Muscle Car Fan

Posts Tagged: factory

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.

First published in Hemmings Muscle Machines back in December 2011, this quarter-mile pass pits one of the roughly seventy all-aluminum ZL1 Camaros Chevrolet ever built against a Pontiac Firebird running the airflow-focused Ram Air II. Commenters dig into cam specs, gearing, and a surprising trap speed result that still sparks debate. Watch to see which factory rarity actually crosses the stripe first.

This LS engine teardown starts with the same uncertainty every rebuild does — you never quite know what years of neglect actually did until the first bolts come loose. Viewers ranging from lifelong diesel technicians to first-time builders have weighed in on the technique, debating everything from head bolt removal order to a cheap salvage-yard 6.0-liter with an oddball factory quirk. Watch to see exactly what comes out of this engine, one bolt at a time.

The 2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon shipped with two different keys, each unlocking a genuinely different power output depending on what fuel is in the tank — 808 horsepower on regular pump gas, or the full 840 on 100+ octane race fuel. Making that switch safe required a second engine computer and a built-in failsafe against mixing fuels. Read on to find out how the system actually works.

1966 was the single best-selling year the Pontiac GTO ever had — and it’s also the year Pontiac quietly buried one of its rarest factory engine options, a Ram Air camshaft package that replaced Tri-Power on paper but never really won buyers over. Barely 35 were built to factory spec. Here’s the story behind the GTO’s forgotten sales peak.

At first glance, Ed Roethel’s two-door Pontiac wagon looks like a converted Chevelle from the mid-1960s. It isn’t — Pontiac never built a two-door wagon on this platform in any year, which makes this a genuine one-off creation rather than a rare factory survivor. Read on to find out what it took to fabricate a body style that never officially existed.

GM capped intermediate cars at 400 cubic inches in 1968 — so Hurst and an independent Michigan dealer built this Cutlass-based coupe outside the factory line to get around it, stuffing a 455 under the hood. This vintage road test captures the resulting Hurst/Olds exactly as period journalists first experienced it. Watch to see the loophole car in action.

Sherwin M. found his 1970 Ford XL through a classified ad with photos so bad the car was barely recognizable, which is probably why nobody else called first. What he found in person was a sixteen-year-dormant, numbers-matching survivor with its original 429 engine still intact. Read on to find out how a factory-correct rebuild turned this rare full-size Ford into both a daily driver and a genuine 14-second track car.

Ryan’s Mustang looks like an ordinary, clean S550 until you learn it’s making 930 wheel-horsepower through a fully built motor and Procharger supercharger, built for everything from weekend blasts to half-mile racing. Gears and Gasoline rides along to find out what that much power actually feels like from the passenger seat — fuel economy be damned, by the driver’s own admission. Viewers have called it one of the best sleeper builds they’ve seen on the platform. Watch to find out what 1000 horsepower is really like.

In spring 2017, Dodge fitted a factory production Challenger with hardware normally reserved for professional dragsters – a trans brake capable of building 534 lb-ft of launch torque via its Torque Reserve system. With 840 horsepower on 100-octane fuel, delete options for seats and air conditioning, and a production cap of just 3,300 units, the Demon reportedly ran too quick for NHRA certification without a roll cage. Read on to find out how the technology actually works.

Only 3,939 Ford Torino GT convertibles were built in 1970, and this one adds a rare M-code 351 Cleveland engine, factory air conditioning, and a deluxe interior on top of that already-thin production number. Read on to find out what made the Cleveland worth chasing and why so few buyers ordered the open-air version at all.

Muscle car. Pony car. Most enthusiasts use the terms interchangeably, and most of the time nobody calls them on it. This breakdown draws an actual line between the two categories — one built around a big engine stuffed into a mid-size body, the other built around an affordable, sporty compact platform that started with the 1964 Ford Mustang. The difference turns out to matter more than you’d think.

Pontiac only sold the 400-cubic-inch W72 with a mandatory four-speed manual in 1979, the final year for its biggest V8, and this factory-correct four-speed Trans Am backs that combination with an aluminum intake, Edelbrock carb, and long-tube headers. 1979 was also the single best sales year the Trans Am nameplate ever had. Read on to find out what made the last big-block Bird so specific.

Plymouth hasn’t built a car since 2001, so how does a 2013 Plymouth Superbird exist? Underneath the nose cone and wing is a modern Dodge Challenger, transformed by a specialty conversion kit into a tribute of one of NASCAR’s most famous aero cars. Watch to see how the illusion holds up.

A 1968 Plymouth Barracuda spent 32 years parked in a garage, untouched, and what rolled back out is one of just 18 documented examples of its exact build. The owner has confirmed it carries an original BO29 code and a four-speed transmission, a combination rare enough to turn a routine garage find into a genuine survivor story. See the car exactly as it looked the day the door finally opened.

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