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A nearly 60-year-old Oldsmobile small-block gets strapped to a dyno to settle an old argument among die-hard owners. The W-31’s spec sheet borrowed valves straight from Oldsmobile’s own 455 big-block — yet it wore a “350” badge plain enough that almost nobody shopping a showroom floor in 1969 took it seriously.
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 quieter, less flamboyant redesign turned the 1973 Cutlass Supreme into Oldsmobile’s biggest seller ever, moving almost 220,000 coupes in a single year. Hidden inside that same lineup: a 1,097-unit Hurst/Olds built for anyone who still wanted the old formula.
Photographed under moonlight, this 1972 Chevrolet Nova SS represents the exact year Chevrolet trimmed the SS engine lineup down to a single small-block, right as insurance surcharges and emissions rules killed big-blocks industry-wide across Detroit. Nova SS orders actually climbed that year anyway, nearly doubling from the year before. Read on to find out why buyers kept checking the box even as the engine choices narrowed.
A Kansas City shop swapped a supercharged Coyote V8 into a plain-looking 1980s Mustang coupe and dialed in roughly 820 horsepower — more than a factory Hellcat ever made. Then the owner asked for an automatic transmission so he could drive it every day.
A barn-kept 1968 Ford Mustang coupe looked like an easy save until the bodywork came apart in the rescuer’s hands. What the repair revealed — and the decision to drive it instead of chase a trophy finish — is a lesson every barn-find buyer eventually learns the hard way.
AMC’s smallest-in-Detroit budget somehow built a Trans-Am champion — then quietly let the Javelin’s final engine lose 20 horsepower on its way out the door. This 1974 AMX didn’t end up as a trailer queen: its current owner swapped in modern fuel injection and keeps driving it the way AMC intended. Only 4,980 AMX-trimmed Javelins were built that year, and this is one that still earns its keep.
This 1970 Plymouth Superbird still rides with the two different jacks Chrysler had to invent because its aero nose cone left no room for a front bumper. See what else made Detroit’s strangest one-year muscle car both a NASCAR champion and a dealership oddity.
A 1964 Dodge Polara doesn’t usually headline a muscle car video, but a 440 cubic-inch big block fed by dual Edelbrock quads, a 4-speed manual, and a Dana 60 rear end change that equation fast. Southern-car rust history and a seller’s unusually honest paint rating round out a listing built for buyers who read spec sheets, not just headlines. See why this overlooked full-size Mopar is drawing serious attention.
Buick’s turbocharged Grand National looked like an ordinary 1980s Regal — until its GNX variant became dragstrip legend. In 2024, Kendrick Lamar named an album after it. Here’s the real story behind the numbers.
AMC never had the budget of Ford, GM, or Chrysler, but its Trans-Am racing program with driver Mark Donohue gave the underdog manufacturer real credibility — and this 1970 AMX Javelin in factory Big Bad Blue is the street-legal result. Owner Roger Nelson has driven and shown the car since 2007, and he knows every detail of what makes it different from a standard Javelin. Watch to find out what a factory 390 and a racing pedigree add up to.
We found 12 verified 1967 Pontiac GTO listings on ClassicCars.com — here’s what’s available right now, what they cost, and what to check before you buy.
A 1970 Buick GS hid an engine most muscle car fans have never heard of: an 11.0:1-compression 455 built for Super Stock racing and estimated past 500 horsepower, that Buick scrapped before a single customer could order one. Only two prototypes ever existed, and incoming emissions rules buried the program before it ever reached a factory build sheet.
Ford outsold Chevrolet by 10 percent in 1951, and the optional 239 cubic inch flathead V8 under this coupes hood was part of the reason why. That same engine, simple enough for anyone to modify, became the foundation of the postwar hot rod movement and helped define an entire era of American car culture. Here is why builders still chase this engine family decades later.
A single Mustang body hid three completely different Shelby GT500s between 2007 and 2014, each one built around a different engine strategy. One version was limited to barely 1,000 U.S. units. The final year closed out an entire era of solid-axle Shelby Mustangs for good.