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Posts Tagged: 1969

A 1969 GTO Ram Air IV, one of only 759 built that year, takes on a 1970 Chevelle SS454 LS6, Chevrolet’s most powerful factory big block of the era, in a quarter-mile pass that ends in a burnout as memorable as the race itself. An original LS6 owner in the comments confirms the car’s biggest weakness was never power, it was getting that much torque to the pavement. The Ram Air IV gives up 80 horsepower on paper but does not give up the fight. Watch the full run to see how it closes the gap.

Barry White thought he knew what he was buying when he picked up a gutted 1969 Camaro shell from a wrecking yard. Hidden rust, a supercharger that wouldn’t fit, an engine bay fire, and a run of bad luck earned the car its nickname: Christine, after Stephen King’s killer Plymouth. With $40,000 on the line at auction in Jackson Hole, and a rival Camaro selling for far less, watch to see whether the curse finally breaks.

The RestoMods team spent two years turning a clean 1969 Chevelle into their 22nd giveaway build — and this one went further than most, with a supercharged 427, a six-speed twin-disc manual, and Wilwood brakes built for something twice its weight. Whoever wins it can take the car or $100,000 in cash instead. Watch to see what two years and no shortcuts actually produces.

Plymouth only offered this exact combination for a few months before moving on, which is precisely why the A12 Road Runner remains one of the most talked-about mid-year muscle cars ever built. Wearing Vitamin C Orange paint straight from The Brothers Collection, this particular 440 Six Barrel car represents a stopgap Chrysler engineered on the fly to answer a very specific rival. Watch to find out what problem this car was actually built to solve.

Vanguard Motor Sales took this 1969 Chevrolet Chevelle — stock #5668, documented with over 100 photos and finished in a bold orange that’s winning over commenters — out for a real test drive instead of just a showroom walkaround. It’s a rare, transparent look at how a dealer actually vets a classic before it lists it. See how the Chevelle performs when the pedal goes down.

Tim Wellborn built one of the deepest private Mopar collections in the country, including a genuine NASCAR Daytona raced by K&K Insurance and a limelight-green Hemi four-speed he refuses to restore. When Rocket Restorations’ Tom mentioned he was a fan of the channel, Tim didn’t just say thanks — he flew him down for a personal tour and a drive. Watch to see what fifty years of collecting looks like from behind the wheel.

By 1971 the muscle car era was already cooling off, and Buick’s Gran Sport had to adapt to new fuel and emissions realities without losing its identity. This GS 350 survived that transition looking sharp, one of a shrinking number left from a production run that barely broke nine thousand cars. Here is what made the 1971 GS a genuinely interesting footnote in Buick’s performance history, not just a leftover from better years.

By day this red, white, and blue Javelin was Car #3, dicing it out in SCCA Trans-Am with Mustangs and Camaros that outnumbered AMC ten to one. By off-season it became a test mule for one of the sharpest operations in American racing. Read on to find out what Penske’s people found when they finally put this car on the stopwatch.

A flyer promising prize money at a March drag shootout doesn’t tell you much on its own — but the track behind it, an NHRA-affiliated eighth-mile strip built for grudge racing and small-tire shootouts, has plenty of story to it. Door-crasher format, cash on the line, and a community that shows up test-and-tune after test-and-tune. Here’s what actually happens when the tree drops and real money’s riding on it.

Muscle Car Of The Week usually reaches decades into the past for its features. This week it barely reaches back at all, spotlighting a 2012 Ford Mustang BOSS 302 carrying a designation most viewers have never encountered, Tooling Tryout Number 1, a label reserved for cars used to validate factory production tooling before a model reaches dealers. Built as a direct descendant of the original 1969-1970 BOSS 302, this modern revival turns out to be faster than nearly everything else in the collection. Watch to find out why.

Most restored Chevelles come with a history full of guesswork. This 1969 Chevrolet Chevelle SS does not, its original 396 V8, TH400 transmission, and 12-bolt posi rear end are all numbers-matching and documented, complete with the factory build sheet that specified them from day one. Finished in the uncommon factory color Burnished Brown and treated to a full frame-off restoration, this California car has the paper trail most restored muscle cars only claim to have. Watch to see what a fully documented survivor actually looks like.

Ford needed something to embarrass Chevrolet’s Camaro on a road course, and what it built carried a name that started as an inside joke between two engineers. The Boss 302 was rated at 290 hp on paper and closer to 380 in reality. Read on to find out the story behind the name, and why a $3,720 car now sells for over half a million.

In 1969 Chevrolet let a handful of buyers order an all-aluminum, race-bred 427 that needed fuel no gas station actually sold — and it nearly doubled the price of the car it went into. Only 69 Camaros and 2 Corvettes ever left the factory with the ZL1 option. Read on for the dyno numbers, the drag strip runs that outran them, and why this engine’s window of availability was so brief.

Pontiac built exactly eight 1969 Firebird Trans Am convertibles, and V8TV has now featured every single one of them, including this fourth car, the one with the lowest VIN sequence number of the group. The eighth car in the set went missing for years before finally surfacing and getting restored in 2016. See what makes this particular Trans Am worth a second look inside an already impossibly rare set of eight.

This 1969 Buick Skylark wears every badge and stripe of a genuine GS – right down to the hood scoop and monogrammed vinyl roof – but underneath is a more modest Special Deluxe coupe running a smaller 280-horsepower V8. Buick built only 3,574 examples of the California GS, an affordable package that let buyers buy the muscle car look without the muscle car price tag. Tom McCahill still clocked it to 60 mph in under 10 seconds.

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