This 1979 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 proves the muscle car era wasn’t as dead as critics claimed. Built with a cammed 350 V8, headers, and its original four-speed manual transmission, it wears the black-and-orange color combination that defined the second-generation Z/28 at its peak. Watch the full 4K road test and tour of a survivor built during the industry’s so-called malaise era.
Posts Tagged: power
A six-cylinder Malibu that’s been in the same hands for nineteen years doesn’t get to 520 horsepower overnight. Jeffery’s slow-build street rod — big-block swap, upgraded rear end, reworked suspension — is a reminder that the best builds in this community are usually years in the making, one system at a time.
Cadillac marketed the 1976 Eldorado convertible as its last-ever ragtop, capping production near 14,000 units before quietly reversing course and bringing the convertible back eight years later. The car backing up that promise carried the largest engine ever fitted to a production vehicle at the time. Here’s the story behind the marketing pitch and the numbers that made this convertible special.
This 1965 Chevy Nova SS wears a body Chevrolet never paired with a 406 cubic-inch V8, a Ford 9-inch rear end, or rack-and-pinion steering — all changes bolted on by a builder chasing quarter-mile performance over factory correctness. Sub-frame connectors, a trunk-mounted battery, and Mickey Thompson drag radials all point toward a car built to launch hard, not just look sharp at a cruise-in. RamblinAround walked through the full build with photos and receipts in hand at Fast Lane Classic Cars. Watch to see how far off the factory blueprint a serious Nova build can go.
Everyone knows the Corvette skipped a model year and the Daytona’s wing was built for speed — but fewer people know that wing height was also a trunk-lid compromise, or that a handful of Dodge dealers once built the only production car to wear factory Cragar wheels. This rundown digs past the four facts every muscle car list repeats to the trivia that actually surprises collectors. Read on to find out which 1970 Super Bee variant was rarer than the Six Pack.
After the 1968 Dodge Charger’s handsome fastback shape turned into a liability on NASCAR’s high-banked superspeedways, Chrysler answered with the radically reshaped 1969 Daytona — complete with a nose cone, towering rear wing, and a Lockheed wind-tunnel-tested aerodynamic package. It worked immediately, winning its first race and becoming the first NASCAR stock car to top 200 mph. Read on to find out how two cars sharing one platform ended up telling such different stories.
AV Boys’ small-block Mustang gave a built, turbocharged Porsche 911 a full car-length head start in a five-thousand-dollar grudge race — and still caught it with the front wheels off the ground. The clip has circulated for years as proof that a well-built pushrod small-block Ford can embarrass six-figure German engineering. See exactly how close it actually was.
Filmed in Dallas, Texas, this 1969 Camaro SS 396 carries the rare X66 cowl tag code — a 375-horsepower L78 big-block paired with power steering and power brakes, but deliberately no factory tachometer or gauge package. samspace81’s detailed walkaround catalogues exactly the kind of build-sheet specifics collectors chase decades later. Watch to hear why one commenter says they could listen to that L78 idle for hours.
Chevrolet built 7,209 Nova SS 396s for 1969, and most buyers skipped the milder engine option for the one built to actually hurt people at the drag strip. Five hundred pounds lighter than a Chevelle running the same 396, this compact turned into one of the quickest cars Chevrolet sold that year. Read on to find out why Chevrolet let its cheapest muscle car become one of its fastest.
Episode 184 of Muscle Car of the Week features a showroom-fresh, triple-black 1971 Buick GS 455 Stage 1 convertible — one of the highest-torque muscle cars Detroit built that year, wrapped in a color combination viewers still call ‘sweet’ decades later. Commenters are already asking whether a Buick Grand National might be hiding in the same collection. Watch to see what else made this car Buick’s cleanest case for muscle and luxury coexisting.
Kyle of BoostedBoiKyle took the least likely sleeper platform imaginable, a minivan, and pointed a turbocharger at it, chasing a dyno number that startled even his own crew. A shower of sparks mid-pull and a hubcap moment fourteen minutes in became the video’s two most-discussed details. Comments are already joking about a cop pulling it over for triple-digit speeds. Watch the full build and dyno pull for yourself.
Everyone remembers the muscle car coupes, but Detroit built some genuinely serious trucks during the same era, including one that could be ordered with the same 429 Cobra Jet found in the meanest Fords of 1970. Even the humble F-100 borrowed its name from a supersonic fighter jet. Here’s the real performance history behind five of the era’s best trucks.
Before the Pontiac GTO existed, corporate policy at General Motors made it impossible: no mid-size car could carry an engine over 330 cubic inches, period. John DeLorean and a small team of engineers built one anyway, testing it in nighttime street races before their bosses even knew it existed. This archival documentary traces how that quiet act of rule-breaking, plus a name borrowed from Ferrari, turned into the car that saved Pontiac and launched an entire era of American muscle. Watch to find out how close it came to never happening at all.
