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Jeff Lutz has a pattern: flat black paint, twin-turbo big-blocks, 1957 Chevrolets, and Drag Week wins to back it all up. His newest build, unveiled at the Tri-Five Nationals, keeps the 540-cubic-inch big-block he has used before but steps up from 88mm to 98mm turbos in pursuit of roughly 3,500 horsepower. Read on to see how the new car fits the formula that made his two Mad Max ’57s and his Drag Week-winning Camaro famous.
In 2017, the final model year for the Dodge Viper, driver Dominik Farnbacher took the track-focused ACR-Extreme around the Nurburgring Nordschleife and posted an official lap of 7:03.45, one of the fastest times ever recorded by a car under $400,000. No turbo, no hybrid assist, just a naturally aspirated V10 and a manual gearbox. Watch the full lap that closed out the Viper’s legacy.
Every 1967 Chevelle SS396 left the factory with a big block, but only 612 of them carried the L78, a 375-horsepower engine that was not even available when the model year started. Out of roughly 63,000 SS396s built that year, that is a survival rate that makes documented cars extraordinarily valuable. Read on to find out what separates a genuine L78 from a very well-dressed clone.
Ford built the Mach 1 to be the Mustang that did not need to shout, and buyers responded by making it nearly a quarter of all 1969 Mustang production on its first try. The matte-black hood, the pin tiedowns, and the four headlights were only the surface. What sat behind that scoop, and how conservatively Ford chose to rate it, is where the story gets interesting. Read on for the year Mach 1 became its own thing.
Mercury had a problem in 1968: everybody thought the Cougar was a Mustang for people who wanted leather seats and a quieter ride. The Eliminator was the answer, and it was not subtle. Competition colors, a blacked-out grille, a rear spoiler, and an engine list running from a Boss 302 to a pair of 428 Cobra Jets. Mercury built it for only two model years and roughly 4,500 total. Read on for the Trans-Am racer Mercury almost did not build.
1971 does not get talked about much in El Camino circles, and there is a reason. New emissions rules forced compression down across GM’s entire engine lineup, and the car-truck hybrid felt the squeeze for the first time. But the 454 was still on the order sheet, the SS package still meant something, and a big-block 1971 remains a narrow window into the last real muscle-era El Caminos. Read on for what was still worth ordering.
Buick’s turbocharged 3.8 liter V6 should have ended when the Regal went front wheel drive in 1988, but this final episode of OldCarMemories.com’s series tracks its unexpected last stop: a 1989 Pontiac Trans Am. The engine used Pontiac heads instead of Buick’s own and reportedly paced the Indy 500 as a genuinely stock car, a first. Watch to see how a mid size sedan engine ended up the fastest thing on a GM showroom floor.
Corvette interiors are the part of a restoration most owners rush and most judges study first. Matching a factory stitch pattern, sourcing correct-grain material, and repairing the seat structure underneath are what separate a correct interior from an expensive approximation. None of it requires a professional shop, but all of it requires decisions made before the first staple comes out. Here is what actually goes wrong, and how to avoid it.
A nitro Top Fuel car has no transmission and no gear changes, which means the clutch alone meters roughly eleven thousand horsepower to the tires across the entire run. It is tuned by adding and removing steel counterweights measured in grams, runs at friction temperatures near 3,700 degrees, and gets rebuilt between nearly every round. Here is how the system actually works, and why the clutch is where a nitro race is really won.
Todd Bluhm’s 1969 Camaro doesn’t just look like a Pro Street build — it backs it up with over 700 horsepower, a documented 10-second quarter mile at 140 miles per hour, and a wheelie bar that sees regular use. Bluhm has owned the car since 2005 and hasn’t stopped adding performance since. Captured at the 2018 World of Wheels show in Wisconsin, this Camaro represents everything Pro Street culture is built around. Watch to see what happens when the throttle actually opens up.
For nearly three decades, Canadian buyers could drive home a Pontiac that was mechanically almost entirely Chevrolet, running the same frame, the same body shell, and the same small block or big block under the hood. The Parisienne was not a lazy shortcut; it was a deliberate market strategy that let Canadian Pontiac dealers sell a full-size car at all. It finally came south of the border for 1983. Read on to find out why collectors still argue about whether it counts.
The 1969 Mustang Mach 1 offered four different engines under the same blacked-out hood, and two of them wore identical 351 badges while making figures forty horsepower apart. The M-code four-barrel Windsor produced 290 horsepower on 10.7:1 compression; the two-barrel version made 250. The stripe kit looks the same either way. Ford built 72,458 Mach 1s that year. Read on to find out how to tell which one you’re standing in front of.
Ron Reolfi’s 1968 Chevrolet Camaro disappeared from outside his North Canton, Ohio workplace in twenty minutes back in 1981 — and stayed gone for 33 years. The reason it eventually came back has nothing to do with luck and everything to do with a title that never legally changed hands. Watch the full story of how a decades-old paperwork trail reunited a man with the car he never stopped losing.
Ford shipped the EcoBoost Mustang with 310 horsepower, respectable for a turbo four and unremarkable for a Mustang. An Ohio dealership closed that gap with the LFP 550 package, pairing a larger BorgWarner turbo and upgraded intercooler with a VMP-developed tune to claim 550 horsepower for $32,995 out the door. The engine was never opened, and the real cost was not the price. Here is what the package changed and what it cost buyers.
Pontiac says the 1964 GTO invented the muscle car. Chevrolet launched the Chevelle SS package the same model year. Chrysler loyalists point to the letter cars of the 1950s, and Oldsmobile fans go back to the 1949 Rocket 88. The argument has never been settled and probably never will be. Here is what each side actually claims, and why the Chevelle ended up mattering more than the debate itself.