Ciprian Florea
7,288 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.
World's Rarest 1967 AMC Rambler Rebel Is a 10-Second Quarter-Mile Beast
13 Jun 2022, 15:56 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Produced from 1967 to 1970, the AMC Rebel was a rather short-lived nameplate. But it spawned a few cool muscle cars, the most famous of which is the Rebel Machine, AMC's halo performance car for 1970. However, the company built a faster and mu...
1956 Pontiac Safari Rotting Away in a Backyard Is Rarer Than a Chevrolet Nomad
13 Jun 2022, 12:22 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When it comes to 1950s station wagons, no grocery getter is more famous than the Tri-Five-based Chevrolet Nomad. Produced from 1955 to 1957, it's not just a design icon of the era, but it's also a rare classic with fewer than 23,000 units...
These Fire-Spitting Ford Model Ts Are What No-Nonsense Racing Is All About
13 Jun 2022, 09:39 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / No matter what series we're talking about, race cars are complicated machines in 2022. They're packed with technology, they're usually fragile, and they're awfully expensive to build and maintain. But it wasn't always like ...
1962 Plymouth Savoy Is a Mean Sleeper, Hides Big-Block Surprise Under the Hood
12 Jun 2022, 19:56 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Plymouth produced a bunch of really cool cars in the 1960s, but the Savoy isn't usually included on the list. That's mostly due to its polarizing design, but the final-generation version, built from 1962 to 1964, has at least one cool thi...
1959 Chevrolet Apache Burned to the Ground in Camp Fire, Now It's a Slammed Cruiser
12 Jun 2022, 17:35 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Seeing a derelict classic come out of long-term barn storage is the coolest thing if you're into cars with patina and rust. But what I love more about cars like this is that they make awesome rat rods. Nothing says "sleeper" better t...
Filthy Saab 93 Gets First Wash in 51 Years, Morphs Into Beautiful Survivor
12 Jun 2022, 16:03 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Earlier this week I showed you a 1959 Saab 93 that was rescued after a whopping 51 years in a barn. The Swedish classic appeared to be in surprisingly good condition for a car that spent more than a half-century off the road. This first wash video ...
1972 Pontiac LeMans Gets Pulled Out of Collapsing Barn, It's a Numbers-Matching Survivor
11 Jun 2022, 13:20 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1961 as a top-of-the-line version of the Tempest compact, the Pontiac LeMans became a stand-alone nameplate in 1963. In 1964, it was redesigned as an intermediate and began sharing styling cues with the GTO. While the latter was di...
Trio of 1970 Plymouth Superbirds Pops Up for Sale, One's a Numbers-Matching Gem
10 Jun 2022, 20:44 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / The Plymouth Superbird is not quite as rare as the Dodge Charger Daytona, but it's a hard-to-find and expensive collectible nowadays. Finding a well-maintained example for sale is a big deal, right? Well, imagine finding a pack of three Superb...
1959 Chevrolet Brookwood Survivor Comes Out of the Barn, Flexes Factory Paint
10 Jun 2022, 18:23 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When it comes to Chevrolet wagons from the 1950s, everyone seems to have a thing for the Nomad. And that's totally understandable because the Tri-Five Nomad is not only a design icon of the era, but it's also rare and expensive nowadays. ...
Abandoned House in the Woods Has a Yard Full of Old Cars and Trucks
10 Jun 2022, 15:01 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / People don't abandon houses as often as they leave cars behind, but it happens. And when it does, the said properties are usually looted and vandalized. Fortunately, some people like to quietly explore such places to get a closer look at all t...
1959 Saab 93 Spent 51 Years in a Barn, Gets Rescued
10 Jun 2022, 11:28 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / If I had a dollar for every Chevrolet Tri-Five barn find I've seen in 2022, I'd have enough cash to buy a restored Bel Air. With that in mind, here's something a little bit different: a 1959 Saab 93 that spent more than a half-centur...
1960 Chrysler 300F Convertible Took Nine Years to Restore, It's Breathtaking
9 Jun 2022, 14:04 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When it comes to classic high-performance Mopars, we usually remember the Dodges and Plymouths from the 1960s and 1970s. But Chrysler joined the muscle car segment first with the C-300. Launched in 1955 with a V8 rated at 300 horsepower, it was adv...
Family-Owned 1952 Ford F-1 Truck Spent Decades in Hiding, Shows Beautiful Patina
9 Jun 2022, 12:10 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / While there's no shortage of vintage Ford F-Series trucks on the classic car market today, most hot rods and restored haulers are usually of the second- to fifth-generation variety. We rarely see early F-Series trucks get the attention they de...
1957 Chevrolet Nomad Is a Rare Yard Find, Begs To Be Restored
8 Jun 2022, 16:03 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / The Tri-Five was such a popular car that Chevrolet sold almost five million of them from 1955 to 1957. But while the nameplate itself is very common, some versions of the Tri-Five are actually hard to find nowadays. Somewhat surprisingly, two of...
Stunning 1970 Plymouth 'Cuda AAR Comes Out of Storage, Flaunts Rare Color
8 Jun 2022, 14:12 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Built in almost 49,000 units, the 1970 Plymouth Barracuda is not a rare classic. However, if you break that numbers down to certain engines and body styles, you get quite a few hard-to-find gems. The 'Cuda AAR is one of them. The HEMI '...
1967 Chevy Camaro Joins the Dark Side With "Son of a Gun" Paint, Corvette ZR1 Power
8 Jun 2022, 11:13 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Pro touring is a wonderful path to take with your classic car. Restomods are nice too, but if you want a fully modern vehicle in a classic car body, pro touring is the way to go. And this 1967 Chevrolet Camaro is one fine example of what you can do...
1968 Dodge Charger Is a Mysterious Dragster Begging for Restoration
7 Jun 2022, 19:53 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / As much as I love factory-stock muscle cars from the golden era, I'm a sucker for classics that spent years at the drag strip. This 1968 Dodge Charger is one of those cars, and it's in desperate need of a lifeline. Once a glorious quar...
Abandoned Farm Hides a Big Hoard of Classic Cars, Rare Porsches Included
7 Jun 2022, 16:59 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Usually loaded with classic cars from the 1950s and 1960s, junkyards are pretty cool if you're okay with derelict vehicles. But abandoned properties that also include cars are definitely more fun to explore. Because the cars are not in plain s...
The World's Most Expensive Tractor Is 109 Years Old, Worth $1.5 Million
7 Jun 2022, 14:08 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Million-dollar cars are nothing new nowadays. Whether we're talking about state-of-the-art supercars or classic Ferraris and Aston Martins, paying seven-figure sums for automobiles is not as ridiculous as it used to be. But did you know that v...
This 1970 Plymouth HEMI 'Cuda in Plum Crazy Purple Is Classic Mopar Perfection
7 Jun 2022, 11:30 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1964 as a pony car, the Plymouth Barracuda did not develop into a full-blown muscle car until 1970. Sure, the 1967 redesign saw the nameplate get Mopar's high-performance V8 engines, but they didn't become full-time options ...