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Chevrolet needed a new face for its NASCAR Cup Series program after the SS sedan went out of production, so it turned to the Camaro ZL1 — a nameplate every enthusiast recognizes, attached to a race car that shares nothing with the road version. Underneath sits the same tube-frame chassis and pushrod V8 the SS ran. The gamble paid off in the very first race. Read on to find out how the swap actually worked, and why the problem came back around.
Before a torn-down Chevy 350 can become a running engine again, it has to survive the machine shop — where a block gets bored, honed, and resurfaced to tolerances no home garage can match. Motorz’s Chris Duke walks through this often-skipped step as part of a five-episode small-block rebuild series. See what separates a properly machined block from one that just looks rebuilt.
Episode 67 of the Motorz rebuild series picks up the Chevy 350 build at its most consequential stage — the top end, where a single missed torque step or skipped sealant can undo three prior episodes of careful work. Viewers with decades of small block experience have weighed in throughout, flagging two specific mistakes worth avoiding and trading tricks that never make it into a written manual. Watch to see exactly where a home rebuild can go right, or wrong.
A tubbed, twin-turbocharged 1957 Chevy is not where anyone expects to find refinement, yet this build from Bryant Boats and designer Eric Brockmeyer makes the case. An all-fiberglass body, an Art Morrison chassis, Wilwood 14-inch brakes, a twin-turbo aluminum Brodix engine, and a Lenco four-speed add up to a Pro Street car engineered to work as a whole rather than simply launch hard. Read on to see how every ingredient was chosen.
Two muscle cars can look nearly identical and still be built on completely different structural philosophies underneath — one relying on a separate steel frame, the other building strength directly into the body. This guide breaks down body-on-frame and unibody construction, the bolt-on front subframe hybrid used by cars like the Camaro, and why that distinction matters for rust inspection and restoration decisions today. Read on to find out which type your muscle car actually uses.
Car Craft brought a 1968 Chevrolet Chevelle SS396 hardtop to Irwindale dragstrip in November 1967 expecting the 375-horsepower L78 to dominate the timeslip. Writer John Raffa came away frustrated instead, and said so in print in the February 1968 issue. That contradiction, a genuinely fast car that still disappointed the man driving it, says more about muscle car era expectations than any dyno figure. Read on to find out what quarter-mile testing actually measured.
A Dodge Challenger Hellcat and Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 lined up for a rolling highway pull, the kind of real-world test that does not always agree with drag-strip time slips. The Hellcat’s 57-horsepower advantage on paper met the ZL1’s lighter chassis and quicker-spooling supercharger on the open road. Read on to see why the result depended more on speed range and gearing than on the horsepower figures alone.
Fast Lane Classic Cars in St. Charles, Missouri turned driver Tom Abbett loose on a rotating lineup of Ford, Chevy, Buick, Pontiac, and Plymouth muscle for nearly fifteen straight minutes — no superchargers, no turbos, just big American V8s including a 572 Hemi and a 427 Corvette viewers still praise for its sound alone. It’s less a single car review than a moving soundtrack of what Detroit and Fast Lane’s shop floor sound like together. Watch to hear which engine note sticks with you longest.
The 400 small-block is mostly remembered for something almost embarrassing: which parts from other small-blocks will not bolt onto it. This guide traces Chevrolet’s 4.0-inch bore small-block family — the race-bred 302, the ubiquitous 350, and the siamese-bore 400 — and explains the external-balance quirk that catches out first-time engine swappers. Read on to find out how to tell these engines apart before you buy or build one.
A six-cylinder Malibu that’s been in the same hands for nineteen years doesn’t get to 520 horsepower overnight. Jeffery’s slow-build street rod — big-block swap, upgraded rear end, reworked suspension — is a reminder that the best builds in this community are usually years in the making, one system at a time.
Sixty years ago, this 1964 Rambler American was AMC’s best-selling answer to the compact wars — thrifty, practical, and about as far from a muscle car as Kenosha built that year. Somewhere along the way it picked up a 350 small-block and a 700R4 overdrive automatic, and now it’s a sleeper most people never see coming.
The Camaro was never supposed to last fifty years — it was a rushed response to the Mustang, built on borrowed time and a hastily developed platform. Instead it became one of the longest-running nameplates in American performance history, surviving a cancellation and multiple redesigns along the way. Here’s how a car built to catch up ended up outlasting most of its rivals.
Three Top Gear US hosts, three different American muscle cars – Tanner Foust’s 1967 Shelby GT500, Adam Ferrara’s 1968 Camaro, and Rutledge Wood’s 1972 Charger SE – and one run down Gainesville Raceway turn into a genuinely unpredictable drag race, decided by gear ratios and track position as much as horsepower. Viewers are still debating a specific moment around 1:23 where the running order flipped. Watch to see whether the fastest car on paper actually crosses the line first.
This 1969 Camaro already looked finished when its new owner bought it: fresh silver paint, red leather interior, professional build quality throughout. Then he found out what was actually sitting under that hood, and decided a freshly completed car wasn’t nearly finished enough. What came next involved a 540 cubic inch big block, a six-speed manual, and a shop that specializes in exactly this kind of relentless refinement.
The sixth-generation Camaro ZL1 backs up its supercharged reputation with a factory-certified top speed few people expect from a car that still has back seats. A 650-horsepower LT4, an optional $1,595 10-speed automatic co-developed with Ford, and a quarter mile in the 11s all point toward one number: 198 mph. Read on to see how Chevrolet got a four-seat coupe there, and why the automatic is the quick one.