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A Ford engineer backing his own Shelby GT350 out of his driveway got the cops called on him by an annoyed neighbor, and that awkward morning became the reason the 2018 Mustang GT has a ‘Good Neighbor Mode.’ Quiet Start and Quiet Exhaust settings can drop noise by 10 decibels and be scheduled straight from the steering wheel. Sometimes the best engineering comes from genuine embarrassment.
A chance encounter with a brand-new Oxford White 2014 Mustang GT while cruising in a 1987 5.0 turned into an unexpected lesson in just how far Ford’s small-block had evolved. The Fox-body’s 225-horsepower pushrod V8 and the Coyote’s 420-horsepower DOHC screamer share a name and a displacement, but almost nothing else under the surface. What one owner discovered comparing them side by side says a lot about a quarter-century of Mustang engineering, and about the friendships that get built around cars like these.
The Dodge Challenger SRT Demon hogs every headline in the Mopar world, but Dodge never stopped building a 707-horsepower muscle car that most buyers can actually walk into a dealership and drive home. Here is what the Hellcat brings to the table when it steps out of its more extreme sibling”s shadow, and why dismissing it as the consolation prize misses the point entirely.
Every year, the best custom builds in the country roll into Cobo Hall hoping to turn heads at the Detroit Autorama — a show that’s been crowning showstoppers since the Eisenhower administration. Mal Forys built his customized Challenger without a professional shop behind him, and it’s earned him a spot in the conversation more than once. Here’s why breaking into that class at one of the oldest custom shows in America is such a big deal.
Nobody buys a muscle car for its crash test rating, but that is exactly what the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety decided to measure, putting a trio of iconic sports coupes through its full battery of tests in 2016. Not one of them earned a TOP SAFETY PICK award. Watch the full IIHS release to see how speed and safety stacked up against each other.
After 40 years asleep in a garage, this numbers-matching 1969 Camaro Z/28 finally saw daylight again when Ralph Bizzarro convinced his friend to finally sell. Under the hood is the legendary DZ 302, a small-block engineered specifically to sneak under SCCA Trans-Am’s displacement limit, underrated at 290 horsepower despite dyno pulls closer to 400. Chevy built roughly 19,000 Z/28s in 1969, but true barn-fresh survivors like this one are vanishingly rare.
The original Dodge Challenger sold nearly 77,000 units in its debut year, then watched sales crater to a quarter of that almost immediately, numbers that look like a failure on paper. But blame the oil crisis, crushing new insurance surcharges, and emissions regulations that gutted the engine lineup before you blame the car itself. Over its five model years, Dodge still moved roughly 188,600 Challengers before pulling the plug in April 1974.
Germany isn’t the first place you’d expect to find a gathering of rat rods, Bel Airs, and Hemi-powered Americana, but every May a decommissioned coal mine in Herten turns into exactly that. Kustom Kulture Forever has grown into one of the biggest custom car and hot rod shows on the entire continent. Here’s what makes this only-in-Europe celebration of American steel worth the trip.
Fifty years after breaking Ferrari six-year stranglehold on Le Mans, Ford is putting that victory back on the road with a heritage-liveried GT. This gloss red, red-stitched special edition ties back to one of the greatest underdog wins in racing history. See how Ford turned a decades-old Le Mans triumph into a modern tribute.
Mecum’s Kissimmee auction is famous for volume — acres of muscle cars crossing the block over more than a week. But the real draw for serious collectors is the oddball that shouldn’t exist at all, like a factory-built Pontiac Trans Am wagon GM never intended to sell to the public. Here’s the story behind one of the strangest survivors to ever roll across an auction stage.
Nothing else rolling off a factory floor lets you push a button and switch your fuel calibration from regular pump gas to genuine 100+ octane race fuel, but that’s exactly what the Demon’s dual-fuel system does. Behind that button sits a second PCM, dual fuel pumps, and larger injectors than even the Hellcat gets. It’s drag-strip engineering wearing a factory warranty.
Pontiac borrowed a punchline from a Saturday-night comedy show and turned it into one of the most respected muscle car packages of 1970. The Judge added a Hurst shifter, a spoiler, and a Ram Air engine to an already potent GTO — for a price that scared off most buyers. Fewer than 3,800 were built that year, and only 168 of those were convertibles. Here’s what made this rare bird worth chasing then, and why it still is now.
In 1969, Oldsmobile faced a conundrum that would tickle any marketer’s funny bone: how do you convince a youthful crowd to buy a car with “OLD” in its name? As the century rolled onward, General Motors’ upscale buyers were starting to show their age, leaving Oldsmobile’s sales team sweating bullets. But rather than let their brand become a relic, they embraced the irony, trying to flip the script and turn Oldsmobile into the “Youngmobile.” After all, who doesn’t love a good underdog story?
At a glance, it looks like a converted Chevelle wagon from the mid-’60s. Look closer and you’re staring at something Pontiac never built in any year, any trim, any factory brochure: a genuine two-door version of its mid-size wagon. Here’s why a body style General Motors never tooled up is now a real, driveable “one of none.”