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Nelson Bandy spent years trying to buy a 1968 Shelby GT500KR convertible from the young couple who owned it in Lobelville, Tennessee, before finally closing the deal in the summer of 1978. He has driven it so rarely since that it spent the last 30 years hidden inside a pair of storage containers. Read on to find out what makes this one of just 318 GT500KR convertibles built, and why Bandy still cannot decide whether to restore it or just get it running as-is.
This 1967 Pontiac GTO started its restoration looking, in one viewer’s words, like it had been dragged out of a swamp — rusted through and barely recognizable. V8 Speed and Resto Shop’s frame-off rebuild brought it back to its factory-correct Tyrol Blue, complete with its original Pontiac 400 four-barrel V8 and every factory comfort option intact, before unveiling it at the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals. Watch the full transformation from swamp find to show winner.
Detailing a modern engine bay is easy; detailing a 1969 Camaro SS’s exposed carburetor, distributor, and ignition system without frying anything is another matter entirely. The Chemical Guys Detail Garage crew bags every vulnerable component before touching a hose, then works through a specific degreasing and drying sequence built for engines that predate sealed, water-resistant electronics by decades. It’s the kind of process viewers have since applied to their own numbers-matching Camaros. Watch how they pull it off without a single misfire.
Zach Straits spent eight years bringing a neglected 1961 Ford Galaxie Starliner back to life, and the result — a 401-horsepower 390 FE-series V8 under one of Ford’s most distinctive fastback rooflines — stopped traffic at the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals in Rosemont, Illinois. Lou Costabile’s My Car Story caught the full build story on camera. Watch to see why one commenter called this the best-looking full-size Ford of its decade.
Richard Schmidt’s 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T convertible sat untouched for forty years after he and his late wife Kitty stopped using it as their everyday cruiser. His kids brought it back — not for the horsepower, but in her memory. Hagerty named the finished restoration its 2016 Classic of the Year, beating eleven other finalist stories. Watch the full story and see why one viewer called it ‘how to make a car guy cry 101.’
Bill Ryder was hunting for a 1965 GTO to restore when this 1964 convertible in rare Nocturne Blue found him instead, and it’s been winning top honors at Pontiac shows ever since. Filmed at the 26th Annual Indian Uprising All Pontiac Weekend, it’s a reminder of how the GTO invented the muscle car formula. See what makes this particular example a repeat show winner.
A faded, forgotten classic sits quietly outside a garage, the kind of barn find photo that circulates constantly because it taps into something universal among car people: the instinct to imagine what it looked like new, and what it would take to get it back there. Rust, not budget, usually decides whether a project like this is realistic. Read on to find out how serious hunters track these cars down, and the three very different paths an owner can take once they do.