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Posts Tagged: power

Oldsmobile’s 4-4-2 package debuted quietly in mid-1964, and only 2,999 examples sold that first year despite genuinely serious hardware: a 4-barrel carburetor, 4-speed manual, dual exhaust, and a 310-horsepower 330-cubic-inch V8. It shared its platform with the new Chevelle. Here’s why this overlooked debut mattered more than its sales numbers suggested.

Hudsons Rod and Customs is refreshing a 1957 Chevrolet pickup that already wears the shop’s own logo, a client’s truck serving double duty as a rolling advertisement. An LS swap is planned for reliability, while a temporary Cadillac-sourced leather interior holds things over until a fully custom cabin gets built. Watch to see what a custom shop chooses to change on its own showcase vehicle.

A five-car rundown of the least dependable vehicles ever built pairs a push-bar Ford Taurus with a Dodge Neon SRT-4 caught on fire and a Mitsubishi Evo broken down roadside, and the reasons behind each failure are more specific than the title lets on. The comments section turns into its own debate, with viewers arguing over Dodge’s reliability reputation since its Fiat ownership and trading stories of five-figure repair bills. Watch the full breakdown and see which car actually deserved its spot.

When Chrysler’s 6.4-liter HEMI SRT V8 launched, it used a pushrod layout that critics considered outdated — and still made 470 naturally aspirated horsepower across the Charger, Challenger, 300, and Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8. Chief engineer Gary Rogers explains the engineering decisions behind the numbers directly in this Insider Interview. Watch to understand why an ‘old’ engine architecture kept winning arguments it wasn’t supposed to win.

This 1948 Studebaker Commander keeps its groundbreaking postwar styling but swaps everything underneath for modern GM hardware — a Chevrolet 305 V8, a 700R4 overdrive automatic, and a Camaro front subframe with Mustang II-style steering. It’s a build that raises a fair question about how much of the original Commander survives beneath the sheet metal. See the full restomod in the photos below.

This 1970 Pontiac GTO isn’t a real Judge, and the Texas dealership selling it isn’t trying to say otherwise — it’s a genuine 242-code GTO wearing a body-up restoration and Judge-tribute styling, priced at $33,900. Under the hood is a correctly dressed 400 with HO heads, backed by Baer disc brakes and Hotchkis suspension for a car that can actually stop and turn. At 57,000 original miles, it’s asking buyers to decide what authenticity is really worth.

George was not hunting for a classic when he spotted a Buick Skylark with a for-sale sign in Lisbon, Ohio, in the summer of 2014; he just stopped for a closer look. What he found was a GS455-powered GSX tribute car with its original numbers-matching 350 engine stored safely away, parked in a garage alongside a small private muscle car collection. Read on to find out about the one-of-a-kind GM production mistake that makes a factory GS455 Stage I Skylark one of the rarest muscle cars of 1970.

General Motors built five Corvette Grand Sports in 1963 before corporate leadership shut the program down, and those five became some of the most valuable Corvettes in existence. Superformance now builds continuations under official GM license, on a tube chassis with hand-laid bodies. This one carries a Lingenfelter LS7, Wilwood discs, and air conditioning.

Ford reshaped its entire truck lineup for 1937, offering buyers a choice between an economical 136 cubic inch V8 and the more powerful 221 cubic inch flathead in the same rounded, streamlined body. It was not fast by modern standards, but the flathead-powered ’37 pickup became one of the most popular hot rod platforms of its era. These photos, courtesy of Gateway Classic Cars, show a well-preserved example of that transformation.

Mercury built more than ten thousand Cyclone GT hardtops for 1970, but only a few hundred of them left the factory with the engine that made the model’s reputation. Three different 429s were available, ranging from a smooth cruiser to a solid-lifter drag car, and a well-restored example tells you almost nothing about which one you are looking at until you check. Here is how to read a 1970 Cyclone GT, and why the Drag Pack cars are the ones worth chasing.

Dodge offered its fearsome Max Wedge 413 across the entire 1962 Dart lineup, station wagons included, pairing a genuinely dangerous big-block with a brand-new lightweight unibody platform. Two states of tune were available, both capable of closing in on a 12-second quarter mile in a car built to also haul groceries. Chryslers engineers proved a mid-size car could out-drag much larger machinery years before the GTO existed. This wagon is a reminder that Mopars muscle car reputation started in unlikely places.

John Wischmann set out to run 7-second quarter-mile passes at every stop of Rocky Mountain Race Week in a twin-turbo big-block Camaro, then drive it on public roads to the next track and do it again, without a single mechanical failure. Viewers keep comparing the turbo whistle to a screaming eagle, and the launches show almost no wasted motion or tire shake. Reliability and speed are not supposed to go together at this level. Watch to see whether this build proves that wrong.

The 1967 Chevrolet Nova SS looked like a mild refresh of Chevrolet’s compact Chevy II, but underneath was a genuine giant-killer: a 350-horsepower 327 V8 available for just $93 more than the base engine. Here’s how the Nova went from economy car to muscle car contender, and what the safety updates of 1967 changed for good.

A small-block Chevy engine builder with decades of grease under his fingernails sets out to settle one of the hobby’s oldest arguments: which factory cylinder heads are actually worth chasing, and which ones are budget-build traps. Casting numbers, camel-hump chambers, and a warranty-replacement secret tied to the 1969 Z/28 Camaro all make an appearance. Viewers with their own engine-building histories have kept the debate going in the comments for over a decade. Watch to find out which heads made his list, and which ones did not.

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