Muscle Car Fan

Posts Tagged: SS396

Chevrolet’s Camaro beat the Ford Mustang for America’s top-selling muscle car crown in September and October — then lost it right back in November, proof that this decades-old sales rivalry can flip in a single month. The same stretch also saw a lifelong Chevelle SS hunt finally pay off, a new Motor Trend show built entirely around muscle car culture, and a 560-horsepower pro-touring Camaro built by Detroit Speed. Read on for what the whole picture says about the state of muscle cars in the mid-2010s.

Classic Car Studio compresses a full 1966 Chevrolet Chevelle rebuild into ten fast-paced minutes, but the real story is in the details the footage moves past quickly. Not every SS396 badge that year meant the same engine — Chevrolet offered three distinct versions ranging from a mild 325-horsepower L35 to a solid-lifter 375-horsepower L78 that almost nobody ordered. Understanding which one a given car actually left the factory with is exactly what separates a documented original from one of the many SS396 clones still circulating today.

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.

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