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.
1956 Chevrolet El Camino That Shouldn't Exist Is a Butchered Bel Air Nomad
3 Feb 2023, 16:54 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Car-based pickups, or utes, as they're called in Australia, go back to the 1920s. However, this body style didn't catch on until the 1950s, when both Ford and Chevrolet jumped on the coupe utility bandwagon. Ford was first to introduce...
Once a Pile of Junk, This 1967 Pontiac GTO Is Now a Museum-Grade Muscle Car
3 Feb 2023, 13:46 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1963 as an option package for the LeMans, the Pontiac GTO is now widely regarded as America's first muscle car. This may not be entirely true, but the GTO is indeed one of the most important vehicles from the golden era. As a ...
Honda K24-Swapped Fiat 131 Is a Screaming Drift Monster With Jumping Skills
2 Feb 2023, 16:40 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Fiat may only build small cars, crossovers, and vans as of 2023, but there was a time when the Italian company was an important player in the performance car market and a big name on the racing scene. Not only did Fiat roll out quite a few beefe...
1990 Citroen C15 Autostar Is a Tiny Home on Wheels and the Last of Its Kind
2 Feb 2023, 13:57 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When talking about classic RVs, we usually think about Winnebagos, the GMC Motorhome, and aluminum-bodied Airstreams. But the market is much bigger than that and it includes an impressive number of compact campers. Why am I talking about compact...
One-of-Few Bugatti EB110 SS Prototype Hides Record-Setting V12 Under Carbon Hood
1 Feb 2023, 17:20 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / First established in 1909 and discontinued in 1963, Bugatti returned to the spotlight in 1987. That's when Italian entrepreneur Romano Artioli acquired the brand and set up Bugatti Automobili S.p.A. The new company saw a different revival o...
1975 Plymouth Road Runner Is a Stunning One-Year Wonder With Big-Block Power
1 Feb 2023, 15:19 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1968 as a low-priced muscle car, the Plymouth Road Runner was a hit. Available with Chrysler's top-tier V8 engines and sporting Warner Bros' Road Runner cartoon character and "beep, beep" horn (for which Plymouth p...
The Unloved Kaiser Henry J Is a Classic I'd Proudly Display on My Front Lawn
1 Feb 2023, 13:40 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Back in 1950, the Kaiser-Frazer Corporation went against the "bigger is better" tide with a compact car named after company co-founder Henry J. Kaiser. Way ahead of its time, the Henry J was a flop and few people remember it, but it'...
Once a Rusty Barn Find, This 1951 Chevy Bel Air Is Now Living the Ratty Gasser Life
31 Jan 2023, 18:02 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Dragging old cars out of storage after many decades is cool and all, but there's a hard truth about barn finds: most of them never get restored. They either end up as parts cars or get sent to the junkyard to rot away among other unlucky vehic...
1965 Shelby GT350 in Nightmist Blue Looks Like a One-Off Gem, but There's a Catch
31 Jan 2023, 13:47 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in April 1964 as a Falcon-based pony car with moderate power, the Ford Mustang quickly developed into a full-blown muscle car. And it was all thanks to Carroll Shelby, who introduced the GT350 in 1965. While not as potent as the GT500...
Abandoned Millionaire's Mansion Has a 1968 Chevrolet Camaro RS in the Basement
30 Jan 2023, 20:20 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Classic cars stashed in barns are pretty common nowadays. But small wooden buildings aren't the only places people use to keep their old automobiles. Believe it or not, some of them have been hidden in basements. I still remember the super-...
1951 Kaiser Henry J "Pain in the Gass" Nostalgia Gasser Is Pure Eye Candy
30 Jan 2023, 17:09 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / The drag racing scene is more diverse than it ever was nowadays. From funny cars that cover the quarter-mile quicker than you can say "Chevrolet Camaro" to no-nonsense "no-prep" racers, there's something for everyone. But t...
One-Off 1967 Dodge Coronet R/T Spent 20 Years in a Barn, Now It's a Fully Restored Gem
30 Jan 2023, 11:46 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When it comes to muscle cars from the golden era, the Dodges are getting a lot of love nowadays. However, not all of them are as celebrated as the Charger, Challenger, or the Super Bee. The Coronet, for instance, isn't making as many headlines...
Unofficial 2023 Chevrolet Silverado "Hatch" Looks Like an All-New K5 Blazer EV
29 Jan 2023, 13:30 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Remember when two-door SUVs were a thing? Yeah, it was a really long time ago because most of them went into the history books by the end of the 1990s. Granted, the legacy still lives on through the Jeep Wrangler, Ford Bronco, and Land Rover Defend...
Moldy, Rat-Infested 1971 Dodge Demon Gets Satisfying First Wash in 25 Years
28 Jan 2023, 18:33 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / To most of us, the Dodge Demon is the drag-prepped, Challenger-based muscle car that the company introduced in 2017. Powered by a supercharged, 6.2-liter V8 good for 840 horsepower when running on 100-octane fuel, the Demon was, at the time of its ...
1965 Plymouth Satellite Super Stock Is a Tribute to the Golden Era, Sounds Evil
27 Jan 2023, 13:26 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / First introduced as a trim level on the Cranbrook in 1951, the Plymouth Belvedere became a full-size series in 1954. It soldiered on until 1970 and it went into the history books as one of the company's most iconic nameplates. But it also gets...
Real Racing 3 Gets New Track and One-Off Nissan Nismo GT-R LM As It Turns 10
27 Jan 2023, 11:34 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Can you believe that Real Racing 3 is already 10 years old as of 2023? Yup, the highly popular racing game arrived in 2013 and it's not going anywhere anytime soon (though there's been talk about a successor). Recently, Firemonkeys Studio...
1962 Chevrolet Impala SS Found in the Woods Is a Rare Golden Anniversary Gem, Needs Help
26 Jan 2023, 16:06 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Established in 1911 by brothers Louis and Arthur Chevrolet and Willian C. Durant, Chevrolet became part of General Motors in 1918. As a low-priced brand, Chevrolet became extremely popular and had a great influence on the American automobile market...
Stunning 1934 Hudson Terraplane Shows Why Some Defunct Carmarkers Shouldn't Be Forgotten
26 Jan 2023, 13:50 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / It's been more than 100 years since the first affordable automobile, the Ford Model T, was introduced and we have hundreds of automakers to thank for keeping the world rolling through hundreds of millions of vehicles. Sadly enough though, many...
Gold 1971 Pontiac GT-37 Is Rarer Than a GTO, Hides 455 HO Muscle Under the Hood
25 Jan 2023, 18:59 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When it comes to classic Pontiacs, no car gets as much love as the GTO. Introduced as an option package for the LeMans in 1963, the GTO came with a 325-horsepower V8 as standard and a long list of performance add-ons that turned it into one of the ...
Custom 1960 Chevrolet Bel Air Flaunts BMW Austin Yellow Paint and Corvette Power
25 Jan 2023, 15:52 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / I don't know about you, but whenever I hear the words Chevrolet Bel Air I think about the range-topping version of the 1955-1957 Tri-Five. Yes, I'm well aware that the nameplate extends well beyond the Tri-Five (it's been in producti...