Ciprian Florea
7,287 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.
1968 Pontiac Firebird Stored for Decades Is Full of Nasty Surprises
15 Mar 2023, 16:23 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Seeing classic vehicles come out of long-term storage is one of the most satisfying car-related things out there. Much more so when the vehicle in question is a muscle car. However, dragging old cars out of barns is not always fun and games. As thi...
Pristine 1930 Ford Model AA Panel Truck Is Almost Ready for the Motorhome Life
15 Mar 2023, 13:10 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / The "Built Ford Tough" slogan has been around since the late 1970s and FoMoCo still uses it to advertise the hugely popular F-150 pickup truck. Given the large number of vintage Ford haulers that are still on the road today, I'd say ...
Stunning 1968 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 in Rallye Green Is What All Barn Finds Hope To Become
14 Mar 2023, 16:00 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1966, the Chevrolet Camaro arrived more than two years late to the pony car market, which gained traction in 1964 with the Ford Mustang and the Plymouth Barracuda. But that didn't stop it from becoming an iconic muscle car. Ch...
1983 Porsche 930 Turbo Slantnose With "Missing" Headlamps Is Rarer Than Hen's Teeth
14 Mar 2023, 12:17 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1975 as a range-topping version of the 911 range, the Porsche 930 was the first turbocharged iteration of the iconic sports car. But the 930 did more than just pave the way for the 911 Turbo. It also spawned the rare and unique-lookin...
1967 Chevrolet SS 427 Kept in a Ziploc Bag for 46 Years Is an Incredible Time Capsule
13 Mar 2023, 17:29 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Have you noticed how the term "time capsule" is now used on pretty much every barn-kept classic that's not yet a rust bucket? It's a bit annoying, isn't it? Much like "barn find" is applied to every piece of junk ...
Surf's Up! 1974 Dodge Dart "Hang 10" Comes With Swimsuit Fabric and Shag Carpet
13 Mar 2023, 15:30 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / In 1974, Richard Nixon was forced to resign as President after the Watergate scandal and a series of tornadoes left more than 300 people dead and over 5,000 injured. Inflation spiraled out of control due to the global recession and a new 55-mph (89...
1978 Cadillac Eldorado Kept in Storage Since New Gets First Wash in 45 Years
13 Mar 2023, 13:06 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When talking about classic cars that spent more than 40 years in storage, we usually think about derelict vehicles that are too rotten to save. While that may be the case with most barn finds that emerge after four decades, this 1978 Cadillac Eldor...
The 50 Best Chevrolet Models of All Time (No. 40 – 31)
12 Mar 2023, 17:44 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Established in 1911 by brothers Louis and Arthur Chevrolet and General Motors co-founder William C. Durant, Chevrolet became GM's high-volume, entry-level car division in 1918. The brand quickly morphed into one of America's greatest auto...
1958 Chevrolet Impala Is One-Year Gem With a Rare Surprise Inside the Cabin
11 Mar 2023, 16:08 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Discontinued for the third time in 2020, the Impala name was first used by Chevrolet in 1956 on a GM Motorama show car with Corvette-like design cues. But it wasn't until 1958 that the badge showed up on a production model. That's when Ch...
One-of-None 1974 Plymouth Satellite Is a Moulin Rouge Trickster
10 Mar 2023, 17:14 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / There's still an ongoing debate as to which nameplate was the first muscle car, but what I do know for a fact is that Detroit produced the coolest performance vehicles from around 1962 until 1972. That period is commonly known as the golden mu...
Rare 1969 Chevrolet Camaro SS Gets Rescued After 38 Years in Storage Unit
10 Mar 2023, 15:01 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced for the 1967 model year, the first-generation Chevrolet Camaro was a tad late to the pony car market, hitting showrooms almost three years after the Ford Mustang and Plymouth Barracuda. But that didn't stop it from becoming a popula...
The 1961 DeSoto Is a One-Year Wonder With a Striking yet Controversial Design
10 Mar 2023, 12:38 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / A carmaker that not a lot of people remember nowadays, DeSoto was established in 1928 by Chrysler as a mid-priced brand to compete with Pontiac, Studebaker, and Buick. The company lasted only until 1961, which explains why it's not as iconic a...
World's Rarest DeTomaso Pantera Hits the Track, Race-Spec V8 Sounds Like Thunder
9 Mar 2023, 20:18 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / The 1960s was a great era for high-performance automobiles. But not only because Europe had stylish, V12-powered Ferraris and Lamborghinis and U.S. automakers were rolling out muscle cars like crazy. This decade also saw the rise of the so-called E...
5 Unofficial Ford Bullitt Cars That Steve McQueen Would Have Probably Loved
9 Mar 2023, 16:33 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Nicknamed the "King of Cool," Steve McQueen wasn't just one of Hollywood's greatest actors in the 1960s and 1970s. He was also a car enthusiast and a racing driver, leaving a massive collection of about 200 vintage vehicles behi...
Wiesmann Showcases Project Thunderball's Bespoke Program With Three Design Concepts
8 Mar 2023, 16:09 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / It's been a while since we last heard about the Wiesmann Project Thunderball, the company's all-new all-electric sports car. While order books have been opened in late 2022, first customer deliveries aren't expected until 2024. To in...
Abandoned Property Hides Super Rare Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith
8 Mar 2023, 14:33 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When talking about abandoned, derelict cars, we usually call them barn finds. But not all of them are actually stored in barns. We've seen old vehicles parked in basements, while others are spending their final years outside, buried in overgro...
Forget About El Morocco, the El Capitola Is the Wildest 1957 Chevrolet Ever Built
8 Mar 2023, 11:00 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / A design icon of the 1950s, the Chevrolet Tri-Five is a highly desirable classic nowadays, especially in Bel Air trim. However, the fancied-up Tri-Five is anything but rare because Chevrolet built more than two million of them from 1955 to 1957. Th...
World's Rarest 1965 Dodge Polara Is a Former FBI Sedan in Need of TLC
7 Mar 2023, 14:09 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Whether small or large, junkyards are usually populated by mundane cars that no one wants to save unless they need parts. But from time to time scrapyards include hidden gems that are either rare or downright unique. The 1965 Dodge Polara you see h...
Big Barn Opens Up To Reveal Dusty Muscle Car Stash, Rare Gems Included
6 Mar 2023, 16:32 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Some say the golden era of barn finds is long gone now that we rarely see million-dollar classics emerge out of long-term storage. But while that may be true when it comes to classic Ferraris and pre-WWII Bugattis, many rare and valuable muscle car...
Bagged 1963 Lincoln Continental Rides on 24-Inch Forgiatos and Still Looks the Part
6 Mar 2023, 14:32 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Where do you stand when it comes to big, modern wheels on classic cars? Do you think it's something that shouldn't happen? Is it too cheesy? Well, it's definitely a "love it or hate it" thing but I think it's a concept...