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Builder Tom Bailey’s 1969 Camaro, ‘Sick Seconds 2.0,’ pairs twin 94mm turbochargers and a stated 4000-horsepower target with power windows, cup holders, and a plan to drive it home from the track. Bailey is chasing 300 mph in the standing mile and a 5.5-second quarter mile, numbers usually reserved for dedicated Pro Mod drag cars, not anything with a working glovebox. Watch how a street-legal Camaro is being built to compete with cars that never see a public road.
The 2016 Ridler Award went to a 1939 Oldsmobile convertible called Olds Cool, built for a Texas couple by a small shop that spent years on a car most builders would never have chosen. The Model 60 was Oldsmobile’s entry-level six that year, not a glamour car, and complete examples are close to unfindable today. Here is what the Ridler actually demands, why the donor car made the build harder, and what separates a Great 8 finalist from the one that wins.
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.
A 1963 Ford Falcon was never supposed to be a show car — Ford built it to be cheap and forgettable, not fast or beautiful. The build that turned up at the 2017 Detroit Autorama, with a modern 5.0 Coyote V8 under the hood and a stance that reportedly makes nearby Camaros look sad, argues otherwise. Even longtime enthusiasts in the comments admit they never expected to be impressed by a Falcon. Watch to see the build that changed their minds.
More than 800 cars packed Cobo Center for the 65th annual Detroit Autorama in 2017, one of the most significant gatherings in the hot rod and custom car world. The Ridler Award, reserved for cars debuting for the very first time in public, went to a scratch-built 1933 Ford Roadster running a 427 big block. What else was hiding among 800 cars competing for the hobby’s biggest stage?
Somebody built a 1960 Chevrolet Corvette that looks as though it drove out of a horror film, and gave it a name to match. Revenant appeared at the 2016 Detroit Autorama wearing pale silver paint laced with deep violet-maroon, hiding a crate LS7 427, a six-speed manual, a fully custom tube chassis, and rear bodywork widened three inches. The body is nearly all that survived. Read on to find out what it took to build.
Walk the floor at the Detroit Autorama and you will see hundreds of builds fighting for attention with chrome, candy paint, and glass-smooth bodywork. Then there is the one that does the opposite: flat black, low, and radiating enough menace that one videographer said he approached it carefully. Under that deliberately unglamorous finish sits a genuine Dodge R5 NASCAR-spec engine with no business being in a street car at all. Watch to see why this 1970 Charger stole the show.