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This turquoise-and-white Nash Metropolitan carries a spare tire mounted like a compact ship’s wheel on its trunk lid, chrome hood ornament and whitewalls gleaming in the sun. Built entirely in England by Austin for an American company that couldn’t afford its own tooling, fewer than 95,000 ever landed stateside across eight years. Read on for how a car with four different badges became one of the more affordable classics a collector can still buy today.
The muscle car market took its hardest hit in decades after 2009, and recovery has been slow and uneven ever since. One of the quietest comeback stories belongs to a car most people forget was ever a muscle car at all: the Mercury Cougar Eliminator, built in numbers far smaller than the Mustang it was designed to beat. Here’s why collectors are paying attention now.
Do muscle cars still exist, or did the breed die with the 1970s? The orange 1969 Pontiac GTO in the photo, wearing the stripes and spoiler of the short-lived Judge package, is the perfect place to start that argument. Pontiac built just 6,833 Judges that year, and the Ram Air IV cars could run the quarter in the low 13s. Read on to find out how the definition was born, why it collapsed, and whether today’s V8 coupes deserve the name.
Eleanor, the Mustang from Gone in 60 Seconds, was never a real Shelby — just a heavily modified fastback wearing a body kit designed by Steve Stanford and built by Chip Foose. Only three of the eleven cars built for the film could actually run, and two of those didn’t survive filming. Here’s the real story behind the muscle car that became more famous than most of its human co-stars, and what its legacy says about what people actually mean when they talk about attitude.
Somewhere in the 1980s, the boxy, sharp-edged shapes that defined an entire generation of American cars quietly disappeared, replaced within about a decade by the curves nearly every car still wears today. Vox traces the shift back to a specific Ford sedan, a wind tunnel, and fuel economy rules that made drag coefficient a bottom-line issue for every automaker. The explanation has almost nothing to do with changing taste.
Tim Allen opens up his private garage for GQ’s Car Collectors series, and it’s less a display of exotics than a decades-deep collection of authentic American iron — including a 1965 Shelby Cobra S/C and a 1933 Ford Roadster he built himself during Home Improvement’s run. Watch to see why this collection reflects the man more than the market.
A 1948 Indian Chief that hadn’t turned over in forty years sat quiet at Kiwi Motorcycles in Riverside, California, until a small crew decided to find out if the engine had actually died or just gone to sleep. What came next was a cloud of exhaust smoke, a rough idle settling into a steady thump, and a comment section full of riders who still remember exactly what a stock flathead V-twin sounds like. Watch to see if forty years of silence really was the end.
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.
A Dodge Hellcat Charger and a Chevy ZL1 Camaro both rolled into Byron Dragway looking to take down the same Shelby Mustang in one night, and neither one could close the gap. The Shelby answered both challenges with trap speeds over 122 mph, leaving two of Detroit’s most hyped factory muscle cars searching for an explanation. Watch to see how close it actually got.
In late 2016, spy shots and a leaked mapping image convinced enthusiasts that Ford’s fiercest Mustang nameplate was coming back for 2017. It wasn’t — the real Shelby GT500 didn’t arrive until three years later, and when it did, it packed nearly 100 more horsepower than anyone was rumoring at the time. Here’s what actually happened between the rumor and the reveal, and why the wait ended up worth it.
Bladed Angel’s tour of six fast American cars under $10,000 has become a minor cult favorite for one honest reason: the host flubs a torque unit on camera, catches it, and leaves the apology in rather than editing it out. Picks range from a Mach 1 to sleeper domestics most budget shoppers overlook, but the real twist comes later, when the host admits he ignored his own Mustang advice and bought a 2016 GT instead. Watch to see the full list and the confession that follows it.
A Camaro built for over 1,000 horsepower, backed by nitrous, takes on a tuned Nissan GT-R in a straight-line grudge race — and the outcome hinges less on horsepower than on which car can actually put its power to the pavement. Commenters call the GT-R “hell on wheels” while sympathizing with the Camaro’s traction problems. Watch to see whether raw American muscle or all-wheel-drive precision wins the day.
Automotive Territory rounds up ten classic American muscle cars rebuilt with modern engines, transmissions, and brakes — machines its host argues could outperform today’s supercars. Builders like Ring Brothers show up on the list, and the comments have turned into a running debate over whether a restomod still counts as a real muscle car. Watch to see the full ten and decide for yourself.
A memory made at a Denver-area drag strip in 1998 turned into an almost two-decade quest for one Camaro enthusiast. When Brandon Pursley finally found the exact black 1991 Z28 that had stuck with him since high school, he was also buying the first year the Z28 name returned after the IROC-Z era. Read on for the story behind this Camaro of the Month and what makes the late third-generation cars worth the wait.
Chevrolet dropped its first real big-block into the Corvette in 1966, and the numbers on paper barely tell the whole story. The 427 arrived in two versions, a 390-horsepower hydraulic-lifter L36 and a 425-horsepower solid-lifter L72 that Chevrolet had briefly advertised at 450. Nearly one in five of the 27,720 Corvettes built that year carried the top engine. Read on to find out what made the 427-powered ’66 Sting Ray one of the most significant Corvettes Chevrolet ever built.