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A teenager who fell in love with Mopars watching quarter-mile battles at a Rhode Island airstrip in the early ’60s spent decades chasing down the car that started it all: a 1964 Plymouth Savoy carrying Chrysler’s Max Wedge engine in its final and rarest form. Here’s why that one model year, and that one drivetrain combination, was never repeated.
Car Craft brought a 1968 Chevrolet Chevelle SS396 hardtop to Irwindale dragstrip in November 1967 expecting the 375-horsepower L78 to dominate the timeslip. Writer John Raffa came away frustrated instead, and said so in print in the February 1968 issue. That contradiction, a genuinely fast car that still disappointed the man driving it, says more about muscle car era expectations than any dyno figure. Read on to find out what quarter-mile testing actually measured.
Ford’s design studios didn’t stop at the Mustang that made it to showrooms, they also sketched a mid-engine two-seat exotic, a European-flavored roadster, an 855-horsepower one-off, and even a station wagon wearing the pony badge. Some near-misses shaped legendary programs that did get built; others vanished after a single running prototype. Read on to see which unbuilt Mustangs came closest to changing the car’s entire story.
Dodge could have sold the Hellcat on horsepower numbers alone. Instead it hired the star of the biggest car franchise in movie history, scored three commercials to a track built for tension rather than a jingle, and closed each one with a line that reads more like a recruitment pitch than an ad. The Brotherhood of Muscle campaign told buyers almost nothing about the cars. Here is why that was exactly the point, and why it worked.
The 2017 Shelby GT350’s 5.2-liter Voodoo V8 used a flat-plane crankshaft, revved to 8,250 rpm, and made 526 horsepower without a turbo or a supercharger anywhere in sight. It was hand-assembled by two-person teams on a dedicated line, sounded more like a Ferrari than a Mustang, and lasted five model years before Ford moved on. Owners still treat surviving examples as a limited-run specialty engine rather than an ordinary Mustang V8. Read on for why.
A Dodge Challenger Hellcat and Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 lined up for a rolling highway pull, the kind of real-world test that does not always agree with drag-strip time slips. The Hellcat’s 57-horsepower advantage on paper met the ZL1’s lighter chassis and quicker-spooling supercharger on the open road. Read on to see why the result depended more on speed range and gearing than on the horsepower figures alone.
Pro driver Randy Pobst put the 2018 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE through a hot lap at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca as part of Motor Trend’s 2017 Best Driver’s Car competition — a field normally dominated by six-figure exotics. Built with track-tuned suspension and aerodynamics beyond the standard ZL1, the 1LE was Chevrolet’s answer to anyone who doubted a Camaro belonged on the same list as genuine supercars.
Dodge’s teaser campaign for the 2018 Challenger SRT Demon leaned entirely on math instead of marketing hype, previewing a launch force over 35 percent higher than the already-brutal Hellcat. With 840 horsepower on race fuel, a one-seat factory configuration, and only 3,000 units built, the Demon turned out to be one of the most deliberately extreme muscle cars Detroit has ever sold. Read on for the numbers behind the teaser.
Dodge’s 707-horsepower supercharged Hellcat engine was never built with winter traction in mind — it exists to turn tires into smoke on dry pavement, not tiptoe around ice. Watching a supercharged Hemi V8 fight for grip in a snow-covered parking lot reveals more about this engine’s absurd power than any quarter-mile time could. Dodge even built a second, lower-output key specifically to keep 707 horsepower away from unprepared drivers. Read on to find out why these clips keep circulating.
A battered Dodge Challenger sat forgotten in an Australian garage for years, its owner unaware of what he had until he saw the same car in a movie trailer. It is a 1971 dressed as a 1970, built to survive one of the most dangerous practical stunts of the 2000s, with reinforced door frames welded on so a stuntwoman could ride the hood. Read on for how it was built, how it was found, and what a screen-used car is really worth.
For the Super Snake’s fiftieth anniversary, Shelby American could have printed a badge and called it a celebration. Instead the Las Vegas shop built its first factory concept car in more than a decade, and pointed a nameplate famous for quarter-mile bragging rights squarely at road courses. Read on to find out what changed underneath, and why the width mattered more than the horsepower.
A single stretch of muscle car headlines captured just how wide the hobby’s range really is: a collector-car auction billing itself as the world’s largest, a long-overdue disc brake upgrade for classic GM cars, and a 526-horsepower Ford Shelby GT350 built around a flat-plane crank V8. Read on to see how a record auction, a cheap brake fix, and one seriously fast new Mustang all connect.
The 55th Chicago World of Wheels packed the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center with muscle cars, customs, and hot rods for its own version of March Madness. The show traces back to a 1962 Navy Pier gathering staged by the Gas Hoppers Car Club, and it survived a fire that destroyed McCormick Place, years in exile, and a 2010 move to Rosemont. Read on to find out how an ISCA-sanctioned winter show became the marquee stop for Midwest muscle car fans.
Pikes Peak’s thin air punishes forced induction, which is why the 1969 Camaro known as Big Red traded its usual supercharged big-block for a naturally aspirated combination built just for the mountain. Another competitor drove his twin-turbo street Mustang nearly 3,600 miles round-trip simply to reach the starting line, then raced through goats and fog. Read on to see how two very different preparation strategies played out on the same 12.42-mile course.
Registration opened for the 2017 Optima Search for the Ultimate Street Car with Danny Popp, an ASE Master Technician and GM-Certified Corvette specialist, defending three straight championships. The series scores road course, autocross, braking, acceleration, and design judging together, and Popp made history in 2011 as the first winner in a modern car, a 2006 Corvette Z06. Read on to find out what it takes to keep beating a field of classic and late-model muscle across every discipline.