Where the money actually goes in a muscle car restoration, and the mistakes that sink budgets, from a shop owner’s point of view.
Pontiac did not offer a GTO convertible for 1972, which left one option for buyers who wanted open-air performance: the LeMans Sport Convertible, orderable with any of the three GTO-spec engines including the 455 HO at 300 net horsepower. Pontiac built roughly 3,400 to 3,500 of them at a $3,225 base price, and 1972 was the last year the body existed. Read on to find out why the market still undervalues them.
One of these Hemi convertibles was built only nine times. The 426 Hemi was the most feared engine in Detroit, and putting it in a drop-top made a rare car rarer still. Here are four […]
Chevrolet’s internal rules banned any engine over 400 cubic inches in a 1969 Camaro, so dealer Don Yenko found a loophole using fleet paperwork meant for taxi cabs. That workaround produced the COPO 9561 and the ultra-rare 9560 ZL-1, an all-aluminum engine so labor-intensive that only 69 were ever ordered. Read on to find out how a $4,000 engine option ended up quietly outperforming its own factory horsepower rating.
Chevrolet’s 1963 pickup redesign quietly introduced a coil-spring front suspension and the truck line’s first alternator, changes that outlasted the model itself and shaped the C/K lineup for years. The factory engine lineup topped out well below what this particular restomod carries under its hood today. Here’s how a truck originally rated at 180 horsepower ended up running a modern small-block instead.
This 1970 Dodge Charger R/T pairs the 426 Hemi with a rare EB3 Light Blue Metallic and black vinyl top combination — one of just 56 Hemi Chargers built with an automatic transmission that year. Read on to find out why so few buyers said yes to the Hemi’s steep price tag, and how the engine paid off on Dodge’s most successful NASCAR season yet.
POWERNATION’s Detroit Muscle crew takes on Project Ultra Violet, a 1970 Dodge Challenger so rusted it needs sandblasting before the real work can even begin. What follows is a uni-body-to-full-frame conversion built around a Jeff Schwartz G-Machine chassis and a low-deck, all-aluminum Hemi backed by a T56 six-speed. This is not a preserved survivor — it’s a genuine rust-bucket resurrection. Watch to see how far the team pushes it.
Mercury built the 1969 Cougar Eliminator to look like a street brawler, then sold most of them with engines other than the one this car carries. Only 260 buyers out of 2,250 checked the box for the 390 four-barrel FE big block, making it the quiet outlier in an already uncommon package. Here is why the underdog engine deserves a second look.
A Cummins-powered diesel truck runs a legitimate 9.18 seconds at 147.46 mph at a Pinks All Out event at Summit Motorsports Park in Norwalk, Ohio, numbers that would embarrass plenty of sports cars. The uploader even had to clarify it was a full quarter-mile pass after skeptical commenters assumed it was the shorter eighth-mile. Viewers in the comments cannot decide whether to be impressed or defensive about a truck running these numbers. Watch the launch and see why fifteen to twenty psi of boost changes everything.
One of these muscle cars was named after a TV comedy catchphrase. Factory special editions were Detroit’s way of turning an ordinary muscle car into a headline, with unique paint, badges and a story to […]
To race in the Trans Am series in 1970, Detroit had to sell the public the same cars. Here are four Trans Am homologation specials, ranked by how rare they were, counted down from four […]
In 1966, you could walk up to a Hertz counter, rent a 306 horsepower Shelby Mustang for about 17 dollars a day, and drive away. Here are four Shelby Mustangs, ranked by what they proved, […]
In 1964, Pontiac expected to sell about 5,000 GTOs and sold more than 32,000 instead, and an entire industry changed almost overnight. Here are twelve muscle car firsts, the cars that started it all, counted […]
In 1970, Chevrolet rated one midsize coupe at 450 horsepower, the highest number of the entire muscle car era, and it cost buyers only a few hundred dollars extra. Here are twelve big block muscle […]