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A flyer promising prize money at a March drag shootout doesn’t tell you much on its own — but the track behind it, an NHRA-affiliated eighth-mile strip built for grudge racing and small-tire shootouts, has plenty of story to it. Door-crasher format, cash on the line, and a community that shows up test-and-tune after test-and-tune. Here’s what actually happens when the tree drops and real money’s riding on it.
Owner Curt Richards restored this 1969 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am back to its original prototype specification, and the comments confirm why it matters: only two of these were ever built, and the other one no longer exists. Commenters call it the holy grail of Pontiac collecting. Watch the full walkaround with Lou Costabile.
A 1970 Dodge Charger R/T nicknamed “Street Shaker” showed up at Detroit Autorama 2013 with a spoiler most ’70 Chargers never wore from the factory — and somehow made it look right. Commenters argued color combinations, debated originality, and one self-described Chevy fan admitted the Mopar won him over. See what tipped the scale.
Before the Pontiac GTO existed, corporate policy at General Motors made it impossible: no mid-size car could carry an engine over 330 cubic inches, period. John DeLorean and a small team of engineers built one anyway, testing it in nighttime street races before their bosses even knew it existed. This archival documentary traces how that quiet act of rule-breaking, plus a name borrowed from Ferrari, turned into the car that saved Pontiac and launched an entire era of American muscle. Watch to find out how close it came to never happening at all.
A stranger’s dashcam happened to be rolling at exactly the wrong moment for this 1969 Dodge Dart GT, catching a violent rear-end failure loud enough that viewers say they had to rip their headphones off. The comments dug up two competing, detailed theories for what actually broke — and both are worth knowing before modifying your own muscle car’s rear end. Watch to see it happen.
A 1958 Ford Ranchero isn’t the car you’d expect to see wearing a roll bar and side pipes, but that’s exactly what makes this Pro Street build worth talking about. Ford’s second-year hauler borrowed its facelift from the Thunderbird and offered up to 300 horsepower from a fresh 352 V8, hardly the stuff of drag strip legend. Someone clearly disagreed. Take a look at how this family grocery-getter got the full strip-brawler treatment.
Built in 1996, this Buick GSX became the first GS Pro Street car to break into the 9-second quarter-mile bracket, debuting at the GS Nationals and winning its class outright. Fourteen years later, new owner Bob Ortolani brought it back to the same shop for a fresh powerplant, and this video captures the very first day that combination hit the strip, three passes that kept dropping the number, followed by an unplanned wheelie nobody saw coming. Watch the full run and see how close the car came to the 9.40s.
The third-gen Chevrolet El Camino, 1968-1972, truly revved up the muscle car game with its Malibu-inspired style and Chevelle platform. In ’68, it flaunted options like posi-traction and a power disk brake for those who wanted to stop as impressively as they could go. The high-performance SS debuted, with engines roaring up to 375 bhp. By 1970, it could house a monstrous LS6 454 engine, racing through the quarter-mile in 13 seconds! Alas, emissions rules in ’71 took a bit of the vroom out of its zoom.
This 1959 Cadillac Series 62 Convertible wears some of the most extravagant tailfins Harley Earl ever signed off on, only now it’s been dropped down low on an air-bag suspension for a custom stance nobody at GM would have approved in period. Just 11,130 of the roughly 70,736 Series 62s built that year were convertibles, making the body style itself a minority even before anyone touched the ride height. Factory power came from a 390 cubic-inch V8 in 325 or 345 horsepower tune, though this one’s clearly built for style over stock spec sheets.
GRIZZ isn’t a real 1970 Superbird – it’s Joel Highsmith’s modern custom tribute build, and it’s chasing numbers no factory aero car ever touched: over 1,000 rear-wheel horsepower and a 194mph top speed. Gearhead Flicks’ feature has drawn nearly 725,000 views, plus a sharp-eyed comment correcting the car’s own naming and a wild detour involving a theft and recovery. Find out where GRIZZ is racing next.
Dodge didn’t just one-up its own 707-horsepower Hellcat, it built a Challenger so quick that NHRA’s own rulebook technically has a problem with it. The Demon’s 840 horsepower, 9.65-second quarter mile, and Guinness-certified wheelstand all come from a Hemi V8 that shares its bones with the Hellcat but carries 25 real engineering changes underneath. This is what happens when a factory stops holding back.
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.
Muscle cars aren’t just vehicles; they’re an attitude on wheels. Take Eleanor, the iconic 1967 Mustang from “Gone in 60 Seconds,” a true embodiment of muscle car spirit. These beasts, often powered by roaring V8 engines, dominated drag racing from the ’60s to ’80s. With insane torque and horsepower, they offer rides that’ll make your jaw drop—and maybe your toupee fly off. Thanks to innovations like Dodge’s all-wheel drive Challenger GT, driving these monsters isn’t just for sunny days anymore!
A rotted-out 1970 Dodge Challenger becomes Project Ultra Violet in this POWERNATION Detroit Muscle build. The crew brings in chassis builder Jeff Schwartz for a full-frame conversion, grafts in a low-deck aluminum Hemi and a Tremec six-speed, and finishes it off with metallic purple paint and graphics from builder Chris Ryan. Watch to see how a shell most shops would have scrapped becomes a genuinely modern resto-mod.