flashy branding for raw torque, putting up numbers that rivaled cars with far bigger reputations. This is the story of how the old man’s brand ended up building a genuine class leader. Watch to see why collectors are still catching up to it.
A 1968 Dodge Super Bee, one of only 125 built with the 426 Hemi, takes on a 1971 Corvette LS6, one of just 188 built that year, in a genuinely close quarter-mile race decided as much by gearing as by raw power. But the real story lives in the comments, where one viewer’s sprawling account of a mid-1960s neighborhood muscle car arms race, complete with a State Trooper who kept losing his own street races, has become something close to local legend. Watch the run, then read the full story below it.
Only 32 of these were ever built with a four-speed manual. This 1971 Oldsmobile 442 W-30 convertible runs 0-70 in 7.3 seconds with zero turbocharging and zero shortcuts, then backs it up with cornering that still gets called the best-handling muscle car of its era. Watch to see a genuinely rare combination pushed to its actual limits.
The 428 Cobra Jet was not part of the 1968 Mustang lineup when the model year began. It arrived on April 1st, built largely to the recipe a Rhode Island Ford dealer had already proven, and it swept Super Stock at the Winternationals almost immediately. Ford said 335 horsepower. The real figure was closer to 400, and there was a very specific reason for the gap. Read on for the full story.
The Ford Fairlane’s name did not come from a marketing meeting — it came from Fair Lane, Henry Ford’s own estate near Dearborn, Michigan. As Ford’s new full-size flagship for 1955, the Fairlane offered six body styles, a factory tinted-plastic roof on the Crown Victoria Skyliner, and an eventual 312-cubic-inch V8 by 1958. Read on to see how this often-overlooked Ford laid groundwork for the performance cars that followed.
A right-hand-drive 1970 Dodge Challenger, hand-converted for the Australian market, stars in a little-known 1982 chase film called Running on Empty that fans keep comparing to Mad Max. Paired against a Ford Falcon on empty outback highways, it’s a piece of car-chase history most muscle car enthusiasts have never seen. Watch to find out why this obscure Aussie chase deserves more attention.
This Cranberry Red 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS pairs the legendary 450-horsepower LS6 454 big-block with a four-speed manual — and, almost incongruously, a factory bench seat and working 8-track player. Featured on V8TV’s Muscle Car of the Week series, the car draws a sharp-eyed comment calling out its non-factory steering wheel, plus plenty of viewers sharing decades-old memories tied to the model. Only a few thousand LS6 Chevelles were ever built. Watch the full walkaround to see what still makes this one special.
A 1967 Corvette carrying the top-of-the-line L71 427, a 435-horsepower solid-lifter tri-power big block, sat parked and forgotten for nearly 40 years before finally resurfacing with just 25,000 original miles. Commenters who have owned or ridden in identical cars are still trading stories about what this engine could really do. Watch the recovery of a Corvette that time genuinely forgot.
Canceled by John DeLorean, revived by John DeLorean, and eventually powered by an exotic four-rotor Wankel engine that never stood a chance once the 1973 oil crisis hit — the GM Aerovette’s path to nowhere is one of the strangest stories in Corvette history. Developed by legendary engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov as the XP-882, it previewed a mid-engine Corvette layout GM wouldn’t actually put into production for another five decades.
A short reel from the channel Motortube drops viewers straight into an auction lane full of muscle cars, no narration required. Some machines pull a scramble of bids while others slide through in near silence, and the gap between those two outcomes says a lot about where the muscle car market stands today. There is no script here, just chrome, paint, and a room deciding what history is worth. Watch to see which ones the crowd chases.
A 1969 L88 Corvette, one of only 116 built and deliberately underrated by Chevrolet at 430 horsepower, takes on a 1972 Oldsmobile 442 W-30 officially rated at just 300 horsepower. A commenter who says they worked at Olds Experimental during this era insists that number was never accurate, and that a genuine W-30 could beat Mopars, GTOs, and Corvettes regularly. The race backs up the claim. Watch the run and read the insider testimony in the comments before trusting either car’s factory rating.
A 1971 Plymouth ‘Cuda convertible, one of just 17 built with the legendary 440-6 Barrel engine confirmed by the V-code in its VIN, resurfaced after roughly 35 years in storage. Commenters couldn’t agree on what it’s worth, one estimated $150,000 restored, another argued a fully documented example could bring $2.25 to $2.75 million. One viewer even suggested sending it to Graveyard Carz for a factory-correct restoration. Which valuation is closer to what this rare fish will actually bring?
Hagerty’s Redline Rebuild team tears down and rebuilds a Ford Flathead V8 pulled from a 1946 Ford pickup, an engine that had already logged more than 4,000 miles as part of the network’s Swap to Street build before earning a proper rebuild. Six days of work and more than 40,000 photographs get compressed into a fast-moving time-lapse that shows exactly what it takes to bring one of the most important engines in American automotive history back to full strength. Watch to see the flathead get the treatment it’s earned.
A 1969 Corvette L88 — one of only 116 built, and one of the most underrated engines Chevrolet ever sold — rolls to the line with its door still open and runs an 11.5-second quarter mile on the car’s original poly-glass tires. Against a 1970 Chevelle SS 396 that runs a respectable 13.66, the gap says everything about why L88 Corvettes now sell for well over a million dollars at auction. Zora Arkus-Duntov built this engine for endurance racing, not showroom bragging rights. Watch to see just how much faster “Zora’s monster” really is.
This walkthrough of rust-prone spots on 1970-81 Camaros and Trans Ams has quietly become a reference tool, with commenters crediting it for real purchase decisions years after it was posted — one used it to vet a supposed barn-find ’81 turbo Trans Am, another wishes he’d seen it before trading a clean Buick Riviera for a rusted ’72 Firebird. Produced by F-body parts specialist Fbodywarehouse.com, the guide goes panel by panel through exactly where these cars fail first. Watch the full guide before you go look at your next F-body.