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The RestoMods team spent two years turning a clean 1969 Chevelle into their 22nd giveaway build — and this one went further than most, with a supercharged 427, a six-speed twin-disc manual, and Wilwood brakes built for something twice its weight. Whoever wins it can take the car or $100,000 in cash instead. Watch to see what two years and no shortcuts actually produces.
A 540-inch stroker build in a 1969 Camaro squares off against a 427-powered 1966 Chevelle in a straight-line battle between two very different paths to big-block muscle. One car leans on raw displacement, the other on GM’s factory racing bloodline, and the launch alone has viewers debating suspension setups more than a decade after this race first hit YouTube. Watch to see which classic comes out ahead.
Chevrolet built just 201 examples of the 1965 Chevelle Z16, handing a tiny group of buyers a genuine big-block 396 a full year before the option became widely available. One convertible was reportedly built for a GM executive and is believed destroyed; only about 75 of the original run are accounted for today. Read on to find out what made this the rarest Chevelle Chevrolet ever built.
When the Chevelle name disappeared from Chevy’s lineup in 1978, it was quietly replaced by the Malibu — and by 1979 that included a wagon body style most muscle car fans have never given a second look. Under the hood, buyers could still order a genuine 305 or 350 cubic-inch V8, keeping a real performance option alive even as the car shed nearly 1,000 pounds versus the Chevelle it replaced. With over 120,000 wagons sold that year alone and a vanishingly rare four-speed manual option, this is one of the most overlooked survivors of Chevy’s mid-size lineup.
Hagerty Executive Editor Stefan Lombard opens with a dare: you really can’t go wrong with a Chevelle, true or false? What follows is a rundown of exactly where Chevelle buyers get burned, from cloned SS badges to rust hiding under a straight-looking floor pan. Watch before you go looking for one yourself.
Chevrolet took a two-door Chevelle, chopped it behind the B-pillar, and created a truck that didn’t look or drive like one. The second-generation El Camino grew from a mild six-cylinder hauler into a genuine SS396 performer by 1967. Read on to see how a utility vehicle ended up with a 375-horsepower option.
A nitrous-huffing, LS-swapped Chevelle showing up to Pure Street class and out-running the big-block faithful is the kind of pass that starts arguments in the pits. Pure Street doesn’t care what’s under the hood — DOT tires, a full interior, and a car that drives itself home are the only requirements — which is exactly why a swap turning real numbers there matters. We dig into what makes these small-block conversions competitive and how nitrous is closing the gap on traditional big-block combinations.
A factory mix-up put an SS badge on this 1969 Chevrolet Chevelle Malibu convertible — and when it was restored decades later, the family that had owned it since new put the mistake right back on, badge and all. The story was even verified and published in the Grand Rapids Press back in 1996. Watch to find out why a factory error became part of the car’s identity instead of something to correct.
This 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS traveled from Georgia to Florida to an Indianapolis museum before landing on Vanguard Motor Sales’ lot with its original factory build sheet still intact. Under the hood, the numbers-matching 396 has barely turned over since a 1999 restoration. It’s the kind of paper trail that usually gets lost decades before a car like this survives to tell its own story. Watch to see what else has stayed frozen in time.
The 1970 Chevelle LS6 made a factory-claimed 450 horsepower, with some reports suggesting the real number was closer to 500. By 1972, GM’s own base wagon was outselling every SS performance package in the lineup. Insurance rules, lower-octane fuel, and a new net-horsepower rating system all played a part. Read on to find out exactly how much power the Chevelle lost in just two model years, and why.
A 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS396 running a factory Turbo Hydramatic 400 automatic squares off against a modified 1951 Henry J nicknamed the Green M&M in this quarter mile nostalgia drag race. Kaiser-Frazer built the Henry J as a stripped-down economy car decades before drag racers discovered its featherweight unibody made it a natural straight-line weapon. Viewers praised the channel’s consistent camera work and asked for more up-close burnout footage. Does decades of muscle car engineering really beat a proper weight-to-power ratio down the strip?
A tip from a stranger led a well-known barn-find hunter to a rural Kansas shop, where a 1965 Chevelle Z16 — one of only 200 ever built — had sat untouched for roughly 48 years. The car’s owner, a local racing legend named Cliff, reportedly received it directly from Chevrolet decades ago, and it still carries the specific factory details that separate a real Z16 from an ordinary 396 Chevelle. Watch to see what half a century of stillness actually looks like.
Mike Cosculluela first fell for a 1969 Chevrolet Nova as a paperboy in rural Ohio, drawn in by the sound, the black paint, and the Cragar S/S wheels on a car he passed every day. Forty-plus years later, he owns one just like it — and drives it, rather than displaying it. The House of Muscle’s fourth episode traces that connection, and it’s left more than one viewer surprised by how much it affected them. Watch to see why.
Chevelle enthusiasts had swapped rumors for years about a 1970 SS454 sitting untouched inside a collapsed Ohio barn. In May 2017, a grainy cell phone video finally proved the story true — and when the car came out after nearly 40 years, its original buildsheet was still tucked inside the door panel. Read on to find out what that buildsheet revealed about how, and why, this particular Chevelle was built.