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Beyond the well-known bargains, plenty of affordable muscle car ownership still hides in plain sight. Cars like the Chevrolet Nova, Dodge Dart Sport, and Buick Skylark deliver real small-block performance for a fraction of what a comparable Camaro or Mustang costs. The simple reason: fewer buyers chase these badges, which keeps demand, and prices, refreshingly low.
A straight trade between two muscle car enthusiasts in 1977 turned into one of the great sleeper stories of the era: a 1969 GTX swapped for a dark green, unassuming 1970 Ford Torino packing the Super Cobra Jet engine and factory drag pack. Read on for the specs behind the sleeper — and the dollar-on-the-dash trick that proved just how quick it really was.
By 1972, Chevrolet had already taken away the engine option that once made the Nova SS a genuine threat at the drag strip, and buyers kept ordering the package anyway. In fact they ordered more of them than the year before. The 200-horsepower rating on the window sticker looks feeble until you understand what changed about how Detroit measured horsepower that year. Here is what the SS package actually bought, and why owners stay so loyal.
Roy Brizio grew up around his father’s South San Francisco speed shop and turned that upbringing into one of hot rodding’s most respected builder names. His 1987 America’s Most Beautiful Roadster win put him on the map, and clients like Eric Clapton and Neil Young have kept him building for over four decades. Here is the story behind one of hot rodding’s quiet legends.
A 1967 Chevelle built for a road course sounds like a contradiction, because these cars were engineered for straight lines and stoplights. Chad Hill and the crew at Hot Rod Chassis and Cycle built one anyway, called it Rush, and gave it a splitter, a wing, a Ridetech cage and enough LS power to justify all of it. Making a fifty-year-old A-body actually turn takes far more than bolting on aero. Here is what the job really involves.
Long before Tallahassee had a legal place to race, drivers settled things on remote Leon County roads like Mission Road. The city’s answer was a sanctioned strip on west Highway 20, built in the mid-1960s as drag racing nationwide moved out of the shadows. Here is a look back at that transition and the outlaw scene it never fully replaced.
A dashboard puck that plugged into any car and projected navigation, texts, and calls onto the windshield sounded like the future in 2015. Navdy raised over a million dollars in a week and shipped thousands of units before quietly shutting down in 2017. Here is what doomed one of the most promising aftermarket heads-up displays ever built.
A record crowd of 90,000 turned out when Barrett-Jackson brought its collector car auction to Mohegan Sun Casino for the first time. More than 500 vehicles sold for over $26 million, led by a 1969 Chevrolet Corvette L88. See what made this Northeast debut one for the record books — and why it’s still growing.
A stroked LS3 and a 10-mile traffic jam outside the California/Nevada line are what it took to strand Project Orange Krate, a 1971 Camaro with a project-car pedigree that traces back to the long-defunct Camaro Performers magazine. It’s second in magazine-build longevity only to the legendary Project X. Running out of gas mid-desert on I-15 turned a good weekend at Holley LS Fest West into a lesson every pro-touring builder eventually learns the hard way: horsepower changes your fuel math more than your gauge admits.
When longtime dealer Bob Taylor retired after 37 years running his own classic car shop, he didn’t just sell off the inventory — he mentored his successor into building a new showroom nearby. The result is a 6,500-square-foot space in El Paso that feels, by Taylor’s own admission, eerily similar to the shop he just closed. Read on for the story behind the handoff.
A routine trademark filing with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had Mopar fans refreshing message boards for weeks after Fiat Chrysler quietly renewed its claim on the word ‘Cuda,’ two years after doing the same for ‘Barracuda.’ Corporate lawyers rarely do anything without a reason. Read on to find out what the filing does, and does not, actually confirm.
For years General Motors banned engines larger than 400 cubic inches from its mid-size cars. When that rule lifted for 1970, Chevrolet immediately dropped a 454 into the Chevelle SS, and it arrived in two very different forms. The LS6 got the headlines at 450 horsepower, but the LS5 outsold it and outlasted it. Here is what separated the two engines and why an original LS5 survivor matters.
A private collector’s classified ad seeking any 1968-1972 Plymouth Road Runner or GTX, project or finished, highlights just how differently these two closely related muscle cars are remembered decades later. Built on the same platform but aimed at completely different buyers, telling them apart takes more than a glance at the badge. Read on to find out exactly what separates a genuine GTX from a Road Runner, and why the distinction matters so much to serious buyers.
Brainerd International Raceway traces back to 1968, when it opened as Donnybrooke Speedway carved through the woods of central Minnesota. Its Muscle Car Series crowns a champion across three races rather than one, and last year’s Outlaw Class came down to a single point between three drivers. Read on for how modern doorslammers running six-second quarter miles at over 200 mph trace back to the same platforms that ran the 13s in the 1960s.
Rumors of a modern Plymouth ‘Cuda revival have circulated in the Mopar press for years, but the original nameplate earned its legendary status the hard way — starting as a compact Valiant-based fastback in 1964, then gaining a 425-horsepower 426 Hemi option by 1970 after fifty factory race cars tested the combination in 1968. Genuine Hemi Cuda convertibles now sell for seven figures at major auctions. Read on to find out why Dodge keeps circling back to a nameplate it retired decades ago.