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Long before Dodge built its own cars, the Dodge brothers ran the machine shop that supplied Henry Ford with complete chassis, engines, and transmissions for his earliest Model A and Model N vehicles. That 1903 handshake deal eventually grew into a 5,000-employee operation capable of building a quarter-million cars a year, before the brothers walked away to found their own company in 1914. It’s a piece of trivia most Ford and Dodge fans never learn.
The Sunbeam Tiger paired a modest British roadster body with an American Ford V8, a combination suggested by Formula One champion Jack Brabham and engineered with help from a young Carroll Shelby. Built in England, powered by Detroit, and cancelled the moment Chrysler bought a controlling stake in Rootes Group, the Tiger’s four-year production run tells one of the more unusual stories in 1960s performance cars. Read on to find out why so few Mark II examples exist today.
A muscle car disappearing into its own tire smoke captures one of the automotive world’s oldest traditions, the burnout. What started as a practical way to heat tires before a drag strip run has become a judged spectacle in its own right, with big-block torque, line locks, and sacrificial tires all playing a part. Read on to find out what separates an ordinary smoke show from a legendary one.
Joe Massucco Jr.’s 1966 Dodge Coronet 440 is, by his own description, as stock as they come — drum brakes, 14-inch steel wheels on bias-ply tires, and a bench seat, with nothing added since it left the factory. Found at a local car show, the car reminds Massucco of a getaway car from a low-budget 1970s movie, and The Drive’s BIG MUSCLE series uses it to make the case that originality alone can be the whole story. Watch to see why leaving a car completely alone can be the boldest choice of all.
This gold 1970 Chevelle wears SS trim over a 350 bored to 355 cubic inches, an Edelbrock carburetor, headers and a Flowmaster exhaust, plus Vintage Air and 17-inch wheels. It is a genuinely appealing driver, but the 1970 SS package tells a stricter story than most listings admit. Chevrolet did not offer a small block under an SS badge that year. Read on for what that means for the car and its value.
A stock-looking Honda hiding a turbo or supercharger under the hood has become its own kind of status symbol in car culture, precisely because nobody expects it. Real sleeper builds keep everything visible completely stock while investing everything under the surface, a tradition with roots stretching back to factory big-block muscle cars. Read on to find out what actually separates a convincing sleeper from a paint-and-decal poser.
Every muscle car engine gets the glory, but horsepower means nothing until it reaches the pavement through the transmission standing between the crankshaft and the rear wheels. An animated breakdown of exactly how that transmission works, dog clutches, synchronizer rings, and all, earned praise from a self-identified automotive engineer as the clearest explanation they had ever seen. It even required its own creator to issue a correction. Watch to see what most drivers get wrong about their own gearbox.
Pontiac never built a watered-down engine lineup for its 1964 Catalina Safari wagon, meaning a suburban family hauling kids and camping gear could order the same 421 cubic-inch V8 available in the flashier Catalina coupe. Roughly 33,000 found buyers that year. Read on to find out why these quiet family haulers have become genuine sleeper collectibles today.
A truck lifted so high that boarding it looks like its own kind of stunt is a familiar sight in car culture, and the joke photos built around it circulate endlessly online. But the story behind why trucks got this tall traces back to WWII pickups, Baja racing, and a 1970s aftermarket boom. Read on to find out how a practical modification became a full-blown lifestyle statement.
Long before CGI animations and slow-motion breakdown videos existed, engineers explained the differential using nothing but physical models, a chalkboard, and patience. ConceptVBS resurfaces a 1930s instructional film that still explains the axle assembly your muscle car depends on better than most modern content manages, and the reason why is almost as interesting as the mechanism itself.