 |
The 1966 Fairlane GTA convertible shared enough DNA with the humble Falcon that most buyers overlooked it, but a single letter separated it from ordinary Fairlanes. Ford’s redesigned 390-cubic-inch V8 delivered 335 horsepower standard on GT and GTA trims, with the A marking the automatic-equipped version. Just over 13,000 Fairlane convertibles were built that year, making genuine GTAs a rare and underappreciated find for collectors today.
This 1967 Nova hides 1,000-plus horsepower under sheet metal that once housed a modest 275-horse V8 at best. A 632-cubic-inch big block, nitrous, and a rear-mounted parachute turn a car Chevrolet built as economical transportation into an 8-second quarter-mile machine. Factory Nova SS production that year was already thin, just over 10,000 units, making the gap between stock and this build even more dramatic.
Ford did not build a new engine to make the 1965 Mustang quick. It reached into a completely different car’s parts bin, pulled out an engine that had already been proving itself elsewhere for two years, and charged a serious premium for the privilege. Only a tiny fraction of buyers ever checked the box, and the horsepower figure attached to this car deserves a closer look than it usually gets.
Ford’s third-generation Thunderbird earned the nickname “Bullet Bird” decades ago for its missile-like nose and round jet-age taillights — and this 1963 build leans into that name hard. Under the hood, though, the factory FE-series V8 is gone, replaced by a modern 5.0-liter Coyote V8 backed by an overdrive automatic, a 9-inch Ford rear end, and Wilwood disc brakes at all four corners. The result looks like 1963 and drives like nothing from that decade ever could. Here’s why builders keep reaching for Coyote swaps in cars like this one.
Chevrolet’s rare 1971 Monte Carlo big-block option carries a naming quirk that still trips up collectors: order a “402” and you get the right engine, but Chevy’s own literature badged it the Turbo-Jet 400. Rated at roughly 300 horsepower and 400 lb-ft of torque, it was a serious engine wedged into a car most buyers chose for comfort, not quarter-mile times. Pairing it with a four-speed manual, like this car, makes surviving examples even scarcer. Here’s the story behind Chevy’s oddly-named big-block Monte Carlo.
Most people who can identify a 1969 Dodge Charger on sight have never seen one in person. They know it from a television show that turned an orange, door-welded stunt car into one of the most recognizable vehicles in American culture, and that fame ended up burying what Dodge actually built. Underneath the paint sat a genuinely serious platform with a real racing record that predated Hollywood by a decade.
Ford’s 1967 Mustang order sheet topped out with the 390 cubic inch S-Code V8 — the biggest engine the pony car could carry that year, rated at 320 horsepower and roughly 427 lb-ft of torque. Most buyers chose lighter, cheaper small-block options instead, which is exactly why documented S-Code GT Fastbacks like this one are so scarce today. Ford built roughly 28,800 Mustangs with this engine across the entire 1967 lineup. Here’s what made the biggest ’67 Mustang engine such a hard sell.
This 1964 Impala convertible wears the right badges but hides a fully built 427 roller big block rated at 550 horsepower, an engine Chevrolet never actually offered in the model that year. It is a modern muscle build wrapped in classic Impala sheet metal, built for a very different kind of driving than the factory intended.
Few production cars let all four doors swing open with no center pillar in the way — Lincoln built one on purpose, then added a hidden safety interlock most owners never noticed. This powder blue 1964 Continental is one of just 3,328 four-door convertibles Lincoln built that year, vastly outnumbered by hardtop sedans. Under its long hood sits a 430 cubic inch V8 good for roughly 320 horsepower. Here’s what makes this body style so hard to find today.
The LT1 badge has powered three different Chevy small-blocks across more than 50 years: a 1970 Z/28 original, a 1992 Corvette and Camaro revival, and today’s direct-injected Gen V engine making 460 horsepower in the Camaro SS. That exhaust note isn’t just loud for the sake of it; it carries one of Chevrolet’s most storied performance names.
In 1968 the hottest engine you could order in an Oldsmobile Cutlass was a 400 cubic inch V8 making 350 horsepower, and the only way to get a 455 that year involved a third-party company working around a General Motors rule. Somewhere along the line, this particular Cutlass got something neither option covers: a supercharged 6.2-liter engine that debuted in a Cadillac sedan four decades later. Here is where that swap really comes from.
Ford engineers had followed an unwritten rule for eighty-three years: production V8s do not rev much past 7,000 rpm without something breaking. The team behind the 2016 Shelby GT350 decided that rule no longer applied, gave the 5.2-liter Voodoo V8 a flat-plane crankshaft, and tuned it to 8,250 rpm. The result made 526 horsepower with no turbocharger anywhere in sight. Here is how they built an engine that could survive it.
A 1972 El Camino and a 1970 Oldsmobile 442 convertible do not have much in common on paper, one is a truck, the other paced the Indy 500, but both left the factory with genuinely serious engine options. Fresh restorations of either one are a serious undertaking. Here is what made each of these cars worth the effort in the first place.