Nice cars other than x-fire

Bob Bourke had been sketching bullet nosed cars since 1941, inspired by fighter plane engine nacelles, and kept getting turned down because postwar Americans weren't ready to celebrate war machinery yet. By 1950 enough time had passed, and Raymond Loewy's studio put Bourke's idea into production on the Champion Starlight Coupe alongside something equally ambitious, a four part wraparound rear window that wrapped so completely around the C pillars that comedians started asking whether the car was coming or going. The glass wasn't a styling gimmick. It gave rear seat passengers a panoramic view no other American car offered and flooded the cabin with light, but producing that compound curve required tooling and glazing techniques that added meaningful cost to a car Studebaker was trying to sell to economy minded buyers. The L-head 169 cubic inch six made 85 horsepower and returned the kind of fuel economy that won Mobilgas economy runs, which helped justify the price. Studebaker produced 343,164 bullet nose cars across a stretched 14 month 1950 model year, its peak output ever. The window that almost didn't exist turned out to be the thing everyone remembered.
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In 1968, Chrysler showrooms were packed with buyers drooling over the restyled Charger. It looked mean, but options drove the price up fast. Street racers who cared more about winning stoplight drags than looking rich walked right past it.

That was where the Dodge Dart GTS waited.

The Dart had a reputation as a sensible family car, but the GTS package turned it into a real threat. Dodge dropped in their new 340 small block V8, officially rated at 275 horsepower though it revved past 6,000 RPM and made far more. Buyers could even get an optional 383 big block.

Most importantly, the Dart weighed roughly 650 pounds less than a Charger. That weight advantage let it clock low 14 second quarter miles off the showroom floor. Drivers who spent serious money on heavy, glamorous muscle often learned the hard way that curb weight beats status.

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Working out of a modest shop in Arlington, Texas, David Reher, Buddy Morrison, and Lee Shepherd had none of the massive corporate budgets enjoyed by factory backed teams. What they had was an obsession with airflow.

Shepherd was a quiet craftsman who spent endless hours hunched over a workbench, shaping cylinder head ports by hand with a die grinder. Reher and Morrison dialed in the short blocks, coaxing well over 1,000 horsepower out of their naturally aspirated 500 cubic inch big block Chevrolet V8.

At the track, Shepherd drove with ice in his veins. In this 1984 Chevrolet Camaro Pro Stock car, the trio pulled off the unthinkable by sweeping both the NHRA and IHRA world championships in the same season. Giant automakers poured fortunes into engineering labs, but three Texas mechanics proved that sweat, airflow, and relentless testing could humiliate an unlimited corporate budget.

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In 1963, most people buying this plain two door sedan were municipal fleets, taxi companies, or frugal commuters looking for cheap transportation. It had painted steel wheels, tiny dog dish hubcaps, a bench seat, and rubber floor mats where carpeting belonged.

Yet hiding beneath that dull wrapper was the 1963 Plymouth Savoy Max Wedge.

Hardcore racers ordered the bottom trim Savoy for a simple reason. Its rigid pillared roofline made it both the lightest and stiffest body in Plymouth's lineup. Instead of a mild commuter engine, checking the right option code dropped in the race spec 426 Max Wedge V8. With twin carburetors on an exotic cross ram intake, it pushed 425 horsepower straight from the factory.

Only a tiny handful left Detroit in this spartan spec. To unsuspecting drivers at the lights, it looked like an off duty taxi, right up until it launched and vanished

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