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Engineering Explained’s Jason Fenske spent a decade calling the Ford Shelby GT350 the greatest Mustang ever built before finally buying one. The 2018 model he found had a seized flat-plane-crank V8 and metal shavings throughout its oiling system. Here’s why he bought it anyway — and what the Voodoo engine’s quirks reveal about this car’s cult following.
Chevrolet only built the dual-quad 409 for a handful of years before the Mark IV big-block replaced it in 1965, and fewer than 9,000 Impalas got the engine in its final season. Here’s what made the 425-horsepower dual-quad version special, why survivors are so rare, and what to check before buying one.
A bone-stock 1970 Camaro RS with no Super Sport history got a full nine-episode transformation into an L78 396 tribute called ‘Project Limelight’ on MuscleCar — and the compiled build video has now been watched more than 12 million times. Here’s the real story behind the car, the engine it borrowed its identity from, and how to tell a genuine SS from a well-built clone.
For $2,547, Plymouth handed buyers a compact built to look forgettable, with a genuine 340 cubic-inch V8 hiding under that plain sheet metal. Here’s how the Duster 340 quietly became one of Detroit’s smartest muscle car buys, and why numbers-matching survivors are only now getting the collector attention they’ve earned.
Jeff Lutz’s Mad Max Camaro carries a Drag Week championship and a years-old speed record, plus an equally well-earned reputation for spectacular mechanical failures. Rick Ware Racing bought the car in 2026 and built a new twin-turbo Noonan Hemi specifically to chase the elusive five-second average. The comeback lasted exactly one scored pass.
Buying a 1970 Plymouth ‘Cuda without doing your homework is one of the fastest ways to turn a dream car into an expensive mistake. Hemmings breaks down the E-body platform, the full engine lineup from the 340 up to the 426 Hemi, and the specific trouble spots and options that separate a great example from an overpriced tribute car. With E-body prices climbing fast, the stakes for getting it right have never been higher. Watch the full buyer’s guide before you write a check.
AMC was the smallest of Detroit’s automakers, yet in 1968 it built a two-seat sports car that undercut the Corvette by over $1,000 and then quietly broke 106 world speed and endurance records with Craig Breedlove behind the wheel. Only 19,134 were ever built across three model years. Here’s the story of the AMC AMX, the muscle car most fans have never heard of.
A black Pontiac Trans Am shared the screen with Burt Reynolds in 1977’s Smokey and the Bandit, and two years later Pontiac moved 117,108 of them in a single model year. Two decades later, the LS1-powered WS6 Trans Am was faster and better built than ever — and GM killed it anyway. Top Tier Motors traces the cancellation back to four competing forces inside and outside General Motors, none of which had anything to do with the car actually failing to sell.
A factory-built 808-horsepower Dodge Demon versus a 641-horsepower Porsche 911 Turbo S sounds like a mismatch on paper. But the Porsche’s all-wheel-drive launch has quietly beaten cars with twice its power before, and this quarter-mile showdown puts that reputation to the test. Here’s what’s really deciding the race, and it isn’t horsepower.
For years General Motors capped how much engine its mid-size cars were allowed to carry, and that corporate rule quietly strangled the Chevelle’s potential. The cap disappeared for 1970, and Chevrolet moved immediately, jumping from a 396-badged big block straight to a genuine 454 with up to 450 horsepower. Read on to find out what changed inside GM to make that leap possible and why this single model year is still considered the high point of Chevelle performance.
Pontiac built only 168 convertible GTO Judges for 1970, and a documented sliver of those left the factory with the ferocious Ram Air IV V8 instead of the standard motor. One private collection now owns a four-speed example loaded with nearly every option on the sheet, and believes it may be one of the rarest survivors of its kind. Here’s why pinning down the real production numbers on a car like this is harder than it looks.
Plymouth built only 64 of these 440 Six Barrel Sport Fury GTs for 1970, and this one had not turned over since a minor accident parked it in 1981. Dead Dodge Garage spent months chasing a stubborn carburetor problem before finally coaxing the numbers-matching big-block back to life. What they found under the hood tells a bigger story about how few of these full-size muscle cars are still running today.
A tuned Shelby GT500 chased down Ford’s own speed limiter on an unrestricted stretch of German Autobahn, and the digital speedo kept climbing right past the number Ford insists the car can’t reach. Here’s what a 760-horsepower Predator V8 actually does once nothing is holding it back — and why Ford built that ceiling in the first place.