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The 1969 Shelby GT500 carried a 428 Cobra Jet rated at 335 horsepower, a figure almost nobody believed then and nobody believes now. It was also the last Shelby Mustang Carroll Shelby had any real hand in, built during the year he walked away from the program entirely. Ford ended up re-titling hundreds of leftover cars as 1970 models under federal supervision. Read on to find out what makes this generation the one collectors argue about most.
Line up a 1968 Charger R/T, a 1965 Shelby GT350R, a 1969 Camaro SS and a 1969 Mustang Mach 1 and you are not looking at four takes on one idea. You are looking at four manufacturers answering the same question in completely incompatible ways, at the exact moment none of them were holding back. Each one won a different argument, and all four are still blue-chip names today.
This 1969 Dodge Coronet Super Bee carries the rare A12 package, a 463-dollar option that swapped in a 440-cubic-inch V8 wearing three two-barrel carburetors for one strange mid-year run. Only 1,907 were built before Dodge moved on. Stock, these cars ran mid-13-second quarter miles, embarrassing plenty of pricier machinery on the strip.
Inline Tube’s annual open house has become the unofficial start of the Detroit car show season, and the latest one drew the biggest crowd in its history thanks to a rare stretch of wall-to-wall sunshine. The company started in a two-car garage in 1995, grew into a 28,000-square-foot facility, and now makes preformed brake and fuel lines across more than 14,000 tube patterns. Why does a parts manufacturer out-draw judged shows? Read on for how a factory parking lot became one of Michigan’s most anticipated spring gatherings.
Jeff Lutz has a pattern: flat black paint, twin-turbo big-blocks, 1957 Chevrolets, and Drag Week wins to back it all up. His newest build, unveiled at the Tri-Five Nationals, keeps the 540-cubic-inch big-block he has used before but steps up from 88mm to 98mm turbos in pursuit of roughly 3,500 horsepower. Read on to see how the new car fits the formula that made his two Mad Max ’57s and his Drag Week-winning Camaro famous.
In 2017, the final model year for the Dodge Viper, driver Dominik Farnbacher took the track-focused ACR-Extreme around the Nurburgring Nordschleife and posted an official lap of 7:03.45, one of the fastest times ever recorded by a car under $400,000. No turbo, no hybrid assist, just a naturally aspirated V10 and a manual gearbox. Watch the full lap that closed out the Viper’s legacy.
Dodge did not set out to build a legend with the Charger, it set out to answer the Mustang. Putting that pony car idea on a bigger intermediate platform produced something the Mustang could never be: a full-size fastback with room for the biggest engines Chrysler made. It took a false start, a redesign, a movie chase scene, and a NASCAR aero war to get there. Read on for how the Charger earned its reputation the hard way.
This 1965 Corvette Sting Ray carries the standard 327 V8 and 4-speed manual, not the ultra-rare fuel-injected version Chevrolet also offered that year for $538. With only 771 fuelie cars built before the option quietly disappeared, most 1965 buyers picked exactly the setup shown here. It turned out to be the smarter choice for reasons Chevrolet is own big-block engine would soon prove.
A 1967 Chevrolet Impala sat untouched for thirty-three years before anyone dared turn the key again — and when it finally caught, it sounded less like a car and more like something waking up angry. Viewers have compared the ragged idle to everything from a sputtering biplane to Stephen King’s Christine clearing her throat. Watch to hear exactly what three decades of silence sounds like breaking.
A 1973 Plymouth Barracuda could never have left the factory with a 426 Hemi under the hood, because Chrysler had already killed the engine two years earlier. That makes this performance-built tribute car something other than a fake, and Mopar collectors have long treated cars like it as legitimate in their own right. Behind the Hemi sits a 727 TorqueFlite, a Dana 60 with 4.11 gears, and Wilwood discs. Read on to find out why the combination works.
Every 1967 Chevelle SS396 left the factory with a big block, but only 612 of them carried the L78, a 375-horsepower engine that was not even available when the model year started. Out of roughly 63,000 SS396s built that year, that is a survival rate that makes documented cars extraordinarily valuable. Read on to find out what separates a genuine L78 from a very well-dressed clone.
Ford built the Mach 1 to be the Mustang that did not need to shout, and buyers responded by making it nearly a quarter of all 1969 Mustang production on its first try. The matte-black hood, the pin tiedowns, and the four headlights were only the surface. What sat behind that scoop, and how conservatively Ford chose to rate it, is where the story gets interesting. Read on for the year Mach 1 became its own thing.
Jack Chrisman’s 1965 Mercury Comet — the altered-wheelbase car credited with launching NHRA’s fuel Funny Car division — turns up on static display at the 2017 Southeast Gassers Association Knoxville event, owned by the family behind Barillaro Speed Emporium. One commenter adds firsthand history, having grown up at Lions and Irwindale and even met Chrisman’s son. See the car that made stock-bodied Mercury look deceptively ordinary.
Oldsmobile never built a 383-cubic-inch engine in 1971 – the factory topped out at 455 cubic inches for the 442, the last year it existed as its own model. This Cutlass instead runs a custom stroker build paired with a 4-speed automatic, restored on camera for the Car Warriors reality series. It’s a reminder that some of the most interesting muscle car builds are the ones that ignore the original spec sheet entirely.
A green Chevelle had barely rolled off the show field before its driver decided to give the crowd one more moment to remember. Seconds later, a mistimed stab of the throttle mid-turn sent the car sideways and into a roadside ditch in front of hundreds of phones. More than two million views and over a decade later, it’s still one of the internet’s favorite reminders of what happens when a muscle car’s power outruns its driver’s patience.