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.
1965 Ford Galaxie 500 LTD Military Limo Is One of Only Six Built
22 Sep 2022, 19:00 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Like many full-size cars that debuted in the late 1950s, the Ford Galaxie spawned a handful of high-performance cars, created to either homologate engines for NASCAR or aimed at drag racers. The R Code is perhaps the most iconic. It's also ...
1971 Plymouth 'Cuda Hiding in a Garage Flexes Rare Color, but There's a Catch
22 Sep 2022, 15:58 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1964 with a range-topping V8 engine good for only 180 horsepower, the Plymouth Barracuda came to life as a mundane body. But the nameplate quickly developed into a full-blown muscle car, gaining the company's larger mills in the ...
The Unique 1938 Buick Y-Job Comes Out of Storage, It's Still a Work of Art
22 Sep 2022, 13:06 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Built in 1938 as a design study that influenced Buick production cars for decades, the Y-Job is widely considered the world's first concept car. While some argue that other carmakers built concept cars as early as the 1920s, the Y-Job continue...
Plain-Looking 1965 Chevrolet Biscayne Is a Super Rare Sleeper With a Nasty V8
21 Sep 2022, 15:55 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When it comes to Chevrolet full-size cars from the 1960s, it's the Impala and the Bel Air that get all the attention. The entry-level Biscayne is nowhere near as desirable and it's often ignored by classic car enthusiasts. And that...
Seemingly Abandoned Drive-In Is Loaded With Derelict Cars, Nash Metropolitans Included
21 Sep 2022, 13:37 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / One sure way to find derelict classic cars is to visit a junkyard. Because that's where most automobiles end up when they're taken off the road. But many classics spend their retirement years in other places too. Because some people do...
Rusty 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air Comes Out of the Barn, Gets First Wash in 40 Years
21 Sep 2022, 10:30 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Decades of improper storage can do a lot of damage to a car. While classic vehicles parked in heated garages emerge unscathed after years and years of storage, cars that are forgotten in shabby barns usually become rust buckets. This 1957 Chevrolet...
This 1960 Pontiac Catalina Went "Beep Beep" Before the Plymouth Road Runner Did
20 Sep 2022, 15:36 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / A top trim level package at its introduction in 1950, the Catalina became a stand-alone model in 1959. And it soldiered on as one of Pontiac's most popular full-size models until it was discontinued for good in 1981. Like most nameplates th...
1958 Edsel Pacer Convertible Took Four Years to Restore, It's a One-Year Wonder
20 Sep 2022, 12:45 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1958 to compete against Buick, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Dodge, and DeSoto, the Edsel division was discontinued only three years later to become one of the biggest commercial flops of the American automobile industry. Edsel failed for m...
World's Wildest 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air Has a 3,000-HP V12 Engine Under the Hood
19 Sep 2022, 15:23 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / A design icon of the 1950s, the Chevrolet Tri-Five is also a popular platform for restomodding. So much so that modified Bel Airs are more common than factory-stock restored examples in 2022. Search any car sales website and you'll find all...
1956 Chevrolet Bel Air Spent 34 Years in a Norwegian Garage, Roars Back to Life
19 Sep 2022, 13:54 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Produced from 1955 to 1957, the Tri-Five-based Chevrolet Bel Air is the most iconic iteration of the nameplate. And even though it was built in millions of units, it morphed into a desirable classic as the decades went on. Yes, the Tri-Five is a...
1967 Pontiac GTO vs 1972 Chevrolet Chevelle Drag Race Is a Photo Finish
19 Sep 2022, 11:29 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1963, the Pontiac GTO is widely regarded as America's primordial muscle car. While this statement can be considered untrue if we look at the Chrysler C-300, which debuted in 1955, the GTO can be credited as the car that populariz...
1961 Chevrolet Impala 4x4 Is Off-Road Ready and Ridiculously Cool
18 Sep 2022, 14:52 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / The first-generation Chevrolet Impala is a highly desirable classic nowadays, with two-door coupe and convertible examples fetching six-figure sums in Concours-ready condition. Four-door sedans aren't as popular, but they're also getting ...
1965 Chevrolet Chevelle Dragster Barn Find Pays Tribute to an Iconic WWI Plane, Needs Help
17 Sep 2022, 19:24 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / In 1962, Ford decided to turn the full-sized Fairlane into an intermediate. Chevrolet responded a year later with the Chevelle, which also happened to become the brand's first entry into the muscle car market with SS. Offered with an increasin...
1967 Ford Mustang Sitting for 40 Years Is Unexpectedly Unique, Gets Saved
17 Sep 2022, 14:14 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Classic cars that have been parked for decades are quite common nowadays. But while most of them are mundane vehicles that are not worth saving, some are actually rare and, in some cases, even unique. This S-code 1967 Ford Mustang convertible is on...
1967 Chevrolet Corvette Parked for 53 Years Is a Rare Barn Find With a Sad Story
16 Sep 2022, 14:58 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Classic cars that have been sitting for 40 years in storage are pretty common nowadays. Because quite a few owners parked their 1950s and 1960s automobiles in the 1980s. But this 1967 Chevrolet Corvette is a different story. Parked back in 1969, it...
Rare 1942 Chevrolet G506 Panel Truck Takes a Stroll in the Mud, It's a WW2 Time Capsule
16 Sep 2022, 13:21 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When it comes to American-made military trucks from World War II, we usually think about the GMC CCKW. Built in more than a half-million units, it's by far the most iconic hauler from the era. But it's not the only military hauler develop...
Insane 1982 Dodge Ram Hides Twin-Turbo Under the Hood, Does Massive Burnouts
16 Sep 2022, 10:59 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1971, the third-generation Dodge D series truck remained in production for a whopping 22 years. It was, however, renamed the Dodge Ram after its late 1980 facelift, kickstarting what became the Ram Trucks division in 2010. The thir...
1969 Dodge Charger 500 HEMI Is Rarer Than Hen's Teeth, Costs a Fortune
15 Sep 2022, 13:28 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / In 1969, Dodge took the muscle car market by storm with the radical Charger Daytona. Brought into dealerships as a homologation special for NASCAR, the Charger Daytona is a rare bird, especially if fitted with the 426-cubic-inch (7.0-liter) HEMI V8...
1960 Pontiac Catalina Spent 34 Years in a Backyard, It's a Rare Triple Red Gem
15 Sep 2022, 12:12 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / First introduced as a top trim level package on the Chieftain in 1950, the Pontiac Catalina became a stand-alone model in 1959. The company's lowest-priced full-size, the Catalina was placed below the Chevrolet Impala in GM's lineup, but ...
World's Rarest 1971 Plymouth GTX Export Car Is a Gorgeous Classic That Got Away for Cheap
14 Sep 2022, 10:06 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1967 as a more upscale version of the Belvedere, the Plymouth GTX soldiered on until 1971 as the brand's fanciest muscle car. And it was no slouch either, with the engine lineup including the mighty 440-cubic-inch (7.2-liter) RB ...