 |
This numbers-matching 1968 Chevrolet Impala SS 396 runs the streets of Dallas with air conditioning, power steering, a 12-bolt rear end, bucket seats and an AM eight-track. Full-size performance was never as popular as the Chevelle or Camaro, which is exactly why a genuine SS 396 Impala with its original drivetrain has become so much harder to find. Read on for what the Super Sport package actually bought and how many were really built.
The 1967 Chevrolet Impala SS pictured here now runs a 350-cubic-inch V8 and two-speed Powerglide automatic — a later swap, since Chevy didn’t offer the 350 in a full-size car until 1969 — wrapped in Chevy’s freshly redesigned Coke-bottle bodywork. It also carries newly mandated safety features like an energy-absorbing steering column and front shoulder straps, arriving the same year Detroit was forced to start engineering for survival, not just speed. Here’s what made this particular model year such a turning point for the Impala nameplate.
Pagani built exactly sixteen examples of the 2009 Zonda R, each one wrapping a 750-horsepower AMG-sourced V12 in a chassis made from aircraft-grade aluminum, titanium, and magnesium. At roughly $750 per pound of curb weight, that works out to around $1.8 million for a car Pagani itself says only really belongs on a racetrack. Read on to find out what that kind of extremity actually buys.
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.
This 1948 Studebaker Commander keeps its groundbreaking postwar styling but swaps everything underneath for modern GM hardware — a Chevrolet 305 V8, a 700R4 overdrive automatic, and a Camaro front subframe with Mustang II-style steering. It’s a build that raises a fair question about how much of the original Commander survives beneath the sheet metal. See the full restomod in the photos below.
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 1970 Pontiac GTO isn’t a real Judge, and the Texas dealership selling it isn’t trying to say otherwise — it’s a genuine 242-code GTO wearing a body-up restoration and Judge-tribute styling, priced at $33,900. Under the hood is a correctly dressed 400 with HO heads, backed by Baer disc brakes and Hotchkis suspension for a car that can actually stop and turn. At 57,000 original miles, it’s asking buyers to decide what authenticity is really worth.
The Chevrolet Impala carries a name borrowed from an African antelope and a backstory that started as a Corvette-inspired concept car nobody expected to reach production. From a 1956 Motorama prototype to becoming America’s best-selling car by 1965, the Impala’s rise wasn’t guaranteed at any step along the way. Read on to see how a styling sketch turned into one of the longest-running nameplates in Chevrolet history.
The Challenger SRT Demon’s launch procedure reads like a checklist from a flight manual: line lock, brake, burnout, stage, release. Behind it sits a system that builds boost before the car moves, a set of factory drag radials, and an air conditioning circuit repurposed to chill intake air. The front wheels leave the ground by nearly three feet. Read on for how Dodge got there, and what the car is like the rest of the time.
The 1966 Chevrolet Nova SS started life as a humble compact, but buried deep in its order form was an engine option that turned it into one of the quickest bargains on the street. For 2,535 dollars, the right box checked could put a genuine performance engine under the hood of a car most people assumed was just economical transportation.
A Camaro’s routine pass at a burnout competition takes a sudden, sideways turn in this clip from small channel MrLuckster100 — and the drivetrain stress that likely caused it is more common than most spectators realize. Viewers in the comments were quick to point the finger at pushing a stock rear end well past the five-second mark. Watch to see exactly how fast a controlled burnout can turn into anything but.
This 1966 Pontiac GTO runs the genuine factory Tri-Power 389 and four-speed manual that enthusiasts consider the GTO’s high-water mark, filmed for Garrett Classics in Lewisville, Texas. Longtime GTO owners in the comments ran through it like a correctness checklist — Hurst shifter, PMD Rally Wheels, factory power brakes — and approved. See what the car John DeLorean fought GM’s rules to create looks like when it’s done exactly right.
Lou Costabile heads to Schwartz Performance Inc. headquarters in Woodstock, Illinois, to check out a custom 1966 Pontiac GTO owned by Dale Schwartz, whose father Jeff runs the shop’s build team. The orange paint gets attention, but the real story is underneath: a lighter, stronger custom frame plus disc brakes and improved steering. Watch to hear directly from the builders why the chassis mattered more than the finish.
Full-size 1970s Cadillacs like the Fleetwood and Eldorado stretched close to 20 feet long and packed a 500-cubic-inch V8, the largest displacement engine GM ever put in a regular passenger car, all in the name of comfort over cornering. The Eldorado’s front-wheel-drive layout, borrowed from the Oldsmobile Toronado, made an already enormous car even stranger to engineer. Read on to find out why bigger, heavier, and harder to turn was exactly the point Cadillac was chasing.
Mercury spent 1967 proving that a plusher, quieter Mustang could sell, then spent 1968 arming it with everything from a 230-horsepower 302 four-barrel to a 390-horsepower 427. This particular 1968 Cougar takes a different route entirely, pairing a worked-over small block with Vintage Air, Hooker headers and polished American Racing wheels. Read on to find out where it fits in the most underrated pony car lineup Ford Motor Company ever built.