muscle cars | Muscle Car Fan

Vintage car challenge featuring a classic blue muscle car and two men in retro attire.

1970 Dodge Challenger RT Commercial

A vintage 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T commercial has quietly become a cult favorite for reasons that have little to do with horsepower: a blustering, law-enforcement bit built around a Southern sheriff that viewers now recognize as an eerie preview of Buford T. Justice, seven years before Smokey and the Bandit made the archetype famous. Behind the joke sits a genuinely serious muscle car, available with everything from a 383 Magnum up to the 426 Hemi. Watch the full spot to see where the joke started.

Red 2013 Plymouth Superbird with iconic wing and decals.

2013 Plymouth Superbird Gateway

by Wes

Plymouth hasn’t built a car since 2001, so how does a 2013 Plymouth Superbird exist? Underneath the nose cone and wing is a modern Dodge Challenger, transformed by a specialty conversion kit into a tribute of one of NASCAR’s most famous aero cars. Watch to see how the illusion holds up.

Shiny chrome car wheel rim with a multi-spoke design.

Going Big: Race Star Wheels Offers New Late Model Musclecar Wheels

by Kiril

Getting real drag wheels onto a modern Camaro, Mustang, or Challenger is nothing like bolting slicks onto a classic Chevelle, and that fitment gap is what Race Star Wheels built its business around. From a single design launched in 2009 to Friction Stir Fusion welding and a partnership with Pro Stock stars Greg Anderson and Jason Line, here is how one wheel company earned its place on serious drag cars, and what that means for the weekend racer.

A drag race between a green sports car and a classic muscle car at a drag strip.

Old vs New Muscle Cars Drag Racing – Hellcat,Demon,Shelby,ZL1,Dodge Charger

by Wes

This head-to-head lineup pits vintage muscle — a numbers-matching Cobra Jet, a classic Hemi Charger, an old-school Camaro — against Dodge’s Hellcat, Demon, and Chevy’s ZL1 in a series of quarter-mile drag races. One matchup even needed a handicap start just to keep things fair. Which era actually wins when the light drops green? Watch the full lineup to find out.

Close-up of two classic Ford Mustang cars, one red and one blue.

What Is a “Pony Car”?

by Kiril

The term “pony car” has nothing to do with horsepower, it describes a specific formula the 1964½ Ford Mustang invented and every Detroit rival scrambled to copy. Fifty years later, the Mustang’s 2015 redesign broke from that formula for the first time, adding independent rear suspension and a turbocharged four-cylinder. Read on to find out what actually separates a pony car from a muscle car.

A blue sports car races on a wet drag strip at night.

When You Lose Control – drag racing fails ,muscle cars,sport cars

by Wes

A montage of Hellcats, GT-Rs, Mustangs, and Chargers all losing the fight against their own horsepower at launch, this compilation has racked up nearly 200,000 views for a reason that goes beyond spectacle. Buried in the reactions is the real explanation: too many of these cars are hitting the strip on street tires instead of tires built for the job. The physics behind wheel hop, traction rolls, and sudden oversteer are all on display. See exactly what separates a clean launch from the next viral fail.

A camouflaged sports car undergoing testing on a track.

Spy Photos Tease Return of Shelby GT500 Mustang

by Kiril

For five years the Shelby GT500 nameplate sat dormant while rivals kept shipping ever-more-powerful factory monsters. Then camouflaged prototypes started turning up at Virginia International Raceway wearing a roll cage and a leaked oil spec sheet that hinted at serious horsepower. Read on to find out what those spy photos gave away, and how the finished car compared to the speculation.

A bright red vintage sports car parked outdoors at sunset.

Brett Chmura’s 1,000-Horsepower 1983 Chevy Monte Carlo

by Kiril

Brett Chmura’s 1983 Chevy Monte Carlo SS started life as a mild 175-horsepower NASCAR homologation special, built at a moment when Chevrolet desperately needed an aero nose to keep winning on Sunday. Three generations after his grandfather opened the family’s first repair shop in 1959, Brett’s version makes roughly 1,000 horsepower. Read on to find out how a shade-tree family legacy turned a stock body style into something the factory never imagined.

Two cars racing on a drag strip, a white Cadillac CTS-V and a dark Dodge Challenger.

2016 Hellcat battles CTS-V Cadillac-1/4 mile drag race

by Wes

A 707 horsepower 2016 Dodge Hellcat takes on a 556 horsepower Cadillac CTS-V in a straight-line battle between two of the mid-2010s most powerful factory muscle cars. The Hellcat crosses the line first, but commenters noted its supercharger showed real stress by the end of the run while the CTS-V drove home clean. The comment section has been arguing about which car actually won ever since. Watch the run and see which result matters more to you.

Classic yellow and black vintage muscle car parked outdoors.

Best of the Disco Era,‘70s Cars and Style at HOT ROD Power Tour 2017

by Kiril

HOT ROD Power Tour 2017 rolled from Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City to Iowa Speedway and the Davenport fairgrounds, and the cars stealing the show belonged to the 1970s: the last high-compression muscle of the early decade and the blower-scooped, white-letter-tired street machines that followed. The decade Detroit almost gave up on turned out to be the crowd favorite. Read on to find out why ’70s survivors and tributes drew the tightest crowds on the tour.

Close-up of a car engine with a muscle car theme.

Here’s The Scoop: Muscle Car Of The Week Video

by Wes

A hood scoop can be pure decoration or it can be the single hardest-working part of a muscle car’s engine bay — and in the late 1960s, Chrysler, Ford, and Pontiac each answered that question differently. This episode of Muscle Car of the Week walks through some of the wildest cold-air intakes in The Brothers Collection, including the shaker scoops that visibly move with the engine underneath them. Watch to see which manufacturer’s approach still gets the most respect from muscle car fans today.

Classic blue and white vintage pickup truck parked on a road.

Ford Ranchero 1969 GT 428 Cobra Jet

by Kiril

The Ranchero occupied a strange spot in Ford’s lineup — part car, part truck, and rarely taken seriously by muscle car buyers chasing a Mustang or Torino instead. This 1969 GT changes that calculation entirely by packing a 428 Cobra Jet under the hood. Read on to find out how a car-truck hybrid ended up with one of the most feared engines of the entire muscle car era.

1968 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 in yellow with black stripes.

History/Breakdown: 1968 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28

by Wes

Chevrolet officially rated the 1968 Camaro Z/28’s 302 small-block at 290 horsepower, a number this episode of Muscle Car Of The Week puts to the test on the dyno, with results considerably higher. Built around SCCA Trans-Am rules, the Z/28 paired that underrated engine with a stiffened chassis and the only 15-inch Rally wheels ever fitted to a first-gen Camaro. Watch to see how far off the factory number really was.

Two muscle cars, a black Dodge Charger and a blue Camaro SS, lined up for a drag race.

Upss! He didn’t see it coming -2017 Camaro SS vs Scat Pack Charger drag race

by Wes

A 2017 Camaro SS and a brand-new Dodge Charger Scat Pack lined up for a straight-line grudge match that should have come down to horsepower. Instead, it turned into a lesson about factory tire widths that muscle car owners are still citing years later. The comment section didn’t blame the driver – they blamed Dodge. Watch to see exactly where it went wrong.

Sleek black sports car with orange accents on display indoors.

800-hp ‘Yenko’ 2017 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport revealed

by Kiril

Yenko’s name has not meant much on a new car in decades, but a modern stroker build on the Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport just brought it roaring back. With a supercharged 6.8-liter making roughly 800 horsepower, wrapped in Grand Sport hardware and genuine Yenko styling cues, only fifty of these were ever built. Read on to find out what’s actually under the skin.

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