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.
1949 Pontiac Streamliner Ambulance Wants To Be a Hot Rod, Needs a Heart Transplant
3 May 2022, 20:54 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Created to help save lives, ambulances are usually abandoned or scrapped once they're decommissioned. An ironic fate if you think about it, but that's how the cookie crumbles when it comes to old commercial vehicles. This 1949 Pontiac had...
Kansas Junkyard Is a Big Pile of Mangled Classic Cars, Rare Gems Included
3 May 2022, 15:40 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Junkyards are usually packed with common vehicles that no one will miss. Sure, it's sad to see rows and rows of old Chevys and Ford rotting away, but it doesn't make financial sense to restore a classic that's not worth all that much...
1969 Ford COE Truck Looks Like a Barn Find, Hides Turbo Diesel Surprise Under the Cab
2 May 2022, 20:35 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Built from 1963 to 1990, the C-Series is arguably one of Ford's most iconic trucks. However, it's not as desirable as the F-Series haulers from the era, so most of them are spending their retirement years rotting away in backyards. This 1...
1958 Chevrolet Impala Is a Museum Piece, Flaunts 348 Tri-Power and Continental Kit
2 May 2022, 15:06 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1958 as a range-topping version of the Bel Air, the Impala quickly became one of Chevrolet's most popular vehicles. And the nameplate sold like hotcakes until the late 1970s. The Impala is far from rare regardless of generatio...
Rare 1971 Dodge Super Bee Spent 34 Years in a Barn, Gets Saved
2 May 2022, 13:36 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / One of Dodge's shortest-lived nameplates from the golden muscle car era, the Super Bee was offered for only four model years. And while it debuted as a low-priced muscle car based on the Coronet, it was retired as an entry-level variant of the...
1964 Buick Electra Hits the Drag Strip, Bravely Takes On Turbocharged Ford Mustang
2 May 2022, 11:10 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1959 as a full-size luxury model, the Electra remained in production until 1990. It was retired as one of Buick's most iconic nameplates and the early generations are now coveted classics. While it's nowhere near as fancy...
1961 Pontiac Catalina Super Duty Drag Races 1973 Firebird, You Won't Guess Who Won
1 May 2022, 20:36 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Pontiac has been gone for 12 years as of 2022, but we will always remember the great muscle cars it built back in the day. If you love both the Catalina and the Firebird, this drag race is a dramatic face-off between performance cars built more tha...
1954 Packard Panther: The One-Piece Fiberglass Concept Car You Never Knew Existed
30 Apr 2022, 13:00 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Founded in 1899, Packard quickly became one of America's leading luxury car manufacturers. The company survived the Great Depression and emerged out of World War II in excellent financial condition, but things went downhill in the 1950s. Fa...
Big Barns Open Up to Reveal Dusty and Amazing Rolls-Royce, Buick Collection
29 Apr 2022, 15:54 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / What do Buicks and Rolls-Royces have in common? Well, "four wheels" seems to be the right answer, because these brands produce notably different vehicles. But this doesn't mean you can't like both. And if you do, you're not...
2003 Ford Thunderbird James Bond Edition With 268 Miles Is an Absolute Time Capsule
29 Apr 2022, 13:27 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Introduced in 1955 as a personal luxury car, the Ford Thunderbird remained in continuous production until 1997, when it was discontinued after no fewer than 10 generations. The nameplate returned in 2002, but it was sent into the history books agai...
1958 Buick Limited Is a Perfect One-Year Wonder, Also Pretty in Pink
28 Apr 2022, 21:13 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Buick built quite a few iconic nameplates over the decades, but the Limited isn't one of them. And that's because it was only offered for the 1958 model year. It was, however, one of the company's most luxurious automobiles. Buic...
The Story of the Studebaker Super Lark, America's First Compact Muscle Car
28 Apr 2022, 14:41 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Founded in 1852 as a manufacturer of wagons, carriages, and harnesses, Studebaker entered the automotive business in 1902. The company designed a host of now-iconic automobiles until it went into the history books in 1967, but few enthusiasts remem...
This Massive, 110-Year-Old Pioneer Tractor Is Worth $500,000
28 Apr 2022, 09:32 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When we talk about vehicles worth half a million dollars, we usually think about supercars and luxury rigs of the Rolls-Royce variety. But vintage agricultural equipment can also cost $500K. This Pioneer tractor that's more than 100 years old ...
1965 Dodge Dart Gets First Wash in 30 Years, Reveals Cool Patina
27 Apr 2022, 16:04 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Seeing old cars come out of storage after a long time is one of the most satisfying car-related things out there. But seeing the same vehicle get its first cleaning is just as entertaining. Because it slowly reveals what's hiding under decades...
All-Electric VW Golf MK1 Was Left to Rot in Woods, Comes Back to Life After 25 Years
27 Apr 2022, 13:36 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Most abandoned cars spend their retirement years in junkyards, but you'll also find quite a few of them in barns and backyards. And all these vehicles have one thing in common: they're powered by internal combustion engines. Well, this ya...
1965 Chevrolet C10 Gasser Is a Cool Tribute to the 1960s, Packs 1,000 Horsepower
27 Apr 2022, 10:59 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / When it comes to classic pickup trucks, there's no shortage of hot rods and restomods. But the owner of this 1965 Chevrolet C10 took things up a notch by turning his hauler into a... wait for it... gasser. Yup, this thing is a full-blown tr...
Lincoln Continental Bill Blass Edition Was the Pinnacle of American Luxury, Now a Bargain
26 Apr 2022, 19:29 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Discontinued in 2020, the tenth-generation Lincoln Continental was a rather disappointing iteration of the company's flagship nameplate. And according to many, so was every Continental offered since 1980. But there were times when Lincoln'...
Abandoned Forest Junkyard Is a Classic Car Ghost Town Packed With Rare Gems
26 Apr 2022, 14:57 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / The junkyard is the place to go if you need spare parts for classic cars or even a project to restore. But that works if the scrapyard in question is still running. The one you're about to see below has been abandoned years ago, and it's ...
Get Up Close and Personal With Colin McRae's First-Ever, Forgotten Rally Car
26 Apr 2022, 09:59 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Regarded as one of the most legendary rally drivers out there, Colin McRae is usually associated with the Subaru Impreza and Ford Focus. Because these are the cars he drove during his most successful seasons in the World Rally Championship. Fans...
1965 Shelby 427 Competition Cobra Is One of Only 23 Built, Selling at No Reserve
25 Apr 2022, 19:00 UTC · By: Ciprian Florea / Built from 1962 to 1967, the iconic Shelby Cobra was rather short-lived. But this didn't stop Carroll Shelby from rolling out a long list of iterations of the sports car. From the early cars powered by the 260-cubic-inch (4.3-liter) V8 so t...