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The 1967 Plymouth Belvedere lived a double life — one version chased down traffic violators for the LAPD and starred in Adam-12s pilot episode, while another, ordered with the rare 425 horsepower 426 Hemi option, could out-muscle nearly everything else on the road. Only 720 buyers checked that Hemi box that year, making it one of the most overlooked factory Hemi cars Mopar ever built.
Nick’s Garage pulled a rare 1970 Dodge Challenger T/A Six Pack out of nine years of storage and waited until after closing to attempt the first start alone. A 340ci engine that’s sat that long can seize, hydro-lock, or simply refuse to catch — and the only way to know is to turn the key. Watch to see which way it goes.
Plymouth built the Duster by taking a Valiant, keeping everything forward of the cowl, and grafting on a new fastback roofline behind it. The result cost $2,172, sold over 217,000 copies in its first year, and could be had with a 340 for about four hundred dollars more. Only a fraction of buyers checked that box, which is precisely why those cars matter now. Read on for how a parts-bin economy car became a genuine muscle car bargain.
A British Columbia rock scaler spent forty years quietly amassing more than 340 vehicles on five acres near Tappen, from a DeLorean to a rare 1966 Pontiac Beaumont SD and a 1968 Chevelle SS396. Now he wants out, but only as a single package, house and restoration shop included, for roughly Can$1.45 million. Who has the space and the nerve to take it all at once? Read on to find out.
A vintage Dodge Dart with a Chrysler 340 under the hood lines up against a modern C5 Corvette, and the comment section had already decided who wins before the video even loaded. One viewer calls it over before it started; another shares the story of nearly buying a 340 Duster for $1,000 back in 1975. Watch to see if old-school Mopar muscle really does settle the argument.
Bob Gough grew up in France idolizing European sports cars and came home doubting American muscle could keep up. Then he found the 1967 Plymouth Barracuda Formula S, Plymouth’s own answer built specifically to handle like a European car rather than just run a fast quarter mile. Over twenty-three years of ownership, Gough has swapped in a 340 V8, a Tremec five-speed, custom 15-inch wheels, and nitrogen shocks — and says the result can leave Porsches behind once the road straightens out. Watch to hear why he still calls it deceptively docile to drive.
Back in 2016, word started spreading that Dodge might drop the V8 from the Challenger and Charger in favor of a twin-turbo V6 — a rumor most Mopar fans, including this outlet, dismissed outright. Years later, the debate turned out to be an early preview of exactly where the industry was headed. Read on to see how a rumor once written off as internet noise ended up getting the last laugh.
A 1969 Dodge Dart GTS with a small block 340 lines up against a 1969 Camaro SS 396 packing the rare solid-lifter L78, and the spec sheet says this should not even be a contest. It nearly wasn’t, just not in the direction anyone expected. Watch the quarter mile that has Mopar and Chevy fans still arguing over which engine really won.
By 1973, insurance surcharges, emissions rules, and new bumper regulations had already reshaped the muscle car era that once defined Plymouth’s Barracuda. The E-body soldiered on regardless, sharing its platform with the Dodge Challenger. Production numbers from this final full season tell a quieter, less celebrated story than the Hemi-powered years that usually get the attention.
Chevrolet rated the 1970 Chevelle SS 454’s LS6 engine at 450 horsepower, but nobody who dyno-tested one believed the number — Super Chevy Magazine’s own testing pointed to something closer to 500. It was the most powerful engine Chevrolet ever put in a Chevelle, offered for exactly one year before EPA rules ended the experiment. Only 4,475 LS6 Chevelles were built in 1970, and just 137 are verified on today’s national registry. Read on for what made this one-year-only big block so different from every 454 that came after it.
The Lotus Elise Series 1 built its reputation on weight, not horsepower, tipping the scales at just 725 kilograms while still running 0-60 mph in 5.8 seconds. Variants ranged from the entry-level GT1 up through the stripped-down, roofless 340R and the hardtop Exige, each pushing Lotus’s lightweight philosophy further. Read on to find out how a car this light managed to out-corner machines with twice the power.
The fourth-generation Pontiac Firebird arrived in 1993 with a windshield raked at sixty-eight degrees, a small-block borrowed almost intact from the Corvette parts bin, and a concept car in its family tree that never reached production. Over five model years Pontiac kept quietly escalating it, from a 160-horsepower base six to a Ram Air package making 305. Here is what actually changed between 1993 and 1997, and why these are the bargain years.
Chevrolet’s 348, 409, and 427-cubic-inch “W series” engines look nearly identical from the outside, sharing interchangeable heads and the same basic block architecture — with one telltale difference: dipstick placement. Introduced in 1958 as Chevrolet’s first true big-block V8, the family climbed from a 250-horsepower Turbo-Thrust up to a 350-horsepower Special Super Turbo-Thrust before the 409 and 427 took over as the brand’s flagship big-blocks. Read on for how to tell these engines apart and where each one fits in Chevrolet’s horsepower history.
The 1971 Plymouth Duster 340 was the cheapest genuine muscle car Mopar sold, hiding a 275-horsepower small block in a body built on the same compact A-body as the economy Valiant. Only 12,886 were built as true 340 cars that year, the lowest production of the run and the last before compression ratios fell. Roughly 1,200 got the one-year-only V24 blackout hood. Read on to find out why the plainest car in the lineup has the best story.
Beneath the plain sheetmetal of this mid-size Plymouth sat one of the rarest engines Chrysler ever sold to the public: the 425-horsepower Street Hemi, built for NHRA stock classes and barely civilized for the street. Only 677 Belvederes were built with it in 1966, a year before the GTX name even existed to advertise what was under the hood. Buyers got forged internals, dual four-barrel carburetion, and a torque curve that demanded a reinforced rear axle. It’s the missing chapter most muscle car fans skip straight past.