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A 1972 Dodge Challenger arrived during the weakest years Detroit’s muscle cars ever saw, topping out at 240 factory horsepower with no Hemi in sight. Car Craft’s revived build series just swapped in Mopar’s 807-horsepower Hellcrate Redeye, the same crate engine Dodge sells over the counter. The bigger challenge wasn’t the engine itself, but getting a car never designed for fuel injection to survive it.
An Oldsmobile outsold the Mustang and the Camaro combined for years running in the mid-1970s, and its 87-year-old designer is finally telling the story. Len Casillo shaped the Cutlass Supreme’s formal Colonnade lines — the same lines that turned a mid-size Oldsmobile into America’s best-selling car two years running.
AMC had a fastback on the auto-show floor before the Mustang even existed, then handed the idea to a new CEO who scrapped it for something bigger and slower to sell. The result moved barely 17,000 units in three years, yet one six-cylinder survivor from suburban Chicago shows exactly why the story still matters — and its owner bought it in 2011 for a reason that has nothing to do with horsepower.
Hidden in Phoenix, Arizona is a private garage holding a real 1970 Plymouth Superbird, a Boss 429 Mustang, and a Viper from every generation ever built. Its owner did not set out to build a museum — he set out to buy back the cars of his own past, starting with the Plymouth Road Runner he first drove as a teenager. Hagerty’s Larry Chen got a rare look inside.
Dan Hallisey brought his numbers-matching 1971 Plymouth GTX onto Jay Leno’s Garage — then handed his passenger seat to the high school auto shop teacher who taught him everything he knows about engines. The 440-powered GTX, one of the last built before Plymouth retired the nameplate for 1972, still has enough torque to catch a first-timer off guard. It’s a rare episode where the teacher, not the car, ends up stealing the show.
A 1969 Camaro SS that looks bone-stock is hiding a 502-horsepower GM Performance crate engine, a Tremec six-speed, and a full Detroit Speed Pro-Touring chassis underneath. Carburetors are gone in favor of modern EFI, and the suspension borrows hardware straight from the C6 Corvette — without changing a single body panel. It’s proof a big-block Camaro can be brought fully into 2026 without losing what made it a legend in 1969.
A $900 wreck of a 2008 Mustang GT got turned into a head-turner for under $2,500 total, and viewers say the real story isn’t the build — it’s the car underneath it. The S197-generation GT’s 300-horsepower V8 and retro styling are still cheap today, but longtime owners and collector-car analysts both say that won’t last much longer.
Plymouth beat Ford to showrooms by two weeks with the 1964 Barracuda, then spent a decade playing catch-up anyway. See how a Valiant-based fastback with the biggest curved rear window ever installed on a production car turned into the Hemi ‘Cuda — a car so rare that one convertible sold at auction for $3.5 million.
A 1970 Plymouth Road Runner up for sale hides one of Detroit’s strangest factory options: a vacuum-actuated Air Grabber hood scoop that pops open with a cabin switch. This one pairs it with a 440-cubic-inch V8, a four-speed stick, and a Sure-Grip differential — the combination most real buyers actually chose over the flashier Hemi. Here’s what still makes it worth a second look.
The AMC Javelin arrived four years late to the pony car wars against Mustang, Camaro, and Barracuda — then delivered one of the closest championship finishes in Trans-Am history. A single point cost it the 1970 title, and a six-race win streak sealed the trophy in 1971. Here’s the racing story behind the 401-powered Javelin, plus what to check before buying one today.
Dodge’s Hellcat Redeye made 797 horsepower before it ever got wider tires to handle it. The factory Widebody package added 3.5 inches of fender and a set of 305-section Pirellis, turning a car that could spin its tires in third gear into a 10.8-second quarter-miler. Production ended in 2023, so every one left on the road is now a fixed piece of muscle car history.