It really doesn’t matter what stories we like, because it ultimately comes down to our readers and subscribers – and you are what makes us successful. We hear about it if you don’t like it, and get to share banter with our readers when they do like something, too. We appreciate all feedback and welcome comments below articles, or even just a simple click on the Like button.

We also share many of these stories with our Facebook fan page (which is where many of our readers come from) and encourage that same banter there – including pictures and ideas for other articles that our readers would like to see.

2014 was a pretty good year for us, and while the end of the year brought us a lot of new products from both SEMA and PRI, there were some meaty stories that grew legs and got shared all over Facebook, forums, and email. We would like to take you back to those stories that got the most attention, our Top 10 articles from 2014.

Number Ten: 2015 Dodge Stealth

What started out as an April Fool’s Day joke in 2013 is still making the rounds, and we’ve even found some of our Photoshopped pictures on other sites for downloading wallpaper images to your computer. Sharp viewers immediately noticed the old Dodge (Ram) logo on the front and the new DODGE// logo on the back, and knew immediately that we were pulling a fast one.

The irony of this article was that the car featured was a concept car from future parent company Fiat from 2012, and it just seemed like the perfect vehicle to use for a joke on April 1st. Even though the story lets on that it’s just a joke, there were still some who took the idea seriously and asked, “why not?”. Now that we think about it, who wouldn’t want to see a new Dodge Stealth?

Number Nine: 2014 Chevrolet Chevelle

Another phony car that had people both excited and riled up was our story about the possibility of a revamped 2014 Chevelle. We ran the article in early 2014 and used a photo from 2014Chevelle.com, but we had some concerns about the overall concept when we first looked at it.

Chevy fans were believably excited to see that front end on a two-door car that sported rear wheel drive instead of FWD while using a classic nameplate. But if Chevrolet fans weren’t quick to detect something fishy, our Mopar fans were hot on the button to leave us a comment asking why the concept for a possible Chevelle return was done on a Dodge Challenger platform. Whoever came up with this concept didn’t do their homework!

Number Eight: 707 Horsepower As A Daily Driver

While the new Challenger SRT Hellcat has nothing on the cars of Drag Week, we were able to find out that it is far more drivable than any of those 6-7-second race cars. We took on the Hellcat Challenger not to see how fast we could go, but to see if we would actually like driving it for a week and filling up the gas tank every other day.

The Hellcat Challenger returned some pretty impressive figures on a round trip to another town and back, and even though we kept it easy on that trip it didn’t stop us from having a little fun with the locals. Of course, we did do a couple of burnouts with the car. How can you not do a burnout when you have over 700 horsepower under your right foot? It’s impossible, and we didn’t even fight the urge. Well, not until the third tank of gas, that is.

Number Seven: 1969 Torino 428 Barn Find

Barn finds seem to be the crown jewel of the discovery phase when it comes to classics. Sure, we love it when we find a classic in a wrecking yard and we needed that fender emblem, or a part from the interior. But when you come across a complete car that’s been tucked away in a barn for a while? That’s like pure gold to the gearhead, especially when it’s a musclecar.

We’ve seen some great finds over the decades, like the last of the six Shelby Daytonas that was found in a shed in California with a pile of junk on top of it. This Torino is no $6 million car, but to some people it’s priceless. The car’s owner may not have felt so after the car’s 23rd year in the barn – they put it up for sale on eBay.

Number Six: Chrysler 300 Converted Into A Charger

This car combined the modern mechanicals of the 2006 Chrysler 300 SRT8 with the classic lines of the second generation Dodge Charger. People simply fell in love with this car, and so did we. It was a great tribute to old school Mopar with modern power and was 100 percent badass.

• 
• 

But this car seemed to create almost as much conflict as it did admiration. When we did some research on the build, we saw that it had used Charger parts from 1968, 1969, and 1970, we simply split the difference and called it a 1969 Charger. That irritated some people, who told us it was a 1968 because of the tail lamps and round marker lamps. But then others said it was a 1970 because of the grille (painted chrome surround). There are no winners in this one, except the lucky guy who owns it.

Number Five: Dad Gives Kid His First Donut, Goes To Jail

This was one of those stories where you look at it on the surface and think, “Man, that kid sure has a cool dad.” Then you take a closer look and realize, “Man, that guy wasn’t thinking.” Sure, you build a musclecar and take your teenage son out for a couple of spins around a local empty parking lot – what’s the harm in that, right?

Well, the harm in that is that Dad didn’t do his research first and check out his surroundings – the first thing you do before you become a hoonigan. You see, the big empty parking lot that he chose for the donuts was adjacent to the local Town Hall, and was also used by the Wayne County Sheriff’s sub-station. We know cops love donuts, but these donuts came with a pair of handcuffs, and Dad went to jail.

Number Four: One Of The Coolest Graveyards You Have Ever Seen

When you think about graveyards, it can bring all sorts of thoughts to mind: kids partying, ghosts roaming about, or used up NASCAR entries. Yeppirs, NASCAR. Because this entry was all about cars that graced the paved oval for a few seasons and then ended up in the back woods of Dale Earnhardt, Junior’s, property.

It seems that Junior is pretty fond of past racecars, and rather than sending them to a scrapyard where they can be torn apart and sold for parts, he has his own secret graveyard for old wrecks that didn’t get to finish their race. Imagine taking a walk through the woods and coming across Brad Keselowski’s #88 Chevrolet? Of course, you’d probably have other things to worry about because you’d be on Junior’s property: Dirty Mo Acres.

Number Three: Drunks Put A Camaro In A Ditch, Cops Don’t Care

Most of us have justifiable reason to dislike drunk drivers, and whenever we hear a story of a drunk driver that caused an accident the veins pulsate and the blood boils. If that accident included a musclecar, it’s gets the oil pumping on gearheads the world over and the ensuing comments reflect that.

But then we came across this story of a drunk that put his own fifth-gen Camaro into a ditch and the police were called to the scene. According to reports, nobody was hurt and the cops felt that there was too much paperwork to write up, so they left without citing the driver. If you were the drunk, you’d probably think that was the coolest cop in the world. The rest of us? Not so much. But reactions were mixed, we noticed.

Number Two: Driver Dies After Crashing ’70 Cuda Into Telephone Pole

The driver of the Camaro above was drunk, but the driver of this 1970 ‘Cuda was simply being reckless, and he paid for it with his life. We don’t know too much more about this accident other than the basic details: 1970 Hemi Cuda, telephone pole, speeding, and loss of life.

• 
• 
• 

What we were able to find out was that the driver had apparently run his Hemi ‘Cuda out of fuel so he called a couple family members who brought him some fuel. Reports had said that he was seen putting gas in the tank and then he took off like a bat out of hell. Sadly, after getting not much further down the road and in front of family, he lost control and struck the telephone pole at a high rate of speed, splitting the car into several pieces with the engine resting about 100 feet away, killing the driver.

Number One: Man Crashes His Hellcat Challenger One Hour After He Bought It

The top story for 2014 took on a couple of different milestones on top of being the number one story for the year. Not only was this possibly the first privately-owned Hellcat Challenger to be totaled, but we broke this story just a few hours after it happened. Within just a few days it became our top story for the year, and within a couple of weeks it became the #1 article in SLTV’s history.

Of course, we couldn’t have reached these milestones without you, our readers, as a couple of our readers helped us out by sending us photos of the crash scene and the impound yard where the car was being stored. We even got some video of the car at the yard, and a Googlemap of the exact spot where the accident occurred.

So how did this guy end up crashing, and possibly totaling, his brand spanking new 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat? We already know that it’s the most powerful musclecar to ever come out of an assembly line.

That little fact seemed to slip away from the driver. Much like the car seemed to slip away from the road and with the help of a little over-correction it crossed the center line and crashed smack dab into a tree, pushing the front end in several inches.

We haven’t heard back on whether the car is going to the scrap heap or if it can be repaired with his old man’s “ultimate set of tools”. But rest assured, there is always someone who makes it to number one, and this car owner did it with SRT and with us, and for that we thank you all. What were some of your favorite stories last year? Tell us below in the comments section.