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Salomondrin’s Dodge Challenger Hellcat has a name, a personality, and enough history to fill an entire recurring video series – and this one breaks it down into six specific facts. Longtime viewers already know exactly who ‘Hellgato’ is; everyone else is about to find out. Watch to see what years of ownership actually reveal about a car.
A Dusk Rose 1957 Thunderbird climbing through the Black Hills toward Mount Rushmore sounds like the setup for a breakdown story, but this one carries the Thunderbird Special 312 and both of its tops. Ford built that engine specifically to give the two seat T-Bird a harder edge than the base V8 could manage, and 1957 was the last year the car had only two seats. Here is what made the Special different, and why the final Baby Bird is the one collectors want.
A 1966 Ford Mustang with 408 cubic inches under the hood is not a car Ford ever built, because the biggest engine on the 1966 order sheet displaced 289. Somewhere along the way an owner decided the factory had been too conservative and added more than a hundred cubic inches of small block. Here is what Ford actually sold during its record breaking year, how a 408 stroker gets built, and what changes about a first generation Mustang once the numbers stop matching.
The Corvette almost didn’t survive its own first decade. Built from fiberglass because postwar steel was scarce, sold in a color palette limited to white, and slower to stop than it was to go, the original 1953 Corvette came close to cancellation before Ford’s Thunderbird forced Chevrolet’s hand. What followed was a rapid string of changes — a real V8, a fuel-injected small-block, a bored-out 327 — that turned an awkward experiment into the car GM couldn’t afford to kill. Read on to find out how it got there.
A 1967 Camaro carrying Chevrolet’s ZZ502 crate big block makes 502 horsepower and 567 lb-ft of torque, and none of it came from 1967. The engine was designed decades after the car, yet it drops into the same bay as though it had always belonged there. The hard part of the build is everything behind the engine. Read on for what it takes to make a 502 swap work as well as it sounds.
Mikey No No’s naturally aspirated Chevy Nova takes on a heavily modified, all-wheel-drive Nissan Skyline in a grudge race that reignites an old argument between American V8 simplicity and Japanese turbocharged engineering. The comments split hard on which car actually sounds better crossing the line. Watch to hear which side wins you over.
The title says it plainly: One Bad Ass Comet. Behind it is a man named Bill, whose relationship with his Mercury Comet has commenters calling him an inspiration decades into his racing career, still driving the car to the track and back himself. Watch to see exactly what kind of driving earns that kind of respect.
No prep racing strips away the traction compound that normal drag strips depend on, which turns a thousand-horsepower pass into a wrestling match. A helmet cam mounted inside BoostedGT’s Ford lines up against Flaco’s twin-turbo LSx S10 at No Prep Mayhem in Wichita. Two very different formulas, one very slick surface. Read on for what makes this format so much harder than it looks.
Back in 1972, Duane’s sister-in-law drove a yellow Dodge Charger off a dealer lot in Alabama — and by 2000 had decided it was worth more parked on blocks in her garage than on the road. Never touched by snow, never sold, and still owned by its original buyer, the car has become a kind of retirement fund she can start the engine on. There’s also a detail in its build sheet that shouldn’t technically exist. Read on to find out what it is.
Only two examples of this coachbuilt Bentley were ever built, and their paths diverged almost immediately, one preserved in a factory museum, the other sold into a private American collection. Design No. CT150 stands as one of the last projects James Young of Bromley completed before its coachbuilding era ended for good. Read on to find out why this rare Bentley debuted at the Geneva Motor Show before its first owner ever saw it.
Twelve of the world’s best driver’s cars line up on an airstrip for MotorTrend’s sixth drag race showdown – and then an uninvited Dodge Charger Hellcat, parked nearby for entirely unrelated reasons, ends up joining the field anyway. The results surprise viewers more than the official lineup does. Watch to see which cars actually back up their reputations.
Mopar built some of its wagon-bodied cars to blend in on purpose, sharing a platform with some of the era’s most respected muscle car nameplates while wearing understated full-size trim. Spot the right grille and taillight details on this green wagon and the model year practically gives itself away. Read on to find out the year, make, and model, and how close your guess actually was.
In 1955 Chevrolet and Ford both launched a two-seat American convertible, and only one of them was seriously trying to build a sports car. The Thunderbird outsold the Corvette by better than twenty to one in the first year alone, which should have ended the argument permanently. Instead it saved the Corvette. Here is how the softer car won the showroom, why GM refused to read that as a defeat, and what happened to both nameplates afterward.
Keeping a decades-old muscle car or hot rod on the road depends on a fragile supply chain of reproduction parts, machine shops, and specialty suppliers that has swung wildly in quality and availability over the decades. When that industry gets it right, restorations get easier and more cars end up back on the road. Read on to find out what’s actually changed, and why enthusiasts are paying attention.
A ride in a numbers-matching 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona 426 Hemi is rare enough on its own, but owner Tom Lembeck takes his out into real Chicago traffic rather than keeping it parked at a show. The car’s aero package once forced NASCAR itself to change its rules. Watch to see exactly why this particular Daytona earns its reputation.