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Ford outsold Chevrolet by 10 percent in 1951, and the optional 239 cubic inch flathead V8 under this coupes hood was part of the reason why. That same engine, simple enough for anyone to modify, became the foundation of the postwar hot rod movement and helped define an entire era of American car culture. Here is why builders still chase this engine family decades later.
Chevrolet built this roadster during the worst economy in American history – and somehow sold nearly half a million of its kind anyway. Find out how a rebadged “Eagle” with a beaver-tail rear end and a V-shaped radiator became one of the best-selling cars of 1933, and why collectors still chase these six-cylinder survivors today.
This numbers-matching 1968 Chevrolet Impala SS 396 runs the streets of Dallas with air conditioning, power steering, a 12-bolt rear end, bucket seats and an AM eight-track. Full-size performance was never as popular as the Chevelle or Camaro, which is exactly why a genuine SS 396 Impala with its original drivetrain has become so much harder to find. Read on for what the Super Sport package actually bought and how many were really built.
Plymouth expected to sell about 20,000 Road Runners in 1968 and moved more than twice that, building a muscle car around the radical idea of removing everything a buyer did not need. Fewer than one in forty buyers paid the $714 premium for the 426 Hemi, which cost roughly a quarter of the car’s base price. This restored blue example carries that exact rare combination. Read on for why the cheapest Mopar got the most expensive engine.
This 1959 Lincoln Continental Mark IV represents Lincoln at its most luxurious, and its most cautious, after toning down a wild 1958 redesign just one year later. Only 2,195 convertibles like this one were built, powered by a 430 V8 making 350 hp. Here’s the story behind one of the rarest personal luxury cars of its era.
This 1958 Pontiac Chieftain rolled off the line during the final season of a nameplate Pontiac had built since 1949, one year before an all-new Catalina made it obsolete. Under its restyled, honeycomb-grille body sat an air suspension and tri-power V8 borrowed from Pontiac’s priciest engineering ideas. Only a few thousand were built this way. Here’s what made the last Chieftain worth a second look.
Only about 619 of them were ever built, and the racing driver they were named after had left the brand before the model year was over. The 1968 Mercury Cougar XR7-G began as a tribute to Dan Gurney’s Trans-Am program and ended as a one-year-only special with no factory racing effort left to celebrate. What buyers actually got for their money is stranger than the story behind it. Read on to find out what made this Cougar different.