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.
Posts Tagged: Muscle Car
Jarred and his dad pulled the V8 out of a 1966 Ford Mustang and replaced it with a turbocharged Honda K24A engine, built with a 67mm turbo, a Nissan 350Z transmission, and standalone KPro tuning — all in their own garage. The swap has split viewers between calling it blasphemy and calling it genius. Watch the full build to see which side you land on.
He Crammed a 1,500-Horsepower Hellcat Into a 1968 Dodge Charger Named ‘Tater’ — And It Actually Runs
“Tater,” Westen Champlin’s 1968 Dodge Charger, has taken plenty of abuse across his build videos, but stuffing a supercharged Hellcat engine rated near 1,500 horsepower into its 58-year-old unibody pushed things further than usual. The swap leans on aftermarket Holley EFI to run a powertrain that chassis was never designed for, and it shows almost immediately once real torque hits the driveline. Fans in the comments are already calling Champlin an honorary member of the Hemi brothers for what happens next. Watch how far belt slack and 1,500 horsepower can push a vintage Mopar before something gives.
Dalton pairs a rust-riddled 1967 Buick Skylark with a Pontiac LeMans engine on a strict $2,500 budget, turning what looks like scrap into a running muscle car. Pole Barn Garage’s low-buck formula has built a loyal following, including viewers who say the builds genuinely motivated them to get back to their own garages. Watch the full transplant come together.
Buick wasn’t supposed to build a car that could embarrass a Hemi, but the 1970 GSX Stage 1 in Saturn Yellow did exactly that — including a documented 1984 grudge race where a GS beat two different Hemi-powered cars in a single day. Only 678 were built, and Motor Trend once clocked one as the fastest car it tested all year. Watch the full story behind the numbers.
Dodge’s Super Bee ran a full four-year spread of engine options, from a stout 383 all the way up to the legendary 426 Hemi, but the rarest combination of them all was the mid-1969 A12 Six-Pack. Only 1,907 of those 440 Six-Pack cars were built, and the Hemi option was even scarcer at just 125 units. It’s a lineup that proves not every muscle car icon needed a household name to earn its reputation.
This Chevy Nova looks like exactly what it is on the outside — a garage-built driver car with old-school flavor and nothing flashy about it. What’s hiding underneath is a supercharged LSA V8 putting down a dyno-verified 557 horsepower to the rear wheels, with an estimated 650 to 700 at the crank. It’s the kind of sleeper that wins by surprise, not spec sheet. Watch to see what happens when the supercharger whine finally gives it away.
Dodge pulled the Hemi out of the Charger. Chevy shelved the Camaro. That leaves the 2026 Ford Mustang GT as the last mainstream American muscle car still offering a naturally aspirated V8 and a genuine 6-speed manual, and this review drives a base-spec example in a stunning Adriatic Blue Metallic that’s already convinced at least one viewer to order the same color. With 480 horsepower and zero turbo lag, it’s a reminder of what the formula used to feel like. Watch to see whether the last one standing still holds up.
Mopar loyalty was forged in the muscle car’s heyday, and 1971 gave the faithful a Charger that earned every bit of it. Dodge reinvented the car with a fuselage-style third-generation body, split grille, and hidden headlights, and it was the final year Chrysler offered the 426 Hemi in any car. R/T production totaled just 3,118 units, with only 332 four-speed 440 Magnums. Read on to find out why the 1971 Charger marks the end of one era and the beginning of another.
Ask ten gearheads to define ‘muscle car’ and you’ll get ten different answers — and at least one argument about whether a Mustang counts. The real definition comes down to a specific formula Detroit stumbled into in the mid-1960s: a mid-size body paired with the biggest engine a manufacturer had to offer. From the Pontiac GTO’s accidental invention of the category to a modern restomod chasing genuine ZL1 power, read on to see what actually separates a muscle car from every other fast classic.
V8TV marked the Camaro’s 50th anniversary in 2017 by pulling a genuinely rare example out of the private Brothers Collection: a Granada Gold 1967 Camaro SS396 convertible carrying the top 375-horsepower engine option. Every layer of specification, body style, engine output, and color, makes this a harder car to find than a standard SS396. See exactly what earned it an episode of Muscle Car of the Week.
This 1969 Dodge Charger R/T pairs the factory-rated 425-horsepower 426 Hemi with a rare 3-speed automatic transmission, a combination found in only a few hundred of the more than 20,000 Charger R/Ts built that year. Part of the Brothers Collection, it carries just over 50,000 original miles. Watch to see what made this specific combination so unusual.
Pitted, dented stainless trim is one of the first things restorers toss in favor of reproduction pieces, and one of the first things veterans wish they had saved when the repro molding refuses to follow a body line. Original stainless can be brought back to a mirror finish with hammers, dollies, files, a wet-sanding progression from coarse to ultra-fine grit, and careful buffing, but the process rewards patience and punishes shortcuts. This guide walks through each stage and the mistakes that ruin good trim. Read on to find out what saving the original actually takes.
Filmed at a car meet in Kotka, Finland, this video captures a 1968 Dodge Charger R/T and its 440-cubic-inch V8 doing nothing more than idling and revving for a crowd, yet it has racked up hundreds of thousands of views. Uploader Jamboolio lets the exhaust note do the talking, and international commenters from Germany to Australia all agree on what they are hearing. Watch to find out why this specific Charger has become a small internet sensation an ocean away from Detroit.
