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For 1970, General Motors dropped the internal rule capping intermediate cars at 400 cubic inches, and Chevrolet answered with RPO LS6: a 454 rated at 450 horsepower and 500 lb-ft on 11.25:1 compression and a solid-lifter camshaft. Roughly 4,475 Chevelles got it, and it lasted exactly one model year in that car. Whether any particular survivor is the very last one built is a far harder question. Read on to find out why.
Chevrolet’s fender badge said ‘396’ on every 1970 SS Chevelle, but the actual engine under the hood measured 402 cubic inches — a quiet update the automaker never bothered to advertise. Buyers chose between a 350-horsepower street engine and a 375-horsepower solid-lifter race motor, wrapped in a convertible body built in far smaller numbers than the hardtop. Clean examples now average around $105,000 at auction. Read on to find out why a mislabeled engine became one of the most valuable badges in muscle car history.
1972 marked the final year of the Chevrolet Monte Carlo’s first generation, and though the SS badge had already been retired, the lineup still ranged from a mild 165-horsepower 350 V8 to a genuine 270-horsepower 454 big block. A new Cadillac-style grille and standard variable-ratio power steering rounded out the last update before a full redesign. More than 180,000 buyers still chose one that year. Read on to find out why this quiet swan song became one of Chevrolet’s best-selling coupes.
The Chevrolet SS was a genuine rear-wheel-drive V8 sedan hiding in plain sight on American dealer lots for four model years, and most enthusiasts either never noticed it existed or spent years quietly recommending one before it disappeared. Built on a rebadged Holden Commodore platform in Australia, it packed a 415-horsepower LS3 V8 and, eventually, a genuine six-speed manual. Its cancellation had almost nothing to do with American sales. Read on to find out what actually killed it.
This 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS packs the era’s biggest factory option, a 454 cubic-inch big block, from the single year Chevrolet finally lifted its self-imposed size cap on mid-size muscle. samspace81 captures it cold-starting and running the way an owner would show it off, not the way a dealership would sell it. Viewers in the comments are still trading childhood memories of riding in one decades later. Watch to hear what 450 horsepower sounded like before emissions rules changed everything.
The 1969 Camaro wore its sculpted sheet metal for exactly one model year before the second generation arrived, and it became the most recognizable first-generation shape of them all. The SS package offered a 350 or three separate 396 ratings topping out with the solid-lifter L78. Here is what separated those engines, what sat above them in the COPO catalog, and why documentation matters so much on this particular car.
Best-selling rarely means rare, and the 1969 Chevelle SS 396 proves it. Chevrolet moved 86,307 of them, more than any other year the badge existed, after turning the SS from a standalone series into a $348 option package. Yet a genuine numbers-matching car still stops traffic on a Dallas street. Here is what changed for 1969, and how to tell a real Z25 from a Malibu wearing the right emblems.
A supercharged big block pushed past 700 horsepower on pump gas, custom suspension, and a nine-inch Ford differential under a 1967 Chevelle Super Sport. The factory version of this car was capped by a General Motors corporate memo that actually reduced its advertised horsepower that year, and the legendary 375-horsepower L78 was not even on the order sheet. Read on to find out how the badge and the build connect.
This 1970 Camaro started life as an ordinary factory 350 SS before a trip to the Dick Harrell Performance Center turned it into a 454-powered rarity, and it survives today unrestored, with roughly 6,000 original miles. Commenters pick apart everything from its likely 4.88:1 rear gear to whether those tires are period-correct. See the full breakdown of one of the Brothers Collection’s standout cars.
Line up a supercharged Shelby GT500 against a naturally aspirated Camaro SS and the spec sheet declares a winner before anyone stages. Then the tree drops, and the spec sheet turns out to have been describing two entirely different cars aimed at two entirely different buyers. Traction, launch technique, and driver nerve routinely rewrite the math. Here is why this matchup keeps getting rematched, and why the outcome is less predictable than it looks.
RS, SS, and Z28 weren’t just badges on the late-1960s Camaro — they were separate engineering paths that could be stacked, combined, or chosen alone, and the production numbers behind each one tell a story most fans never hear. From a dealer-only 427 swap Chevrolet never officially offered to the year Z28 orders nearly tripled, read on for the details behind the badges.
‘Red Dragon,’ a Camaro SS running roughly 420 wheel-horsepower through a Turbonetics turbo, lined up against a Turbo Trans Am running its Buick-derived 3.8-liter V6 on increasing boost and methanol with every pass. On paper, the small-block should have won easily. The comment section — and the Trans Am’s Grand National-derived reputation — tell a different story. Watch to see how close a turbocharged V6 can get to a turbocharged V8.
A reviewer who’s owned both a Dodge Challenger Hellcat and a Camaro SS 1LE gets behind the wheel of a 2018 Camaro ZL1, and by his own admission, it’s the closest anything has come to matching his Hellcat’s thrill since he sold it. Between a digital speedometer that skips numbers under hard acceleration and a stranger leaning out of traffic to snap a photo, this review captures exactly why one commenter summed the ZL1 up in three words: smiles per gallon. Watch to see what won him over.
The 2011 Ford Mustang GT, 2010 Chevrolet Camaro SS and 2010 Dodge Challenger SRT8 gave up horsepower to each other in almost every direction, yet the finishing order at the drag strip was never really in doubt once curb weights entered the picture. One of the three carried nearly 500 pounds more than another. Read on for the numbers, the chassis differences, and why the least powerful car kept winning.
Chevrolet’s full-size Super Sport went from a genuine performance flagship in 1966 to a nearly unmarked sleeper by 1969, as buyers defected to the Chevelle and Nova and the SS427 option shrank to just a few thousand units a year. Front disc brakes finally arrived in the model’s final season. Read on to find out how to tell a genuine SS427 from a well-built tribute.