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A stock Camaro ZL1 and a stock Challenger Hellcat lined up for the drag race muscle car fans had been waiting for, and the spec sheet said it should have been close. The Camaro actually has the better power-to-weight ratio and a quicker 0-60 time. So why did the Hellcat keep winning? The answer says more about drag strips than horsepower wars.
The 2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon didn’t just headline the 2017 New York Auto Show — it arrived with a hood scoop, fender flares, and a stripped interior built almost entirely around a single quarter-mile number. Dodge deleted seats and carpeting to save weight and added drag-strip-only hardware no other production car had. The result made muscle car history before it ever left the show floor. Here’s what Dodge was willing to sacrifice to get there.
In late 1967, Hurst’s engineers pulled a Toronado’s entire front-wheel-drive powertrain and grafted it into a brand-new Oldsmobile 442, inside 45 days and without GM’s blessing. The result sent 500 lb-ft of torque through the front wheels alone, using a loophole nobody at GM had thought to close. Decades later, only one still exists. Here’s how a secret experiment became a one-of-one legend.
This 1958 Pontiac Chieftain rolled off the line during the final season of a nameplate Pontiac had built since 1949, one year before an all-new Catalina made it obsolete. Under its restyled, honeycomb-grille body sat an air suspension and tri-power V8 borrowed from Pontiac’s priciest engineering ideas. Only a few thousand were built this way. Here’s what made the last Chieftain worth a second look.
A field of 461 classic and collector cars rolled across the block in Portland over a single June weekend, but one blue-and-black Camaro with an unusually clean paper trail ended up outselling everything else in the building. The final tally topped $7.9 million by the time the last gavel fell. Here’s which cars actually commanded the biggest numbers.
Ford stripped the GT350R of its back seat and air conditioning, then handed it a flat-plane-crank V8 that revs to 8,250 rpm and carbon-fiber wheels light enough to change how the whole chassis behaves. The result was billed as the most track-capable production Mustang Ford had ever built. Here’s what that claim was actually built on.
The mistakes that sink a muscle car restoration are rarely the ones anyone worries about going in — nobody agonizes over paint choices before buying a project car sight unseen. Veteran restorers tend to circle back to the same regrets: rust treated as cosmetic, cars bought without ever seeing them in person, and bodywork rushed to hit a deadline. Here’s what experience actually teaches, the hard way, every time.
A turbocharged new-generation Camaro and a nitrous-equipped first-gen Camaro lined up in the Big Tire Class at Redemption 6.0 in Tulsa, and Urban Hillbilly Videos was there to capture which version of the same idea came out ahead. The old school vs new school argument in the Camaro community rarely gets settled this cleanly. Both cars are serious, both drivers committed, and the result answers the question without editorializing. Watch to see which generation of Camaro takes it.
Every muscle car has a story that goes beyond its spec sheet — how it was found, what’s been fixed, and what’s still waiting for a free Saturday afternoon. Showroom-perfect restorations get the attention, but the imperfect, still-in-progress builds are usually the ones people remember longest. This is a standing invitation to share yours: the barn find, the years-long project, the daily driver with a little rust in the rockers. All of it counts.
The 2018 Chevrolet Camaro SS and 2018 Ford Mustang GT both make around 460 horsepower, both reach 60 mph in under 5 seconds, and both cost roughly the same amount of money — which means the decision between them comes down to what the cars feel like, not what the spec sheets say. Edmunds put both through a full track and street comparison to find out which one actually does fun better. The answer is more nuanced than the horsepower numbers suggest. Watch to see which car Edmunds chose.
An R-Code 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1 means a 428 cubic inch Cobra Jet Ram Air V8, a factory horsepower rating that everyone at the time knew was a polite fiction, and a specification sheet that includes factory air conditioning, a Shaker hood, power disc brakes, and a Traction-Lok 9-inch rear. RamblinAround’s walkthrough of this Acapulco Blue example is a documentation of what a correctly optioned, fully restored Mach 1 looks like. Watch before you decide you know what a 1969 Mustang is.
RJ Gottlieb’s Big Red Camaro is best known for supercharged top-speed runs, but Pikes Peak called for the opposite approach. Trading a blown 598-cube big-block for a naturally aspirated 555 called The Beast, the team made its 2017 debut on the 12.42-mile Race to the Clouds. Their fourth-place finish in the Open class shows why displacement can still out-duel boost at altitude.
From 1960 to 1965, Ford’s Ranchero shrunk down to its Falcon roots, offering a compact ride with an 800 lbs load capacity, a peppy 144 cu in engine, and a three-speed “do-it-yourself” shift option. By ’66, the Ranchero flaunted a Fairlane makeover, with a Falcon face and a Fairlane rear end, still revving with a 289 cu in powerplant. In ’67, it ditched the Falcon disguise for a full Fairlane flair, boasting a muscle car brawn with a 390 cu in V8 and a new C6 transmission—perfect for hauling… groceries?
A 69 Camaro running a 540 cubic inch big-block and a 66 Chevelle with a 427 — two of the most beloved muscle car bodies in American history, neither of them running anything close to factory specification, both of them completely committed to the idea of finding out what happens at the end of a straight road. The 540merlin channel has 1.5 million views on this footage, and the number tells you everything you need to know about whether the race delivered. Watch to see which one got there first.
1979 was the quiet send-off for an entire generation of Ford Thunderbird, closing out a body style that had grown larger and heavier through most of the decade. A restyled grille and new taillamps were the last visual changes before a much smaller Thunderbird arrived the following year. Buyers didn’t seem to notice, or mind — Ford sold well over a quarter-million of them anyway.