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Road Test TV pits a rare 1969 428 Cobra Jet Mustang GT Coupe, one of only 243 built, against an equally scarce 1968 Pontiac Firebird Ram Air 400. Commenters immediately dig up a 1968 Car and Driver test where the Ram Air 400 beat four rival muscle cars outright, setting the stakes for this quarter-mile rematch. Watch to see whether Pontiac’s airflow-focused engineering or Ford’s Cobra Jet muscle wins this round.
A restorer who wouldn’t hand his own ‘Cuda over to anyone else, a paint color pulled straight from Chrysler’s loudest era, and a 440 that one viewer called “a monster” before the walkaround even finished. Lou Costabile caught up with Tom Benson on the Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale floor to find out how a self-restored 1971 Plymouth ‘Cuda ended up looking factory-fresh in Sassy Grass Green. The comments reveal an even wilder history hiding behind that color code. What was it actually like to own one of these new?
In the years right after World War II, Packard wasn’t just competing with Cadillac for America’s luxury car buyers — it was actually winning, with the Clipper-era lineup outselling Cadillac and LaSalle combined for a stretch. This 1949 Eight represents that high point: America’s last great straight-eight era, built the same year Packard’s total production topped 116,000 cars. It also marks the beginning of the end, since the brand still lacked the modern overhead-valve V8 that was about to reshape the entire industry.
Mecum’s Kissimmee auction is famous for volume — acres of muscle cars crossing the block over more than a week. But the real draw for serious collectors is the oddball that shouldn’t exist at all, like a factory-built Pontiac Trans Am wagon GM never intended to sell to the public. Here’s the story behind one of the strangest survivors to ever roll across an auction stage.
A small fender badge reading Futuramic marked one of the biggest technological shifts Oldsmobile ever made: the return of the Hydra-Matic automatic transmission after a wartime production pause. Oldsmobile beat Cadillac to market with a fully automatic transmission by an entire year. The 1948 restyle paired that transmission with features few other cars of the era could match.
Las Vegas is not just one of the best cities for classic car enthusiasts by reputation – it is backed up by real numbers, hosting the SEMA Show’s roughly 160,000 attendees and 2,200 exhibitors every year since 1977. Combined with St. Louis, Sacramento, and Miami’s own car cultures, this list reveals what really makes a city a haven for enthusiasts: infrastructure, climate, and a packed events calendar.
Brett Chmura’s 1983 Chevy Monte Carlo SS started life as a mild 175-horsepower NASCAR homologation special, built at a moment when Chevrolet desperately needed an aero nose to keep winning on Sunday. Three generations after his grandfather opened the family’s first repair shop in 1959, Brett’s version makes roughly 1,000 horsepower. Read on to find out how a shade-tree family legacy turned a stock body style into something the factory never imagined.
A certified auto appraiser has inspected hundreds of classic cars professionally — so when he calls a 1967 Camaro RS/SS ‘the most loaded Camaro I’ve ever inspected,’ that is not a casual compliment. This California-history coupe pairs a rare factory color with an unusually complete options list, backed by a full third-party inspection report. Watch to find out exactly what convinced an expert this was something special.
For years, Street Outlaws’ The Reaper raced anonymously behind a nickname alone. At the PRI trade show, he pulled the cover off a new Procharged Camaro, trading his prior combination for a centrifugal-blower setup that no-prep racers often favor for its more manageable power curve. Fans in the comments, who know him by his real name, James Goad, flooded in with support for the new build’s debut on Oklahoma City’s notorious 405 list. Watch the reveal that has longtime fans debating what it means for his next run.
Not every muscle car is equally easy to bring back to life, and the difference usually comes down to how deep the aftermarket parts catalog runs. From the Mustang and Camaro to the Chevelle and beyond, some nameplates make restoration dramatically simpler than others. Read on to find out which cars make the cut and why.
An estate sale, a numbers-matching V8 sitting on a stand in a garage, and a certified appraiser willing to put a hard number on all of it — that’s the setup behind this 1968 Buick GS 400 out of Port Huron, Michigan. AutoAppraise’s Jason Phillips values the car at $35,000 after tallying over $20,000 in documented drivetrain work alone, but it’s the low, bellowing idle that keeps pulling viewers back years later. Is a scarce, correctly-matched GS400 actually the smartest buy in 1968 muscle?
A turquoise 1964 Chevrolet Biscayne turned heads at a Bedford Park, Illinois car show, but the story behind it is what kept viewers watching. Owner Alex Levesque runs the Automotive Mentor Group, a restoration shop that also works to give former gang members a real second chance. One viewer’s own $150 Biscayne story from 1974 says everything about how far this car has come. Watch the full segment to see it.
This clean California 1966 Chevrolet El Camino wears a Chip Foose-inspired paint scheme and 17-inch Torque Thrust wheels over a 327 backed by an automatic. The 1966 model year mattered for the El Camino because Chevrolet restyled the Chevelle it was built on and, more importantly, finally made the 396 big block available. Production climbed past 35,000 units. Read on to find out what made this the year the formula finally worked.
Auto Archaeology returns to a hidden Mopar collection split between an abandoned auto parts showroom and a barn buried into a hillside — a find significant enough that Hot Rod magazine covered it separately. One commenter adds real depth on Chrysler’s High-Impact color program, explaining how Plymouth’s Moulin Rouge, In Violet, and Vitamin C matched Dodge’s differently-named Panther Pink, Plum Crazy Purple, and Go Mango. See what else the second visit uncovers.
Jeff says he’d never seen this rusted-bolt removal method demonstrated properly on camera, and a comment section full of working mechanics agrees it’s the clearest version of the technique online. Heat, rapid cooling, and a little patience solve a problem that torches, sockets, and days of penetrating oil couldn’t touch on one Wisconsin viewer’s rusted exhaust manifold. For anyone restoring a car that spent decades outdoors, this is essential knowledge.