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This 1965 Chevy II carries the most basic drivetrain Chevrolet offered that year: a 194-cubic-inch inline six paired with a 2-speed automatic. The same platform, though, could be ordered with a 283-cubic-inch V8 making up to 225 horsepower, or as the sportier Nova Super Sport coupe. Chevrolet built the Chevy II fast and cheap to answer the Ford Falcon and Plymouth Valiant, moving 122,800 of them in 1965 alone across a lineup that ranged from grocery-getter to genuine performance car.
Ford launched the Mustang in China in 2015 as a niche import with expectations of roughly 3,000 sales, and then watched demand climb. The car that got there was the first Mustang ever engineered for worldwide sale, and the version most Chinese buyers chose was the four-cylinder EcoBoost rather than the V8, for reasons that come down to a displacement tax that hits large engines at 40 percent. Read on for how the global strategy reshaped the car.
Ford built the 1969 Mustang Mach 1 to close a sales gap that had opened up against the Camaro and Firebird, and the fix worked almost instantly: 72,458 Mach 1s found buyers that year against only 5,396 of the outgoing GT trim. Factory engines ranged from a standard 351 Windsor up to the 428 Cobra Jet, rated at 335 horsepower and 440 lb-ft of torque. Ford dropped the GT trim entirely the following year, letting the Mach 1 carry the performance Mustang banner alone.
This Coyote V8 build takes an unusual path to big power: first converted to carburetors, then switched back to fuel injection using an AEM Infinity standalone ECU and Ford Racing parts, ultimately reaching 625 horsepower and spinning to 8,500 rpm without any forced induction. Produced by Power Automedia’s EngineLabs team, the build has sparked a comment section full of swap ideas, from a 1970s Road Runner to a Fox-body Mustang. Watch the full build to see how a stock Coyote gets there.
Jon Mello’s 1967 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 isn’t just an early example of Chevrolet’s Trans-Am homologation special — it’s documented as the very first one built. Filmed at the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals in Rosemont, Illinois, the Gold Z/28 wears its correct 302-cubic-inch small-block after a decade-long, period-correct restoration meant to undo years of hard use. Only around 602 Z/28s were built for 1967, and this one sits at the very start of that list. Watch to hear the story — and the engine — for yourself.
Chevrolet had a choice with the 2017 Camaro ZL1: engineer a new flagship engine or borrow the supercharged LT4 from the Corvette Z06. It borrowed, and the result made 650 horsepower and 650 lb-ft in a car roughly 200 pounds lighter than the ZL1 it replaced. The straight-line numbers were only half the story, because the chassis work is what made it competitive with cars costing three times as much. Read on for what Chevrolet actually changed.
Ford built the 428 Cobra Jet to solve a problem the 427 couldn’t: it was cheaper and easier to manufacture, yet nearly as powerful. Officially rated at just 335 horsepower to dodge rising insurance premiums, the CJ actually made over 400 with a hood scoop, and it proved it by winning the Super Stock Eliminator title at its competitive debut at the 1968 NHRA Winternationals — months before it even reached dealers. A Super Cobra Jet variant followed with quiet internal upgrades built for durability. Read on for the full story of Ford’s most underrated engine.
Willy’s Cadillac has been rebuilt so many times that even Big Muscle host Mike Musto isn’t sure whether it started life as a 1953 or a 1955 — and Willy seems just fine with the confusion. What’s left is a car with an evil-sounding idle, a ZZ Top keychain, and a look one fan calls purely ‘in your face.’ Watch to see how many identities one Cadillac can wear.
The Camaro arrived as a reaction to somebody else’s idea, sold fewer cars than its rival for nearly every year of its life, and spent fourteen years out of production entirely. Somehow it still owns more garage-wall real estate, more aftermarket catalog pages, and more restomod builds than anything else in the American performance canon. Read on for how a car that lost the sales war ended up winning the argument that actually matters.
Long before burnouts became crowd-pleasing spectacle, they served a practical purpose on the drag strip: heating and cleaning the tires for maximum grip. Trace the tradition from a dusty Georgia strip in the 1960s through fire-enhanced showmanship to today’s purpose-built burnout cars, and you’ll see why this smoky ritual still defines muscle car culture.
Mopar’s Crate HEMI Engine Kits let owners of any 1975-or-earlier Mopar bolt in genuine modern HEMI power — 383 horsepower from the 5.7-liter kit or 485 horsepower from the 6.4-liter version — without chasing down custom wiring or tuning. Each kit ships with an unlocked, pre-calibrated PCM that sidesteps the usual factory security headaches of a late-model engine swap. Debuted on two complete builds at the 2016 SEMA Show, the kits have owners of everything from Dusters to Aspens asking if their own project qualifies. Watch the full rundown of what’s included.
StreetCarVideo brings together an unlikely mix of modern performance machines — a Cadillac CTS-V, a boosted Mustang GT, a Procharged Chevy SS, and a Corvette ZR1 — for a street-racing session that crosses brand lines most car people take personally. The results sparked real debate in the comments, particularly around how well a boosted Coyote V8 held up against factory-supercharged competition from GM and the aftermarket-boosted SS. Watch to see which combination actually came out on top on the street.
Long before Detroit’s muscle car wars, two Indiana blacksmiths built a company that would eventually produce one of the era’s most overlooked performance machines. The Studebaker brothers started with horseshoes, survived a Civil War wagon contract, and only reluctantly entered the automobile business decades later. Their company’s final act included a supercharged V8 capable of matching contemporaries from Detroit’s Big Three. It simply ran out of time to prove it.
This 1965 Chevy pickup carries two superchargers under its hood, but ScottieDTV takes it somewhere you wouldn’t expect a build like this to go: a quiet cruise up a spur road into the Smoky Mountains. The truck behaves itself for most of the drive, restrained and civil, right up until a highway tunnel gives the driver an excuse to let both blowers do what they were built for. It’s a reminder that a serious powertrain doesn’t need a track to make its case.
Ford hired away a General Motors executive, who promptly hired away the designer behind the Camaro Z/28, and the Boss 302 is what came out the other end. It was never really a trim level, it was a homologation special built because SCCA rules demanded Ford sell one to the public before it could go racing. Fewer than 8,700 were built across two model years. Read on to find out what made it worth the trouble.