This turquoise-and-white Nash Metropolitan carries a spare tire mounted like a compact ship’s wheel on its trunk lid, chrome hood ornament and whitewalls gleaming in the sun. Built entirely in England by Austin for an American company that couldn’t afford its own tooling, fewer than 95,000 ever landed stateside across eight years. Read on for how a car with four different badges became one of the more affordable classics a collector can still buy today.
Posts Tagged: Europe
Do muscle cars still exist, or did the breed die with the 1970s? The orange 1969 Pontiac GTO in the photo, wearing the stripes and spoiler of the short-lived Judge package, is the perfect place to start that argument. Pontiac built just 6,833 Judges that year, and the Ram Air IV cars could run the quarter in the low 13s. Read on to find out how the definition was born, why it collapsed, and whether today’s V8 coupes deserve the name.
An orange Dodge Charger R/T dressed in unmistakable General Lee livery does something the Dukes of Hazzard rarely showed on screen — sliding sideways through a corner instead of flying over a jump. Shot on a brand-new camcorder as the creator’s first upload, the clip pairs a genuine R/T’s engine note with real driver involvement. Watch a TV icon prove it’s more than just a stunt car.
The term “pony car” has nothing to do with horsepower, it describes a specific formula the 1964½ Ford Mustang invented and every Detroit rival scrambled to copy. Fifty years later, the Mustang’s 2015 redesign broke from that formula for the first time, adding independent rear suspension and a turbocharged four-cylinder. Read on to find out what actually separates a pony car from a muscle car.
This thirty-minute compilation from Vantaa Cruising, a recurring car meet in Tikkurila, Finland, captures a night of burnouts, custom hot rods, and modified American muscle that one Oregon-based commenter admitted could never happen back home. There’s not a single Mustang in the lineup, but there is a rubber duck mounted as a hood ornament. Watch to see how seriously Finland’s underground muscle car scene takes American car culture.
One of the actual Dodge Chargers used on screen by Dominic Toretto in the original Fast and the Furious now belongs to an Italian collector — and in 2015, he did something most owners of movie-used muscle cars never risk. He ran it down a real quarter-mile at Rivanazzano’s dragstrip in Italy. The pass has racked up nearly six million views since, mostly from people who can’t believe he actually did it.
Builder Steve Strope calls it his cancer, only half joking, and the Mustang fastback he built to answer one strange question proves the obsession was worth it: what if Ford and Martini Racing had actually partnered up? Powered by a motor descended from Ford’s 1960s Lotus Indy Car program and wrapped in one of motorsport’s most iconic liveries, this build rewards close inspection. Watch to see the details fans are still finding.
A four-cylinder Mustang sounds like a contradiction, but Ford’s 2.3-liter EcoBoost makes more torque than the V6 it replaced, delivers it 1,600 rpm sooner, and returns 32 mpg on the highway. It also takes weight off the nose and responds to tuning in ways a naturally aspirated engine never could. The compromise is the noise, and it is a real one. Read on for why Ford already tried this once in 1984.
A small group of muscle car enthusiasts built Equus Automotive around a simple bet: that a hand-built coupe with a Corvette ZR1 drivetrain and a retro-inspired body could compete with far more established manufacturers. The Bass770 backs that bet with 640 horsepower, carbon-ceramic Brembo brakes, and a six-figure price tag to match. Read on to see what a four-month custom build actually gets you.
Tesla’s original two-seat Roadster picked up serious upgrades between 2010 and 2012 — a hand-wound stator for more efficient power delivery, adjustable suspension, noise-damping body panels, and a genuinely upscale leather interior. A mid-cycle refresh added new wheels, a touchscreen, and hot-climate hardware before Tesla’s Lotus-based chassis supply ran out for good. Read on to find out how a Silicon Valley startup’s first car built a case for electric performance long before it became mainstream.
A retired drag racer, a beat-up project car, and a continent he’d never driven across probably wasn’t the recipe anyone at Plymouth had in mind when they built the 1973 Road Runner. Al Young drove his Road Runner through Europe and the former Soviet Bloc three separate times, turning a fading muscle car nameplate into an unlikely international traveler. Read on to find out how a detuned ’73 Mopar ended up touring a continent.
