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By 2015, the Dodge Viper’s fans already suspected the end was close, and two years later the Conner Avenue plant proved them right. The cars revving at that year’s Viper show were among the last and strongest of a 26-year run: 8.4 liters, 645 horsepower, 600 lb-ft, a six-speed manual, and not a single turbocharger across roughly 31,000 cars. Read on to find out how the Viper grew from a bare-bones 1992 roadster into the final-generation car collectors now chase.
In 1968, an Oldsmobile engineer asked the Hurst team to help build something that should not have existed: a 442 with the Toronado’s front-wheel-drive powertrain packed into its nose. Exactly one was completed, and it survived in one owner’s hands for 42 years before Fred Mandrick acquired it in 2012. Read on to find out why Oldsmobile bothered building a front-drive muscle car nobody was ever supposed to buy.
Only about 70 of the 503 Dodge Charger Daytonas built for 1969 left the factory with a 426 Hemi, and Tom Lembeck’s car pairs that rare engine with an even rarer factory color, F6 Spring Green Metallic. Built purely to win NASCAR’s aero wars, the Daytona’s 18-inch nosecone and towering wing still look radical decades later. Read on to find out why a paint code can matter almost as much as an engine code.
The “Eleanor” Hero Car from Gone in 60 Seconds sold for $1 million at Dana Mecum’s 26th Original Spring Classic — a result that stunned auction regulars watching bids climb in real time. See what made this 1967 Mustang worth seven figures, and how it stacks up against the biggest movie car sales in history.
Fred Mandrick’s 1968 Oldsmobile FWD 442 Toronado, nicknamed the Fouranado, is the only one of its kind, born from a Hurst/Olds engineering experiment in the program’s very first year. The previous owner kept it for 42 years before Fred took over in 2012, and it later stood as the featured car at the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals. Watch to hear how a one-off prototype survived five decades intact.
Ford didn’t build one 2013 Mustang, it built three: a 662-horsepower Shelby GT500 chasing 200 mph, a road-course-tuned Boss 302 spinning to 7,500 rpm, and a everyday GT that split the difference. Each one shared the same badge but demanded a completely different kind of driver. Read on to find out which one actually deserved a spot in the garage, and why the Boss 302’s single-year window still matters to collectors today.
The 2013 Chrysler 300 SRT8 wears no hood scoop, no rear wing, and nothing that separates it visually from the six-cylinder rental-lot version parked next to it. Then you step on the gas, and a 470-horsepower 6.4-liter Hemi puts a lot of imported performance machinery in the rearview mirror. Launch control, three suspension modes, and a 175 mph top end round out one of the best sleeper sedans Detroit ever built. Read on to find out what makes it work.
The 1967 Dodge Dart looks like a simple facelift year buried in Mopar’s compact lineup, but underneath that new sheet metal Dodge quietly reengineered the chassis to accept engines the old Dart never could. Wider front track, respaced frame rails, and a redesigned K-member set the stage for the small-block street fighters that would make the Dart name legendary just a couple years later. Add curved side glass, a new dual-circuit brake system, and 154,500 units built, and this transitional year deserves way more credit than the glory-grabbing GTS versions usually get.
The term “pony car” has nothing to do with horsepower, it describes a specific formula the 1964½ Ford Mustang invented and every Detroit rival scrambled to copy. Fifty years later, the Mustang’s 2015 redesign broke from that formula for the first time, adding independent rear suspension and a turbocharged four-cylinder. Read on to find out what actually separates a pony car from a muscle car.
Audi’s R8 was already fast enough to embarrass supercars costing twice as much, which did not stop German tuner MTM from unveiling a 5-liter biturbo version at Geneva in 2011 and then spending two years making it substantially wilder. By 2013 the GT version was making 802 horsepower and running to 223 mph. Read on for what MTM changed, and why the chassis work mattered more than the engine.
Chevrolet already had a Camaro ZL1 that could embarrass six-figure exotics on a road course, so when engineers built a more extreme version they did the unexpected thing and left the 650-horsepower supercharged V8 completely alone. The 2018 ZL1 1LE found roughly three seconds a lap at GM’s Milford Road Course through dampers, tires, downforce, and about sixty pounds of deleted weight instead. From twenty feet away it looks nearly identical to the standard car. It is not.
Vanguard Motor Sales walks through a red 1966 Chevrolet Chevelle, VIN and all, with the kind of detailed, plain-language presentation that’s turned its host into a fan favorite in the comments. It’s a pivotal model year for the Chevelle, the first to offer the 396 big-block as a widely available, regular-production SS option. No dyno pulls, no drag strip — just an honest, thorough look at a genuinely significant piece of GM history. See what makes this one worth a second look.
Four years without a new Camaro on dealer lots should have been the end of the story. Instead, a 2006 concept car reveal quietly locked in a production decision that brought the nameplate back for 2010 with a track-only preview year first. Read on to see how the fifth-generation Camaro went from concept stage to a 580-horsepower ZL1 flagship.
At a Good Guys car show in May 2013, a 1968 Chevelle SS clipped a concrete barrier during an autocross run — and more than a decade later, the comments are still debating whether the course itself was the real problem. Between complaints about missing hay bales, no helmets, and an oversized figure-8 layout, this brief fender-bender turned into a lasting argument about event safety. Watch to see how close it actually came to being much worse.