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.
1967 Chevrolet Camaro RS/SS Sees Daylight After 40 Years, It's an Unrestored Survivor
13 Sep 2022, 18:39 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced for the 1967 model year, the Chevrolet Camaro arrived a bit late to the pony car market, which had already seen the Ford Mustang and Plymouth Barracuda make their debut in 1964. But this didn't prevent the Camaro from becoming one o...
Seemingly Abandoned Property in the Middle of Nowhere Is Loaded with Classic Cars
13 Sep 2022, 16:01 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Did you ever wonder how many classic cars are rotting away in junkyards across the U.S.? Millions? Tens of millions? I guess we'll never know for sure because there's no way we can keep tabs. In addition to that, some scrapyards and de...
1970 Chevrolet Chevelle Spent 27 Years in a Cornfield, Nice Surprise Under the Hood
13 Sep 2022, 12:17 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When talking about classic cars abandoned out in the open, we usually think about rust buckets. Because exposure to the elements is pretty bad for an automobile. But some cars are lucky enough to take decades of sitting out in the open without majo...
1960 Chrysler 300F Looks Stunning in Purple, Two Features Make It Super Rare
13 Sep 2022, 10:03 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1955, the Chrysler C-300 was advertised as "America's most powerful car." And at 300 horsepower, it had the numbers to back it up. More importantly, the C-300 kickstarted a series of high-performance luxury cars that re...
1969 Dodge Super Bee Found in the Bushes Is a Numbers-Matching Survivor
12 Sep 2022, 17:54 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1968 as the company's low-priced muscle car, the Dodge Super Bee remained in production for only four years. Originally based on the two-door Coronet, the nameplate became part of the Charger lineup in 1971, its final year on the...
Barn-Found 1940 Plymouth Gets First Wash in 70 Years, Shows Cool Patina
12 Sep 2022, 11:51 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Classic cars look their best in Concours-ready shape, but barn-found examples are also cool if they're still in one piece and ready to roll. Sadly, long-term storage is not a classic car's best friend, so most cars see daylight with serio...
Beautifully Restored, One-Owner 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona Sells for $418,000
11 Sep 2022, 17:44 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Built in only 503 units, the 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona is a rare classic from the golden muscle car era. But that's not the only thing that makes it a sought-after, expensive vehicle. It's also the most radical-looking production car of ...
Jeep Unleashes All-Electric Avenger SUV, Will Hit Europe in 2023 With 400-Km Range
8 Sep 2022, 12:55 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Jeep introduced a handful of hybrid vehicles in 2021, electrifying nameplates like the Wrangler, Grand Cherokee, and Renegade. Come September 2022 and the brand unveiled no fewer than three fully-electric SUVs. The Euro-spec Avenger is one of them ...
Turquoise 1957 Lincoln Premiere Looks Like a Batmobile Made Out of Candy
8 Sep 2022, 12:26 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / There's no denying that the American car industry spawned some of the greatest and most beautiful automobiles in the 1950s. The list is way too long to mention here, but this era included gorgeous machines like the Chevrolet Bel Air, Ford Thun...
Butchered 1956 Chevrolet Nomad Is a Unique El Camino Looking for a New Home
7 Sep 2022, 18:02 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1959, the Chevrolet El Camino arrived two years late to the coupe utility party. That's because Ford launched the Ranchero in 1957. But what if GM got a head start and built the El Camino before Ford decided to chop the roof off ...
Big Garage Opens Up To Reveal Mopar Stash, Super-Rare 1970 Dodge Challenger Included
7 Sep 2022, 14:54 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When talking about rare muscle cars, we tend to include pretty much everything from the golden era. Not because they're truly rare, but because they're hard to find in good condition nowadays. But while most classic muscle car namepla...
Rare 1935 DeSoto Airflow Found in a Garage Hides Modern Crate Engine Under the Hood
7 Sep 2022, 12:40 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Back in the 1930s, a small team of Chrysler engineers began conducting wind tunnel tests to discover the most efficient shape that could be adapted to automobile design. The team's findings revolutionized car aerodynamics and led to the creati...
1968 Shelby Mustang GT500KR Forgotten in Storage for 30 Years Is a Stunning Barn Find
6 Sep 2022, 20:28 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Launched in 1964 as an affordable compact with a somewhat sporty appearance, the Ford Mustang quickly evolved into a full-blown muscle car. By 1967, Carroll Shelby had already created the GT350, a lightweight track-prepped model, and the GT500, a s...
Abandoned Mansion Once Owned by Napoleon Hides a Terrible Secret, Derelict Cars
6 Sep 2022, 13:25 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / The junkyard is the best place to explore if you're into derelict cars. However, many classics spend their retirement years away from the public eye, rotting away on abandoned properties. YouTube's "Abandoned World Explorer,"...
1962 Chevrolet Bel Air Was Abandoned in Mud for 40 Years, Engine Agrees To Run
6 Sep 2022, 10:22 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / While some classic cars spend their retirement years locked up in barns, others don't get so lucky to have a roof over their heads. And I'm not talking about cars that were left to rot in junkyards. Many of them never made it there and we...
Chopped 1975 Dodge Truck Spent Years in Storage, Hides HEMI Surprise Under the Hood
5 Sep 2022, 19:51 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / The Chrysler Corporation is mostly known for the Dodge and Plymouth muscle cars from the golden era, but it also has a long history with high-performance trucks. The Ram 1500 TRX is the company's latest beefed-up hauler, but it also offered a ...
1962 Chevrolet Corvette Comes With a Super-Rare, Controversial Feature
5 Sep 2022, 17:38 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When it comes to 1960s Chevrolet Corvettes, most enthusiasts lose their minds over the 1963 version. Because it's the only Corvette that had a split rear window. At 10,594 examples built, the 1963 model is far from rare, but that rear window t...
1963 Chevrolet Corvette Spent Decades in a Barn, Still Looks the Part
5 Sep 2022, 12:24 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Classic cars that spend decades in barns usually emerge all rusty and in need of serious repairs. Some, however, take years and years of storage quite well and still look like they could turn heads once they shake off all that barn dust. This 1963 ...
The Fastest Pontiac Ever Built Drag Races 1971 Plymouth Cuda, Instantly Regrets It
5 Sep 2022, 10:01 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When it comes to high-performance Pontiacs, we usually think about the GTO or the Super Duty-equipped, factory drag cars of the early 1960s. Well, none of the above can brag about being the quickest and fastest Pontiac ever built. Those titles go t...
Perfectly Restored 1957 Chrysler 300C Hides a Rare, Revolutionary Feature That Failed
4 Sep 2022, 12:00 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Some say the muscle car era began with the Pontiac GTO in 1963. Others claim that it all started with the Chrysler C-300, a luxury coupe that came with a whopping 300 horsepower on tap in 1955. But whether the C-300 is acknowledged as an early m...