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.
2022 Nissan Frontier GT-R Rendering Is a Super Truck in a Nismo Suit
30 Jul 2022, 14:18 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / After more than two decades in U.S. showrooms as a rebadged Navara, the Nissan Frontier finally became a stand-alone nameplate in 2021. Larger than before and developed to cater to the needs of the U.S. truck buyer, the 2022 Frontier is a bett...
1966 Ford Thunderbird Was Left To Rot in the Woods, Takes First Drive in 46 Years
30 Jul 2022, 12:10 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced as a sporty two-seat roadster in 1954, the Ford Thunderbird morphed into a larger, heavier four-seat automobile in 1958. And even though it moved away from the sports car segment dominated by the Chevrolet Corvette, the Thunderbird remai...
GMC Vandura Makes Digital Comeback as Sierra AT4X-Based Van
29 Jul 2022, 16:02 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Now famous for its premium SUVs and pickup trucks, GMC has been offering vans for quite a few decades. Yes, the old Savana is still in production, but GMC introduced its first people mover in the 1960s. That's when Chevrolet introduced the ...
Meet the World's Rarest Dodge: The Bertone-Designed 1953 Storm Z-250
29 Jul 2022, 11:37 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Back in the early 1950s, the U.S. auto industry was still mostly about increasingly bigger and luxurious full-size cars. But as sports cars started crossing the pond from Europe, Detroit automakers began making their own two-seat lightweight vehicl...
1961 Chevrolet Biscayne Gets Saved From the Crusher, Runs and Drives After 30 Years
28 Jul 2022, 19:21 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / With millions of classic cars abandoned in junkyards or forgotten in barns, it's great to see that some of them get rescued from time to time. But it gets even better when the vehicle in question is saved after it was bound to be crushed. This...
Unofficial 2022 Ram Van TRX Looks So Cool You'd Want to Buy One
28 Jul 2022, 11:14 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Yesterday I showed you a Raptor-ized version of the Ford E-Series van. Sadly, it's just a rendering that will never become reality. But it just got a virtual competitor with a Ram badge. Yup, it's a TRX-spec van and it's as cool as b...
1967 Saab 96 Sees Daylight After 36 Years, Took Barn Life Like a Champ
27 Jul 2022, 17:11 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Produced from 1960 to 1980 in more than a half-million units, the Saab 96 helped the Swedish company become a global manufacturer. Come 2022, and Saab is dead and buried, but the 96 lives on as a charming European classic. While not as popular a...
Restored 1969 Plymouth Belvedere Looks Better Than New, Nasty Surprise Under the Hood
27 Jul 2022, 15:32 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / First used in 1951 as a trim level for the Plymouth Cranbrook, the Belvedere became a nameplate of its own in 1954. A full-size model at first, the Belvedere was downsized into an intermediate in the mid-1960s. And that's also when it became p...
Collection of Never-Before-Seen Ferrari Prototypes Up for Sale, Will Fetch Millions
27 Jul 2022, 11:15 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / With a few minor exceptions, all classic Ferraris are expensive collectibles nowadays. Some fetch tens of millions of dollars. We can't say the same about modern Ferraris, but some supercars are known to change hands for seven-figure sums, des...
Ford E-Series Raptor Is the Beefed-Up Van We Deserve but Will Never Get
27 Jul 2022, 08:54 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / First introduced in 2010, the Ford Raptor nameplate finally expanded to include more than just the F-150 truck. Come 2022 and the family also includes the Ranger and the Bronco. But will it grow even larger? Well, there's no official word a...
1969 Plymouth Road Runner HEMI Is an Unrestored Gem, Hides One Little Secret
26 Jul 2022, 20:20 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Launched for the 1968 model year as a more affordable alternative to the upscale GTX, the Plymouth Road Runner quickly became a hit with muscle car enthusiasts. First-year sales came in at around 45,000 units, well above Plymouth's initial est...
Massive Texas Junkyard Is Home to Thousands of Classics, Rare Gems Included
26 Jul 2022, 14:44 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / The junkyard is a great place to be if you're looking for parts to restore your classic car. However, they're usually packed with mundane cars. So if you're working on a muscle car from the golden era, chances are you need to dig dee...
1978 Plymouth Super Coupe Gets First Wash in 17 Years, Goes From Dusty to Gorgeous
26 Jul 2022, 13:17 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When it comes to classic cars of the sporty variety, we usually look back at the golden muscle car era. Because those rigs not only look hot but also pack proper performance under the hood. Their successors from the 1970s, however, aren't as a...
Rare 1969 Ford Mustang Boss 429 Spent Too Much Time in a Barn, Costs a Fortune
26 Jul 2022, 10:25 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / From the Shelby GT350 and GT500 to the Mach 1 and the 428 Cobra Jet, the first-generation Mustang spawned quite a few cool performance cars. But none is as spectacular as the Boss 429. Introduced in 1969, the Boss 429 arrived alongside the equal...
Race Track Abandoned for 50 Years Is Now a Secret Place in the Woods
25 Jul 2022, 16:06 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / We talk a lot about abandoned classic cars here at autoevolution, but automobiles aren't the only things that get discarded when they become old and useless. Sadly, decommissioned race tracks suffer similar fates. The list of famous NASCAR ...
1954 GMC COE Truck Gets First Wash in 50 Years, Old Inline-Six Refuses to Die
25 Jul 2022, 14:29 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / GMC is now mostly famous for premium trucks and SUVs, but there was a time when the company built full-blown workhorses. This 1954 cab over engine (COE) hauler is one of them. Part of a series of medium-duty trucks introduced in 1939, this rig i...
1970 Mercury Cougar Eliminator Survivor Shows Off 428 Super Cobra Jet, Battle Scars
25 Jul 2022, 11:11 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When it comes to classic muscle cars, it's the restored examples and the unmolested survivors that get all the attention at car shows. But there's an even better category: survivors that are still being used as daily drivers. And this 197...
Farmhouse Abandoned for 50 Years Has a 1969 Pontiac Firebird Stuck in the Barn
24 Jul 2022, 16:17 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When talking about barn finds, we usually think about classic cars that come out of storage after several decades. Some are taken out upon discovery, while others emerge when their respective owners decide it's time to let them go. However, so...
One-Off 1947 Kaiser Pickup Originally Designed by "Madman" Muntz Up for Sale
23 Jul 2022, 18:11 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Founded by Henry J. Kaiser in 1945, Kaiser Motors didn't last long as an independent manufacturer. It merged with Willys-Overland to form Kaiser-Jeep in 1953 and disappeared altogether when it became part of American Motors Corporation in 1970...
1957 Mercury Monterey With Continental Kit Gets First Wash in Years, Looks Stunning
23 Jul 2022, 16:00 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Created in 1938 to serve as the medium-price brand of Ford Motor Company, Mercury was laid to rest in 2011. But while it's no longer around, the division left a few cool automobiles behind. The Monterey is one of them. First introduced as a...