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Ford quietly developed the 428 Cobra Jet under a program called “Cougar-Mustang Performance Car” starting in late 1966, and when it finally hit dealer lots in April 1968 it turned an already popular pony car into a genuine drag strip weapon almost overnight. Only 1,299 Mustangs got the option that year out of roughly 317,000 built. Read on to find out how a mid-year engine swap changed the Mustang’s reputation forever.
Nick’s Garage pulled a rare 1970 Dodge Challenger T/A Six Pack out of nine years of storage and waited until after closing to attempt the first start alone. A 340ci engine that’s sat that long can seize, hydro-lock, or simply refuse to catch — and the only way to know is to turn the key. Watch to see which way it goes.
This blue 1973 Dodge Challenger is not just a mystery for guess-the-year games — it is a snapshot of the final model year Dodge fitted the legendary 340 V8 before replacing it with the torque-focused 360. Only 8,435 of the 32,596 Challengers built that year got the 340. Here is why this often-overlooked model year deserves a second look.
A rare 1970 Yenko Nova — one of only 175 built with the solid-lifter LT1 350 — lines up against a car most fans would never expect to see at a drag strip: a supercharged 1964 Studebaker Challenger R3 known on the Pure Stock circuit as “plain brown wrapper.” One car carries a legendary tuner’s name. The other carries a Paxton supercharger and a reputation for embarrassing far more famous machinery. Detailed specs, a genuine underdog story, and a finish line that does not care which badge looks better. Watch to see which one gets there first.
Chevrolet planned to build one hundred Grand Sport Corvettes in 1963. Only five ever left the factory, and all five still survive in private hands today. That’s just the beginning of the story of the second-generation Corvette’s five model years, which moved from a one-year-only split rear window to a factory 427 so powerful Chevrolet wouldn’t put the real horsepower number on paper. Read on to find out how the Sting Ray earned its reputation.
Built on a stretched Ford Falcon platform and dressed up in Caliente trim, the 1965 Mercury Comet offered a 289-cubic-inch V8 in three states of tune up to 271 horsepower – a genuine performance option most buyers overlooked in favor of the flashier Mustang next door. Here’s why this quietly capable Comet deserves a second look from muscle car fans.
This burgundy 1976 Ford Torino made local headlines after being stolen from a driveway, but the real story is what it represents: the final model year Ford ever built a car under the Torino name before renaming the whole lineup LTD II for 1977. Only 193,096 were built that year. Here is what made the Torino’s last stand worth remembering.
This 1964 Mercury Monterey wears the Marauder name, but that badge meant three different cars and two different engines that year, and only one combination makes this survivor genuinely special. Its FE-series 390 has reportedly never been rebuilt or swapped in six decades of ownership, a rarity among full-size 1960s Mercurys that mostly got driven hard and scrapped. Read on to find out which version of the Marauder package is actually hiding under this hood, and why full-size Mercury collectors still consider it one of the era’s best-kept values.
Getting real drag wheels onto a modern Camaro, Mustang, or Challenger is nothing like bolting slicks onto a classic Chevelle, and that fitment gap is what Race Star Wheels built its business around. From a single design launched in 2009 to Friction Stir Fusion welding and a partnership with Pro Stock stars Greg Anderson and Jason Line, here is how one wheel company earned its place on serious drag cars, and what that means for the weekend racer.
This custom-built 1979 Pontiac Trans Am pushes the factory’s final big-block V8 to 450 horsepower, more than double what the original W72 400 ever made from the factory. Read on to find out why 1979 was the true last call for Pontiac’s biggest engine, and how a modern build manages to respect that swan song while blowing past it entirely.
The Dodge Challenger Hellcat’s supercharged 707-horsepower engine turned nearly every drag strip in the country into an unofficial record chase. Racers like Jason Epling and the HHP-built TopCat pushed the factory-based combination into the 7-second and then 8-second range within a couple of years of its 2015 launch. Read on to find out just how far the same basic engine architecture eventually went.
A 30-year barn find just resurfaced wearing one of the rarest factory engine combinations Ford ever built — a triple-carbureted 406 big block that fewer than 124 full-size Mercurys ever received from the factory. Paired with a factory 4-speed and a special-order 4.11 rear axle, this Monterey is a genuine sleeper hiding inside a plain-looking family sedan. Read on to find out what made this engine option so rare, and what a numbers-matching survivor like this is worth today.
By 1972, Chevrolet’s Nova SS package had shrunk to a single 200-horsepower engine choice as insurance premiums and emissions rules squeezed compact muscle cars industry-wide. This particular Nova ignores that history entirely, running a full roller 358 cubic inch stroker small block backed by a Centerforce-clutched T-56 six-speed, a 12-bolt rear geared at 4.10, and Baer brakes with 13-inch front rotors, all wrapped in factory-subtle PPG toner black paint. Read on to find out how this build turns a limited factory package into a genuine pro-touring sleeper.
The 1974 Torino tried to be two cars at once: a muscle car still carrying a Cobra Jet option, and a brand-new luxury model, the Gran Torino Elite, built for buyers who’d rather have a power sunroof than a four-speed. Federal bumper mandates added inches and pounds, a one-year seatbelt interlock law came and went, and the fastback body style vanished for good. Read on to find out how one model year captured the entire identity crisis facing American performance cars in 1974.
When Fiat Chrysler finally attached a price tag to the Durango SRT, the 475-horsepower, 12.9-second-quarter-mile three-row SUV suddenly looked less like an expensive halo vehicle and more like a genuine bargain. Executive Tim Kuniskis called it America’s fastest SUV, and the numbers backed up the claim in ways few family haulers had ever matched. Read on to find out exactly what the sticker included, and how Dodge justified putting Hellcat-adjacent performance into a school-run vehicle.