Buick joins the Musclecar Revolution with a SKYLARK GS-400: HOWITZER WITH WINDSHIELD WIPERS! Not long after having access to 1965 performance cars, I suggested to Mel Jacolow, editor of CARS magazine, that he change the award – American Classic of The Year – he presented annually to carmakers. With production cars getting quicker and faster […]
Dodge’s entry in the Musclecar marketplace may have been short on sex appeal, but the ’65 DODGE CORONET DELIVERED MID-SIZE & MAX-PERF! Dodge covered all bases, catering to performance enthusiasts in 1965. New Dodge Coronets could be ordered with 365-horsepower 426 Street Wedge engines with four-speed or TorqueFlite. Unlike the GTO and 4-4-2, Mopar middleweights […]
Not to be outdone by Dodge, the ’70 PLYMOUTH SUPERBIRD: WINGED WARRIOR continued Mopar’s assault on the Musclecar marketplace and NASCAR’s Super Speedways! Plymouth’s ’70 PLYMOUTH SUPERBIRD: WINGED WARRIOR was basically a midsize Road Runner with a wing and a nose job. Also produced by Creative Industries, the Charger-Daytona-influenced Superbird proved to be a more […]
For less than $3,000, you could buy a Baldwin-Motion ’68 BIG-BLOCK, LOW-BUCK CHEVROLET with dyno-tuned 427/425 power, four-speed, and F41 suspension! Overshadowed by the SS-427 Impala in the late-1960s, few enthusiasts were aware that Chevrolet was building a low-end, two-door “post” Biscayne that could be optioned with a 425 horsepower 427 big-block and four-on-the-floor. In […]
One of the finalists for CARS Magazine’s 1966 Top Performance Car honors was the ’66 OLDS TRI-POWER 4-4-2: SERIOUS SUPERCAR! In 1966, Olds Engineers in Lansing finally developed a big-engined midsize car to compete seriously with Pontiac’s GTO. After revealing the latest 4-4-2 with a four-barrel 400/350, they upped the ante with a late-arriving Tri-Carb […]
Dodge’s all-new answer to Ford, Mercury, Chevy and Pontiac Ponycars was the 1970 CHALLENGER: MAGNUM FORCE FROM MOPAR. In many ways, 1970 was the storm before the calm. The war in Southeast Asia continued casting a pall over a much-divided country and thinning the ranks of young enthusiasts. Carmakers’ racing budgets were being drastically cut […]
After successfully launching SS & Phase III 427 Camaros, Joel Rosen concentrated on Corvettes: ’69 BALDWIN-MOTION PHASE III SS-427 CORVETTE. That’s how author-photographer Randy Leffingwell describes the ’69 BALDWIN-MOTION PHASE III SS-427 CORVETTE in “Joel Rosen’s Saturday Night Special.” The feature appeared in Randy’s coffee-table book American Muscle Cars, which is about the late Otis […]
Rocking an authentic fuel jettison tank from an F-86 fighter jet, this BONNEVILLE BELLYTANK SURVIVOR traces its heritage from Sabrejet to the Salt Flats! During the 1940s-1950s, land speed record Lakesters at Bonneville with donor bodies crafted from World War II and Korean War aircraft fuel drop tanks or “belly tanks” flooded the Salt Flats […]
In 1967, Ford ‘called out’ the GTO with its hot 390 and 427 Fairlanes, put a big-block in its Mustang, and won the Daytona 500, Indy 500, Trans-Am Championship, and Le Mans. And, the ’67 FORD GALAXIE: 427-CUBE HEAVYWEIGHT took no prisoners! Even though all factory drag and NASCAR racing programs were centered around the […]
While Pontiac unquestionably first exploited the youth market with a targeted high-performance car—the GTO—starting in 1964, credit must also be given to DODGE & PLYMOUTH: UNSUNG MUSCLECAR HEROES for its efforts starting in 1957! Not long after Ford pulled out of the 1957 AMA “agreement”, Chrysler followed suit. But Chrysler did not have Chevrolet and […]
