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The decades-old Mustang-versus-Camaro rivalry has found unlikely new life in China, where Ford’s later-arriving pony car has outsold Chevrolet’s by more than 3-to-1 despite a four-year head start for the Camaro. The gap traces back to one detail muscle car fans will recognize instantly: engine choice. Read on to find out why a turbocharged four-cylinder cost Chevrolet the fight.
Jay Leno rides shotgun in the legendary Hemi Under Glass, a 2,500-horsepower exhibition car built to run an entire quarter mile balanced on its rear wheels, driven by veteran stunt driver Bob Riggle. Even with decades of automotive experience, Leno’s reaction on camera makes clear this ride is unlike anything else in his garage. Watch to see how a car engineered to defy physics actually feels from the passenger seat.
A 1970 Dodge Coronet with a six-cylinder and a stock rear end really was pretty pedestrian by today’s standards – but that’s not the whole story. Order the same car as a Super Bee with the 426 Hemi and the right gearing, and documented runs put it in the 12-second quarter mile bracket at well over 100 mph. Factory horsepower ratings from that era were also notoriously conservative, hiding just how much these engines actually made. Here’s the case for why “muscle cars were slow” doesn’t hold up once you look past the average car.
The 1969 Dodge Dart Swinger built its reputation on a 340 small-block that punched well above its weight class in a lightweight A-body, despite the Dart nameplate’s humble slant-six reputation. This particular example takes a different road, running a heavily built 318 with an aggressive cam and a stout rear end. Read on to see what the build actually delivers on the street.
For the Camaro’s 50th anniversary, Chevrolet didn’t settle for a badge and a paint stripe. The sixth-generation car arrived smaller, sharper-handling, and backed by a lineup running from a 275-horsepower turbo-four up to a 455-horsepower SS V8, with a new ZL1 added specifically for the occasion. Here’s what made the anniversary edition — and the platform underneath it — genuinely worth the celebration.
A small fender badge reading Futuramic marked one of the biggest technological shifts Oldsmobile ever made: the return of the Hydra-Matic automatic transmission after a wartime production pause. Oldsmobile beat Cadillac to market with a fully automatic transmission by an entire year. The 1948 restyle paired that transmission with features few other cars of the era could match.
The 1962 Corvette closed out the original C1 body style while quietly introducing the 327 small block that would carry the nameplate for years afterward. Buyers who paid extra for the Ramjet fuel injection option got a car that could genuinely compete with much pricier machinery. Few of them realized they were also buying the last Corvette that would ever wear a wraparound windshield.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety put a trio of America’s best-known sports coupes through its full crash test battery in a May 2016 release, and none of them walked away with a TOP SAFETY PICK award. Long hoods, low rooflines, and rear-drive proportions built for speed don’t always cooperate with small-overlap crash structure. What actually held these pony cars back is more specific than the headline suggests. Watch to see how the numbers break down.
A routine nitrous pass off Mexico Racing League’s camera turns into a real-time lesson in why a 100-shot kit needs its own dedicated fuel system to survive. What starts as a hard, loud launch ends with something under the hood giving way in an instant, and a comment section full of tuners explaining exactly why. The failure has nothing to do with the car being cheap and everything to do with basic nitrous fueling math. See what actually went wrong.
This 1967 Camaro convertible trades its long-gone factory small-block for a 383 stroker, backed by a TH350 automatic, Hugger Orange paint, and enough chassis work to put real power down. Convertibles were already the rarer first-gen Camaro body style before anyone touched the drivetrain. Read on to find out what it takes to build a driver-focused first-gen right.
Gearhead Garage breaks down 11 of the most common muscle car upgrades that actually hurt performance, safety, or resale value — from oversized wheels to spool rear ends. Some of these mods are things owners save years to install. According to this list, that might be the problem. Watch Part 1 to see the full breakdown.
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.
Nick’s Garage settles a long-running Mopar argument by testing the exact same stroked 426 Hemi with factory-style manifolds and then with headers, back to back, on the same dyno. The results push back on some assumptions viewers walked in with, and the comments are already asking for a round two with bigger headers. Watch the full pull-by-pull comparison to see which setup actually made more power.