 |
Pontiac stopped offering the 455 engine in 1976, meaning this 1978 Trans Am’s big-inch V8 isn’t a factory original, it’s the car’s numbers-matching 400 block, bored and stroked to 455 cubic inches during a full restoration. Edelbrock heads, a roller cam, and a rebuilt Quadrajet back up the added displacement. The result blends genuine muscle-era hardware with modern conveniences like Bluetooth audio.
A 1968 Shelby GT500KR in Acapulco Blue sits inside a Phoenix restoration shop with its original body and interior intact, but its 428 Cobra Jet engine has a story of its own — the factory motor was destroyed drag racing decades ago. Owner Tony Arme of American Legends Hot Rods is bringing it back to 1968 condition piece by piece. Find out why collectors still call this one of the most significant KR builds on the shop floor.
Plymouth built only 114 Hemi Cudas for 1971, with just 12 convertibles among them, numbers so small that two brothers who wrote down an impossibly specific wish list, unrestored, four-speed, original owner, build sheet included, figured the search would take years. They found their car in three weeks. Genuine, documented originals from this ultra-low-production run have sold for well over a million dollars at auction.
Long before the Riviera became Buick’s swoopy personal coupe, the name graced this formal, chrome-heavy four-door hardtop. This well-preserved 1957 Super Riviera still runs its original 364 cubic-inch Nailhead V8 and wears the trim details, four VentiPorts, a trio of chevrons, that once separated a Super from a base Special. It is a rare, honest survivor from Buick’s pre-muscle-car glory days.
Fast Lane Classic Cars in St. Charles, Missouri turned driver Tom Abbett loose on a rotating lineup of Ford, Chevy, Buick, Pontiac, and Plymouth muscle for nearly fifteen straight minutes — no superchargers, no turbos, just big American V8s including a 572 Hemi and a 427 Corvette viewers still praise for its sound alone. It’s less a single car review than a moving soundtrack of what Detroit and Fast Lane’s shop floor sound like together. Watch to hear which engine note sticks with you longest.
A Cadillac CTS-V owner ripped out the factory supercharger and replaced it with a 106 millimeter turbo, roughly tripling the car’s horsepower and putting it into low 7-second quarter mile territory. This run was the setup’s maiden voyage, bugs and all, and the video does not hide that. Comments have zeroed in on the turbo’s jet-engine presence and the fact that the interior is still mostly intact despite the radical power increase. Watch the run and see what 1,600-plus horsepower looks like in a car that still has a back seat.
“It’s especially amazing that a muscular muscle car would turn up in a lady’s garage in Bristol,” said a bemused onlooker. The ’68 Firebird, a 5.7-litre V8 with under 84,000 miles, is heading to auction with its one-owner story intact. Meanwhile, muscle car mania is revving up elsewhere: million-dollar beauties strut their stuff at car shows, Kumho V8s roar into the Muscle Car Masters, and a camouflaged 2017 Camaro ZL1 sneaks around in stealth mode. Who knew muscle could be so charmingly mysterious?
At the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals, V8TV’s Kevin tracks down Chuck Cantwell, Shelby’s program manager during the original GT350’s development, for a firsthand account most Shelby documentation never captures. Episode 196 pairs that interview with multiple Shelby cars unveiled on the show floor, presented alongside coverage from The Brothers Collection and Reliable Carriers. It’s a rare chance to hear engineering decisions explained by the person who actually made them.
Auto Archaeology found this 1966 Shelby GT350H not in a barn but parked beside a suburban home, where owner Judy revealed it had simply been one of her and her husband’s ongoing projects. The GT350H was born from a real collaboration between Carroll Shelby and Hertz Rent-A-Car, letting everyday renters take home a genuine performance Mustang for the weekend. Watch the full story to see the car and hear directly from the owner who’s had it all along.
Buying a classic car sounds romantic until the bills start arriving, and TFL Classics built an entire spinoff series around exactly that gap between expectation and reality. Episode 2 of “Load Bearing Paint” counts down the top five pitfalls to avoid, but it’s the comment section that delivers the real lessons, including one viewer’s junkyard find that became a ,000 project he still doesn’t regret. What separates buyers who finish their projects from the ones who don’t?
1957 was the last year for Ford’s original two-seat Thunderbird, and it went out with its best sales year yet at 21,380 built. Buried in that number is a rare F-code variant, a factory-supercharged Y-block making a rated 300 to 340 horsepower, with barely 196 examples built to homologate the car for NASCAR racing. Whether this particular Thunderbird hides that same blower under its hood is a question worth asking.
Every year, the NSRA Street Rod Nationals turns part of its fairgrounds into a trade show disguised as a car show, with roughly 150 new products fighting for attention across four price tiers. It’s where names like Dakota Digital and Cooling Components put next year’s gauges and cooling parts directly in front of the builders who’ll actually install them. Some of what debuts there becomes standard gear on street rods for years to come. Here’s why serious builders treat the new-products hall as required first-stop territory.
Dirt Monkey, a landscaping and construction YouTuber, steps outside his usual lane to compare the Dodge Challenger and Ford Mustang using three criteria most traditional car reviews never touch. The comparison split viewers along brand lines almost instantly, pulled in commenters from as far away as Lebanon debating import pricing, and even fooled one viewer about how much modification a particular Mustang build actually had. Watch to see which criteria actually decided the verdict.