The Middle East has officially obtained its first American Muscle cop-car, a Chevrolet Camaro SS. Buti Saeed Al Ghandi, Managing Director of Al Ghandi Auto and John Stadwick, President and Managing Director of GM Middle East, handed the keys of the Camaro SS to Dubai Deputy Police Chief Major General Khamis Mattar Al Mazeina. In return John Stadwick received a special engraved plaque from Dubai Police.

When your father builds the kind of quality hot rods you see in the following pages, how could you not get back into it? That was what we wondered with a slight smile on our face as we cruised down the boulevard toward the Pacific in Rob Saltarelli's '65 Chevelle Malibu SS. As a young man growing up in Huntington Beach, California, Rob admits to being preoccupied with life while his father churned out some killer rides in the last eight years, but after inheriting his dad's last great projects after he died in 2011, Rob seems to have caught the bug. You know the one that makes you swap water pumps the night before to make a photo shoot even though you have to "customize" it; the same bug that makes burning a tanker of SoCal winter blend trying to find the ideal shoot location no big deal.

Adrian Mancilla wasn't always into cars. The money he earned from his childhood paper route was destined for a dirt bike, but thanks to the wisdom of his older brothers, he bought a car. It was an all-original, one-owner '67 Nova SS, a big purchase for a 13-year-old. His brothers told him if he started working on it now, he would have the fastest car in high school. He had big ideas that involved a lot of cutting and welding but couldn't justify chopping up a numbers -matching SS. Smart kid. He sold that Nova but never got it out of his system.

Bob Littlefield's workday doesn't follow the typical 9 to 5 schedule. Bob takes advantage of Rhode Island's summer peak tourism season with two businesses. He runs a parasailing business as well as a car rental service on Block Island. These jobs keep him busy up to four months of the year, but Bob can't waste the rest of the year.

Todd Geisler is a fabricator by trade and at any other time is a racer because it feeds an addiction, pure and simple. The process invigorates him and makes him feel whole. While the racing part is good, that he has the skills and the forethought to create his own stuff from nothing is even better. It would stand that such circumstance would naturally deflate the cost of the project, wouldn't it? When asked the estimated cost of building his car his answer was succinct: "Too much!"

Big-Block Brawler

Budget Big-Blocks

’71 Chevelle & ’69 Corvette

Dwain Steppig

Smithton, Illinois

Built to last

’68 Chevelle

Ed Duffy

North Huntingdon, Pennsylvania

Cars don’t get much cleaner than Tim Lee’s Ermine White ’62 Bel Air. As a blood-born gearhead who runs Don Lee Auto Service in Rancho Cucamonga, California, Tim is no stranger to cool, fast rides, and although his latest build is not fast, it certainly is cool.

The thing about Gordon McGilton’s cars is that they don’t just pop out of the toaster all crisp and buttery. He’s had scores of them that were built years ago, and it seems that there’s always another one being crafted in the meanwhile. Though he lives in North Carolina now, all of his cars are not stored there and may be rotated in or out for a fresh approach in a new location. Though he’ll tell you he’s retired, Gordon travels a lot under the aegis of his company Jet-Hot Coatings and likes nothing better than reevaluating his own iron from time to time than to rent a stocker. For obvious reasons, California is a constant destination.

It is a fact: Today’s youth are nothing like older generations. They don’t work as hard, they don’t appreciate the finer things in the muscle car life, and they are more about computer speed versus real speed. But, wait a minute, there is an exception to the norm, a hope that all of today’s youth are not lost and misguided. The proof is in Blake Catalanotto, a 23-year-old recent college graduate who built a ’67 Camaro RS/SS not because it was a hand-me-down from his dad, but because it is the car of his dreams. It wasn’t a gift nor did a professional shop, using his dad’s credit card, build it. It is a first-gen Camaro constructed in the comfort of his garage using greenbacks that he earned mowing lawns in neighborhoods across his hometown of Metairie, Louisiana, which lies just outside the city limits of New Orleans. Blake is the next generation of hot rodders, and a ray of hope for the future of this hobby and sport.

Mighty Fine

’70 Chevelle

Tom Arriola

Cypress, Texas

Humberto Chavira
El Paso, Texas

Gene Hynes
Albuquerque, New Mexico

Lynne Mullins
Battle Ground, Washington

Carmen Rizzo
Pittston, Pennsylvania

Mark Silvia
Taunton, Massachusetts

When we first saw the Monroes’ ’55 sitting at A&E Motorsports in Santa Fe Springs, California, we were quick to snap shots of it. Few Tri-Five hot rods get the treatment this specimen received in just 18 months. That is, one where every nut and bolt was replaced with stainless steel and Grade 8 hardware, the frame was powdercoated, and many small details were added to make this car a stylish one. As a gift for his wife’s birthday, Bruce Monroe built this showstopper with the help from expert fabricator and friend Joe Walden, his brother Jeff, and Brandon Matrese. There’s no doubt this shoebox is a top-tier show car, but what’s cool is this car actually gets driven, despite being terribly clean inside and out. Forty years of experience building hot cars and fast boats out of Larry’s Garage in SoCal, Bruce is known for putting together some nice rides and adept car magazine readers may recognize his work, as he’s worked on several magazine projects over the years, including the CHP second-gen, F73 Camaro.

Detroit Speed didn’t invent Pro Touring, but its handlers certainly forced its evolution. As formally trained engineers with career OEM-level design experience, Kyle and Stacy Tucker brought to bear a level of quality on the industry.

Buddy Austin
Memphis, Tennessee

Gordon McGilton hails from an era that is long past but remembered like thunder. The penultimate challenge in those days was prowess at the dragstrip—or from stoplight to stoplight, no matter. The modern adaptations of Pro Touring, Pro Street, Pro Touring Street, and all the rest of it, weren’t even kernels of an idea. No, the abiding dream, feeling, what have you, was perhaps simply a sense of patriotism.

Mike McDonald waited until he turned 68 years old to build his first muscle car. Sure, he had some hot cars along the way, including a ’67 Corvette Sting Ray and some street rods here and there, but the demands of working as a major player in the textile trade didn’t leave him much time to build a car from scratch. Upon retiring five years ago, he wasted no time doing what he always wanted to do: build a hot rod. And my, oh my, what a whale of a first effort it is, a crimson red ’70 Chevelle packing big-block heat and cutting-edge Pro Touring underpinnings.

You could say heads-up racer Eric Gustafson came from nowhere when he entered his supercharged ’69 Camaro in the Street Car Super Nationals VII in Las Vegas for the first time last year. Despite being untested on the Outlaw 8.5 class-mandated 26x8.5 slicks, Eric proceeded to qualify Second in this eighth-mile category with a 5.41 (mid 8s in the quarter-mile), get to the final round with some admitted luck, and take down the number-one qualifier with a superb 0.023 reaction. No one saw it coming, and since it’s not too often a heads-up rookie drops jaws like that, many fans thought it to be a fluke. “We had only tested the car on 28x10.5 slicks before,” Eric says, “so we didn’t know what to expect in Vegas. We wanted to win, of course; we just didn’t think we would with our limited data.”

Bryan Goff pulls his freshly painted ’65 Chevelle into his favorite Petaluma, California, gas station to fill up for the evening’s cruise. He is approached by a man his father’s age with kind but envious eyes. The man says, “I had a car just like that, bought it new right off the showroom floor.” Bryan smiles, as he already knows the second half of this story. “I sold it for nothing long ago and wish I still had it,” he continued. We’ve all heard it before; had to it sell for college, a house, improvements, or a kid. Now when we see the new models come out, we don’t buy them thinking they will increase in value and it was no different in the ’60s and ’70s. Bryan’s generation was the first to see these muscle cars as an investment from the start. It wasn’t until it was too late that the baby boomers saw what was happening with these now classic cars. Bryan took this sentiment to heart and even his friends tease that he would probably be buried in his car. “That would be an insult to the car,” Bryan said jokingly.

“Going straight no longer got my blood going. Eventually, I got tired of just going fast in a straight line and not being able to stop on a dime or take a turn. I wanted an old hot rod that was fast and handled well,” Jon Steinberg decried from his Santa Monica, California, digs.