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The decades-old Mustang-versus-Camaro rivalry has found unlikely new life in China, where Ford’s later-arriving pony car has outsold Chevrolet’s by more than 3-to-1 despite a four-year head start for the Camaro. The gap traces back to one detail muscle car fans will recognize instantly: engine choice. Read on to find out why a turbocharged four-cylinder cost Chevrolet the fight.
Spy footage of a camouflaged 2018 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE testing at Germany’s Nurburgring hinted GM was chasing something bigger than a marketing photo op. The 650-horsepower pony car went on to post a 7:16.04 lap, the fastest ever by a GM production vehicle, beating even the Corvette ZR1’s prior benchmark. Read on to find out what the 1LE package actually does to make that possible.
For three weeks in early 2017, Dodge fed the internet nothing but teasers for its upcoming Challenger SRT Demon, letting forums debate whether it would top the Hellcat’s 707 horsepower. The eventual reveal delivered 840 horsepower, a 9.65-second quarter mile, and a Guinness-certified wheelie — numbers big enough to justify weeks of speculation. Read on to find out how the hype campaign actually played out.
A nationwide search-data report from ClassicCars.com found one car dominating collector car searches in more U.S. states than anything else — GM models included. The 1965 and 1967 Ford Mustang model years topped the list state after state, for reasons that trace straight back to the car’s origin as the founder of the entire pony car segment. Read on to find out which states are chasing it hardest.
Chevrolet’s Camaro ZL1 and Dodge’s Challenger Hellcat both pushed past 650 horsepower using completely different engineering paths, an Eaton-blown LT4 versus a larger IHI-blown Hemi, and ran almost identical quarter-mile times despite a 566-pound weight gap between them. Both nameplates are now discontinued within a year of each other. Read on to find out which factory 700-horsepower icon actually deserved the crown.
A Dodge Challenger wedged between a Prius and another hybrid in a Maryland parking lot raises a fair question: is there any version of this HEMI-powered muscle car that’s actually earned a spot in the hybrid section? The honest answer is no, every third-generation Challenger since its 2008 revival has run purely on gas, V6 or V8. This was pure parking-lot irony, not a loophole.
Out of a garage that once held a ’63 Impala, a ’65 GTO convertible, and a ’68 Camaro SS, one lifelong muscle car owner picked a 1967 Plymouth GTX as his all-time favorite – a car built around a standard 375-horsepower 440 Super Commando that only 720 buyers skipped in favor of the pricier Hemi option. Read on to find out why Plymouth’s ‘gentleman’s muscle car’ beat out three genuinely legendary rivals for the top spot.
On a recent episode of “Jay Leno’s Garage,” appraiser Donald Osborne challenged Leno to guess which of three unrestored classics had appreciated the most — and even Leno got it wrong. The reveal says a lot about how collectors actually value originality over polish, a lesson echoed by Ralph Lauren’s own decades of collecting and by the crowds still showing up to events like the Daytona Turkey Run. Read on to see why the roughest-looking car in the lineup won.
A restored 1971 Pontiac Firebird Formula carrying a genuine 455 HO under the hood is asking $34,999, and with round-port heads, 480 lb-ft of torque, and Pontiac now permanently discontinued as a brand, the math behind that number is more interesting than it first looks. Read on to find out why serious collectors have started chasing Formulas over flashier, pricier Trans Ams from the very same model year.
Dodge tried to stop dealer markup on its 3,300-unit Demon with a serialized dash plaque bearing each buyer’s own name and priority pricing reserved for orders at the $84,995 MSRP. Dealers in South Carolina, Tennessee, and Louisiana found the workaround within weeks anyway, auctioning off the right to be that at-MSRP buyer on eBay for bids that reportedly topped $75,000. Read on to find out how Dodge’s own leadership responded once the loophole went public.
This 1970 Buick GSX spent years as a rusted, non-running wreck before a full restoration brought it back to its factory Saturn Yellow finish — one of just 491 built in that color out of 678 GSX cars total. Buick’s overlooked muscle car packed a 455 cubic-inch Stage 1 V8 rated at 360 horsepower, though real output likely ran closer to 376. Read on to find out what it took to bring a rolling wreck back to magazine-cover condition.
Picture more than 10,000 street rods packed into the Kentucky Exposition Center, and somehow a panel of judges still has to whittle that field down to just 100 standouts, twice. The NSRA Street Rod Nationals’ Top 100 program, sponsored by Painless Performance Products, is one of the toughest awards in the hobby precisely because the show is too big for a single list. This build made the cut in the outdoor field.
Chevrolet’s 2015 Camaro Z/28 borrowed its 505-horsepower LS7 engine straight from the Corvette Z06 parts bin, then wrapped it in a chassis stripped, stiffened, and fitted with racing-grade Multimatic dampers built for one job: lap times. Priced from the mid-$60,000s and offered exclusively with a manual transmission, it reportedly posted a 7:37 Nurburgring lap that embarrassed cars costing twice as much. Read on to find out what it actually took to build the fastest Camaro of its generation.
Ford never actually tied the Mustang GT package to a single engine, letting 1968 buyers choose between a mild 302 V8 and the fabled 428 Cobra Jet, all wrapped in a genuinely upscale interior with a two-spoke safety steering wheel and bench-seat option. That same duality put a GT 390 fastback on movie screens in Bullitt, and the surviving ‘hero car’ later sold for $3.4 million. Read on to find out why the muscle-or-luxury debate has never actually been settled.
Ford doesn’t touch the Mustang lightly, and a mid-cycle refresh to the current generation brought more than just a new grille. A revamped transmission, a digital dashboard, and suspension technology borrowed from the Shelby GT350 all quietly arrived under the new sheet metal. Read on to find out which changes actually mattered to serious Mustang buyers.