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.
Eerie Farm House Has Been Abandoned for Decades, Chevy Monte Carlo Stuck in the Barn
6 Jul 2022, 14:06 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Did you ever look at a barn find and tell yourself "it can't get any worse than this?" Well, it can. And the 1970 Chevrolet Monte Carlo you're about to see below is the best proof. While some barn-found classics are still in ...
1941 Willys "Son of Night Prowler" Is a Nostalgia Gasser With a Touching Story
6 Jul 2022, 11:13 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Established in 1908, Willys is mostly known for the MB Jeep, the spiritual predecessor of the modern Wrangler. But Willys also made a long list of automobiles before WWII. They're far from iconic, but two of them became famous thanks to the ho...
1980 Chevrolet Camaro Survivor Has the Right Patina, Unexpected Surprise in the Trunk
5 Jul 2022, 20:50 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Launched in 1970, the second-generation Chevrolet Camaro remained in dealerships for a whopping 11 years. But while it arrived as a full-blown muscle car with up to 375 horsepower, the second-gen Camaro had to soldier on through the Malaise Era wit...
Junkyard Hidden From Civilization Is Loaded With Japanese Cars, R34 Skyline Included
5 Jul 2022, 14:26 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When it comes to car junkyards, we usually think about really old vehicles that have been left to rot away as they became obsolete. But some junkyards also include cars that are barely 30 years old. Like this small Japanese car graveyard, which is ...
The Last Powell Sport Wagon Truck Ever Built Is Getting Restored and You Can Help
5 Jul 2022, 12:07 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When it comes to classic pickup trucks from the 1950s, we usually think about the second-generation Ford F-Series or the Chevrolet Task Force. But there were far more options to choose from back then. The Dodge C Series is the first that comes i...
1955 Ford Thunderbird Parked for 52 Years Is a Mysterious Barn Find
4 Jul 2022, 19:21 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / A car sitting for 50 years is usually doomed to rot away beyond recognition, but that's not always the case. If stored properly, it can come back into the light as a solid survivor. This 1955 Ford Thunderbird appears to be one of those cars. ...
Holy-Grail 1968 Ford Mustang Uncovered After 39 Years, It's an R-Code Cobra Jet
4 Jul 2022, 16:20 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / With almost three million units sold, the first-generation Ford Mustang was quite popular, to say the least. Come 2022, and these 1964-to-1973 ponies are still very common overall, but certain versions are quite hard to find. The list obviously inc...
Big Barn Opens Up to Reveal Stash of Plymouth Road Runners, Dodge Charger
4 Jul 2022, 13:19 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When it comes to barn finds, I like them in all shapes and sizes. But I won't lie, I like them better when they're of the muscle car variety. And things get even better when it's not just one vehicle, but a stash of classic muscle ca...
Infamous 1970 Dodge Challenger "Black Ghost" Shows Up at Car Show, Flexes 426 HEMI
4 Jul 2022, 10:58 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / A whopping 52 years old as of 2022, the 1970 Dodge Challenger is now a prized classic. With only 356 units built, the Challenger HEMI is by far the rarest and most desirable, but it's the "Black Ghost" that stands out as a unique car...
1956 Chevrolet 210 Spent Decades in a Barn, Hides Mysterious V8 Under the Hood
3 Jul 2022, 20:30 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When it comes to Tri-Five Chevrolets, the Bel Air stands out as the most desirable and expensive trim level. Then we have the 210 and the 150, which rarely get the attention they deserve. As the entry-level version with no fancy appointments to ...
Rare 1946 Volkswagen Beetle Found in a Basement, Spent Decades in the Dark
3 Jul 2022, 15:54 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Produced for 65 years in over 21 million units, the Volkswagen Beetle is far from rare. However, certain model years are difficult to find nowadays. Beetle production exploded in the 1950s when output grew from 100,000 to more than 500,000 units...
1992 Ford F-150 Raptor Comes From Imagination Land, Looks the Part
3 Jul 2022, 12:30 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Around since 2010, the Ford F-150 Raptor has already spawned three different generations. And it's by far the most desirable high-performance truck out there. But what if Ford had introduced the Raptor in the 1990s? Well, this rendering provid...
That Time the U.S. Army Secretly Built a Flying Saucer
2 Jul 2022, 16:23 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Just like the automobile market, the military industry has spawned quite a few weird vehicles over the years. While some ideas were abandoned while still on the drawing board, some were developed into functional prototypes. A few of them were lu...
LS7-Powered 1970 Ford Mustang Mach 1 Has Sacrilege Written All Over, Still Cool
1 Jul 2022, 09:24 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced for the 1969 model year as a performance-oriented package, the Mach 1 was available with just about every V8 engine from the Mustang lineup from 1969 to 1973. But while most of them rolled off the assembly line with 351-cubic-inch (5.8-l...
1962 Chevrolet Biscayne Was Left To Rot in a Field, Comes Back to Life After 43 Years
30 Jun 2022, 13:30 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Classic cars that have been left to rot away for decades in barns and fields are nothing new. There are millions of vehicles in this condition in the U.S. right now. It's a sad fate for any classic, no matter how rare and desirable. But fortun...
Ford Excursion With a Mercury Face Is the Premium Heavy-Duty SUV We Never Had
29 Jun 2022, 15:56 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Launched in 1999, the Excursion is the longest and heaviest SUV ever made by Ford. Introduced to compete with the 2500-series Chevrolet Suburban, it was discontinued in 2005, after only a few years on the market. Come 2022, and the Excursion is ...
1951 Studebaker Land Cruiser Barn Find Gets First Wash in Years, Reveals Cool Patina
29 Jun 2022, 14:22 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Dead and buried since 1967, Studebaker left a few cool classic cars behind. The Avanti is perhaps the most iconic, but the Champion and the Hawk series are also popular with fans of the brand. But the company's history extends well beyond thes...
1967 Pontiac GTO With Supercharged LSA Swap Is Restomod Perfection
29 Jun 2022, 11:56 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1963, the Pontiac GTO remained in dealerships for a little more than a decade, which isn't much compared to most iconic American nameplates. But that was enough for the GTO to strongly influence the muscle car era and become one ...
Unofficial 2022 Toyota Tacoma X-Runner Is the TRD Sport Truck You Can't Have
28 Jun 2022, 19:15 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / The pickup truck market is loaded with cool options in 2022, but have you noticed how you can no longer buy a proper sports truck? Yeah, I'm talking about low-riding, street-spec haulers like the GMC Syclone, Dodge Ram SRT-10, and Ford SVT Lig...
Found in a Pile of Junk, This 1960 Plymouth Fury Is Now a Spotless Classic
28 Jun 2022, 16:44 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When it comes to barn-kept classic cars, we see thousands of them come out of long-term storage each month. But how many of these vehicles get restored and make it back on the road? Well, only a very small fraction of them. And of course, it's...