The 1963 Chevy Impala Z11: The First Factory 10-Second Car
For as long as performance cars have existed, enthusiasts have been obsessed with making them faster. The factory floor rarely prioritized outright speed—that was left to backyard mechanics who wrung every last horsepower from otherwise ordinary machines. This grassroots hunger gave rise to organized racing, because there's really no point in building a faster car if you can't use it to humble the competition. Many of these cars still wore an Oldsmobile or Plymouth badge, but they were stripped of everything that didn't contribute to speed. The moonshiners wanted to see who had the fastest revenue-evading set of wheels, and that eventually became NASCAR. The SoCal hot-rodders settled their disputes on the dry lake beds of the Los Angeles area, which led to the formation of the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) and professional drag racing. In the early years, race cars were basically cobbled together by drivers or teams, but in the early 1960s, Detroit started offering awesome track-ready cars straight from the factory. Even better, these ungodly powerful cars were technically street legal, and one very special Chevrolet managed to rewrite the record books.
