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The 2017 New York Auto Show leaned hard into SUVs, from a new Lincoln Navigator to a 707-horsepower Jeep Trackhawk. But buried in the same lineup was Dodge’s answer to the utility-vehicle takeover: an 840-horsepower Challenger SRT Demon. Here’s how the show’s biggest trend and its loudest outlier ended up sharing a floor.
After ten years, Fargo’s weekly Cruisin’ Broadway came to an end, and a monthly Cars and Coffee stepped in to replace it, meeting on Sunday mornings in a downtown lot near the Red River starting in May. The switch is more than a name change: it reflects a nationwide shift from rolling cruises to relaxed morning meets that welcome classics, tuners, muscle cars, bikes, and trucks alike. Read on to find out where the Cars and Coffee idea came from and why it took over.
Chevrolet used the Geneva Motor Show to reveal a Camaro built specifically with European buyers in mind, pairing SS 1LE track hardware with a transmission choice American shoppers couldn’t even get at the time. The satin green Track Concept combined a 453-horsepower V8, upgraded Brembo brakes, and a lowered Magnetic Ride Suspension into a package aimed squarely at track-day driving. Read on to find out why Chevrolet built something so track-focused exclusively for a market that rarely embraces American muscle.
Zach Archer had already tried vintage Corvettes, Camaros, Mustangs, and modern performance cars, and none of them stuck. So a friend at DI Motorwerkz stopped advising and started building, and what came out the other side was a 1969 Chevelle carrying a claimed 740 horsepower from a modern crate big-block that leaves the factory rated at 627. Read on for what the LSX454 actually is, why it is not the big-block your father argued about, and what it takes to find another hundred-plus horsepower.
What began in 2005 as a casual cookout for members of an online Camaro and Firebird forum has grown into one of Michigan’s biggest car shows, drawing F-Bodies from every generation to a Milford parking lot each year. Since 2013, the event has doubled as a charity fundraiser, giving car culture a purpose beyond the parking lot. Stock survivors and heavily modified pro-touring builds share the same field this Saturday. Read on to find out what turned a small group cookout into the state’s largest F-Body gathering.
A Friday night cruise through downtown Muskogee doesn’t require a trailer or a six-figure restoration, just show up and, in the club president’s words, ‘jump right in.’ Here’s the story behind the 25-plus-year-old Cruis’n Angels Car Club, its Broadway cruise nights, and the community-focused car show that’s outlasted plenty of flashier events.
Dodge kept the third-generation Challenger in showrooms for nearly a decade on retro styling and attitude alone, and most of that run was defined by V8 horsepower wars. Then the company quietly built one with all-wheel drive and a V6, which looked like an apology to anyone who lives where it snows. The 2017 Challenger GT was the first American muscle coupe ever offered with AWD, and the idea deserved better than it got.
An eight-minute bidding war inside Seattle’s CenturyLink Field Event Center ended with a numbers-matching, four-speed 1971 Plymouth Hemi Cuda convertible selling for $3.5 million — the highest price ever paid for one at public auction. Viewers in the comments do the math on what the car cost new, debate where collector values go next, and imagine the seller’s mixed emotions. See the sale that redefined what a Mopar convertible could be worth.
The Galpin Rocket showed up at an auto show as a carbon-bodied, supercharged reimagining of the Mustang co-designed by Henrik Fisker, then seemed to disappear before anyone could buy one. A Michigan low-volume manufacturer picked the project back up and put it in its own catalog. What emerged made 725 horsepower and carried a six-figure price. Read on for the story of the wildest Mustang that never came from Ford.
A camouflaged Mustang mule caught testing on public roads turned out to be hiding a supercharged version of Ford’s 5.2 litre Voodoo V8. Three years later the production Shelby GT500 landed with 760 horsepower, no manual gearbox, no convertible and no sunroof. Here is what the spy shots were actually pointing at, and why Ford made every one of those decisions on purpose.
Plenty of enthusiasts talk about cutting a monthly bill and redirecting the money into a project car. Far fewer actually do it. This owner canceled cable television, broke a long cycle of buying cheap and wretched project cars, and ended up with a green 1972 Ford Ranchero from the single most transformative model year in the nameplate’s history. Read on to find out what changed that year and why it mattered.
In 2017 the rumor mill had a specific target: a 2019 Dodge Barracuda that would replace the aging Challenger with something smaller, lighter and built on Alfa Romeo underpinnings. It never happened. What Dodge actually did with the Challenger over the following six years turned out to be far stranger than the rumor, and the Barracuda name is still sitting unused. Here is where the story came from and how it really ended.
Hennessey Performance took a Camaro ZL1 that already made 650 horsepower from the factory and decided that was not nearly enough. The resulting package carries a claimed four-figure output, a name aimed squarely at a rival from Auburn Hills, and a price that doubles what the donor car cost. A dozen buyers signed up before most people had even seen one run. Read on for what is actually in the package.
V8TV pulled six cars from The Brothers Collection for this Muscle Car of the Week episode, each one chosen specifically because it does not look like what it actually is — including a supercharged Studebaker Avanti and a four-door, four-speed 1965 Galaxie R-Code 427. Viewers responded by sharing their own sleeper stories, from a grandfather’s 421 Super Duty Catalina to a Corvair packing a 327 small block in the back seat. Watch to see all six.
Every car on this list has one thing in common: buyers keep paying a premium regardless of what else is happening in the market. Rarity, documented history, and a wave of nostalgia driven demand, especially from younger collectors introduced to these cars through film and pop culture, keep pushing prices for even once affordable muscle cars steadily upward. It is a reminder that horsepower alone was never the whole story.