Posts Tagged: 1970
In 1970, Torino took the spotlight with its sleek coke bottle styling and a model lineup as diverse as a buffet—17 flavors to choose from! The Fairlane was the entry-level dish, while the Falcon came with rubber mats, making it the fast-food option of the bunch. Interiors got a makeover too, with a snazzy speedometer and a new ribbon tachometer. The Torino Cobra was the spicy two-door fastback, thrilling enough to make Motor Trend call it “completely different”—and we all know how rare that is in car talk!
Doug Bolton, a young hot rodder and Chevrolet enthusiast, was on a quest for the ultimate engine in 1970. With Roy Price Chevrolet just around the corner in Bountiful, Utah, Doug didn’t have to look far. He needed a Bow Tie powerplant that screamed speed, and naturally, his project car became the proud host of the fiercest engine Chevy had to offer. This 4,300-mile unrestored 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle LS6 is now hailed as the finest of its kind on the planet, a testament to Doug’s impeccable taste in muscle cars.
Brenda Wallace bought her 1970 Chevelle SS396 new from Wright Chevrolet in Clarksville, Tennessee, and never let it go. That single detail puts her car in rarer company than the horsepower numbers alone suggest — Chevrolet built just 2,144 of the top L78 version that year, and one-owner survivors with documented history are harder to find than clean examples of either engine. Here’s what made a genuine 1970 SS396 special, and why the “396” badge doesn’t quite mean what it says.
The Ford Mustang Boss 429, a real heavyweight of its time, was Ford’s bold attempt to challenge the Chrysler 426 Hemi on the NASCAR tracks. With an engine so big, it needed a trunk relocation for the battery—because who needs trunk space anyway? Kar Kraft had to re-engineer the Mustang just to fit this beast under the hood. The result? A 375 hp engine that laughs at its own rating, easily roaring past 600 hp with tweaks. The Boss 429 is a muscle car icon, proving that size does matter!
The five-figure muscle car market has cooled at the top, but the real action right now is happening under $10,000 — a corner of the hobby where second-tier icons like fourth-gen Dodge Chargers, Mercury Cougars, and even AMC Matadors are quietly building a following. We look at which overlooked classics are still genuinely affordable, and why a growing appetite for vintage trucks and SUVs is reshaping where collector money goes next.
Pontiac’s 1970-71 GTO was like the rock star of muscle cars, strutting its stuff with flashy quad headlights and a bumper that laughed in the face of low-speed impacts. In 1970, the GTO said goodbye to its economy engine, opting for muscle-bound options like the new 455 HO. Meanwhile, handling got a boost with a rear sway bar and the rare VOE exhaust that cranked up the volume. By 1971, the GTO’s style had evolved with a tighter lamp arrangement, prepping for unleaded fuel and a farewell tour for “The Judge.”
Growing up in the Pomona Valley during the early 1970s meant living down the block from guys who ran real Funny Cars and Top Fuel dragsters — rock stars, as far as any gearhead kid was concerned. The gasser look this 1969 Chevelle wears traces back to NHRA’s old Gas Coupe & Sedan classes, a straight-axle, nose-high style that had already faded from official competition by the time this car got built. SoCal builders never let it die, though, keeping the stance and the attitude alive as a backyard tradition long after the sanctioning bodies moved on.
This 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS traveled from Georgia to Florida to an Indianapolis museum before landing on Vanguard Motor Sales’ lot with its original factory build sheet still intact. Under the hood, the numbers-matching 396 has barely turned over since a 1999 restoration. It’s the kind of paper trail that usually gets lost decades before a car like this survives to tell its own story. Watch to see what else has stayed frozen in time.
This 1977 Pontiac Firebird Esprit in Buckskin Gold carries a direct link to The Rockford Files, the car James Garner’s character made famous on TV. But its history runs deeper than a screen connection – a mid-1977 factory supply shortage quietly swapped the engine spec partway through the model year. Add the redesigned square-headlight front end and rare option packages like Skybird, and this Esprit turns out to be more complicated than its laid-back reputation suggests.
For the 1969 model year, the Camaro was the belle of the SCCA Trans Am ball, equipped with Corvette-like stopping power thanks to four-piston calipers. Only 206 of these beauties sported the $500 JL8 option, making them rarer than a unicorn on a racetrack. The Z28 package was a powerhouse, boasting a 302-cubic-inch engine, and the COPO version went rogue with a 427-cubic-inch beast, courtesy of Don Yenko. And let’s not forget the ZL-1, an all-aluminum marvel, crafted with love and 16 hours of labor!
The 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS LS6 454 carried a factory rating of 450 horsepower and 500 lb-ft of torque, the highest gross horsepower GM ever officially assigned a muscle car. This feature breaks down exactly why that number happened in 1970 specifically, and why regulatory changes the following year made sure no muscle car would ever match it again in the same way. Even Mopar loyalists show up in the comments to give credit where it’s due. Watch to see the case laid out in full.
A factory 6.1 liter Challenger SRT8 ran six quarter-mile passes against a numbers-matching 1970 Challenger T/A powered by its original 340 Six Pack engine, then the drivers swapped cars for the final two runs. One viewer said the old T/A ran a 12-second pass despite missing a gear, while another swore they’d never seen the modern SRT8 run that slow. A commenter who owns both cars revealed his girlfriend was driving the new Challenger in her first-ever stick shift track session. So which car actually won?
Dodge built the Super Bee as a stripped-price alternative to its own Road Runner, but partway through 1969 it quietly added the 440 Six Pack — three two-barrel Holleys good for 390 horsepower — and only 1,907 cars ever left the factory with that combination. That makes the Six Pack Super Bee rarer than most people assume for a car built around the idea of cheap speed. Whether you got the common 383 Magnum, the scarce Six Pack, or the legendary Hemi, every ’69 Super Bee proves Dodge’s budget muscle car was never actually a budget performer.