Bang For The Buck

Performance cars are hot, and with summer coming you’ll want to get in on the action. Thumbing through the dozens of classified papers you’ve paid $25 for, you finally say to yourself, “There aren’t any clean ’60s musclecars left for under $5,000.” But we have some good news for you. There are plenty of affordable Chevrolet performance candidates that offer outstanding performance potential at bargain prices.

We’re talking about third-gen Camaros (’82-’92), ’78-’87 El Caminos, ’78-’88 A- and G-bodies, ’77-’96 B-body Caprices/Impalas, and ’82-92 S-10 pickups. Depending on condition and age, we’ve seen these machines go for between $500 and $5,000. If you need performance parts for these cars, the aftermarket has all kinds of cool bolt-on items to make them accelerate, handle, and stop at adrenaline-pumping rates.

To give you an idea of what’s out there, we’ve compiled some simple performance blueprints for each car. For the real budget-conscious, self-service wrecking yards are full of donor cars that offer suspension and brake upgrades that often interchange between these cars.

In essence, we’ve assembled a list of cars that you can buy for reasonable prices right now to gain all the performance you long for while still keeping a streetable and smog-legal car. If you do it right, we promise the results will be sizzling.

Check 'em out in the sidebars below.