This guess the year, make and model post hides its answer in the details, the car pictured is a Dodge Charger 440, one of the most feared muscle car engines of its era rated at 375 horsepower and 480 pound-feet of torque. The real challenge is nailing down which model year is pictured, since Dodge tweaked the Charger’s stripe and scoop details across several seasons of R/T production.
The 1967 Coronet R/T was Dodge’s first R/T-badged car, and there was no watered-down version to choose from, buyers picked between a 375-horsepower 440 Magnum standard or the legendary 426 Hemi as the sole upgrade. Just over 10,000 were built in that debut year, most of them two-door hardtops, setting the template Dodge would use across its R/T lineup for years to come.
A 1969 Dodge Daytona spent nine years sitting in a Kansas City junkyard, one of roughly fifty impounded cars slowly waiting their turn at the crusher after a used-car dealer’s title fraud scheme collapsed. One collector’s memory of a Richard Petty magazine ad is the only reason it still exists, and the deal he struck to save it was stranger than most restoration stories get. Read on for how it ended up winning a Concours Gold award decades later.
This 1966 Pontiac GTO runs the genuine factory Tri-Power 389 and four-speed manual that enthusiasts consider the GTO’s high-water mark, filmed for Garrett Classics in Lewisville, Texas. Longtime GTO owners in the comments ran through it like a correctness checklist — Hurst shifter, PMD Rally Wheels, factory power brakes — and approved. See what the car John DeLorean fought GM’s rules to create looks like when it’s done exactly right.
Pontiac built the first-generation Firebird for only three model years, from 1967 to 1969, before a full redesign — and each year left its own visual clues behind. The 1969 model brought the biggest changes of the run: a longer, wider body and a distinctive one-piece Lexan front bumper-grille, along with the mid-year debut of the Trans Am package. Spotting which year a given Firebird belongs to often comes down to details as small as the grille shape and bumper design.
Mark Worman’s Graveyard Carz took on a 1970 Hemi Coronet R/T convertible — one of just two Hemi convertibles Dodge built for the 1970 model year, in a four-year Hemi convertible run that totaled closer to two dozen cars than the round number sometimes quoted. The comment section turned into an oral history project, with viewers tracing the car’s ties to the Otis Chandler collection and swapping stories about neighbors who still own its rare siblings. Watch the restoration and the history that follows it.
MotorTrend’s Generation Gap pits a numbers-matching 1968 Pontiac Firebird against a 2010 Lingenfelter-built Trans Am tribute making more than double the horsepower. The spec sheet says it isn’t close — 320 horsepower against 655 — but the comments turned into a real argument about authenticity versus raw performance. Watch to see which Firebird wins, and decide for yourself whether horsepower settles it.
V8TV built Episode 230 of Muscle Car of the Week as a tribute to the Chevrolet Camaro’s 50th anniversary, narrowing five decades of history down to five cars from The Brothers Collection. Viewers pushed back hard, defending the DZ302-powered Z/28 and pointing out the missing Baldwin-Motion and COPO cars. Watch the list and weigh in on which Camaro deserved a spot.
Fewer than fifty 1969 Pontiac GTOs left the factory with the Ram Air IV V8, a four-speed manual, and a convertible body all at once. This green survivor from The Brothers Collection went through a full restoration before its debut at the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals in Chicago — and one commenter claims a famous rock drummer once owned it. Watch the reveal and judge the rock crusher four-speed for yourself.
Before it ever appeared on screen, “Maximus” was already one of the most ambitious Mopar builds anywhere — a 1968 Dodge Charger built by Tom Nelson of Nelson Racing Engines, discovered by a film crew at the SEMA trade show. Over 2,000 hours of bodywork and roughly 2,000 horsepower later, it closed out Fast & Furious 7 by recreating a scene from the franchise’s original 2001 film.
Nearly 1.3 million views, zero narration, and a comment section that has spent over a decade arguing about what got left out — that’s the strange staying power of this ’20 Best Muscle Cars’ compilation. Viewers have nominated everything from the Plymouth Superbird to a 1969 AMX still parked in someone’s driveway as glaring omissions. Watch the list and see if your own pick made the cut.
The 1969 Camaro SS could be ordered with the 396 big block in three separate states of tune, and the difference between them shows up the instant the rear tires break loose. The top-spec L78 ran an 11:1 compression ratio and made 415 lb-ft of torque at just 3,600 rpm, in a car weighing roughly 3,790 pounds. Here is what actually separates the three engines, why RS and SS were never the same thing, and how to tell a real SS 396 from a tribute.
This 1958 Ford F100 shortbed still runs its factory 272 cubic-inch Y-block V8 and original three-speed manual, filmed at Country Classic Cars in Staunton, Illinois. Sharp-eyed commenters spotted clues suggesting the radio and mirrors weren’t original to the truck — a reminder of just how much detective work goes into verifying a survivor. Watch to see what else gives this classic Ford’s history away.
The Dodge Dart Swinger was engineered to deliver real V8 acceleration without wearing any of the badges that made insurance companies pay attention, and the 1973 model year brought a new front end, electronic ignition across the range, and engines from a 198 Slant-Six to a 318 V8. Its compact dimensions and leaf-sprung rear axle explain why an A-body smokes its tires so easily. Read on for what changed in 1973 and why the regulation behind it mattered.
Jesse Matlock has owned this 1971 Plymouth ‘Cuda since 2010, but it took roughly 7,000 hours — about three and a half years of build time — to turn it into the car he calls ‘Striker.’ Lou Costabile caught up with Matlock at the World of Wheels Car Show in Rosemont, Illinois to hear the story behind the paint, the fabrication, and the name. Watch to see what earns a restomod the title of baddest Cuda on the planet.
