Posts Tagged: Evergreen
A wrecked Pontiac in Alabama had almost nothing going for it — wrong year, wrong paint, wrong drivetrain — until MotorTrend’s Roadworthy Rescues decided the details didn’t matter as much as the shape. Here’s how a mismatched Firebird became a screen-accurate Bandit tribute, and the real specs behind the 1977 original that started it all.
A homologation loophole created one of Chevrolet’s most legendary powerplants: a 302-cubic-inch V8 pieced together from a 327’s block and a 283’s crankshaft, then deliberately underrated to dodge insurance premiums. A museum walkthrough of a pristine 1969 example traces how that engineering trick turned into 20,302 cars sold and six-figure auction results today.
A 1974 Chevy Nova SS survived insurance surcharges, smog-era compression cuts, and federally mandated battering-ram bumpers — the exact combination that ended muscle cars everywhere else. One budget builder bought it for half the asking price and hauled it across town for a dyno pull. The numbers explain why an unloved model year still has fans arguing in the comments.
Plymouth once paid Warner Bros. $50,000 just so the Road Runner could borrow a cartoon bird’s name and its ‘beep-beep’ horn — and it turned into one of Detroit’s best-ever marketing bets. By 1970, the car had a redesigned Air Grabber hood and a genuine 425-horsepower Hemi option, but only 152 buyers ever ordered one. This numbers-style 440 Six Barrel hardtop shows what nearly everyone else actually drove home instead.
The 1969 Pontiac GTO Judge got its name from a TV catchphrase everyone was repeating in 1968, and Pontiac somehow turned the bit into one of Detroit’s most collectible muscle cars. Only 6,833 were built, most of them hardtops, all riding on a 400-cubic-inch Ram Air V8. Here’s the story behind the name, the numbers, and the paint color that made it unmistakable.
A naturally aspirated Corvette Z06 was never supposed to beat a 707-horsepower supercharged Hellcat — especially not after giving it a head start. This drag racing compilation from Wheels pits the Z06 against a Hellcat, an Audi RS6, and one very confused Honda that ended up on the track by accident. The result surprised even the Corvette’s own fans watching along. Watch to see exactly how lopsided the numbers turned out to be.
A 1977 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am Y82 for sale at Vanguard Motor Sales carries a bigger story than its listing lets on. The black-and-gold package that became a pop-culture icon actually began as a tribute to Pontiac’s own 50th anniversary — and outsold every expectation once Hollywood caught up to it. Here’s the real history behind the most famous Trans Am ever built.
A collector spent years tracking down a genuine Shelby Cobra, a rare AC Ace, and a numbers-matching 1968 Shelby GT500 — three of the most coveted names to come out of Carroll Shelby’s era. He never got to finish restoring any of them. Now his daughter and her husband are working through the list, one barn-worn classic at a time.
A former video game designer traded twenty-five years of shipping hit titles for a welding torch and a Ron Sutton race chassis. His shop’s signature build, a 1964 Ford Galaxie 500, now makes 700 horsepower through a six-speed manual and wears battleship-camouflage paint. Here’s how a career spent solving problems on screen turned into one of the wildest restomods on the road.
A budget build project just put a rough, 383-powered 1971 Dodge Charger back in the spotlight, and third-generation fans say it’s about time. Dodge rebuilt the Charger from the ground up that year, yet the car still lives in the shadow of the 1968-70 version. Here’s why builders are starting to see it differently.
