Million Dollar Muscle

Coming up, a muscle car special will light up some of the meanest muscle that ever stalked the streets. These original machines are worth some serious coin. 24 of the best and baddest add up to million dollar muscle.

I got the best job sitting here riding around in a nice vet

and I pilfered Mike from horsepower because he was bored.

Yeah. What's

up with them letting us out of the shop? I think the last time we were allowed we were at the strip with the must.

Yeah. See they're afraid that we're gonna get too out of control. That's what it is.

And you know what? But this time I'm driving,

I don't care what anybody says.

A corvette is a muscle car in my book,

American two doors kick ass V8. No doubt it's muscle. And tonight we're taking a look at the cars from the glory years, 64 to 70. And that's why we call it million dollar muscle.

We're going to start with GM.

We got your GTO, your 442

and your Camaro all coming up. Number one is the car with the most horsepower that Chevy ever admitted to putting in a vehicle, the 1970 Ls six

Chevelle,

4500 bucks would get you a ground ripping 450 horse monsters

and run low thirteens at over 100 miles an hour.

And with the Haley 754 barrel, a high lift cam and a 454 big b you could forget about gas mileage.

Eight miles to the deck

if you took it easy. Five,

if you drove it right. GM only made LS six S for one year before the insurance companies caught on and they had to back off on the horsepower.

But 450 horses and 500 ft pounds of torque mean it's still the general's strongest soldier.

Big blocks were everywhere in the sixties. In 68 you had your choice of three Justin to come out.

The L 78 package was the strongest 375 horse low thirteens in the corners.

Even bigger. Bang for a few extra bucks.

The Yanko 427

Pennsylvania dealer, Don Yanko put Corvette L 70 twos in new 69 Camaro. A

great way to rack up some points on your license,

but you didn't need a big block to get Camaro performance.

The first generation Z 28 was a close cousin to the Trans Am race car.

Yeah,

it was built to handle and the power came from a four barrel 327 D stroke down to a 302.

They sold about 20,000 of these in 69

with the help of some psychedelic advertising.

Meet jean-claude

Kelly.

To me,

Kore

says he's a great fine sports car,

man. Was everybody tripping on acid back then, man, it was bad.

Hey, before you go thinking all we got is Chevys. Let me tell you, we got plenty of Fords and MO parts coming up. Not to mention a couple AM CS that were just as fast and just as bad as anything that came from GM.

And you gotta give GM credit because they were the ones who came out with the first factory muscle car, the 64 GTO

and the goat was a real factory hot rod.

The lightweight temp his body with a 389 and three deuces

348 tire shredding horses dead stop, four speed or an automatic drum brakes, heavy suspension plenty hot for 64 or any other year. Now, the rarest most exclusive GTO ever made was the gold painting

and gold plated 65 GTO tiger.

Pontiac only built one of them for an ad campaign and the guy who owns it

just turned down three quarters of a million,

but the tiger still doing what it was built to do back in 65.

Now we're going to talk three famous numbers 4424 bo

four speed and dual exhaust.

The 71 W 30 performance package was the last in a long and Noble line of 442 muscle GM claimed that 455 Big Block only made 300 horsepower

but 442 drivers knew better.

And that's definitely some heavy metal and you better have a heavy checkbook. We just saw close to a million and a half dollars worth of muscle at today's prices

and that's not counting as fed and we gotta get this thing back tonight before we get in trouble. So we'll catch you guys later at the shop.

We got some more classic muscle and some new stuff coming up.

Fords are next on muscle car.

The Cobra, the boss at Talladega. Big luck and the king of the road coming up

today, we're looking back at some really hard core American muscle the year 1964 to 1970

some modern muscle from today like this 5 L Mustang that shares the same DNA as the original pony cars. But nobody can run with the original small body big engine car. The 427 Shelby Cobra,

the sc looked fast standing still. It was an all aluminum skin, two seat sports car all jacked up on roids.

But the monster big block made this car a legend, a

good running 427 Cobra. We're talking about a car with 450 horsepower

or better

in a car that weighs 2000, 200 or 2300 pounds.

You know, it's dangerous,

but it's a hell of a lot of fun.

But

I'm talking 0 to 60 in a check under four seconds and 0 to 100 and back to a dead stop in 14 seconds. It's 100 and 60 mile an hour race car with a license plate.

Hard to believe Shelby was selling that level of performance in 65 for a scot

under six grand

big blocks. We're all over the racing world back then

and it's still strong on the streets. Ford claimed the 4 28 70 Torino Talladega only had 335 horses, but the 440 pounds of torque tell the real story that long nose was meant for NASCAR racing.

And the next year, Ford tried something really weird for the same reason

Torino from the back kind of weird looking aerodynamic sports car from the front. That was the Torino King Cobra, a big track racer that didn't quite work out. Ford made three King Cobras and gave up. But if anyone has a problem with the way it looks,

the 429 under the hood ought to shut them right up.

See, you're a Ford dealer. I got no mustang.

The mustang started out pretty tame, but that changed real quick.

One of the meanest ponies of 428 cover Jet Shelby. They called it the GT 500

Kr

for King of the road,

the cobra emblem and the monster scoop said this was something special and in its time, it really was the king.

There's a million kinds of mustang muscles, big blocks, small blocks, drag race and road race

and the mach one covered all the bases. You might find a 351 a 390 or even the big daddy of them all

the 428 cover

jet hunkered down behind that eagle beak.

Not all of the mustang power was meant to go in a straight line.

The Boss 302 was a blood relative of four trans

AM racers and the Z 28 Camaro's mortal enemies.

Low lean and mean. The Boss 302 was another muscle car that was built for the race track that found its way to the street. It started out as a Trans

Am racer. Ford had to make 1000 of them before they could go to the track under the hood. A 302 tunnel port small block with three

51. Cleveland heads Ford's aluminum pistons just barely legal for racing.

It was breathing through a holly four barrel and dual exhaust. Those 290 horses up front, a top load of four speed behind it

and a 350 a 390 or a 430 traction lot in the rear end.

The horse really wasn't meant for the drag strip. It was a road race

and it had to do more than just accelerate

guys. We're keeping muscle alive and it ain't just with Fords like this one. That's right. We got a million bucks worth of mo parts coming up.

You got to start with the hemi,

but that ain't all six packs and street warriors next on muscle car.

Welcome back to more million dollar muscle. Back in the day when this thing was originally roaming the street, the minimum wage was a buck and a quarter and gas was only 30 cents a gallon. Now, project overkill. Here isn't modern. This is future muscle and it's gonna be hitting the streets before too much longer. Does it have a

hemi? Of course, it's got a

hemi. There's nothing like a

hemi for tearing up the streets.

This is not just any old muscle car. This one is a warrior.

Colin Comer's 69 Super B was a street racer from day one, a stripped down predator with only one purpose in mind. The guy that bought it new,

wanted to go street racing in the Bronx. And, uh, he was 21 years old and this was, this was his idea of the ultimate street car. All this thing did was street fight today. This rare

hemi only has 4000 miles on it.

And it got most of those one light at a time.

Chrysler said the whole package was meant expressly for those interested in sanctioned drag racing.

Yeah. Right.

Running the streets was about as legal as this one ever got burning the tires light to light

and listening to those two Carters moving some air.

The

hemi was all about raw power.

Chrysler even designed their Ebo

Kotas and challenges extra wide to make roof. The massive block,

the

hemi Ka

was a power rush. You couldn't get anywhere else.

Fleming smallest car got its biggest engine under the shake of hood. The legendary Big Boar 426 Street Emmy,

2650 Carter carbs, a dual plane intake

and a hydraulic cam helped make 425 horses with 490 pounds of torque. That's what the factory said.

But in the real world, the hemi

made over 500 horsepower.

The

hemi a day of 60

a four speed were good for 13 and a quarter at 100 and seven miles an hour.

And that's where the

hemi

road runner was happiest too.

It drove like a logging truck in traffic,

but it was right at home at over 100. The first year was 68 and swarms of imitations followed all with the same basic idea, a cheap stripped out body and all the motive. It can hold.

The

hemi road runner got a bad tempered brother a few months later, the 446 pack

and with the cart springs in the back

drum brakes stand all the way around. This thing rode like a truck and it turned like one too.

But who cares?

The six pack was meant for one thing

going in a straight line.

He could drive one of these babies off the showroom floor, run high 12 with brand new stock tires on it.

Chrysler only made about 1406 pack road runners before the 70 model came along and they put these cars out there on the street.

Guys were,

you know, whooping bud

and another 440 was whipping some butt in Chicago where Dodge dealer Mr Norm talked Chrysler in the building of 48 big block darts

and look how they had to hack out the fender wells just to get those pipes in there.

But

uncorking them didn't take long and then you could really go play.

The GSS was quick.

It run 12 on the street right out of the box. Just don't try and take any sharp turns with it

and don't try and make any sudden stops.

It doesn't turn at all hardly. And then you add the fender wall headers and it gives you about a quarter of turn of steering before you hit the headers with the tire. So you really have to plan your move

with that much engine just pulling on the highway. Could be a high-speed adventure.

Now, that's what I'm talking about. One of six left in the world and he's driving it like he stole it. Yeah, man. More like beating the hell out of it. Hey, we'll be back with more million dollar muscle.

This ain't your grandad's Buick, man. This ain't grandma's Rambler. Some of the not so famous muscle is next,

we're back and we're showing you some of the hottest muscle cars of all times. But every now and then

you need to think about driving something

a little bit more responsible

Rambler, classic wagon. See it at your friendly giant killer.

Something more practical like a Rambler.

None of this

burning out hot riding around.

Yeah. Right.

A NC did try to work up a little bit of a rep with cars like the 69 sc Rambler.

It cost the same as a road runner and ran about as fast on the strip

with a body from the Rambler. American compact. A 390 small block out of the AM X. The SC Rambler was a tire burning second choice if you didn't want a dart or a note.

A MC only sold about 1500 of them. At least they would try.

And the same power package went into the AM X pony car. Another one that had run with the big dogs everywhere except the showroom. Now, some of the top end AM XS would run low fourteens and close to 100 miles an hour right off the dealer's lot. They just didn't sell enough of them.

Yeah. But they just couldn't shake that old people attitude. Yeah. But look at this thing, it started out as a granny car. Yeah. But this is gonna be a sleeper. It's a whole different ball game kind of like those Buicks were back in the day.

You got the 455 big block twin ram air snorkels, four barrel hot cam stiff springs, high compression pistons, a 12 volt posse rear all in a restyled skylark body

for insurance purposes. It was advertised at 360 horse, but the actual output was well over 400 plus, it generated a wreckage setting 510 pounds of torque

at just over 2800 RPM.

That's more torque than any muscle car period that in low production numbers makes the GSX very desirable to collect it.

Only the 1966 4, 27 coppers

and Corvettes could beat it not too bad for a two ton four passenger buick, but a gallon of leaded gas would only take you about 10 miles and the Gsx cockpit was loaded full instrumentation,

rally wheel, black vinyl buckets and a scour

speed shifter.

They were available in only two colors, either Apollo white or the more popular option. Saturn yellow.

That's 24 muscle classics we had on the show today. Now, back in their prime, they were worth around

$84,000 and today just over 4 million. I don't care how many millions of dollars they're worth. I'd beat the hell out of every one of them. So we're out of here

later.