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There’s a version of the car show hobby where everything sits behind velvet ropes, and a completely different version called ‘show and go,’ where a raw rat rod lines up next to a numbers-matching muscle car and both get to prove themselves on real pavement. That format has built a following the static car show never could, mixing generations of builders in the same parking lot. Read on to see what makes ‘show and go’ events different — and why they keep pulling in new builders.
“Tater,” Westen Champlin’s 1968 Dodge Charger, has taken plenty of abuse across his build videos, but stuffing a supercharged Hellcat engine rated near 1,500 horsepower into its 58-year-old unibody pushed things further than usual. The swap leans on aftermarket Holley EFI to run a powertrain that chassis was never designed for, and it shows almost immediately once real torque hits the driveline. Fans in the comments are already calling Champlin an honorary member of the Hemi brothers for what happens next. Watch how far belt slack and 1,500 horsepower can push a vintage Mopar before something gives.
Before the Pontiac GTO existed, corporate policy at General Motors made it impossible: no mid-size car could carry an engine over 330 cubic inches, period. John DeLorean and a small team of engineers built one anyway, testing it in nighttime street races before their bosses even knew it existed. This archival documentary traces how that quiet act of rule-breaking, plus a name borrowed from Ferrari, turned into the car that saved Pontiac and launched an entire era of American muscle. Watch to find out how close it came to never happening at all.
Only 69 real 1969 ZL1 Camaros left the factory. MuscleCar and Chevrolet Performance set out to build a 70th from a completely bare shell, with welder Tommy Boshers doing fabrication work fans can’t stop praising. One viewer who saw a real ZL1 in person as a 13-year-old in 1969 says the tribute build comes close to capturing the original. Watch the full build unfold.
This 1970 Ford Torino Cobra hides a genuine 429 Super Cobra Jet under its shaker hood scoop — an engine one longtime dyno operator calls the most powerful he ever measured in his shop. Muscle Car Campy takes a close look at a survivor that commenters say routinely embarrassed 440 Mopars and 396 Chevelles back in the day. Watch the walkaround and startup in full.
This side-by-side pits an original Hertz-era Shelby GT350 against a brand-new one, a genuine continuation car from Revology Cars, the only company Ford has ever licensed to build reproduction Mustangs from scratch. With an all-new steel body, a modern Coyote V8, and Carroll Shelby’s own blessing, it’s the closest thing to buying a factory-fresh 1965 GT350 six decades later.
Dalton pairs a rust-riddled 1967 Buick Skylark with a Pontiac LeMans engine on a strict $2,500 budget, turning what looks like scrap into a running muscle car. Pole Barn Garage’s low-buck formula has built a loyal following, including viewers who say the builds genuinely motivated them to get back to their own garages. Watch the full transplant come together.
Petrolicious follows owner Cy Schmidt on a backroads cruise through Ohio in his 1969 Mercury Cyclone CJ, and the comments keep returning to one line he says about the car: it means a lot of things to different people, but this one means a lot to him. Watch the full episode of Made to Drive.
Three modified American muscle cars go head-to-head in the UK — a tuned 770-horsepower Camaro ZL1, a stock 808-horsepower Hellcat Redeye, and an 859-horsepower Mustang saddled with the only manual gearbox in the fight. Carwow’s drag race has racked up nearly 14 million views, largely because of how close the supposedly disadvantaged stick-shift car gets. Watch the full run to see if horsepower or gearbox wins out.
Buick wasn’t supposed to build a car that could embarrass a Hemi, but the 1970 GSX Stage 1 in Saturn Yellow did exactly that — including a documented 1984 grudge race where a GS beat two different Hemi-powered cars in a single day. Only 678 were built, and Motor Trend once clocked one as the fastest car it tested all year. Watch the full story behind the numbers.
The 1961 Chevrolet Impala bubbletop is one of Detroit’s most iconic rooflines – here is the story behind the styling, the rare 409 SS package, and this particular 502-powered example.
The C5 Corvette had to fix a genuine engineering flaw before GM could even think about adding horsepower — the C4’s roofless coupe could collapse in a rollover. Read on to find out how the fix that followed became the platform for one of the best factory Corvette values on the market today.
A Chevrolet Corvette Z06, a Dodge Challenger SRT Demon, and a Ford Mustang Dark Horse line up for a quarter-mile shootout with horsepower numbers ranging from 507 all the way to 819. On paper, it’s not a fair fight. On the strip, CarReels captures a result that has viewers arguing in the comments about just how much a mid-engine layout is worth. Watch to see which car actually crosses the line first.
Dodge’s Super Bee ran a full four-year spread of engine options, from a stout 383 all the way up to the legendary 426 Hemi, but the rarest combination of them all was the mid-1969 A12 Six-Pack. Only 1,907 of those 440 Six-Pack cars were built, and the Hemi option was even scarcer at just 125 units. It’s a lineup that proves not every muscle car icon needed a household name to earn its reputation.
Jay Leno takes the wheel of a 1979 Pontiac Trans Am on loan from the Audrain Automobile Museum — the same black-and-gold decal car most people know from the movies, but with a mechanical story that’s easy to miss. According to fans in the comments, this was the year Pontiac’s W72 400 actually out-accelerated the Corvette. Watch Leno find out if the reputation holds up.