In 1966, the Trans-American Championship racing series was created by the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA). During those early days, manufacturers competed head-to-head with modified versions of their production cars — these included the Ford Mustang, Mercury Cougar, Plymouth Barracuda, Dodge Challenger, Pontiac Firebird (and later the eponymous Trans Am), and of course the Chevrolet Camaro. Competition was fierce, and as is often the case in racing, teams were looking for any advantage they could get. Mark Donohue's Sunoco Camaro Z28 pushed the limits and bent some rules to achieve an incredible winning streak in the 1968 Trans-Am championship.

The third-generation Camaro is certainly one of the most emblematic vehicles of the 1980s. Many of us who grew up in that era can still picture it in its heyday — the high school quarterback rolling up to a game in his red IROC-Z with T-tops open and Van Halen blasting on the stereo. These days, the third-gen is making a comeback as a relatively affordable classic car with a wide selection of restoration parts and performance upgrade choices. On a recent episode from the AutotopiaLA YouTube channel, Jack and his son Pete Avetisyan show off the 1991 Camaro Z28 they resto-modded, including Lamborghini orange paint and a vicious 700hp LS7 under the hood.

"This was probably the most aspirational car you could get in America," remarked Jay Leno while driving a restored 1967 Corvette with the legendary Tri-Power 427ci V8 under its hood. "If you had a plumbing business and you were fairly successful, Ferraris were still out of your reach, but the Corvette was the car that nobody begrudged you." Leno got together with Donald Osborne of the Audrain Museum Network to reminisce about how the big block C2 Corvette changed the American automotive landscape.

The Tri Five Chevy is a platform that can be restored and resto-modded in a variety of different ways. Many are built for cruising with the original inline-six or a small-block V8. But for hot-rodders who want to crank up the performance into muscle car territory, that's always an option. The owner of this '55 Bel Air kept its appearance relatively mild, so you might think it's another cruiser at first glance. In reality, there's a built LS motor with a Whipple supercharger lurking beneath its hood.

In the classic car world, we've watched many memorable design features and styling cues come and go over the years. Designers in the 1950s and 1960s borrowed styling elements from aircraft, leading to what some historians call the "Tailfin Era". In the 1970s and 1980s, T-tops rose quickly to popularity but disappeared just as fast. Pop-up headlights, also known as hidden headlights or hideaway headlamps, are another unique classic car feature that you won't see on new cars anymore. So what happened? Read on as we take a look back at the history of hidden headlights.

The term parts bin special is used to describe cars built by mixing and matching an array of existing off-the-shelf parts to create a new combination with reduced engineering costs. There are many noteworthy examples in classic car history — for example, the Shelby AC Cobra started out as a British AC Ace with a Windsor V8 from a Ford Fairlane, and the original Mustang was mostly constructed with parts from the Ford Falcon. General Motors also had many examples of this, from the GMC Syclone to the '94-96 Impala SS. This philosophy led one enthusiast to raid the proverbial 1980s GM parts bin and fuse a 1984 Chevy El Camino with a 1987 Buick GNX, calling the result the "Grand Camino."

What do you get when you let legendary custom car builder George Barris — who also built vehicles for Batman, The Munsters, and The Beverly Hillbillies — work his magic on a 1968 Dodge Dart GTS? The answer is a truly one-of-a-kind Mopar car with unique, handmade components. However, unlike many of Barris' other wild creations, this Dart was a bit more subtle and understated. It fit perfectly into its role as the personal ride of Detective Joe Mannix, played by actor Mike Connors on the eponymous TV show Mannix.

There's no denying the pure cool factor of a late '70s Trans Am, especially one in the iconic black-and-gold paint scheme with snowflake wheels and that timeless hood bird graphic. However, its performance was another story. As a result of increasing emissions regulations, the T/A 6.6 was rated at only 200 horsepower in stock form, leaving many enthusiasts looking for new ways to make it as fast as it looks. The owner of this '77 Trans Am, Armen Pezeshkian, asked Los-Angeles-based restoration shop Vintage Motorworks to do just that, and the result is an 800-horsepower supercharged monster you have to hear for yourself.

It's often said that the greatest innovations happen despite significant adversity, and this is certainly true of one of General Motors' crowning achievements, the Corvette Z06. This three-letter Regular Production Option (RPO) code is still immediately recognizable to car enthusiasts worldwide, even today, more than 60 years after it was created. The Z06 was offered as an obscure checkbox on the order form for a specially-optioned 1963 Corvette, and it carried a steep price tag, so only 199 of these legendary cars were ever produced.

"No electricity, no hybrid. You're not eating wheat grass and kale chips in this thing," said Jay Leno. "This is a man's truck!" On a new episode of Jay Leno's Garage, Leno pays homage to one of the most famous heavy-duty classic trucks of its era, a 1991 Dodge W250. Many would argue that the best part of this truck is its engine, the famous 5.9L Cummins turbodiesel, which some journalists have referred to as "the engine that saved Dodge trucks." This particular truck was restored and upgraded by Tim Stevenson of the YouTube channel Decent Garage.