 |
Shawn Ellington’s Murder Nova, a 1969 Chevy built around a Proline Racing big-block, is one of the most recognized cars in grassroots drag racing. At Lights Out 7, one of small-tire racing’s biggest proving grounds, the Nova pushed all the way to the semifinal round, silencing anyone who doubted a TV personality’s car could actually run with dedicated racers. Here’s how a kid from Sayre, Oklahoma built a name that still means something at the track.
This widebody 1965 Corvette Sting Ray track build channels a fight General Motors never officially let its own engineers finish: Zora Arkus-Duntov’s secret Grand Sport racing program against Shelby’s Cobras. Riding on the first Corvette generation to get standard four-wheel disc brakes, with stretched fenders and a setup built to rule a road course, it’s less resto-mod than unfinished business.
This Corvette C6 turbo build proves boost and a Corvette chassis can genuinely coexist on both street and track. Twin-turbo LS builds on the C6 platform range from mild 700-800 horsepower street tunes to 1,300-plus horsepower record-holders, but the real work happens in the brakes, suspension, and weight reduction that keep a boosted C6 composed lap after lap. Here’s what separates a fast turbo Vette from a genuinely serious one.
This 1969 Road Runner carries the A12 package – a mid-year 440 Six Barrel setup with a factory fiberglass hood held down by hood pins, a treatment Mopar never used on any other model. Only 1,412 were built, and Ronnie Sox once ran one to a 12.91-second quarter mile. Owner Frank Chicherchia previously showed a numbers-matching Hemi Coronet, so he clearly knows rare Mopar iron when he sees it. Find out what’s hiding under that fiberglass.
Buick’s 1965 Riviera Gran Sport looked like nothing more than a plush personal-luxury coupe, but underneath that formal chrome grille sat a 360-horsepower Super Wildcat V8 few buyers ever ordered. Only 3,354 examples left the factory with the GS package, making it one of the rarest performance Buicks of the decade. It ran a 15.3-second quarter-mile in bone-stock trim, proof that Buick’s Nailhead engineers knew exactly what they were doing. Here’s why this overlooked GS deserves a spot in any real muscle car conversation.
Before the Charger stole Dodge’s spotlight, the 1965 Coronet 500 was already packing a 383 cubic-inch V8 rated at a genuine 330 horsepower under a surprisingly conservative roofline. Most people drove right past it at the time, and even now it gets overshadowed by flashier Mopars from the years that followed. That 383 wasn’t a fluke either, it was built on the same B-body foundation that would carry the Charger and R/T nameplates into legend. Here’s why this quiet mid-size Dodge deserves way more credit than it gets.
A 1970 Dodge Charger can hide anything from a mild 318 to a snarling 440 Six Pack under that coke-bottle sheet metal – and the difference shows up the instant the throttle opens. Here’s what separated the base R/T Magnum from the genuinely feared Six Pack option, and why collectors still chase the numbers-matching cars decades later. Real muscle, real history, real reasons to care what’s under this Charger’s hood.
V8TV marked the Camaro’s 50th anniversary in 2017 by pulling a genuinely rare example out of the private Brothers Collection: a Granada Gold 1967 Camaro SS396 convertible carrying the top 375-horsepower engine option. Every layer of specification, body style, engine output, and color, makes this a harder car to find than a standard SS396. See exactly what earned it an episode of Muscle Car of the Week.
A stock 1964 Chevy C10 shipped with a mild inline-six or a 283 small block, built for hauling, not horsepower. This one trades that modest drivetrain for a fuel-injected LS3 crate engine and Corvette brakes at all four corners, all wrapped in styling GM happened to get exactly right the first time. Here’s what makes this classic-to-modern swap work so well.
SEMA 2016 is revving up with muscle cars so powerful they make sportscars squeak worldwide. This year’s show highlights 1000hp vintage Mustangs and artificially aged Dodge Challengers, merging old-school looks with cutting-edge performance. It’s a muscle car lover’s paradise, where America’s favorite marques steal the spotlight. Whether it’s the classic Pontiac GTO, the track-ready Camaro 1LE, or the display of classic muscle in South Otago, these beasts are a nostalgic nod to power and style.
David Reese built this 1966 Ford Mustang Gasser back in 2013, and it still runs its 351 Cleveland exactly the way a period-correct gasser should. What makes War Horse unusual isn’t the raised nose or the drag strip runs — it’s that its owner has actually driven it cross-country on public roads. Watch to see how a dedicated race car earns that kind of mileage.
This twin-turbo Coyote Mustang rolled onto the dyno at Dynoedge running a modified Hellion turbo kit, reworked specifically to shorten intercooler piping and cut turbo lag, and posted a run that pushed toward nearly 1,400 horsepower at 26 psi of boost. Commenters zeroed in on the exhaust note as much as the numbers, calling it one of the best-sounding Coyotes they’d heard on a dyno. Watch the full pull to see exactly what a shortened-piping Hellion setup can do to a factory 5.0.
1961 was Ford’s first real shot at big-inch performance — a brand-new 390 V8 that could be optioned up past 400 horsepower a full year before the muscle car era officially began. This Sunliner keeps it old-school with no power assist anywhere. Here’s what made the early 390 Galaxies genuine sleepers.