Ciprian Florea
7,286 ARTICLES
Personal motto:
"If you can make black marks on a straight from the time you turn out of a corner until the braking point of the next turn, then you have enough horsepower." - Mark Donohue
You'll never catch him drooling over the latest supercar but he could spend hours talking about why he loves 1940s windshield visors, Mopars, and Studebakers. Naturally, most of his stories are about barn finds and rare classics.
He can give you several reasons why speed and power are more about motorsport than silly street wandering, and Can-Am machinery tops his ridiculously fast all-time favorite car list. He claims he could die happy after a Rattlesnake Raceway ride in a Chaparral and a cup of coffee with Jim Hall on the other side of the table.
Before landing on these pages, Ciprian's work has been published on outlets like TopSpeed, AmericanMuscle, and ThisWeekInMotors.
This 1968 Ford Mustang Boss 572 Is a One-of-None Show Car With Massive Power
11 Jan 2024, 15:37 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / What's your favorite first-generation Ford Mustang model year? Mine's 1969 because that's when the company rolled out a trio of fabulous muscle cars. I'm talking about the Mach 1 and the Boss 302 and 429. Ford already had thr...
Top Banana 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T Has a Cool Feature That Makes It Unique
11 Jan 2024, 13:05 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in late 1969, the Dodge Challenger was met with great enthusiasm and moved nearly 77,000 units in its first year on the market. That's notably more than its Plymouth twin, the third-generation Barracuda (about 49,000 examples), and ...
The Very First 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle LS6 Built Is a Numbers-Matching Gold Gem
10 Jan 2024, 16:26 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / The golden muscle car era spawned some of the greatest midsize vehicles ever built in the US. It all started with the Pontiac GTO in 1963, but the decade also saw the arrival of the Dodge Charger, Plymouth Road Runner, Oldsmobile 442, and Ford Tori...
1963 Studebaker GT Hawk Comes out of Long-Term Storage With Bad News Under the Hood
9 Jan 2024, 20:59 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / A successful company in the 1920s and 1930s, Studebaker emerged out of WWII in good financial shape. But that didn't last long. The Ford-GM price war of the early 1950s sent many independent automakers into decline, and Studebaker was no excep...
Perfectly Restored 1970 Plymouth Duster in Moulin Rouge Is Pure Eye Candy, Rare Too
9 Jan 2024, 16:26 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When talking about Plymouths from the golden muscle car era, we usually think about the Road Runner, GTX, and the Barracuda. And that's not surprising because they're among the most iconic Mopars ever built. But there are plenty of other ...
This Stash of Mopar Barn Finds Is Packed With Rare HEMI and Six-Pack Muscle Cars
9 Jan 2024, 13:13 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / With less than 10,000 units produced from 1966 through 1971, the HEMI-powered Mopars are among the rarest and most desirable muscle cars. And while we see hundreds of them crossing the auction block every year, many examples are still waiting to be...
1970 Plymouth Superbird Is a True Six-Barrel Survivor With One Little Secret
8 Jan 2024, 16:33 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1970, the Superbird was Plymouth's take on the Charger Daytona that Dodge launched in 1969. Essentially identical to its Dodge sibling, the Superbird was also released as a homologation special to help Plymouth race the "win...
1972 Ford Gran Torino Drag Races 1962 Chevrolet Corvette, It's Pretty Close
8 Jan 2024, 14:37 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Seeing brand-new supercars charging down the quarter-mile is spectacular, but nothing beats a pair of classic muscle cars fighting for drag-strip glory in my book. You guessed it, it's time for yet another Pure Stock Muscle Car Drag Race (PSMC...
1965 Plymouth Belvedere A/FX Flexes 426 HEMI on Its Way to the Auction Block
7 Jan 2024, 19:16 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / The 1960s was a great era for American high-performance cars. The horsepower wars brought potent rigs into showrooms and extremely fast vehicles at the drag strip. The 'win at all costs" mentality also spawned a few experimental vehicles ...
Plain-Looking 1968 Plymouth Road Runner Hides an Unexpected Surprise Under the Hood
7 Jan 2024, 11:53 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When Plymouth redesigned the Belvedere for the 1965 model year, it also introduced a top-of-the-line Satellite version. Restricted to the two-door body style and V8 engines, it was a slightly fancier, performance-oriented model. Two years later, Pl...
Black 1968 Plymouth Road Runner Is Dressed To Impress, Packs Rare HEMI Setup
5 Jan 2024, 16:11 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Back in the 1960s, Plymouth used its bread-and-butter midsize, the Belvedere, to create three additional nameplates. The Satellite debuted in 1964, followed by the GTX in 1966 and the Road Runner in 1968. The Satellite was initially conceived as...
1971 Dodge Super Bee Hidden in a Barn for 30 Years Is a V-Code Mr. Norm's Gem
5 Jan 2024, 14:12 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Some say the golden era of barn finds is way behind us. But while they may be right when it comes to million-dollar Ferraris and Bugattis, many US barns are still home to valuable muscle cars from the golden era. The one you'll see below hides...
Spotless 1970 Plymouth 'Cuda Flaunts Rare Drivetrain Combo
4 Jan 2024, 17:46 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1964, the Plymouth Barracuda arrived at the pony car party nearly two weeks before the Ford Mustang. But unlike the latter, which remained in continuous production since then, the Barracuda went into the history books in 1974. But ...
1972 Plymouth Duster Has the Full Package: All-Original, Petty Blue Paint, Four-Speed
3 Jan 2024, 14:32 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Even though America's first compact car, the Nash Rambler, hit showrooms in 1950, the Big Three only jumped on the bandwagon at the end of the decade. Chrysler introduced its first compact in 1959. The Plymouth Valiant was so successful that t...
Here's Why the Corvette Z06 C5 Is Expected To Go Up in Value in 2024
1 Jan 2024, 17:00 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / In production since 1953, the Chevrolet Corvette is one of the most iconic nameplates in the US. It also spawned countless highly desirable iterations. Not surprisingly, it's the classics that get the most attention nowadays. The C1 is reve...
This Rare 1962 Pontiac Catalina Royal Bobcat Is Restored Classic Car Perfection
31 Dec 2023, 15:18 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1950 as a top trim-level package in the Chieftain, the Pontiac Catalina evolved into a stand-alone model in 1959. Slotted right below the Bonneville, the Catalina became Pontiac's bread-and-butter full-size car until it was disco...
Pair of Rare 1970 Dodge Challenger, Plymouth 'Cuda Pilot Cars Going Under the Hammer
30 Dec 2023, 16:00 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Now one of the most iconic nameplates from the golden muscle car era, the Dodge Challenger was the last to arrive at the high-performance party. It was introduced in late 1969 on the then-new E-body platform, which it shared with the third-generati...
See and Hear the Spectacular TVR Griffith 400 Racing up a Mountain Pass
29 Dec 2023, 13:00 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Established in 1946, TVR had a rather troubled history with several ownership changes. Come 2023, the company has failed to deliver the new-generation Griffith it promised in 2017. But while the brand's future is uncertain, TVR left a few spec...
Rare 1968 Mercury Cougar Looks Like a Barn Find, Hides Nasty Surprise Under the Hood
28 Dec 2023, 16:00 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Following the successful launch of the Ford Mustang in 1964, Mercury received the green light to create its own version of the pony car. It arrived in September 1966 as the Cougar, a fancied-up, V8-exclusive rig slotted between the Mustang and the ...
Got $3 Million To Spare? This 1970 Plymouth HEMI 'Cuda Convertible Could Be Yours
27 Dec 2023, 17:00 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Originally introduced as a pony car with inline-six and small-displacement V8 engines, the Plymouth Barracuda became increasingly more powerful toward the end of the 1960s. In late 1969, the company took things up a notch and launched a notably mor...