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Three divisions inside the same company built three different Hemi V8s in the early 1950s, and each one ended up with a completely different personality. Chrysler chased outright power, DeSoto split the difference, and Dodge built the smallest and mildest of the three while publicly insisting it wanted nothing to do with the horsepower race. The Red Ram’s reputation today is a little ironic given that pitch. Read on to find out how the smallest early Hemi became one of the most beloved.
Months before Dodge officially unveiled the Challenger SRT Demon, fans spotted silver, flare-fendered Challengers in an early trailer for The Fate of the Furious, with Vin Diesel appearing in a behind-the-scenes clip alongside one. The car backed up the hype: a supercharged 6.2-liter Hemi V8 making 840 horsepower and 770 lb-ft of torque, good for a 2.3-second 0-60 run. It’s one of the most dramatic factory-to-Hollywood crossovers in modern muscle car history.
The 2018 Chevrolet Tahoe RST pairs a 420-horsepower, 460-lb-ft 6.2-liter V8 with a 10-speed automatic shared with the Camaro ZL1, hitting 60 mph in a claimed 5.7 seconds while still towing up to 8,300 pounds. Choosing that engine also unlocks Magnetic Ride Control, plus optional Borla exhaust and Brembo brakes. It’s proof Chevy is willing to loan its performance parts bin to the family truck.
Dodge’s Coronet R/T did not bother hiding its best engine in the options list; a 375-horsepower, 440-cubic-inch Magnum V8 came standard, backed by torsion-bar suspension and heavy-duty brakes that lived up to the Road and Track name. Buyers chasing even more had the legendary 426 Hemi waiting further up the order sheet. Here is how the Coronet R/T backed up its displacement-war bragging rights on the strip.
A Swedish filmmaker named Albert pointed a GoPro Hero 5 at a muscle car meet in the middle of Stockholm, four thousand miles from Detroit, and turned it into something that plays more like a short film than a car show recap. The low, sweeping shots and a Cranneg remix soundtrack pulled praise from viewers across Europe and the Americas alike. Watch to see how far the American muscle car hobby actually travels.
Internal Combustion’s 4K walkaround of the 2017 Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals captures the Rosemont, Illinois show known for its Time Capsule survivor awards alongside concours-level restorations. The creator calls out Mopars, Boss 429 Mustangs, and Pontiac Firebirds as personal favorites, while one viewer argues the show is missing the average joe car altogether. MCACN’s indoor November format gives fragile, unrestored originals a weather-proof stage most summer shows can’t offer. Watch to see what an indoor survivor-focused show actually looks like up close.
A Novato homeowner was doing what countless classic car owners do on a weekend — trying to coax a long-dormant engine back to life in his garage. A strange chemical smell on the first attempt should have been a warning sign. Instead, a second try on the ignition ended in an engine bay explosion, a spreading hillside fire, and a two-alarm response from local firefighters. Here’s what actually happened, and why old muscle cars carry this exact risk.
At the 2017 New York Auto Show, a small Florida company stole attention away from every major manufacturer with a car that technically should not exist: a modern Trans Am making roughly 1,000 horsepower from a NASCAR-engineered 455 big-block. Built on a Camaro-based chassis and priced well into six figures, it is less a restoration than a full continuation of Pontiac’s most legendary nameplate. Read on to find out what your money actually buys.
Clive Sutton already had a reputation for tuning Mustangs to 700bhp, then his shop decided to go further. The CS800 squeezes as much as 825bhp and 640 lb-ft out of the Mustang’s 5.0-litre V8 using a Stage 2 Whipple supercharger, backing the numbers with a full carbon-fibre body kit and a bespoke interior. Here’s what it takes to build Britain’s answer to the American muscle car.
Automotive historians point to a specific starting line and a specific peak for the muscle car era, separated by just six years and followed by a collapse that took barely half that long. A single stacked model year put nearly every brand’s most extreme performance car on sale at once, and the decline that followed was driven by regulation, insurance, fuel prices, and even a change in how horsepower was measured. Here’s how the era’s beginning, peak, and sudden end actually lined up. Read on to see which cars defined the peak.
Every classic muscle car owner has a story about the mistake that cost them an engine, a transmission, or a rear end — and the stories keep repeating because these cars share a handful of very specific weak points. From carburetor floods that can hydro-lock a cylinder to reproduction tires that shock-load a differential, here are the ownership mistakes that quietly ruin more muscle cars than any track day ever could.
For its 50th anniversary in 2017, Shelby American didn’t throw a retrospective – it built the most powerful Super Snake the company had ever sold to the public, with an optional supercharger pushing past 750 horsepower. Here’s what separates the base and optional power packages, what the hardware underneath had to do to handle it, and how a limited 500-unit run turned a legendary one-off into something you could actually order.
Four doors, a trunk, and — in some cases — more horsepower than the muscle cars they get compared to. From Dodge’s 707-hp Hellcat sedan to a Holden-built Chevrolet SS with a manual transmission, these sedans prove the muscle car formula survived long after two-door coupes stopped being the only way to build one. Read on to see which family cars are actually the quickest thing in the driveway.
Tom Cotter tracks down a car so rare only 85 were ever built in Episode 16 of Hagerty’s Barn Find Hunter — one carrying a seven-figure valuation despite needing a full restoration. Hagerty’s own description dares viewers to guess what it is before watching. What makes the find real, rather than just valuable, is a detail casual viewers might miss: most of the original parts are apparently still there.
California’s Riverside Police Department took delivery of a 2016 Ford Mustang GT that had been handed to Steve Saleen’s shop and returned with a supercharged 5.0-liter V8 making roughly 730 horsepower and 600 lb-ft of torque, plus revised suspension, big brakes, and a rear wing under black-and-white livery. Built as a rolling memorial and community outreach tool rather than a patrol car, it is the modern extreme of a police Mustang tradition that dates back decades. Read on to find out how it came together.