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David Meyer’s 1966 Plymouth Belvedere, built by coachbuilder Troy Trepanier and nicknamed “Northern Bel,” hides a 526-cubic-inch HEMI and twin rear-mounted turbochargers behind period-correct sheet metal. Featured on MotorTrend’s House of Muscle series, the restomod is reported to run 9-second quarter-miles at over 200 mph. Watch to see how a stock-looking ’66 Mopar hides that much firepower.
A single photo comparing two very different tire-smoking styles has been making the rounds — one car locked into a classic straight-line burnout, the other sliding sideways like a drift car mid-run. Both trace back to drag strip tire warm-ups, but they’ve evolved into two distinct forms of automotive showmanship. Here’s where each style actually comes from.
Fifty years is long enough for a car to outlive the reasons someone parked it in the first place. This 1961 Corvette finally rolled back into daylight after five decades in storage, and the timing matters: 1961 was the last year Chevrolet built the Corvette exclusively around the 283 small-block, including a rare fuel-injected option. Here’s what makes a survivor like this one worth a second look.
Chevrolet’s Camaro beat the Ford Mustang for America’s top-selling muscle car crown in September and October — then lost it right back in November, proof that this decades-old sales rivalry can flip in a single month. The same stretch also saw a lifelong Chevelle SS hunt finally pay off, a new Motor Trend show built entirely around muscle car culture, and a 560-horsepower pro-touring Camaro built by Detroit Speed. Read on for what the whole picture says about the state of muscle cars in the mid-2010s.
Kyle from Saabkyle04 skips the usual 0 to 60 numbers and spends his time with the Dodge Challenger SRT Demon doing one thing, listening. Between the supercharger’s mechanical whine and 840 horsepower on tap, the video turns into an open question: is this the best sounding muscle car ever made? The comment section has been arguing about it ever since, split hard between two very different definitions of muscle.
Master mechanic and racer Paul Annunziata built his 1975 Plymouth Duster around a supercharged 426 Hemi — an engine combination the factory never offered, in a car nobody expected to carry that kind of power. Before he passed away, Paul wanted the car to go somewhere it would actually be driven. Jay Leno took on that responsibility personally. Watch the full story, including a comment from Paul’s own cousin that puts the whole build in perspective.
A Camaro Z/28 badge once meant a car built to embarrass everything else on the street. By 1980 it meant 190 horsepower, a functional hood scoop and some very loud graphics. Matt Farah drove a restored example and came away more nervous than impressed, and his complaints say a great deal about what the malaise era actually did to American muscle. Read on for what survived and what did not.
Buying a muscle car is rarely as simple as signing the paperwork — insurance, storage, resale value, and repair costs all factor into whether the purchase makes sense long-term. Some models appreciate with proper care; others lose value the moment you drive them home. Read on for the questions worth answering before you commit to a purchase you can’t easily walk back.
Bolting GT badges onto a base Mustang takes ten minutes. Telling a genuine factory GT from a well-executed clone takes a good deal longer, and the tells are not where most buyers look. A VIN digit, a stamped reinforcement plate, a gas cap and a rear valance will settle the argument faster than any emblem. Here is what to check, in what order, before the money changes hands.
Park a fifty-year-old muscle car beside its modern descendant and the old one somehow does not look dated. It makes the new one look like it is trying too hard. The modern car is faster, safer, and better in every measurable way, which makes the reaction genuinely strange until you understand what changed in between. Read on for the specific reasons the proportions stopped working, none of which are nostalgia.
Muscle cars don’t fail the way modern daily drivers do — they fail from sitting still, wrong parts, and skipped basics like waxing and monthly drives. A little consistent care, from garage storage to a 30-minute drive once a month, is the difference between a car that holds its value and one that quietly turns into an expensive project. Read on for the maintenance habits that actually matter.
This isn’t muscle car footage in the usual sense — it’s 1970s crash-test film, digitized from the A/V Geeks archive, built to prove a shoulder belt does something a lap belt alone can’t. One commenter, now 58, remembers the exact head-impact pattern this footage demonstrates from real wrecked cars growing up. Another credits Volvo’s decision to give away its seatbelt patent with saving countless lives. What does decades-old crash-test footage actually have to do with why the muscle car era ended the way it did?
A 3,000-horsepower Camaro rolled onto a freshly scraped, no-prep surface at Thunder Valley Raceway and ended up sideways against a nitrous Fox Body Mustang nicknamed Lucifer. This piece explains why no-prep racing strips away the grip that normally tames this much power, what it takes to build a big-tire car for that kind of unpredictability, and how this run compares to a properly prepped six-second pass.
Two red muscle cars, one racetrack, and zero information to go on, just the shapes to judge them by. This kind of side-by-side forces you to rely on stance, proportions, and gut instinct instead of spec sheets. It’s the purest version of the ‘which one would you drive’ debate that muscle car fans have been having for decades. Pick a side and see if you can defend it.
Most diesel-swapped muscle cars announce themselves with zip-tied plumbing and a cowl hood hiding the mess underneath. This Plymouth Cuda carries a compound-turbo 6.7-liter Cummins that looks like it was cast for the engine bay, backed by a reported 1,500 rear-wheel horsepower and a torque figure north of 3,000 lb-ft. The parts list explains the numbers. The fabrication explains why anyone took the build seriously.