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This 1979 Pontiac Trans Am, photographed courtesy of Gateway Classic Cars, runs a 403-cubic-inch V8 backed by a Turbo 350 automatic. The catch is that Pontiac did not build the engine, Oldsmobile did, and no manual transmission was ever offered behind it. Yet 1979 turned into the single best sales year the Firebird nameplate ever had, with more than 211,000 built. Read on to find out how a car with a borrowed engine outsold every version that came before it.
This 1976 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, photographed courtesy of Gateway Classic Cars, runs a 350 cubic-inch V8 with a three-speed automatic. Its model year sits at a hinge point: the big-block 454 had just disappeared from the lineup, catalytic converters had arrived across the board, and the most powerful engine offered made 175 horsepower. Chevrolet then sold 353,272 of them. Read on to find out why the personal luxury coupe did not need horsepower to dominate the mid-1970s.
A classified ad hunting for four completely different American classics, a 1930s Ford coupe, a postwar pickup, an early Mustang, and a Chevrolet SSR, reveals more about how collectors think than most polished auction listings ever do. The buyer will even consider an unfinished project, as long as it’s solid. Read on to find out why this specific combination makes sense as a starter collection.
Pontiac badged this LeMans engine a “350” even though it actually displaced 353.8 cubic inches, a naming quirk that’s followed the model for decades. A full 1968 redesign turned the LeMans into a genuine cross-shop for buyers eyeing the pricier GTO. Read on to find out why the numbers on the badge never quite matched what was under the hood.
A nineteen-inch nose cone and a wing tall enough to see over the roof were not styling decisions. They were the price of a NASCAR rulebook, and Plymouth built nearly two thousand street cars purely to satisfy it. Under the aerodynamic theater sat an engine range topping out with the 426 Hemi, though the 440 Six Barrel came closer to matching it than anyone expected. The whole program lasted exactly one model year. Read on to find out why.
The 1939 Ford Deluxe quietly said goodbye to a signature styling cue while introducing Ford’s first four-wheel hydraulic brakes and a reworked flathead V8 with a new head bolt pattern. It was the last of its kind in more ways than one, from its rumble seat to its crank-out windshield. Read on to find out what changed under the hood and what disappeared from the lineup for good.
By 1967 Buick’s personal luxury flagship was hiding something the badge never advertised: an entirely new big-block V8 that quietly retired an engine family the division had built since 1953. The switch happened with almost no fanfare, buried in a model year better known for the Riviera’s sculpted sheet metal than for what sat beneath it. The engineering behind that swap is the more interesting story. Read on to find out what made Buick walk away.
A single tribute photograph of a 1966 GTO carries more weight once you understand what it is actually mourning. Not one car, but an eighty-three-year run that ended with a white sedan rolling off an assembly line in January 2010. Pontiac did not fade away quietly, it was a casualty of the 2009 financial collapse that cost General Motors several brands at once. But this GTO is the car that proved what the badge could do. Read on to find out what GM gave up.
A 1966 Ford Mustang with 408 cubic inches under the hood is not a car Ford ever built, because the biggest engine on the 1966 order sheet displaced 289. Somewhere along the way an owner decided the factory had been too conservative and added more than a hundred cubic inches of small block. Here is what Ford actually sold during its record breaking year, how a 408 stroker gets built, and what changes about a first generation Mustang once the numbers stop matching.
Only a few hundred genuine 427 Cobras were ever built, and nearly all of them disappeared into collections and auction houses decades ago. That means essentially every 427 Cobra you will actually see in traffic or at a track day is a replica, and this Factory Five built example makes the case for why that is not a compromise. With a real 427 side oiler, aluminum heads, dual quads, and roughly 2,400 pounds to move, it does the thing the original was famous for.
This 1929 Ford Model A carries the flathead four-cylinder and three-speed manual that helped Ford sell a million units in barely over a year, a pace nobody expected after the aging Model T. Its features list, from an electric starter to four-wheel brakes, felt like a genuine leap into the modern era for buyers at the time. Read on to find out what made this car such a turning point for Ford.
There is a problem with the spec line on this 1936 Chevrolet pickup, and it is the kind of problem serious collectors actually enjoy. The truck runs a 283-cubic-inch V8, an engine Chevrolet would not introduce for another twenty-one years. It is a restomod, and the story of how a Depression-era work truck ended up with Chevy’s most famous small-block is far more interesting than the numbers. Read on for what actually came in a 1936 Chevy pickup and why builders keep reaching for the 283.
This 1974 MG Midget carries the same 1275cc BMC A-series engine family that once powered the Mini Cooper S to rally wins across Europe, only detuned to 55 horsepower for U.S. roads. Seven months into the model year, U.S. regulations forced MG to bolt on oversized rubber bumpers factory workers nicknamed ‘Sabrinas.’ Read on to find out why this exact transitional model year matters so much to Midget collectors today.
Ford took a gamble in the spring of 1964 that most of Detroit thought was reckless, and by 1965 it had sold 559,451 Mustangs and invented an entire class of American car. Buyers could order the same 289 V8 in three distinct states of tune, from a 200-horsepower two-barrel to the 271-horsepower HiPo K-code. The car pictured here runs the milder end of that lineup through a Cruise-O-Matic automatic. Read on for what separated the C-code, A-code and K-code cars, and why originality now matters more than restoration.
Most muscle car fans walk right past the 1968 Oldsmobile 98. It is full-size, formally styled and built for executives rather than stoplight duels, yet under that hood sits a completely reengineered 455 Rocket V8 making 365 horsepower, more than the 442 wearing the division’s performance badge that same year. One body style in the lineup is rarer than almost any 442 you will ever see at a show. Read on for the numbers behind the most overlooked big-block Oldsmobile of the era.