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.
The Seventh-Generation Ford Mustang Will Get a Cobra Jet Version
28 Jul 2023, 16:46 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Unveiled in September 2022, the seventh-generation Ford Mustang has already spawned almost a handful of beefed-up versions as of July 2023. In addition to the Dark Horse, fitted with a 5.0-liter V8 rated at 500 horsepower, Ford also introduced no f...
1999 Mercedes-Benz R129 With Surprisingly Rare Feature Gets Satisfying Detailing
28 Jul 2023, 14:03 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1989, the Mercedes-Benz SL-Class R129 was the company's fourth sports car in a lineage that goes back to the 300 SL of the 1950s, itself inspired by the W194 race car. Just like its predecessor, the R107, the R129 remained in pro...
1970 Dodge Challenger R/T SE With Six-Pack Swap Is a Rare Gem in EB7 Blue
27 Jul 2023, 19:01 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1969, the Dodge Challenger arrived a bit late to the muscle car party, spending only a couple of years with high-performance big-block mills under the hood. But that was enough to establish itself as a golden muscle car era classic. ...
Volvo Amazon Abandoned in the Woods 30 Years Ago Roars Back to Life
27 Jul 2023, 14:08 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1956 as a large family car, the Volvo Amazon remained in production for a whopping 14 years. Volvo offered three different body styles and sold more than 660,000 units until the nameplate was phased out in 1970. Although it's ...
Forgotten 1957 Plymouth Fury Gets Rescued After 40 Years in a Field
27 Jul 2023, 11:53 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When it comes to 1950s cars with large tailfins, everyone seems to be crazy in love with the 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air and the 1959 Cadillac Eldorado. Me, I'm a Mopar tailfin kind of guy. I dig the two-tier fins of the late-1950s Dodge Coronet an...
BMW H2R Record Car Comes Out of Storage To Showcase Hydrogen-Powered V12
26 Jul 2023, 15:48 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Remember when BMW created a hydrogen-powered 7 Series? It happened in 2005, featuring a 6.0-liter V12 engine modified to allow hydrogen combustion in addition to gasoline. BMW called it the Hydrogen 7 and built a few units as part of an experiment ...
Barn-Found 1924 Dodge Springs Back to Life After 83 Years in Storage
26 Jul 2023, 14:13 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Seeing a forgotten classic coming out of a barn after decades is wonderful. It gets even better when the engine fires up, and the car becomes drivable with a bit of work. And I've seen it happen with vehicles that have been sitting for 30 or 4...
Emberglo 1966 Ford Mustang Flexes Rare K-Code V8 With a Tiny Shelby Surprise
26 Jul 2023, 11:18 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / What's your favorite first-gen Ford Mustang color? Are you a Wimbledon White kind of guy, or do you prefer flashier hues like Poppy Red, Acapulco Blue, or Grabber Orange? I have a thing for 1969 and 1970 colors because they included Ford'...
1954 Packard Patrician Hearse Parked for Decades Is Rarer Than Hen's Teeth
25 Jul 2023, 15:16 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When talking about classic cars, hearses aren't the first type of vehicles that come to mind. Yet these professional haulers are usually rarer and more valuable than their regular-production counterparts. This 1954 Packard Patrician, for insta...
World's Rarest 1969 Plymouth HEMI Cuda Hides a Forgotten Prototype Under the Hood
25 Jul 2023, 12:10 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Built in fewer than 9,000 units from 1966 to 1971, the 426-cubic-inch (7.0-liter) HEMI V8 is Chrysler's most iconic and desirable engine. It's pretty rare, too, and many of the vehicles that got it are now impossible-to-find, million-doll...
1970 Plymouth Superbird Parked for 39 Years Is a Rare, All-Original Survivor
24 Jul 2023, 16:07 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1969, the Dodge Charger Daytona took the muscle car market by storm with a radical design that earned it the nickname "winged warrior." Plymouth also wanted a piece of the NASCAR homologation action and followed with the Sup...
1955 DeSoto Fireflite Barn Find Is Surprisingly Original, HEMI V8 Included
24 Jul 2023, 14:12 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Founded in 1928 by Walter P. Chrysler, the DeSoto marque slotted between Plymouth and Dodge in the Chrysler lineup. It was initially created to compete with Pontiac, Hudson, and Studebaker in the mid-price class. In 1933, DeSoto was moved above Dod...
Place Your Bets: Rare 1969 Mercury Cougar Eliminator Drag Races 1969 Pontiac GTO
24 Jul 2023, 10:58 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / While I'm a big fan of the Pontiac GTO, I'm not very fond of the 1968 and 1969 versions design-wise. I prefer the first-generation and early 1970s models. However, the late 1960s GTO is an appealing rig when it comes to performance. In...
Plain-Looking 1964 Plymouth Fury Is a Rare Sleeper With a Nasty Surprise Under the Hood
23 Jul 2023, 10:15 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced initially as a sub-series of the Belvedere in 1956, the Plymouth Fury became a stand-alone nameplate in 1959. And it soldiered on all the way until 1989 if we also include the Gran Fury model that replaced the seventh-generation Fury in ...
1972 Chevrolet Chevelle SS Pampered for 51 Years Is All Original and Unrestored
22 Jul 2023, 11:09 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When it comes to Chevrolet Chevelles from the golden muscle car era, there's no denying that the 1970 SS 454 LS6 is the most desirable rig out there. And the 1965 Z-16 is probably next in line regarding value and appeal. The 1972 Chevelle you ...
Stunning 2018 Dodge Challenger Demon With 28 Miles Is Plum Crazy Expensive
21 Jul 2023, 15:34 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / First introduced for the 2018 model year, the Dodge Challenger SRT Demon made a comeback in 2023 with more power and extra goodies. But while the latter has taken the spotlight of the Challenger lineup, the original Demon keeps popping up in our fe...
Forgotten Gems: 1958 and 1966 Chevy Corvettes Saved After 40 Years in a Barn
21 Jul 2023, 12:25 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Built from 1953 to 1962, the first-generation Chevrolet Corvette is the most desirable iteration of the nameplate. Because it's the car that started it all, and the long production run spawned a few rare versions. But the second-gen 'Vett...
This 1962 Chevrolet Impala SS Is a Rare Anniversary Gem With Bad News Under the Hood
20 Jul 2023, 17:31 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Established in 1911, Chevrolet became part of General Motors in 1918. By 1960, it had already established itself as one of America's greatest carmakers through vehicles like the streamlined Master, the Tr-Five, and Corvette. But despite all th...
Holy-Grail 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS Found in Kentucky Rocks Numbers-Matching LS6
20 Jul 2023, 15:12 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / As smaller cars became more popular in the early 1960s, Ford decided to redesign the full-size Fairlane into a midsize rig. Plymouth followed suit with the Belvedere, while General Motors designed a brand-new platform for the newly-established segm...
World's Nastiest 1964 Chevy Nova Runs the Quarter-Mile Quicker Than a Hellcat
20 Jul 2023, 12:54 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1961 as a response to the highly successful Ford Falcon, the Chevrolet Chevy II / Nova was the company's second foray into the compact market after the Corvair. But unlike its predecessor, which sported a rear-engined layout, the...