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A four-minute, music-only tribute to the 1964-1974 muscle car era has turned its own comment section into a decade-spanning argument, about when the era actually started, which cars deserved a spot, and whether America ever built anything this good again. See the cars, then see what the community had to say about them.
1970 marked the end of an era for the Buick Electra 225 — the last year of its 1965-era styling, the last convertible, and the last high-compression engines before emissions rules changed everything. Buick sent it off right with a new 370-horse 455 V8, the biggest engine this generation ever got, and over 150,000 buyers agreed it was worth the honor.
For years, collectors traded rumors about an untouched, low-mileage 1970 Chevelle SS 454 LS6 without ever confirming it was real. My Car Story host Lou Costabile tracks down the car — all-original, with just 4,305 miles and even its factory tires still on it — and the chain of connections that finally brought it to owner David Beem. Commenters are calling it a genuine Holy Grail of muscle car survivors. Watch the moment its LS6 fires up for the first time in years.
V8TV does not re-run the quarter-mile for this countdown, it pulls the quickest elapsed times magazines actually published in 1970 and pairs each ranking with a real survivor from the Brothers Collection. Hemi Challengers, an LS6 Chevelle, a 455 Stage 1 Buick GSX, and a stripped-down Road Runner all make the cut. Watch to see which car actually topped the list, it is not the one most people assume.
A Plymouth Superbird and a Ford Mustang went head-to-head in the Search For Speed league, but the real story wasn’t horsepower — it was a launch gone wrong. Viewers, including at least one Superbird owner himself, pinned the loss squarely on tire spin rather than the car, while others argued the whole matchup was unfair to begin with since the Superbird was built for Daytona’s high banks, not the quarter-mile.
1970 finally gave the Ford Ranchero its own identity — Ranchero or Ranchero GT badges on the glovebox instead of Fairlane or Torino script, plus a pointed grille, hideaway headlights, and coke-bottle styling that left the old body looking dated overnight. Four distinct trims rolled out that year, from the woodgrain Squire to a GT that could be ordered with a 370-horsepower 429 Cobra Jet. Here’s how Ford split its unibody truck-car into four very different personalities for one model year.
Ford built exactly 57 of these R-code Fairlanes in 1966, not for showroom sales, but to satisfy a NASCAR homologation rule requiring a minimum production run. Every one wore the same white-over-black color combination and hid a 427 side-oiler under a stripped-down interior. Only about 25 are believed to survive. Here is the story behind Ford’s rarest mid-size muscle car.
AMC’s Rebel spent 1967 through 1970 quietly doing everything right, offering full-size room in a midsize body, backing it with the most comprehensive warranty in the industry, and proving the point with a record-setting endurance run down the Baja peninsula. Then in 1970 it produced The Machine, painted red, white and blue, with a 340-horsepower 390 as standard equipment. Read on for how the underdog got loud.
For 1970 Plymouth severed the Barracuda’s last ties to the Valiant, dropped it onto the new E-body platform alongside the Challenger, and built an engine bay big enough for a 426 Hemi. Two model years later, insurance surcharges and emissions rules had already begun taking it apart. Here is what changed between 1970 and 1971, and which one-year-only details separate the two.
A genuine 426 Hemi Road Runner, one of only 152 built in 1970, lines up against a 1972 Oldsmobile 442 W-30, one of just 772 built that year, in a quarter-mile grudge match that splits the difference between torque and top end. The W-30’s blueprinted 455 gets off the line first, but the Hemi’s legendary top-end pull closes the gap by the traps. Viewers have been arguing in the comments ever since about which car actually deserved the win. Watch the run and decide for yourself which factory got it right.
The Plymouth Barracuda beat the Ford Mustang to market by two weeks in April 1964, yet spent the next decade being remembered as the follower rather than the pioneer. Across three generations – from its Valiant-based origins with the largest rear window ever fitted to a production car, to the dedicated E-body platform that could be ordered with the 426 Hemi – the Barracuda repeatedly reinvented itself before the 1973 energy crisis ended its run after 1974.
Saabkyle04 gives the 1970 Ford Mustang Mach 1 the same in-depth, first-person treatment he brings to everything from vintage Impalas to Lamborghinis — start-up, exhaust note, and a full walkthrough of what changed when Ford swapped in the 351 Cleveland V8. One commenter’s memory of staring at his brother-in-law’s Mach 1 for hours in 1972 says as much about this car’s legacy as any spec sheet could. Watch the full review to hear that exhaust note for yourself.
Chrysler’s Imperial spent 1969 through 1973 as the longest postwar personal luxury car short of a limousine, and it hid some genuinely strange engineering under all that sheet metal, including the first four-wheel anti-lock braking system offered on an American car and a vinyl roof that mysteriously faded into a purple paisley pattern. The G4 Imperial is far more interesting than its sales figures suggest.
At the 2016 Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals, a 10,000-mile Olds W-30, an 11,000-mile Hemi ‘Cuda gifted to a high schooler, and a 1968 Camaro SS350 that vanished for thirty years all sat in the same Vintage Certification area — untouched, unrestored, and worth more for it. Read on to find out what makes original beat restored.
AMC spent forty million dollars and a million man-hours over three years before anyone outside the company saw the Hornet, then sold the base model for $1,994. It was the first American car with reinforced door beams, the first to offer a hatchback in its class, and the first to sell a designer interior. It also produced a 285-horsepower muscle car that only 784 buyers ever got. Read on for what killed it before it started.