This 1966 Plymouth Barracuda isn’t loud, and it isn’t trying to be. As an unrestored survivor with manual brakes, manual steering, and a view out the back modern cars can’t match, it demands a different kind of attention from the driver behind the wheel. Watch to see what an original, unmodified pony car from 1966 actually feels like to drive.
Tom Cotter’s Barn Find Hunter tracked down a numbers-matching 1954 Chevrolet Corvette and its original Blue Flame Six engine, tucked into a collection that also holds a 1970 Buick GS Stage 1 convertible, a big-block El Camino, and a warehouse of dusty Italian sports cars including an ASA 1000 GT nicknamed the “baby Ferrari.” Few barn find episodes cover this much ground in one visit. Watch to see what else Cotter uncovers.
A reader-submitted photo caught this Dodge Challenger SRT Demon prototype resting in a Colorado parking lot months before its official reveal — an early look at what would become the quickest production car ever built at the time, one so extreme the NHRA banned it from sanctioned events. Read on to find out what was hiding under that camouflage.
A Hennessey HPE650 Camaro, a Shelby Super Snake, and a SpeedFactory-built Challenger SRT8 lined up with one thing in common: none of them left the factory anywhere close to this powerful. Hennessey went the naturally aspirated route with ported heads and cams, Shelby went straight to a Whipple blower, and SpeedFactory brought the Mopar. Here is why weight and traction usually decide these matchups long before horsepower does, and why the format of the race changes the answer.
In January 2017, Ford promised a hybrid Mustang with more low-end torque than the standard V8, backed by a canceled $1.6 billion Mexican plant and $700 million in Flat Rock upgrades. The 2020 target came and went without the car ever showing up. Read on for where that money and engineering effort actually went, and why Ford’s CEO says the idea isn’t dead yet.
Henry Ford spent six years quietly developing the flathead V8 before it debuted in the 1932 Model 18 — the engine that would define hot rodding for the next two decades and, according to legend, even earn a thank-you letter from Bonnie and Clyde’s Clyde Barrow. It replaced the Model A as Ford’s flagship and became Henry Ford’s last major engineering achievement before he handed the company to his son Edsel. Production in America ended in 1953, but the flathead kept running in France and Brazil for decades. Read on for the full story of Ford’s most influential V8.
Lou Costabile heads to Schwartz Performance Inc. headquarters in Woodstock, Illinois, to check out a custom 1966 Pontiac GTO owned by Dale Schwartz, whose father Jeff runs the shop’s build team. The orange paint gets attention, but the real story is underneath: a lighter, stronger custom frame plus disc brakes and improved steering. Watch to hear directly from the builders why the chassis mattered more than the finish.
Put forty-four model years between two Corvettes and the argument stops being a matter of taste and becomes a physics lesson. The 1963 Sting Ray introduced independent rear suspension to America’s sports car and wore a split rear window Chevrolet killed after a single season. The 2007 Z06 ran a dry-sump 427 small block that could out-brake and out-corner cars costing three times as much. Read on to find out which questions each one was actually built to answer.
One April 2018 news cycle delivered three very different performance bets at once: a turbocharged four-cylinder Camaro finally earning a 1LE badge, a BMW M2 Competition borrowing its engine from the M3/M4, and a Buick electric SUV concept promising supercar-quick acceleration. None of these would have made sense as performance news a decade earlier.
TFLcar’s host describes experiencing actual tunnel vision behind the wheel of Dodge’s supercharged Challenger Demon during this quarter-mile pass — a sensation more associated with fighter pilots than car reviewers. Viewers zeroed in on the launch, the smoking rear tires, and even a spoiler that lifts at the finish to help slow the car down. One commenter called it simply the baddest, fastest car ever built. Watch the launch that caused it.
This Petty’s Garage Bootlegger Edition Ford Mustang is a true 1-of-1 prototype, packing 800 horsepower and a NASCAR-rooted name honoring the moonshine runners who helped invent stock car racing. Owner Phil Lutfy bought it the same night it debuted at a Scottsdale charity gala, drawn in by both its cause and its design. A hidden Whiskey 43 detail ties the whole theme together. Watch to see what 1-of-1 really looks like.
The 2013 SRT Viper GTS paired a 640-horsepower, 8.4-liter V10 with real stability control and Brembo brakes — the first Viper generation built to back up its speed with genuine handling credentials. On Pirelli Corsa tires, it posted a lap time at Laguna Seca that beat the Corvette ZR1, and it went even quicker on slicks. A 33-unit Time Attack edition and a factory GTS-R race car pushed the formula further still. Read on for how Dodge finally built a Viper that could out-brake its own engine.
Australia built its own answer to the muscle car wars, and the sharpest weapon it produced was a six-cylinder. The 1972 Chrysler Valiant Charger R/T E49 ran a 265-cubic-inch Hemi-six with triple 45mm Webers, a shot-peened crank and tuned-length headers, and Wheels magazine named it the fastest-accelerating car built in Australia that year. Only 149 were made. Read on to find out how a straight-six embarrassed V8s twice its displacement.
Mark Weddle’s 1968 Camaro answers to “The Janitor,” and the nickname describes what happens to the field rather than any modesty on his part. The car has been rebuilt from a small-block-and-nitrous combination to a Torrez Performance 406 running a single Precision 106mm turbocharger, chasing consistent 5.40-second eighth-mile passes on no-prep surfaces. Here is why the turbo conversion mattered more than the horsepower number, and what a swap like that actually costs beyond the turbo itself.
The first Dodge Viper wasn’t built for comfort — it launched in 1992 with no side windows, no door handles, and no anti-lock brakes, powered by an aluminum-block V10 good for a 12.6-second quarter mile. Carroll Shelby drove an early prototype as the 1991 Indy 500 pace car before the public ever saw one for sale. By the time the second generation wrapped up in 2002, Chrysler had refined the formula without softening it. Read on to see how the Viper evolved across its first two generations.
