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Long before car memes existed online, muscle car culture was already built on the same kind of good-natured ribbing — chalked onto staging lanes, printed on bumper stickers, or scrawled across club newsletters. The photo above is just the latest version of a tradition that’s been running for as long as these cars have existed.
The 1969 Mercury Cougar was sold as the grown-up alternative to a Mustang, with more chrome, a longer wheelbase, and a quieter ride. It could also be ordered with a 428 Cobra Jet, and from April onward with a Boss 302 that no other Cougar could get. This Gateway Classic Cars gallery captures the third-year car. Read on for the option boxes that turned a luxury coupe into something else entirely.
This photo captures one of NASCAR’s rarest creations: a genuine wing car from the sport’s brief but wild ‘aero wars.’ Built by Dodge and Plymouth to chase top speed with towering rear wings and extended nosecones, cars like this one dominated the 1970 season before a single rule change legislated them out of competition almost overnight. Read on to find out why that rule mattered so much, and why surviving examples are worth seven figures today.
Vanguard Motor Sales has listed a 1969 Dodge Charger R/T SE with a 440, a Dana 60 rear end, and the factory Track Pack option — plus a decoding letter from Mopar historian Galen Glover to back it all up. One commenter remembers buying an almost identical car for $2,500 back in 1973, when muscle cars like this one were, in his words, “everywhere cheap.”
Dodge arrived to the pony car fight five years late and compensated by building an engine bay that would accept nearly anything Chrysler made, from a slant six to a 426 Hemi. This 1971 Challenger runs a 440 big block with a four-speed, which puts it one rung below the top and in the sweet spot for anyone who wants real E-body performance without a Hemi price. Read on for what the numbers actually say.
Tom Derych spent his teenage years launching a 440-powered Dart Sport down New York National Speedway, and fifteen years looking for a real muscle car to replace it. He found a Sublime Green 1970 Charger at a show in 1989 with a blown 440 that looked spectacular and barely ran. What he built from it displaces 472 cubic inches and wears 1966 iron Hemi heads. Read on for how the combination came together.
A slipping automatic transmission usually starts subtly, a delay between throttle and acceleration, or an RPM flare before the next gear catches. Mechanic Scotty Kilmer, with fifty years of hands-on experience, walks through why old or contaminated transmission fluid is often the real culprit, and how a DIY fluid change can resolve it before it becomes a full rebuild. Watch to see the fix in action.
A muscle car forum debate over whether a Buick Riviera is a 68 or a 69 usually reveals more about the car than any spec sheet could. This particular Riviera wears a mismatched blend of grille and bumper styling from both years, the kind of detail only a handful of Buick devotees would even notice. Read on to find out exactly what separates a 1968 Riviera from a 1969 one, and why the two years get confused so often.