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This compilation strings together real quarter mile drag races between the modern muscle car era’s biggest names — Hellcats, Camaro ZL1s, a Shelby GT500 Super Snake, a Corvette ZR1, and more — with results that do not always match what the spec sheets promise. One Hellcat driver appears to fall asleep at the line and still nearly catches a Super Snake by the finish. Watch to see which factory-built legend actually comes out on top.
Ford did not build the Boss 302 to sell Mustangs. It built the car because SCCA Trans-Am rules demanded a street version before the race version could turn a wheel, and Chevrolet’s Camaro Z/28 was already winning the argument on Sunday afternoons. The answer came with canted-valve heads borrowed from an engine that had not launched yet, a front spoiler drawn by a designer poached from General Motors, and exactly two model years of life. Read on to find out why Ford walked away at the top.
Ford built 7,014 Boss 302 Mustangs in 1970, more than four times the previous year’s run, and yet a genuinely numbers-matching example still stops people in their tracks. The car exists because of a rulebook rather than a showroom wish list: Ford needed a homologated 302 to chase the Camaro Z/28 around Trans-Am road courses. Then it handed the styling to a designer who had never done a full production car. Read on for what he came up with.
The 1969 Mercury Cougar was sold as the grown-up alternative to a Mustang, with more chrome, a longer wheelbase, and a quieter ride. It could also be ordered with a 428 Cobra Jet, and from April onward with a Boss 302 that no other Cougar could get. This Gateway Classic Cars gallery captures the third-year car. Read on for the option boxes that turned a luxury coupe into something else entirely.
The 1970 Boss 302 exists for one reason: Ford needed to beat the Camaro Z/28 in Trans-Am racing, and the rules said it had to sell street versions to do it. The engine that resulted borrowed cylinder head technology from an entirely different Ford engine family to solve a breathing problem, and production more than quadrupled between the first and second model years. Read on to find out what changed, and why the 1970 car is the one enthusiasts chase.
Forty-two years after the original Boss 302 was built to win a Trans-Am race, Ford brought the name back with one very specific goal: beat a BMW M3 around Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. Around the same time, Chevrolet revived the ZL1 badge — a name that started with one Illinois dealer’s odd request for fifty aluminum-block Camaros — on a supercharged, 550-plus horsepower Camaro built using suspension technology borrowed from the Corvette ZR1. Read on to find out how two of Detroit’s oldest names ended up chasing the same import.