Ciprian Florea
7,284 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.
1966 Dodge HEMI Charger Is an Original Paint Survivor With Bad News Under the Hood
19 May 2024, 10:40 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1966, the Dodge Charger was the company's fanciest midsize offering. Loaded with premium features and sporting a four-seat layout, it was a big step up from the Coronet it was based on. That changed in 1968 when Dodge dropped the...
Rare 1946 Lincoln Continental Leaves the Barn With Unexpected Surprise Under the Hood
18 May 2024, 20:36 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / The Lincoln Continental was most recently revived in 2017 and discontinued for the fifth time in 2020. Given the booming SUV market, it sure looks like it won't make a comeback anytime soon. However, the Continental remains Lincoln's most...
1968 Dodge Charger R/T Has the Full Package: Rare HEMI, 4-Speed, Numbers Match
17 May 2024, 15:17 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1966 as a premium fastback aimed at the Rambler Marlin, the Dodge Charger got a significant makeover for 1968. The company went with a sportier design, dropped the fancy interior, and introduced the performance-oriented R/T version. T...
True Barn Find: 1964 Pontiac GTO Parked for 54 Years Comes With Rust and Two Engines
17 May 2024, 12:23 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / A barn find is a classic car that has been rediscovered after being stored, often in derelict condition. However, the term is often applied to vehicles that aren't very old and spent just a few years off the road. Well, this 1964 Pontiac GTO i...
Real Racing 3 Kicks Off 2024 Le Mans Party With Ferrari 499P, Oreca 07 LMP2 Update
17 May 2024, 09:39 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Are you excited about the upcoming 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans? Do you also play Real Racing 3 on your mobile device? If the answer to both questions is yes, I have great news: Firemonkeys Studios and Electronic Arts just announced an update packed wi...
Perfectly Restored 1963 Dodge Dart Flexes Unique Hyper-Pak Dual Slant-6
16 May 2024, 14:14 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1960 as a full-size car, the Dodge Dart was relegated to intermediate duty in 1962. But that didn't last long because Dodge re-assigned the Dart to the compact car market in 1963. The nameplate spent more than a decade in this se...
1969 Chevrolet Camaro Is a True Z11 Gem With a Numbers-Matching L78
15 May 2024, 15:24 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When it comes to first-generation Chevrolet Camaros, there's no denying that the COPO ZL-1 is the ultimate iteration, the holy grail of the lineage. Featuring an all-aluminum V8 developed for drag racing, the ZL-1 was built in just 69 units. I...
Take a Virtual POV Ride in the World's Only Porsche 961
15 May 2024, 13:31 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When it comes to Porsches developed in the 1980s, we usually think about the 959 and the 956. Both were outstanding vehicles born after the Federation Internationale du Sport Automobile (FISA) introduced the Group B and Group C categories. ...
1958 Plymouth Belvedere "Black Widow" Is a Meaner "Christine" With 392 HEMI Power
15 May 2024, 11:34 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / "Christine" and "Black Widow" are two of the most iconic nicknames of the automotive industry. The first one made the late 1950s Plymouth Fury famous thanks to a novel by Stephen King and a subsequent movie by John Carpenter. Th...
1964 Pontiac GTO Hides Rare Tri-Power/Auto Setup Under Yorktown Blue Hood
14 May 2024, 20:58 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced for the 1964 model year, the Pontiac GTO got a significant makeover in 1965. The refresh saw the introduction of stacked dual headlamps and a slightly more aggressive front fascia. While this styling is usually the most popular with the ...
This 1966 Dodge Coronet Is a Four-Door HEMI Unicorn Built for the FBI
14 May 2024, 13:45 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced for the 1966 model year in street-spec guise, the 426-cubic-inch (7.0-liter) HEMI V8 remained in production through 1971. Arguably the most iconic Chrysler engine from the golden muscle car era, the HEMI found its way into around 11,000 ...
Nightmist Blue 1967 Shelby GT500 Flexes All-Original Interior, Police Interceptor V8
14 May 2024, 12:29 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / In a world dominated by red Ferraris, I like Maranello-built sports cars finished in other colors. I don't know why, but I'd take a yellow or a green "prancing horse" over a red one any day of the feel. And I feel the same about...
Lemon Twist 1971 Plymouth 'Cuda Has One Feature That Makes It Super Rare
13 May 2024, 15:41 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / 1971 was the second year on the market for the third-generation Plymouth Barracuda. It was also the Mopar's final year with high-compression big-block V8 engines. Following a successful 1970 model year with nearly 49,000 units delivered, Barra...
Restored 1970 Plymouth Road Runner Looks Stunning in Limelight Green
13 May 2024, 14:07 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / No matter what model year you prefer, we can all agree that the best Plymouth Road Runner is the one fitted with a 426-cubic-inch (7.0-liter) HEMI V8 and four-speed manual transmission. Not only is the HEMI the most powerful Mopar mill from the gol...
1970 Dodge HEMI Challenger R/T Spent Decades off the Road, Now Shines Like New
13 May 2024, 11:10 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced for the 1970 model year, the Dodge Challenger was discontinued in 1974, shortly after the golden muscle car era ended. And despite its short-lived life with high-compression big-block V8 engines under the hood (1971-1972), the nameplate ...
One-of-None 1965 Pontiac GTO Is a Customized Time Capsule With Tri-Power Muscle
10 May 2024, 16:35 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1964, the Pontiac GTO soldiered on for three generations until the company assigned the badge to the Ventura compact. Of the three versions, the first two are arguably the most desirable iterations of the GTO, and both include a few g...
1954 DeSoto Firedome Parked for 38 Years Leaves the Barn With Old-School HEMI
9 May 2024, 16:16 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / DeSoto is a marque we don't hear much about nowadays. But that makes sense, given that Chrysler retired the brand in 1961. That's a whopping 63 years ago as of 2024. Still, the marque is worth remembering because it rolled out quite a few...
1969 AMC SC/Rambler Parked for 30 Years Is a Rare Barn Find
8 May 2024, 19:45 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / America's first successful compact car, the Rambler debuted in 1950 with a Nash badge. Discontinued after five years, it returned in 1958 as an AMC product named Rambler American. The nameplate soldiered on until 1969, when it was replaced by ...
Tesla Cybertruck Gets Rusty Wrap, Looks Like a Barn Find
8 May 2024, 12:07 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / The year is 2074, and barn-find hunter Joe discovers a Tesla Cybertruck in a shed. The hauler is covered in surface rust, and Joe is blown away by the fact that the EV is still in one piece after 50 years. It's a very likely scenario, assuming...
Quirky 1962 Dodge Dart Flexes Custom Paint, Nasty Surprise Under the Hood
7 May 2024, 21:22 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / The Dodge Dart is famously known for its compact-sized layout. Introduced in 1963, it soldiered on through 1976, moving millions of examples. But before it became a popular compact, the Dart spent three years in the full-size and intermediate segme...