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Chevrolet sold its 1947 Fleetmaster looking almost identical to a prewar design, and buyers starved for new cars snapped it up anyway, driving nearly 265,000 units out the door in a single year. Under the hood sat a dependable inline six nicknamed for the color of its exhaust flame. Read on to find out why a company could get away with selling the same car twice.
James Dean died behind the wheel of a 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder nicknamed the “Little Bastard,” a car that vanished so completely after a string of bizarre incidents that a million-dollar reward has never brought it back. Historians still argue over how much of the wreck’s dark legend is even true. Read on to find out what actually happened on Route 46, and why the car’s disappearance still hasn’t been solved.
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.
Every muscle car engine gets the glory, but horsepower means nothing until it reaches the pavement through the transmission standing between the crankshaft and the rear wheels. An animated breakdown of exactly how that transmission works, dog clutches, synchronizer rings, and all, earned praise from a self-identified automotive engineer as the clearest explanation they had ever seen. It even required its own creator to issue a correction. Watch to see what most drivers get wrong about their own gearbox.
One enthusiast worked through fifty-eight questions before buying a classic muscle car, covering everything from personal motivation to a realistic $10,000-$20,000 entry budget. This entry breaks down the most useful of those questions, including why car clubs matter more than any online forum and how to plan for the moment a restoration inevitably hits a wall. Read on to find out which questions first-time buyers skip at their own risk.
Triumph”s Spitfire entered its final years in 1979 wrapped in federally mandated rubber bumpers and running a larger, torquier but noticeably less reliable engine than the roadster that debuted back in 1962. Tightening regulations and cheaper Japanese imports were closing in fast on the entire British sports car segment. Read on to find out what changed under the skin of the last Spitfires, and why the nameplate still has such a devoted following.