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Some builds put two things together that were never supposed to meet. Cleveland Power and Performance took a 1969 Dodge Charger body, a shape recognizable at fifty yards, and married it to a modern supercharged chassis that makes more than twice the horsepower the original engineers ever contemplated. Read on to find out why they swapped the body onto the frame instead of the engine into the car.
Gregg Hamilton’s Pontiac Trans Am started as a childhood dream inspired by Smokey and the Bandit — and turned into something no one expected. Trained by top World Rally Championship teams, Hamilton skipped the traditional big-inch V8 in favor of a GM 5.3-liter truck engine, then applied rally-derived suspension knowledge to give this Firebird handling most muscle cars never get close to. It’s a build defined by engineering judgment over budget. Watch to see how rally-car thinking reshaped an American icon.
Eleanor is one of the most recognizable Mustangs on earth, and almost nothing about it is what people assume. It was never a factory Shelby, the name was borrowed from an earlier film, and Shelby American never built a 1967 GT500 convertible for the public at all. That makes a drop-top Eleanor a custom built on top of a custom. Read on for the design history, the production reality, and the copyright fight it triggered.
Edmunds editors James Riswick and Mike Monticello go head-to-head over the 2015 Ford Mustang GT and Dodge Challenger R/T, debating performance, comfort, and interior quality without ever fully agreeing on a winner. Nearly a decade later, the comments are still split down the middle between Mustang’s sharper handling and Challenger’s back-seat practicality. It’s a rivalry that’s only grown more entrenched with time. Watch to see which side of the debate you land on.
Most tire companies ignore the classic car market because the volumes are small and the requirements are awkward. Tireco went after it anyway with the Milestar Streetsteel, a checkered-flag-sidewall all-season aimed squarely at muscle cars, hot rods, and classic trucks. The company that built it started out selling bicycle tires in Torrance in 1972. Here is how a niche tire like this gets made, and what to look for when shopping for one.
DailyElectrician’s channel turns up two Corvettes in one barn — a 1962, the last year of the original C1 body, and a 1974, deep into the C3’s most transitional stretch. One commenter called them two of the least desirable model years Corvette ever built; several others disagreed on the spot. Sharp-eyed viewers even spotted a factory alarm keyhole that helps date one of the cars.
This 1958 Oldsmobile 88 carries the era’s 371-cubic-inch Rocket V8 and the one-piece wraparound backlight that replaced the old three-strut rear window design. It’s a survivor from the model year that earned Oldsmobile the unofficial nickname ‘ChromeMobile’ — and from the depths of a national recession that hit full-size car sales industrywide. Read on to find out what made this quietly capable cruiser more than just a chrome showcase.
Volvo’s S90 R-Design earned an unlikely muscle car nickname from reviewers, not because of raw power but because of a level of visual aggression rare for the brand – blacked-out trim, sport seats, and a genuinely provocative reworked front end. Underneath, the numbers stay modest: up to 232 horsepower and a 0-60 time around 6.7 seconds. Here’s why a Swedish sedan earned a nickname usually reserved for big-block Americana.
Twice in the 1990s, Ford built a Mustang so track-focused it was only sold to buyers holding a valid competition racing license: first with the 107-unit 1993 Cobra R on the outgoing Fox-body platform, then with the 250-unit, 5.8-liter 1995 version on Ford’s all-new SN-95 chassis. Both stripped out comfort features entirely in favor of lower weight and genuine racing credibility. Read on to find out how Ford kept reviving the Cobra R formula well into the 2000s.
Planning a road trip around America’s best muscle car museums? One name that used to top these lists, Florida’s Muscle Car City, closed for good in 2021 and sold off its 200-plus car collection at auction. Here’s an updated look at which classic muscle car museums are still standing – including the one built next to an actual Corvette assembly plant, and why institutional backing matters more than you’d think.
US Mustang sales have been sliding as American buyers shift toward SUVs, yet the same car has become the best-selling sports coupe on the planet once global markets are counted. Ford’s decision to engineer the Mustang for right-hand-drive and international emissions standards opened dozens of new markets that had never had legal factory access before. Read on to see how one sales chart can miss the bigger picture entirely.
Ford built 24,946 Rancheros for 1971 and only 3,632 of them wore the GT badge. Fewer still left the factory with the 429 Super Cobra Jet, an engine that made this car-based pickup quick enough to run with a Chevelle SS 454. It was also the last year that combination existed, which is why finding a correct one takes years rather than weekends. Here is what made the 1971 Ranchero GT worth the search.
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.
Do the people who build cars actually drive them? When automakers were asked, the answer was mostly yes, with employees strongly encouraged to be seen in the product, helped along by programs like GM’s employee discount, Ford’s A-Plan, and Audi’s 10 percent staff pricing. Beyond the discounts sit unwritten rules, plant-floor pressure, and a few stories of loyalty enforced harder than any policy admits. Read on to find out how far it really goes.
Jay Leno owns more than 180 vehicles, but when The Drive asked him to pick his favorite American muscle cars, he skipped the obvious answers entirely. His list includes a 1971 Dodge Challenger, a Ford Galaxie 500 with a forgotten 7-liter engine, a 1,000-horsepower Oldsmobile Toronado, and a crate-engined Buick Roadmaster sleeper. Every pick rewards a level of car knowledge most muscle car fans do not have. See exactly why Leno chose these four over anything more obvious.