Mon, Aug 03, 2009

Sitting at a red light on Riverside Drive, he revs his engine. He looks to his right, checking out the    competition. He smiles. The minivan sitting alongside is no threat to his hot little muscle car--a Nugget Gold 1970 Olds Cutlass W-31 with black hood scoops and racing stripes and a 325 horsepower engine that screams. And the driver, Bill Baggett, isn't about to drag race down this straight stretch of Riverside Drive in Clarksville, Tennessee along the Cumberland River. A father of two, Baggett will celebrate his 37th wedding anniversary in August.

By a beautiful gift of fate, Baggett, at age 61, has the opportunity to revisit the days of his youth in the

same car he cherished in his prime.  On April 10, 1970, Baggett, then a 21-year-old university student, ordered the Olds Cutlass brand new from the factory through Jack Saunders Motor Co. in Clarksville.  

By the time he added almost every available option, including a W-31 engine with fiberglass hood, M-21 Muncie close-ratio 4-speed transmission with a Hurst competition-plus shifter, heavy-duty cooling system, FE2 sport suspension, factory 8-track tape deck, 3.91 positive-traction rear axle, sport steering wheel ,and Rocket Rallye Pac, the bill came to $4,400. Baggett traded in a used 1968 Oldsmobile Cutlass HT on the new Holiday Coupe, and added to that money he had saved from working in hay and tobacco fields the previous two summers.  "I loved the car because of the rarity of it," Baggett said about his first brand-new car.  "You never saw them anywhere in this area”.  This was the only one of its kind sold in Clarksville in 1970.”  In fact, Oldsmobile made only 1,029 of the limited production vehicles nation-wide, and according to Barrett-Jackson Auctions, Inc., only 74 are now still known to exist in the entire United States.

Brenda Baggett, Bill's wife, acknowledges that the flashy gold sports car may have been part of the attraction when she first spotted Bill at the drive-up outside Shoney's Restaurant on North Second Street, 39 years ago. "The first time I ever saw him, there were several of us college girls cruising McDonald's and Shoney's", she said. "He was in his car with a bunch of guys”.  Brenda said the car was "snazzy," but she wasn't all that impressed with Bill or any of his buddies at first.  She fell for Bill gradually because "he just kept pursuing," she said.  The couple dated in college, married, and honeymooned in Bill's hot rod.  Bill even claims it was the bumping and jumping of his car, along with the popping of the clutch, that finally brought about the birth of their first child, Tracye, in 1976.  Tracye, who will turn 33 on Nov. 14 of this year, was two weeks late in making an appearance, and Bill thought a rough ride in the Olds might help to speed things along.

His ploy worked, but it was Tracye's appearance that eventually led to the sporty car's disappearance.  "It got really difficult, trying to put a pacifier in her mouth, or hand her a toy to play with," Brenda said. The Baggetts got a lot of use out of the car, with Bill driving it on weekends and Brenda driving it to work daily as a physical education teacher in Cheatham County, Tennessee.  Her older students, eighth-grade boys in particular, looked at her car with yearning. They had a favorite joke: "Mrs. Baggett, Mrs. Baggett, I need to borrow your car keys!" They never gave up hope that just once, she might say “OK”.

Despite the car's numerous attractions, the Baggetts knew it didn't fit well with the demands of young children. "As the family began to grow, we reluctantly sold it for peanuts to some friends," Bill said. He waved good-bye to the car in 1981, and never expected to see it again. Twenty years later, he and the Olds, now better than new after the restoration, were reunited.

In 2001, Bill joined The Memory Lane Cruisers, a classic car club in Clarksville. "I had to drool over all       these guys' cars," Bill said.  At that point, he had only memories of his own classic beauty, and he had no idea just how beautiful his car had become.   Baggett's car had gone from hand to hand and drag strip to drag strip, until it arrived at Richard Kitzmiller's restoration shop in Prarie Village, Kansas. 

Kitzmiller did a total body-off-frame restoration of the car, using all exact replacement materials and parts.  He added a rear spoiler, which may be the only optional feature available besides air conditioning, which Bill didn't order on the car in 1970.  Bill had been meticulous in keeping records on the car, and those records went along with the vehicle from one owner to another.  Jim Lorance of Independence, Missouri, who eventually bought the car from Kitzmiller, found the car's original invoice in the glove box with Bill's name on it.  He called information, got Bill's telephone number, and gave him a call.  "I'm coming to Cool Springs Galleria in Nashville, for a car show if you want to see your old car again," Lorance told him.  Bill was floored. He arranged to go to the show in Nashville, where he got to see the Olds for the first time in 20 years, and he was thrilled beyond comparison.  He immediately started cooking up plans to get it back, and let it be known to Mr. Lorance that he'd like first chance if it were ever offered for sale again. He waited a while to approach the topic with his wife Brenda.  When he did, the results were less than favorable.  "I thought he needed his head examined," she said. "We had one child who had just finished college, and another turning 16 who wanted a car of his own."

Eventually, Bill got the chance in August, 2001 to buy back the car and grabbed it without Brenda's complete endorsement of the plan. What he once sold for peanuts had become a meticulously-restored treasure, and under the great care of Jim Lorance, had become a first-place winner in the Oldsmobile Club of America's  National Meet in Denver, Colorado in July of 2001. Classic cars are an expensive hobby. Shortly after he bought the car for the second time, Bill experienced another illustration of that fact. He paid $145 to replace the set of four floor mats that, on his original window sticker, had cost $14.53. "He did what he wanted to do and I got over it," Brenda said. "They're just little boys with more expensive toys."

Ever the family man, Bill also managed to hook up his son Josh, a senior at Clarksville High School, with a stylish 1995 Camaro in the perfect shade: CHS purple. Three decades from now, Josh may get the chance to search for and find his Camaro with the same kind of glee with which Bill welcomed his Olds W-31 back home.  Josh, now 22, is campaigning to drive Dad's hot rod, which some day will be his.  Bill has let him drive it once or twice, but considering the care he invests in his 39-year old prize, Josh shouldn't bet on driving it much until he gets a little older.  When questioned about taking the car out in bad weather, Bill said "I watch for the mud puddles and I watch  the sky. I try to get weather forecasts in advance." He's been so successful at this that he hasn't had to wash the car a single time in the eight years he has had it back.  He keeps it in a heated and cooled garage, and uses a soft yarn California Duster to keep its shiny surface looking new. "He was a car fanatic back when we were dating, but not like he is now," Brenda said. "He's very appreciative of it."

Bill's appreciation goes beyond simply caring for the car's flawless interior and "Nugget Gold" paint job. He says he and the other guys in The Memory Lane Cruisers, a local Clarksville car club, get the opportunity to recapture the days of their youth by owning and driving classic cars. But few have Bill's ideal situation. The car he enters in shows and takes to club cruise-ins each Saturday afternoon at Wendy's in Clarksville, is the very same one in which  he met his wife, wooed her, married her, honeymooned and took his first child home from the hospital.  There may have been a little post-marriage engine revving at red lights, too. "Most guys sit around and moan and groan and say,  "I wish I had the car I had back when I was 19 or 20 years old," Bill said.  “I consider myself lucky because I had that opportunity and got mine back. Chances like this only come around once in a lifetime". 

By M.Dee Dubroff   Mon, Jul 27, 2009

What on earth happened here? Perhaps, giving the driver the supreme benefit of the doubt, there was a garage where the pool now stands? Or maybe it really is car pool related and represents an area mis-marked as a high occupancy vehicle lane (HOV)?  Originally reserved for vehicles with a driver and one or more passengers and also known as car pool, express and transit lanes, HOV lanes since their inception have mostly been on the road. In some areas, such as Southern California, Hartford, Connecticut, Seattle Area, Boston Area and the Greater Toronto Area, the HOV lanes are full-time, while in others, such as the San Francisco Bay Area, Phoenix, Long Island, and Northern New Jersey, they are usable by other vehicles outside of peak hours.

HOV car pool lanes are rarely found elsewhere. Perhaps this is a very wet exception to the rule?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-occupancy_vehicle_lane

Image: roxaneswift.blogspot.com

By Samuel M. Smith   Tue, Sep 22, 2009

Excitement mounts as the cars line up on the hard packed sand race track at Daytona Beach awaiting the starting flag. Who will win this year? Will it be a Ford or a Dodge, a Chrysler, Maybe a Chevy or one of those funny looking Hudson Hornets? Last February, Marshall Teague won the race in one of those Hudsons!

The year is 1952 and the independent auto manufacturer, Hudson, has not only pioneered the low-profile step-down family automobile, the Hornet, but is backing race drivers like Marshall Teague in preparing their cars for NASCAR stock car racing. And they are winning races, although the 1948 design flat-head "Super Six" engine is not the most powerful in the race, the car has the advantage of low wind resistance due to the low profile design of the cars with the resulting lower center of gravity. All that gives the drivers an edge in maintaining speed on curves and manuverabiliity. All of which was why many "in the know" spectators betted on the Hudson to win again this year. And again, Marshall Teague came through for them with another easy win.

Realizing the significance of their showroom stock cars performing well in races will have in terms of sales, the Big Three auto makers quickly jumped on the bandwagon and began sponsoring their own stock cars and drivers.  Anything they could do to make their showroom stock cars perform better without violating the strict NASCAR rules, they did.

Chrysler also debuted its new and super powerful 180hp HEMI® engine based on engines they had built for aircraft during World War II, but soon the power of that engine drew the ire of other race car owners and drivers and strict limits were placed on the HEMI®. Even so, the HEMI became the premier racing engine for the next decade, at first in Chrysler 300 models, then in the Dodge Challenger lineup with which Lee and his son Richard Petty became top racing stars in race after race. The HEMI was also sought after for Indy racing, but was declared "too powerful" and was quickly ruled out for Indy cars.

Most people watching that February 1952 Daytona Beach street and beach race did not know the unique position the Hudson would have in the history of not only auto racing, but in automobile manufacturing in general.  In retrospective, today, we can look back and see what an impact the Hudson Car Company had on the auto you and I drive today.

Pioneering achievements of the Hudson included the Uni-body welded construction which had no separate frame and bodywork, making possible a lower weight than regular frame and body cars and, by locating the floor pan on the bottom of the main frame component, made a very low center of gravity  — lowest of any U. S. standard production car , all of which gave race drivers a strong handling advantage in spite of having a relatively outdated flathead six cylinder engine. Its sleek styling also gave it aerodynamic advantages that served race drivers well while at the same time providing visual appeal to family car buyers. Of course the fact that Marshall Teague won both the 39 lap 1951 and 1952 races in Daytona helped sell cars also. The rear-opening front hinged hood was another Hudson innovation, as were built-in ash trays, automatic stop lights, sealed beam headlights, windshield wipers, foam seat cushions, rear seat arm rests in sedans, courtesy lights in the doorstep, gold-etched lettering on the dashboard and of course, the step-down created by the low placement of the floor. Today, we have become accustomed to most of these features without realizing it was the Hudson Hornet that first introduced them.  

A few of the other drivers who raced or won multiple titles in Hudson Hornets at various tracks were Herbert Thomas, Walt Chapman, Dick Rathmann and the brothers Tim  and Fonty Flock. Several other drivers won single races to help build the impressive 80 win record for the Fabulous Hudson Hornet. And at the lead was Herb Thomas, who set some sort of record by winning a total of forty (40) of the eighty (80) races won by Hudson Hornets from February 10 of 1951 through February 6 of 1955, after switching from driving a much more powerful Chrysler! +

Winning With Hudson Hornet!

Race    Winning Driver          Track                                                  Date

1952

1          Tim Flock Palm          Beach Spdwy                                    01/20

2          Marshall Teague         Daytona Beach                                  02/10

3          Marshall Teague         Speedway Park                                 03/06

4          Herb Thomas              N. Wilkesboro                                  03/30

5          Dick Rathmann           Martinsville                                        04/06

6          Buck Baker                Columbia Spdwy                               04/12

8          Herb Thomas              Central City                                      04/27

9          Dick Rathmann           Langhorne                                         05/04

10        Dick Rathmann           Darlington Spdw                               05/10

11        Dick Rathmann           Dayton Spdwy                                  05/18

12        Herb Thomas              Canfield Fairgrnds                             05/30

18        Buddy Shuman           Stamford Park                                   07/01

19        Tim Flock                   Shangri-La Spdwy                            07/04

20        Tim Flock                   Monroe Speedway                           07/06

22        Tim Flock                   PlaylndParkSpdwy                           07/20

23        Tim Flock                   MonroeCntyFairgrnd                        08/15

24        Bob Flock                  Asheville-WeavervilleSpdwy             08/17

28        Dick Rathmann           Dayton Speedway                             09/21

29        Herb Thomas              WilsonCntySpdwy                            09/28

31        Herb Thomas              Martinsville Spdwy                            10/19

32        Herb Thomas              N.WilkesboroSpdwy                        10/26

33        Donald Thomas           Lakewood Spdw                              11/16

34        Herb Thomas              Palm Beach Spdwy                           11/30

1953

3          Herb Thomas              Harnett Speedway                             03/08

4          Herb Thomas              N.WilkesboroSpdwy                         03/29

7          Dick Rathmann           CentralCitySpdwy                              04/26

10        Tim Flock                   Hickory Speedway                             05/16

12        Herb Thomas              Powell MotorSpdwy                          05/24

13        Fonty Flock                Raleigh Speedway                              05/30

15        Herb Thomas              Five FlagsSpdwy                                06/14

16        Dick Rathmann           Langhorne Spdwy                               06/21

17        Herb Thomas              Tri-City Speedway                             06/26

18        Fonty Flock                Wilson Speedway                               06/28

19        Herb Thomas              MonroeCntyFairgrd                           07/03

21        Dick Rathmann           MorristownRacewy                            07/10

22        Herb Thomas              LakewoodSpeedwy                           07/12

23        Herb Thomas              RapidValleySpdwy                             07/22

24        Dick Rathmann           LincolnCtyFairgrd                               07/26

25        Herb Thomas              DavenportSpdwy                               08/02

27        Fonty Flock                Asheville-WeavervilleSpdwy               08/16

28        Herb Thomas              PrincessAnneSpdwy                           08/23

29        Fonty Flock                Hickory Speedway                             08/29

32        Dick Rathmann           Langhorne Spdwy                               09/20

33        Herb Thomas              BloomsburgFairgrds                           10/03

34        Herb Thomas              Wilson Speedway                               10/04

1954

1          Herb Thomas              Palm Beach Spdwy                             02/07

3          Herb Thomas              Speedway Park                                  03/07

4          Herb Thomas              Lakewood Spdway                            03/21

5          Al Keller                     Oglethorpe Spdway                            03/28

6          Dick Rathmann           Oakland Speedway                             03/28

7          Dick Rathmann           N.WilkesboroSpdwy                          04/04

8          Herb Thomas              Orange Speedway                              04/18

10        Herb Thomas              Langhorne Spdway                             05/02

14        Herb Thomas              Raleigh Speedway                              05/29

19        Herb Thomas              Hickory Speedway                             06/19

21        Herb Thomas              WilliamsGroveSpdwy                         06/17

22        Herb Thomas              Piedmont Interstate Fairgrounds          07/03

23        Herb Thomas              Asheville-Weaverville Spdwy              07/04

24        Dick Rathmann           Santa Fe Speedway                             07/10

27        Danny Letner              Oakland Stadium                                08/01

31        Herb Thomas              DarlingtonRaceway                             09/06

34        Herb Thomas              Langhorne Spdway                             09/26

1955

2          Herb Thomas              Palm Beach Spdway                           02/06

Total Hudson Hornet Wins = 80

Quite Impressive!

By Leonard Chornay   Tue, Sep 01, 2009

I would like to tell you a story about a friend of my friend, who happened to be a real car collector enthusiast. One day, my friend Murray said to me: “Hey you wanna make a detour to see a car collector friend of mine?”

Murray is the owner of a dog obedience business. He prefers working with German Shepherds, but he trains any breed of dogs for his customers, which range from regular dog admirers to some people of prominence looking for security. This is how I was introduced to Johnnie, one of his dog training customers.

Johnnie is a middle-aged business person, who resides somewhere in South Carolina. I made a conscious decision to keep his full name and location undisclosed for security purposes.

CarChatClub: So how did you get started with cars?

Johnnie: “Well, it is kind of like this”, said Johnnie in his lovely thick South Carolina accent, where he draws every word out, “it all starts when you’re fifteen of so, or going on twenty. You look around, and you say, hey that’s a nice ride. I wish I’d have a car like this! But as a young gun you don’t really have the means to buy it, but you wish you’d have. So eventually you grow up and your work turns to be rather profitable and so you think, I may just as well afford one of my dreams of the past. That’s how I got started and I have a collection of 29 cars as of today!”

CCC: So what was your first car? Do you remember?

Johnnie: Oh yes, I remember it very vividly. I turned 25 and I was really looking into possibilities to put some of my dream cars in my garage. Then came my first buy. It was a ’66 Chevelle. All painted in Ferrari red, which made its muscles stand out even more. From that point on I was hooked. The collection grew over the years, and was widened by various vehicles of different makes, but I guess my love was and is centered on muscle cars. That Chevelle is beautifully restored now, and is a reminder now, of my first steps into this car obsession.   

CCC: Does your wife share your passion?

Johnnie: Yeah, she does. Actually there is a story I will tell you a bit later on, but yes, we converse together on what to make our new project, and she likes them herself. Actually, the cars are also a good investment.

CCC: Seriously?

As serious as a heart attack and some folks say that’s pretty serious! I’m a baby boomer. And there are baby boomers that just like me, who want to have the cars they’ve always craved after. You buy a car for $20,000 and in five years it’s worth $40,000. Don’t get better than this!

But back to Chevelle. It had a few flaws and needed some restoration work, but was in overall original condition as far as parts were concerned. See, Chevelle was one of the cars in Chevrolet’s line of muscle cars, yet Chevy made it an everyday high performance muscle car. It was a good fit for the market, had both the style and the performance, all of which was available for a fairly modest price.

CCC: Now I see that your Chevelle has SS on the front radiator grill and 427 next to the emblem on the left fender?

Johnnie: Yeah, that’s right. It sure enough is a ’66 Chevrolet Chevelle Super Sport, and is equipped with a big block 427 cubic inch engine. Eats gas by the gallon, but has an outstanding torque. As with all the muscle cars the idea behind it was to provide as much horse power, with as little weight, and this SS 427 certainly delivers all that’s required and a little beyond that. Well consider FOR yourself:  427-cid V-8's large-valve heads, plus 11.0:1 compression, aluminum intake manifold – that altogether adds up to 390 hp. Engine coupled with a four speed gear box. That’s as good as it gets, but even a base SS, is still very much an authentic muscle car.

CCC: 29 cars in your collection! That’s impressive! Will there be a stopping point or do you plan to add more?

Johnnie: Well, I always keep sayin’ this is the last one, ok, that one will be the last one. But then I see something that makes my heart beat like a hammer. I just got to have it! There is something utterly intriguing about each one of them. Let’s say one time I come to see a ’55 Dodge pickup truck. I see this thing abandoned in the woods in pretty poor shape. Now maybe this wouldn’t be such a great find for a classic car enthusiast such as me, but this thing had five windows in it. I did my homework and checked with the plant where they produced them, and guess what, it turns out that this is the only five window Dodge pickup truck ever produced. Now you unnerstan’, I just had to get it.

CCC: The truck is beautifully restored now; one couldn’t tell it was sitting in the woods left to rust for such a long time.   

Johnnie: I have a team of highly qualified mechanics working on cars, doing both maintenance and restoration work. They are employed full time and always do a great job. We had to take it apart and sort out the details to see which were still usable and which had to be replaced. We did a new paintjob, replaced the gearbox, but left the old 259ci V-8. We also had to rewire the electronics, replace the shocks, and took out several leaf springs from the rear to make it less rough on the road. We also had a specialist invited, who came to recreate the interior to the original specs, and he did a great job too.

CCC: Can you say something about some other cars in your collection?

Johnnie: Yes! As you see, though I prefer American muscle cars, I have some other European makes in my collection, like ’80 Porsche 924 or ’81Jaguar XJS V12. I also use ’91 Corvette Stingray C4 for daily commuting.  Some of the cars in my collection that are right now undergoing restoration are: ’68 Chevy Camaro, ’60 Buick Le Sabre Convertible, ’54 Buick Roadmaster Convertible, ‘55 Chrysler C-300, ’59 Cadillac Series 62 Coupe A, and ‘67 Lincoln Continental Convertible. 

CCC: Now, do you drive your cars from time to time?

Johnnie: Oh, absolutely! All of them that are through with restoration are fully operable. I just can not look at them without losing my mind from a desire to open up on a freeway. They don’t stand in my hangar just for the looks. Regardless to say the feel you get from riding a classic, with all the challenges it puts before you, is simply incomparable to driving some modern boring car. And also it’s a great family experience, that’s something that a couple can do to spend time together.

CCC: Now, can you tell us which car is your favorite?

Johnnie: No, not really. I love’em all, otherwise I wouldn’t have had them. But I guess to answer your question; one that I really have a fancy for is ’57 Chevrolet Bel Air.

Actually I have a few of them, hardtops as well as convertibles. It’s a very nice car, very roomy, powerful, and not that bad on the gas either. Plus, it is fitted with all the chrome and comes with the famous tail fins. It is instantly recognizable; for me this is an American icon. The base model has a decent relatively fuel efficient engine, a real nice work done by Ed Cole. He took a small-block V-8 and managed to squeeze 162 horsepower out of it or 180 with a four-barrel carburetor. But it is the Bel Air that really makes things unravel. They enlarged the engine displacement to 283 cu and with the fuel injected package called "Super Turbo Fire V8" were able to achieve remarkable 283 horsepower! And we’re taking 50’s here! The first American production car to have one horsepower per cubic inch. The fuel injected Bel Airs are pretty hard to find, as most of the cars out there are carburetor equipped.

CCC: Well thank you so much Johnnie for sharing these things with us. You promised to tell us a story related to your wife towards the end of our interview.

Johnnie: Oh, most certainly. In fact I have hundreds of stories, but this is a really good one. Six years ago I was looking for a specific ’64 Corvette convertible. In 1964 they did some work on the shock absorbers and the springs, and added a fuel injected option for the trusted 327 V8. So with the looks, the new improved suspension, and 375 hp engine it is just such a nice car. I looked through all the magazines, websites, and finally found the one I wanted in Tennessee. Well, sure enough, my wife wanted one as well. She also wanted a ‘fuelie’ and also a convertible. Well, to find her the same kind of ’64 Corvette convertible wasn’t easy at all. Finally I found one in Alabama. It was in restoration for the next three and a half years. Once the work was finished we took a look at the titles, and they were back to back: one ended in 5 and the other in 6. So it’s pretty unique, that we got here a couple of cars, which some forty sumthin’ years ago came of the assembly line one after another. So the Corvettes are pretty special to us. And they appreciate well too; the two of them together would cost over a quarter million dollars.    

By Valerie Mellema   Mon, Aug 31, 2009

In the early 1960's, the budding relationship between Henry Ford II and Enzo Ferrari seemed set to take the world of auto racing, and the automotive world in general, by storm.  However, the buyout of Ferrari by Ford was not to be.  Enzo Ferrari declined the deal, snubbing Ford in the process. While no one is sure about Ferrari's reasons, the result was immediate and dramatic.  Ford vowed to take revenge on Ferrari in his beloved sport of auto racing, by beating his cars in the famed Le Mans.

Of course, Ford's creation is quite well known.  Out of this rivalry on the racetrack, came the legendary Ford GT40 - dubbed 40 for the height of the vehicle, though it actually stood at 40.5 inches. While it would be a wonderful thing to imagine that the powerhouse went on to beat Ferrari and win the Le Mans right out of the gate, the Mark I failed to live up to expectations.  It did, however, give Ferrari pause when Phil Hill set a new record for lap time.  Ferrari at least knew that Ford meant business.

While the resounding defeat of Ferrari (and all other European cars) by the legendary A.J. Foyt and Dan Gurney made headlines around the world, it was a long road to get to that point.  The most notable were the problems that plagued the entire 1964 and 65 seasons.  The very cars that gave Ferrari pause in his bid for racing domination actually hampered the efforts of Ford to win even one race.

The problem could actually be traced back to a single item - the Collotti 4-speed transmission.  During the 1964 racing season, the Ford GT40 had 10 starts, but not a single finish.  The transmission would go on to plague the car beyond the first Le Mans, taking all the Ford GT40's out of the 1965 Daytona 24 Hour with failed transmissions.

The transmission utilized by Ford in construction was a lightweight affair, designed for maximum performance with minimal weight.  Unfortunately, they all seemed to have a singular flaw.  The reasons finally became obvious in the 1965 Daytona 24 Hour, when the pit crew had to change the entire gearbox out of every GT40, only to wait and do it again later in the race.  Needless to say, the race did not end in glory for the GT40, or any Ford team.  The 1965 Le Mans was almost a repeat of the previous year, with all the GT40's dropping out due to a failed transmission, though this time it was a remade Kar Kraft transmission that did them in, rather than the Collotti.  The problem with both transmissions turned out to be unhardened transmission rods that failed due to heat buildup.

1966 was the year that changed the fortunes of the Ford GT40, and much else in the world of racing.  While the victory of Foyt and Gurney would wait until '67, 1966 still saw the Ford GT40 take first, second and third in the Le Mans.

By Jim Murray   Tue, Sep 29, 2009

For those of you that prefer your cars off the beaten track, here is a Bizzarrini Strada 5300 Coupe that was sold at the 2008 Russo and Steele Monterey auction for $572,000.  A Chevrolet small-block engine displacing 5358 cc and producing 365 hp powered the Strada.  A four-speed manual transmission, de Dion tube rear suspension, and limited slip differential were also used.  The aluminum body, designed by Bertone, was a 2-seater.  A single spyder version was also built.  It is not clear if that car is still around, however if it is it would surely fetch seven figures.

In the end, 115-133 examples were produced from 1965 through 1969.

Good Deal/Bad Deal: Considering there were only 115-133 (exact number is not known) of these vehicles produced and this particular car and who knows how many still remain.  This car is among the most exotic of Giotto Bizzarrini's creations throughout his entire career and seems to be a steal at $572,000. 

This first-year, 1957 300SL Roadster was originally delivered to its first owner in Venezuela.  It later found its way to the United States, and has had just three distinct owners since.  In the care of one of these owners, a complete mechanical and cosmetic concours-level restoration was undertaken just ten years ago.  A figure in excess of $180,000 was spent at that time to bring the car to the condition presented before you now, returning the car to its as-delivered condition and appearance, if not better.  Sacrificing none of its inherent mechanical qualities, no expense was spared in bringing the running gear, suspension, brakes, steering and convenience items up to the same level beneath the surface as above.  A contender not just on the open road, the car received 2nd Place in Class during the Dana Point Concours d'Elegance following its painstakingly careful recommissioning.

Today, the 300SL with its unique doors, technological firsts, and low production numbers is considered one of the most collectible Mercedes-Benz models of all time, with prices reaching well past the US$400,000 mark.  In addition, Sports Car International magazine ranked the 300SL as the number 5 sports car of all time.  This particular car was sold at 2008 Monterey Russo and Steele for a cool half million.

Good Deal/Bad Deal: Yes, a good deal.  The SL300’s are an icon of the collector car world and there value will only go up.

No car auction review would be complete without profiling a Porsche.  At Monterey, 1988 Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet sold for $34,000 – ah, a car that many of us mere mortals can afford.  This particular car is finished in its original black with black top and light grey leather interior piped in contrasting black, the car presents as well as when it was new.  Tastefully upgraded with Kinesis 3-piece alloys with colored center crests wrapped in competition-grade rubber and featuring an upgraded intake, Borla exhaust, camshaft and RUF turbocharger upgrades, the exhilarating performance of 400 horses under your right foot combined with excellent handling and a top that goes down will leave one lucky individual with a near permanent grin.  As with all Porsches, performance and daily-driver reliability go hand-in-hand.

Good Deal/Bad Deal: This Porsche sold at what appears to be market value.

Although, I do not particularly like Corvettes many folks love them.  At the Barrett-Jackson Vegas, show there was a 1979 White Corvette Coupe that sold for $7500 a price that seems ridiculously cheap compared to the other cars profiled in this article.  This particular car has an automatic transmission, a brand new crate engine, T-tops, complete undercoating, new tires and black leather interior.

Good Deal/Bad Deal: There are ’79 Vettes that routinely fetch $9000 on Ebay; therefore, it appears the buyer made a good deal.

At the Kruse Auction in Ft. Lauderdale earlier, this year there was a 1974 Triumph TR-6 that sold for $24,000.  Not much in known about the car other than the standard information such as it has a 4-cylinder engine with a manual transmission.  The car is maroon and black with a black interior. 

Good Deal/Bad Deal: Again, not much is known about the history or condition of this car, however there is a restored 1974 TR-6 convertible selling on Ebay for $10,000 less.  On the surface, it does not appear the buyer did his homework.

By Gregg Henglein   Tue, Aug 18, 2009

If you are an auto-racing fan and don’t know Mohammed Ben Sulayem, you should. He was won more regional championships sanctioned by the sport’s international governing body, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, than any racer in history. He has won all 14 FIA Middle-East Rally Championships he has taken part in, never having been defeated. And, with his appointment last year as Vice President of the FIA, Sulayem became the first Arab to ever gain a place on the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council.

The last of these, perhaps, is most significant, because it signifies even more than Sulayem’s more than 50 major championship victories, the growth in status of the Arab world in the sport of auto racing. And, as a native of Dubai, Sulayem’s reputation has generated momentum for the largest of the seven United Arab Emirates.

Dubai’s racing history

New followers to the sport recognize the Dubai Autodrome as a significant piece of international racing. However, with the Autodrome having opened recently – in 2004 – some may wrongly conclude that Dubai is a newcomer to the racing landscape. That is hardly the case.

Sulayem is certainly the most prominent refuting example, having won his first event back in 1984. But the UAE Desert Challenge – now a prominent piece of the international rally racing circuit – is the most significant example of racing’s growth not only in Dubai, but in the UAE as a whole.

In 1991, the Desert Challenge began with 30 drivers challenged by the landscape of the Dubai deserts. The following year, Sulayem pleaded on the event’s behalf to have it placed in the World Cup for Cross Country Rallies.

With such notable support, FIA added the event to the Cup in 1993, and the formerly local and single-day event has now become a weeklong marathon race starting in Abu Dhabi and concluding in Dubai, representing the final round of the 2008 FIA Cross Country Rally World Cup.

Nasser al-Attiyah, who finished fifth in that first Cup event in 1993 is still going strong, having won the latest Desert Challenge at the end of October, becoming the first Arab to do so.

The race features all the top automakers in the world, with Mitsubishi Pajeros (a renamed version of the Montero) competing with Volkswagens, BMWs, and Nissans, and a mix of diesel and gas-powered engines. Also included were vastly modified vehicles, trucks with van-type bodies for aerodynamics and storage, giving virtually all participants an SUV feel.

The Autodrome

Of course, the most significant development in the evolution of racing in Dubai has been the MotorCity complex, home to the Dubai Autodrome. Sprawling across the MotorCity destination development, a pedestrian-focused multi-use environment offering business, entertainment and often residential features – Dubai Autodrome seats thousands around its FIA-sanctioned 5.39 km circuit, laid out in six possible configurations.

MotorCity itself is developed with the love of racing enthusiasts in mind, featuring a Race & Driving school as well as a Karting track. Having first hosted the final round of the 2004 Formula Renault V6 Eurocup season, as well as the December 2005 A1 Grand Prix and the FIA GT Championship from 2004 to 2006, the development serves not only as a renowned racing site but a haven for the business side of racing, offers manufacturers and racing teams a perfect location for testing, prototype development, vehicle demonstrations, product launches, driver training, and hot weather car research for international manufacturers.

Such a focused complex would not be possible were it not for the growth of racing’s popularity in Dubai and throughout the region. The Autodrome was actually built to compete with a world-class track on the nearby island microstate of Bahrain. Set in the middle of a desert, The Bahrain International Circuit has welcomed Formula One racing, V8 supercar racing and drag racing, and became the first Grand Prix track awarded the FIA’s Institute Centre of Excellence award, for safety and medical facilities and accompanying technology.

Street racing

Interestingly, the greatest example of the depth with which auto racing has gripped Dubai and the surrounding region is the rapid expansion of unsanctioned street racing in the area. As oil revenue floods the region, its large population of young adults is enjoying the spoils, and spending much of its on fancy cars accentuated with custom engines and other gear.

Young Saudis are known to drive souped-up – as if it were necessary – Lamborghinis and Porsches across the Saudi bridge to Bahrain, racing in Kuwait goes on in upscale neighborhoods (a far cry from the street racing scene in either Japan or the United States), and wealthy Arabs often ship their vehicles of choice to the Gulf during the summer months to take part in the spectacle as well.

On the streets of Dubai, such races began informally, young men cruising the city casting a knowing glance next to each other and speeding down the strip. Technology has changed the game now, rounds of drivers notified of setups days in advance via Internet of cell phone. Spectators are regulars, in on the preparations as well, receiving messages and spreading the word until in some cases hundreds gather.

And with the amount of money flowing to bolster their vehicles, there is certainly plenty flowing between participants and fans alike in the form of wagers, known to approach $25,000. But for the excitement and draw, there’s also a great deal of danger.

Unsanctioned but unchecked as well, the races are perilous. The Dubai Traffic Police have reported that more than 70 people between 18 and 25 were killed in accidents in 2005, more than double the number a decade prior. That number surpassed 100 a year later.

Around Dubai, police finally have begun to crack down on street racing after much public outcry. So, where drivers used to wheel up bumpers side by side on Jumeirah Beach Road – an highway expanse that cuts through the Emirate, they are now heading to more formal settings such as the Emirates Motorplex, set in the desert of Umm al Qaywayn, about an hour outside of Dubai.

The facility was funded by Sheik Marwan al-Mualla, who chairs the Emirates Motor Sports Federation. Look no further than the Motorplex for proof street racing is a fundamental – and widely approved – part of culture in the Emirates, as despite his professional standing, al-Mualla originally built the complex to engage in races with his friends. 

Now, as al-Mualla recently told The New York Times, he sees the facility as a safe haven for street racers. “We have safety here, paramedics, an ambulance, and we give out trophies to the winners, something they can’t get on the street.”

Looking ahead

At the heart, though, Dubai is hoping for a genuine prominence in the international world of auto racing. This, of course, is a process, and one not without obstacles.

For example, Dubai has approached the V8 Supercars touring category, based out of Australia, about expanding into the region. But the Australians’ reservation about the segment’s international presence, combined with Bahrain’s existing contract with the group through 2010, make Dubai a nonissue…for now.

“We haven’t made any strategic decisions about that, but that’s simply because we have got the current contract,” V8 Supercars Australia Chief Executive Officer Wayne Cattach said on the organization’s Web site recently.

“As we get closer (to the end of the contract) and we find out what the Bahrainis want we will then make a decision.”

For now, Dubai will focus on improving what it does have. Sulayem’s presence will help considerably, as he is now a central figure in the sport’s governance. For example, Sulayem’s input was considered vital in the recent mandate that F1 teams trim their budgets by 30 percent, slicing engine costs, in-season testing and staffing.

Publicizing its events is key, and showcases such as November’s The Dubai Motorsport Festival provide fans with a taste of top UAE National motorsports, boasting competitors across several racing classes in a family-oriented atmosphere blending education of the sport’s local history, opportunities to get involved current – such as at the training facility – and an outlook toward where the racing industry in Dubai is heading.

Speaking at the festival, Sulayem observed “The Dubai Autodrome is the seed that was planted several years ago and motorsport is growing rapidly in the region and particularly in the UAE. With this growth I believe we have to select proper championships for the competitors. I compare the number of competitors today to a couple of years and the growth has been immense…we have increased from under 100 licensed competitors to over 1300.”

Committedly, Sulayem concluded, “It is our duty to ensure that motorsport in the UAE receives the credibility it deserves.” 

LINKS USED

http://www.v8supercars.com.au/content/hero_news/june08/no_v8_racing_in_dubai_us_or_europe/

http://www.emsfuae.com/website/

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/automobiles/13DUBAI.html

http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:E0ipCt-V_NwJ:www.autoracingdaily.com/news/gp2-series/gp2-asia-series-kamui-kobayashi-takes-pole-in dubai/+auto+racing+dubai&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us

http://www.dubaiautodrome.com/general/content.aspx?id=3436

http://www.trucktrend.com/features/travel/163_0506_dubai/index.html

http://autos.canada.com/news/story.html?id=8959e2dd-8f95-4329-8c21-3ae6c786c580

By Chris Kochan   Tue, Sep 22, 2009

The future of collector cars will ultimately be in the hands of the younger generations of enthusiasts.  Many in the younger generation are referred to as “tuners” who are modifying compact import cars like the Honda Civic, Toyota Supra, and Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution.  These are usually two-door coupes. They are cheap and easy to work on, which is a good feature for a new driver to start with as their first car and project. These cars are tuned to go faster and look unique, or custom to their owner’s preference.  No matter what kind of car is your personal preference, you will certainly be impressed with the design, craftsmanship, and personality created through these cars.

Characteristics of Tuner Cars

- 4-8 cylinders (usually 4)

- Bolt on Parts

- Turbo

- Easy to work on

Types of races:

- Drift Race

- Cross Country Race

- Drag Race

Typical Models:

- Honda Civic

- Toyota Supra

- Honda S2000

- Mitsubishi Eclispe

- Subaru WRX STi

- Nissan Skyline

- Acura Integra

- Nissan 350z

Maybe you’ve seen some tuners with under glow lights on the pavement, purring mufflers, or custom sound system speakers, rumbling the entire car.  There are many different styles you can take on, with the one common theme being a vivid imagination so you can customize and tune to your own style.

The point of this hobby is to tune your car for a couple of different categories in the tuner world.  Simple drag racing, breaking friction and drifting around corners, taking turns at 60 mph while road course racing, illegal cruising and street racing, and finally to make a show car, with the hottest unique styles, are all examples of types of racing and shows for which they tune.  

After the release of "The Fast and The Furious" in 2001, the Honda Civic became the most popular car to modify by simply adding bolt-on exhausts and short ram air-intake systems, body kits, rims, tinted windows, and some engine boost mixed with the fuel. Some run 110 octane gas and 450 horsepower in these non-turbo 4 cylinder engine grocery getters! 

The question is, will someone else like your customizations as much as you do after you are ready to move onto something else with a new project, and you are ready to sell your current ride?  Many people would say no, and its true many people would not like what other people have done with their cars.  This is the risk many of these car tuners accept going into their projects.  Most of them are doing it out of love for the car, and to show personality and creativity.  People have also associated car tuning and customization as a new form of art, much like hot rodding.  Tuners will continue to create new images that make statements in order to be unique and get noticed.

The “true” tuner is in it for the long haul.  They will continue on the same project, adding more and more parts.  There are many parts you can add onto these cars, not even including the one-off customized parts many people create themselves.  The new car tuners accept anything with their customizations, taking their rides as wild or as tame as they like.  

The future of cars and the tuner industry really has no limits.  Since everything is created to be unique, people can expect to see many superchargers, turbos, body kits, rims, carbon fiber replacement parts, rebuilt engines, and many more parts. I would not be surprised to see flying or hovering cars in the near future with the spur of new developments in the car industry!

It won’t happen overnight, and of course there will be the traditional collector car enthusiast related events and clubs.  There is no reason for the new generation to take over the car industry with their new creations, demolishing the collector cars.  It is simply an addition to the car family.

In the end, it’s all the same sport and the participants both have the same passion for cars.  A difference in taste or style is put past us and we are all still getting greasy, using torque wrenches and welders to create or recreate an automobile.

By Car Chat Guy   Fri, Jul 17, 2009

How will demographics effect the collector car hobby in the next decade or so? In this issue we explore a trend of the hobby in the future, perhaps just a few years out: Tuner Cars. If young hobbyists are working on building primarily Japanese cars into custom rides, that may be much of what you see at car shows in 20 years. In the summer issue, we take a look at the Tuners hobby in a piece by Chris Kochan.

But are they doing this merely to be creative or to do their own thing, or because they just can't get their hands on a classic car for a reasonable amount of money? Perhaps some of both.

The past is prologue to the future. Just look at the pre-war classics. It used to be that they were all you would see at car shows and auctions. Now it is rare to see any, as the number of hobbyists with expertise or even interest in those cars as dwindled away, as people of that age had died off.

Will that happen with cars of the 50s, 60s and maybe even 70s as well? If so, there may be an opportunity for interested parties to acquire some previously unattainable cars as  estates are settled of the collectors of those cars.

That's my TWO CENTS. I wish I could get a classic car for that much!

What do you think? We would love to hear from you on our new blog section or on any of the other blogs out there, as well as just dropping us an email at editor@CarChatClub.com

By Christopher Smith   Mon, Sep 28, 2009

Interesting you say? Aren’t we talking about the decade that delivered such doldrums as the minivan and the K-car? The decade of downsize, where tiny cars with names like Escort and Chevette tried to compete with the import invasion? The decade where dull, underpowered cars with cheesy graphic packages dominated 55 MPH roadways?

Look closer however, and you’ll discover a major shift in automotive trends propelled by the development and application of computer technology. Not since the development of the assembly line as a technological step forward made such a dramatic impact on the automotive world, and as a result, the 1980s could well represent one of most significant turning points in the history of the automobile. Manufacturers were frantically trying to reboot their approach to automotive engineering in an effort to meet tough new vehicle emission standards, all while trying to restore some measure of performance that had disappeared during the 1970s. As is so often the case with such a change in direction, there were some monumental duds while manufacturers sorted out the details on how to utilize new, computerized technology with old-school engineering. On the flip side however are some very notable success stories, some of which were years ahead of their time, while others simply grew into automotive legends.

1982 Ford Mustang

Though technically a 1979 redesign, the Mustang regained some of its machismo through the decade to become one of the most recognizable cars of the era, having shed its Pinto-esque associations of the 70s in favor of the now-infamous Fox Body platform that underpinned a wide range of Ford automobiles. While the outgoing Mustang II was generally unloved, the new Mustang delivered a strikingly modern style that, minor cosmetic updates aside, served the stallion for 14 years. Though initially offered with a V-8 engine, the modern performance Mustang didn’t appear until 1982, with the return of the Mustang GT. Though it only produced 157 horsepower, it was the most powerful factory Mustang in nine years and it marked the beginning of Ford’s return to performance. It also marked the introduction of the now-iconic chrome 5.0 fender badges, a staple of Mustang bragging rights throughout the decade. 1983 continued to build on the new Mustang’s momentum, with the return of a convertible model, 176 horsepower in the GT version, and a new turbo GT that became the forerunner to the SVO Mustang of the mid-80s.

Where are they now?: Early 80s Fox Body Mustangs are coming into the collector fold, with nice clean examples commanding $5,000 to $6,500, with the rarer 1983 GT turbo fetching a bit more. 

1982 Buick Regal Grand National

Like the Mustang, the Regal’s styling dates to the late 1970s, but unlike the Mustang, it wasn’t designed to be a full-on performance car. Nor was it ever destined to be a V-8 muscle car, relying instead on a turbocharged 3.8 liter V-6 engine for performance. The Regal is significant because it marked the beginning of what would become a bit of a turbo revolution, signifying a fundamental shift from brute, big-block power to small-displacement performance. Though the turbo V-6 was initially offered with the redesigned Regal in 1978, the legend that would become Grand National didn’t arrive until 1982, and even then production was limited to barely a couple hundred examples. In turbo V-6 form (a lower power, naturally-aspirated V-6 was also available), the 1982 Regal Grand National made 175 horsepower, trumping both the Mustang and its GM stable mates, the Camaro and Firebird. The Regal Grand National offered shoppers a taste of luxury with performance, and its modern styling earned it a spot on the NASCAR circuit where it experienced significant success. When the model returned for 1984 (no Regal Grand Nationals were built in 1983) it became known simply as the Grand National, and it went on to become the most powerful—and one of the most sought after—muscle cars of the 1980s despite the fact that it never offered a traditional V-8 engine.

Where are they now?:  By the book, the first installment of the Grand National commands anywhere from $17,500 to $25,000 in prime condition, but having such a limited production run—with most of those cars being the naturally-aspirated version—means prices can jump significantly for the “perfect” turbo car.

1983 Audi Quattro

All-Wheel Drive may seem commonplace in today’s market, but when Audi introduced the original Quattro in 1980, it set a new standard for performance vehicles. Audi certainly wasn’t the first to offer such an arrangement; traditional four-wheel drive vehicles emphasizing off-road prowess had been around for decades, but such applications could not withstand daily on-road usage. AMC unveiled the Eagle in 1980, which utilized its own full-time all-wheel drive system, but like traditional four-w heel drive applications, these vehicles emphasized a more utilitarian, off-road approach to the concept. Full-time all-wheel drive systems in a higher-power, performance function was thought to be too complicated and far too heavy to be practical, but Audi proved the critics wrong by absolutely dominating the World Rally Championship through the early 80s, in the process setting a new performance bar for street cars that wouldn’t be matched until years later. Audi didn’t offer the Quattro in the U.S. market until 1983, and even then, sales were very weak due to the $35,000 sticker price (more than a Porsche 911 of the day) and diminished performance from the turbocharged five cylinder engine, which made only 160 horsepower (down from 200) after modifications to meet U.S. standards.

Where are they now?: While not a common collector car in the U.S., its rarity, unmistakable 80s styling, and technological mastery make it a true 80s keeper that can pull upwards of $15,000 to $20,000 for well-kept examples.

1982 DeLorean DMC-12

Had it not been for a certain Steven Spielberg movie called Back to the Future, the angular, gull-wing, rear-engine DeLorean may well have faded into the halls of automotive history with barely an echo. Instead, the futuristic sports car with the brushed stainless steel body became forever tied to 1980s pop culture despite the fact that it wasn’t a terribly exciting car to drive. Even though it offered a very supercar-like layout of four-wheel disc brakes, fully-independent suspension, low center of gravity and a rear-engine layout, safety regulations for the U.S. market upset the car’s balance and handling enough to where it wasn’t quite as planted as many other sports cars of the day. To make matters worse, emission standards required a retuning of the DeLorean’s 2.8 liter V-6 engine to the point where it struggled to make 130 horsepower. It was still quite a novel car to drive however, thanks to its radical styling, bare-metal finish, and of course the infamous gull-wing doors. Just over 9,000 copies were built from 1981-1982 before the company filed for bankruptcy, so it did manage to strike a chord with the motoring world before fading to black. Of course, it was the starring role throughout Spielberg’s epic Back to the Future trilogy series that propelled the car to superstar status, so much so that a loyal group of DeLorean devotees have continued to support the car over the years, culminating with the purchase of original DeLorean assets and the rebirth of the DeLorean Motor Company, where enthusiasts can order everything from original parts to brand new, custom-built DeLorean models.

Where are they now?: Vintage DeLoreans with low miles (under 15,000) can fetch upwards of $35,000 in today’s market, with well-used models coming in closer to the $10,000 mark. Or, you could always have a brand-new DeLorean custom-built through the DeLorean Motor Company, with a base price of $57,500. Though high-tech options such as a hover conversion kit or a Mr. Fusion power converter aren’t in the works for the new cars, modern conveniences such as navigation systems, reverse cameras, and high-end sound systems are available. Rumors of a Flux-Capacitor also persist among the enthusiast community, though there is significant speculation on exactly where the 1.21 gigawatts required for the time-travel device to function will ultimately come. 

1980 Pontiac Turbo Trans Am

Before Doc Brown built the DeLorean time machine, Burt Reynolds sprinted from Georgia to Texas and back in a black Trans Am, with Sheriff Buford T. Justice hot on his tail. Granted, Smokey and the Bandit was a product of late 1970s Americana, but it spawned two 1980s sequels and solidified the black Trans Am as the machine of choice for the American rebel. That alone is enough to make this ultimate evolution of the second-generation Firebird a worthy collector car, never mind that it was also the first-ever turbocharged V-8 in a production vehicle and paced the Indy 500 that year. While it’s true that the 4.9 liter turbo V-8 suffered from reliability issues, it still produced 210 horsepower and helped to usher in the turbo movement that would continue throughout the decade.

Where are they now?: Even today, the sight of a second-generation black Trans Am with gold trim and a screaming chicken on the hood evokes rebel yells and cravings for rowdy country music, and though it’s not quite as popular as the 6.6 liter, torque monster Trans Ams of the late ‘70s, the 1980 Turbo Trans Am is still a highly sought after car, commanding upwards of $25,000 in good, original condition.

1982 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am

From one black Trans Am to another, the long awaited redesign of GM’s Camaro/Firebird performance icons marked a big step forward when they appeared in 1982. In terms of both styling and technology, the Trans Am especially received considerable praise for its sleek, new look and pop-up headlights. Both cars also received the new Cross-Fire Injection 5.0 liter V-8, which utilized a fuel-injected throttle body as opposed to a traditional carburetor. Though it only produced 165 horsepower and struggled with reliability issues, it served as a technological step forward until the system was improved for the 1985 model year. Hollywood however would once again step in on the Trans Am’s behalf, this time in the form of a talking, crime-fighting, all-black 1982 Trans Am called K.I.T.T.— the star of a new television show called Knight Rider. As with Smokey and the Bandit (which coincidently also used a 1982 Trans Am for the universally-hated third sequel), Knight Rider’s four seasons helped to propel an already great-looking car to superstar status, thus earning it a spot in the 80s motoring hall of fame.

Where are they now?: Whereas the Smokey and the Bandit hype helped propel the popularity of the entire Trans Am line for the previous generation, The Knight Rider factor isn’t quite as impressive, with prime examples of the ’82 and ‘83 cars ranging from $4,500 to $6,500 in prime condition.

If cars from the early-80s represent the initial steps taken by manufacturers to incorporate modern technology into automotive applications, the mid-80s cars revel in the fruits of those efforts, while vehicles of the late-80s point towards the return to naturally-aspirated performance. And that folks, is where things really get interesting. 

Next time: Cars of the mid 80s.

By J. Francis   Mon, Sep 21, 2009

There are literally thousands of car collector’s form all over the world who are proudly displaying vehicles from periods of times past, present and even some predicting what the future will hold in the way of personal transportation.

Collectors run the gamut from Jay Leno, and the late William “Bill” Fisk Harrah who’s collections are worth millions, to the neighbor down the road who proudly displays his single labor of love at the weekly cruise night. There are those who’s collection only cover certain periods, or just a specific year. Some only collect certain vehicles, perhaps the Corvette Mustang, Duesenberg, Packard, Cord, or Cadillac. But no matter what their area of interest is they all have one thing in common, their collections are either open for the public to come and visit, or they take their show on the road for all to see.

Consider Edward Leedskalnin, who at the tender age of sixteen, and after being jilted by the love of his life, emigrated to the U.S. where he spent the next twenty eight years building the Coral Castle near Homestead Florida. Now he was unique, and worthy of mention. And even though admission today is more than the ten cents Edward originally asked as a donation, nevertheless, his collection of coral is open to the public.

This is where my story begins. Not with Edward Leedskalnin and his collection of coral, in two barns, two barns hidden away from the public. Hidden so well that they were the stuff of myth, and lore. One of the barns located in Portugal, even had its steel doors welded shut to keep the prying eyes of those who might happen to stumble upon it from seeing what was concealed inside. I don’t know about you, but with my inquisitive nature that would make me more than a little curious. Another “Area 51” perhaps? Alien space vehicles or bodies preserved for future study? Close, just not alien. The barn in Portugal houses 180 vehicles, and as many body styles. The second barn is located in South Australia, in the Adelaide area. The Aussie find on the other hand totaled almost 300 vehicles.

Let’s start with the Barn in Portugal, which is located somewhere near Sintra, the world map shows it close to Lisbon. The owner on the other hand is not as easy to identify, furthermore he has remained as elusive as the truth behind why the vehicles were stored, and locked away. One piece of lore has it that, a man from New York (No mention or trace of his name.) wanting to be penny-wise with his retirement funds, purchased a farm that had been abandoned for some fifteen years for the back taxes owed on it, and included in  the deal was the locked barn. A more plausible story tells a different scenario that says, the man that owned (And again no mention of his name) the property was an auto dealer in the 1970’s and 1980’s. When he found a car he liked, he put it in the barn for the future, who knows what? He continued this process until the barn was full, then simply closed the doors for the last time, and welded them shut. The door’s were once again opened (No conclusive date.) to allow a photographer (Also for reasons unknown.) to document the inventory inside. His photos along with the ensuing stories that cropped up, and a list of what had been found inside finally made its way to the internet. I have included a few of the photos, and only a partial listing of the treasure inside. This must have been as it was when Howard Carter reopened King Tuts Tomb after it had been sealed for over 3000 years.

The following as I said is only a partial listing, as a complete list would take up more space than this article allows. However I have included several links to the complete list, and many more photos.

Portuguese Barn Find List

Alfa GTV

Alfa 1900 SS

Alfa Bertone

Alfa Giuiletta

Alfa Giulietta Sprint

Alfa Giulia Sprint Special - Alfa Sud 1.5

Austin A30

Austin A40 Somerset 

Austin Healey Sprite

Austin Mini Cooper

Austin Mini Cooper S

BMW 2002

BMW 1800

BMW 501 V8 Sedan

BMW Isetta

Bristol 404 Saloon

Chrysler CD

Citroën Traction Avant

Datsun 240Z

DKW 1000SP

Fiat Cabriolet

Fiat Topolino

Fiat 500

Fiat 508 Balilla

Ford Cortina

Ford Taunus

Hillman Californian

Lancia Aurelia B20 2+2

Lancia Aurelia B24

Lancia Appia

Lancia Flaminia Zagato

Lancia Flaminia Coupe

Lotus Elan DHC

Lotus Elan FHC

Lotus Elan +2

Lotus Europa

Lotus Super 7 Series IV

MG Midget

MG Magnette Matra  Djet

Maxwell

Mini Moke

Nash Metropolitan

Opel GT

Opel Rekord

Porsche 356B

Porsche 356C

Peugeot 202

Peugeot 404 Cabriolet

Peugeot 505 Cabriolet

Renault Dauphin

Rover P5 Saloon

Rover P6

Saab 93

Simca Coupe de Ville

Singer Gazelle 

Abarth 1300 Scorpione

Alright Mates, now let’s travel down under to the land of Kangaroos, Koala Bears, and another 297 cars. Yep; you read it right, and all stored on a farm in various sheds, as well as scattered in the paddocks. I wasn’t unable to find information on the owner of the Aussie site, but never the less the collection is impressive to say the least, with vehicles dating from the 1930’s right up to the 1980’s. Name a vehicle whether from America or Europe, and you’re apt to find it in the list. Coupes, convertibles, sedans, even a few trucks. If you like the corrugated roofs, there are a few of them as well. The list seems endless, the contents of which would be the envy of any serious collector. Furthermore; it will be a shame if these discoveries don’t make it into a collection somewhere. After all they found their way into the barns and fields.

 You have to wonder what their intentions were. Did they simply buy them one at a time, drive them until they quit running, and then park them until the price of scrap metal went up? I really doubt that scenario. But since no one has been able to locate the owners, either in Portugal or Australia, I guess we will never have the answer. We will just have to settle for the fact that a couple of photographers were fortunate enough to gain entrance to do their thing, and share the results with the world.

As in the Portuguese find, here is a partial listing of the vehicles, and a few of the photos. If you follow the links I have provided throughout the article, you can view the entire list and numerous photos. 

Aussie Barn Find List

1975 Alfa Romeo Alfetta sedan

1976 Alfetta GTV coupe

1980 Giulietta sedan

1983 33 sedan

1967 Audi 90

1947 Austin A40 sedan

1949 A90 sedan

1949 A70 sedan

1949 A70 sedan

1951 A30 sedan

1951 A40 sedan

1950s A90 sedan

1957 Lancer sedan

1957 A95 sedan

1959 A99 sedan

1958 A40 sedan

1961 A60 sedan

1961 A60 sedan

1961 Freeway sedan

1961 A60 sedan

1961 A60 station wagon

1961 1100 sedan

1966 1800 sedan

1970 Kimberley sedan

1962 BMW 3200 CS coupe

1971 2000 sedan

1974 728 sedan

1983 635 CSi coupe

1979 733i

1973 Citroen DS 23 sedan

1974 CX 2200 sedan

1978 CX 2400 sedan

1950s Daimler unknown sedan

1946 Fiat 500 sedan

1955 1100 sedan

1966 124 coupe

1965 850 coupe

1971 130 sedan

1971 130 coupe

1908 Model T Ford home built racer

1950 Consul sedan

1939 Prefect sedan

1956 Zodiac sedan

1950 Zephyr sedan

1960 Anglia station wagon

1956 Zephyr sedan

1962 Cortina sedan

1966 Zodiac sedan

1974 Cortina sedan

1977 Falcon sedan

1977 LTD sedan

1977 Capri hatch

And the list goes on. Unfortunately for me, as the list grows I discover more cars that number among the first vehicles I owned as a teenager. Ah; there is nostalgia in them thar barns. 

By Susan Hart   Tue, Sep 15, 2009

Rust is a sometimes mysterious thing.  Aided by natural elements such as water and oxygen, it can reduce anything made from iron into a reddish oxide.  Sometimes rust can eat away at entire pieces of metal.  Protection is available in the form of paints or coatings which can shield a piece and keep it functional.

There’s a great junkyard in Santa Maria, CA called Black Road Auto.  Here, you can rummage around and find most anything you want to.  Their staff is friendly and the boneyard (as they call it) is tidy and organized.  You can reach their website at www.blackroadauto.us.  They carry new and used parts (go and get the used ones yourself except for rims which sit on the top of each car like pairs of shoes), plus they do transmission repairs and towing and have ferrous and non-ferrous metal recycling.   And therein lies a few very interesting stories

Dodge Polara - The hood is missing and the driver’s side door is off.  This one is pretty beat up and rusted under the trunk lid and in a lot of other areas.  It appears to have been two-toned at one time, but perhaps the roof just rusted out more.  The body was yellow.

Ford Mustang ('65 or '66) - This one is almost gone.  It’s right on the ground and the roof has been cut off, the hood and front are missing, but it still has a lot of character.  I could see where the Mustang logo used to be but it’s not there anymore.  Probably stripped for popular parts a long time ago, or even before it was brought to the wrecking yard.

1969 Mercury Cougar - This one is actually in fairly decent shape, and as you can tell, bright metallic blue.  It used to be a prized possession by the look of it.  I always wonder why cars that seem to be in good shape, are not wrecked, and are considered classics end up in a wrecking yard?  I suppose you could trace the history of any vehicle with the VIN.

This International beauty is found in Orcutt, California (just south of Santa Maria), on the Central Coastal area.  The current owner of Orcutt Brewing Company, told me that a few owners ago they wanted to do something with an old ranch truck, so brought it down and placed it outside of their (then) antique collective. This collective is in an old steel Quonset type building, and is now being converted to a local micro-brewery and bar. 

A landscaper saw the truck and wanted to do something interesting with it, so he started planting and the idea took off from there.  You can see various tools, a ladder and an old mower blade attached to the sides, and the International is parked on small gravel for drainage purposes. 

It looks to have been originally painted blue, but you can’t really tell due to the sunlight fading it out.  I’m guessing it looks to be about early 50s, but someone out there may be able to pinpoint it a little better.

Owners Clay, Joanne, Vern & Chris Frick can be reached at www.orcuttbrew.com for more information, or if you just want to stop by and sample the local delicious brew and grab a bite to eat, email them for directions to the place, and check out this International.    

By Deena Tomacruz   Mon, Sep 14, 2009

The most famous and historically rich races where public streets are closed for traffic due to racing is Monaco. However, a new venue, the Singapore night race, created a major stir last September, for its inaugural race. The Monaco Grand Prix is a F1 race, usually held in May, dates back to 1929, and has made legends in the name of Fangio, Moss, Clark, Brabham, Stewart, Prost, Senna, and Schumacher, with their epic qualifying and race battles. We usually see these street race courses on TV, but what preparations must be made to transform public roads into world class race courses with 1000hp F1 cars?

Months before the race date, various safety measures and devices such as barrier walls, tire absorbing crash barriers, safety nets, fences, foot bridges, run – off areas, re-paving of tarmac in some cases, grandstands, race control towers, paddock garages, and access roads, are all part of the mix. Conducting a motor sport race in a closed public road designed for commuters, and in the case of Monaco, whose roads were built in the early 1900s, is a challenge. Race organizers seeks to make it as safe as possible to its competitors and spectators, yet retain its unique and challenging nature.   

In the case of the new 2008 Singapore F1 night race, they had to install 1,500 projector lights to simulate daylight conditions with standby generators, construct tunnels, garages, paddocks, foot bridges, tramways to insure great spectating and safety of the visitors. The result was nothing short of spectacular praises for the organizers, and the venue has been dubbed as the “Monaco of the East”.

There are as many rules and considerations made in respect to the spectators as well. Littering, entering in restricted areas, and viewing the race action in unsafe areas are items that need strict enforcement. The role of local owners of establishments along the race course also play an important role in enforcing the rules and ethics of safe motor racing spectating, especially to tourists who are first time visitors to the principality or city. 

The closure of public roads for racing are getting more rare worldwide due to certain negative aspects of said events such as detours, noise pollution, traffic, and accessibility of destinations. As a result, street races are not universally acceptable to a whole lot of communities although to other communities that stuck it out, it has reaped enormous benefits in terms of worldwide media coverage, tourism income and worldwide recognition and that makes it well worth their sacrifices.  

By Benjamin Hunting   Wed, Sep 09, 2009

In the 1960’s, the international racing scene was largely dominated by European teams and drivers.  Americans were content to participate in NASCAR and open-wheel events sanctioned by the American Automobile Association but in Formula 1, long considered the premier racing series around the world, participants hailing from the United States remained conspicuously absent.  Even rarer were American drivers competing in cars that had been designed and built on their home soil.

In 1965, tired of the status quo, two burgeoning legends in sports car racing combined their talents in order to challenge this perceived inequality.  Both Dan Gurney and Carroll Shelby were well known as drivers with a long history of success in SCCA, World Sportscar Championship and Formula 1, and by the middle of the 1960’s had already managed to build a great relationship based upon their competition of Shelby’s very impressive sports cars.  Seeking to provide international racing with an American presence, the two combined to form All-American Racing, or “AAR” for short.

AAR would immediately begin building open-wheeled cars to compete at the Indianapolis 500 and in F1.  Known as Eagles, these vehicles quickly became a hot commodity not only amongst American racers but also their European competitors.  Indy and Grand Prix Eagles were found in the garages of many top racing teams, including AAR’s own, and in 1967 Gurney would pilot one to victory at the Grand Prix of Belgium, becoming the first American to win a Formula 1 race in an American car of his own construction in the 100 year history of F1 racing.

      Eagle cars continued to evolve with the times, and AAR’s business and facilities grew right along with them.  The company opened a British branch named Anglo American Racers in order to facilitate the production of their F1 racecars, and their manufacturing capacity in the United States also expanded to an appreciable level.  The 1970’s would see a flurry of activity for the company, beginning with Shelby’s departure and Gurney’s assumption of total control over AAR’s racing teams and facilities after his retirement from racing in 1970.  A co-branding with Plymouth to create the 1970 AAR ‘Cuda, meant as a production twin to the vehicle that Gurney was campaigning in Trans-Am racing, would also help introduce the company to a wider public audience.

           The 1980’s would also be a very busy time for AAR, after partnering with Toyota in order to bring their racing efforts up to an entirely new level.  Great success in IMSA would result from the perfect combination of Gurney’s racing insights and Toyota’s engineering resources.  Alongside their Sports Car racing campaigns, AAR would continue to build engines and chassis for a wide variety of corporate and private clients.  Flush with the spoils of victory after victory, the motorsports crew finally bit off more than they could chew when they decided to backstop Toyota’s entry into the CART open wheel series in 1996.  After 3 years of frustration and poor results, the automotive giant parted ways with AAR, effectively terminating their participation in Champ car and bringing about the end of Eagle chassis production.  Gurney would go one to field a team in the Formula Atlantic feeder series in 2001, but this too would fizzle out, bringing a proud chapter in American racing to a sad close.

In its 35 years, AAR had won eight championships, with 78 victories and 83 pole positions, employing 66 different drivers. In 2008 Gurney has partnered with Saleen to introduce a special limited-edition Mustang to commemorate his racing in the TransAm series.

By Green Quill   Tue, Sep 08, 2009

If you’ve ever dreamed of driving through some of the country’s most beautiful scenery in an exotic vehicle, you may be able to make your dream a reality by booking an adventure tour. Whether your vision places you in the driver’s seat of a Ferrari F430, a Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder, or a Maserati GranTurismo, there are adventure tour groups that can provide you with the perfect experience.

Ball O’ String Custom Adventure Tours is one of a growing number of establishments that offer tours by car through some of the world’s most exotic destinations. This veteran tour group is based in Colorado, and has a variety of beautiful locations for touring available.

You can drive a luxury car, sports car or motorcycle through locations in the northwestern USA, and western Canada, as well as Italy and Spain. You no longer need to wait to win a lottery ticket to drive an exotic vehicle through spectacular scenery. If coasting across the countryside, mountains, or desert landscape in a beautiful luxury car sounds like your idea of a vacation, Ball O’ String Custom Adventure Tours can provide the experience of a lifetime.

The expert tour guides have years of experience and have traveled popular tour routes many times, giving them the expertise they need to create the perfect vacation experience for you. There are many routes to choose from, so you are sure to find a fantastic destination, no matter what your interests. You can even have a trip customized to your exact specifications anywhere across the western United States and Canada choosing either modern or historic locations based on your desires.

You may have considered booking your own lodging and planning the route yourself, but don’t miss out on the chance to take advantage of the many years of experience of passionate and dedicated adventure tour guides. They often have inside information about various hotels, pubs, restaurants, points of interest and more. Since they are so familiar with the destinations that are available, they are in the best position to provide you with the experience you are looking for in your custom adventure tour vacation.

Before you book an adventure tour, find out what vehicles are available for rental and do some research to decide which one you are most interested in driving on your tour. You’ll also need to decide how long you are willing to travel and what additional activities you are interested in participating in. Depending on your destination, you can find activities like rafting, horseback riding, hiking, gambling, shopping, wildlife viewing, swimming and more to complete your adventure. You can even put a group together and take everyone on the road to enjoy one of their great tour routes. Whether you choose to view the Italian Riviera or the Rocky Mountains, you are sure to have an amazing vacation when you choose to view the scenery from the window of your dream car.

Ball O’ String Tours

Eagle, CO

Contact: Willie Fuhrman

Phone: 970-328-7347

 www.ballostring.com

By Angela Neal   Tue, Aug 25, 2009

Nothing brings a car to life than a good polish.  The quality of finish on your car can have a huge impact on it's overall appearance, and if you are looking to resell then it can help to add value or be the difference between clinching the sale and having a potential buyer walk away 'to think about it.' 

As most car enthusiasts will tell you, giving your car a regular polish isn't just vanity - using a high quality product can actually help to repair and protect the paint job of a vehicle, reducing scratches, marks and fade.  While dedicated car enthusiasts may not dream of introducing a classic or high end car to the rough ride of an automated car wash or over-eager scrubbing by a teenager at a fundraiser, the car's previous owners may not have been so scrupulous, and all of those tiny scratches can add up to a dull finish, even after a loving clean and polish. 

Meguiar's are well known for their great range of polishing products, and they have just released a new Scratch X 2.0- the 2.0 signifying that this is an improved version for 2009.  Their Scratch X 2.0 is designed to be used before a final polish to buff out minor scratches, oxidization and some other superficial marks without damaging the paint of the vehicle.  Although more serious chips and scratches will need professional help, this is a great product to get rid of those fine, web-like scratches caused by car-washes that polish alone just won't cover up, and their 2.0 formula is said to be both the most effective and the gentlest for your car's paintwork.  At under $10 per bottle,  it's not hard to justify this purchase to keep your car looking as flawless as possible.

If a hand buff with the above product isn't enough to bring your car's finish back to 110%, then you might need some extra muscle-power in the form of mechanical tools.  Enkay Polishing kits were featured in the Best New Tools and Equipment Product at the SEMA 2008 car show in November, and include a full range of specialized products for buffing aluminium, chrome, glass and painted finishes. 

Their selection of polishing bits for rotary tools such as Dremels are particularly handy when you need just the right kind of tool for a hard to reach place. Whether you need to remove a patch of rust, buff away scratches or swirls from small areas of the paintwork, or sweep away dust and hair from around air vents and buttons on the dash, there is an attachment to do the job.  The car buffing kits are sold in packs that include everything you could want or need to complete a detailing job on your car's body, trims or windows. 

The kits are all reasonably priced, and come complete with bars of polishing compounds, cotton wheels and felt buffs and if you need a little expert advice to go with your new expert tools, you can find some great polishing tips on their website.

Sources:
http://www.autogeek.net/megscratxfin.html

http://semadigital.com/netpub/server.np?find&catalog=catalog&template=detail.np&field=itemid&op=matches&value=20673&site=np2008 

By Richard Howk   Mon, Aug 24, 2009

Whenever you have the pleasure to see one at a car show, museum, or simply driving down the road, you are transported to a place where the wet sand squishes between your toes and the sun always shines brighter.  You can almost hear the first few notes of California Girls and smell the salt from the ocean in the air.  I am, of course, talking about the 1960’s surf culture icon…the Woodie.

Woodie Beginnings

The Woodie had a meager genesis in the rail systems of the United States and the United Kingdom.  The wagons were used to transport people and luggage between the stations and other points.   These “station wagons” consisted of the front and chassis of a production automobile along with a custom wooden body. This combination kept the cost of the vehicles to a minimum versus an all-steel version.

As the station wagon moved from a commercial automobile to a family vehicle, most manufacturers chose not to build the wooden shells in-house, but contracted them out to various third-party woodcrafters.  J.T. Cantrell & Co. and Campbell Mid-State were two of the larger companies that crafted the bodies, which were usually created from basswood.  The outer shell was made of ash cross members with 1/4” panels of waterproof Philippine mahogany.

Through the Depression years of the 1930’s, the Woodie remained popular because of its economically sound price-point, and hit the height of its pre-60’s popularity just before 1940. 

World War II brought about more reason to keep the Woodie as a viable production vehicle.  The all-wood body saved on the amount of steel used in family cars, which in turn left more available for the war effort.

The post-war economy soared, and most Americans decided they could afford the safer, all-metal automobiles.  It seemed that the Woodie was headed for the scrap yard.

Reemergence of the Woodie

The same reasons for which the Woodie was originally intended was the basis for its resurgent climb to popularity. By the time the 1960’s rolled around, the average Woodie was over 10 years old and had lost its appeal to most of America’s car buyers. 

The surfer culture saved the Woodie when it found a vehicle that was inexpensive, but capable of carrying vast amounts of people and equipment.  Plus, the Woodie was easily repairable by a normal carpentry skill set.  Instead of carrying passengers and luggage to and from train stations, the spacious Woodie now toted surfers, surfer girls, surf boards, food, and whatever else the California teen needed to have a groovy beach party.

The scene caught on to the rest of the country through movies such as Gidget, Beach Blanket Bingo, and Where the Boys Are, and through music by The Beach Boys and Jan and Dean with songs like Surfin’ Safari, Surf City, and Boogie Woodie, all of which referenced the Woodie.  Woodies became staples at the local beaches for over a decade.

Woodies Today

Unfortunately, The Woodie has been relegated to the status of collector car.  It has now been 13 years since a wood grain exterior last appeared on a 1996 Buick Roadmaster Estate Wagon, the last production car to have such a feature.  The hominess and character of wood-paneled automobiles has been tossed aside in favor of the more sleek and flashy style of today’s soulless cars.

The spirit of the Woodie-look is carried on in aftermarket kits for retro-looking vehicles such as the Chevrolet Chevy HHR, Chrysler PT Cruiser, and the new Volkswagon Beetle. 

The spirit is also in the heart of every enthusiast who restores one of these classic icons back to their former beauty, allowing them drive down to the beach, watch the sunset, and listen to Good Vibrations with their surfer girl.

Content Sources:

http://www.oldwoodies.com

http://www.dodgepowerwagon.com

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodie

Images Sources:

http://www.mellowwave.co.uk

http://www.oldwoodies.com

http://www.automotivehistoryonline.com

http://www.californiacruisers.com 

By Benjamin Hunting   Mon, Aug 17, 2009

There is no doubt that the feeling of driving a classic car with the top down is one that is unmatched in the world of automobiles.  The sheer fun and exhilaration provided by convertibles is no secret, given their usually higher price tags when compared to sedan or coupe editions of the same car.  There are many drivers out there who are willing to pay a premium for the privilege to own the open edition of their favorite antique vehicle.

Of course, there are some convertibles in particular which stand out in the annals of classic automobiles when compared against other vehicles of their time.  Some drop tops have become so recognizable – even iconic – that they have risen above the standard crop of collector cars.

Perhaps two of the most outstanding examples of this type of convertible are the 1954 Chevrolet Corvette and the 1955 Ford Thunderbird.  These two roadsters – that is to say, two-seat convertibles – were produced by domestic car companies in an effort to combat the sporty, lightweight cars that were pouring out of Europe after the war. 

Although the Corvette officially began production in 1953, there were very few actually produced (about 300 or so) until the following year.  With the rounded, grinning grille and rising front fenders, the front end of the Corvette was quite distinctive when compared to other Chevrolets.  What also made the 1954 Corvette unique was the fact that it still offered the six cylinder “Blue Flame” engine from 1953’s model year, instead of the fire-breathing V8’s that the model later became synonymous with.  This inline unit produced 150 horsepower and was matched with either a manual two speed or the Powerglide automatic transmission. The vehicle’s body was made entirely out of fiberglass, which helped to keep its weight down and which also served to further distinguish it on the market.

In contrast, Ford took a slightly different path when it came to building their own small convertible.  With an open-mouthed grilled and a bulging power dome on the hood, the all-steel 1955 Thunderbird left no doubts as to whether it could move down the road with considerable authority.  Under the hood could be found a 292 cubic inch V8 engine good for around 200 horsepower.  The Thunderbird was never meant to go head to head with the Corvette, instead filling a market niche that Ford chose to label “personal luxury”.  The two cars, while similar when they debuted, would soon diverge and continue along totally different tangents as time went on.

By the end of the 50’s, small was out and size was in – especially when it came to convertibles.  Domestic roadsters had grown into muscular copies of their former selves, but they were outnumbered by the explosion of four and six passenger convertibles hitting dealer showrooms.  One of the most impressive feats of convertible engineering of this, or any other era, came from Ford in the form of the Skyliner. 

Produced between 1957 and 1959, this vehicle featured a power retractable hard top, which was a startling innovation in automotive design at the time.  The Skyliner was so elegantly put together that the roof folding process was a spectacle to behold.  First the trunk would open from its rear hinges, and then the top itself would break into two pieces in order to be mechanically lifted and then deposited behind the passenger compartment.  The Skyliner was a huge car, but because the roof mechanism took up so much trunk space it wasn’t the most practical convertible available, which hurt it from a sales perspective.  These vehicles are fairly rare on the market today and often command a hefty price as a result.

Ford would round out their string of notable convertibles with their Lincoln division’s 1961 to 1967 four-door Continental.  The last four-door rag top to be offered by a commercial automaker, the Continental is perhaps best known for its role in one of America’s greatest tragedies – the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.  Despite the stigma associated with this historical event, the Continental has managed to hold up as a very desirable car, one that has become symbolic of the amazing styling to have come out of the 60’s.  With its slab sides and rear-hinged, suicide doors the Continental stands apart from any other full-size convertible of its time.  Its massive size made it an excellent parade car, a role it continues to enjoy today at events all across the country.

The 1970’s saw many car companies back away from producing convertibles, due to fears that American safety watch dogs would ban the body style due to perceived rollover concerns.  However, there were still a few beautiful vehicles produced towards the beginning of the decade before the self-imposed ban, mostly from European automakers with less to fear from US law makers, since they could still sell their models overseas.  Jaguar’s Series 3 E-Type production began in 1971, continuing the tradition of their large, grand touring roadster based on their popular 12-cylinder coupe, while also available with a 6-cylinder engine. In 1972 Mercedes-Benz would revive interest in small, nimble roadsters by producing one of the most popular variants of their SL-Class.  Initially offered exclusively with a small V8 engine, these quick, beautiful and classy convertibles would have phenomenal staying power, remaining in production with only minor changes and upgrades until 1989.

Regardless of whether it is an exotic German or British sports roadster or a huge, open-topped American land-yacht, convertibles occupy a very special and emotional niche in the world of collectible antique cars.  With so many different models to choose from, it is difficult to pick any absolute favorites.  However, the cars mentioned in this article represent some of the highlights of the golden age of convertible design, from the gung-ho excitement of the immediate post-war years to the final hurrah of the classic body style before its self-imposed exile in the 1970’s.  Sure, older convertibles might leak, exhibit more body lean than their sedan cousins and shake, rattle and roll their way over rough pavement, but those characteristics are all part of the charm of driving a vehicle built out of passion rather than a desire for practicality.

By Amanda Swanson   Tue, Jun 30, 2009

Revving engines, fire truck sirens, tire peel outs and loud exhaust are all common sounds that can be heard throughout five year old Zachary Swanson’s home.  Not because he lives near a busy road or fire station, but because he is busy at play with one of his many collectible cars.  Zachary has mastered many car related sound effects, from the putter of an old Model T to the throaty roar of a muscle car, matching the sound to the car he is playing with. 

Zachary’s love for cars began as soon as he could crawl.  His parents discovered that if they put a toy car in the middle of the floor Zachary would struggle to crawl to it!  When he was old enough to sit up and grab toys he was seldom seen without a toy car in hand.  As soon as Zachary discovered his voice he began making car noises.  This love for cars quickly turned into an obsession.  At two Zachary was able to identify several makes and models as well as provide appropriate sounds for the cars! Car trips were never boring for Zachary. He would spend his time looking at and listening to the cars on the road.  His family was amazed!  

When birthdays or Christmas rolled around toy cars were always at the top of Zachary’s list.  Keeping track of which cars he had and which he still “needed” proved to be an enjoyable hobby for Zachary.  

“We couldn’t go anywhere without Zachary begging for a toy car, especially if he saw one that he didn’t have yet,” says Zachary’s father.

Zachary’s grandfather helped nourish his love for cars by letting Zachary help him work on his ‘64 Nova, which the two named “Lucifer.”  “We started taking “Lucifer” to some local car shows and that’s where the car game began,” remembers Zachary’s Grandfather. The “car game” is one that Zachary came up with himself.  “When he knew we would be going to a car show he would dig through his toy cars and pick out five cars that he thought he might see at the show.”  The excitement of looking for one of the five cars he had chosen made going to car shows great fun for Zachary!

When asked which cars are his favorites Zachary answered, “I love cars with flames, like my Mustang and my Corvette.”  Zachary is drawn to all cars but especially those with a loud engine and flashy paint job! “I want to buy my own car with my savings and I want it to have orange flames and a big motor,” said Zachary. 

With his car collection now teetering near 200 toy cars, one might think Zachary’s car collecting days are nearing an end.  “Not true” says Zachary, ” I want to keep collecting cars until there are no new cars to collect!”   With this level of commitment to collecting it looks like we have a true car collector in the making!  Watch out all of you car show enthusiasts…..you just might have some competition!

Wed, Jul 01, 2009

Car enthusiast Mike Denton is a hard man to find sitting down—but I did catch up with him at his home on February 15^th right before the Daytona 500. Before the race, we had a chance to talk about his love of cars in general, and his tendency toward MOPAR products in particular.

“When I was a kid,” says Mike, “my father was the head mechanic at a Chrysler/Plymouth dealership in Morrisville, Vermont. Then he became their service manager. He drove a different car home almost every day... and I’m talking Roadrunners, Cudas, Chargers. We lived on a family farm and had acres of fields and back roads.”

“Home” for Mike has always been Craftsbury, Vermont—where life is still pure “country.” In the 70’s, it was even more so. “In those days, when I was about 12 years old, my folks didn’t think anything of sending me off in one car or another to pick up something from the neighbor’s house a couple of miles down the road,” Mike laughs. In 1977, Mike’s dad built his own garage on the farm property and soon left Chrysler to run his own business.

On the farm, Mike and his siblings had vehicles to “play around” with as soon as they could reach the pedals. “There was always a car to take out in the fields and bang around in,” says Mike. “We had a mini racetrack out there. My sister had a ’72 Duster, I had a Plymouth Fury (at age 12!), and my brother had the weird one—he had a VW Square-back that he ran in the fields when he was 14. I guess you could say there was no shortage of motors or motor-sports,” Mike says. “If it housed an engine, we eventually had one…cars, snow mobiles, and all sorts of farm equipment like tractors and hay trucks.”

Mike bought his first car when he was only 14. “It was a 1973 Chevy Nova SS,” says Mike, “and I worked on that car until it was good enough to get a nice price at the auction.” Once he got a taste of making a profit at the car auction, Mike was hooked.  Today, buying and selling cars is the main part of his business. Mike goes to auctions 2-3 times a week picking out the best cars to sell at his shop.

Mike becomes very animated when the talk turns to “muscle cars.” “Back in the 60's, muscle cars, like Cuda’s, Mustangs, GTO’s, Challengers, Chargers, etc. were everywhere. Used ones were a dime a dozen. But, by the mid 70’s, with the gas crisis coming on, they really became dinosaurs. You could roll one over on a Friday night and laugh about it,” he says, incredulously! “It was no big deal. Everyone was getting into the Ford Pinto and other economy cars. A 1973 Pinto, used, was about $1,500. But you could pick up a  used Challenger for about $400 at that time,” said Mike.

Mike married his sweetheart, Brenda, in September 1991, and they headed to Colorado for their honeymoon. The auto enthusiast in him never rested though. Mike perused the local classified paper, The Rocky Mountain Trader. An uncanny story unfolds as Mike explains:

“We were in Aspen, but there was a 1972 Challenger for sale, over in Loveland, that looked great. We called about it and headed over to Loveland to see it.  The man’s name was Kermit Wolcott. Wolcott and his wife had been honeymooning, on September 17, in 1972, and had bought the car, new, there in Loveland, where they decided to settle.

Now, this is September 17, 1991, exactly 19 years later, and Brenda and I were on honeymoon, and, we had just rented a temporary cabin in Wolcott, VT! Is that just too weird, or what?”

Everything fell into place, and the new “newlyweds” drove their first major purchase as a couple, home!

Two years later, in 1993, Mike took over his dad’s shop at the farm. It was a back-yard mechanic’s garage—nice, clean, but a bit small and without any fancy hi-tech amenities…like even a hydraulic lift!   Needing desperately to upgrade, Mike sold the ’72 Challenger he had picked up on his honeymoon to buy a lift for the garage.

Business was doing so well that by 1998, Mike and Brenda were building a bigger garage on the main highway a few miles away.  “Brenda’s just as much a part of Denton Auto as I am,” says Mike. “She handles the scheduling, customers, employees, and most of the paperwork.” Long hours (50 – 60 a week most of the year), and a fierce commitment to put customer satisfaction first, meant seeking outside help when it came to restoring the next Challenger in the Denton family.

Mike went looking for another “muscle car” in 2002. Muscle cars were swiftly becoming popular again. He went down to the Chrysler Nationals at Carlisle, PA just to “look.” “I was thinking, if I found a really nice deal on a Plymouth Barracuda, I might buy it there,” he said. “A ‘Cuda was my first choice.”

Finding the ‘Cudas already out of reach, financially, Mike checked out a 1973 Challenger from California and found his next project. “The Challenger has the same basic E-body as the ‘Cuda,” Mike said, “and this one was very solid. It was a factory 340, 4 speed Rally Package (hood scoops, 150 mph speedo, Tic-Toc Tach), with 3.23 ratio posi-trac sure-grip rear end. The drive train was strong.  It wasn’t a show car—it had dings and dents, the headliner was bad, there were tears in the upholstery, and the left rear quarter panel had filler showing—but it was drivable, solid, and affordable.” Mike brought the car home on his trailer and drove it for fun and pleasure for almost two years. Then, it was time for some restoration.

In 2004, having little time to spare between running the shop and working the auctions, Mike brought the car to a friend’s shop where he could get some help and leave things spread out. They began what was to be a $5,000 paint job.  Mike’s friend, Steve Richer, of Essex, VT, deals mostly in top-end auto restoration.  Suddenly, the work planned for Mike’s car became very intense. “It wasn’t going to be so extensive at first, but, well, once you get into it, you might as well go a little deeper for exceptional results,” says Mike. “We stripped it completely. Everything came off and every part, nut, and bolt was labeled and boxed. Everything was sand blasted. Places that needed it were welded; the entire car was repainted and painstakingly put back together. We replaced all the engine gaskets. The initial $5,000 job completed at almost $15,000. “And that was just phase one!” Mike reports.

Mike brought the car home about a year later. It was still a long way from being done, but the “piggybank” had to be restored before any more of the car could be. Phase two came about two years later.

One of the things that drove me crazy for a long time was losing the pistol grip shifter. I couldn’t find it anywhere. I started thinking one of my buddies had taken it just to fool around, but time wore on, and they all swore they didn’t. I was starting to get pretty angry with one friend because every time we spoke, over the months, he’d always ask if I had found the shifter. I was sure he had it.  When I finally found the darn thing, in one of the boxes, I was surprised. I guess my friend just really wanted me to have that original shifter in there. That’s why he kept asking about it.

By the summer of 2008, all of the electrical work was redone, the instrument cluster overhauled, and the wood grain dash assembly was bead blasted to original perfection.  The underside was completely detailed.  “I’m still not finished,” Mike laughs. “ When the weather breaks this spring I have some minor things to do. The headliner and upholstery need attention. Some of the chrome has to be put back on, and the gear assembly has to go back in,” he says. 

The car is lovely. Beautiful. And although Denton didn’t start out aiming for a “mirror” show car, that’s what he is ending up with.

Would he ever think of selling? “Ahh, well,… I am in the automotive sales business,” he laughs. “On the other hand, it’s kind of like an insurance policy. As long as I have the room to store it properly, it’s not doing any harm staying right here!”

Tue, Jan 27, 2009

Being careful not to touch the wallpaper in the hall because mom would notice the handprints, Jeff and I pushed each other down the carpeted corridor to the garage. Jeff pushed harder.

“Front,” he called bursting into the garage where dad waited.

I sat on the concrete steps that led down to the cars, “Nuh-uh, you got it last time.”

Neighbors envied our garage not because of the two cars it sheltered, but because it was cleaner and better organized than most people’s homes. Everything in my mother’s world was clean, freakishly clean. One could perform transplant surgery on any floor, including the garage.

In response to my mother not pulling his two-door blue Oldsmobile in quite far enough, my dad hung screwed a white string into the ceiling and dangled a tennis ball on each side of the garage. Once you drove in and the front windshield touched the ball, there was no way for the garage door to crunch the bumper.

I’m pretty sure the reason “Bluey’s” (my brother named all of our cars and sobbed when they were sold) bumper was munched, had something to do with Jeff and me. Of course Bluey went almost straight to the body shop without passing go and collecting $200. In this family, there was no way a car would remain damaged. (Dad was a perfectionist, too.)

If I had to guess, mom was probably riled up after spending time in the car with her two adopted children. She wasn’t riled because we were adopted. Well, maybe she was. As a Mormon mother, she was devastated when she didn’t conceive.

No, mom was riled because we weren’t quite what she expected. “No” wasn’t a part of our vocabulary. If mom said “no,” we heard, “figure out another way.” For instance, mom told Jeff he couldn’t make waffles. So, Jeff waited until 2:00 am, snuck into the kitchen, mixed up a batch of waffles, phoned Nana and Grandpa at 4:00 am and invited them to breakfast. When they said, “no,” he cleaned up the kitchen and went to bed. The next morning, Nana called to find out why my mother let Jeff make waffles in the middle of the night. My mother thought she was crazy; the kitchen was spotless. But, when she took out the waffle iron, there was a perfectly browned waffle resting in it.

I don’t think Jeff heard “no” from me, either when I complained about him riding shotgun next to dad.

Three-years older, taller, faster, and, in general, bigger, he made it to the passenger side of “Brownie,” the family’s 1967 Cadillac Fleetwood before me. Jeff considered Brownie to be “his” because he was born in 1967, just like the car.

“You know,” my father began before Jeff could open the door, “if you were rich and famous, you’d have a chauffeur.” Our ears perked up, I got off the step and walked closer to the car. Knowing he had our full attention, dad continued, “Yeah, if you were being driven around by a chauffeur, you’d sit in back behind the passenger seat.”

“I get the back right rear side,” yelled Jeff while lifting the handle.

“Nuh-huh, you called the front. I get the back. Move,” I commanded in my small, but shrill girlie voice. As I spoke I tried to sit on him.

Unbeknownst to us, Dad effectively moved the arguing as far from him, the driver, as possible in the giant car.

Driving Brownie was like driving two sofas, a front and a back. Brownie, like Jeff, had been on the planet for almost a decade. Due to Jeff being bigger, faster, stronger, and dare I say, smarter, I crawled over him, making sure my feet didn’t touch any part of the interior of the car, and settled into the seat behind the driver. I didn’t feel rich or famous.

But, nestled into the tan brocade upholstery, trying to reach the footrest, with my lighted tray table in front of me, on my side of the imaginary line down the middle of the back seat so that we didn’t touch each other, I felt safe behind my father and next to my brother.

To write about my favorite place, the back seat of our Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham, I called Jeff, my 39-year-old brother whose jet-black hair has flecks of gray in it between salon visits and who, now, manages a car dealership, because I couldn’t remember the details of the car.

Different from my 6’-something dark-skinned brother who remembers every detail of every car he or my parents ever owned (even the ones they had before he was born), I’m a 5’4” petite girl who remembers the way I felt.

In his dealership, surrounded by European cars, he’s still got a Cadillac heart. I called on Saturday, his busiest day, and left a message around 10:00 am on his voice mail.  But, the mention of Brownie got a return call quicker than an invitation to dinner.

Brownie was loaded. Now, thirty-plus years later, our lives our loaded with all the creature comforts of the 21st century, cell phones and computers. Jeff left me a message. His voice animated, “Julie. I got your message. I’m sorry I was in a sales meeting. I called as soon as I got out. That was a 1967 Cadillac, the same body style as the ’68. It was a chocolate-brown Fleetwood Brougham with a tan vinyl roof. The interior was a brocade cloth and was tan, too. It had everything; reading lights, lighted trays in the backseat, AM/FM stereo, climate control, automatic trunk release and a 429 cubic inch V8 engine. It was the greatest car there ever was.”

In the hour between our voice mail messages, I Googled the car and came up with the following luxury details to describe the car:

The Brougham featured a padded Cordova vinyl top with model identification scripts attached to the roof "C" pillar. The Brougham also included lighted fold-down trays; adjustable reading lamps and carpeted fold-down footrests.

* Auxiliary horn ($12)

* Automatic Climate Control on Sixty-Special models ($516)

* Firemist finish ($132)

* Cruise control ($95)

* Rear window defogger on models Sixty-Special ($27)

* Door guards ($8)

* Soft Ray glass ($51)

* Guide-Matic headlamp control ($50)

* Head rests ($53)

* Leather upholstery on Sixty-Special ($138)

* License frame, single ($6), pair ($12)

* Power door locks ($68)

* Power door locks for Fleetwood 75 models ($116)

* AM radio ($162)

* AM/FM radio ($188)

* AM/FM stereo on Sixty-Special ($288)

* AM radio rear controls on Fleetwood 75 models ($242)

* Six-way power front seat on models M-P-R ($83)

* Rear center seat belt ($11)

* Front shoulder straps ($32)

* Tilt-telescope steering wheel ($90)

* Remote control trunk lock ($52)

• Twilight Sentinel ($32)

• White sidewall tires, size 9.00 x 15 four-ply 8PR-5, except nine-passenger    models ($56 exchange)

• * White sidewall tires, size 8.20 x 15, four-ply 8PR-5 on nine-passenger models ($64 exchange).

The prices surprised me. I’ve never shared a piece of writing with my brother, but I’ll forward this to him so he can see the prices. He won’t need the list of options. In fact, I bet he knows what my dad paid for the car. I know he knows how much dad sold it for because I remember him crying and offering to use all of the money he made mowing lawns to buy it.

I can’t remember when my parents sold Brownie. It was after numerous trips to Bear Lake and countless rides to the grocery store, to church, and to visit Nana and Grandpa.

Where’s my favorite place? Next to my brother. In the backseat of the Cadillac, there was an invisible line to separate us. Over the years, the line disappeared.

Tue, Aug 11, 2009

Larry started racing when he was 16 in Yakima, Washington.  Now with 50 years of driving experience he displays his favorite car of his entire career, his Volkswagen Beetle, to a society that, though accustomed to Beetles, has never seen one that can compete against superchargers. He has raced for many years, setting the national speed record in sand racing; reaching speeds of 80 to 100 mph within 100 yards.  He then he purchased a gray ’57 Beetle already modified for street racing; and after having added his own modifications, he continues to race every weekend at the local track down in Mazatlán, Mexico.

He purchased the Beetle in 1988 and quickly took out the original engine, and started to build one of his own.  After taking off all the excess weight and putting in his own customized engine, he was ready to race.  His $8,000 investment afforded him a 4cyl, 2400cc engine, based on the original.  After competing in Washington and Oregon he thought about moving away for retirement, he had been to Mazatlán before on vacation, and had decided that he was this was where he wanted to live, with the other expatriates in Mexico.  He served in Vietnam, did the whole career thing, it was time for something different.

When he decided to move to Mexico, he knew that his Beetle was going with him; but he had not quite figured out how he would legalize it in Mexico.  He loaded the Bug onto his trailer, with the rest of his life, and crossed the border in Nogales, Arizona.  The check station has a red light-green light procedure, with which Larry was very familiar.  When he got the green light, he started to take off, until he was flagged down by an Immigration Official. 

The Mexican Immigration Agent asked what was in the trailer, to which Larry answered, “un vocho;” Spanish for “a beetle.”  The Agent asked him to open the trailer, which was packed so full that they could only look in through the side door.  The gray bug sat in the dark trailer, illuminated only by the agent’s flashlight.  Noticing that the bug had no headlamps, license plates, or seats, he asked if it was a scrapper.  Larry told the agent that it was for racing.  The agent turned and smiled, then told Larry, “Get outta here!” 

The Beetle has been in Mexico for two years now, and to this day, paperwork is still in disorder; however, paperwork is the last thing on a collector’s mind, the first thing Larry was worried about was finding parts in Mexico.  For one, he only used synthetic oil, which is not very common in Mexico, though he did end up finding a supplier.  He has always done all the mechanic work himself, all he ever needed was parts.  They can be shipped, but it takes longer and is cost prohibitive.  “You gotta anticipate the problems,” he says.   He tries to guess which part/s will go out next, and then arranges for a friend to bring down the parts from the states when they visit. 

The first time he registered his Beetle for competition in Mexico was in Culiacán, Sinaloa, which went very badly; he was not welcomed by the track owner or the other racers.  He was not allowed to race or even make a solo pass.  “Nobody wanted their supercharged Camaro or Mustang getting beat by a Volkswagen Bug.  I don’t think they had ever seen a Volkswagen race car,” says Larry.  He left the track that day, unable to compete against their pride.

Larry had seen plenty of street races in Mexico, they were sanctioned by the city for years; boulevards were allotted to racers on Friday and Saturday nights, and although he had been a spectator for some time, he had yet to place his Beetle on an official track.  After being denied in Culiacán, he decided to take his Beetle to tracks in other cities.

He traveled to Los Mochis, Sinaloa, where he made several passes, alone, running the quarter mile in 11.9 seconds.  The crowd cheered him on with every pass, but the other drivers would not give him the time of day, though he obviously qualified.  Afterwards they told him that if he wanted to compete, he would have to compete against the supercharged Camaro.  After agreeing, they got in their cars and lined up on the track.  They revved the engines, spun out and warmed up the tires, and just before the race started, the Camaro left the track.  Larry sat on the track waiting; the spectators started cheering, “Vocho, vocho, vocho!”  They wanted to see him compete, but the other drivers and track operators would not let him race. 

The track owner came up and told Larry that he could not compete alone, obviously, so he was going to be declared the winner, by default.  He drove off the track and back to his pit, but before he could park and get out of the car, he was surrounded by spectators.  “They didn’t give you justice, my friend, you should be able to race,” said one spectator.  Larry let people sit in the car and take pictures, but yet again, he took his Beetle home, without a race.

People started talking about the Beetle that could take out superchargers; though none had seen it race.  It was not long before Larry was invited, by the owner of the track, to go back to Los Mochis and compete.  He was asked how much it would cost for him to travel to Los Mochis.  “The owners wanted to see me race.  They offered to pay for the trip, the gas, and all expenses.”  The beetle had come out on television and in newspapers, it had become known, now they wanted to see what this Beetle was capable of doing.  When he got to the track in Los Mochis, they give him a coveted spot right up front with lights and tools, even a hotel room for the night.  The Beetle was finally going to get its chance on the track. 

When he pulled up in line to wait for his turn to race, the crowd took notice.  The spectators started cheering on the vocho before he ever made it up to the line.  The announcer was revving up the crowd; “Here comes the Vocho!  Look at this classic Vocho folks, the modifications it took to make this little car go so fast!  And look at the driver folks, he has some of the best qualifying times on this track, and he’s 65 years old!  He still competes every weekend!”  The spectators grew wild, they loved the Vocho, and they loved the races.

The first car he went up against was The Judge, a 1971 Pontiac GTO with a 455 HO V8, which was left behind about seven car lengths by Larry’s Beetle.  “He didn’t even stop, he drove straight out of the parking lot and went home, I didn’t see him for another year,” says Larry.  

Next, he raced a 1982 Camaro with a big block Chevy, owned and funded by members of the Mazatlán Racing Team, which he beat by about 15 car lengths.  Again, the embarrassment of losing to a Beetle drove him off the track.  There was only competitor left, the police car.

The Sheriff’s car was the fastest car on the track.  With the right friends and prestige, he had all sorts of material, funding, and sponsors.  A 70’s model Plymouth Valiant with a supercharged V8, a squad car paint job, hood scoop, and light bar, and more promotional advertising than a NASCAR race; “the” car of the local police.  The driver, a Mexican Federal Policeman, approached Larry and asked him, “You want to race me?”  Larry thought before he answered, then responded, “I didn’t come here to take the glory from the local people.  I came here to race, and to entertain them.” 

Larry beat him by less than a foot, just a few inches.  The officer stopped at the end of the track and got out of his car, he slammed the door and threw his helmet on the ground before walking off.  Larry looked over at his companion, “This is not good,” he said.  He was gone for about thirty minutes, then came walking back; he walked over and shook Larry’s hand, and said, “I admire you.  I’ve never see a vocho go so fast.  I like what you can do with a car, and I want to be your friend.” 

That officer and the other drivers still compete with Larry, but now they compete alongside him, not against him.  All of them have their own vehicles, but they have a new respect for the Vocho.  They travel together to many state and national competitions, all of them members of different racing clubs and organizations, some independent; but out on the track, they are all unified racers, Larry being the newest member of the group.

Statistics

Original 1957 Volkswagen Beetle modified into a racing car in 1982 by Dean Lowry and Gene Burg.  It won the A.M. Compact Class at 11.72 ET, setting the National Record at 117 MPH.

Custom Built 4cyl engine based on the original, total cost $8,000 USD.

Motor:            248 HP, 2400 cc with a 13-1 Compression Ratio

Crank:            86mm DMS Full Circle, Wedge Mated 11/32 with 8 Dowel Pins

Rods:              Chromoly H Beam Race Rods with 3/8 ARP 2000 Bolts 5.7in long with Chevrolet Rod Bearings

Pistons:           94MM Wiseco Forged

Rings:             Total Seal

Cam:               Engle FK 82 with Magnum Straight Cut Gears

Heads:            Super Flow Titanium Valves, 46mm intake 44mm Exhaust, Chevy Springs, Pauter Roller Rockers, 1:4:1 Ratio

Ignitions:        MSD 6AL, 2 Step, Retarder

Carburetors:  48 IDA Weber’s, Stainless Steel Braided Hoses, Set up for Nitro

Clutch:            KEP 2200 Pounds with special Disk, Steel Equalizer Pulley 5.5lbs

Oil System:    Bug Pack Oil Pump, System One Oil Filter, Reusable Element, with Bug Pack Oil Cooler, Braided Steel Oil Lines

Transaxle Type 1, total cost $4,500 USD

Built by Weddle Industries, California

Ring and Pinion: 3:88:1 German

Gear Ratios: 1^st 3.78, 2^nd 2.21, 3^rd, 4^th 1.30

Special Modifications:  Aluminum Spool, Elco Side Cover, Heavy Duty Weddle Axles, Rhino Wielded Case

Extras:           Hurst Line Lock, Hurst Shifter, Auto Meter Tack-11,000 RPM with Recall, Firestone Racing Tires-Front, Mickey Thompson 10in Slicks-Back, Polished Aluminum Wheels-10x15in, NHRA Rated Seat Belts-5 Point, Poly Racing Seat, Lexicon Windows.

Total Investment (incurring expenses not mentioned)                                            $25,000

Post Script:

This ’57 Beetle up for sale. Here is his contact info:

Larry Wilkins

lwilkins37@yahoo.com

Rio Nazas 117

Mazatlán 82180

Sinaloa, Mexico

Tue, Aug 04, 2009

John owns two 1931 Dodge DH6 business coupes. One has wood spoke wheels and the other, wire spoke wheels. Both originally came with wood spoke wheels. He got his first car seen here, primer red currently under restoration, when he was just fifteen. He has been in the process of restoration ever since, but has gotten a few miles out of it by driving to and from high school everyday as a teenager. This photo shows him at age sixteen.

John’s cars were lucky to have escaped a production cut at the Dodge production plants in 1930 whereby models were discontinued as company bosses looked only to produce a few models with six and eight cylinder engines. Ten years later these models, including John’s model, would be redesigned and ready for production. Sadly, they never made it past the assembly line after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 put the Dodge assembly lines into full wartime production.

John got his second car, the dark blue one, in 2004, and has been restoring it back to its original form ever since. This includes reversing alterations made by a previous owner.

“I have been doing restoration related upgrades since I got my second car. Right now, I am in the process of replacing the clutch. It had a cobbled on dual exhaust setup on it when I got it so I took it back to original with the old updraft carburetor” said John.

The practice of altering classics was very common in the 80’s and 90’s as enthusiasts wanted to have the functionality of modern gearboxes and electronics with the style of a classic car. Unfortunately, reversing the process is often easier said than done. Older cars are more fragile and need to be treated as such. However, you may think that finding parts for a car of this age would be difficult, but John says “I am still able to find parts on the internet more so than before the internet was available”.

This is due to a vibrant community in the classic car world with many owners trading or selling car parts at events or online. John has been a member of several classic car clubs including heading one up as its President.

“I was a member of the Antique Auto Club of America in Detroit, Michigan when I was 17 years old. I used to be the president of the W. P. Chrysler Club Regional San Diego group when I lived there. At the same time, I was a member of the Horseless Carriage Club of America. When I moved to Oregon, I became a member of the State of Jefferson Antique Car Club here in Phoenix, Oregon and I still belong to the national W. P. Chrysler Club.”, says John.

Clubs are the main driving force behind the classic car scene, especially to keep the culture of cars pre 1960 going. Until recently, there was little media attention that cars of the 60’s and 70’s got in films and pop culture.

I asked John about how he first became interested in classic cars and the passion that comes along with them. He said that he first began to enjoy cars when he was seven years old.

“My dad took us kids to the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village “Old Car Festival” in Dearborn, Michigan when we were young. I have had the bug ever since.”

When he got his first car he said it was the overall shape and style that attracted him to it as a young teenager. Many cars of this era are criticized for looking the same but on closer inspection they have great differences. His favourite aspects of the cars are the low roof, long hood, short deck and "smiling" front bumpers. He also loves the attention the cars get whenever he parks them. “They ALWAYS draw a crowd” says John.

Driving old cars however is in some ways better than driving a modern cars. For one thing, despite fuel economy, John said that “it is actually cheaper to drive and maintain my old 1931 Dodge because newer cars cost so very much to diagnose and repair.” However, like any classic car owner John has had his fair share of small problems with his vehicle. At the moment he is in the middle of repairing the clutch on his blue DH 6.

“Right now, it needs the new clutch installed before I can drive it again. It also needs the front suspension reworked a little because when I hit a bump it starts to shimmy. I was driving my blue car every day until the clutch went away. After the clutch replacement, I will be driving the car daily, as before.”

Finally, I had to ask John a burning question of mine. You see, the thing about classic car owners is that they always keep their eyes open for the next one. I asked John what car would be his dream car.

“If I could choose ONE car? That is a really hard question. It would have to be a 1929 L-29 Cord Cabriolet. The draws for me would again be the long hood, short deck, low profile and overall beauty.”

Tue, Feb 17, 2009

A decision of the heart – restoring a Jaguar XJC

The advert showed a beautiful sleek red two door Jaguar – the hallowed XJC, among the most beautiful of the breed – sitting forlornly on a driveway. I knew, right then, it was waiting for me. Good condition, it said, with low mileage. Yes indeed, this was the one – and it was less than 20 miles away.

What I found, of course, was somewhat different: if good condition means “with large holes in the rear wings” and “four worn tires, rusted sills and a completely absent floor” and low mileage can be taken as 106,000 then there was no need to be concerned. Still, she was beautiful – but was $3,000 worth it?

For those who are not aware, the XJC was built in the mid 1970’s in small numbers, and is the two door version of the venerable XJ6 saloon. It’s a beautiful car, but suffered from quality issues, mainly as a result of having frameless windows. This one was somewhat less than great, but had a very sound 4.2 litre engine and good mechanicals.

In talking to the owner, he let slip something he shouldn’t have. He was an innkeeper, and was moving 600 miles away in two days time. It was time to sell the car for whatever he could get, or leave it behind.

I offered him everything I had in my wallet - $525. He called me every name under the sun (none of them my own), took the money and handed me the keys.

With that “exchange” I became the proud owner of a very tatty 1976 XJC – a Daimler-badged version – that, while running well and sounding sweet, needed new wings and sills, a new interior, and a new floor. And that was just the start of it.

Driving her home was a joy. She accelerated effortlessly, the automatic box changing up and down without a glitch, and the engine pulled beautifully and showed healthy oil pressure. The fuel gauge moved faster than the tachometer, however, but that is something you take for granted with these beauties.

I enjoyed it very much, for that would be the last time I drove her for eight months.

The rebuild

The first advice I would give anyone who decides to attempt a rebuild of a specialist car is this – don’t. As I know that will always fall on deaf ears, the second bit of advice is one that must be adhered to – join a relevant club.

The Jaguar Drivers Club proved to be absolutely essential in my quest to restore this mighty beast to her former glory, and were especially helpful in pointing out that the eight foot long one piece rear wings – of which one was needed – were not only practically impossible to find, but would cost twice what I paid for the car should I strike gold and discover one lurking somewhere.

As chance would have it I did just that. An old man my parents knew had been a garage proprietor past his 70^th birthday, and then simply closed the place down when it got too much for him. The garage operation stood, as it was on the last day it opened, beside his house, and was a treasure trove of bits and pieces. As it happened, the old fellow died shortly after I bought the Jag, and I was invited to look around for any parts that may have been of use. The club described it as a miracle, but there – lying in wait alongside four perfect alloys from a car just like mine – was a passenger side rear wing: brand new, and still in primer. I could not have been any luckier.

Sourcing a new floor was simple, and it came from Jaguar itself. The XJC uses pretty much the same floor as the short wheelbase saloon version, and with a bit of cutting and shoving this proved to be the easiest of jobs. A friend of mine runs a body shop, and he helped with various tasks. The new sills, cut down from the saloon, the fitting of the rear wing, plus a full strip down of all the chrome, which I hoped to replace. This proved harder than I had thought, and even a junkyard visits and adverts in the club magazines failed to find the relevant rim. My friend managed to clean most of them up, however, and sourced new bumpers from a scrapped saloon.

While he set about the bodywork I concentrated on stripping out the wiring and replacing it, as well as fitting the new interior trim I had found at a show somewhere. Remarkably the seats looked like new with some treatment, and I began to wonder whether the mileage shown was not an exaggeration as, mechanically and in many ways otherwise, the car was in pretty good shape.

Seven months of toil down the line and several days of curses and blasphemy later, and she went for a paint respray. Out she came, resplendent in the original guards’ red, and with a brand new vinyl roof – essential to hide the cosmetic work that came with the original – looking absolutely stunning. All that remained was for me to fit the chrome trimmings and have her serviced.

The sadness of realization

Driving the Jaguar was like riding a magic carpet; however, it proved to be, as I had known deep down, a very expensive magic carpet. The twin fuel tanks cost a week’s salary to fill, but didn’t last a week of commuting, and while the insurance was low and I experienced few problems – she started first time, every time – I knew from the first time I drove her that this simply could not go on.

Selling her was the easiest part of the whole saga. I placed an advert in the club magazine and was besieged by telephone calls. I sold to a young man nearby, who arrived one sunny day and loaded her onto a trailer.

I was sad to see her go, and have often thought I should have kept her, and to console myself went out and bought the latest copy of my favorite classic car magazine. And there, in the classifieds, was an advert for a bright yellow Lotus Elite 501; good condition, low mileage, and not far away. I picked up the phone and….well, no, that’s another story!

Thu, Feb 05, 2009

Chris Colby has been an addict for more than 13 years. It's not drugs or alcohol, but something much more addictive. His poison: Volkswagen.

Chris has owned seven Volkswagens over the years, both air-cooled and water-cooled. He has driven without heat during a bone-chilling Michigan winter, and without air conditioning in the humid Florida summer. He has gone through more sets of wheels than he can count, and more repairs than most people make in a lifetime. He has also made friends with people from around the world who share his addiction.

"It seems like there's something VW related every weekend," he said. "If I'm not working on my car, it's my friends' cars, a show, a cruise, a get-together, or another event. My life really does revolve around these cars."

The 1967 Beetle:

It all started when Chris was only 15 years old. The 1967 Beetle was his gateway. Once he discovered that '67 was a changeover year for the Beetle, the obsession began.

"The 1967 Beetles had many one-year-only parts, and mine was one of the 10 percent that came with a factory crank sunroof," Chris said. "Some of the parts that were unique to the 1967 were the window cranks, the rear bumper mounted reverse lights, the door lock knobs, the oil bath air cleaner, the hood, the rear deck lid, and the dash knobs. There were also changes to different aspects of the 1967 that made it unique: it was the first year for a 12 volt electrical system, the first year for thin exterior trim, and the first year for upright headlights on the U.S. models. The 1967 was also the last year for the steel dashboard, low-back seats, and for the large 'towel rail' bumpers U.S. Models."

During the seven years Chris owned it, he restored the Beetle to its original showroom condition, with the exception of the CD player and speakers he added.

When most high school guys were buying fast cars to try and impress their girlfriends, Chris was busy restoring a car that originally sold for less than a thousand dollars. "I just had a passion for the design and handling of such a small, inexpensive car, that was a dime a dozen in its day," he said.

Chris was amazed that someone had taken such good care of a car that was just cheap, honest transportation to many people.

"Owning and driving an antique Beetle was never about impressing anyone," he said. "It was something that I was into, something that only one other friend was into at the time. It did get a lot of attention though, just because it was pretty rare to see one in Michigan in the late 90's. I loved to cruise out to the Lake Michigan beaches in the summer, and it was the perfect beach cruiser. To this day my friends still reminisce about the car that they would lift up and push across the parking lot while I was in school. I would come out of class and find my car across the parking lot from where I left it!"

While he was at college, Chris didn't have anywhere to keep the Beetle during the winters so it stayed in his parents' garage. Eventually, they needed their space back and he had to sell his baby.

"I found this really nice old lady who was looking for a fun little car to drive in the summer," Chris said. "I was sad that I had to sell the Bug, but I knew that she would take great care of it. Plus, she told me that if I ever wanted to buy it back, she would sell it back to me. To this day, we keep in contact and she sends me emails, letters and pictures of the car."

The '67 Beetle, redux:

Chris also bought another 1967 Beetle as a project car. He kept it in his friend's garage so he could work on it on the weekends, even removing and rebuilding the entire motor.

"I originally wanted to fully restore it, but due to "lack of funding" I wasn't able to do that," Chris said. "I sold it to a surfer dude that moved here from California. The guy just owned a moped and was looking for something else to drive during the rainy season."

The 1986 Jetta:

Chris bought a 1986 Jetta to drive during winter, so he could keep the Beetle in good shape while he owned it. His father kept the Jetta in the side yard during the summer.

One August, while the Jetta sat in his parents’ yard, thousands of bees made its engine bay their home. Luckily, Chris realized they were there before he got too close.

He dug out his snowmobile suit, gloves and helmet and bundled up on a sweltering summer day, so he could try to start the car without getting stung. The car didn't start when he tried to turn it over. But that wasn't the only problem that day. Chris got out of the car to inspect it a little closer, and found that the wheels were rusted solid to the hubs and animals had chewed through the fuel lines.

"Needless to say, the cost to fix everything was far more than what the Jetta was worth," Chris said. "I got my money's worth out of that car, but I had to let it go after that. I stripped it for the good parts, which found a new home on a friend's 1990 VW Golf."

A year later, Chris met his girlfriend. She owned a 1995 Ford Taurus station wagon, but she soon fell under the influence of Chris' addiction.

The 1995 Golf:

Chris tried for a few years to get his girlfriend to give up the station wagon, and the last straw came when he spent four hours outside in the snow to replace the spark plugs.

“That thing cut me up pretty bad, and I almost froze my hands off trying to squeeze them around the engine block to get the plugs swapped out. It was a nightmare!” he said.

He convinced her that a Volkswagen was going to be better on gas and easier to fix, so they started looking around. They found a 1995 Golf in Gary, Indiana and took the train from Kalamazoo, Michigan to pick it up.

Chris got to drive the Golf for a few months because his girlfriend didn’t know how to drive a stick.

“I taught her how, but it took her a while before she was comfortable driving by herself,” he said.

Chris and his girlfriend moved to Florida in April of 2005. They drove the Golf down, and as soon as they crossed the Florida state line, the air conditioning stopped working.

“Of course, when we really needed the A/C it stopped working!” Chris said.

He spent many hours and a couple hundred dollars on parts, but never got the air conditioning back up and running. He took it to several A/C repair shops in the area, and they all claimed that the system "just needed to be recharged." After two different shops over charged the system and destroyed the expensive new parts, he gave up.

Shortly after they moved to Florida, Chris’ girlfriend was driving home from work on the freeway. She got to their exit, and the Golf just died. She coasted down the exit ramp and a motorist helped her push the car out of the way. Chris met her by the car, but he couldn’t immediately see what was wrong with it.

Just then, someone drove past in a 1960 Volkswagen Single Cab pickup. Chris recognized the truck as one of their neighbors’, but didn’t think anything of it until the driver turned around and came back. The neighbor just happened to be a Volkswagen technician, and after checking out the situation, he told Chris that the timing belt was broken. Luckily it had broken at idle, saving the valves and the motor.

They had the Golf towed to the neighbor’s house, and Chris agreed to help the neighbor paint his house in exchange for replacing the timing belt.     

“After we sold the Golf, I spotted it at one of the many car shows I go to every year," Chris said. "I talked to the guy who bought it from the people we sold it to, and he told me that the A/C worked when he got the car…go figure!”

The 2001 GTI:

“When we bought the GTI, it worked out perfectly,” Chris said. “We picked it up on the same night we sold the Golf.”

Unfortunately, the GTI’s previous owner took the factory stereo, six disc CD changer and the amp, leaving Chris’ girlfriend with no music for three weeks. After they installed a new amp and stereo, they noticed an interesting quirk.

“My girlfriend was laughing when she got home from work one day," Chris said. "I asked her what was so funny, and she told me that she got cut off by a rude driver. When she honked the car’s horn, the stereo started blasting.”

Apparently, one of the door speakers didn’t work until the horn was honked.  

“That was a fun car. I drove the GTI as much as I could because I knew my girlfriend wouldn’t drive it the way it was meant to be driven," he said. "The GTI's 1.8L turbocharged 4 cylinder engine got 170 hp from the factory. After we had the car "flashed" with REVO Stage 1 software, it was up to 225 horsepower."

Of course, the software also triggered the GTI's Check Engine light, because of the different readings being sent to the oxygen sensors. Many of Chris' friends also have the Check Engine light "problem."

“It’s almost like a special club," he said. "If you see a Check Engine light in someone else’s car, you know they’ve got a modded VW.”

They also had to run premium gas in the GTI. The expenses got out of hand in the summer of 2008, when gas prices were at their all-time high. Chris decided to look for something more economical. 

The ideal solution: the same car, but with a turbocharged diesel motor.

The 2001 Golf TDI:

Right when everyone in the country was looking for a smaller vehicle to offset fuel costs, Chris was on a mission to find a TDI to replace the GTI. He searched every single automobile website several times daily, and even had alerts set up to notify him when something he wanted became available.

The trouble was, every one was sold by the time he called. “I must have made 50 phone calls every week!” he said.

He got lucky one Friday night. A 2001 TDI was traded in to a Toyota dealership in South Florida, and it had been sitting on the lot for a week before the sales person put it up on the website. Chris called and put money down to hold it until the next day.

“We were lucky we put the hold on it, because when we got down to the lot the sales person said that he had gotten more than 20 calls about the car," Chris said. "He obviously had no idea what he had, because it was priced way below anything else out there. People were willing to have it shipped across the country!”

When Chris took the car for a test drive, everything ran perfectly, but he noticed that the stereo was missing.

“What is with VW owners taking the stereos out of their cars!? I had the sales person contact the previous owners, but they never called back,” he said.

His girlfriend still drives the TDI, and even though it's not as fast as the GTI was, they appreciate being able to get more than double the miles on one tank.

The 1998 Golf:

Chris bought his current car, a 1998 Golf, from the original owner. Amazingly, the previous owner had kept all the maintenance records.

“That’s how I knew it was a good buy,” Chris said. “I could tell that the car was taken care of, and I could see everything that was done to it, all the way down to the oil change schedule.”

The car was in perfect condition: the Suede Silver paint looked great, the seats and carpet were immaculate and everything was completely stock.

“It’s been a great little car ever since I bought it,” he said. “But it does have one odd quirk. I think it gets jealous when I go out of town for a few days.”

Chris went to Michigan for a wedding in the summer of 2008, and he was gone for about five days. He left the car in the garage, and when he came back from vacation he noticed a big puddle of coolant underneath. It turned out that the water pump needed to be replaced, however it wasn't apparent until it sat unmoved for a few days.

On another occasion, Chris returned home from a business trip. He got in the car and barely made it out of the driveway before the clutch cable snapped.

“Apparently the car misses me while I’m gone, and just wants to spend some quality time with me when I come home!”

The addiction lives on...

Although he's had his fair share of problems, repairs and headaches, Chris will never give up his addiction. He gets pleasure from the pain, and he thinks that the good outweighs the bad when it comes to owning a Volkswagen.

"I truly love the brand," he said. "There are a lot of diehard car guys out there who stick with their brand through thick and thin: Ford guys, Chevy guys, Honda guys. I'm just a Volkswagen guy at heart."

Chris hopes to get back to the roots of his addiction, and buy back his original '67 Beetle some day.

Mon, Aug 10, 2009

When Brian Clark first bought his 1959 Buick four door hardtop, he said that, despite its age, it was in extremely good condition. His ’59 Buick was “very good...mechanically excellent, body solid and the interior original.”

He sees the importance of keeping the old classics alive. I asked Brian if he had customized or restored his Buick in any way since he bought it. He said he added a few factory and period correct accessories, and covered the original upholstery to protect it. While he never undertook a huge restoration project on his cars, he has done some odd jobs, and was fully aware of light restoration carried out beforehand.

“The '59 I bought after it had been lightly restored. The exterior had been painted in a base coat/clear coat in the original color, and most of the mechanicals had been refreshed. The interior is all original, although I have since recovered the seats to protect the original upholstery. Before my trip to Colorado Springs, I did have the radiator recored, replaced the brakes and the transmission mount, along with a full tune-up.”

The Wildcat had intrigued me as it is a sportier car than the ’59 Buick. He had some work done on her two decades ago to restore some of the former glory .

“The Wildcat I did vinyl dye the interior to bring back the color and had the engine rebuilt to factory specs and painted. Other than that, it was repainted in Acrylic Enamel almost 20 years ago” said Brian.

As with a lot of Buicks and Wildcats from this era – they still drive well and are used regularly. He told me that he tries to drive his Buick once a week during the “non-winter” or “non-salt months”. This is a wise move as old bodywork wasn’t manufactured to withstand the elements as are the modern cars. Areas exposed to salted roads such as wheel hubs and the underbelly can rust and corrode.

Maintenance also comes into question, and so does the never ending problem of finding parts. Even though the internet is always available, Brian says that parts are sometimes difficult to come by since this is a one year body style. However, he told me that it is relatively easy to maintain, due to the straight forward setup by Buick in the 50’s and due to the big club scene, parts are possible to be located. Brian is currently an officer of a Buick club.

He knows roughly fifty 1959 Buick owners. There is a Division of the Buick Club of America dedicated just to '59 Buicks and he serves as treasurer of that club. They have a website that is open to anyone at www.buick-59.com. Division and BCA membership is not required to participate, but is appreciated to help support the site.

Because ’59 Buicks were a one year model, many of the people who own them obtained them thru passing down through generations, or discovered them under a pile of rubbish in an old barn – lost and forgotten. However, Brian’s Buick has a more modern story.

“I found the '59 Buick on Ebay, listed by a dealer from South Dakota, at Frankman Motors. It was the first 1959 Buick I recall ever seeing and fell in love immediately. I asked many questions of the seller and eventually bought the car from the dealer. Last fall I also purchased a '69 Electra 225 from them.” Brian told me. This was a great find on Ebay which is often criticized for listing junkers that should never be allowed near a road. Good thing Brian has an eye for cars. 

Every car enthusiast or classic car buff I’ve every talked to has a favorite aspect of their pride and joy. For Brian it’s the Deltawings – the rear fins and the canted headlights. They make for a menacing and futuristic design. The design of Buicks in the 50’s and 60’s were typical of cars seen in films and posters of that era: long, wide, flat, while sporting piercing headlights and stylish fins.

The interior of Brian’s car is also eye pleasing and has a few modern commodities – and some tell-tale signs of age!

“Interior of the '59 is all original, showing light water damage on the door panels from the windows not sealing tightly due to the car being a hardtop, but overall very presentable. The dash appears brand new, with the padded dash intact and still soft. This is a piece that you will see collapsed on many cars due to the fragility of the foam used. The car has a working AM Sonomatic radio of tube design and I have added an AM modulator that allows me to plug into my MP3 player or FM station for more music options. (This is unseen, with the plug in located in the glove box).”

Brian’s first car was also a 1965 Buick Wildcat two door hardtop, and something that he still adores to this day, loving old Buicks ever since. Like most car enthusiasts, it’s clear to me that Brian’s heart still lies with that ’65 Wildcat. When asked what his dream car would be he said “My first Buick, the Wildcat”.

Looks like for the time being though, he will do like the song says and “love the one you’re with!”

Brian with his daughter, Ashley: