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A 1967 Chevelle built for a road course sounds like a contradiction, because these cars were engineered for straight lines and stoplights. Chad Hill and the crew at Hot Rod Chassis and Cycle built one anyway, called it Rush, and gave it a splitter, a wing, a Ridetech cage and enough LS power to justify all of it. Making a fifty-year-old A-body actually turn takes far more than bolting on aero. Here is what the job really involves.
Long before Tallahassee had a legal place to race, drivers settled things on remote Leon County roads like Mission Road, with spectators in leather and denim watching from the shoulders. The community’s answer was a sanctioned strip on west Highway 20, built in the mid-1960s as drag racing nationwide moved out of the shadows. Read on for what the strip offered, why the outlaw scene never fully went away, and what became of tracks like this one.
Studebaker restyled its 1955 President to compete with Cadillac and Lincoln, but the real story is hiding in the engine bay. A quiet running change partway through the model year gave later cars more horsepower than earlier ones, with no visible way to tell them apart. Here is what changed, and why only 24,665 were ever built.
When the 1973 oil embargo killed the Dodge Dart’s beloved 340 V8, Dodge answered with a new 360 that traded some character for more torque and drivability. A small handful of buyers dressed that new engine up in surf-themed Hang 10 trim instead. Only 47 of those cars were ever built. Here is the story behind Dodge’s quiet 1974 engine swap.
A dashboard puck that plugged into any car and projected navigation, texts, and calls onto the windshield sounded like the future in 2015. Navdy raised over a million dollars in a week and shipped thousands of units before quietly shutting down in 2017. Here is what doomed one of the most promising aftermarket heads-up displays ever built.
Mercury built more than ten thousand Cyclone GT hardtops for 1970, but only a few hundred of them left the factory with the engine that made the model’s reputation. Three different 429s were available, ranging from a smooth cruiser to a solid-lifter drag car, and a well-restored example tells you almost nothing about which one you are looking at until you check. Here is how to read a 1970 Cyclone GT, and why the Drag Pack cars are the ones worth chasing.
Don Yenko’s answer to the insurance surcharges killing big-block sales in 1970 was a Nova that looked like nothing at all, with a bench seat, rubber mats and minimal badging, hiding Chevrolet’s 360-horsepower LT-1 small block ordered through COPO 9010. Roughly 175 were built in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, with 4.10 gears, F41 suspension and an optional hood tach. It was quicker than his own 427 Nova anywhere the road turned. Read on for what separates a documented Deuce from a convincing clone.
On paper the 2011 Camaro SS convertible should beat the Mustang GT convertible without breaking a sweat, since it brings a 6.2-liter V8 and a 14 horsepower advantage to the fight. In period testing it lost anyway. The reason is a number neither brochure put on the front page. Read on to find out why 413 pounds mattered more than 14 horsepower in the battle of the drop-top pony cars.
Ford built its unibody F-100 pickup for only three model years before quietly admitting the design could not do the one thing a truck is supposed to do. That short run is exactly why survivors are rare, and why builders now go looking for them. This one is slammed to the ground, wears a deep ruby paint, and hides a modern Coyote V8 under the hood. Read on to find out why Ford gambled on a one-piece cab and bed, and why it lasted three years.
The 1969 Camaro Z/28 is one of the few great muscle cars that was deliberately built without a big-block, and the reason comes down to a single number in a racing rulebook. Chevrolet’s answer was an engine cobbled together from two others, officially rated far below what it actually made. Nineteen sixty-nine was the last year for it. Read on to find out why the DZ 302 is still the most respected small-block Chevrolet ever put in a Camaro.
Dodge offered its fearsome Max Wedge 413 across the entire 1962 Dart lineup, station wagons included, pairing a genuinely dangerous big-block with a brand-new lightweight unibody platform. Two states of tune were available, both capable of closing in on a 12-second quarter mile in a car built to also haul groceries. Chryslers engineers proved a mid-size car could out-drag much larger machinery years before the GTO existed. This wagon is a reminder that Mopars muscle car reputation started in unlikely places.
1970 was a terrible year to sell a Road Runner. Insurance surcharges were biting, sales fell by more than half, and Plymouth’s own new compact was quietly stealing its customers. The company responded by keeping the Hemi on the order sheet anyway, adding a functional hood scoop system, and building a handful of cars so rare that survivors now define the model. Here is what actually happened to the Road Runner in 1970, and why a bright yellow survivor is worth a second look.
Buick built the Special as its cheapest model for two decades, but the 322-cubic-inch V8 standard in 1956 still made it a genuine performer, not just an economy choice. The three chrome ventiports on each fender were Buicks own status code, telling buyers exactly where the Special sat below the four-port Super and Roadmaster. With 334,000 built across five body styles, it was anything but unpopular. It also represents one of the last years before the Special name disappeared entirely.
Ford built the Ranchero by grafting a pickup bed onto a two-door station wagon, and by 1971 that formula could be ordered with anything from a mild six-cylinder up to a 370-horsepower 429 Cobra Jet. It was the last model year before new horsepower rating standards and emissions rules reshaped the entire performance car market. Despite sharing its underpinnings with the Torino and Mustang, the Ranchero has long traded at a discount simply for looking like a truck. That is starting to change.
Only about 70 of the roughly 503 Dodge Charger Daytonas built for 1969 left the factory with the 426 Hemi rather than the standard 440 Magnum. The 18-inch nose cone and 23-inch wing were worth a reported 20 mph at Talladega, and Buddy Baker used one to record the first 200-mph closed-course lap in stock car history. Dealers still could not sell them, and some removed the aero parts to move the metal. Read on for what a genuine Hemi Daytona has to document today.