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Tesla’s 2013 Model S launched four years ahead of schedule, with its top trim producing 416 horsepower and running 0-60 mph in 4.4 seconds, numbers that justified comparisons to gasoline muscle cars. A 17-inch touchscreen controlled nearly every function in the cabin, while three available battery packs offered up to 300 miles of range. Read on to find out how the muscle car comparison held up as Tesla’s lineup evolved.
This 1967 Chevrolet Chevelle Malibu underwent a complete frame-off restoration and has logged just 15,000 miles since, now running a 5.3-liter LS V8, a Quick Performance 9-inch rear end, and a full RideTech suspension. Listed out of Ubly, Michigan for $59,000, it pairs SS badging and classic sheet metal with genuinely modern mechanicals. Read on to find out everything that went into this build.
Often called the car that started the entire muscle car genre, this 1965 Pontiac GTO rolls in wearing Tiger Gold paint, a 389 V8, and the close-ratio four-speed and limited-slip rear end that made it more than just a big engine in a mid-size body. Former GTO owners flooded the comments with their own stories, from decade-long daily-driver ownership to heated debates over the single best factory color combination. Watch the breakdown of the car that made John DeLorean’s rule-bending idea a legend.
A 1971 Buick GS Stage 1 Convertible, described as looking just as it did the day it left the showroom, gets the full 4K treatment at the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals. Buick’s factory performance package turned this GS into a genuine competitor against Chevelle SS and GTO buyers of its era. Watch to see a rare survivor convertible that barely shows its age.
Jamboolio’s Best Muscle Car Sounds of 2016 skips music and narration entirely, letting nearly twenty American V8s — from a nitrous-fed 1967 Camaro to a 1000-horsepower Buick Grand National — speak for themselves at full throttle. Viewers picked out standouts ranging from a black Pontiac Firebird to a twin-turbo Corvette pushing an estimated 1500 horsepower. Watch to hear which cars made the biggest impression.
Halfway through 2017, Detroit’s three pony cars were close enough that the sales race looked genuinely undecided from month to month. By the time December invoices were counted, the gap between first and third had stretched past seventeen thousand cars. One of the three actually grew that year while the other two slid backward. Read on to find out which nameplate took the crown and which one quietly gained ground.
Some cars are rare because a manufacturer decided to make them rare. The 1971 Challenger R/T with the 426 Hemi is rare because almost nobody would pay for it, and then the option vanished before anyone realized what was ending. Roughly 70 were built that year, all hardtops, all with the shaker hood as standard equipment. Finished in triple black, this is about as intimidating as the configuration gets. Read on to find out what actually killed the elephant motor.
Alf’s red 1965 Chevy II Nova SS still wears its original California dealer plates — despite living in Adelaide, Australia since he imported it in 2008. Two prior owners, a factory 283 V8, and an untouched interior make it a genuine survivor, with only a repaint, new brakes, and a set of Flowmaster mufflers separating it from stock. Read on for the story of how the car got there, and how the Nova nameplate itself came to be.
Dodge introduced the A12 Super Bee halfway through the 1969 model year with a lift-off fiberglass hood, three two-barrel carburetors on a 440, and steel wheels with no hubcaps. It was a factory drag car sold with a warranty, built for buyers who wanted maximum performance for minimum money. Dave and Kelly Molnar brought a restored example to MCACN. Read on to find out what made the A12 package different from everything else Dodge sold that year.
Mercury built the Cougar to sell refinement, with hidden headlights, a plusher cabin and advertising built around sophistication rather than stripes. Then Ford handed it the 428 Cobra Jet and refinement stopped being the point. Order sheets show fewer than 130 Ram Air Cobra Jet Cougars left the line that year in any body style, and convertibles built to this specification were rarer still. Read on for how a country-club car became one of the era’s hardest finds.
Forty-two years after the original Boss 302 was built to win a Trans-Am race, Ford brought the name back with one very specific goal: beat a BMW M3 around Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. Around the same time, Chevrolet revived the ZL1 badge — a name that started with one Illinois dealer’s odd request for fifty aluminum-block Camaros — on a supercharged, 550-plus horsepower Camaro built using suspension technology borrowed from the Corvette ZR1. Read on to find out how two of Detroit’s oldest names ended up chasing the same import.
Only 2,399 Dodge Challenger T/As were built for a single model year, and this one is one of just 1,410 finished with an automatic transmission and roughly 50 wearing its triple-black paint scheme. V8TV breaks down exactly what made the T/A a street-legal homologation special rather than just another Challenger trim. Watch to see the numbers that make it genuinely rare.
In the early 1960s, when factory racing was not technically supposed to exist under General Motors’ own corporate policy, a handful of very specific cars still rolled off assembly lines built almost entirely for the drag strip. This 1962 Chevrolet is one of them, and if you did not know to look for it, you would swear it was just another Impala. The debate over exactly what engine it is hiding still is not fully settled. Watch to see why even longtime owners disagree.
Loving muscle cars and actually owning one are two very different financial commitments, and a full restoration can run anywhere from $40,000 to well past $70,000 before a car ever turns a wheel. The costs that catch first-time buyers off guard are rarely the ones they planned for. Read on to find out where the real money goes, and why so many enthusiasts stay muscle car guys in spirit only.
Some barn finds sit in a shed for a decade. This 1962 Oldsmobile sat untouched in a house garage for more than four decades before this video brought it back into the light, and it turns out to be one of the first two turbocharged production cars ever sold to the public. Its factory Garrett turbocharger and forgotten water-injection system predate the muscle car era most people think started it all. Watch to find out why so few of these survived.