Posts Tagged: year
Chevrolet’s sales brochures never mentioned it, but knowledgeable buyers could order a genuine big-block V8 into this compact coupe simply by asking. The shared chassis with the Camaro made it possible, and the numbers that resulted still hold up decades later. Here is the story behind the option Chevy never bothered to advertise.
Photographed under moonlight, this 1972 Chevrolet Nova SS represents the exact year Chevrolet trimmed the SS engine lineup down to a single small-block, right as insurance surcharges and emissions rules killed big-blocks industry-wide across Detroit. Nova SS orders actually climbed that year anyway, nearly doubling from the year before. Read on to find out why buyers kept checking the box even as the engine choices narrowed.
Two industry insiders bought a Mustang, shipped it to a coachbuilder in Turin, and had a genuine station wagon version built, complete with a drop-down tailgate, power rear glass, and taillights modified to stay lit with the gate open. Ford’s styling leadership turned it down, reportedly less over the design than over where it came from. Here is how the car was built, why Ford said no, and why the idea keeps coming back.
The 1966 Ford F-100 was the last of its kind, replaced by an all-new truck the following year, which makes it an odd starting point for a show-quality street build and also exactly why it works. Underneath is Ford’s Twin I-Beam front suspension in only its second season. Inside is a custom cabin that has nothing to do with hauling lumber. Read on to find out what makes this generation of F-100 worth the money.
Nearly five minutes long and first aired on NBC’s American Dreams to launch the redesigned 2005 Mustang, this commercial tells the story of a Marine coming home to a driveway surprise from his father. The comments reveal a twist the ad never states outright, plus a running debate over whether it even counts as a true Ford commercial rather than just a Mustang one. Even self-described Chevy loyalists admit it’s hard to dislike. Watch to see why it still gets shared more than fifteen years later.
A $75 option box separated a good 1978 Trans Am from a genuinely great one, and most buyers never knew it existed until a salesman pointed it out. The W72 T/A 6.6 package turned Pontiac’s standard 400 into a real performer, arriving the same year a certain black Trans Am made its star turn at the movies. Read on to see what made the option worth checking.
This 1971 Dodge Challenger looks almost stock — no R/T badge, no scoop, nothing to give away what’s underneath. That’s exactly the point. Built to dodge 1971’s brutal muscle car insurance surcharges, it hides a 383 four-speed combination with a Hurst pistol-grip shifter under an unassuming exterior, and this vintage road test puts it through real acceleration and braking runs to prove the disguise. Watch to see why some of the smartest muscle car builds were the ones that never announced themselves.
Muscle car owners joke about it, but the math behind a full restoration is no laughing matter. Between labor rates that average $125 an hour, parts bills that can top $10,000, and paint jobs running into five figures, a frame-off build can quietly climb past $100,000. The single biggest budget-buster is usually the one nobody sees coming: rust hidden beneath the surface. Here’s where the real money actually goes.
Helsinki holds its own muscle car cruising night every month from April through October, and the July 2012 edition proves American iron has fans far outside the United States. A matte black 663-horsepower Shelby GT500 convertible shares the lot with a Bullitt tribute Mustang, a fleet of Mopar muscle, and even a 1930s Auburn Speedster. It is proof that horsepower obsession does not stop at the American border. See which car steals the show.
1970 was the year Ford finally let the Torino nameplate flex real muscle. Motor Trend had just named it Car of the Year, and buyers could order a Torino Cobra with a Ram Air 429 and a Hurst-shifted four-speed instead of the usual family-hauler running gear. Only 7,675 took the offer. Here is what separated a Cobra Jet from a Super Cobra Jet, and why clean original interiors like this one are harder to find than the engines.
Redline Reviews takes an unusually honest look at a 2018 Corvette Grand Sport, calling out a cabin rattle most reviewers would gloss over while still framing it as the best-handling C7 built to date. A folding infotainment screen, real automatic-transmission feedback, and a subtle silver paint job round out a walkaround that’s aged better than most Corvette content from the same era.
Before Mopar’s High-Impact color names became legend, a handful of green paint codes only existed for a single model year, vivid enough to earn nicknames like Sublime and Sassy Grass. This piece traces where those shades came from, why some vanished within twelve months, and how a traffic-light-inspired green ended up on some of the boldest muscle cars of 1969 and 1970.
This 1965 Mercury Comet wears the sponsor decals and drag-strip stance of a car built to race — and it’s channeling a genuinely wild piece of history. Roughly two dozen factory Comet Cyclones once terrorized NHRA’s A/FX class with dual-quad 427s under the hood, arguably helping invent the Funny Car along the way.