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Barrett-Jackson’s 46th Annual Scottsdale Auction rolled a deep run of rare Mopars across the block in January 2017, and one lot in particular had the rest of the docket looking over its shoulder: a 1970 Plymouth Hemi ‘Cuda listed as one of only fourteen built, carrying documented race history and national records. Here is what made that car, and the Mopar run around it, worth paying attention to.
Under-$10,000 classic convertibles aren’t a myth — Alfa Romeo Spiders, droptop Beetles, and even 1970s-80s Mercedes SLs regularly sell for less than a new economy car. The catch is knowing which cars are genuinely affordable to own versus which just look that way on the price tag, and a pre-purchase inspection is the cheapest insurance you’ll ever buy.
A concours-quality restoration isn’t measured in weekends — it’s measured in years, with top shops logging 4,000-plus labor hours per car at $135-plus per hour. The difference between a nice classic and a Pebble Beach contender comes down to details most people would never notice: bolt heads, stitching patterns, and paint sheens matched to factory records decades old.
On paper, a 707-horsepower Challenger Hellcat against a 455-horsepower Camaro SS is not a race at all, it is a 250-horsepower head start. In practice these matchups have gone both ways often enough to deserve an explanation, and the reasons have far less to do with peak power than with 750 pounds of weight, a pair of 275-section tires, and the first sixty feet off the line. Read on for why the spec sheet keeps losing to the stopwatch.
The Mustang RTR is Vaughn Gittin Jr.’s production interpretation of the car he drifts for a living, and its tiers differ by considerably more than badges. The 472-horsepower figure attached to the GT comes from Ford Performance hardware rather than a third-party tuner, which is precisely why the factory warranty survives the upgrade intact. Read on for what separates Spec 1 from Spec 2, and why the suspension work may matter more than the power does.
Filmed at the Mobil 1 booth during the 2014 SEMA Show, this segment follows a 1969 Chevrolet Camaro SS pro-touring build putting down a dyno-verified 464 pound-feet of torque to the wheels. Its exactly the kind of vintage-meets-modern build SEMA has become known for showcasing on its biggest stage. Viewers have plenty of opinions about how the story gets told, but not about the numbers. Watch to see what “new technology meets vintage muscle” actually looks like under the hood.
Chevrolet marked the Camaro’s fiftieth birthday in 2017 with a commemorative edition available three completely different ways: a 275-horsepower turbocharged four, a 335-horsepower V6, or the 455-horsepower LT1 V8, all wearing the same Nightfall Gray paint and orange stripes. It was a styling package rather than a performance one, which raises a fair question about what a fiftieth anniversary should actually celebrate. Read on for what the package included and what these cars are worth now.
A recent horsepower-per-dollar ranking crowned the Chevrolet Camaro the best value on sale, fitting, since the ranking landed during the models final production year. From the 455-horsepower Camaro to unexpected contenders like the Tesla Model 3 Performance, here is where cheap horsepower lives now, and how it compares to the muscle car bargains collectors still chase today.
The Goodguys Rod and Custom Association started with a single 650-car show in a California fairground parking lot back in 1983. Four decades later it is the largest street rod and custom car organization in the country, staging 15 events a year in 17 states plus vintage drag races. The Day in the Hay in Lincoln, Nebraska carries on that same formula on a smaller, regional scale.
Jay Lenos Burbank garage holds an estimated 180 cars and 160 motorcycles, but a handful of American muscle cars keep coming up whenever he talks about the ones he loves most. A 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T and a 1969 Camaro Z28 sit alongside oddballs like the front-wheel-drive 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado. Here is what his favorites say about what makes a muscle car worth keeping.
The 2018 Dodge Demon made 840 horsepower on race fuel, ran a certified 9.65-second quarter mile, and lifted its front wheels 2.92 feet off the ground, a Guinness-certified first for a production car. Dodge had Nitto build it a street-legal drag radial, rerouted the air conditioning to chill the supercharger, and deleted the passenger seat, selling it back for a dollar. Only 3,300 were built. Read on for what went into it.
Troy LaCrone made his name with a nitrous small-block 1971 Camaro that ran 9.19 at over 140 mph while still riding on leaf springs and slapper bars, a car that looked eight seconds slower than it was. Asked whether he would keep chasing quicker numbers, he said he hoped not. He later posted a 7.7730 average at Hot Rod Drag Week and beat JJ Da Boss on television. Read on for how that progression actually happened.
A stock sixth-generation Camaro ZL1 already runs the quarter mile in the low elevens straight off the showroom floor. Vengeance Racing decided that was a starting point, built one past 1,000 rear-wheel horsepower, and ran a 9.58 at nearly 153 mph, the quickest sixth-gen ZL1 in the world at the time. Then they went considerably further. Read on to find out how far the platform can actually be pushed.
A Ford GT40 — the car built specifically to humiliate Ferrari at Le Mans — lines up against a modern 707-horsepower Dodge Hellcat on an Illinois airstrip in this 1320video matchup from Omega Motorsport’s NoFlyZone Midwest. Sixty years of engineering separate these two cars, but only a quarter-mile separates them on the pavement. Watch to see which era comes out ahead.
The Vanderhall Venice is neither motorcycle nor car, and that ambiguity is exactly the point. Built around a turbocharged four-cylinder and a lightweight composite body on an aluminum chassis, this American-made three-wheeler trades a fourth wheel for a driving experience most sports cars cannot match. Read on to find out what actually separates it from the trikes of decades past.