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AMC never had the budget of Detroit’s Big Three, and for one model year it stopped pretending that mattered. The Rebel Machine wrapped the most powerful engine the company ever built into a mid-size two-door and sent it to a drag strip for its public debut instead of an auto show. Read on to find out how a car built in such small numbers became the most patriotic-looking muscle car of the era.
Ron Smith bought this 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona — one of only 503 built — for a road trip before shipping out to Vietnam. He drove it for over a decade after coming home, then parked it in his father’s lockup for more than twenty years. Restorer Marshall Woolery brought it back, and the finished car has since been featured in Hemmings Muscle Machines. Watch to see the Daytona that waited two decades for its second life.
A genuine 1970 Plymouth Road Runner convertible — metallic green, 383 V8, 4-speed manual — headed to no-reserve auction as part of the Rietz Mopar Collection sale in Mansfield, South Dakota. Convertible Road Runners were rare even when new, and survivors this complete rarely surface. No reserve means it sells to whoever bids highest, no matter the number. Watch to see what a car this scarce actually brings under the gavel.
A genuine 426 Hemi Road Runner, one of only 152 built in 1970, lines up against a 1972 Oldsmobile 442 W-30, one of just 772 built that year, in a quarter-mile grudge match that splits the difference between torque and top end. The W-30’s blueprinted 455 gets off the line first, but the Hemi’s legendary top-end pull closes the gap by the traps. Viewers have been arguing in the comments ever since about which car actually deserved the win. Watch the run and decide for yourself which factory got it right.
A 1969 Plymouth Road Runner with the 390-horsepower 440-6 Six Pack takes on a 1969 Chevrolet Chevelle SS running the 375-horsepower L78 396, both racing under Pure Stock Drags rules that require genuinely factory-stock parts throughout. A commenter who says he debugged the 440-6bbl setup as a young Chrysler engineer adds real credibility to the story. See which factory rivalry actually won this closely matched quarter-mile.
Tom Cotter’s Barn Find Hunter uncovers a 1966 Ferrari 275 GTB/2 Long-nose Alloy coupe and a 1967 Shelby Cobra 427 sitting together in a condemned Charlotte garage scheduled for demolition, with no local tow company willing to move them. Both cars were extracted and consigned to Gooding & Company’s Amelia Island Auction. Watch to see how a rescue this dramatic actually comes together before the wrecking crew arrives.
Pontiac planned to build nearly 5,000 examples of the 1977 LeMans Can Am before a spoiler mold problem cut the run short at just 1,377 cars — a fraction of them fitted with a different engine entirely. RamblinAround tracks down one of the survivors, and the comments fill in details even longtime Pontiac fans admit they’d never heard before, from quarter-mile times to a rare column-shift option.
The 2017 Dodge Challenger GT quietly did something none of its muscle car ancestors ever managed: it put real power down on wet and snow-covered pavement without sacrificing the long hood and retro fastback shape that make a Challenger a Challenger. Built around a V6 rather than a Hemi and borrowing all-wheel-drive hardware already proven on the Charger and 300, it opened the pony car up to a buyer who’d never seriously considered one before. Read on to find out how Dodge pulled it off.