 |
The combustion chamber that made Chrysler famous was never Chrysler’s invention, and the company’s first hemispherical engine was not designed for a car at all. It was drawn for a fighter plane, then refined in a tank, and it reached showrooms in 1951 wearing a name that had nothing to do with geometry. Read on to find out how a wartime experiment became the most valuable four letters in American performance.
Chevrolet’s brand-new 1966 Caprice was built for comfort, not speed — until you check the option sheet. Buried at the top sat the RPO L72, a 425-horsepower 427 big block that Chevrolet installed in just 1,856 full-size cars that year. This particular Caprice carries that rare combination under its luxury trim. It’s an odd, rare pairing that still turns heads wherever it shows up today.
Two hundred miles an hour used to be a number reserved for exotics, not something you ordered at a Ford dealership. Then SVT dropped a 5.8-liter supercharged V8 into the 2013 Mustang and produced 662 horsepower — the most powerful production V8 in the world at the time. It came with one transmission choice and a solid rear axle. Read on for how Ford made all of that work.
This 1970 Pontiac GTO Judge convertible carries the Ram Air IV 400 and a Muncie four-speed, a combination so scarce that Pontiac historians still argue about how many were actually built. Judge production was small, convertible Judge production was smaller, and the Ram Air IV narrowed it further still. Some tallies put surviving examples in the low double digits. Read on for the numbers, the documentation problem, and why this spec sets the ceiling for the entire GTO market.
A 1969 SC/Rambler and a 1968 AMX, both built by American Motors Corporation and both packing the exact same 315-horsepower 390 V8, meet in a quarter-mile race decided almost entirely by rear gearing. AMC loyalists in the comments are still defending both cars against decades of being overlooked by bigger Detroit names. Watch two underdog muscle cars settle an argument that started the same year they were built.
The 2014 Corvette Stingray and Z51 came in six trims spanning a $56,000 to $67,000 price range, but the real story is what GM packed into every one of them: a reworked interior with no visible plastic, a driver mode dial that changes the steering itself, and a Z51 version quick enough to worry cars costing twice as much. Read on to find out which spec sheet actually tells the truth about this generation.
Edmunds pits the new all-electric Dodge Charger Daytona Scat Pack against the V8 Challenger Scat Pack it is meant to replace, testing whether synthesized exhaust sound and instant torque can stand in for six decades of Hemi V8 identity. The comments are split just as sharply as the reviewers, skeptics call the fake engine noise a gimmick, while at least one real owner insists the EV is objectively quicker and better-handling. Depreciation has already reshaped the value argument since launch. Watch to see where Edmunds lands.
Gregg Hamilton’s Pontiac Trans Am started as a childhood dream inspired by Smokey and the Bandit — and turned into something no one expected. Trained by top World Rally Championship teams, Hamilton skipped the traditional big-inch V8 in favor of a GM 5.3-liter truck engine, then applied rally-derived suspension knowledge to give this Firebird handling most muscle cars never get close to. It’s a build defined by engineering judgment over budget. Watch to see how rally-car thinking reshaped an American icon.
Eleanor is one of the most recognizable Mustangs on earth, and almost nothing about it is what people assume. It was never a factory Shelby, the name was borrowed from an earlier film, and Shelby American never built a 1967 GT500 convertible for the public at all. That makes a drop-top Eleanor a custom built on top of a custom. Read on for the design history, the production reality, and the copyright fight it triggered.
A 1972 Ford Torino Sport fastback shares the screen with Clint Eastwood in the film that would later borrow its name for the title — decades after Ford built it as one of six engine options ranging from a modest inline-six to a genuinely quick Cobra Jet 351. Consumer Guide named it a best buy the same year. Read on to find out how one mid-size Ford ended up in a Hollywood movie title.
Chevrolet sold more than 1.2 million cars in 1958, and the Bel Air line, now sitting one rung below the brand-new Impala, accounted for nearly half of them. Underneath its redesigned, baby Cadillac styling sat a new frame and an engine lineup that stretched from a mild six-cylinder up to a freshly introduced big-block V8.
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.
This 1970 Chevrolet Nova hides a built 355 small-block and four-speed Muncie transmission behind classic sleeper styling — no rust, straight body panels, and none of the visual cues that would tip off a stoplight rival. Read on to find out how a hopped-up small-block Nova compares to what Chevrolet actually put on the showroom floor that year.