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.
1969 Dodge Super Bee A12 vs. 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Drag Race Is a Photo Finish
22 May 2022, 17:43 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / From all-electric cars to diesel-fed trucks, drag racing includes pretty much every vehicle out there nowadays. But if you're still hooked on more traditional encounters between stock-appearing, classic muscle cars, this duel will definitely t...
World's Most Highly Optioned 1969 Dodge Hemi Daytona Sets Record at Auction
21 May 2022, 15:00 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / In April 2022, we told you about a rare, mint-condition 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona that was set to go under the hammer. Come May and the green-painted winged warrior crossed the block for a whopping $1.32 million, setting a new auction record in th...
Rare, Supercharged Packard Hawk Has Been Sitting for Decades, Begs to Be Saved
20 May 2022, 20:20 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / America's top-selling luxury carmaker before World War 2, Packard, ran into financial problems in the 1950s due to the brutal sales war between Ford and GM. As a result, it joined forces with Studebaker to create America's fourth-largest ...
Massive Junkyard Hidden in the Woods Is Home to 4,000 Classic Cars
20 May 2022, 16:17 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Junkyards are nothing spectacular if you're not into saving derelict cars. They're usually large fields packed with rusty metal and deflated tires. But some junkyards are well hidden in the woods and very few people know about them. Like ...
Meet YachtStang, the World's First Wind-Powered Ford Mustang
20 May 2022, 13:05 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / The Ford Mustang, one of America's most iconic cars, is, by tradition, a gas-fed performance vehicle. That changed in 2020 when Ford used the "Mustang" badge on the all-electric Mach-E, but we've seen classic pony cars being con...
Hemi-Powered Dodge D-50 Is a Compact Ram TRX From the 1980s
19 May 2022, 15:34 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / With both Chevrolet and Ford having introduced small pickup trucks in the early 1970s, Dodge teamed up with Mitsubishi and launched the D-50 for the 1979 model year. Renamed the Ram 50 in 1981, the tiny truck was rather short-lived, being discontin...
The World's Rarest Mercury Comet Is a Lightweight Quarter-Mile Beast
19 May 2022, 13:37 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1960 as the company's take on the Ford Falcon, the Mercury Comet is not a hot classic right. Sure, there are a few high-power models produced while the nameplate was applied to a midsize car (1966-1969), but Comets from the compa...
Five BMW M Cars You Probably Never Heard Of
19 May 2022, 12:12 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Established in 1972 as a racing program, BMW Motorsport GmbH developed into a full-blown division that gave us some of the coolest high-performance vehicles out there. Whether it's the 3.0 CSL and the M1 of the 1970s or the modern M8 and X5...
Supercharged 1964 Studebaker Hawk Hidden for 27 Years Is a Rare, One-of-7 Show Car
18 May 2022, 20:46 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Founded in 1852 as a coachbuilder, Studebaker entered the automotive business in 1902. Following an unsuccessful merger with Packard, Studebaker disappeared in 1966. Before it went under, the South Bend-based company built a few cool supercharged m...
1951 Studebaker Land Cruiser Comes Out of Storage With Original V8, Runs Like a Champ
18 May 2022, 16:06 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Studebaker is mostly known for the Avanti, a luxury coupe that set many records at the Bonneville Salt Flats and was, at the time of its introduction, America's fastest production vehicle. The company's list of iconic models also includes...
1958 Chevrolet Biscayne 8-Door Limo Discovered in Texas, It's Ridiculously Cool
18 May 2022, 12:44 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Retired after three years on the market, the Chevrolet Tri-Five was replaced with a brand-new design in 1958. The full-size lineup included the familiar Delray and Bel Air, but Chevrolet also introduced the Biscayne. On top of that, it launched the...
Abandoned Junkyard Taken Over by Nature Is Packed With Rare Gems
18 May 2022, 10:43 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / A junkyard is a sad place for any car lover. But if you think seeing hundreds of derelict cars in one place is bad, you need to think again. Because while an operating junkyard allows vehicles to be saved, an abandoned one will definitely drive the...
1974 Chevrolet Corvette Getting Its First Wash in Years Is Incredibly Satisfying
17 May 2022, 12:43 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / 1974 wasn't a fantastic year for the Chevrolet Corvette. Hit by the Oil Crisis and government restrictions, the sports car lost the massive power figures it came with in the early 1970s. While the 454-cubic-inch (7.4-liter) big-block was detun...
Rare 1955 Chevrolet Corvette Spent Decades in Hiding, It's a Hot-Rodded Survivor
17 May 2022, 11:37 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / With about 69,000 units delivered, the first-generation Chevrolet Corvette was quite popular, but the sports car was off to a slow start. Chevy sold only 300 examples in 1953 and while sales increased to 3,640 cars in 1955, they dropped to only 700...
Meet Hoonipigasus, Ken Block's 1,400-HP Porsche 911 Pikes Peak Monster
17 May 2022, 09:10 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Remember that time Ken Block drove his insane 1965 Ford Mustang Hoonicorn V2 up the Pikes Peak mountain? Yup, I'm talking about his 2017 "Climbkhana" video. Well, you'd better buckle up because Block is returning to Pikes Peak a...
1964 Studebaker Daytona Spent 49 Years in a Barn, Emerges With Numbers-Matching V8
16 May 2022, 20:09 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Cars that have spent several years in barns usually return into the light showing serious damage due to rust. But from time to time, we stumble upon forgotten classics that emerge out of storage in surprisingly good condition. This 1964 Studebaker ...
2023 Dodge Hornet Rendering Slaps Durango Face on the Alfa Romeo Tonale
16 May 2022, 13:19 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Confirmed to break cover in August 2022, the 2023 Dodge Hornet was recently spotted testing on public roads. And even though it's completely wrapped in camo, the upcoming crossover can't hide its Alfa Romeo Tonale DNA. This new rendering ...
1971 Ford Mustang Boss 351 That Spent 46 Years in a Barn Is a Rat-Infested Survivor
16 May 2022, 11:30 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Seeing old cars coming out of long-term storage is a beautiful thing, but sometimes the classic in question is nothing more than a pile of rust. Fortunately, this 1971 Ford Mustang is not one of those cars. Even though it spent almost five decades ...
1968 Mercury Cougar GT-E Drag Races 1970 Cyclone, Someone Makes a Fabulous Comeback
16 May 2022, 09:24 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When it comes to drag races between classic muscle cars, we see a lot of iconic vehicles hitting the drag strip nowadays. But we rarely see Mercury models going against each other. Well, here's one of those rare encounters that bring together ...
Unofficial 2022 Dodge Ramcharger Is a TRX Monster, Out for Bronco Blood
15 May 2022, 16:51 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / It's 2022, and two of America's most iconic SUVs, the Ford Bronco and the Chevrolet Blazer, are back in showrooms. Granted, while the modern Bronco is an accurate tribute to Ford's no-nonsense SUV, the Blazer is a watered-down crosso...