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Only one 1969 Trans Am ever left Pontiac’s factory with a race-bred Ram Air V under its hood, built purely to test a car nobody planned to sell. From that single engineering mule to the 335-horsepower 455 HO of 1971 and the Super Duty that closed out the era in 1974, these are the rarest Trans Am engine programs collectors still track down decades later.
A 1968 Chevy Nova has traded its small-block V8 for the turbocharged straight-six out of a Toyota Supra, and the numbers make the swap impossible to dismiss: over 860 wheel horsepower, more than double what any factory Nova SS ever produced. Here’s how a 2JZ ended up under a muscle car’s hood, and whether the swap actually holds up as a daily-drivable build.
Most 1970 Mercury Cyclone Spoilers built with the rare 429 Super Cobra Jet have long since vanished. One owner didn’t just save his — he races it in a class that demands factory-look parts and stock-style tires, and it’s turning 11-second quarter miles. Here’s the story behind Detroit’s most overlooked 429.
Every other muscle car nameplate has gone electric, gone away, or gone soft trying to chase sports car rivals twice its price. The Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat did none of those things, staying loud, huge, and supercharged right up until production ended for good. Borrowed from UK specialist importer Clive Sutton for this review, it sets out to answer a pointed question: with rivals increasingly drifting toward supercar territory, is this genuinely the last great muscle car? Watch to see the case this drive makes.
A numbers-matching 1972 Oldsmobile 442 W-30 squared off against a Buick GSX Stage 1, a Pontiac Trans Am SD-455, and a Hemi Road Runner in a strict Pure Stock Drags shootout. Only Chevrolet’s chronically underrated L88 Corvette could put it away. Here’s how the torque-heavy 455 stacked up against three of Detroit’s most famous engines – and why it still gets called one of the most underrated muscle cars ever built.
A 3,770-pound BMW M2 CS just out-dragged Dodge’s newest six-cylinder Charger Scat Pack and the 670-horsepower Charger Daytona EV in a head-to-head sprint. The margin at the finish line was less than half a car length, and it had almost nothing to do with horsepower. Here’s how Hagerty’s drag race actually played out — and why the lightest car in the lineup came out on top.
A 1969 Dodge Dart Swinger spent decades hidden in a garage before anyone heard its 340 run again. Chrysler rated the small-block at just 275 horsepower — enthusiasts have spent 50 years insisting that number is a lie. Here’s what happened when this rough, unrestored survivor finally came back to life.
Ford squeezed 662 horsepower from a supercharged V8 into the last Mustang built with a solid rear axle, a combination that made the 2013 Shelby GT500 both wildly fast and genuinely difficult to drive. A decade later, owners are still talking about the sound, the manual gearbox, and just how much respect this car demands. Here’s why the 2013-2014 GT500 remains one of the most talked-about modern Shelbys.
A 425-horsepower Hemi Super Bee went wheel to wheel with a Corvette packing a secretly underrated L88 427, and somehow came out ahead at the stripe. The Corvette turned the higher trap speed. The Dodge turned the better reaction time. This is how a factory-legal Mopar built to the edge of its rulebook nearly took down one of GM’s rarest big-blocks.
A 1970 Chevelle SS built by NR Classics trades its factory big block for a 468 stroker that Chevrolet never offered from the showroom floor. Air suspension, Wilwood brakes, and a Holley Sniper EFI system replace nearly everything else underneath the blacked-out body. It keeps the shape people fell for in 1970 and rethinks almost everything that made it hard to live with.
In 1968, an Oldsmobile engineer asked the Hurst team to help build something that should not have existed: a 442 with the Toronado’s front-wheel-drive powertrain packed into its nose. Exactly one was completed, and it survived in one owner’s hands for 42 years before Fred Mandrick acquired it in 2012. Read on to find out why Oldsmobile bothered building a front-drive muscle car nobody was ever supposed to buy.
Twenty-seven genuine 426 Hemi ‘Cuda and Challenger convertibles rolled onto one Chicago show field in 2015, shattering a record nobody had broken in decades. With only 41 of these cars ever built across two model years, gathering even a handful in one place was once considered remarkable. See how a single weekend brought together a meaningful slice of an entire production run, and why the math behind that rarity is more brutal than most enthusiasts realize.
Internal Combustion’s 4K walkaround of the 2017 Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals captures the Rosemont, Illinois show known for its Time Capsule survivor awards alongside concours-level restorations. The creator calls out Mopars, Boss 429 Mustangs, and Pontiac Firebirds as personal favorites, while one viewer argues the show is missing the average joe car altogether. MCACN’s indoor November format gives fragile, unrestored originals a weather-proof stage most summer shows can’t offer. Watch to see what an indoor survivor-focused show actually looks like up close.
The 2026 Dodge Charger R/T swaps its Hemi V8 for a 420-horsepower twin-turbo six branded SIXPACK, a name Dodge borrowed from a legendary three-carburetor 440 V8 option from 1969. A veteran reviewer tested the ,000 loaded version, and the comment section couldn’t agree on whether it still counts as a muscle car.