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This cream-and-orange Grand Marquis is actually a mid-1980s example, built on Ford’s long-running rear-wheel-drive Panther platform shared with the Crown Victoria and Lincoln Town Car (badged Continental until 1981). Under the hood is a fuel-injected 5.0-liter V8 tuned for smooth cruising rather than speed. Its size, comfort, and old-school construction made it a favorite with fleets and traditionalists alike.
The vintage convertible daydream usually dies at the price tag, but it does not have to. Alfa Romeo Spiders, Volkswagen Beetle cabriolets, and even 1970s and 1980s Mercedes-Benz SLs still trade for under $10,000 in the right condition, while the muscle-era American droptops most fans grew up wanting left that bracket long ago. The catch is what a cheap convertible can hide under fresh carpet and a decent-looking top. Read on for which models are still affordable, why they stayed that way, and what to check before buying one.
This Tiger Gold 1965 Pontiac GTO isn’t just another restored classic — it’s a rolling argument for why this car, more than any other, deserves credit for starting the muscle car era. Built with the desirable 389 V8, a close-ratio four-speed manual, and a limited-slip differential, it represents the GTO the way serious original buyers actually ordered it. V8TV’s Muscle Car of the Week series tracked down this survivor and its story. Watch to see why enthusiasts still can’t agree on much except that this car changed everything.
A 1968 Plymouth Sport Satellite convertible looks like a GTX that forgot to put its badges on, and that resemblance is doing a lot of work. The Sport Satellite was brand new for 1968, slotted above the plain Satellite on a freshly redesigned B-body, and what it could and could not be ordered with says more about Plymouth’s 1968 strategy than any brochure ever did. Read on for what was really under that hood.
A two-tone Buick Roadmaster was the postwar equivalent of a nameplate on an office door, the longest and most chrome-laden thing Buick built, with fender portholes that told everyone exactly which rung of the lineup you had purchased. Underneath the hood sat either the 320-cubic-inch straight-eight or, from 1953 onward, the 322 nailhead V8, paired to the first torque-converter automatic sold in a mass-produced American car. Read on for how to place one by its details and what they bring today.
A concours-quality restoration isn’t measured in weekends — it’s measured in years, with top shops logging 4,000-plus labor hours per car at $135-plus per hour. The difference between a nice classic and a Pebble Beach contender comes down to details most people would never notice: bolt heads, stitching patterns, and paint sheens matched to factory records decades old.
A Hemi-powered Mopar, a boosted Buick, and a naturally aspirated Corvette line up for a rolling-start grudge match in this F.A.S.T. Racing matchup — three completely different performance philosophies going head to head with nothing but a green light to settle the score. Turbo lag, big-inch torque, and high-revving small-block power all bring something different to the table. Watch to see which approach comes out on top.
A 1970 Chevrolet El Camino SS and a 2004 Chevy SSR are separated by more than three decades and roughly 150 horsepower, and the distance between them says a great deal about what each era believed performance meant. One offered a 450-horsepower LS6 454 and a bed borrowed from a Chevelle; the other a 300-horsepower truck V8 and a folding metal roof. Read on for what each actually delivered and which is the smarter buy today.
The Brothers Collection’s 1969 Pontiac GTO Judge convertible carries a claim few muscle cars can match: it’s believed to be the last drop-top Judge Pontiac built for the entire model year. Host Kevin Oeste digs into the Ram Air III 400, the correct late-production color, and the small originality details that back up the story. One viewer’s decades-old memory of spotting this exact color as a kid says just as much about the car as the spec sheet does.
On paper, a 707-horsepower Challenger Hellcat against a 455-horsepower Camaro SS is not a race at all, it is a 250-horsepower head start. In practice these matchups have gone both ways often enough to deserve an explanation, and the reasons have far less to do with peak power than with 750 pounds of weight, a pair of 275-section tires, and the first sixty feet off the line. Read on for why the spec sheet keeps losing to the stopwatch.
The Mustang RTR is Vaughn Gittin Jr.’s production interpretation of the car he drifts for a living, and its tiers differ by considerably more than badges. The 472-horsepower figure attached to the GT comes from Ford Performance hardware rather than a third-party tuner, which is precisely why the factory warranty survives the upgrade intact. Read on for what separates Spec 1 from Spec 2, and why the suspension work may matter more than the power does.
AMC spent forty million dollars and a million man-hours over three years before anyone outside the company saw the Hornet, then sold the base model for $1,994. It was the first American car with reinforced door beams, the first to offer a hatchback in its class, and the first to sell a designer interior. It also produced a 285-horsepower muscle car that only 784 buyers ever got. Read on for what killed it before it started.
The Ferrari Testarossa’s flat-12 engine sat mounted behind the cabin in a near-perfect 60/40 weight distribution, producing a claimed 390 horsepower in European trim, among the most powerful engines on any production car when it launched in 1984. Those famous side strakes were not styling flourishes, they fed air to radiators mounted in the car’s wide rear flanks to keep that engine cool. Production ran largely unchanged through 1991, with total output most commonly cited at 7,177 units. This 1988 example captures the model near the height of its seven-year run.
Pontiac’s 326 was actually a 336 and the 350 that replaced it in 1968 was really a 354.74, which nobody at the division ever adequately explained. The G3 LeMans carried that engine through some of the best years of the A-body, picked up big valve Ram Air heads for 1969, and by 1970 could be ordered with GTO-sized engines in a cheaper package. Read on for the LeMans years worth knowing, including the budget hardtop Chevrolet undercut within weeks.
A 1963 Chevrolet Impala with its original four-speed manual is a genuinely uncommon thing, because most full-size Chevys of the era left the factory with an automatic and the manual cars carry a premium today because of it. This one has been upgraded underneath while keeping that transmission and a largely untouched interior. Read on for what made 1963 the Impala’s breakout year, what the 409 really offered, and what to verify before believing any of the badges.