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.
Stash of Rare yet Affordable Fox-Body Ford Mustangs Going Under the Hammer
25 Dec 2022, 11:00 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1978 and built for a whopping 15 years, the third-generation Ford Mustang marked the nameplate's return to the high-performance market after the successful yet mundane Mustang II. And it also spawned quite a few rare and desirabl...
Rare 1971 Dodge Charger R/T Previously Owned by Sylvester Stallone Up for Sale
24 Dec 2022, 17:00 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1966 as a fancied-up fastback, the Dodge Charger morphed into a fully-blown muscle car in 1968. And unlike most nameplates from the golden muscle car era, it soldiered on for a few more years into the Malaise era. But even though it r...
Scorch Red 1967 Dodge Coronet R/T Flexes HEMI V8 Just in Time for Christmas
24 Dec 2022, 10:00 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Chrysler's history with hemispherical engines goes back to 1951 when the FirePower made its way into the New Yorker, Imperial, and Saratoga. The design remained in use until 1958 when Chrysler switched to a more conventional layout, but it ret...
The First Ferrari Imported to the U.S. Is a 74-Year-Old Prototype in Amazing Condition
23 Dec 2022, 09:00 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Born in 1898, Enzo Ferrari made his debut as a race car driver in 1919 and founded Scuderia Ferrari 10 years later, in 1929. After handling Alfa Romeo's motorsport division for a decade, Enzo set up Auto Avio Costruzioni and built his first ra...
Porsche 908/3 Prototypes Hit the Track, Flat-8 Engines Sound Amazing
22 Dec 2022, 09:00 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When talking about race-spec Porsche legends from the past, we usually think about monsters like the 917, 936, and 956. And that's not surprising, because these cars (including the 962 evolution of the 956) have won the 24 Hours of Le Mans 11 ...
Jay Leno Drives the 1930 Lancia Dilambda, Compares It to an Iconic Bentley
21 Dec 2022, 18:22 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Set to make a comeback as an EV brand, Lancia is now a pathetic sight with only one vehicle, the Fiat 500-based Ypsilon, in showrooms. But it wasn't always like that. Back in the day, Lancia built some of the most beautiful automobiles out the...
The 1966 Acadian Canso Is a Familiar Chevrolet Built in Canada
21 Dec 2022, 10:44 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Established in 1918, 10 years after its parent company was founded in the U.S., General Motors of Canada has produced a long list of iconic Chevrolets, Buicks, Pontiacs, and GMCs as of 2022. But it also built a few Canada-exclusive models that many...
1961 Chevrolet Parkwood Gets First Wash in Decades, Shows Big Surprise Under the Hood
20 Dec 2022, 13:24 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1949 as a range-topping model for the Chevrolet full-size line, the Bel Air lost that privilege to the Impala in 1958. But the nameplate remained a popular choice and sold millions of units until it went into the history books in 1981...
1966 Plymouth Belvedere Is the Perfect Sleeper, Hides HEMI V8 Under the Hood
19 Dec 2022, 14:45 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When talking about Plymouths from the golden muscle car era, we usually remember the Barracuda, Road Runner, and the GTX. But the Belvedere and the Satellite, which are often overlooked, are just as cool. In fact, they make even nicer sleepers when...
1940 Buick Century Is a Barn-Kept Survivor With a Super Rare Feature
19 Dec 2022, 13:25 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When talking about rare cars, we usually think about vehicles that saw daylight in very limited numbers. The 1971 Plymouth HEMI 'Cuda, built in only 114 units, comes to mind. But some classics are rare, simply because they've been fitted ...
Flooded 1963 Chevrolet Nova Gets Deep Cleaning, Goes From Ruined to Superb
18 Dec 2022, 14:06 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Hurricane Ian wreaked havoc in Florida and the Carolinas, claiming numerous lives and leaving billions of dollars worth of damage behind. The storm also destroyed many classic cars, starting with a super-rare 1970 Plymouth Superbird. The 1963 Chevr...
1983 Jeep Scrambler Found in Belize Is a Rare Low-Mileage Survivor, Returns to the U.S.
17 Dec 2022, 12:38 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When the Gladiator returned for the 2020 model year, it was Jeep's first pickup truck in almost two decades. But back in the 1980s, the company had no fewer than three haulers in dealerships. Introduced in 1962, the original Gladiator soldi...
1966 Chevrolet Corvette Parked Decades Ago Is a Mysterious Classic With an Impala Secret
16 Dec 2022, 20:06 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / With almost 118,000 units built over five model years, the second-generation Chevrolet Corvette wasn't as popular as other nameplates from the era. Yet many of them are still locked up in barns or forgotten in backyards as of 2022. This 1966 d...
Not an Impala: Plain-Looking 1967 Chevrolet SS Is a Rare Sleeper With a Nasty V8
16 Dec 2022, 15:49 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1961 on the Impala, the SS package found its way on a long list of cars and trucks, including the Chevelle, Camaro, El Camino, and Silverado. But the badge also adorned a concept car from 2003 and a high-performance four-door sedan of...
1954 Woodill Wildfire Parked in 1966 Is a Rare Corvette Fighter Ready for the LS Life
16 Dec 2022, 13:34 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When it comes to American-made sports cars, the Chevrolet Corvette gets credit for a lot of things, but did you know that it's not the vehicle that pioneered the segment in North America? In fact, no fewer than three cars beat the Corvette to ...
Plum Crazy 1970 Dodge Challenger HEMI Looks Like a Six-Figure Gem, but There's a Catch
15 Dec 2022, 21:13 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1970, the Dodge Challenger moved 76,935 units in its first model year on the market, an impressive figure for the packed muscle car era. This number also makes the 1970 Challenger rather common, but the nameplate also spawned a few ra...
Abandoned 1952 Oldsmobile 88 Gets First Wash in 60 Years, Shows Beautiful Patina
15 Dec 2022, 16:49 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Produced from 1949 to 1999, the Oldsmobile 88 is famous for quite a few things. It was one of the company's longest-running nameplates and it was also Oldsmobile's most profitable automobile from 1950 until 1974. More importantly, the fir...
The Morrison Midge Is a Mysterious and Extremely Rare Micro EV From the 1960s
15 Dec 2022, 14:10 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Remember when Morgan built the EV3, an all-electric version of the 3-Wheeler? It was just as cool and fun as its gasoline sibling but much friendlier to the environment. But did you know that all-electric three-wheelers were actually a few decades ...
Derelict 1968 Plymouth "BarelyCuda" Is a Vintage Dragster in Disguise, Sounds Vicious
14 Dec 2022, 13:24 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Let's say you end up with a derelict 1968 Plymouth Barracuda that's just a shell on a frame. What do you do with it? I know, "sell it for parts" comes to mind if you're not into project cars. But the right answer is: you tu...
1970 Dodge Challenger T/A Pampered for 46 Years Is All-Original and Unrestored
14 Dec 2022, 12:01 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / While Dodge joined the muscle car market in the mid-1960s with cars like the Charger and Coronet, it didn't offer a proper competitor to the Ford Mustang and Chevrolet Camaro until 1970. That's when the Challenger arrived alongside the th...