 |
Master mechanic and racer Paul Annunziata built his 1975 Plymouth Duster around a supercharged 426 Hemi — an engine combination the factory never offered, in a car nobody expected to carry that kind of power. Before he passed away, Paul wanted the car to go somewhere it would actually be driven. Jay Leno took on that responsibility personally. Watch the full story, including a comment from Paul’s own cousin that puts the whole build in perspective.
Jim Kolich has owned this 1966 Buick Riviera since 1991, the same year his daughter was born, and more than thirty years later he is still showing it off at events like Wisconsin’s World of Wheels. Finished in gold with Buick’s distinctive 425 Nailhead V8 underneath, the car draws comparisons to some of the cleanest American designs of its decade. Watch to hear Jim’s full story behind three decades of ownership.
Ford built exactly 100 examples of the 1964 Thunderbolt, a factory-only drag racer disguised as an ordinary Fairlane, and handed every buyer a glovebox plate warning them the car didn’t meet normal quality standards. Underneath sat a 427-cubic-inch V8 unofficially estimated at 600 horsepower, fiberglass body panels, and a compression ratio closer to a diesel engine than a street car. The Thunderbolt secured Ford’s 1964 NHRA Super Stock title and still sparks arguments about how it would have fared against a stock Shelby Cobra. Read on for the numbers behind the legend.
Chevrolet’s fifth-generation Camaro asked buyers to accept cramped rear seats, a stingy trunk, and windshield pillars thick enough to hide a delivery truck — then handed back handling that punches well above its price. Between 2011 and 2013 the lineup grew from a competent 312-horsepower V6 coupe into something far stranger: a supercharged ZL1 capable of 580 horsepower and a 180-mph top speed. Read on to see how a retro-styled pony car became one of the most surprising performance bargains of its era.
Henry Ford once bought roughly 430,000 acres of Michigan timberland just to supply the hardwood for his station wagons, running his own sawmill to shape doors, dashboards, and headliners by hand. That wood-bodied construction disappeared by the early 1950s once steel proved cheaper and more durable, but the woodie’s story didn’t end there. A decade later, surfers turned aging wagons into rolling icons of the California coast, the same cars later name-checked in songs like the one that opens this post. Here’s how a grocery-hauler became a cultural symbol.
Joe Pieroni has owned his 1964 Chrysler Imperial Crown Coupe since 1989 — and in thirty-five years, he says he has seen exactly one other one. The two-door Crown Coupe was always the rarer choice within Chrysler’s already low-volume luxury division, and survivors from this era are scarcer still. Commenters call it the most beautiful car they’ve ever seen. Watch the full walkthrough to see why this Imperial has stayed in one owner’s hands for over three decades.
Richard Schmidt’s 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T convertible sat untouched for forty years after he and his late wife Kitty stopped using it as their everyday cruiser. His kids brought it back — not for the horsepower, but in her memory. Hagerty named the finished restoration its 2016 Classic of the Year, beating eleven other finalist stories. Watch the full story and see why one viewer called it ‘how to make a car guy cry 101.’
Tom Lembeck’s 1971 Dodge Challenger R/T packs a numbers-matching 426 Hemi, a factory Pistol Grip 4-speed, and fewer than 12,000 original miles, plus an interior option, a factory Dictaphone, that most Mopar fans have never actually seen in person. Lou Costabile sat down with Tom to walk through what makes this all-original survivor so rare. Watch to see the details that left even viewers stunned.
This vintage road test of a well-optioned 1971 Dodge Charger SE 440 comes from an era when television, not YouTube, brought muscle cars to audiences. Viewers in the comments identified the tester as the late Gordon Bud Lindemann, a hall-of-fame figure in automotive broadcasting. The footage doubles as both a car review and a piece of television history. Watch to see the Charger and the man who tested it.
A barn-find 1970 Ford Mustang convertible sitting in the Netherlands hides a genuinely strange secret: factory all-wheel drive, engineered by the same British company that later built the world’s first production AWD car, the Jensen FF. Missing its engine and front drive unit after decades of neglect, it may be the only convertible Mustang ever converted this way. Read on for how a tractor company ended up building AWD Mustangs for Ford.
A 1965 Corvette running the hydraulic-lifter L79 327 takes on a 1970 Camaro Z28 and its solid-lifter LT1 350 in a straight quarter-mile shootout from Road Test TV. Five years apart, these two small blocks represent very different approaches to making power, and viewers are split on which one deserves more respect. Watch to see which Chevy legend crosses the line first.
V8TV dug through 1970’s own magazine road tests to rank the ten quickest muscle cars of the year, using the era’s published numbers rather than modern dyno figures. The order does not always favor the biggest engine, and gearing plays a bigger role than most viewers expect. One commenter’s memory of his father’s 1970 Chevelle SS 396 shows just how personal these numbers still are. Watch to see which cars made the cut.
A 1970 Ford Torino Super Cobra Jet, rated 375 horsepower, faces a rare tri-power 1966 Oldsmobile 442 rated 360 horsepower in a Road Test TV quarter-mile matchup that crosses an unusually rare brand pairing. After trailing for much of the run, the Olds closes the gap late enough that viewers called it a genuine surprise finish. See which factory muscle car actually crossed the line first.
Not every muscle car story ends with a perfectly restored survivor in a climate-controlled garage. Longtime member Carl N.’s collection spans a 1970 Barracuda, two vintage Ford trucks, and a trade that eventually led to a Chevy van — a messier, more realistic version of what six decades of car ownership actually looks like. Here’s the history behind the cars in his story, and why this kind of winding path is more common than the highlight-reel restorations.
The 1959-1961 Ford Thunderbird packed in more genuine history than its three model years suggest: an ad campaign that doubled sales, two cars built entirely of stainless steel, and a 1961 Indy 500 pace-car lap marking the race’s Golden Anniversary. Read on for the engine options, rare packages, and one-of-a-kind builds that defined this generation.