 |
A Pontiac 455 big block catches fire mid-pull on the dyno in this Nick’s Garage video, and instead of cutting the footage, the channel keeps rolling and walks through exactly what went wrong. It’s the kind of unfiltered honesty about engine building’s real risks that has built Nick’s Garage a loyal following, even when the pull doesn’t go as planned. Watch to see how the fire started and what it reveals about pushing a big-block V8 to its limits.
Line up a supercharged Shelby GT500 against a naturally aspirated Camaro SS and the spec sheet declares a winner before anyone stages. Then the tree drops, and the spec sheet turns out to have been describing two entirely different cars aimed at two entirely different buyers. Traction, launch technique, and driver nerve routinely rewrite the math. Here is why this matchup keeps getting rematched, and why the outcome is less predictable than it looks.
The 1965 Plymouth Fury III rode on an all-new full-size platform, and buyers could option it anywhere from a thrifty slant-six to a 365-horsepower Street Wedge V8 few ever actually ordered. Most Fury III buyers picked comfort over conquest, driving nearly 330,000 of these full-size Plymouths off dealer lots in a single year.
Chevrolet did not build the Z/28 to win a stoplight argument. It built it to satisfy a rulebook that capped racing engines at 5.0 liters, which is why engineers invented an entirely new 302 small block by mixing parts from two others. The 1968 car sharpened the formula with better suspension, a homologated cross-ram induction package, and back-to-back Trans-Am titles. Read on for what made the plainest-looking Camaro the most respected one.
Full-size 1970s Cadillacs like the Fleetwood and Eldorado stretched close to 20 feet long and packed a 500-cubic-inch V8, the largest displacement engine GM ever put in a regular passenger car, all in the name of comfort over cornering. The Eldorado’s front-wheel-drive layout, borrowed from the Oldsmobile Toronado, made an already enormous car even stranger to engineer. Read on to find out why bigger, heavier, and harder to turn was exactly the point Cadillac was chasing.
Chevrolet built more SS 396 Chevelles in 1969 than in any other year of the option’s run, more than 86,000 of them, and yet keeping one genuinely big-block powered five decades later is its own kind of stubbornness. Jerry McLean named his build Rats Forever, and anyone who knows what a rat motor is already understands the entire philosophy. Here is what that commitment actually costs, and why the community respects it.
Chris Slee emigrated from New Zealand with more ambition than money and opened Kiwi Classics and Customs in a small Franklin, Tennessee shop. His problem was the one every new builder has: no customers and no proof. The answer was a big-block 1966 Mustang, a swap Ford itself did not attempt until it redesigned the car for 1967. Read on for why that engine choice was the entire business plan.
A brand-new Dodge Demon owner heads straight to the drag strip in this Sinister Life video, running the factory supercharged Hemi on drag radials and pump gas against a Jeep Trackhawk, a six-speed manual Hellcat, and a supercharged Camaro SS. Each matchup tests a different side of the Demon’s factory-engineered dominance, from all-wheel-drive traction to raw horsepower to driver skill. Watch to see whether Dodge’s purpose-built drag weapon lives up to its record-setting reputation against three very different rivals.
The 1978 Porsche 930 Turbo picked up a nickname that owners still repeat with a nervous half-laugh, and it had nothing to do with how fast the car was in a straight line. A 3.3-liter intercooled flat-six, a single turbocharger with no manners, four gears, and most of the weight behind the rear axle added up to something no other car of the era could replicate. Read on to find out what made it so feared, and why collectors chase it anyway.
Ford’s new mid-size Torino paced the 1968 Indianapolis 500 and carried David Pearson to a NASCAR championship in its debut season, laying the groundwork for the Motor Trend Car of the Year award the nameplate would win two years later. The GT fastback was the shape that did most of that work, and by spring Ford had a 428 Cobra Jet to put under its hood. Read on for what the 1968 Torino GT actually offered and why the fastback is the one collectors chase.
The U-2 spy plane cannot land without a car racing alongside it on the runway, radioing the pilot’s altitude down to the final foot — and for decades, that job went to genuine muscle cars pulled into government service. This clip captures the aircraft’s dramatic departure from RAF Fairford, with the very vehicle waiting for its return parked just out of frame. Watch to see what the Air Force trusts with landing a Cold War-era spy plane today.
Mercury spent 1967 proving that a plusher, quieter Mustang could sell, then spent 1968 arming it with everything from a 230-horsepower 302 four-barrel to a 390-horsepower 427. This particular 1968 Cougar takes a different route entirely, pairing a worked-over small block with Vintage Air, Hooker headers and polished American Racing wheels. Read on to find out where it fits in the most underrated pony car lineup Ford Motor Company ever built.
Chevrolet built only 7,015 Nova SS models in 1971, a number small enough that finding one at a cruise night is closer to luck than expectation. That scarcity was not a marketing decision. It was what happened when insurance surcharges, emissions rules, and a new low-lead fuel mandate arrived at the same moment. This custom yellow 350 build shows what the platform still had left to give once the factory stopped pushing.
A 1967 Mustang Fastback with a dyno-verified 370-horsepower 302 sounds like a straightforward resto-mod until you realize Ford did not build a 302 until 1968. That single detail explains the entire philosophy behind this build, and it raises the question every resto-mod eventually has to answer: at what point does a modernized classic stop being the car it started as? Here is what the 1967 Fastback platform gives a builder, and what it asks in return.
Tom Cotter leaves his usual 1939 Ford Woodie Wagon at home for this episode of Hagerty’s Barn Find Hunter, instead driving a freshly uncovered 428-cubic-inch V8 machine straight through the back roads of South Carolina. It’s the latest stop in a series built around one simple idea: real muscle car history is still out there, hiding in barns and overgrown fields, waiting for someone willing to dig it out. Watch to see what Cotter found and why he decided to drive it home instead of trailering it.