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Nick Panaritis takes on a build with a deceptively simple goal: 600 horsepower from a 1968 440, on pump gas, reliable enough to drive every day. Part one follows the teardown and reassembly of an engine pulled straight out of a client’s own Charger, with commenters pointing to real-world proof the target is achievable. Watch to see how the build starts.
A 1968 Plymouth GTX in B5 Blue with the rare 440+6 Six Pack setup would be notable on its own, but owner Kevin Plummer’s reason for buying it is what turns heads. He spent years chasing down the exact car his father owned when he was a boy, and he’s owned it since 2015. The comment section fills with strangers telling nearly identical stories about their own fathers.
Chevrolet did not just show up at the 2017 Chicago World of Wheels, it took over the floor. A hood-up Nova, rows of Chevelles and Camaros, and a growing fleet of vintage C10 pickups outnumbered nearly everything else in the Rosemont convention center during the show’s 55th year. Why does one brand keep winning a show that welcomes every make and every kind of build? The reasons run from a shared small-block to the Midwest’s long history with GM. Read on to see why the bowtie count runs so high in Chicago.
Wider tires mean more grip — or so every car enthusiast has been told. Engineering Explained’s Jason Fenske put that assumption to the test at NWAPA’s 2017 Mudfest, running sixty-to-zero braking tests across twenty-seven different AWD and 4×4 trucks and SUVs with a Vbox data logger. The results complicate the simple version of the story muscle car owners repeat about tire width, weight, and stopping distance. Commenters, including more than one physics teacher’s former student, dig into exactly why. Watch to see what the data actually says.
Owner Jeffrey Filz grew up two blocks from the Kenosha plant that built this 1970 AMC Javelin SST Mark Donohue Signature Edition, and the comments below Lou Costabile’s video turn up an even wilder story: a commenter’s father, a former Spitfire pilot, briefly owned one himself. Watch the full walkaround and engine start.
David Reese built this 1966 Ford Mustang Gasser back in 2013, and it still runs its 351 Cleveland exactly the way a period-correct gasser should. What makes War Horse unusual isn’t the raised nose or the drag strip runs — it’s that its owner has actually driven it cross-country on public roads. Watch to see how a dedicated race car earns that kind of mileage.
The same Ford flathead V8 sits under the hood of both a glossy black ’32 Phaeton and a working maroon late-1930s pickup, wearing the same chrome V8 badge either way. Its single-piece ‘monoblock’ casting solved a flaw that plagued earlier V8 engines, and it became the foundation of the postwar hot rod movement. Read on for how lake pipes, relieving, and Ardun heads turned a Depression-era workhorse engine into a performance icon.
This 1973 Chevrolet Camaro left the factory rated nowhere close to what it’s packing now – a stroked 468-cubic-inch V8 backed by a heavy-duty Turbo 400 automatic, built for both street and track duty. Chevrolet’s actual 1973 lineup topped out at a 245-horsepower Z28, the same year the Super Sport package quietly disappeared for good. Understanding what Chevrolet really built in 1973 makes this stroker build’s numbers land that much harder.
Nth Moto’s built Viper ACR ran an 18-inch street tire, an H-pattern manual gearbox, and enough power to make viewers question whether AWD supercars even matter anymore during TX2K18. That Racing Channel called it the most savage street car they’d ever ridden alongside — and the comments back it up. Watch the 50-to-180 pull that left even seasoned viewers stunned.
This Forest green 1951 Ford F1 half-ton shortbed wears the Five-Star Cab that grew out of Ford’s Million Dollar Cab redesign, and it backs it up with an upgraded 350, power steering, disc brakes, and air conditioning that no 1951 work truck ever offered. Ford built about 117,400 F1 pickups that year, yet very few survive looking this sharp. Read on to find out what Ford’s investment bought truck buyers and how this build finished the job.
This 1968 Camaro claims 1000 horsepower with zero turbo, supercharger, or nitrous — just massive displacement, 14:1 compression, and a camshaft aggressive enough to make it idle like it’s fighting itself. Freshly restored and cruising the streets of Houston at roughly 2,950 pounds with the driver, it’s the kind of build commenters say they’ve replayed a thousand times just for the sound. Watch to hear it for yourself.
Chevy built the 1972 Nova during the leanest years of the muscle car era, when the hottest factory SS you could get made a modest 200 horsepower. This one ignores that history entirely, packing a 408 cubic inch small-block under a stunning orange metallic shell, more than double the output of anything Chevrolet offered in a ’72 Nova. It’s a textbook Pro Touring build: vintage Nova looks with a powertrain the factory never dreamed of. Read on to find out why 408 inches and a ’72 body make such a perfect pairing.
A Camaro built for over 1,000 horsepower, backed by nitrous, takes on a tuned Nissan GT-R in a straight-line grudge race — and the outcome hinges less on horsepower than on which car can actually put its power to the pavement. Commenters call the GT-R “hell on wheels” while sympathizing with the Camaro’s traction problems. Watch to see whether raw American muscle or all-wheel-drive precision wins the day.
First published in Hemmings Muscle Machines back in December 2011, this quarter-mile pass pits one of the roughly seventy all-aluminum ZL1 Camaros Chevrolet ever built against a Pontiac Firebird running the airflow-focused Ram Air II. Commenters dig into cam specs, gearing, and a surprising trap speed result that still sparks debate. Watch to see which factory rarity actually crosses the stripe first.
A Dodge Demon running on pump gas, street tires, and every seat still installed lines up against a McLaren 720S — twice — in a roll race that is closer than the spec sheets suggest it should be. Drone footage captures both runs from directly overhead, the angle that best shows exactly when one car starts pulling away. Watch both races to see whether the Demon’s raw power can make up for giving away every other advantage.