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This 1968 Pontiac Firebird looks like a straightforward turquoise survivor until you start checking the option sheet. Buyers that year could walk away with anything from a mild inline-six to a 400 Ram Air-cubic-inch V8 most dealers never bothered to stock. Pontiac built over 107,000 Firebirds for 1968, but the ones equipped like the rarer examples still command serious attention from collectors. Here’s what made this early pony car more complicated than its badge let on.
The Buick Riviera GS looked like a country-club cruiser, but hiding under its sculpted hood was a 430-cubic-inch V8 making 360 horsepower — enough muscle to embarrass cars that looked far more aggressive. Only about one in ten Rivieras built in 1969 left the factory with the GS handling package, making genuine survivors a rare find today. Between hidden headlights, retractable wipers, and a drivetrain most buyers never even asked about, this personal-luxury coupe hid a genuine sleeper’s heart.
Steve Brody’s 1964 Pontiac GTO convertible scored 997 out of 1,000 points at judging – fitting for the car most historians credit with starting the entire muscle car era. Pontiac’s team built it around a GM displacement loophole, and sales managers were so unsure of demand they capped the first run before realizing they’d underestimated buyers by a wide margin. Here’s the real story behind the car that started it all.
Ford didn’t build one 2013 Mustang, it built three: a 662-horsepower Shelby GT500 chasing 200 mph, a road-course-tuned Boss 302 spinning to 7,500 rpm, and a everyday GT that split the difference. Each one shared the same badge but demanded a completely different kind of driver. Read on to find out which one actually deserved a spot in the garage, and why the Boss 302’s single-year window still matters to collectors today.
Not every muscle car story needs a famous name attached – this small-block Chevy V8 build is built around something simpler: a dad, his son, and a car that’s more about bringing a crew together than chasing horsepower records. Here’s why builds like this one still matter as much as the six-figure survivors.
Fifth Gear puts two of television’s most famous cars through a real head to head, the Dukes of Hazzard’s General Lee against Starsky and Hutch’s Ford Gran Torino. Host Vicki Butler-Henderson gets behind the wheel of both to find out which screen legend actually handles better once the cameras stop editing for drama. The result says as much about decades of TV car myth as it does about either car.
By 1972, Oldsmobile’s 4-4-2 had been quietly demoted from its own model to an option code, built on its final A-body convertible platform before a full redesign eliminated the body style. Only a small fraction of that year’s 4-4-2-optioned Cutlasses were convertibles, and fewer still carried the top W-30 455 engine package. Here’s how rare the combination actually turned out to be.
At its 2017 Detroit Auto Show press conference, Ford officially confirmed the return of both the Bronco SUV and Ranger pickup, built on a shared body-on-frame platform at its Michigan Assembly Plant. Details were scarce, but the timeline was clear: Ranger for 2019, Bronco for 2020. DPCcars covers the announcement that turned two decades of rumors into an actual product plan.
Chevrolet dropped its first real big-block into the Corvette in 1966, and the numbers on paper barely tell the whole story. The 427 arrived in two versions, a 390-horsepower hydraulic-lifter L36 and a 425-horsepower solid-lifter L72 that Chevrolet had briefly advertised at 450. Nearly one in five of the 27,720 Corvettes built that year carried the top engine. Read on to find out what made the 427-powered ’66 Sting Ray one of the most significant Corvettes Chevrolet ever built.
Ron Smith bought this 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona — one of only 503 built — for a road trip before shipping out to Vietnam. He drove it for over a decade after coming home, then parked it in his father’s lockup for more than twenty years. Restorer Marshall Woolery brought it back, and the finished car has since been featured in Hemmings Muscle Machines. Watch to see the Daytona that waited two decades for its second life.
A driver takes a 2017 Camaro ZL1 out for their first-ever laps on track, sharing the session with a Ford GT — one of the most exclusive supercars Ford has built in decades. With a supercharged 650-horsepower LT4 V8 and a chassis engineered specifically for road-course work, the ZL1 was built for exactly this moment. Watch how a first-timer handles a car with this much capability.
A 2008 Shelby GT500 running a smaller supercharger pulley, a custom tune, and drag radials for roughly 650 horsepower takes on a completely stock 2013 Cadillac CTS-V Coupe and its factory 556 horsepower LSA V8 in a heads-up quarter mile. The Cadillac’s showing against a 100 horsepower deficit drew real respect in the comments, and the channel even responded to a viewer’s question about the included density altitude data. Watch the run to see just how close a modified car and a stock one can actually be.
V8TV’s “Muscle Car of the Week” spotlights a Rally Red 1970 Plymouth ‘Cuda AAR — the numbers-matching, 340 Six-Barrel-powered homologation special built for exactly one model year. Housed today in The Brothers Collection, this AAR carries the tighter steering ratio and unmistakable strobe stripe that set it apart from every other ‘Cuda on the road. Watch to see why collectors call it the sharpest example they’ve found.
Butch Clayton’s 1978 Jeep CJ5 stood on two wheels at a quarterly Ladson car show, tires and frame on full display, but the stunt was the least remarkable thing about it. His father bought the Jeep, and Butch and his son William restored it together during a hard year, turning an AMC-era off-roader into three generations of family history. From the 304 V8 it shares with AMC’s muscle cars to why a one-family CJ matters more than a rare one, read on to find out what makes this Lowcountry Jeep worth a second look.
1967 was the year Ford stopped playing it safe with the Mustang. A wider engine bay, beefed-up frame rails, and the debut of the 390-cubic-inch GT390 package turned Ford’s pony car into a legitimate muscle car contender almost overnight. Only a small fraction of 1967’s 472,000-plus Mustangs left the line with the 390, and clean survivors get harder to find every season. Here’s what made 1967 the Mustang’s turning point.