Subaru began selling four-wheel-drive-equipped Leone station wagons in the United States as 1975 models, and each passing year after that saw more American car shoppers deciding that they wanted cars—not trucks, cars—with power going to all four wheels. Toyota got into that game with the Tercel 4WD wagon, sold here for the 1983 through 1988 model years, and I’ve found one of those cars in its final parking space in Denver.

The very affordable Tercel first went on sale in the United States as a 1980 model, badged as the Corolla Tercel at first (in order to take advantage of the name recognition for the unrelated Corolla, which had been a strong seller since its American debut in 1966).

The original Tercel had an interesting powertrain layout, with a longitudinally-mounted engine driving the front wheels via a V-drive-style transmission that sent power to a differential assembly mounted below the engine. This resulted in an awkward-looking high hood but also meant that sending power to a rear drive axle was just a matter of adding a rear-facing output shaft to the transmission.

Making a four-wheel-drive Tercel wasn’t difficult with that rig plus a few off-the-shelf parts, and Toyota decided to add a wagon version of the Tercel at the same time. This was the Sprinter Carib, which debuted in Japan as a 1982 model. The Tercel 4WD Wagon (as it was known in North America) hit American Toyota showrooms as a 1983 model.

A front-wheel-drive version of the Tercel Wagon was also available in the United States, though not in Japan; most of the Tercel Wagons I find during my junkyard travels are four-wheel-drive versions.

This car has four-wheel-drive, not all-wheel-drive (as we understand the terms today), which means that the driver had to manually select front-wheel-drive for use on dry pavement. Failure to do so would result in damage to the tires or worse. American Motors began selling the all-wheel-drive Eagle as a 1980 model, with Audi following a year later with its Quattro AWD system, while Toyota didn’t begin selling true AWD cars in the United States until its All-Trac system debuted in the 1988 model year.

The Tercel 4WD Wagon sold very well in snowy regions of North America, despite strong competition from Subaru as well as from the 4WD-equipped wagons offered by Honda, Nissan, and Mitsubishi.

This one is a top-of-the-Tercel-range SR5 model with just about every possible option. While the base 1986 Tercel FWD hatchback started at a miserly $5448 ($15,586 in today’s dollars), the MSRP for a 1986 Tercel SR5 4WD wagon was $8898 ($25,456 after inflation).

One of the coolest features of the SR5 version of the ’86 Tercel 4WD Wagon was the six-speed manual transmission, with its “Extra Low” gear. If you’re a Tercel 4WD Wagon enthusiast (many are), this is the transmission you want for your car!

The SR5’s plaid seat upholstery looked great, as an added bonus.

These cars were reasonably capable off-road, though the lack of power made them quite slow on any surface. This is a 1.5-liter 3A-C SOHC straight-four, rated at 62 horsepower and 76 pound-feet (probably more like 55 horsepower at Denver’s elevation).

The curb weight of this car was a wispy 2290 pounds and so it wasn’t nearly as pokey as, say, a Rabbit Diesel, but I’ve owned several 1983-1988 Tercel Wagons and I can say from personal experience that they require a great deal of patience on freeway on-ramps.

I can also say from experience that the Tercel Wagon obliterates every one of its anywhere-near-similarly-priced competitors in the reliability and build-quality departments. This one made it to a pretty good 232,503 miles during its career, and I’ve found a junkyard ’88 with well over 400,000 miles on its odometer.

The air conditioning added $655 to the price tag, or $1874 in today’s dollars. This one has an aftermarket radio, but SR5 4WD Wagon buyers for 1986 got a pretty decent AM/FM radio with four speakers as standard equipment. If you wanted to play cassettes, that was $186 more ($532 now).

The Tercel went to a third generation during the 1988 model year (both the second- and third-generation Tercels were sold in the United States as 1988 models), becoming a cousin of the Japanese-market Starlet and getting an ordinary engine orientation in the process. The 4WD Wagon went away, to be replaced by the Corolla All-Trac Wagon. The 1996 Tercel ended up being the last new car available in the United States with a four-speed manual transmission, by the way.

These cars make fun projects today, though finding rust-free examples can be a challenge.

***

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Most of the 20th-century Italian cars you’ll find in North American car graveyards today will be Fiat 124 Sport Spiders and X1/9s, with the occasional Alfa Romeo 164 thrown in for variety. For the first Italian machine in the Final Parking Space series, however, we’ve got a much rarer find: a genuine Maserati Biturbo Spyder, found in a boneyard located between Denver and Cheyenne.

1989 was an interesting year for the Maserati brand, because that was when the longtime friendship between Maserati owner Alejandro de Tomaso and Chrysler president Lee Iacocca resulted in a collaboration between the two companies that produced a car called, awkwardly, Chrysler’s TC by Maserati.

The TC by Maserati was based on a variation of Chrysler’s company-reviving K platform and assembled in Milan. I’ve documented five discarded TCs during the past decade, and those articles have never failed to spur heated debate over the TC’s genuine Maserati-ness.

In fact, I’ve managed to find even more examples of the Biturbo than the TC during my adventures in junkyard history, and even the most devoted trident-heads must accept those cars as true Maseratis.

The Biturbo was Maserati’s first attempt to build a mass-production car, and it went on sale in the United States as a 1984 model. It was available here through 1990, at various times as a four-door sedan (known as the 425 or 430), a two-door coupe, and as a convertible (known as the Spyder). This car is the first Spyder I’ve found in a car graveyard.

The heart of the Biturbo, and the origin of its name, is a screaming overhead-cam V-6 with twin turbochargers.

Unfortunately, the 1984-1986 Biturbos sold on our side of the Atlantic used a blow-through fuel-delivery system featuring a Weber carburetor inside a pressurized box, with no intercoolers. Forced induction systems with carburetors never did prove very reliable for daily street use, and the carbureted/non-intercooled Biturbo proved to be a legend of costly mechanical misery in the real world.

This car came from the factory with both Weber-Marelli electronic fuel injection and an intercooler, rated at 225 horsepower and 246 pound-feet in U.S.-market configuration. This more modern fuel-delivery rig didn’t solve all of the Biturbo’s reliability problems, but it didn’t hurt.

A three-speed automatic was available in the American Biturbo, but this car has the five-speed manual that its engine deserved.

When everything worked correctly, the 1989 Biturbo was fast and decadent, with nearly as much power as a new 1989 BMW M6 for about ten grand cheaper. The Spyder for that year had an MSRP of $44,995, or about $116,500 in 2024 dollars. Sure, a Peugeot 505 Turbo had an MSRP of $26,335 ($68,186 after inflation) and just 45 fewer horses, but was it Italian? Well, was it?

Soon after the time the first Biturbos hit American roads, I was a broke college student delivering pizzas with my Competition Orange 1968 Mercury Cyclone in Newport Beach, California. At that time and place, bent bankers and their henchmen were busily looting Orange County S&Ls, and the free-flowing cash resulted in Biturbos appearing everywhere for a couple of years. Then, like a switch had been flipped, they disappeared.

This car appears to have been sold all the way across the country from Lincoln Savings & Loan, so it doesn’t benefit from that Late 1980s Robber Baron bad-boy mystique.

If you had one of these cars, you had to display one of these distinctive mobile phone antennas on your ride. A lot of them were fake, though.

This car appears to have been parked for at least a couple of decades, so I believe the 28,280 miles showing on the odometer represent the real final figure.

There’s some rust-through and the harsh High Plains Colorado climate has ruined most of the leather and wood inside. These cars are worth pretty decent money in good condition, but I suspect that it would take $50,000 to turn one like this into a $25,000 car.

Still, it has plenty of good parts available for local Biturbo enthusiasts. I bought the decklid badge for my garage wall, of course.

***

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The Bugatti Type 35 may well hold the most wins of any race car in history, but it had to overcome one major obstacle along the way: the Alfa Romeo P2.

Vittorio Jano, recently poached from Fiat, was personally tasked by Alfa founder Nicola Romeo with its design.  “Listen,” Romeo said.  “I am not expecting you to make a car which will beat all others, but I’d like one which will make us look good, so that we can make an identity card for this factory, then later, when it has a name, we’ll make the car.”

It’s fair to say that Jano exceeded expectations. He began by assembling a two-liter straight-eight engine with a double crankcase design, fixed steel heads, and gear-driven twin camshafts. At Fiat, Jano had been an early adopter of the supercharger so he added a Roots-type blower, complete with a pioneering intercooler. At 5500 rpm Jano’s engine produced 140 horsepower.

The P2’s chassis didn’t break any new ground with its traditional ladder frame, but the elongated tail aided aerodynamics and the staggered two-seater layout gave the driver a little more elbow room to twirl the big steering wheel.

The first P2 was completed on June 2, 1924, and driven immediately by Giuseppe Campari and Alberto Ascari, even before it was painted in Alfa’s trademark racing red. A week later it lined up at the Circuito di Cremona for its first true test over five laps of the 40-mile road course. Ascari took the checkered flag almost a minute ahead of his nearest rival, Alete Marconcini, in the Chiribiri 12/16, with Roberto Malinervi’s Bugatti T22 in third.

At Lyons, just a few weeks later, Bugatti brought five of its new Type 35s to attempt to steal Alfa’s thunder. It was not to be. Campari stormed to victory after five hours of hard racing, with the first of the Bugattis, driven by Jean Chassagne, a distant seventh place.

With a third win at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, Alfa Romeo confirmed the P2’s pace. In the 1925 season it won two of the four rounds of the first-ever World Championship for Grand Prix Cars, securing the title for Alfa Romeo.

The dominance was short-lived, however, as a new rule for 1926 saw a change of engine displacement to 1.5 liters, favoring Bugatti. The P2 battled on in other categories and, in 1930, secured its most memorable success at the Targa Florio.

Achille Varzi somehow managed to complete the grueling 335-mile event around Sicily in six hours and 55 minutes, despite suffering from a fuel problem that could not only have ended his race but also his life. A broken bracket holding the spare wheel caused the fuel tank to leak. On the last lap of the 67-mile road layout, his mechanic attempted to add more gas to the tank while the Alfa sped on. It spilled onto the hot exhaust and immediately ignited. The mechanic tore out his seat cushion and frantically beat at the flames as they crossed the finish line. Louis Chiron’s Bugatti Type 35 B was almost two minutes behind. Another one-in-the-eye for Alfa’s rival, just before the P2 was retired from service.

***

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Chrysler’s Plymouth Division used the Belvedere name from the 1951 through 1970 model years, and the first to get properly exuberant tailfins was the version built for 1955 and 1956. Here’s one of those cars, found at a Denver-area self-service car graveyard recently.

Just as was the case with such Detroit machines as the Chevrolet Malibu and Ford Crown Victoria, the Belvedere name began its automotive career appended to another model name that subsequently disappeared. This was the 1951-1953 Plymouth Cranbrook, the two-door hardtop version of which was designated the Cranbrook Belvedere.

The best-known Belvederes today are the 1962-1970 B-platform midsize cars, which served as the basis for the legendary Plymouth GTX and Road Runner muscle cars. After 1970, the Satellite name—itself a former Belvedere trim-level designation—shoved the Belvedere name aside.

Chrysler’s low-priced Plymouth Division sold cars like mad after World War II ended, but Plymouth’s dowdy late-1940s body designs were hurting sales by the time future-crazed 1954 rolled around; during that year, Buick and Oldsmobile blew by Plymouth in the sales standings. For the 1955 model year, new Plymouths got the Virgil Exner “Forward Look” treatment, fins and all.

Now Plymouths looked just as modern as their Chevy or Ford rivals, and sales increased by more than 240,000 units versus 1954.

Not only that, but 1955 Plymouth shoppers could opt for overhead-valve V-8 power under the hood for the first time—previously, every Plymouth since the brand’s birth had been powered by flathead straight-four or straight-six engines. Chevrolet had introduced an OHV V-8 of some importance for the 1955 model year as well, while Ford’s Y-Block V-8 had debuted the year before that.

Chrysler had been bolting its Hemi V-8 engines into high-end Chrysler-badged models since the 1951 model year, and even the DeSoto and Dodge Divisions eventually received the Hemi treatment. Lowly Plymouth, however, wasn’t about to get such a costly engine (until later on), so a cheap-to-manufacture “semi-Hemi” or “polyspherical” version with a single rocker shaft per cylinder head was devised. That engine family begat the Hy-Fire polyspherical-headed V-8, which used a different block design and eventually led to the LA-series small-block V8s that were built from the middle 1960s and into our current century.

This bubbling stew of related and not-so-related Chrysler V-8 engines gets very confusing in the 1956 model year, when new Plymouths could be purchased with either the semi-Hemi 269-cubic inch V-8 (also known as the 270) and its 180 horsepower or the A-series 276-cubic inch Poly V-8 (generally known as the 277) with 187 horses. This car has the latter type, which may be original or could be a swapped-in later version with more displacement. The A-series Poly V-8 proved to be something of an evolutionary dead end, though it was a successful engine that was installed in plenty of Chrysler machinery through 1967.

The base engine in the 1956 Belvedere remained the good old flathead straight-six, with a displacement of 230 cubic inches and an output of 125 horsepower.

The base transmission was a three-speed column-shifted manual, but this car was heavily optioned and came with the PowerFlite two-speed automatic transmission controlled by Chrysler’s new-for-1956 pushbutton shifter (the shifter, located to the left of the instrument panel, has been removed from this car).

The PowerFlite was a true automatic, unlike the earlier Fluid Drive.

This Motorola AM radio lacks markings for the CONELRAD nuclear-attack frequencies of 640 and 1240 kHz, even though they were required in 1956. Perhaps it’s an overseas-market radio.

The list price for a 1956 Belvedere four-door sedan with 269-cubic inch V-8 started at $2154, or about $25,201 in 2024 dollars. The automatic transmission added $184 to that ($2153 after inflation). A 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air sedan with 265-cubic inch V-8 and Powerglide two-speed automatic had an MSRP of $2356 ($27,564 in today’s money), while the 1956 Ford Fairlane sedan with 272-cubic inch V-8 and Ford-O-Matic three-speed automatic listed at $2409 ($28,184 now).

The Plymouth Division was named for a brand of rope popular with American farmers at the time, but later on the branding changed focus to Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower. During the middle 1950s, Plymouth logos depicted the Wampanoag people humbly presenting gifts to their future conquerors.

This car has very little serious rust for a 68-year-old car that has been sitting outdoors in Colorado for decades, though the interior has been thoroughly nuked by the harsh High Plains climate.

It could be restored, but that might not be an economically sensible choice for a fairly ordinary mid-1950s Plymouth post sedan. The more powerful Fury hardtop coupe gets most of the attention given to ’56 Plymouths these days.

This car’s final parking space is among many other interesting vehicles from the 1930s through 1970s (including the 1952 IHC L-130, 1959 Borgward Isabella Coupé, 1958 Edsel Citation, 1963 Chevrolet Corvair Monza Club Coupe, and 1963 Chrysler Newport that have appeared in this series) at Colorado Auto & Parts, located just south of Denver.

CAP is home to the famous aircraft-radial-powered 1939 Plymouth truck, which was built there by members of the family that has owned the establishment since the 1950s. If you stop by to buy some ’56 Belvedere parts, you’ll see this pickup parked next to the cashier’s counter.

Yes, it runs and drives!

***

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The Type 1 Volkswagen first went on sale in the United States in 1949, and two were sold. After that, VW dealers here did increasingly well with the Type 1—eventually known as der Käfer or the Beetle— with each passing year, with the American Beetle sales pinnacle reached in 1968. These cars have become uncommon in car graveyards in recent years, but I found this fairly solid ’70 in Colorado last winter.

For the 1970 model year, Volkswagen of America offered five models, all built in West Germany: the Beetle, the Karmann Ghia, the Fastback, the Squareback, and the Transporter (which was pitched as the Volkswagen Station Wagon at the time).

The 1970 Beetle was available as a convertible, as a two-door sedan, and as a two-door sedan with sunroof. Today’s FPS car is the latter type, which had a list price of $1929 when new (about $16,001 in 2024 dollars). The non-sunroof sedan cost just $1839 that year ($15,254 after inflation).

The Beetle wasn’t the cheapest new car Americans could buy in 1970, but it was a lot of car for the money. The 1970 Austin America (known as the Austin 1100/1300 in its homeland) had an MSRP of $1815, while American Renault dealers offered a new 10 for a mere $1775. The 1970 Toyota Corolla two-door sedan had an astonishing list price of $1686, which helped it become the second-best-selling import (after the Beetle) in the United States that year, while Mazda offered the $1798 1200 two-door. For the adventurous, there was the motorcycle-engine-powered Honda 600, priced to sell at $1398, and Malcolm Bricklin was eager to sell you a new Subaru 360 for only $1297. How about a 1970 Fiat 850 sedan for $1504? The Ford Pinto and Chevrolet Vega debuted as 1971 models, so the most affordable new American-built 1970 car was the $1879 AMC Gremlin.

The first factory-installed Beetle sunroofs opened up most of the roof with a big sliding fabric cover, but a more modern metal sunroof operated by a crank handle replaced that type for 1964.

The final U.S.-market air-cooled Beetles were sold as 1979 models, which meant that Beetles were very easy to find in American junkyards until fairly deep into the 1990s. You’ll still run across discarded Beetles today, though most of them will be in rough shape and they tend to get picked clean in a hurry.

Volkswagen introduced the Super Beetle, which received a futuristic MacPherson strut front suspension and lengthened snout, as a 1971 model in the United States. Most of the Beetles you’ll find in the boneyards today will be of the Super variety, which makes today’s non-Super an especially good find for the junkyard connoisseur.

I’ve owned a few Beetles over the years, including a genuinely terrifying ’58 Sunroof Sedan with hot-rodded Type 3 engine that I purchased at age 17 for $50 at an Oakland junkyard. It acquired the name “Hubert the Hatred Bug” due to being the least Herbie-like Beetle imaginable. Later, I acquired a 1973 Super Beetle and thought it neither handled nor rode better than the regular Beetle; your opinion of the Super may differ.

The Type 1 Beetle was obsolete very early on, being a 1930s design optimized for ease of manufacture, but it was so cheap to build and simple to maintain that customers were willing to buy it for decade after decade. Beetle production blew past that of the seemingly unbeatable Model T Ford in 1972, when the 15,007,034th example rolled off the line, and the final Vocho was assembled in Mexico in 2003. That means a last-year Beetle will be legal to import to the United States in just four years!

The first water-cooled Volkswagen offered in the United States was the 1974 Dasher, which was really an Audi 80. It was the introduction of the Rabbit a year later (plus increasingly strict safety and emissions standards) that finally doomed the Type 1 Beetle here; Beetle sales dropped from 226,098 in 1974 to 78,412 in 1975 and then fell off an even steeper cliff after that. For the 1978 and 1979 model years, the only new Beetles available here were Super convertibles.

The original engine in this car was a 1585cc boxer-four rated at 57 horsepower, although there’s plenty of debate on the subject of air-cooled VW power numbers to this day. These engines are hilariously easy to swap and were once cheap and plentiful, though, so the chances that we are looking at this car’s original plant aren’t very good.

This is a single-port carbureted engine with a generator, so it could be the original 1600… or maybe it’s the ninth engine to power this car. Generally, junkyard Type 1 engines get grabbed right away these days, but this car had just been placed in the yard when I arrived.

The hateful Automatic Stickshift three-speed transmission was available as an option in the 1970 Beetle, but this car has the regular four-on-the-floor manual.

To get into reverse, you push down on the gearshift and then into the second-gear position (this can be a frustrating process in a VW with worn-out shifter linkage components).

By air-cooled Volkswagen standards, this car isn’t especially rusty. I’m surprised that it ended up at a Pick Your Part yard, to be honest… and now here’s the bad news for you VW fanatics itching to go buy parts from it: I shot these photos last December and the car got crushed months ago. I shoot so many vehicles in their final parking spaces that I can’t write about every one of them while they’re still around.

It even had the original factory Sapphire XI AM radio.

***

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The American Motors Corporation did good business selling small, sensible cars bearing the Rambler brand during the late 1950s through early 1960s. Rambler sales peaked in the 1962 model year, after which competition from new compact and midsize offerings from the Detroit Big Three made life tougher for the not-so-big Kenosha outfit. During the middle 1960s, AMC battled for midsize sales against the likes of the Chevrolet Chevelle and Plymouth Belvedere with its Rambler Classic. Today we’ll admire the first AMC product in this series with a Classic 660 found in a yard located between Denver and Cheyenne.

The Classic began life as a 1961 model during George Romney’s reign at AMC, then got a complete redesign for 1963 and became bigger and more modern-looking. Unfortunately for AMC, Ford introduced the Fairlane as a 1962 model, while Chrysler was right there with brand-new B-Body midsize machinery at the same time. As if that wasn’t enough, GM stepped up with the Chevelle and its A-Body siblings for the 1964 model year.

AMC, by then without Romney (who had gone on to become governor of Michigan), completely redesigned the Classic for 1965 and it looked just as slick as its many rivals. The following year, the Rambler name entered a phase-out period that was completed when the final AMC Ramblers were sold as 1969 models (the last year for Rambler as a separate marque was 1968).

The 1965 Classic was a bit smaller than the Fairlane, Chevelle, and Belvedere, though somewhat bigger than the Commander from soon-to-be-gone Studebaker.

The ’65 Classic offered plenty of value per dollar; the list price for this car would have been $2287 (about $22,894 in 2024 dollars). Its most menacing sales rival was the Chevelle Malibu, which had an MSRP of $2299 ($23,105 in today’s money) with roughly similar equipment.

This car is a 660, which was the mid-priced trim level slotted between the 550 and 770. Rambler shoppers who wanted to pinch a penny until it screamed could get a zero-frills Rambler 550 two-door sedan for just $2142 ($21,443 after inflation), which just barely undercut the cheapest Ford Fairlane Six ($2183) and Chevelle 300 ($2156) two-door sedans. Studebaker would sell you a new Commander two-door for a mere $2125 that year, but found few takers for that deal.

The 1965 Classic’s light weight (curb weight of 2882 pounds for the 660 four-door) made it respectably quick even with a six-cylinder engine. This car was built with an AMC 232-cubic-incher rated at 145 horsepower. If you wanted a genuine factory hot rod Classic for ’65, a 327-cubic-inch V-8 (not related to Chevrolet’s 327) with 270 horses was available.

But back to the straight six: This incredibly successful engine family went on to serve American Motors and then Chrysler all the way through 2006, when the final 4.0-liter versions were bolted into Jeep Wranglers. The 232 was used in new AMC cars through 1979.

Automatic transmissions were very costly during the middle 1960s and the Classic didn’t get a four-on-the-floor manual transmission until 1966, so the thrifty original buyer of this car went with the base three-speed column-shift manual.

At least it has a factory AM radio, a $58.50 option ($586 now).

You had to pay extra to get a heater in the cheapest 1965 Studebakers, but a genuine Weather Eye heater/ventilation system was standard equipment in every 1965 Rambler Classic.

AMC sold more than 200,000 Classics for 1965, and the most popular version was the 660 sedan. I still find Classics regularly in car graveyards, so these cars aren’t particularly rare even today.

This one is just too rough and too common to be worth restoring, but some of its parts should live on in other Ramblers.

Its final parking space has it right next to another affordable American machine that deserved a better fate: A 1979 Dodge Aspen station wagon.

***

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So far in this series, we’ve seen discarded cars from the United States, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and Sweden, but no trucks (unless you count a Volkswagen Transporter, which I don’t). We’ll remedy that imbalance today with a serious truck, an IHC L-Series that spent its working years in northern Illinois and now resides in a car graveyard near Denver, Colorado.

The Chicago-based International Harvester Corporation sold its first light trucks in 1907 and continued to build them until the final Scout Terras left the factory as 1980 models. You can still buy new International-badged trucks today, though their parent company is owned by Volkswagen.

This is an L-Series truck, the successor to the prewar KB design. The L-Series was built from the 1950 through 1952 model years and featured a modern, one-piece windshield.

This one appears to have toiled as a tow truck in Spring Valley, Illinois, for its entire career. That’s about 900 miles to the east of its current location in Colorado.

The truck is very weathered, and the 1975 Illinois license plate indicates that it has been sitting outdoors for close to a half-century.

How many stranded cars did this rig pull out of ditches and snowbanks during its career?

All the equipment appears to be genuine 1950s–1970s hardware.

At some point, an Oldsmobile transistor radio of the late CONELRAD era was installed in the dash.

The original engine was a 220-cubic-inch “Silver Diamond” IHC pushrod straight-six rated at 101 brake horsepower, and that may well be the engine still in the truck today (you have to be more of an IHC expert than I am to identify these engines at a glance).

The transmission is a three-on-the-floor manual, with a grind-free synchronized first gear.

This thick steel bumper must have been just the ticket for pushing dead cars, which would have been plentiful in the era of six-volt electrical systems, points ignition, and primitive tire technology.

As the theoretical owner of a 1947 GMC tow truck (which has been sitting in a field just south of Minneapolis since I was five years old), I understand why most of us are reluctant to restore such machines.

***

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During the 1970s, American car shoppers looking to commute in a two-seat European roadster at a reasonable price had two obvious choices: the Fiat 124 Sport Spider and the MG MGB. I see plenty of discarded examples of both types during my junkyard travels, but genuine chrome-bumper MGBs are much harder to find in car graveyards than the later “rubber-bumper” cars and any Fiat 124 Spiders. Today we’ve got one of those cars, spotted in a Pull-A-Part in Columbia, South Carolina recently.

One of the first cars we saw in this series was an MG, but it was a U.K.-market 2005 ZT 190 from the final days of pre-Chinese-ownership MG. You can buy a new MG in many parts of the world right now (in fact, MG’s 100th anniversary just took place last year), but the final model year for new Morris Garage products in the United States was 1980. That was when the final MGBs were sold here, a year after we got our last Midgets.

MG was part of the mighty British Leyland empire from 1968 through 1986, and many BL products received these badges for a time during the early 1970s.

The MGB was the successor to the MGA, and one of the best-selling British cars ever offered in the United States. Sales of the MGB began here in the 1963 model year and continued through 1980.

At first, all MGBs were two-seat roadsters. A Pininfarina-styled fastback coupe called the MGB GT first appeared in the United States as a 1966 model.

I owned a British Racing Green 1973 MGB-GT as my daily driver while I was in college during the late 1980s, and that car— which I loved, most of the time— made me a much better mechanic.

Like this car, my B had a 1.8-liter pushrod BMC B engine rated at 78.5 horsepower (yes, British Leyland claimed that half-horse in marketing materials). These cars aren’t at all fast with the stock running gear, but they are fun.

In theory, some MGBs were built with Borg-Warner automatic transmissions, but every example I’ve ever seen had a four-speed manual. An electrically-actuated overdrive unit was a much-sought-after option in these cars.

This car has the optional wire wheels, which would have been bought within days of showing up in a U-Pull junkyard 30 years ago. Nowadays, though, most MGB owners who want wire wheels have them already.

In 1973, the MSRP for a new MGB roadster was $3545 (about $25,991 in 2024 dollars). Meanwhile, its Fiat 124 Sport Spider rival listed at $3816 ($27,978 after inflation).

The 124 Sport Spider for ’73 came with a more modern 1.6-liter DOHC straight-four rated at 90 horsepower. That was quite a bit more than the MGB, but the Fiat also scaled in at 200 more pounds than its English rival. The MGB was sturdier, while both cars had similarly character-building electrical systems.

British Leyland also offered the Triumph TR6 and its 106 horsepower for 1973, with a $3980 price tag ($29,180 now). If you wanted a genuinely quick European convertible that year, your best bet was to spend $4948 ($36,277 in today’s money) for a new Alfa Romeo Spider Veloce… which took you into the same price range as a new Chevrolet Corvette.

This car is reasonably complete and not particularly rusty. Why is it here, just a few rows away from a Toyota Avalon that came within a hair of hitting the million-mile mark on its odometer?

Project MGBs are still fairly easy to find, so cars like this often sit in driveways or yards for decades before being sent on that final, sad tow-truck ride.

Still, the 1973 and early 1974 MGBs are the final models before federal crash-bumper and headlight-height regulations resulted in MGBs with big black rubber bumpers and lifted suspensions. This car should have been worth enough to avoid such a junkyardy fate, but perhaps South Carolina isn’t much of a hotbed for MGB enthusiasts nowadays.

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Visitors to Detroit for the 2024 NFL Draft this month will likely amazed (or confused) by the enormous Uniroyal tire sitting on the south side of Interstate 94 in Allen Park, not far from the Detroit Metropolitan Airport. It’s a sight Detroit commuters have viewed since 1966. Even Detroiters may not know, however, that the tire made its first appearance at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. April 22 marked the 60th anniversary of opening day, so we’re resharing the tale of the tire, published here originally in July of 2022, for that reason. –Ed.

If you’ve driven past the giant Uniroyal tire alongside I-94 near Detroit, you know it’s a big wheel. A very big wheel. It’s so unusual that celebrities are drawn to it. Fantastical stories have been told about it (no, it never rolled onto the freeway). A book was written about it. Yet, while an estimated 100,000 or so cars pass the landmark every day, it’s likely that many of the drivers have little or no idea of how it came to be.

The giant tire was created for the 1964–65 New York World’s Fair, not as the 80-foot-tall billboard it is now, but as a Ferris wheel. It was originally part of a static design that featured a tire wrapped around a globe, meant to symbolize the automotive boom of the early 1960s. World’s Fair officials ultimately decided to use the globe by itself as the event’s central figure, calling the steel structure the Unisphere (it still stands in Flushing Meadows).

They didn’t give up on the tire idea, however. Conceptual drawings were created of a unique Ferris wheel—appropriate, considering that George Washington Gale Ferris debuted his famous invention at the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893. Designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, the same architectural firm behind the Empire State Building, the towering New York World’s Fair Ferris wheel was shopped around to tire companies. U.S. Rubber bought in, but only after it was guaranteed exclusivity as the only Ferris wheel at the event. The tire originally read “US Royal Tires” and included 24 barrel-shaped gondolas that could carry four passengers each. Among the 2 million fairgoers who enjoyed the picturesque ride were Jacqueline Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy, John F. Kennedy Jr., actor Telly Savalas, and the Shah of Iran.

At the end of the fair’s second six-month season in October 1965, the giant tire was offered to anyone willing to dismantle it and haul it away. U.S. Rubber found no takers, so it decided to gut the Ferris wheel components and place the outer structure near its headquarters along I-94 between the Detroit Metropolitan Airport and the Motor City. As Steven J. Frey, author of The Giant Tire – From New York’s World Fair to Detroit Landmark, told Michigan’s Press & Guide last year, the tire company really didn’t have much choice in the matter—and not only because World’s Fair exhibitors were contractually obligated to disassemble or demolish their structures.

“They tried very hard to give it away,” Frey said. “Can you imagine the publicity disaster if the world’s largest tire went to a landfill? So, they decided if they can’t give it away, they have to keep it.”

The tire was shipped to Allen Park in 116 sections, loaded onto 22 railroad cars, and reassembled in 1966.

Although it looks like a giant rubber tire, the 12-ton structure is constructed of steel and polyester resin with a fiberglass surface. Of course, that hasn’t stopped people from trying to “deflate” it, as arrows have been removed from time to time. Uniroyal even stuck an 11-foot, 250-pound “nail” into the tire in 1998 to promote its self-repairing tires. When the nail was removed five years later, a real estate agent bought it for $3000 and used it to promote his business.

The tire sits on a structure supported by pylons set 15 feet into the ground, and the pedestal is surrounding by fencing. The tire, by the way, is not round—it’s flat at the bottom where it attaches to the base, further dispelling the 1974 hoax that it had rolled onto I-94.

The tire’s wheel/hub design and lettering have changed only slightly over the years, as U.S. Rubber became Uniroyal and then merged briefly with BFGoodrich before the Uniroyal brand was acquired by Michelin. It sits on property now owned by Baker College; sale of the land was contingent upon Baker promising to keep the tire right where it is.

To say that the Uniroyal tire is a celebrity is a bit of an understatement. It has been featured on products ranging from official World’s Fair toys to Christmas ornaments and can even be seen in music videos like “Silly Love Songs,” released by Paul McCartney and Wings in 1976, and Kid Rock’s “Roll On” in 2008.

McCartney first saw the tire when the Beatles opened their 1965 U.S. Tour at Shea Stadium in Queens, not far from the World’s Fair. For security reasons, the wildly popular Fab Four took a helicopter to the fair’s Port Authority Heliport, then rode inside a Wells Fargo armored truck to the stadium. Though the concert became legendary, McCartney never forgot the tire, which he only saw from a distance. When Wings made a tour stop in Detroit in ’76, McCartney and the band just had to check it out.

Similarly, when Super Bowl XL was played at Detroit Ford Field in 2006, members of the Seattle Seahawks asked to visit the tire too.

As the Detroit News so wistfully wrote in 2015, once upon a time Uniroyal plants in Detroit employed 10,000 workers who produced 60,000 tires a day, but now “the plants and corporate building are gone. The tire endures.”

In our hearts, in our minds, and alongside I-94.

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Last week, we admired a majestic 1984 Mercedes-Benz S-Class in a Colorado car graveyard, adding to a collection of Final Parking Space machines from (West) Germany that includes BMW, Volkswagen, and Ford-Werke. Plenty of lesser-known German manufacturers have sold cars in the United States, of course, and today we’ve got a discarded example of one of the best-looking cars to come out of Bremen: a Borgward Isabella Coupé, photographed in a self-service yard just south of Denver, Colorado.

Carl Borgward came up in the Bremen car industry, rising through the ranks at Hansa-Lloyd and selling cars badged with his own name starting in 1924. After World War II, he began building Lloyds, Goliaths, and Borgwards, with the Borgward Hansa his first postwar model.

In 1954, the Isabella replaced the Hansa, though Hansa Isabella badging was used for a while.

The Isabella sedan came first, followed by convertible and wagon versions in 1955. The Isabella Coupé appeared in 1957, and production continued in West Germany until the company went (controversially) broke in 1961. Borgward production using the old tooling from the Bremen plant resumed in Monterrey, Mexico, in 1967 and continued through 1970.

The Isabella sold reasonably well in the United States, considering the obscurity of the Borgward brand here. For the 1959 model year, just over 7500 cars were sold out of American Borgward dealerships.

The U.S.-market MSRP for a 1959 Isabella Coupé was $3750, or about $40,388 in 2024 dollars. The base 1959 Porsche 356 coupe listed at $3665 ($39,472 after inflation), while a new 1959 Jaguar XK150 coupe cost $4500 ($48,465 in today’s money).

Meanwhile, GM’s Chevrolet division offered a new 1959 Corvette for just $3,875 ($41,734). The Isabella Coupé faced some serious competition in its price range.

These cars haven’t held their value quite as well as the 356 or Corvette (though nice ones do change hands for real money) and restoration parts are tougher to source, so there are affordable project Isabella Coupés out there for the adventurous. A 24 Hours of Lemons team found this ’59 and raced it several times with the original drivetrain, winning the coveted Index of Effluency award in the process.

Not bad for a race car with 66 horsepower under the hood… 60 years earlier.

The Fistful of Cotter Pins team members were kind enough to give me the MotoMeter dash clock out of their race Borgward. The mechanism is bad but the face still looks good when illuminated in my garage.

The clock in this car has experienced too many decades outdoors in the harsh climate of High Plains Colorado to be worth harvesting for my collection.

The engine in this car is a 1.5-liter overhead-valve straight-four with a distinctive carburetor location atop the valve cover.

The transmission is a four-speed column-shift manual.

The odometer shows 55,215 miles, and that may well be the actual final total.

This car was in the Colorado Auto & Parts “private reserve” yard, off-limits to customers for many years. Then that lot was sold, and many of its former inhabitants were moved to the regular U-Pull section. We’ve seen some of those cars in earlier episodes of this series, including a 1958 Edsel Citation, a 1963 Chevrolet Corvair Monza, and a 1963 Chrysler Newport sedan.

The good news about this car is that CAP will sell you the whole thing, being a non-corporate yard owned by the Corns family since the late 1950s. You’ll be able to check out the famous radial-engine-powered 1939 Plymouth, built on the premises, in the office when you visit.

This car appears to be a bit too rough to be economically viable as a restoration, but there are still plenty of good parts to help fix up nicer Isabellas. Or you could make a race car out of it, which we recommend.

I like to use ancient film cameras to shoot junkyard vehicles, and I took a few photographs of this car (and many others) with a 1920s Ansco Memo.

This double exposure (always a hazard with century-old cameras) came out looking interesting, and the Isabella was an appropriate subject.

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April 17 marked 60 years since the Ford Mustang’s public debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The original pony car immediately became a pop-culture and automotive phenom, and it remains one of the most impactful cars in history. We’re celebrating with stories of the events surrounding the Mustang’s launch, the history of the early cars, and tales from owners. Click here to follow along with our multi-week 60 Years of Mustang coverage. -Ed.

On the cover of its January 6, 1967, issue, TIME magazine featured not one person but a whole generation: 25-and-unders. Approximately 76 million Americans were born over the two decades following the end of WWII, and by 1966, people aged 25 and younger had become a demographic force to be reckoned with. This new “baby boomer” generation was closely observed by their parents, market researchers, and the state, yet it seemed hardly any of these elders truly understood them.

Well, anyone except Anthony Lido “Lee” Iacocca, who had just given them exactly what they wanted.

By the beginning of 1967, when TIME put the Mustang’s target demographic on its cover, Ford had already sold well over a million Mustangs. Of course, not every one of those buyers was in their 20s. However, as the old auto industry adage goes, you can sell a young person’s car to an older person but you can never do the opposite.

Many more Mustangs have since followed, and although most are rather handsome, none seems to have quite the same enduring, almost universal appeal of the 1965–66 original. It simply looks, for lack of a better word, “right.”

A design like this occupies an elusive aesthetic sweet spot, as difficult to express in words as it is to achieve in the metal. Yet it is immediately apparent to the eye. Few car designs hit that mark, much less projects like this one.

I’ll elaborate: The stories that we car buffs love to celebrate often involve bold, daring designs stemming from the unique vision of larger-than-life individuals. Yet the Mustang’s origin story couldn’t be more different from that romanticized ideal. An extensively researched corporate project that can’t be credited in its entirety to any single individual, the Mustang’s design wasn’t out to innovate or polarize. The roots of its enduring appeal are much more subtle. Brilliant execution had more to do with the car’s success than with the idea itself.

Design work on the Mustang commenced in late 1961, under the direction of Ford’s newly appointed design vice president, Gene Bordinat. By then, Detroit’s stylists had all but left behind the previous decade’s decorative excesses to embrace simpler volumes and large, unbroken surfaces. With its pin-sharp lines and sheer surfaces, the Mustang fit right into this mold, leaving proportions and detailing to set it apart from anything else in its price range.

To make the “Special Falcon” (as the Mustang was being referred to during development) a car that, in the words of Joe Oros, Ford’s head of car and truck styling at the time, “would look like fun,” Ford’s stylists gave it the proportions of a European sports car. That meant a long hood, short deck, and a hop-up on the rear fender to give the Mustang a slightly crouched, ready-to-pounce stance. It has a trim, lean volume whose deftly modeled surfaces have just the right amount of crowning to take away most of the severity such a boxy shape might otherwise evoke.

The mission to give the Mustang the appearance and character of a much more expensive sports car was then completed with particular details. Note the the nerf-blade front bumper and the now-iconic large “mouth” above it. The latter was inspired by period Ferraris, while the idea of fitting a big die-cast emblem inside it came from the large trident badge found in the Maserati 3500 GT‘s grille. Interestingly, the design department’s original intention for the Mustang’s signature side scallop was to feature a functional intake to feed air to the rear brakes. However, since the additional ducting required would have added about $5 per car in production costs, it became a merely decorative item. Similar cost reasons also led the six individual taillights initially envisioned by Ford’s stylists to be grouped into two bezels.

Still, a neatly executed design and a perfectly timed launch can only go so far in explaining the original Mustang’s staying power. In fact, I believe there’s one more aspect of its design that, although rarely discussed, has been key to making it such a perennial favorite.

As Oros recalled years later, “We talked about the sporty car [referring to the Mustang] not being too masculine, too macho. It had to appeal to women as well as to men. We agreed that it had to be sporty and personal, that young people would enjoy driving it.”

That decision is what sets the original Mustang’s design apart from the ones that followed. The car looks dashing and sporty even in its most basic form, and the effect is care-free and unintimidating. Even in its hottest, “Shelby-fied” GT350 spec, the first iteration of the Mustang has a purposeful look rather than an outright aggressive one.

As we all know, it didn’t stay that way for long.

Caught up amid Detroit’s late-’60s horsepower war, the Mustang put on muscle and a whole lot of fat in the space of a few years. Although that resulted in some genuinely epic machines, the Mustang’s customer base ended up shrinking year-on-year, until Ford reversed course with Iacocca’s “little jewel,” the controversial Mustang II.

The current Mustang is the best ever made by every on-paper metric, but it, too, represents much more of Bunkie Knudsen’s vision of the model than Iacocca’s. There’s nothing wrong with that, mind you, and things probably could not be any different, especially in a world where pretty much every car and truck is styled as if it’s out for blood.

Still, there’s something to be said about a design that not only remains just as coveted now as it was 60 years ago but looks like it will be for the foreseeable future. Despite being very much a “design by committee,” the original Mustang is also the definition of a design classic. On the one hand, it epitomizes the era for which it was conceived, yet on the other, it is utterly timeless. Just as timeless and universal is the message the car radiates. Whether it’s a straight-six on hubcaps or a loaded 289 Hi-Po, a 1965–66 Mustang always looks like a good time.

And who doesn’t like a good time?

Matteo Licata received his degree in Transportation Design from Turin’s IED (Istituto Europeo di Design) in 2006. He worked as an automobile designer for about a decade, including a stint in the then-Fiat Group’s Turin design studio, during which his proposal for the interior of the 2010–20 Alfa Romeo Giulietta was selected for production. He next joined Changan’s European design studio in Turin and then EDAG in Barcelona, Spain. Licata currently teaches automobile design history to the Transportation Design bachelor students of IAAD (Istituto di Arte Applicata e Design) in Turin.

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For what seemed like generations (but was really just 20 model years), the Ford Motor Company sold a Police Interceptor version of the Crown Victoria sedan. The final Crown Victoria was built in September of 2011, and today’s Final Parking Space subject was built in August of that year. That’s history!

Most sources seem to indicate that the very last Crown Victoria Police Interceptor rolled off the St. Thomas assembly line in August of 2011, so this car is one of the final handful built. Sharp-eyed readers may note that the PI’s characteristic “P71” sequence is lacking from the VIN here, but that’s just because Ford changed the code to “P7B” for the last two model years.

I have spent many years looking in car graveyards and elsewhere for a P7B Crown Vic built during the summer of 2011; prior to now, the newest example I’d found was this 24 Hours of Lemons race car in Colorado with a May 2011 build date.

Last year, I ran across this 2011 P7B in Denver with a January 2011 build date, which seemed impressive at the time. Locating an example of such an important vehicle from the final month of production is the kind of thing we junkyard historians shoot for.

I found this car on Opening Day at LKQ Pick Your Part’s brand-new Denver yard, when all the inventory was at its freshest.

I have a soft spot for the P71/P7B Crown Victoria, because I had one as a daily driver for the second half of the 2000s. In 2004, I bought a 1997 P71 that had been a San Joaquin County (California) parole officer’s unmarked car. No arrestees had ever leaked bodily fluids in the back seat (a problem with ex-police cars driven on patrol for years) and there were no spotlight holes in the A pillars. I put tens of thousands of miles on that car and enjoyed its excellent handling and powerful air conditioning.

It even came with a bunch of evidence Polaroids and urine test kits in the trunk. I wonder what the perp in that red Toyota MR2 did.

This car is the only ex-police car I’ve ever found in a junkyard that still had the pee-proof fiberglass back seat and protective screen in place; normally, police departments remove them to use in their other cars, but the remaining Crown Vic Police Interceptors are nearly gone and whatever agency owned this car must have decided it wasn’t worth the hassle to salvage this stuff before disposing of it.

The push bumper is still here, too.

The electronic odometer means I couldn’t check the final mileage total without powering up the car’s ECU. Most discarded P71s with mechanical odometers that I’ve found have had between 100,000 and 200,000 miles showing, though I have spotted one ’02 P71 that worked as a taxi after its law-enforcement duties were done and racked up better than 400,000 miles during its career.

All of the 1992-2011 Crown Victoria Police Interceptors got the 4.6 Modular SOHC V8 engine under their hoods. This one was rated at 250 horsepower and 297 pound-feet; since the car scaled in at just over two tons, it wasn’t especially quick off the line.

While the P71/P7B wasn’t particularly quick, it was equipped with an extra-heavy-duty cooling system that could keep the engine alive under far more punitive conditions that ordinary civilian cars ever experience. Idling for hours with the A/C blasting in Phoenix in August? No problem!

On top of that, these cars can achieve real-world highway fuel economy approaching 25 miles per gallon.

The cop suspension, cop tires, and cop shocks made the ride a bit firmer than what Grandma got in her floating-on-a-cloud Crown Victoria LX, but they also gave the Police Interceptor impressively nimble handling for a car this size.

This car, along with its Mercury Grand Marquis and Lincoln Town Car siblings, was one of the last built on Ford’s versatile Panther platform. The first Panthers were 1979 models, so Ford certainly got its money’s worth out of that chassis design.

At some point near the end, this car slid into dirt hard enough to embed vegetation and soil between the tire bead and the wheel. Perhaps there was sufficient suspension damage to make its final owner give up on it.

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Four months into this series, we have seen three discarded vehicles built in (West) Germany: a 1974 Ford Capri, a 1981 Volkswagen Vanagon, and a 1984 BMW 325e. Conspicuously missing from that lineup is a vehicle made by the manufacturer that built the very first car 136 years ago, so today we’ll take a look at an example of the most legendary of all the Mercedes-Benz S-Classes, a 380 SE recently found in a Denver self-service yard.

This car is a W126, which fits in the S-Class pantheon between the W116 and the W140 and was sold in the United States for the 1980 through 1991 model years. In my opinion, the W126 was the best-built Mercedes-Benz of all time and probably one of the best-built motor vehicles of all time, period (the Toyota Century beats the W126 in that department).

Most W126 models were quite a bit more expensive (in inflation-adjusted dollars) than the current S-Classes. This one had an MSRP of $43,030, or about $131,043 in 2024 dollars. If you wanted the king of the W126s in 1984 (the 500 SEC coupe), the list price was $57,100, or $173,892 in today’s money.

Because those prices were so steep and the Deutschmark was so weak against the dollar during the early-to-middle 1980s, tens of thousands of American car shoppers bought W126s in West Germany and imported them via the gray market, saving plenty of money but enraging American Mercedes-Benz dealers (who eventually succeeded in lobbying that loophole closed). This car was imported via legitimate dealership channels, but I’ve found quite a few gray-market Mercedes-Benzes of this era during my junkyard travels, including a 1980 280, a 1980 500 SE, a 1981 380 SEL, and a 1983 500 SEC.

Because these cars held together so well, they still show up regularly in car graveyards around the country. This 380 SE has low miles for a thrown-out W126, but I’ve found a couple of these cars showing better than a half-million miles on their odometers.

This one looks to have had a solid body and nice interior when it arrived here, but even a W126 is going to have the occasional mechanical problem and repairs tend to be costly.

This car had a stack of parking tickets from Longmont, Colorado, under its wipers, though, so it may have been a good runner that got towed away and auctioned off due to unpaid fines.

This being a 380, its engine is a 3.8-liter gasoline-fueled SOHC V-8 rated at 155 horsepower and 196 pound-feet of torque. For 1984, American Mercedes-Benz W126 shoppers could also get a 300 SD powered by a straight-five turbodiesel with 123 horses and 184 lb-ft of torque or a 500 SEL/SEC boasting 184 hp with 247 lb-ft.

Because 1984 S-Classes weighed between 3685 to 3870 pounds—featherweight stuff by the standards of 2024—even the oil-burners were tolerably quick (the current C-Class is hundreds of pounds heavier than this 380 SE, while the ’24 S-Class outweighs it by more than a half-ton).

In Europe, the 1979–84 S-Classes with non-V-8 engines could be purchased with manual transmissions, but all U.S-market W126s came with mandatory four-speed automatics.

This 380 SE will be crushed, but we can hope that many of its parts will live on in other W126s.

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If Kevin Marti were to run a Marti Report on the VIN for his Dark Brown Metallic 1967 Mercury Cougar four-speed convertible, it would come back as a Lime Frost 1967 Mercury Cougar three-speed coupe. For a lot of people, those might be “walk away” red flags. But Kevin Marti’s okay with them.

“When I was a boy,” he says, “I had an uncle who had a convertible. He drove it to our house one day, and I’d never seen a car that didn’t have a top on it. He took us kids—my brother, my sister, and I—for a ride around the block.” Marti has been hooked on manual-transmission convertibles ever since. “It’s just kind of my thing.”

He bought that ’67 Cougar when he was 16, his first car. “Because it had a roof on it, and because they didn’t make convertibles that year, I cut the roof off.” The day after Marti graduated high school he went over to his girlfriend’s house, borrowed her dad’s circular saw, and that was that. He never stopped to consider a thing like provenance. Or structure, it turns out—without the roof in place, he couldn’t open the doors. “Had to do the Dukes of Hazzard thing to get into the car.” His local Ford parts guy finally convinced him to go buy a junkyard Mustang convertible and strip the essential bits, then the two men put things right. “The doors opened, after that,” he says. “And it even has a power top.”

In this hobby, you cannot account for that kind of history. No chassis tag or fender stamping or VIN plate will have it. What our cars’ various tags and stamps and plates do have, of course, are the facts, a sort of industrial DNA. Nobody understands the intersection of these two vastly different stories better than Kevin Marti, who for the last four decades has made a name for himself in the Ford-shaped corner of our world, first with a thriving parts business and then with his eponymous Report.

“We don’t play with the data,” he says. “The data is as the car got built, not as the car is.”

That, in short, is the elevator pitch for a Marti Report, which itself is the production story of a given Ford, Mercury, or Lincoln built since 1967—all the components, both standard and optional, that went into and onto a car, and when and where that all took place.

Obtaining your own report is a simple online affair, with results available in three to 14 days, depending on the vehicle year and a few other factors, although same-day rush service is available. Marti designed the process for people who aren’t computer savvy, and all you need to get started is a VIN. From there, you can choose from one of three different reports—Standard, Deluxe, or Elite. The $20 Standard Report is the perfect pre-purchase documentation and provides you with all the basic information about production, like the car’s original color, interior, powertrain, and options, along with decoded information from the door tag, so you know that the car you’re looking at is—or is not—as it left the factory. The $55 Deluxe Report equips you with all the above information, plus a depiction of the door tag, details about the dealership that sold the car new, and several significant dates associated with the car, like the order date, the date(s) of assembly, and the date it sold. It also features statistics about the car to put it into context against others that were similarly equipped. Finally, the $300 Elite Report arrives on blue matte board in a 16×20 frame, which displays everything from the other two reports, along with a reproduction window sticker and personalized production statistics. They are often the documentation you see on easels at car shows, and it’s not uncommon to see the facts and figures culminate with “one of one.” We’ll come back to that.

The 67-year-old Phoenician is a mechanical engineer by trade, and he grew up around cars, learning to work on them from his dad, a mechanic. “I guess somewhere around age six or so I started handing him screwdrivers,” he says. Marti spent the first part of his career in R&D for Sperry Flight Systems. In his off time, he says, “I just kept playing with cars and working on them.” In the late 1970s, he bought a second car and then a third, both of which he still owns. (Marti is not one to get rid of cars.) He also started raiding local wrecking yards for original soft bits—battery cables, radiator hoses, and the like—to put on his cars to make them look factory original. “Nobody was doing that kind of stuff back then.”

At shows, other car owners took notice and asked how they could get their hands on similar items. Original parts in yards weren’t infinite, of course, so Marti figured out how to reverse engineer and manufacture them. This was the genesis of a small side business making reproduction fan belts, radiator and heater hoses, and battery cables, and he and the family sold them at car shows. The big change, however, came in 1982.

He’d just finished restoring a Cougar Eliminator, only to learn the stripe kit wasn’t available anymore. “I was distraught, because that’s what helps make that car.” Sperry was a large company that never threw anything away, which made Marti wonder if Ford was the same way. Maybe it had kept the tooling? What ensued was a long series of phone calls, to various departments, to several different people, trying to get some answers. Finally, he learned that the stripe kits had been farmed out to 3M, so he turned his attention there. “This was back in the days when you had to pay for long distance, and I ended up with $150 monthly phone bills.”

After six months of sleuthing, he reached a guy in 3M’s decorative products division. “He says, ‘Oh yeah, we’ve got that tooling. I can see it from my desk. But that’s not our property. That’s Ford’s property.’ But he had no idea who I needed to talk to.” Back to Ford he went, until eventually Marti got hold of an MG enthusiast there who understood the pain of trying to track down crucial parts. “He went to bat for me internally and really helped put the deal together,” he says. Marti wrote a check to Ford, Ford issued a purchase order to 3M, 3M manufactured a batch of 50 stripe kits, and shipped them off to Marti.

People who had seen Marti’s pleading ads in issues of Hemmings and elsewhere looking for a stripe kit occasionally reached out to see if he’d ever tracked one down. “As a matter of fact…” came his reply. “That’s really what started the business,” he says. Soon after, he took a call from Shelby parts supplier Tony Branda Performance, in need of ’69 Boss 302 stripe kits. “A little while later, Ford discontinued kits for the 1970 Boss 302s, and so over the course of the next couple of years, I found myself with this reasonably sized side business of selling stripe kits made by 3M off of Ford’s original tooling.”

The entire time, he never stopped restoring cars, for himself and for others, and in amongst it all he got his hands on an original stamping machine for door data plates, fell down a data rabbit hole, and began selling repop plates as well. All from the cramped confines of the Marti family home, with wife Shelli as invested as he was. Often she was stamping radiator hoses at the dinner table, then feeding the family on that same table an hour later.

Disenchanted with corporate bureaucracy at Sperry, Marti left the company around 1985 to focus on Ford parts supply full-time. In the early ’90s, he learned the company still had all of its data, and instantly he saw the benefit for car owners. Marti the engineer had the software experience to decode it. He just needed access. But proprietary information was not the same as rubber hoses and vinyl stripe kits.

“Various departments had to sign off allowing all this to happen, including the office of legal counsel.” Marti knew the lawyers had the potential to be the “is this really going to help Ford?” stumbling blocks. “But there was one lawyer who liked the way we did our business, and he kind of stepped up and said, ‘I can vouch for this guy. He won’t misuse our data.’ He really made it happen.”

As a result of his unique access to Ford’s industrial DNA, Marti developed relationships, then friendships, with many of the people running the company. Edsel is a friend. Bill is a friend. It’s a situation not lost on him. “There’s an interesting dynamic at Ford that doesn’t really exist at many of the other car companies. There’s so much family involvement and pride in the name, and there’s a deep sense of nostalgia because of that. Their name is on the cars and it doesn’t matter if those vehicles are 50 years old. You don’t have that with Chevrolet. And the Dodge brothers aren’t exactly involved with Stellantis.”

Marti acknowledges Ralph Nader’s indirect role in all of this, too. It was Nader’s revealing investigation into the auto industry, and his book, Unsafe at Any Speed, which led to the 1966 passage of the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act. Among other things, it required carmakers to start keeping records of their vehicles and who owned them, for recall purposes. The 1967 model year was the first to benefit from the greater transparency. “Now, it wasn’t indefinite,” says Marti. “Kind of like with IRS tax records, they only had to keep them for a given time, something like 10 years. It just so happened that Ford never got around to throwing them out.”

There was a period early on, Marti argues, that someone might have talked to the powers that be at General Motors or Chrysler, and they could have been issuing the same kind of reports for Corvettes and Camaros, Challengers and ’Cudas. “But life just didn’t go that way.”

As a result, those verifying the authenticity of Chevys and Mopars must do so without the backing of period microfilm or original paperwork. Their certification rests on the physical examination of the car and its telltale signs.

But people manipulate things. People fake numbers all the time. “It’s just that in the Ford world, you really can’t,” Marti says. “You can attempt to. Plenty of people have tried. You can alter the VIN on a Ford, but as soon as someone orders a report on that car, there’s no hiding it.”

Which helps explain why so many Ford owners are proud to display their Marti Reports. Beyond automotive pride, however, there’s a real-world value component. Marti himself has little regard for prices—he’s in it for personal history, remember—but based on discussions he’s had over the years with people who monitor classic car sales, he argues a report “typically adds 10 percent to the value of a car simply because you can’t fake it.” Hagerty valuation data, based upon thousands of monitored sales, largely agrees, especially for first-generation (1965–73) Mustangs. For vintage F-series pickups, the bump is around six to eight percent, while Broncos of any year tend to see a 12 percent increase in value.

Not all Fords are created equal, of course, and Marti has been involved in verifying some serious machinery, including both original Bullitt Mustangs. Hagerty covered one of them, the movie’s “hero car,” extensively in 2018. That car’s owner, Sean Kiernan, originally went to Ford to help with authenticating the car. In turn, Ford sent him to Marti, who was able to go see the car, work with Kiernan, and fully document its history. Kiernan eventually sold the car, and its $3.74M price tag in 2020 made it the most expensive Mustang of all time.

Another search on a rare Ford came from Colin Comer, a classic car restorer, dealer, historian, and former Hagerty contributor, who has ordered hundreds of Marti Reports over the years. In 2016, Comer encountered a 1969 Ford Bronco in a Phoenix wrecking yard that didn’t quite add up. “When I found the Holman-Moody Bronco Hunter, the only thing that proved it was that truck was getting the hidden VIN off the frame and sending it to Marti,” says Comer. “And it came back as a special-build promotional vehicle. That allowed me to connect the dots, and I bought it on the spot. A same-day report that confirms something like that is a crazy value.” Comer spent 2400 hours restoring the Bronco and sold it privately in 2020 for well into six figures.

Now, a truck like the Bronco Hunter is the rolling definition of one-of-one. There really isn’t anything else like it. All too often, however, we see that label applied far and wide to auction listings. So what does it mean? Not as much as you might think, Marti argues. “Okay, so say you’ve got total 1967 production of 497,303 cars, and this many were hard tops. Of those, this many came with this engine. Of those, this many came with that engine-transmission combination. Of those, this many were painted this color… Back then, the way cars were built, there were so many color choices, so many interior choices, so many options available. There were literally millions of combinations, which meant almost every car built was unique in some way.” If you keep drilling down, in other words, you’ll arrive at one-of-one.

Kevin Marti, you might argue, is one of one. He loves what he does, and he loves being able to provide this service to enthusiasts, but he recognizes he can’t do it forever. He and Shelli have four kids, but only one of them is involved in the business, along with a grandchild. The others have their own careers, their own lives, and he’s proud of each of them. “I mean, we forced them all to work here in the summers when they were teenagers,” he says, “but that was just to instill a work ethic in them.” The future of Marti Auto Works doesn’t rest on family legacy—Marti has been working behind the scenes for some time to put a plan in place for both the parts manufacturing and the data business.

“I’ve spent the last 20-some years working alongside an excellent programmer, and we’ve been building this operation to be 100 percent automated, with the goal to make it something that survives my death.” Profits, he says, will be dispersed to worthwhile organizations trying to make the world a better place. Order a report, do some good for people who need it most.

Before all that, however, Kevin Marti has no intention to step away. “I’d like to put in fewer hours so my wife and I can spend more time going on trips,” he says. “But I can’t sit around and play golf every day. I don’t see retirement coming until my brain just doesn’t function properly.”

***

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An interesting way to look at automotive history through a junkyard lens is to follow the evolution of a model over time. This is fairly easy with a model that sold well decade after decade, like the Chevrolet Malibu or Honda Civic, but how about a model that was built sporadically from 1940 through 1981 and went through roller-coaster sales highs and lows during that time? The Chrysler Newport is such a car, and today we’ll follow up the 1963 Newport sedan we admired a few months ago with one of its hardtop successors from the following decade.

Chrysler redesigned its full-sized C-Body cars for the 1969 model year, giving them what was known as the “Fuselage” look.

The Newport was the most affordable of the big Chryslers for 1971, slotted beneath the 300 and New Yorker in the prestige pyramid. The Imperial also lived on the C platform at that time, but it was its own more exclusive marque and not given Chrysler badging until the 1984 model year.

This car is also a platform sibling to more affordable Dodge- and Plymouth-badged machines, the Monaco, Polara and Fury.

The Custom trim level was one step above the base 1971 Newport, with an MSRP of $4990 for the four-door hardtop (about $38,908 in 2024 dollars). The base Newport’s price tag was $4709 for the four-door post sedan ($36,717 in today’s money).

There was quite a bit of overlap involving the prices of the various C-Body cars for 1971, and a heavy hand with options could result in a lowly Fury that cost more than a Newport or even a 300. For example, the mechanically nearly identical 1971 Dodge Monaco four-door hardtop started at $4362 ($34,011 after inflation). This same sort of prestige line-blurring was taking place at Ford and GM, too.

That said, the 1971 Newport was a lot of luxury machine for the money. The problem for Chrysler Corporation, then as well as now, was that the Chrysler brand itself didn’t come with a huge amount of snob appeal.

The ’71 Newport Custom came with a high-torque 383-cubic inch big-block V-8 (that’s 6.3 liters to those of you laboring under the cruel lash of the metric system) rated at 275 horsepower as standard equipment. Pay an extra 208 bucks (1622 bucks today) and you’d get a Newport with a 440-cubic-inch (7.2-liter) V-8 rated at 335 horses.

Now let’s talk about what you didn’t get as standard equipment in your new 1971 Newport. First of all, even a single-speaker AM-only radio cost $92 ($717 now). Air conditioning started at $426 ($3322 today), and an automatic transmission set you back $241 ($1879 in 2024 dollars), although late-model-year 1971 Newports got the slushbox instead of the base three-on-the-tree manual at no extra cost. Even power steering was $125 ($975 after inflation). We’re all spoiled by the standard features we get nowadays!

The build tag says this car was built at the Jefferson Avenue plant in Detroit, where Chalmers and Maxwell cars were built starting in 1908.

It appears to have been sold new in Dallas, Texas.

Early in its driving career, this Chrysler moved to Denver. It now resides in a self-service yard across town from the long-defunct shop on the southeastern side of the city where its service was performed.

Just about every receipt affiliated with this car going back to the middle 1970s was still inside. It appears to have had one owner since at least 1978 and maybe earlier.

There were handwritten notes about maintenance and parts purchases spanning more than 35 years.

High Plains Colorado has a climate that kills padded vinyl roofs in a hurry, but the rest of the car is very solid. It could have been put back on the road without too much trouble, but that didn’t happen.

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We’ve looked at a couple of controversial General Motors classics in this series so far (the Chevrolet Corvair and the Pontiac Fiero) but just a single Ford product that stirs up heated debate among enthusiasts (the Mustang II). Today we’re going to restore GM/Ford balance by taking a look at a discarded example of the most polarizing Ford Motor Company product ever built: the Edsel!

The Edsel brand was created after exhaustive market research and consultation with focus groups, with plenty of futuristic statistical analysis and—more significantly—office politics stirring the pot. Sadly, the car itself didn’t get put in front of consumer focus groups before its unveiling.

The general idea was that Dearborn needed a mid-priced brand to squeeze in between aspirational Mercury and wealth-flaunting Lincoln, in order for Ford to better compete with GM and its “Ladder of Success” model (in which a customer would get a Chevrolet as his first car, then climb the rungs of increasingly prestigious Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, and Cadillac as he became more successful).

After much heated debate, the new brand was named after Henry Ford’s eldest son. Edsel Ford was a creative visionary with good business sense who spent his life butting heads with his stubborn old man and died young while fighting to save the company from Henry the First’s obsession with building ever-cheaper Model Ts forever.

As we all know, the Edsel Division flopped hard. After much pre-launch hype before the “E-Day” launch in September of 1957, the seven Edsel models went on sale as 1958 models. The final Edsels were built as 1960 models.

Sales for the ’58s were solid at first, though the radical styling put off some potential buyers. A bigger problem was the fact that Edsel pricing had the new division competing directly against Mercury, whose Montclair and Monterey shared their platform with the Edsel Corsair and Citation. Meanwhile, the cheaper Edsel Ranger’s price tag was uncomfortably similar to that of the Ford Fairlane 500. To make matters worse, the very cheapest 1958 Lincoln was still priced well above the most expensive Edsel.

Then, wouldn’t you know, the Eisenhower Recession hit new-car sales hard in 1958 and 1959. American car shoppers began paying increasingly strong attention to list prices and fuel economy, and the flashy, thirsty Edsels sat on dealership lots while American Motors cashed in with Rambler sales and Volkswagen of America moved more Beetles than ever before. Even Renault prospered here with the Dauphine for a couple of years.

The Edsel Division got merged into Lincoln-Mercury (there was never any such thing as a “Ford Edsel”) while resources were poured into the compact car that became the 1960 Ford Falcon. Robert McNamara, future architect of the Vietnam War, became president of Ford in 1960, and Edsel zealots enthusiasts often cast him as the villain who killed the Edsel in favor of the Falcon.

Who or what really killed Edsel? It’s hard to get angry about the Falcon, which was a stunning sales success in its own right and whose chassis design underpinned everything from the 1964–73 Mustang to the 1980 Granada. The recession? Changing consumer tastes? Communist agents? In any case, I’m glad that I was able to find this first-year Citation to write about.

Look, it even has a Continental kit! I found this car at Colorado Auto & Parts, just south of Denver. It’s got more than 100 Detroit vehicles from the ’40s through the ’70s in its inventory right now, including another 1958 Edsel Citation.

The engine is a 410-cubic-inch MEL V-8, rated at 345 gross horsepower.

The base transmission was a column-shift three-speed manual, but this car has the optional automatic with pushbutton shifter on the steering wheel hub.

The Citation was at the top of the Edsel pyramid for 1958, so most buyers wouldn’t have tolerated a lowly manual transmission in one.

***

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The post Final Parking Space: 1958 Edsel Citation 4-Door Hardtop appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Perhaps you remember the quality of Japanese cars during the Bubble Era, but there’s a good chance you’ve forgotten the semi-premium positioning of Nissan’s Stanza Altima from 1993. Brands going upmarket was par for the course in the early 1990s, and Nissan saw gold in an Oldsmobile-like vehicle that bridged the gap between their value-oriented offerings and Infiniti’s premium positioning. They were right, and it spawned an iconic vehicle for the best and worst reasons you can bestow upon a family sedan.

Let’s discuss the good vibes first: with Infiniti J30-like styling, a remarkably luxurious interior with faux-rosewood accents, and a $13,000 base price, the original Altima was promoted as an affordable luxury sedan. The nameplate became an instant hit. David Woodhouse, vice president of Nissan Design America, even suggested the Altima was “a Goldilocks of its time: just enough, not too much; a sweet car, with sensibility just right for a mainstream sedan.”

Woodhouse nailed it, and inadvertantly gave a quote that applies to many Bubble Era Japanese cars. But the country changed when the economy soured, and the second-generation Altima was cheaper and boring, with a drab interior and a deformed trunk. Luckily, Nissan had a new platform up their sleeves specifically for the American market, one that sported proper American dimensions and aggressive proportioning.

That chassis turned into the third-generation Nissan Altima for 2002. No longer looking like a cost-engineered Infiniti J30, the new Altima was aimed squarely at the ubiquitous Camry and Accord. It was longer, wider, and taller than anything in its class, setting the new standard years before the Chrysler 300 became a boxy Bentley on a budget. The Altima’s fresh look featured a gentle rise in its belt line, 17-inch wheels pushed out to the corners, and the radical implementation of the Lexus IS-style (i.e. Toyota Altezza) tail lights: Heady stuff for a family sedan.

The huge interior lacked the original’s multi-toned polymers and elongated plasti-wood strips for the dashboard, though its clever gauge cluster had the intimacy of a motorcycle’s triple gauge pod. Just like the original Stanza-Altima, this model put the competition on notice and racked up awards in the process.

“The concept behind the third-generation Altima styling and engineering was simple—stop copying Accord and Camry, as we had been doing—and carve out fresh territory of our own.”

Al Castignetti, Nissan Sales and Marketing VP

Nissan did their job, right down to making a high performance “SE” version with a 3.5-liter V-6 engine (from Nissan’s VQ family), four wheel disc brakes, and a multi-link rear suspension. Perhaps the third (and fourth?) generation Altimas were so good that the only place it could go from there was downhill.

And downhill it went. Just as Altimas had hit their stride, along came a guy named Carlos Ghosn: While his current situation is far from black and white, name drop this former CEO to anyone associated with U.S.-based Nissan dealerships and gauge their reaction. My decade in automotive retail made it clear that Nissan was a pariah, mostly thanks to Ghosn’s inhumane stair step plan after the 2008 recession. The plan was to increase Nissan/Infiniti market share to 10 percent by 2017, which instead tanked the brand’s equity with consumers and dealers alike. This was most notably manifested in the Altima. But you already knew that, didn’t ya?

Package Nissan’s bargain basement discounting, diminished resale value, and worrisome X-Tronic CVT transmissions with the fact that sedans were beginning to cede territory to CUVs, and you doom the fifth- and sixth-generation Altima to automotive leprosy.

But for a brief moment—before Big Altima Energy (BAE) was a thing—the third-generation Altima was a radically compelling vehicle for so many folks.

You could rightly suggest that Motorweek’s take on this new family sedan proved there was BAE afoot. But that used to be a good thing: Camry-killing style with performance-minded swagger, in a full trickle-down effect from the 4DSC Maxima from Nissan’s Bubble Era. Even the four-cylinder Altima’s 175 horsepower was peppy enough to spring to 60 in less than nine seconds. But Motorweek got their hands on a 3.5 SE model, with Nissan’s now commonplace VQ-series V-6 putting out 240 horses and netting a 5.9 second 0-60 time.

Even in today’s era of radically fast EVs and turbocharged family sedans, a sub-six second time to 60 mph is nothing to sneeze at. Some credit goes to the Altima 3.5 SE’s available five-speed manual transmission, though Motorweek noted that torque steer was also present during testing. Their instrumented testing netted a quarter mile trap speed of 100 mph, a figure unheard of in family sedan circles. Heck, a triple digit trap speed shall spank a manual transmission Mustang GT of the era, much less a V-6 Camry or Accord.

This Motorweek retro review took me back to my final year in college. I imagined graduating from my heavily modified Fox-body Cougar and going into $25,000-ish of debt for one of these row-your-own V-6 Q-ships finished in “Seascape” metallic green. Aside from the desire to do front-wheel drive burn outs just like Motorweek did on TV, my post-grad plan was to have a reliable new car, a good job, and a pathway to grow up into a proper adult. And since it’s an Altima, I could enjoy a respectable family sedan for what should be a future with a wife, kids, and a good career with upward mobility.

But that wasn’t in the cards, as I smacked the same brick wall many millennials faced upon their respective graduations just a few years later. Be it as a dreamer or an owner, I doubt I’m the only person who waxes nostalgically about these Altimas, especially the 3.5 SE. It was an affordable sedan that seemingly did it all, a halfway point between the appeal of an SUV and the thrills of a touring car.

No vehicle is perfect, but this one came awfully close. Even the current Altima, with jokes readily available on the Internet and present at the airport rental lots around the country, is a respectable vehicle by the numbers alone. I’ve driven several and have no qualms, as the BAE memes are a badge of honor, not a scarlet letter.

Perhaps that’s because of the legacy created when Nissan gave the world the 2002 Altima 3.5 SE. It’s a shame what happened to the nameplate after that moment, as stair-stepping CEOs and public perceptions tanked the Altima’s prospects for victory. Tragedies are unavoidable without the benefit of hindsight, but least the Altima remains in production while many of its ballyhooed sedan competition passed on years ago.

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Michèle Mouton is the most successful woman ever to compete in the World Rally Championship. At the height of rallying’s fearsome Group B era, she won international rallies outright and placed second overall in the 1982 championship. Beyond WRC, she even smashed the Pikes Peak Hill Climb record and enjoyed success at Le Mans. Given this year marks 50 years since Mouton’s first rally in 1974, it’s an appropriate moment to revisit her incredible career highlights, hear recollections from the woman herself, now age 72, and learn how her achievements shifted perceptions of women in motorsport more widely. – Ed.

Michèle Mouton grew up in Grasse in the south of France and began codriving for friend Jean Taibi on the 1972 Tour de Corse. A switch to the driver’s seat came from 1974 in an Alpine A110—a sports car gifted by her father Pierre on condition she proved herself that year or called it quits.

In fact, Mouton ultimately proved so quick that male drivers pressed the FIA to tear the Alpine down and check for irregularities. Needless to say the car was legal. In 1975, Mouton also proved her mettle at Le Mans, winning the 2.0-liter class as part of an all-female crew sharing a Moynet LM75 chassis.

But rallying was her focus, and for 1977 she switched to a privately entered 911. She did enough to earn a Fiat France works drive the following season, but it was with Audi that Mouton achieved the most success, and their relationship began in the Quattro’s debut year of competition.

“I was called by Audi in 1980, June I think, but I can’t remember who it was,” she says. “English was hard for me then, so I went to Ingolstadt with a teacher who could translate.”

A test in Finland with [Quattro engineer and one-time Audi Sport team boss] Walter Treser earned her a works contract for 1981, but first Mouton had outstanding commitments with Fiat. She remembers how terrible the championship-winning Fiat felt in comparison on another test shortly after.

“I drove 500 meters then came back and said to the team boss, ‘The steering is wrong, something is wrong with this car. You try it.’ Then the team boss drove the car and said, ‘Michèle, the car is fine. I wonder if it is because you drove the Quattro…’” She laughs at the memory.

“The Fiat 131 was like a truck in comparison. The Audi had more power and power steering, so it was physically easier for me, but I had to get used to it. I didn’t like technical things so much, so I had to learn and adapt and understand how it worked.”

When Mouton lined up at the 1981 WRC season-opening Monte Carlo Rally with codriver Fabrizia Pons alongside, she knew the PR potential of an all-female crew was a bigger pull for Audi than any likelihood of her winning. She had it all to prove—and did so spectacularly.

Not at first, though. The Quattro was plagued by reliability issues and by the new team’s own operational problems in the early days, mainly because Audi took crew members from its production line, not other rally teams.

Nonetheless, Mouton finished the season eighth overall and won the 1981 Rallye Sanremo outright, the first and only woman ever to win a round of the WRC. It would not be her last.

A crash on the season-opening Monte Carlo got Mouton’s 1982 campaign off to a disastrous start, but she won outright in Portugal despite spectators crowding onto the stage and—at times—dense fog, and then followed up that success with wins in Greece and Brazil.

By the time she and Pons lined up at the Côte d’Ivoire—the penultimate rally and a notoriously tough African event covering 750 miles on gravel—it was a straight fight between Mouton and Rothmans Opel driver Walter Röhrl, the championship leader.

Devastatingly, Mouton was preparing to start the rally when news that her father had succumbed to cancer filtered through.

“My father died at 7 a.m., and the race started at 8:30 a.m.,” Mouton says. “I wanted to go home but my mother said to drive.” Without telling anyone of the news but Pons, she jumped in the Quattro and set out to win the world championship.

“I was 1 hour 20 minutes up on Röhrl, then lost 1 hour 15 minutes on a gearbox change, then had more problems,” she says.

Ultimately Mouton pushed hard in an attempt to recover the time and crashed out, losing the maximum 20 points she looked set to clinch in the process. Röhrl’s win put him beyond Mouton’s reach as her father’s death began to sink in. “I lost the world championship, but I missed my father more.”

Mouton was assured second place in the championship overall, however, and her second-place finish on Rally GB helped Audi clinch the manufacturer’s championship—a first for an all-wheel-drive car. No woman has ever achieved more in the WRC.

Mouton finished fifth in 1983 (teammate Hannu Mikkola won the title), was offered only a part-time drive for 1984, as Audi signed two-time champion Röhrl, and was entered in only one event for 1985.

However, in 1984 and ’85, Audi of America asked Mouton to represent it at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in Colorado, a daunting 12-mile ‘race to the clouds’ on a dirt-and-gravel surface with huge drops off the side. Again she found success, taking a class win in her inaugural year despite engine issues and the ballast of codriver Pons, and going one better on the 12-mile gravel course for ’85—by now familiar enough with the 156 turns to go it alone.

“The Americans weren’t prepared for us at all at Pikes Peak—they didn’t know about turbo engines or European driving and I was a woman!” remembers Mouton, the indignation and determination still raw in her voice. “When I started to go quickly in practice [for 1985] they made life very difficult for me. The speed limit was quite low and I was over it by a small amount for five miles, and I had to go to the race director.

“He said Audi would have to pay a fine, plus I would have to run to my car at the start, like an old Le Mans race. So, they don’t mind if I jump into the car and don’t do the seatbelt up properly while I’m rushing to drive up the mountain?! I held a press conference to say how dangerous their idea was, and in the end I had to start with the car out of gear.”

Despite the penalty, Mouton charged up the Colorado mountainside in 11 minutes and 25.39 seconds, beating established names like Bobby Unser to the 14,110-ft summit to the win that year, and bettering the overall course record, set by Al Unser, by 13 seconds. “They didn’t know how determined I am!” Mouton sums up.

During her time with Audi, Mouton drove all iterations of the WRC Quattro, from a production-based Group 4 competitor to the far more radical short-wheelbase versions engineered specially for Group B. Which did she prefer?

“The first short-wheelbase Quattro [E1 S1],” she says, without hesitation. “It was the best and I really liked the twin-clutch PDK gearbox. The car only became too fast at the end with the second short-wheelbase car [E1 S2] with 530 bhp on asphalt. It was really hard to read the limit and, when you found it, the time to react was too short. Gravel always showed you the limit. You could feel it.”

The S2 was only keeping pace with the competition, of course, but things really were getting out of control; Lancia’s Attilio Bettega died on Corsica in 1985, then a Ford RS200 ploughed into a crowd during Portugal 1986, killing spectators.

By then driving a Peugeot 205 T16, Mouton was contesting the 1986 Tour de Corse when disaster again struck Lancia, and the sport as a whole: Henri Toivonen and codriver Sergio Cresto perished in a fireball that ultimately triggered the end of Group B.

“Henri was a very good friend, and I had retired two stages before the accident, so I was in the service park when we heard. It was terrible. Terrible,” Mouton recalls.

She went on to win the 1986 German Rally Championship that year and tackled various rally raids with Peugeot through to 1989 before retiring and raising a family (her daughter, in fact, was born in 1987). But Toivonen’s death never left her, and in 1988 she helped found the annual Race of Champions, in part to honor his legacy.

Initially conceived as a showdown between WRC champions in identical cars, Race of Champions continues to this day as the only event where drivers from multiple disciplines compete in such a format.

More recently, from 2010 until her retirement in 2022, Mouton served as president of the FIA’s Women in Motorsport commission, which encourages female participation in all aspects of the sport. In 2021, her career was chronicled in the Emmy-winning Queen of Speed documentary. It’s a compelling watch.

There were others before, and her legacy has inspired others since, but today Michèle Mouton remains not only one of the greatest female drivers of all time, but a woman who beat the best men when rallying couldn’t have been tougher.

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Welcome back to Final Parking Space, where discarded vehicles tell us their stories of automotive history. A couple of months back, we took a look at a well-traveled Göteborg machine in a California boneyard, and today we’ll be admiring another 1980s Swede. This car was born in Trollhättan, just north of Volvo HQ: a 1986 Saab 900 S four-door, found in a Denver-self-service yard.

The wild Saab 900 Turbo gets most of the attention nowadays, and I’ve found plenty of those during my junkyard travels, but the 16-valve naturally-aspirated versions were respectably quick and much more affordable. In 1986, the 900 S got this 2.0-liter DOHC engine, rated at 125 horsepower and 123 pound-feet. That’s quite a bit less than the 160 horsepower and 188 pound-feet from the turbocharged version that year, but beats the 110 horses and 119 pound-feet from the base SOHC-equipped 900 for ’86.

This engine family was born back in the middle 1960s, when Saab hired Triumph to develop the engine to be used in the Saab 99. The Triumph Slant-Four went on to power Triumph models beginning with the 1972 Dolomite and continued under Triumph bonnets through the final TR7s in 1981. The Saab and Triumph versions diverged significantly over the years, but the soundness of the original design shows in the fact that Saabs were powered by descendants of the original Slant-Four all the way through 2010.

All 1986 Saabs sold in the United States had a five-speed manual transmission as base equipment, and that’s what this car has. An automatic transmission was a $400 option ($1126 in 2024 dollars), but I have yet to find a retired 900 with two pedals. (Amazingly, I have documented slushbox-equipped examples of the Porsche 944 and Fiat 124 Sport Spider.)

The front-wheel-drive 900 performed very well on snow and ice and thus proved quite popular in the Mountain West. This car appears to have begun its career in Wyoming, where even frost-hardened Swedes might find the winter driving a challenge.

A previous owner of this car seems to have attended the University of Wyoming College of Law. A fuel-efficient, snow-capable Saab 900 would have been a sensible vehicle for a lawyer visiting clients scattered around the vast distances and harsh climate of the Equality State.

The MSRP for the 1986 Saab 900 S four-door sedan was $16,495, or about $46,417 after inflation. That compared favorably with the $20,055 BMW 325 four-door (which had four fewer horsepower and 47 more pound-feet than the Saab).

This car had just over 100,000 miles on the odometer at the end. That VDO clock/tachometer assembly was shared with some Mercedes-Benz models of the same era, though with different colors.

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General Motors was one of the most innovative vehicle manufacturers in the world for many decades, giving us the first genuinely successful automatic transmission, powerful and cheap V-8 engines for the masses, leading-edge touchscreen interfaces, head-up displays, and the first production overhead-cam engine with a timing belt. With all that, though, European manufacturers became better-known for their technologically advanced and futuristically styled machinery by the 1980s, and GM needed to catch up. What better way than by designing a gorgeous two-seater to be hand-built by the Buick Division’s most experienced workers? This was the Buick Reatta. I found this well-preserved example in a Northern California car graveyard.

The Buick Division had to work with the platforms it had on hand for the Reatta, and its front-wheel-drive chassis was based on one borrowed from the Buick Riviera/Cadillac Eldorado/Oldsmobile Toronado and then shortened a bit.

The 1988 and 1989 Reattas came with the radical Electronic Control Center touchscreen interface as standard equipment. This system was based on cathode-ray-tube hardware sourced from an ATM manufacturer and required 120VAC power behind the dash. It was decades ahead of its time.

Unfortunately, the traditional Buick-buying demographic at the time wasn’t very enthusiastic about electronic gadgets or two-seaters in general. Meanwhile, prospective buyers of BMWs, Audis, and Mercedes-Benzes who might have been lured into Reatta purchases were put off by the pushrod Buick V-6 under the Reatta’s hood; while a reliable and reasonably powerful engine, its ancestry stretched back to the 1961 Buick 215 V-8 and it was decidedly less sophisticated than the double-overhead-cam engines coming from Europe at the time.

The only transmission available in the Reatta was a four-speed automatic, which probably wasn’t as much of a sales limitation as the old-timey engine.

Still, it was a beautiful and luxurious car and deserved a better sales fate than what it got. This one looks to have been in good shape when it ended up in its Final Parking Space.

Let’s hope that local Reatta fans harvested all its good parts before it went to the crusher.

***

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As the first-generation Mustang got bigger, heavier, and more expensive with each passing year, Lee Iacocca (who became president of Ford in 1970) decreed that a smaller second-generation model would be developed. This car, the Mustang II, first hit showrooms as a 1974 model, which turned out to be absolutely perfect timing after the OPEC oil embargo of October 1973 caused fuel prices to go through the roof. Here’s one of those first-year cars, found in a Denver-area self-service yard recently.

The original Mustang was designed as a sporty-looking commuter based on Ford’s smallest North American–market car of its time, the Falcon. The second-generation Mustang was based on a platform derived from Ford’s smallest North American–market car at that time: the Pinto.

This adaptation made sense from an engineering standpoint, since the Pinto used a modern lightweight design and was set up to use efficient engines from Ford’s European operations. The Mustang II’s chassis differed from the Pinto’s in significant ways—the most important being the wheelbase, which was longer—but the idea of a Mustang that shared ancestry with a tiny economy car originally designed to compete against the likes of the Volkswagen Beetle and Toyota Corolla caused—and still causes—discomfort to some enthusiasts.

None of this really mattered in the American Ford showrooms of 1974, where the Mustang II was an instant success. Sales of the 1974 Mustang were nearly triple those of the 1973 model, and they remained respectable throughout the Mustang II’s production run from 1974 to ’78. Some Mustang II sales may have been cannibalized by Ford’s own Capri, which was badged as a Ford in its European homeland but sold through Mercury dealers (without Mercury badging) in the United States; the Capri was a few hundred pounds lighter and shared the inline-four and V-6 engines used by the Mustang II.

The 1974 Mustang II was available with a choice of two engines: a 2.3-liter, single overhead-cam four-cylinder and a 2.8-liter pushrod V-6, both designed in Europe and both destined for long and successful careers in the global Ford Empire. This car has the 2.3.

This engine was rated at 85 horsepower, while the V-6 made 105 horses. Power numbers were down across the board for new cars sold in the United States when this car was built, due to stricter emissions and fuel-economy standards plus the switch from gross to net power ratings that had been mandated a couple of years earlier. Even so, the 2.3-powered 1974 Mustang II had a better power-to-weight ratio than the 1973 Mustang with the base 250-cubic-inch straight-six engine, and it boasted far superior handling and braking.

A four-speed manual transmission was base equipment in the Mustang II, and that’s the gearbox in this car. A three-speed automatic was available as an option.

1974 was the only model year in which there was no V-8 engine available in the Mustang, which stung. For the 1975 through 1978 model years, a 302-cubic-inch V-8 was available as a Mustang II option.

Another thing that made 1974 unpleasant for owners of Mustang IIs (and owners of all new cars sold in the United States for that model year) was the much-hated seat-belt starter interlock system. If all front-seat occupants (or grocery bags) weren’t wearing their belts, the car wouldn’t start; this sounded sensible in theory, but most Americans refused to wear seat belts at that time and the technology of 1974 made the system maddeningly malfunction-prone.

This car is a Ghia, the most expensive new Mustang II model of 1974. The Ghia package included a padded vinyl roof and a snazzier interior; its MSRP for ’74 was $2866 (about $18,866 in 2024 dollars).

The Ghia name came from Carrozzeria Ghia, an Italian coachbuilder and design house founded in 1916. Ghia was behind such beautiful machines as the Fiat 8V Supersonic, Renault Caravelle, and the Chrysler Turbine. The company ended up in the hands of Alejandro de Tomaso, who sold it to Ford in 1970. After that, Ford used the Ghia name to designate luxury trim levels on its vehicles throughout the world; in the United States, car shoppers could get Granadas and even Fiestas with Ghia badges.

This car has the “Westminster cloth” seat upholstery and shag carpeting that came with the Mustang II Ghia package.

The interior in this one is still in decent enough condition for its age, though junkyard shoppers have purchased the door panels.

The radio is a Philco AM/FM/eight-track stereo unit, likely installed by the dealer but perhaps by an aftermarket shop. It would have been very expensive in 1974, but worth it in order to listen to the Mustang-appropriate hits of that year.

According to the build tag, this car was built at the storied River Rouge plant in Michigan in April of 1974. The paint is Saddle Bronze Metallic, the interior is Tan, and the differential ratio is 3.55:1. Interestingly, the DSO code shows that the car was built for export sale. What stories could it tell of its travels?

The High Plains Colorado sun is murder on vinyl tops, and this one got nuked to oblivion long ago.

For the 1979 model year, the Mustang II was replaced by a third-generation Mustang that lived on the versatile Fox platform. Ford nearly replaced that Mustang with one based on a Mazda-sourced front-wheel-drive platform, but ended up keeping the Fox going through 1993 (or 2004, if you consider the Fox-descended SN95 platform to be a true Fox) and sold its Mazda-based sports coupe as the Probe. For what it’s worth, a stock V-6 Probe will eat up a stock same-year V-8 Fox Mustang on a road-race course; I’ve seen it happen many times in my capacity as Chief Justice of the 24 Hours of Lemons Supreme Court (the Fox Mustang has a pronounced advantage over the Probe on the dragstrip, though).

Worth restoring? You decide! The good news is that this yard will, unusually, sell whole cars. Perhaps someone will rescue this Mustang II from its inevitable date with The Crusher.

***

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Though restorers hold otherwise, immortality lies beyond the reach of ordinary automobiles. Of course, for every hard and fast rule there is an exception. Tip your hat to the recreation/revival/return of the 50-millionth car built by General Motors—this “Golden” 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air sport coupe.

Seventy years ago, GM was the world’s largest industrial enterprise. On November 23, 1954, the city of Flint, Michigan, where GM was founded, closed schools and halted traffic to host a mile-long parade called the Golden CARnival, boasting nine brass bands, 18 floats, and 72 noteworthy GM vehicles. An estimated 200,000 spectators cheered GM’s success and their own good fortune.

• First GM production car—1908 Cadillac
• 1-millionth GM car—1919 Oldsmobile
• 5-millionth GM car—1926 Pontiac
• 10-millionth GM car—1929 Buick
• 25-millionth GM car—1940 Chevrolet

The star of the CARnival was GM’s 50-millionth production car—a gold-painted 1955 Chevy Bel Air two-door hardtop. Barely an hour before the start of the parade, employees at Chevrolet Flint Assembly lowered this car’s body onto a gold-painted chassis while company president Harlow Curtice blessed the marriage. All the interior and exterior trim parts, including front and rear bumpers, were gold-plated!

Turns out that the Golden ’55 was in fact three distinct automobiles. Car number one, assembled a month in advance of the parade, was used in period publicity photos. It also starred at the five Motorama shows GM hosted in 1955 before being sold to some lucky customer.

Thirty-some years ago, that car was tracked down to a North Carolina owner who had no interest in selling, or even talking, about it. Unfortunately, this Bel Air was destroyed in a garage fire in 1996. The owner chopped the burned body into several pieces, scattering them about his property. Last summer, the charred remains, some of which were gold-plated, were purchased by Joe Whitaker of Real Deal Steel (RDS), an enterprise in Sanford, Florida that, last April, began creating the tribute vehicle shown here.

The second Golden ’55 Chevy, also built in October 1954, starred in a GM film entitled Achievement U.S.A. It hasn’t been seen since, and its whereabouts are unknown.

Car three was the ’55 Chevy assembled in November 1954 which rode atop a float in the Golden CARnival parade. Regrettably, this actual 50-millionth car has also been lost to the ages.

Immortality is not beyond the reach of the truly resourceful car enthusiast, however. Proof comes from the RDS enterprise founded in 2011 by Joe Whitaker and Randy Irwin, two of the most dedicated revivalists in collector car history. Over the past decade, they’ve sold hundreds of their products—1955–57 Chevrolets, 1967–69 and 1970–81 Camaros and Firebirds, plus various Chevy IIs and Novas—in the form of brand-new steel bodies to restorers who won’t be stopped in their pursuits.

Rather than starting with a donor Chevy built by GM, the gents at RDS began this project with spanking new electrophoretic-painted steel panels provided by their primary sponsor Golden Star Classic Auto Parts of Lewisville, Texas. Golden Star is the uncontested leader in the manufacture of fresh, top-quality sheetmetal replicating American and VW classics. Headquartered in Texas, they’re backed by a Taiwanese arsenal of CAD/CAM technology, stamping dies, and metal presses. This firm also supplied the new steel frame underlying the Golden 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air.

Paul Hsieh, who founded Golden Star and is now 58 years old, began working in a Taiwanese stamping plant as a young man before immigrating to Georgia where he spent eight years at Goodmark Industries, a leading restoration parts house. He began Golden Star in 2003. He explains how a fresh car body is manufactured from flat sheet steel:

“We start by shipping a complete vehicle to Taiwan. A plaster mold is made for each part before the original donor body is cut apart. A second mold is created after that piece is removed from the donor vehicle. Both plaster castings are digitally scanned and the two images are compared in software. Subtle human interpolations yield one final smooth, symmetrical design.

“That scan data is used to create a full-size foam model of each part. Next, we convert the foam model to a sand casting. Molten steel poured into the casting becomes a stamping die after all its surfaces are milled (using scan data) and hand-polished.

“The typical die set consisting of a male component, a female piece, and a top hat to hold the steel sheet in place for forming weighs 7000 to 8000 pounds. To achieve the desired final shape, multiple press strokes are required. The typical fender takes three to four hits requiring nine to 12 separate dies. Some of our larger presses are two to three stories tall. Excess metal is trimmed after stamping by means of a laser [that is] guided by the digital data file.

“Stretching a flat sheet into a curved, final car panel increases both strength and rigidity. Before we commence volume production, we ship prototype parts to end users to confirm perfect fits. If necessary, die adjustments are made to achieve perfection before we begin manufacturing parts for sale.

“We also supply restorers with steel frames, chrome-plated bumpers, complete glass kits, fuel tanks, door handles and latches, and heater boxes.’

Given this painstaking process and the effort required to assemble panels into a complete body, it’s easy to see how RDS charges $21,150 for a 1955 Chevy body shell fitted with doors, decklid, and dash.

The cadre of other contributors to the cause of the Golden ’55 Chevy include Shafer’s Classic Reproductions, American Autowire, Gene Smith Parts, Auto City Classic, and Ciadella Interiors.

All told, more than 4000 hours of effort and several hundred thousand dollars were invested into the project.

Snodgrass Chevy Restorations of Melbourne, Florida, handled assembly, fitting, and painting of the new body. Steve Blades of Falmouth, Kentucky, served as the project’s historian and researcher, gathering 300 period photos from GM’s Heritage Center, the Sloan Museum of Discovery in Flint, Michigan, and several private sources. He plans on documenting this 10-month restopalooza in a coffee table book.

Snodgrass personnel constructed a new chassis carrying a 265-cubic-inch (4.3 liter) V-8 engine rated at 162 (gross) horsepower, a two-speed Powerglide automatic transmission, and a 3.55:1 rear axle. Tires are 6.70×15 US Royal bias plies from Coker Tire. Instrument panel, steering column, and steering wheel parts are original GM. Interior trim is new old stock (NOS). Nearly a thousand enthusiasts followed the recreation project on Facebook.

The paint used here is a custom Axalta mix logically dubbed Tribute Gold. The finish consumed 5.5 gallons of paint costing $1200 per gallon. The list of 24-karat gold-plated parts includes interior and exterior trim, ID badges, both bumpers, the grille, wheel covers, and over 100 nuts, bolts, and screws. The plating tab alone topped $100,000!

Last December, a few weeks before the Golden body was finished, its chassis was unveiled at the Sloan Museum along with notable memorabilia and salvaged debris from the original Motorama ’55 Chevy. A grander reveal will occur at the 71st Detroit Autorama scheduled for March 1–3 this year at the Motor City’s Huntington Place convention center.

Steve Blades notes, “We believe that our Golden ’55 Chevy Bel Air Sport Coupe needs to be seen and enjoyed by the public at large on a daily basis. The ultimate goal is for it to be housed at either the GM Heritage Center in Grand Blanc, the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, or the Sloan Museum of Discovery in Flint.”

Yes, indeed: Homing in on this immortal ’55 Chevy would be well worth your time.

***

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The Chevrolet Corvair remains by far the most controversial American car ever made. With nearly two million built for the 1960 through 1969 model years, it’s also reasonably plentiful in American car graveyards to this day. Today’s Final Parking Space machine is a ’63 Corvair Monza two-door, now residing in a family-owned yard just south of the Denver city limits.

By the late 1950s, Volkswagen, Renault and other overseas manufacturers were proving that American car shoppers were willing to buy small cars, while American Motors was cleaning up by selling easy-to-maneuver Ramblers. In response, Ford got into the compact game with the Falcon while Chrysler did the same with the Valiant, both of which featured some engineering innovations but didn’t deviate far from traditional Detroit designs. General Motors, meanwhile, went radical with its design for a new compact for the Chevrolet Division to sell.

The Corvair had an air-cooled flat-six engine in the back, much like the later Porsche 911. This allowed GM to lighten the car by using a transaxle instead of separate transmission and drive axle assemblies, while also eliminating the weight and complexity of a liquid cooling system.

More important, the design permitted the use of a flat floor with no driveshaft tunnel. A bench-seat-equipped Corvair could thus fit six occupants while occupying a very small footprint and boasting a curb weight of about 2300 pounds (hundreds of pounds fewer than a 2024 Nissan Versa). Putting the engine behind the rear wheels also improved traction on snow and ice.

Drawbacks to the design included the difficulty of providing effective passenger heat to an air-cooled car and handling that proved much different than that of the front-engine/rear-wheel-drive cars that most Americans had been piloting since the days of the Ford Model T. Rear-engined cars tend to be prone to oversteering during loss of traction, and the early Corvair’s swing-axle rear suspension (similar to that of the VW Beetle and Mercedes-Benz W120) could cause rear-end jacking in extreme situations.

The 1962 death of comedian Ernie Kovacs in a Corvair crash made headlines, and Chevrolet didn’t help matters by skipping a front anti-sway bar on the early Corvairs (recommending 15 psi of front tire pressure instead). Continuous Corvair suspension improvements were made over the years, with a fully independent rear suspension going into the 1965 and later cars, but the damage to the Corvair’s reputation had been done.

Corvair sales peaked in 1961 and 1962, declined significantly during 1963 through 1965, then fell off a cliff in 1966. Production continued through 1969, but few were paying attention to the Corvair by that point. Ralph Nader gets most of the blame from enthusiasts for the demise of the Corvair, but his “Unsafe at Any Speed” wasn’t published until the end of 1965 and didn’t attract much mainstream attention until the following year. (For a deeper look at whether the Corvair will really kill you, click here -Ed.)

What really killed the Corvair was competition from within the Chevrolet Division itself, taking the form of the Chevy II/Nova compact. That car, which debuted as a 1962 model, wasn’t much bigger than the Corvair and had a traditional water-cooled engine driving the rear wheels (it didn’t hurt that it looked quite a bit like its handsome full-sized Chevrolet brethren). The Corvair barely edged out the Chevy II/Nova in sales for 1962, then fell steadily behind thereafter.

This car is a Corvair 900, also known as a Monza, the top Corvair trim level. The Monza began life in coupe-only form, but it spread to sedans and wagons soon after. GM had envisioned the Corvair sedan as the big seller for the line, but buyers flocked to the coupes and convertibles. Very bad news for Corvair sales arrived at Ford dealerships in 1964 when a certain Falcon-based sporty car hit the scene; every Mustang buyer was a potential Corvair Monza coupe buyer who got away.

From the build tag, we can see that this car was built at Willow Run Assembly in Michigan during the last week of October, 1962, and that the exterior paint was Ermine White. It was equipped with the optional folding rear seats.

It has the base three-speed manual transmission (a two-speed Powerglide was optional, as was a four-speed manual) and the 80-horsepower engine.

The optional AM radio shows the CONELRAD nuclear-attack frequencies at 640 and 1240 kHz. Nineteen-sixty-three was the last year in which these markings were required.

Worth restoring? This one is pretty rough from sitting outdoors in the harsh High Plains Colorado climate for decades, so it makes more economic sense as a parts donor for nicer Corvairs.

***

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The final new MGs sold in the United States were 1980-model-year MGBs, after many decades of Morris Garage machinery winning hearts on our side of the Atlantic. There were new T-Types, MGAs, MGBs, Midgets, Magnettes, 1100s, and other cars roaring out of American MG dealerships, with MGBs and Midgets remaining common sights on our roads deep into the 1980s.

Back in the United Kingdom, though, vehicles bearing the storied octagon badge continued to be built. Today’s Final Parking Space episode documents one of the very last properly British MGs.

The ZT’s first model year was 2001, so these cars won’t be legal to import to the United States until 2026 at the earliest. I still find discarded MGBs and Midgets on a regular basis in the car graveyards of the United States, but the best means of finding UK-market MGs in their Final Parking Spaces would be to travel to Great Britain and hit one of the two American-style scrapyards over there.

So that’s what I did.

Soon after arriving at London’s Heathrow Airport, I arrived at the rental car lot to acquire wheels (an A-Class saloon) and was presented with vivid evidence that the MG brand still exists. Between a Peugeot and a Fiat (both ancient European manufacturers now owned by Amsterdam-based Stellantis) stood a pair of MG ZSes; indeed, you’ll see new MGs on roads all over Western Europe right now. These machines are built in Asia by Nanjing Automobile, though design and engineering work still takes place in England.

You could make the case that even the ZT doesn’t have full British ancestry, since BMW took over the company very early in the car’s development (you’ll want to read the excellent AROnline article for the full story). However, at the time, the Bavarians were more interested in the car that became the New Mini and so stayed mostly hands-off with the Rover 75 and its ZT descendant, pumping money into the project but leaving the Rover Group engineers and designers to create what turned out to be (arguably) the last of the purely British MGs. In fact, the 75 and ZT were meant to replace the Rover 600/800, which were developed jointly with Honda and contained a great deal of Accord/Legend DNA. I say this car earned its proud Union Jack badges, which now live on my garage wall.

MG had endured a rollercoaster of ownership changes since the Morris Garage built its first cars in 1924. The British Motor Corporation took over in 1952 with the merger of Morris Motors with the Austin Motor Company. In 1966, BMC absorbed Jaguar, then merged with Leyland Motors to become the British Leyland Motor Corporation in 1968. The British government took over in 1975 to create British Leyland, which killed the MG brand (in favor of its deadly intra-corporate rival, Triumph) after 1980 but revived it every so often for badge-engineered cars.

British Leyland begat the Rover Group in 1986, with British Aerospace acquiring the MG brand a couple of years later. BMW bought MG in 1994, then sold it to Phoenix Venture Holdings in 2000; this company built MGs as the MG Rover Group through 2005, at which point Nanjing Automobile gathered up the ruins after a disastrous few months. There’s a lot of history in the junkyard!

The ZT is thus one of very few true MGs from the post-1980 period (again, there’s plenty of room for argument about definitions here, and I’m personally biased, as an American who daily-drove a British Racing Green chrome-bumper MGB-GT while in college). While I’d prefer an MG F to a ZT for myself, the ZT was by most accounts a very good saloon that deserved a much better fate than what it got. Production of ZT-derived cars for the Chinese market continued through the middle-2010s.

U-Pull-It UK is owned by Dallas-based Copart, and their two British facilities are in York and Edinburgh. I visited the York yard, about four hours’ drive north of London and very cold in January. Prices are good and the employees are friendly there. I recommend a visit if you’re in the area.

I shot dozens of interesting vehicles at this yard, as well as at more traditional dismantlers (known as breaker’s yards in England), and I will be writing articles about English scrapyard inmates ranging from a Bentley S3 to an Alfa Romeo Brera S in the near future.

The interior of the MG ZT was comfortable in the traditional British style, with generous helpings of high-quality wood and leather. BMW didn’t want the car to compete too directly with its own 3 Series and 5 Series sedans while the ZT’s Rover 75 ancestor was being developed (hence its size between the two), and MG Rover went all-in on non-German interior design for the ZT.

The engine is a 2.5-liter Rover DOHC V-6, rated at 187 horsepower and 181 pound-feet of torque and giving this car a tested top speed of 140 mph. Versions of this engine came to our side of the Atlantic under the bonnets of Land Rover Freelanders and Kia Sedonas.

The transmission is a five-speed manual, driving the front wheels. A rear-wheel-drive version of the ZT was available as well, made possible by the deep floorpan tunnel, powered by a 4.6-liter Ford Modular V-8.

It began its career driving in Scotland but it will be crushed in England.

U-Pull-It was kind enough to shoot a photo of the gauge cluster with the ignition powered on for their inventory site, so we can see that this car had a mere 97,795 miles at the end. That’s fewer than most of our MGBs have today.

It appears that this car was built a few months before the axe fell on the MG Rover Group. Just 1870 ZTs were built for the 2005 model year, so this car is yet another example of the “historically significant and very rare, yet not worth much” category. You’ll see more of that phenomenon in this series, I feel compelled to warn you.

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“Holy jumping Caesar’s catfish, my ‘H’ has been stolen! Ohhh, that’s how people know it’s a Honda! What’s the point of having a Honda if you can’t show it off?”

Honda’s H logo clearly mattered a great deal to Superintendent Chalmers in a popular 1996 episode of The Simpsons, though the audience might have wondered why Chalmers’ boast of “making superintendent money” still only allowed him to buy what was by that point a 17-year-old Accord.

The even more eagle-eyed might have spotted that the emblem wrenched off the front of the superintendent’s Accord was actually incorrect for the year of the car. The fade marks left by the missing badge depict a wider H, which arrived two years after the character’s 1979 model was built.

Since 1963, when it began producing automobiles in Japan, Honda’s car division has only had four significant emblems. That will change in 2026, when the first in a dramatic new line of Honda electric vehicles arrives wearing a new H logo, the badge’s first significant redesign since 2000. Look at each in turn, though, and despite their differences, Honda has clearly seen fit not to mess with one of the world’s most recognizable automotive marks.

Honda’s first H: 1961–69

There appears to be no official explanation for the design of the original Honda H. It’s said to have first appeared in 1961, a significant date in Honda’s history, coinciding with the firm’s first victory at the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy races and with the opening of a new R&D facility in Saitama, Japan, but at that point Honda was still denoted by its famous winged logo, a design that had already been through five evolutions since 1947.

The first automobile to use the familiar H, and indeed Honda’s first automobile full stop, was the T360, a tiny kei-class pickup truck unveiled at the Tokyo motor show in 1962. The H then appeared on the S500 sports car, but not until 1969 would customers in the vital U.S. market become familiar with the badge, affixed to the front of a tiny two-door sedan dubbed the N600.

Based on Japan’s N360, another kei car, the N600 still had an engine displacement smaller than that of most motorcycles (the clue was in the name), but that parallel twin could buzz along at 80-or-so mph all day. The N600 sold alongside the sportier Z600—same engine, kooky styling—before both were replaced by an all-new car wearing an all-new badge …

1969–81

Here’s the Honda logo that Superintendent Chalmers’ Accord should have been wearing. It debuted in 1969 on the little-known Honda 1300, an air-cooled vanity project of Soichiro Honda that leaned too heavily on his focus on engineering above all else and, as result, sold poorly in its home market. Its replacement was ushered in swiftly for 1972 and, with the possible exception of the Super Cub motorcycle, did more to build Honda’s brand than any other vehicle in its history.

That car was the Civic. Next to the 1300 it was middle-of-the-road conventional, but against the N600 it replaced, it was significantly more useful, with double the cylinder count and notably more torque. Just a year after the car’s debut, the oil crisis hit. Combined with growing unease over pollution, the frugal Civic—with its low-emission CVCC (Compound Vortex Controlled Combustion) engine, which needed no power-strangling catalytic converter or weedy carburetor to meet new emissions requirements—arrived at the perfect time.

Against all this the Honda H of 1969 is less exciting, but it notably lost the HONDA wordmark and went from a low and wide design to a tall and slim one—typically a white H on a black background. On Chalmers’ Accord, the real badge would have sat neatly on a slim chrome trim piece at the leading edge of the hood.

1981–2000

The next change came in 1981, and it’s this logo that forms the basis of the emblems applied to the front of every Honda since. The key elements were all in place by this point: An H that splits the difference in height and depth between the designs of 1961 and 1969, always presented within a soft-cornered trapezoid, and with the bold uppercase serif lettering making a return—although typically used on a separate badge, rather than below the main logo.

The new badge debuted on the City supermini in Japan but soon featured on much more exciting cars, such as the Honda CRX. By now on its third-generation Civic, Honda supposed that customers might also like a sportier variant, and the CRX of 1983 was the bob-tailed, flyweight (right around 1700 pounds) result. Spectacularly economical in its earliest iteration, the CRX is even better appreciated in its 1988 second generation, with a distinctive split-glass rear hatch and, in some markets, a dual-overhead cam VTEC engine making nearly 160 hp from 1.6 liters.

The badge itself had subtle evolutions throughout the next two decades, but was mostly seen as a raised chrome emblem with no solid color background. The exception is on Honda’s Type-R models sold outside the U.S., a moniker that debuted with the NSX in 1992 and brought back the red background seen first on the nose of the S500 in the 1960s.

2000–present

In 2000, the Honda H became a skeuomorphic design, with a 3D appearance replicating the actual chrome logos seen on most Honda cars by that point. The Honda script itself was now bright red, a detail you’ll see in most of the brand’s official literature, though white and black are also used for contrast depending on where the script is being used; Honda often ditches the H entirely in brochures and on some of its websites. The use of the logo on cars still varied, with a chrome logo standing proud of the grille on some, and a flush-fitting H with a solid background on others.

It arrived on 2000’s Civic, but no other model better heralded Honda’s new-millennium look than the S2000. Launched in 1999, the S2000 was the most focused model from Honda since the NSX a decade earlier, and indeed it was built in the same factory. Like all the greatest Hondas, the S2000’s centerpiece was its engine: a 2-liter four with a 9000-rpm fuel cutoff making 237 hp through one of the tightest shifters you’ll find.

2026–forward

Honda’s next generation of production cars doesn’t yet have a solid launch date, but the 0 Series concept shown at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas will supposedly debut in relatively unchanged fashion in 2026.

However much the low-slung sedan morphs before then, an aspect that probably won’t change is one of the more significant updates to the H logo in the company’s history. Wider and shorter than the outgoing badge, it’s closer in spirit to the 1961 original than any we’ve seen since, and just like the original logo, it has no defined background.

Honda isn’t the first car brand to return to a historic logo: Citroën and Peugeot have recently both gone back to designs inspired by their early days, Renault’s latest design harks back to the 1970s, and many more such as VW, BMW, Skoda, Audi, and Mercedes-Benz have, like Honda, adopted a flat logo in recent years.

Just as with these, Honda’s new look reflects advances in design and technology, perhaps alluded to with badges increasingly becoming illuminated. But perhaps it’s also a nod to the fact that unlike some of the auto industry’s recent startups and upstarts, having history and heritage—and a recognizable brand mark—is something to be proud of.

Superintendent Chalmers understands that Honda pride, even if the details got lost in his animation.

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In 1927, Major Henry Segrave piloted a Sunbeam land-speed car to 203.79 mph on the sands of Daytona Beach, Florida, making it the first car to record a speed over 200 mph. The National Motor Museum, located in Beaulieu near the southern coast of England, hopes to get the massive racer running and bring it back to Daytona three years from now, on the 100th anniversary of the achievement. What better way to celebrate the feat than with the thundering report of the car’s twin 22.5-liter V-12 aircraft engines?

The National Motor Museum has calculated that it will take £300,000 (about $383,000) to rebuild the two monster engines, freshen up the car, and ship it across the Atlantic. After announcing the plan last March, the museum has already raised £50,000.

Museum visitors can currently see the car’s chassis, which is on display while other restoration work is being done. Later this month, the museum’s manager and chief engineer, Doug Hill, along with senior engineer Ian Stanfield will host a talk highlighting the restoration efforts. They’ll be joined by Richard Noble, who held the outright land-speed record for driving the Thrust 2 to 633 mph in 1983. Tickets for the event will benefit the restoration of the Sunbeam.

Plans for the huge, sleek racer include the trip to Daytona, naturally, but also a tour around Europe and America so that racing fans and history buffs can get an up-close look at the machine and also hear it in all of its glory. One of the DOHC, 48-valve engines seems to be up and running for the first time since before WWII, after a rebuild that repaired the aged and oxidized machinery, but there’s still a long way to go.

“Funds are now needed to gear up a level to complete the second engine build and ultimately the full restoration. Donations for the Sunbeam 1000hp Restoration Campaign can be made online. Sponsors and corporate donors who would like to be associated with the campaign are urged to get in touch with the Museum’s Development team,” said National Motor Museum’s Michelle Kirwan.

This record-setting car would be a sight to behold, as it highlights a different era of land speed racing than anything we’ve experienced. With 24 cylinders and nearly 1000 hp on tap, it would sound unlike anything we’ve seen in competition. We wish the National Motor Museum luck in reaching its goal and preserving this wonderful piece of history and hope to see the Sunbeam hit the beach in three years!

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Car people dream of winter wonderland conditions for a couple of reasons. Some look forward to holing up in the garage and working on their project car, drinking a warm cup of coffee while reading a great book about road trips, or maybe even planning their next drive when the salt finally washes away. If you are faithful to a brand and not the car itself though, the winter season holds plenty of interesting options that encourage you to make the most of the fluffy power while we have it. Here are four examples of car makers embracing the winter season.

BMW Bobsled

Audi might have climbed the ski jump, but BMW took sliding back down the hill to a new extreme when it partnered with the U.S.A. bobsled team to crate its racing sled. While there might not be an engine, the heavy use of lightweight materials and complex aerodynamics is where the automaker’s knowledge came into play. The Bavarian-designed sleds first went dashing through the snow during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and replaced a 20-year-old platform that Team U.S.A. had previously been using. The top speed was just shy of 80mph at the bottom of the run.

Chrysler Sno-Runner

For those who prefer a more adventurous route down the mountainside rather than a perfectly smooth one, Chrysler has you covered. Well, not technically covered, but at least an option for getting around out in the fluffy snow. The Sno-Runner was born in the late 1970s out of Chrysler’s desperation to make a profit. In 1979, this wild cross-breed between a snowmobile and a minibike was unleashed into the wild.

The narrow rear track is powered by a West Bend two-stroke engine originally produced for chainsaw use. The frame is sealed and holds fuel that is pumped into the cylinder by a type of carburetor rarely found on motor vehicles. A single ski up front makes for interesting handling and the whole operation does not do great with loose, fluffy snow but it stands as an interesting attempt at something different.

Ford’s snowblower

The Sno-Runner was Chrysler trying new things, but Ford has typically been more risk-averse and keen on partnerships. That’s why you could be forgiven if you forgot about the Ford Snowblowers. Some people love to work, or at least love to get out of their driveway in the winter months, and that can often mean clearing your own escape route. Ford was still in the tractor and implement market in the 1970s, but rather than produce everything itself, it decided to re-brand machines built by outfits known for various products. These two-stage snowblowers were produced by Gilson or Jacobson and then painted Ford Blue and branded. They can still be found in the secondhand market today if you are looking for just the right snowblower to match your vintage pickup.

Porsche snow bike

Porsche was a brand born on the Austrian ski slopes as Ferry motored up and down the mountainsides in what would become the 356. The brand evolved over the years and has put the Porsche name on a good number of non-Porsche-built items, but the Avora-Porsche 212 Skibob is one we learned about recently and still has us a little perplexed. The first bicycle with skis instead of wheels was patented before 1900 but it took until the mid-1950s to have an international race of skibobs or snowbikes.

From there it only got weirder. This Porsche-branded skibob is from the 1970s. It’s constructed of molded polyfoam and folds up neatly for transport to and from the slopes. With no brakes, limited suspension, and small skis that attach to your feet to help aid in balance, it sure seems like skibob riding is only for the brave. The handling characteristics of the rear-engined 911 might be interesting, but this is another level entirely.

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Before the Formula 1 championships or the transcendent supercars, there was just Bruce.

The connection between McLaren the man and McLaren the company isn’t as widely understood today as, say, Carroll Shelby to Shelby American or Enzo Ferrari to Ferrari. Blame the brutalities of racing: Carroll and Enzo were lucky enough to survive their stints as drivers and see their companies flourish; Bruce was tragically killed testing a Can-Am car in 1970, years before McLaren’s Formula 1 championships and decades before the launch of the F1 supercar.

Yet McLaren’s life and incredible drive have a lot to do with the success the company ultimately achieved both as a racing team and an automaker. To better understand Bruce McLaren, the man, Larry Webster sat down with McLaren’s daughter, Amanda McLaren, on the occasion of the company’s 60th anniversary.

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LW: Even casual car enthusiasts know McLaren as a maker of supercars and a Formula 1 constructor. They might not, however, know as much about how it all started. Can you tell us a bit about that?

AM: My father was actually born in New Zealand [not England, where the company resides]. At a very young age, he developed Perthes disease, a degenerative condition of the hip joint. He was told at the age of about 12 or 13 that he may never walk again. But he was a little kid with a big dream—he wanted to race cars. And over the years, he built himself a little race car, which if any of you go to McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, England, is actually there.

He raced through the New Zealand circuit and was awarded the inaugural Driver to Europe scholarship that the New Zealand International Grand Prix Association started. He raced Coopers for a number of years, but he always wanted to design and build his own cars. That’s what inspired him to form his own team. So, in 1963, he founded Bruce McLaren Motor Racing. He was very successful on track, especially in the dominant Can-Am series across Canada and America.

LW: It’s easy to forget how short of a time span some incredible things happened—he founds the company in 1963, wins Le Mans for Ford in 1966, becomes one of the few people to build and drive his own car in a Formula 1 race in 1968, and builds a car for Can-Am and dominates the series. That’s sort of where you pick up the story. Did he ever sleep?

AM: My mother [Patty McLaren-Brickett] said that he could actually just nap anywhere! There’s some beautiful pictures of him in the pits lying against a tire, fast asleep. Because, yes, he was developing cars for himself, he was working with Ford and Firestone to develop their cars and products—which really was funding for the McLaren Formula 1 team—he was racing Formula 1 but also Can-Am across Canada and America. He was rarely at home.

LW: Was there a feeling that, somehow, he knew he didn’t have a lot of time?

AM: I would like to think not. He was planning in 1970 to step back and just do more testing, and let some of the others take over. His hip was really starting to give him problems and he was looking at doing a hip replacement, which back in the ’70s was a big thing. It was new technology. Motor racing was very dangerous back then. He’d seen so many of his friends and colleagues die. So, I really don’t know. But certainly he achieved so much in such a short time.

LW: You were just 4 years old when your father passed. How did you learn about his legacy, and how did you become connected with the company?

AM: My mother and father had moved over to the United Kingdom when he got his driver scholarship. If you wanted to race, especially Formula 1, you had to be based in the U.K. or Europe. So, I was born and brought up there. My mom decided to stay even after my dad was killed, although she did have a house in New Zealand. She remained McLaren’s No. 1 fan until the day she died. When you started working at McLaren, you were one of her boys. She was just so pleased to see the road cars happen, because she knew that was my dad’s next baby.

My mother had friends coming to the house. They were “Uncle” Jackie Stewart and “Uncle” Graham Hill, people like that. But I didn’t connect them to my father until I was about 11. I went to the British Grand Prix in 1976, and I (like most of my girlfriends at school) had a pinup of [Formula 1 champion] James Hunt on my wall. When, on Monday morning at school I said, “I met James Hunt,” there was a stunned silence. And when they asked me how I got to meet him, I drew myself up proudly and said, “Well, he races for the company that my father founded.” And then they started asking me all these questions, and that got me thinking. I started having a look at Mum’s collection of books, and there’s the names of all the people who came to our house—and there’s Dad’s name. I talked to people about my father’s impact. Those who knew him all gushed about what a fantastic person he was and would practically be in tears talking about him. He had all these achievements on the track, but his true legacy was inspiring the people around him. His character was passed on.

I eventually went out to New Zealand on what was a six-week family holiday and said to Mum and my stepfather, “I’m going to stay for six months.” That became six years, which became 26 years. If any of you have been to New Zealand, you’ll probably understand why—it’s the most beautiful country. We did move back to England, my husband and I, in 2014, to become brand ambassadors for McLaren Automotive. It was the most amazing experience, to really be a part of that legacy and make the connection between the history and what the present company was doing. Now we’re back in New Zealand and I’m officially retired, but you never retire from being Bruce’s daughter.

LW: What of your dad can you see in today’s road cars?

AM: When Dad was asked why his Can-Am cars were so successful, he said that they were lighter than the competition. That was a founding principle that continues in today’s road cars.

LW: One last question: McLaren’s team color is a bright orange called “Papaya Orange.” Where did that come from?

AM: They wanted something that stood out, both for the other drivers to see them coming on the track and for the fans. They sent a mechanic to buy the brightest orange he could find, which turned out to be the same paint that road crews in England used to cover pedestrian-crossing beacons. It was called Ryland’s Traffic Yellow, which I guess means technically our paint should be called McLaren Yellow. But it wasn’t, and over time, the name evolved to Papaya Orange. Racing sponsors often dictated their own colors on the McLaren racing cars, but team principal Zak Brown has put the orange back on, and I couldn’t be happier. McLarens deserve their own color, don’t you think?

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What’s that you say, “but it’s only a Ford”?

A Ford that sold for the mind-numbing figure of £596,250 ($714,091) with fees at Silverstone Auctions earlier this year, in fact—a record for the model. But that should come as no surprise: The Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500 is no stranger to breaking records. That it became one of the most successful saloon racing cars of all time is only part of the story. What makes it so desirable is that (and the name gives it away) only 500 were built. And although Ford is a colossal company, the RS500 and the car from which it evolved, the Sierra RS Cosworth, were both developed by two very special engineering teams based in Essex.

Ford Special Vehicle Engineering, where the Sierra Cosworth was created, consisted of just 34 engineers. Ford Motorsport, which prepared the racing versions, had only 32. Actually, the Cossie’s core engineering team was much smaller than that, as SVE boss, Rod Mansfield, told me when we met in 1987 to chat about the forthcoming RS500. “For a major project like Cosworth, 4×4 Sierra, or Scorpio,” he explained, “I need 10 engineers and on a rule of thumb basis, a minimum of two years. The most luxurious timing is nearer three, but the Cosworth was under two.”

Why were so few built? The original “Cossie,” with its famous whale tail, was a “homologation special” produced not as a boy-racer road car, but to make it eligible for Group A international racing, which dictated 5000 of the basic car must be built and sold. Taking a couple of standard Sierras and bolting on a huge spoiler and turbocharged engine to go racing just wasn’t allowed. The regulations said the features must be “homologated,” so included as standard on a production version anyone can buy. Group A regulations also allowed an “Evolution” version with further modifications, of which 500 were to be built and offered for general sale.

So the story of the RS500 started in 1987, a couple of years before it was revealed, with the sensation that was the Sierra RS Cosworth. Two men were directly responsible for the hottest Sierra yet. The first was Stuart Turner, the recently appointed director of motorsport at Ford Europe. The second was Mansfield, head of Ford SVE. Both men already had a dazzling track record in delivering word-beating competition cars.

Turner headed the BMC competitions department in the Mini’s heyday when the Cooper S was beating all-comers in world rallying. Appointed Ford director of motorsport in 1970, he was largely responsible for the Mk1 Escort RS1600 (the first Ford RS homologation special) and its road-going spin-offs, the Mexico and RS2000. Later, he headed the special division set up in Essex to build them, Ford Advanced Vehicle Operations (FAVO). In 1983, he became director of motorsport at Ford of Europe and soon after, the Group B RS200 happened.

Mansfield became chief engineer at FAVO in April 1980 and took the helm of the new Special Vehicle Engineering at Ford Europe, based at Ford’s Research and Development headquarters at Dunton in Essex. SVE would develop the high-performance road-going cars, and Ford Motorsport, based at Boreham, would do the full-house race and rally cars. These included the Escort Turbo and Sierra 4×4. SVE had also been responsible for the Capri Injection, the Fiesta XR2, and Escort XR3i.

Roll back the clock to the middle of 1987 again and Rod Mansfield was explaining to me how the Sierra Cosworth story had begun a few years earlier with a meeting in Stuart Turner’s office. “He just said, ‘What can we do?’ He realized SVE was the area to build him his basic vehicles. We had some marketing people there for a brainstorming session. Stuart said he needed something to go rallying with and needed something Escort, so the Escort Turbo was born. Then he asked what else we could do and the marketing people wanted support for Sierra. I mentioned the fact that there was a normally aspirated Cosworth engine around the place that might work for turbocharging and wouldn’t that make a nice car for touring car championships.”

The signature whale-tail spoiler of the Cossie that followed almost became something else. The motorsport people originally wanted it to be doubled-up, with the main wing supplemented by an additional, small, bootlid spoiler. For whatever reason—possibly styling—it didn’t happen and the single version was adopted, producing 20 kg (44 pounds) of downforce at high speed. It was significant because during testing, the standard Sierra body shape, which had never been designed for that pace, generated enough lift to make the car unstable. The single whale tail combined with the low front spoiler fixed that, and fixed it well.

At around the same time, I paid a visit to the hallowed ground of Ford Motorsport at Boreham airfield in Essex, this time to meet Mike Moreton, the project manager of Ford Motorsport Europe. As if “Boreham,” as it was economically known, wasn’t legendary enough, its location in a former wartime RAF airfield and ramshackle appearance made it even more so. Moreton’s office wasn’t located in one of the glass towers you might expect for an operation that had dominated much of the world’s saloon-based motorsport for almost quarter of a century, but in a single-story building made of wood. While the material side of the place may have been shaky, the atmosphere made up for it, and the workshops where cars were prepared were impressively spacious.

The first thing I wanted to know was how powerful would this Sierra Cosworth evolution be. Moreton was coy, saying only that in international touring car racing, “It should completely dominate the class.” He also explained how the difference between it and the Sierra Cosworth wouldn’t be that great in road-going form. “In round figures, the car already does 150 mph, is there any point in producing a car that does much more? A little extra speed was added to the specification, more to justify the extra cost than anything. Most of the changes to the evolution car were made to allow for the requirements of Group A and, as Moreton explained, “the regulations forbid the adding of metal.”

That’s the best clue as to what the RS500 is like to drive as a road car, and in back-to-back testing with my original long-term test Sierra Cosworth, we found it disappointing. Why? Because most of the mechanical additions for Group A didn’t do anything on the road-going version and they weren’t expected to. Only when they were “actuated” in racing car form would the brutal reality of the difference they made hit home.

The double rear spoiler is an example. “The original spoiler wasn’t put there to cope with the 150 mph of the road car,” said Mansfield. It was to deal with the problem we knew we would have at 180-mph-plus on the race track. The spoiler wasn’t engineered for maximum road speed, though we don’t recommend anyone takes it off because it does have a significant effect.”

“All along, Motorsport wanted a spoiler that we never got,” explained Moreton. “Now the two rear spoilers give us an additional 105 kg (231 pounds) downforce at 100 mph and the front spoiler changes give us an additional 20 kg (44 pounds) over the standard Cosworth.”

The re-engineering of the spoiler was typically informal and made at the Ford wind tunnel in Cologne. This was all pre-computer-aided design, remember. “Eberhard Braun, a motorsport engineer, took a car and some bits of card and aluminum into the wind tunnel at Merkenich,” Moreton told me. “From there it went to the design studio, where it was properly designed by Tony Grade. The panels were made by Phoenix, a German company.”

The official maximum power of the RS500 was 224 bhp (221 hp), against 204 (201) for the Cossie, but maximum torque was only 3 lb-ft more. In race trim, though, we now know the engine will make north of 550 bhp (542 hp) in a Group A racer, transforming the quite benign road car into beast. Some crucial bits of “added metal” on the RS500 included a much larger Garrett T31/T04 turbocharger with pressurized bearing lubrication, providing enough air to generate so much power. The turbo went hand-in-hand with a substantially bigger intercooler. It’s the huge turbo and air intake system that dulls low-down punch of the RS500 compared to the original.

On the road car, the boost remained the same as the Cossie, at 9 psi, but in the racers the “wick” would be turned up much higher. More fuel would be needed to generate the extra power, so there was a second row of “yellow” fuel injectors (yellow denoting higher capacity) complete with wiring and pipework to feed them, but on the road car these weren’t active. Rear suspension changes would allow racers to change the angle of the semi-trailing arms to alter camber and tracking as the car cornered hard.

The engine’s iron cylinder block was cast with thicker walls surrounding the cylinders. The bolts fastening the cylinder head to it, rather than simply screwing into the top, ran right the way through to prevent head gasket failures at the awesome pressures it would be running. There were even stronger forged pistons, a beefier oil pump, and oil spray cooling for those pistons. All these mods hinted at the massive potential the engine had.

“This car was designed to be the winning car in Group A,” said Moreton. “And the evolution car has some very significant changes in it. I don’t think anyone realizes how significant they are when it comes to reliable, high-power 24-hour racing.” As a road car though, the RS500 lacks the driveability of the original Sierra Cosworth, only getting going at around 4500 rpm, compared to 3500 rpm, making it feel laggy and less punchy. That compromised flexibility showed up when Performance Car (of which I was the editor at the time) tested it at Millbrook Proving Ground. Against the standard Sierra Cosworth, the RS500 was actually slower from 50 mph to 70 mph in fourth and fifth gears.

So what of the design? My third stop in the RS500 story was a visit back to Dunton and a chat with Ford of Europe’s director of design in 1987, Andy Jacobson. In those days, Ford exteriors were designed in Germany while interiors were penned at Dunton. His opening gambit at our meeting was, “I have two Cosworths, one here and one in Germany.” At the time, Ford execs traveled regularly between the two sites. “The fantastic thing about having one in Germany is being able to use the car at full throttle, at top speed, without going to jail.” Jacobson was chief designer in the UK when the original Sierra Cosworth was designed and recalled, “If you’re designing a car like the RS200, you know damn well all you’re really going to need is a credit card and a tooth brush. With the Cosworth, you can have your cake and eat it. That, to me, is a really good piece of design.”

If it’s the ultimate driver’s car you’re after, don’t choose the RS500, because the original Sierra Cosworth is that much nicer to drive and looks just as good, if not better, with its cleaner rear end. If it’s rarity you’re after, then the RS500 is the choice for collectors. That said, perhaps the value of the RS500 today is not just about scarcity, because it didn’t just triumph over the opposition in world-class saloon car racing—it pulverized it.

The legend is fuelled by numerous videos of the RS500s at Bathurst and elsewhere on YouTube, which are truly gobsmacking to watch. When I met Rod Mansfield for a story on the Sierra Cosworth RS500’s namesake, the Focus RS500, years later, he pondered those days of the Sierra supercars. “Even before it was built, the intention was for it to be the European Touring Car Challenge champion,” he said. “And it was.” And that pretty well sums up why collectors today are willing to pay north of half a million pounds for an old Ford.

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John Kiprian Wasenko, or “Kip,” as he is known to his friends who gather for cars and coffee at Pasteiner’s in Birmingham, Michigan, is a true son of the Motor City. Racer, artist, and lover of beautiful automobiles, this Dino driving, GT2-style Corvette-race-car wrassling car designer has a story that begins long before he ever got behind the wheel.

Getting the bug

In 1952, six-year-old Kip Wasenko often sat on the front porch of his family’s Detroit home, waiting for yet another new Caddy to drive down his street. The shiny new luxury cars were en route from the old Clark Street Assembly Plant to a nearby site where they will be loaded onto transports and shipped to dealers. To get there they had pass by the Wasenko residence near Livernois and Michigan. The boy on the porch was far too young to understand Cadillac’s place in the hierarchy of the automotive world, but he kew pretty sheet metal when he saw it.

GM was king in mid-century America, and Cadillac was the Lord Chamberlain of the General’s court, a fact regularly communicated to young Wasenko by an uncle who helped manage GM’s storied Motorama extravaganzas. Knowing the youngster’s fascination with automobiles, he would bring him brochures with artfully rendered illustrations of the new machinery.

Wasenko filled notebooks with his own renderings of fabulous machines, growing more proficient with each drawing and each passing year, becoming more deeply immersed in the world of wheels. As a teen, his passion turned to drag racing and performance, but he never stopped sketching, never stopped conjuring images of very special machines. Machines he longed to create, touch, and drive.

Before he turned 18, Wasenko knew what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. He wanted to create cars. So, he enrolled at Detroit’s Wayne State University and majored in industrial design. His plan was to complete the Wayne State degree program, then continue his education at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. Before he could get to step two of that plan, he was selected for an internship at General Motors.

In the General’s army

The work environment at GM was challenging and competitive, just the way Wasenko liked it. Drawing on years of devotion to all things automotive, he designed a mid-engine streamliner powered by a turbine. An unusual machine, it featured a vertical fin not unlike those used on some race cars today and a rear track that, for aerodynamic purposes, was narrower than the front track. Bill Mitchell, GM’s design chief, saw the young intern’s work and offered a job on the spot. Wasenko completed his degree work at Wayne State and started designing cars for GM on January 2, 1968. He would continue in that role for 40 years.

Wasenko’s career path saw many successes—too many to cover here. An early win was the acclaim afforded his design of a mid-engine twin-rotor Wankel-powered Corvette in the early 1970s. An assignment at Opel in Germany followed shortly thereafter, and he was able to present the rotary-engine car at the Frankfurt auto show. That car, and a larger four-rotor Vette that his boss Bill Mitchell penned, never saw production, as fuel economy concerns killed GM’s interest in rotary engines.

Wasenko’s work in Germany was followed by a stint at Holden, GM’s Australian brand, where he served as assistant design chief. Back in the states, he became chief designer at Saturn. But Cadillac had won his heart many years before, so a new assignment designing the cars he knew first and loved most saw Wasenko doing some of his best work and ultimately becoming director of design for Cadillac.

Art, science, high performance

The summer of 1998 was a high point in Wasenko’s career. With his Cadillac design team, he developed a concept car called Evoq that was meant to forge a new path for Cadillac styling. He then spent the summer in California supervising its construction at Metalcrafters, an auto industry fabricator. The car was unveiled at the Detroit auto show in January of ’99 and was hailed as a masterpiece of contemporary automotive art and a revolutionary new look for Cadillac. The car and Wasenko were invited to participate in a design show in Milan.

Evoq changed everything. A production version of the concept—the XLR—soon followed, heralding the birth of Cadillac’s Art and Science design language. Wasenko would continue to push the envelope, championing high-performance CTS-V and STS-V coupes and sedans that came to define the new Cadillac.

The Italians’ embrace of Evoq design in 1999 was reflective of Wasenko’s interest and passion for Italian design. His pride and joy has long been a beautiful red 1970 Dino 246 GT that he purchased in ’75 and restored to concours standards in 1991. The Ferrari-built mid-engine car was created as a loving tribute to Enzo’s son, Alfredo “Dino” Ferrari, who had been tragically taken by muscular dystrophy at the age of 24. Styled by Pininfarina with coachwork by Scaglietti, the car is considered one of the most sensuous designs ever to emerge from Maranello. For Wasenko, it was both model and motivation.

Cars that not only look fast but perform accordingly came to define Wasenko, and he would finish his career in the GM performance division with Mark Reuss, Tony Roma, and John Henricy. Racers all. They created pace cars and specialty vehicles for the SEMA show. They took the brand to Le Mans from 2000 to 2002 with a turbocharged V-8 prototype race car and proved competitive with the world’s best.

“Cadillac had it figured out by the end of our final Le Mans race but then backed out,” said Wasenko. “We were disappointed, but the amount of money allocated to the program wasn’t enough to continue to race Le Mans. The reality was that we should race what we sell, and we created a CTS-V race car that proved successful. But Le Mans is the big show and GM will be back this year with five race cars [Cadillac hypercars finished 3rd and 4th overall at the June 10–11 race—Ed.]. Credit Mark Reuss as the guy who kept the V-series alive and prompted a return to Le Mans and the world stage.”

Designed to be driven

Wasenko has always believed cars are meant to be driven, and in 1991, while still designing for Saturn, he cautiously but enthusiastically took to the race track in his gorgeous little Dino. “I took some heat for driving a classic in competition,” he recalls. “But my Dino racing was short-lived. Soon thereafter, I was invited to co-drive a Corvette race car, so the Dino was retired from competition with nary a scratch. In the winter of ’92, I built my own Corvette race car, and I’ve been competing in that same car for 30 years, with numerous upgrades and modifications along the way.”

Wasenko’s racing Corvette is a 1988 C4 that he purchased as a theft recovery survivor; it had been stripped down to its bare frame and rear body doghouse. That’s about where you want to start, he says, if you’re going to turn an older Vette into a race winner.

Danny Kellermeyer of Ortonville, Michigan, welded a full cage into that basic Vette donor car and Doug Chenoweth, a friend and forer racing partner, helped Wasenko turn it into a race car. And a race car it is, appearing regularly at Waterford Hills, an historic road racing course in Oakland County, Michigan. Running in ITE, a class that includes former GT cars and other pure race cars, Wasenko and his pretty Corvette came within 0.2 second of the track record last year. Power is provided by a 6.2-liter LS small-block Chevy engine with CNC-ported LS9 heads, a Callies crankshaft, Oliver connecting rods, and Mahle pistons that provide a compression ratio of 11.8:1. The intake is an LS fuel-injection system that was reprogrammed for competition. The engine was prepped and assembled by Kevin Pranger at Great Lakes Engines; on the dyno, it generated 550 horsepower at the rear wheels.

Wasenko stirs gears with a ZF six-speed manual that delivers power to a 4.10 gear set. At the end of the rear axles hang a pair of 345/35-18 Hoosier A7 sports car racing tires. Those are matched with rubber of the same manufacture up front.

When Wasenko was interviewed for this article, he expressed pride at having passed his pro race car driver physical. At age 76, that’s no small feat. When he’s not racing, he’s busy judging concours events all over the country, something he enjoys and is frequently called on to do. That’s no surprise—he’s been working on that keen eye for exact details since his boyhood days on the front porch.

***

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At the 1923 French Grand Prix 300,000 jaws collectively dropped as four sleek Bugattis assembled for the start of the 500-mile race. The Type 32 was like no other competition car ever seen before.

Ettore Bugatti strongly believed that streamlining would increase the performance of his racing machines, and the Type 32 was his first attempt to cut a cleaner path through the air. Inspired by the shape of an aeroplane wing with an extended teardrop tail, airflow over the sleek aluminum bodywork was only slightly disturbed by the hundreds of exposed rivets holding it all together.

The Type 32 quickly earned the nickname ‘Tank’ yet it certainly didn’t drive like one. Underneath it was based on the successful Type 30, and powered by a two-liter, 90-hp, straight-eight. The innovations didn’t end with aerodynamics, however, with the car also featuring a three-speed transaxle transmission, and hydraulic brakes. Bugatti built an initial prototype, plus the four cars which lined up in Tours for the Grand Prix on July 2, 1923.

It was a gruelling race, with 35 laps on the 14-mile road layout taking over seven hours to complete. Ernest Friderich finished a creditable third in the lead Type 32, proving the potential of Bugatti’s radical design.

Despite this promising start the Type 32 would never compete in Grand Prix racing again, with all efforts for the next few years focused on the now-legendary Type 35 instead. It wasn’t forgotten, however, and the Tank concept would eventually return in the form of the Type 57G which won the 1936 French Grand Prix and the 1937 Le Mans 24 Hours, cementing the benefits of aerodynamics into all race cars that followed.

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Seventy years ago, on January 17, 1953, forty-five thousand people attending General Motors’ Motorama at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria hotel witnessed a sports car revolution. It was the birth of a racing-inspired, American two-seat roadster—at an attractive price. With Chevrolet today unveiling the E-Ray, its first-ever hybrid, all-wheel-drive Corvette, in New York, let’s take a look back.

The Waldorf’s plush velvet grand ballroom was decorated to the rafters hosting what amounted to an early modern American auto show. Guide models were adorned in designer gowns. Choreographed orchestras, singers, and dancers provided background entertainment. While GM’s top four divisions all presented dream machines, it was the company’s entry-level Chevrolet brand that stole the show.

At this juncture, the Corvette was but a hypothetical showroom sibling to Bel Air sedans and Chevy pickup trucks. Leave it to Harley Earl, perhaps the most powerful and influential design boss in automotive history, to ram his Corvette concept through the corporation and to the Waldorf with minimal resistance. Soon, the Vette was on its way to an assembly line.

In the fall of 1951, Earl provided GM’s one-off Buick LeSabre to serve as the pace car at a major Watkins Glen, New York, road racing event. Thoroughly dipped in the day’s European sports cars at that meeting, Earl returned home convinced that America deserved its own sports car capable of running with contemporary British and Italian two-seaters.

“Project Opel” began in a secret corner of GM’s Detroit design department with four of Earl’s most trusted designers diligently advancing his whim toward reality. Half a dozen GM sculptors and engineers soon joined the team.

Project Opel was no pipe dream. With a wide, low body over a lean 102-inch wheelbase, its form blended aggression with Fifties modernity. Chassis and driveline components varied only where necessary from hardware in production throughout GM. Boxing the frame rails was deemed necessary because of the engineers’ desire to experiment with molded fiberglass for the body—a material less stiff than traditional steel stampings.

Less concerned about the mechanical details, Earl’s styling team borrowed an existing Chevy six engine, two-speed Powerglide automatic transmission, and rigid rear axle from GM parts bins. To add zing, the inline-six was boosted from 115 to 150 horsepower with higher compression, more aggressive valve timing, and triple carburetors. With an eye on weight distribution, the engine was mounted as low and as far rearward as possible.

Throughout 1952, Project Opel advanced through clay model to wood and plaster forms for upper management review. While there was widespread enthusiasm for the project, GM President Harlow Curtice withheld production approval until he had some customer feedback in hand. That hesitancy didn’t hinder engineers from assuring that Project Opel could make a swift pivot to the production line.

The first running prototype wearing “engineering car #852” and “EX-52” labels was finished a few days before Christmas 1952. Still missing at this juncture was a compelling name. Myron Scott, a member of Chevy’s public relations department raised his hand to suggest CORVETTE. In 1935, the clever Scott had created the Soap Box Derby with Chevy’s backing.

During World War II, the Corvette name was employed by the British Navy for its compact fast attack ships. Bringing the right ring to the game, the Corvette nameplate replaced engineering code identifiers only days before the Motorama show’s opening.

Attendees were clearly excited viewing the Corvette and were anxious for answers to their how-soon, how-much inquiries. Lacking proper market assessment, Curtice took the pulse of the crowd; on the show’s second day he announced that production would commence as soon as possible.

While there were hopes of eventually using steel for the Corvette, between July and December of 1953, 300 salable fiberglass-bodied Corvettes were built at an interim production plant in Flint, Michigan. Today, those cars are priceless collectibles even though their driving and performance attributes are modest by any standard.

You’d rightfully expect that the 852/EX-52 Motorama show car would be the uncontested Mona Lisa of this limited-production group. That’s not the case; with no thought of saving the show star for future admiration, it was unceremoniously parted out after accumulating 111 miles on the 1953 U.S. show circuit. The chassis was rebuilt and modified for use under the 1954 Motorama Chevy Nomad Station Wagon. The body was shipped to GM’s proving grounds where engineers lit it afire to assess the flammability of fiberglass body panels.

On the brighter side, one individual in the Corvette’s debut crowd was about to greatly energize its cause. Zora Arkus-Duntov, a 43-year-old, Belgian-born, unemployed engineer and race driver, was smitten by the Corvette at first sight. While he thought this was the most beautiful automobile he’d ever seen, he was deeply disappointed by what laid under the fiberglass panels.

Determined to remedy those faults, Arkus-Duntov wrote compelling letters to Chevy’s chief engineer Ed Cole and other GM managers that earned him a job as an assistant staff engineer at Chevrolet. On May 1, 1953, Arkus-Duntov began his GM career and promptly began converting the Corvette from a shallow beauty into a world-class sports car. The rest is history.

Seventy years later, Arkus-Duntov is long gone, but his driving spirit shines brightly, and particularly throughout the Corvette’s eighth generation.

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In California’s high desert, U.S. Route 395 meanders under the eastern shadow of the Sierra Nevada. Cruelly hot in summer and freezing in winter, it can also be windblown, sweeping Isetta-size tumbleweeds across the gritty terrain like demonic medicine balls. Or it can be benevolent, with only the caw of a wheeling crow and the distant drumming of tires rending the stillness. Nearby are an ancient lava flow, leering overhead like a battalion of case-hardened gargoyles, and several volcanic cones, their iron-rich alluvium spilling about like the train of hell’s wedding dress. And right beside the highway are scattered chunks of pure obsidian, gleaming black and smooth as a Duesenberg at Pebble Beach.

But what do volcanology and Duesenberg have in common? Insolent natural forces, and chance. The Earth’s surface was shaped by physics and time. And so was Duesenberg, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2021. The “physics” that shaped America’s greatest luxury marque were the collective vision, drive, and innovation of Frederick and August Duesenberg—and, later, Errett L. Cord. The Duesenberg brothers were, figuratively, forces of nature in their time, developing and producing what some regard as America’s greatest cars, the 1928–37 Model J and supercharged Model SJ. Based on the brothers’ racing technology, they unequivocally delivered the most power, performance, and prestige at an unashamedly high price.

That is, until it all crashed and burned.

Two hundred miles south, the streets of Burbank, California, are the polar opposite of the high desert, with the maximum imaginable quotient of concrete and asphalt. Inside Jay Leno’s Big Dog Garage are eight Duesenbergs, including a supercharged 1932 Model SJ with a Murphy convertible body.

On a Tuesday morning last spring, Leno said, “If you’re going to write about Duesenbergs, you have to ride in one.” So I turned the passenger-side door handle, stepped in, and obediently sat, like a 5-year-old on the first day of kindergarten. There are no seatbelts. The engine-turned dashboard is crowded with instruments—including an altimeter, stopwatch, and brake-pressure gauge—plus four ingenious annunciators for chassis lubrication (every 80 miles), battery water level (every 1500 miles), engine oil service (every 700 miles), and the lubricant level in a chassis greasing system. Electromechanically operated, they are akin to an early computerized maintenance minder.

Leno was already inside, after unplugging a charger from the 6-volt batteries. With practiced precision, he set the ignition-timing lever and updraft carburetor’s choke, centered the gear lever, switched on the ignition, and pulled the starter knob. The big engine whirred slowly, laboriously turning its massive 350-pound crankshaft through 12 quarts of 50-weight oil and groaning like a massive radial on a Mitchell bomber. And then the 420-cubic-inch straight-eight engine sneezed, caught, and settled into a smooth, easy idle. Fred Duesenberg was passionate about engineering, and his engines prove it. The 3.5-foot-long forged-steel crankshaft has five main bearings and runs supremely smoothly, thanks to an integrated balancer incorporating cartridges filled with mercury—a liquid metal 13.5 times denser than water—that quell vibration. The forged camshafts are drilled hollow, and the aluminum pistons and tubular steel rods (Duralumin, or aluminum-copper alloy, on the Model J) are blueprinted.

The straight-eight drives through a three-speed non-synchro gearbox and a torque tube to the live rear axle. Though silky, the motor is busy-sounding, a telltale of the twin-cam cylinder head. The cams are driven by two chains; one from the crankshaft to a reduction sprocket on a jackshaft, and another, longer chain wrapping around the camshaft sprockets. Thirty-two tappets, located under polished aluminum covers, add more commotion. Add in the shaft-driven centrifugal blower and the deep, free-flowing exhausts (a cutout lever lets the driver bypass the muffler), and a Duesenberg SJ sounds like a machine shop in full production.

“Duesenbergs were bought by extroverts, Hollywood people, flashy people,” Leno said. “In 1928, there were hardly any roads you could go fast on, so there was really no need for a huge twin-cam four-valve straight-eight engine.” But the way you rose in stature in 1920s America was by flaunting it, and these were the fastest, most powerful you could buy. “Packard probably outsold Duesenberg 4 or 5 to 1,” continued Leno. “And because Packards were for bankers and conservative old money, you didn’t even hear them coming up the street. But a Duesenberg announced itself with the roar of the engine and all that kind of stuff. It was a showoff car, and certain people just loved it.”

Double-clutching between first and second gear, Leno guided the SJ out of the garage and toward the Golden State Freeway, accustomed to the stir that his impressive mug and such cars cause among Burbank’s populace. Although only a two-seater, the Murphy convertible is huge. Its 142.5-inch wheelbase is similar to a Ford F-150 SuperCab, and it weighs close to 6000 pounds. Mounted on 19-inch rims, its beaded tires stand nearly 3 feet tall—merely a hand’s width lower than the 1966 Le Mans–winning Ford GT40. With 6-inch-high sidewalls, the tires roll over city streets like an M4 Sherman tank over Rice Krispies.

Reportedly, the SJ could hit 90 mph in second gear, reach 100 mph from a standing start in 17 seconds, and go nearly 130 mph. “Imagine that in 1930, when going ‘a mile a minute’ was considered over the top,” Leno shouted above the engine noise. “This is a classic you can drive like a regular car, because it can keep up with traffic.” Then he punched it up the freeway on-ramp. The man gets on the gas.

***

If you thought Duesenberg was a German car, well, it might have been. This constitutes the first bit of chance that let America birth Duesenberg for her own. Brothers Fred and Augie immigrated with their mother in 1885, settling in Iowa. In that agrarian state, they finished their formal education early. They were ambitious, though, and with Fred the hard-headed mechanical innovator and Augie the production specialist, they started building and racing bicycles.

Over time, Fred became chief engineer of Mason, an early car company based in Iowa, and with financial backing from founder Edward R. Mason, the brothers began developing four-cylinder race cars. They won several important races and finished 10th in the 1914 Indianapolis 500 with future World War I ace of aces Eddie Rickenbacker at the wheel. The brothers also began building truck and marine engines.

When Europe’s first war of the 20th century came pounding at America’s door, Fred Duesenberg was ineligible for active duty due to a leg injury from racing. So the brothers started manufacturing military aircraft engines in New Jersey. By chance, the Duesenbergs’ airplane unit was based on a powerful 16-cylinder Bugatti aero motor, created by pairing two straight-eights at the crankshafts in parallel to create a unique “U-16.” And since multicylinder airplane motors were more powerful, faster, and lighter for their size than car engines of the day, why not adopt their architecture? Motors made to kill might make killer car engines, too.

Wartime was hell for people but outstanding for technology. In the U.S. Army Air Service, a precursor to the Air Force, engines had to be light, high-revving, and powerful. This bred lighter valvetrains, aluminum pistons, higher crankshaft speeds, tougher bearings, and pressurized oiling systems. And so, while the Duesenbergs produced high-output inline engines for war, their interest in racing and Fred’s engineering acumen soon begat the Duesenberg straight-eight. By chance, the Duesenberg game board was set.

“Before the [Duesenberg] Model A was produced, they were looking at the market,” explained marque authority Randy Ema. “They followed the American Springfield-built Rolls-Royce concept, which was to build the chassis and engines and let coachbuilders create the bodies. One of their experiments was with early alloy pistons, an Achilles’ heel for automobiles. Production cars had cast-iron pistons and their engines operated at low speeds, up to maybe 1800 rpm. But eventually, the Duesenberg Model A could turn 4000 rpm and racing Duesenbergs could turn 5000 rpm.”

Soon after Armistice Day in 1918, the Duesenbergs focused on building a production car, the Model A. “They were already successful in racing,” Leno pointed out later. “They were like Ferrari—they liked to build racing cars. Well, how do you finance your race car wins? Build production cars and sell them.”

Their masterwork was the 260-cubic-inch, 88-hp engine, with its eight inline cylinders and gear-driven single-overhead camshaft, which made the Duesenberg Model A exotic for its day. America’s first such engine, its prescient layout became an essential part of production and racing cars, particularly at Indianapolis, until the mid-1950s. Cradling the motor was a ladder frame consisting of a pair of 8.5-inch rails made by Parish of New Jersey (later acquired by Dana Corp.), with six cross-braces. To these were bolted semi-elliptical leaf springs and solid axles, including a tubular front unit.

The Model A braking system was another Fred Duesenberg invention. He didn’t formalize the principles of fluid dynamics or make the discovery that fluids are noncompressible, but he did apply them to the Model A by using four-wheel hydraulic brakes with large, 15-inch drums. In lieu of brake fluid as we now know it, Duesenberg used a mixture of glycerin and water in the lines. And Fred never patented the invention. Imagine if he had.

Ironically, the racing- and aero-based engineering existed beneath typically unremarkable bodies. But to the Duesenberg brothers’ way of thinking, the whole idea was to achieve functional excellence, so letting owners and coachbuilders create the bodies was both logical and practical.

Some context may help here. In 1921, when the Duesenberg debuted, the automobile industry was transitioning from horse-and-buggy-era craftsmanship into mechanized moving assembly lines. Of course, Henry Ford, Walter P. Chrysler, and GM co-founder William Durant had head starts, but mass production simply wasn’t a mountain the Duesenbergs wanted to climb. Instead, every Duesenberg was hand-built from commissioned parts and assemblies at Duesenberg’s Building No. 1 at 1501 West Washington Street in Indianapolis. Part of the structure remains today.

With the engines and chassis done, bodies could be as elegant and rich as the buyer wanted. Coachbuilders including LaGrande (a Duesenberg holding in Indiana); Judkins Co. of Massachusetts; Brunn & Co., LeBaron, Rollston, and Willoughby Co. of New York; Derham Body Co. of Pennsylvania; and Bohman & Schwartz and Murphy of California created Duesenberg bodies. Fundamentally, period body designs needed to: a) cover the engine; and b) accommodate passengers. “You know, owners would sometimes put 10 people in their car—it was crazy,” Leno later said from a comfy couch in his “Brough Room” at the garage, named for the extensive collection of British Brough Superior motorcycles it holds. “So they just made the bodies as big and strong as they could. And particularly with the later Model J’s powerful engine, it worked fine.”

Want to know why a 2021 Mercedes-Benz S-Class looks the way it does? The dual necessities of covering the engine and accommodating passengers created the archetypical luxury look of a long hood joining a long body, which included a convenient side entrance we now simply call “doors.” And the forms stuck. Adding these requirements together, plus the period luxury element of a setback radiator, yielded two Model A wheelbase variants, one 134 inches and the other 141 inches. Long, sweeping fenders protected passengers from dust and mud on the primitive roads.

In 1921, the Model A chassis cost about $6500, with the coachbuilt body pushing the total price upward of $8500. For contrast, in 1921, Briggs & Stratton produced the Flyer, sort of a soapbox racer for the road, with two bucket seats and an air-cooled engine, advertised for $125. The wealth disparity of today recalls the wealth disparity a century ago. In all, 650 Duesenberg Model As were made.

***

Long before slogans such as “Win on Sunday, sell on Monday” were bantered around conference rooms by marketing flacks, the Duesenberg brothers went racing. In contrast to Europe’s road races, in America, racing largely meant ovals, and so the two primary forms of motorsport already started diverging; the Indy 500 had only existed since 1911, and permanent road circuits didn’t exist at all yet.

This affects the Duesenberg story because oval racing and road racing required different approaches. The former rewarded durable high-speed engines, high-capacity oiling and fuel-delivery systems, high-speed tires, and reduced frontal area; it also required fewer speeds in the transmission. Conversely, road racing required flexible engines, multispeed transmissions, and strong brakes. The Duesenbergs’ interest and appetite for both forms of racing ultimately yielded a production car that was more fully rounded than those of its competitors, even though production Duesenbergs were not intended to be racers—just technically superior luxury cars.

Following their early U.S. efforts, including Indy, with four-cylinder single-seaters, the Duesenbergs went to Europe with bespoke 3.0-liter eight-cylinder racers. Their breakthrough was the French Grand Prix at Le Mans in 1921. An early form of today’s Circuit de la Sarthe, it then measured 10.7 miles and was rough as hell. To even call it tarmacadam would be a big stretch—during the 322-mile race, it grew rutted and the cars’ tires threw stones with punishing force. After battling the favored French Ballot entries, American Jimmy Murphy won by some 15 minutes despite losing his radiator water and driving the last lap with flat tires and a cooked engine. The Duesenberg racers were that strong. Importantly, it was the first time an American car and American driver had won a grand prix, a feat not repeated until Dan Gurney drove his Eagle Mk 1 to victory at Spa-Francorchamps in 1967. (Sadly, although the French GP–winning car returned to the States, where it continued racing with Miller power, it did not survive.)

Racers to the core, the Duesenbergs continued building engines and chassis for Indianapolis. In some form, their inventions raced at the Brickyard most years from 1913 to 1937 and won three times against their technological archrival, Miller, another dual-overhead-cam machine patterned after the Duesenberg. The Duesenbergs set land speed records as well, including a 1-hour run at Bonneville in 1935 at an average speed of 153.97 mph with a rebodied, supercharged Model SJ driven by Ab Jenkins.

***

The Model A clearly wasn’t for everyone, due to both size and cost, although these cars ultimately accounted for the majority of Duesenberg’s total production. Fiscally, this left Duesenberg on the ropes in 1926. Along came E.L. Cord, a captain of industry and the owner of Auburn, who had deep pockets and a flair for style. He visualized an even larger Duesenberg to headline a three-brand company that would include Auburn and, eventually, Cord.

Cord enacted his plan: Buy out Duesenberg Motors and provide the resources and freedom to build the most technologically advanced, the most powerful, and the most luxurious American car ever. This was, after all, the Roaring Twenties. And that’s what happened. From 1926 on, as chief engineer, Fred focused on creating the Duesenberg Model J, a machine that is still considered, nearly a century later, a pinnacle of American ingenuity, performance, and quality.

Rightfully confident with the cars’ engineering, their racing successes, and the infusion of cost-no-object capital from Cord, Fred Duesenberg embarked on building the finest motorcar the world had seen to date. Unsurprisingly, its essence was its engine. Debuting in late 1928, the Model J straight-eight was 420 cubic inches of dual-overhead-camshaft, 32-valve brashness. Valve actuation used a single cam lobe and follower for each of the valves, a dizzyingly complex arrangement for the day. Producing a reported 265 horsepower at 4250 rpm, the Model J engine was—by more than twice—the most powerful American production car engine. It was also the only DOHC eight-cylinder production car engine on the planet. Bugatti, Bentley, Hispano-Suiza, and Mercedes-Benz couldn’t touch a Duesenberg’s output, nor could any other American car until the Chrysler Hemi three decades later.

The Lycoming-built mill had European influence beyond Bugatti. In 1912, Peugeot, a maker of family cars, had created the world’s finest grand prix car using a DOHC hemi-head engine with four valves per cylinder, devised to reduce valve-train mass and thus valve float, a side effect of high revs that limited both engine speeds and volumetric efficiency. Swiss engineer Ernest Henry deserves credit here, but the Duesenbergs saw the value and first harnessed it in a production car. It’s worth noting that over a half-century later, Mercedes-Benz in 1986 and Oldsmobile in 1988, with much fanfare, announced their four-valve engines, the 190E 2.3-16 and Quad 4, respectively. Now they are commonplace in most every variety of automobile except those with pushrod valvetrains.

Duesenberg’s sophistication came at a price, however, because (for example) a Model J valve adjustment requires both camshafts come out and it consumes an entire 40-hour workweek. “But Duesenberg said, ‘We don’t care what it costs,’” Leno said, shoes propped on a coffee table and gazing at a Brough SS100 worth maybe half a million. “‘We’re going to have four valves, twin cams, and perfect balance.’ It was just ridiculously amazing. To me, the two greatest [cars] are the four-valve 8-liter Bentley—although it was only a six-cylinder—and the 7-liter Duesenberg. And by the way, compared with the Model J, I think the Mercedes 540K drives like a truck.”

Ema added later, “I personally have driven everything, including the Bugatti Royale, Hispano-Suiza J12, and Bentleys. None are as drivable as a Duesenberg. Even comparing apples to apples, at the time, a Rolls was more money and a fifth the car, with less than half the drivability. The Rolls turned 2100–2200 rpm max, and in terms of power, in 1928, the closest American car was a 115-hp Auburn Model 115 flathead-eight. Nobody had anything close to the Model J. The Duesenberg was a Veyron compared to a Fiesta.”

The Model J “chassis,” as the rolling machine was called, still used a ladder frame, with elliptical springs and Columbia axles that were stiffer than those of the Model A. The wheelbase options were 142.5 inches or 153.5 inches. Innovations included lightweight aluminum castings for the firewall, the instrument panel, and for its hollow mounting brackets. It was an elegant contrast to other luxury cars that used sheet metal in these places. Up front, in lieu of a thermostat to control water temperature through flow restriction, automatic radiator shutters opened and closed as the cooling needs dictated. A bimetal spring inside the radiator tank moved a bell-crank to open the shutters as water temperature rose or close them as it cooled. This was in 1928; Honda ballyhooed its own active shutter grille 90 years later.

There’s more: As an early form of antilock brakes, the Model J had an adjustable valve that increased or lessened vacuum in the brake booster. In ideal road conditions, the driver opened the valve fully, thereby allowing maximum hydraulic pressure during pedal activation. The valve could be adjusted for rain and snow, reducing clamping force at the drums to lessen the likelihood of wheel lockup in low-grip conditions. A gauge displayed hydraulic pressure on the instrument panel. Note: Electronic ABS finally gained prominence in production automobiles in the 1990s.

With Cord’s blessing, the Duesenbergs maintained their focus on building the best possible “chassis” while entrusting coachbuilders to finish the car. Both American and European coachbuilders were used, per Model J buyers’ preferences.

Prior to delivery by driving, truck, or rail, every chassis was driven several miles to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and tested for 100 miles, with each driver responsible for sorting out any problems found. Exactly 481 Model J chassis were built, at a nominal cost of $8500. A done-to-the-nines Model J could cost $25,000 at a time “when a house cost $1200,” noted Leno.

***

Like a town built unknowingly on a giant strike-slip fault, Duesenberg’s undeserved misfortune was that it began producing America’s grandest car right before the Great Depression of 1929 knocked the country flat. Worse, this happened when the company was having its biggest year (200 cars sold), employing 42 people (at a typical wage of 50 cents per hour) and turning out a chassis every 22 days. The Depression, predictably and historically, ended Duesenberg Inc. in 1937, but not before the untimely demise of Fred Duesenberg, who succumbed to pneumonia in 1932 after suffering injuries in a road accident. Duesenberg had lost its engineering seer, its magma source, its soul.

Included in the Model J build were 38 supercharged Model SJs, whose chassis were priced at $9500. A shaft-driven centrifugal supercharger turning at seven times engine speed—up to 31,500 rpm—pushed a dense, powerful air-fuel mixture into the cylinders. Bolstered by their tubular-steel connecting rods, SJ engines produced a claimed 320 horsepower at 4200 rpm, enough to propel the 3-ton cars to 140 mph. But it takes a big commitment with the right pedal to make this happen; the supercharger is ineffective below 2500 rpm, about where the SJ cruises at 65 mph. Like in a race car, in a Duesenberg SJ, you must step on it if you want to go.

The iconic side exhausts, initially an SJ exclusive, were adopted for their flash appearance on numerous normally aspirated Model J cars. Two special, shorter, 125-inch-wheelbase two-seat roadsters were delivered to actors Gary Cooper and Clark Gable. They featured twin updraft carbs and reportedly made 400 horses, slightly shy of the audacious 1967 Corvette L88’s rated 430 horsepower.

***

Richie Clyne and Sam Mann are friends and collectors who own seven Duesenbergs and actually use them on tour. “I have driven my 1933 Murphy Town Car all over the country,” Clyne said. “If you’re standing still in traffic or parking, it’s hard to turn, but on the open road at 70, there’s a wonderful sweet spot where the engine torque, gearing, steering, ride compliance, noise, and vibration are all in harmony.”

“I organize an all-Duesenberg tour where we drive 200 to 250 miles a day for four straight days,” Mann added. “If you are going to do twisties and drive fast, your technique needs some maturity and it’s a little tiring, but I would say no more so than driving a 300SL.” But once you’re familiar with the car on halfway decent roads, it’s very much a serene experience, he added. “They’re not like a needy World War I–era car to keep running—they just need gas.”

In a final bit of chance, Augie Duesenberg died in 1955, the year Chrysler’s C-300 broke the 1928 Model J’s 265-hp figure with a dual-quad 331-cube Hemi. The great book had closed. As automobiles evolved and WWII came and went, Duesenbergs met with mixed fates. Some stayed with their families for generations, while others were summarily scrapped, or in the case involving Leno’s incomparable aerodynamic Walker Coupe, used as a tow truck. “During World War II, a Duesenberg might be found for $600,” said Leno. “If that sounds cheap, consider that, at the same time, a used Ford Model A cost $5. So they’ve always been expensive.”

Today, 378 Duesenbergs Model Js are known to exist, and Ema has seen all but a few. As for value, the SSJ owned by Cooper and later Briggs Cunningham sold for $22 million in 2018, making it the most valuable known American car. On the low end, a decent “starter” Duesenberg Model A might run $300,000 today. Author Ken Purdy couldn’t have predicted such values in his 1960 book, Wonderful World of the Automobile.

“Many Americans have never seen a Duesenberg automobile, the most luxurious and expensive this country has known,” he wrote. “Today the cars rarely come on the market at all and when they do the price asked ranges from $3500 to $10,000 … it’s unlikely that we will ever build $25,000 cars again.”

The numbers may have changed with inflation, but the sentiment is correct: Duesenberg will likely never be topped as America’s greatest force of nature in the art of the automobile.

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A couple of lifetimes ago, I phoned up Phil Hill to interview him about his kid Derek, then attempting to climb racing’s greasy pole with a seat in the Barber Dodge Pro Series. We had a pleasant conversation, and I got some good quotes. A little while later, the phone rang; it was Hill calling to amend some things. A few minutes later, he called back to amend some of the amendments.

America’s only native-born F1 champion was apparently like that, a perfectionist obsessed with details, a trait that served him well later in life as a frequent Pebble Beach Concours entrant and partner in the Hill & Vaughn restoration shop. It was said that back when he raced, Hill, who died in 2008, always walked or slow-drove a circuit in advance, stooping to remove leaves and noting where overhanging branches might drip dew on a corner. That he would nervously start cleaning his goggles hours ahead of a race and still be cleaning them two minutes before the start.

“He was so taut,” observed one of his rivals, Stirling Moss, “so overwrought much of the time that one would have thought that he’d have been exhausted from sheer tension inside of 200 miles.”

Hill thus seemed an unlikely addition to Scuderia Ferrari’s roster, which he joined full time in 1956 as “the ninth man on a nine-man team,” noted Sports Illustrated. Ever since the great Tazio Nuvolari’s epic drives for the fledgling Scuderia in the 1930s, Enzo had searched for a new garibaldino, a soldier in the mold of the Italian hero Garibaldi, with the same flair, fearlessness, and singular devotion to victory.

Hill didn’t fit the profile. Besides being manifestly cautious—he said an ulcer diagnosed in 1953 came from the epiphany that racing was deadly—Hill had other interests such as classical music and art, which Enzo considered distractions for dilettantes. And Hill, a bachelor, seemed to live a monk’s existence, spurning advances from female admirers. In a squad of habitually libidinous Italians, that left him the odd man out. They dubbed him “Hamlet in a helmet.”

Hill had reason to be wary. He was an eyewitness from the pit wall to Pierre Levegh’s 1955 Le Mans crash, ducking just in time to miss debris thrown from the flaming Mercedes as it exploded into the crowd. And Hill joined Enzo’s Scuderia as death gripped its ranks. First Alberto Ascari in 1955, then Eugenio Castellotti, Alfonso de Portago, and Luigi Musso. In 1958, after becoming the first Yank to crew a winning car at Le Mans, Hill was moved up to the A-team, slated to drive F1 for the ’59 season. But only because teammate Peter Collins had died that August at the Nürburgring.

Hill’s promotion coincided with a shining moment for the Scuderia. For 1961, it had finally embraced the future with Vittorio Jano’s mid-engine Tipo 156, the famous “sharknose.” The car’s 1.5-liter, 120-degree “Dino” V-6 was the class of the field. Though Hill won only two races, he and teammate Wolfgang von Trips dueled for the championship up to the final European round at Monza. On the second lap, von Trips tangled with Jim Clark’s Lotus, and von Trips launched into the crowd, killing himself and 15 bystanders. Hill clinched the championship but under dreadful circumstances; he described von Trips’s funeral as one of the worst days of his life.

According to Hill, Enzo never said a word of thanks. Like many drivers, Hill saw Enzo as a father figure with a lot of similarities to his own father, and Enzo knew it and used it, stirring up sibling rivalry in the team to extract maximum effort. However, the Old Man unilaterally decided that Hill had lost interest in racing and fired him at the end of the ’62 season, seeing in the young bike racer John Surtees his next garibaldino. “I can’t say I’m heartbroken,” was Hill’s response.

“They were an absurd mob,” he told Ferrari biographer Brock Yates years later. “Ferrari was surrounded by flunkies, all seeking some sort of favor or approval.” Hill had been one of them. He quit racing for good in 1967, relieved to be one of few survivors from his era.

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The ’80s and ’90s were a time of exciting new ideas, when the silicon chip became small enough and cheap enough to add computing power everywhere.

We wore digital watches, listened to synthesized sounds, and the technology in our cars progressed rapidly. Rotor arms, distributors, and carburetors made way for electronic ignition and fuel injection. Catalytic converters came along to help clean up our exhausts, turbochargers boosted performance, all-wheel drive improved traction and handling. The modern motor car was born and at its core, it remained almost unchanged until the EV revolution.

The RAD era brought us many innovations that we now take for granted but, amid all the experimentation not everything was a success. Here are ten hits and misses that sprung to mind as we explored the hundreds of ’80s and ’90s cars on show at a recent RADwood event. We’re sure you can add to the list.

Four-wheel steering

There’s a lot to thank Japan’s bubble economy for, from crazy Kei cars like the Autozam AZ-1 to Honda NSX. However, it’s four-wheel steering that we’re championing. Honda introduced its 4WS on the Prelude, Nissan made the 300ZX and Skyline available with a Super HICAS system, Mazda had a version on the 626 and MX-6 and Mitsubishi got in on the action with the Galant VR-4. Designed to aid low-speed maneuverability and high-speed stability, four-wheel steering wasn’t exactly embraced by car buyers and it faded away for several years, but now it’s back in a big way. As cars have become ever larger you’ll find versions of 4WS on Porsches, Mercedes, Audis, BMWs, Lamborghinis and Ferraris. Verdict: Hit!

Drop-down doors

There have been many attempts to re-invent the car door. Butterfly-style, gullwing, and freestyle all still make appearances to this day, but the drop-down doors that appeared on BMW’s Z1 roadster haven’t captured the imaginations of car designers since. The mechanism that allowed the doors to slide down and under the car was ingenious, but also heavy, cumbersome, and required the Z1 to have rather unnecessarily fat sills. Getting in and out, especially with the roof up, wasn’t an elegant exercise. Verdict: Miss

Digital dashboards

Today, finding a new car without a digital display of some kind is almost impossible, but in the ’80s and ’90s they were just coming into fashion. Aston Martin’s Lagonda had paved the way the previous decade, but it was the Renault 11 that made the LED-driven digital dashboard mainstream in Europe. (The Buick Reatta even had a touchscreen)Among our favorites of the era are the Audi Quattro, Opel Monza, and later the Subaru XT and Toyota Soarer. In car screens are now ubiquitous and we can thank these early pioneers. Verdict: Hit!

Pop-up headlamps

Hiding away the headlamps to aid aerodynamics and smooth styling has been around since even before the 1960s, but it really took off in the next three decades. Think Mazda MX-5 Miata, Porsche 944, BMW 8 Series, TVR 350i, Ferrari 308, and Toyota MR2. Just how much of these cars’ characters comes down to the change of expression when you flick a switch? Everyone loves pop-ups. Well, everyone except road safety experts, that is, because it was pedestrian safety measures that killed this most charming feature in the early 2000s. Verdict: Miss

Keyless entry

Coming in right at the end of the RADwood age keyless entry rendered the ignition key obsolete. As with so many motoring innovations it was the Mercedes-Benz S-Class that first offered the technology in 1998. With a Smart Key in your pocket or handbag you could simply stroll up to your big Benz, open the door and press start to be on your way. Then at the end of the journey you would simply switch off, exit the car, close the door and stroll off. Maybe it’s just us, but even now we still always double check that the doors are locked when we drive a keyless car. Verdict: Hit!

Retractable radio antennae

Like pop-up lights, the idea to conceal something that wasn’t always in use and could interrupt a car’s lines wasn’t terrible. However, retractable powered radio antennas were prone to being easily damaged and expensive to replace as anyone who forgot to retract theirs as they drove into a car wash knows only too well. Verdict: Miss

Headlight wipers

Another light-related miss-step was the fitting of headlamp wipers. Installed on cars with large flat-fronted lights such as the Volvo 240, Range Rover and W123 Mercedes the idea was sound, but the execution flawed. Keeping your lights clear in foul weather or snow is, of course, important but a quick blast from a jet of washer fluid is usually just as effective, and cheaper to integrate too, which is why you don’t see theses mini wipers adorning the front of cars of this century. Verdict: Miss

Electronic Stability Control

Electronic Stability Control (ESC or ESP – Program) first appearance came about 30 years before it was standard on all vehicles. In 1983 the Toyota Crown was available with an anti-skid control system, followed soon after by BMW and Mercedes-Benz in 1987 and there have been incarnations from every manufacturer since. By detecting slip at the driven wheels and reducing torque or applying brake these systems have prevented countless accidents. Verdict: Hit!

Satellite navigation

Forget for a moment the stories of people blindly following navigation guidance systems into lakes or whatnot, for the most part in-car navigation has made driving safer and less stressful. It all began in 1990 with Mazda’s Eunos Cosmo a sleek, triple-rotary coupe with a GPS-based on board navigation system‚another bubble-born piece of genius from Japan, to follow the kooky Honda Gyro-Cator of 1981. Verdict: Hit!

Automatic seatbelt guides (butlers)

Seatbelts save lives, but only if you actually wear one. In the late 1970s there was a drive to encourage people to buckle up, which resulted in the development of fiendishly complex automatic seatbelts. VW first fitted a system to the Golf in 1975 and by the 1980s many carmakers were at it. The Toyota Cressida had them, the Honda Civic, Nissan Sentra, and many more. Mercedes even have a “butler” system on its E-Class coupé and convertible so that occupants didn’t have to stretch back to grab their belts. Moving to belts integrated into the seats was a far better solution. Verdict: Miss

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George A. Wyman made a name for himself as a bicycle racer, but he reached legendary status when, 119 years ago, he rode a motorized two-wheeler from San Francisco to New York to become the first person to cross the North American continent aboard an engine-powered vehicle.

Wait, you might ask. Doesn’t that distinction belong to Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson? Not quite. He has just received more publicity over the years, including a documentary by Ken Burns. Wyman actually beat Jackson by nearly three weeks.

Riding a 1902 California Motor Company motorbike (designed by Roy C. Marks) and traveling 3800 miles in 51 days, Wyman arrived in New York City on July 6, 1903—three days after his 26th birthday and 20 days ahead of the more-celebrated Jackson, who became the first person to cross the continent by automobile.

Wyman’s cutting-edge motorized bike—he referred to it as a “motor bicycle”—was powered by a 200cc, 1.25-horsepower, four-stroke engine attached to an ordinary diamond-frame bike, but it required the will and strength of a seasoned cyclist to complete the journey due to breakdowns along the way. According to 365daysofmotoring.com, Wyman’s machine was equipped with 28×1.5-inch tires, wooden rims, a leading-link front suspension fork, a Garford spring saddle, a Duck Brake Company front roller brake, and a 1902-patent Atherton rear coaster brake. A leather belt-drive with a spring-loaded idler pulley connected the engine output shaft directly to the rear wheel.

The California motor bike weighed 80–90 pounds without a rider and was capable of approximately 25 mph—and a range of 75–100 miles—using the 30-octane gasoline of the day. Throttle control was not yet perfected and engine revolutions were mainly controlled by means of a spark timing mechanism. The bike’s wick-type carburetor was “crude,” 365daysofmotoring.com says, consisting of a metal box with internal baffles stuffed with cotton batting. With no float chamber, the rider had to periodically open the gasoline tap to admit fuel into the carburetor.

Considering the distance of the trip, Wyman didn’t bring much gear. When he left Lotta’s Fountain, located at the corner of Market and Kearny streets in San Francisco, on May 16, 1903, Wyman carried warm clothing, money, a water bottle, cans of spare oil and gasoline, a Kodak Vest Pocket camera, a cyclometer (he purchased several more along the way before he gave up trying to keep track of his mileage), bicycle tools and spare parts, and a long-barreled .38 Smith & Wesson revolver, just in case.

From San Francisco, Wyman crossed the Sierra Nevada and rode to Reno, where he woke to snow. In his first-person account published in the inaugural six issues of The Motorcycle Magazine, Wyman described the short weather delay—abbreviated because he ultimately decided not to wait out.

“After a very satisfactory breakfast, I looked about for something to beguile the time away. I was in hard luck because I do not gamble, drink, smoke, or chew. The old-time picturesqueness of Reno has departed, but it is still a town of the West, western, and a man of no habits is at a discount in it. There is plenty of opportunity for drinking and gambling about, but for little else. I killed some time profitably by overhauling my machine, and … concluded to get under way.”

The dirt trails of the day were often impassable, so Wyman rode railroad tracks for more than half the trip—mostly over the ties, which relentlessly pounded both bike and rider. He also took refuge in railroad company housing along the way.

“When mention is made of the places at which I stopped and through which I passed, it must not be imagined that they are all cities, or towns, or villages, or hamlets, or anything in the nature of civilized settlements,” Wyman wrote. “The majority of them are nothing of the sort. They are just places—and it seems a waste of good English to call them that.”

He traveled through the Nevada desert and then through Utah, Wyoming, and into Nebraska. In Omaha, he wrote: “The roughest and most trying part of the country has been crossed, and I have traveled more than 2000 miles of the total distance. I have reached the great waters of the Missouri [River]; the promised land of the East, where I hope to find good roads, lies ahead of me. My anticipations of what lies before me are bright.”

That hopeful spirit carried through Iowa and into Illinois, where he faced his first real mechanical hurdle. Although the bike broke down several times on the western portion of the trip, Wyman’s makeshift repairs kept things moving until he could reach a larger town and perform the work properly. As he neared Aurora, Illinois, however, his engine’s crankshaft snapped, forcing him to pedal the heavy bike 40 miles to Chicago. It took five days for a new crank to arrive by train.

“The motor crank was the last thing that was expected to break,” Wyman wrote. “I had parts of every sort excepting that one along with me, and these were unused, while the one thing I could not replace was the one that broke. This showed that one never can tell what to expect in a cross-country journey of this sort.”

As it turned out, he would need the extra rest (although he hated his time in Chicago and complained that the respite had left him “soft”). After repairing the California and heading east once again, Wyman rolled through Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, then crossed into the state of New York. Then the roof seemed to cave in just before he reached Albany.

“I replaced the belt seven times during the forenoon, and then I spliced it with a new piece at Little Falls,” Wyman wrote. “I was still 40 miles from Albany when my handlebars broke off on one side. I had been there a couple of times before during the trip, and it did not take me long to lash a stick across the steering stem.

“Soon after, the piston began to squeak, and I discovered that the rings on it were worn out. Oil was of no avail, and I rode on with the squeak for company. Six miles from Albany, while I was on the towpath, the rear tire blew out. There was a hole in it that would admit a hand. I walked into Albany. Some of the remarks I made to myself as I walked were not fit for quoting to a Sunday school class. My distance that day was 135 miles. This was to be my last day of big mileage though.”

Forced to pedal the remaining 150 miles to New York City, he missed his goal—by two days—of seeing fireworks there on the Fourth of July. “That last 150 miles down the Hudson from Albany is a part of my trip of which I will always have a vivid recollection. I had seen some hills before, but the motor climbed them for me. In the hills along the Hudson, I had to climb and push the motor along. They seemed steeper than the Rocky Mountains. This I will say, though—from the time I left the Pacific coast I saw no grander scenery than that along the Hudson River. While other sights were not up to expectation, the scenery of the Hudson was far beyond it.”

Wyman pedaled all night on July 5 and reached the New York Motor Cycle Club on July 6. While he recovered from the grueling ride, his motorbike was put on display. Before leaving New York, Wyman took part in the inauguration of America’s first nationwide motorcycle organization, the Federation of American Motorcyclists (FAM), his hands still wrapped in bandages from the trip.

Reflecting upon his cross-country travels, Wyman wrote: “While the idea of establishing a record was no part of my purpose, it is worthy of remark that none of the three powerful automobiles that have since crossed the continent have come near to equaling my time.

“With the experience gained and with a more powerful machine—the one I used was of but 1 1/4 horsepower—I feel confident that the journey from ocean to ocean can be made in 30 days without particularly strenuous effort. With a railway attachment, such as is in common use by bicyclists in the West, and which would permit the use of rails across the deserts of Nevada, it will be possible to more than realize the 30 days’ estimate.”

Wyman most certainly enjoyed his train ride back to San Francisco, where his motorbike was placed on display at Golden Gate Park. He spent the rest of his life in California, promoting the Duck Brake Company, serving as a chauffeur, and working as an auto mechanic. He died on November 15, 1959, at the age of 82.

Amazingly enough, Wyman’s cross-country feat was actually the second time he had crossed a continent on a bicycle; in 1900, he traversed Australia on a non-motorized bike. While that ride likely prepared Wyman for the difficulties he would endure on his historic U.S. trip, it didn’t bring him the massive publicity or lasting significance that Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson received. Regardless, nearly 120 years later, we remember Wyman as the OG … on two wheels.

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Forty-two years ago, as rumors of strife and impropriety were only beginning to swirl around his fledgling car company, John Z. DeLorean entertained the idea of boosting his stainless steed. If ever a fast-looking slow car deserved more oomph, it was the DeLorean DMC-12 and its anemic 2.8-liter V-6. New York’s Legend Industries had just the thing—a twin-turbocharger upgrade that transformed the car from lamb to lion. For a tumultuous few minutes, engineer Chris Theodore and his colleagues thought they were on to something …

One day in mid-May 1980, I was sitting at my desk in Chrysler’s Highland Park Engineering Center when the phone rang. “My name is Fred Dellis,” said the voice on the other end. “I understand you’re an expert in turbocharging.”

“I have some experience,” I said. What can I do for you?”

Dellis told me he was president of Legend Industries, that they had several turbocharging programs in the works, and that Legend was looking for a vice president of engineering to lead them. I was gainfully employed at the time and told him I wasn’t interested. “You will be,” Dellis said.

He turned out to be quite persistent, and the calls continued. Finally, I decided it wouldn’t hurt to check out a potential opportunity, even if I was happy at Chrysler, so my wife and I flew to New York on a Friday evening to spend a weekend with Dellis. It was the beginning of a two-year saga I will never forget.

The next morning, we were off to Long Island to visit Dellis’s Porsche/Fiat dealership in Amityville, where he introduced some of the Legend officers. In addition to his dealership, Dellis had successfully started an aftermarket turbocharging company called Windblown Systems. Emissions testing had already been completed and the kits could be dealer-installed; Windblown had even set up distribution throughout the country for Porsche 924 and VW Rabbit/Scirocco turbo kits that provided a full warranty. But Dellis wanted to take turbocharging to the OEM level. He already had a contract in hand from Fiat of North America to build a thousand Fiat Spider Turbos. He had also been in contact with John DeLorean, he said. Then he showed me the cryptic series of notes he had exchanged with John:

Dellis: “Are you interested in a turbocharged DeLorean?”

John: “Yes.”

Dellis: “Shall we meet?”

John: “Yes.”

Dellis: “When?”

John: “June 10.”

It was the John DeLorean part of the business that intrigued me. Every car guy dreams of designing his own car and starting his own car company. John looked like he might pull it off. Knowing that I would never fulfill my own dream, the next best thing would be to have a hand in helping someone else fulfill theirs.

“What will it take to bring you on board?” Dellis asked me. Before I’d even finished telling him I needed to think about it, my wife blurted out a figure. Dellis topped it, and now I was stuck. Joining Legend was a risky proposition, but I couldn’t resist the John DeLorean hook. Back in Detroit, I gave my notice at Chrysler and began preparing for the move. Then came another call from Dellis: “I need you to put together a proposal for John,” he said. “We’re meeting with him in two days.”

Proposal in hand, on June 10, 1980, I flew to New York. Dellis and I estimated the cost of the proposed twin-turbo, twin-intercooled package and headed to John’s office at 280 Park Avenue. Taking the elevator to the 43rd floor, we entered the magnificent lobby of DeLorean Motor Company.

John’s secretary, Marian Gibson, came out to escort us to his office (it was Marian who would later become a whistleblower to the British government). John was standing behind his desk as we walked in. “So you’re the guy who likes to write letters,” he said to Dellis. “Well, Mr. DeLorean,” Dellis said, “it got me in this office today.”

The whole discussion that day was very casual. I took John through the proposal, and Dellis closed the presentation with the price of the kit. Before the meeting was over, we all agreed to draw up a contract. I couldn’t believe how easy it had been, even though it was what I call a “something for nothing” deal that would be hard for an automaker to refuse: Legend would do all the engineering, development, and tooling up front, with those costs amortized into the piece price. Dellis was on cloud nine when we left DMC, and we went out on the town to celebrate.

A month later, the contract was signed, and on August 1, we received a purchase order for 5000 turbo systems, at a price of $3888 each. We had just sold a $20 million program. At the time, I thought we were the world’s greatest salesmen. It wasn’t until John’s drug bust and reports of his other dealings that I realized this was the way he did business. Legend had taken on all the risk, while John would be the recipient of the reward.

My first day at Legend Industries was an eye-opener. The Hauppauge, New York, offices were unfinished, and there were there no final plans for the engineering facilities that were to be out back. The only staff were the sales, marketing, and service people from the Windblown operation. I had taken on quite a task, but Dellis essentially gave me carte blanche to put it all together.

I temporarily set up shop at the Amityville dealership, with a second office in Detroit, and began hiring some of the best engineers I knew. Meanwhile, Dellis and I went on a whirlwind tour to find a turbocharger supplier. Ultimately we selected Warner IHI, because the Japanese turbo was the smallest, lightest, and lowest-inertia unit on the market.

With no facilities in New York, we began design and development of the Fiat Spider Turbo in Detroit. Fabrication was done at Specialized Vehicles Inc., dyno-testing at McLaren Engineering (originally a spinoff from McLaren Racing but no relation today), and design engineering in our temporary offices in Troy, Michigan. Within a year, we put the Spider Turbo into production. We set up turbo-installation centers at the ports of entry in Jacksonville, Florida, and Long Beach, California, and we became the first non-OEM to receive EPA and CARB certification as a limited-volume manufacturer. More important, the automotive press raved, and Fiat dealers upped their orders.

With the Fiat program well underway, the Hauppauge test facility now under construction, and the engineering and purchasing staff in place, we turned our attention to the DeLorean project.

I made a few trips to the DeLorean plant in Dunmurry, Ireland, in 1980; my first visit showed me what we were up against. Michael Loasby, DMC engineering director and former chief engineer of the Aston Martin Lagonda, was my guide at the new facility. The plant shell had been erected and some of the heavy equipment was being installed, but the program was clearly behind schedule. Until then, all DMC engineering had been done by Lotus. But as they neared the production date, Loasby’s small engineering team struggled both to put together a durability plan and to keep test vehicles running, only coming up with fixes as failures occurred. It was also clear that the scope of the project was far larger than anything the team had handled before. Drawings and specifications available to Loasby were scarce, the bill-of-material incomplete. Loasby and I discussed the turbo program at length, and I outlined our needs for drawings, data, parts, and timing. Alarmingly, I also discovered that DeLorean’s managing director, Chuck Bennington, had absolutely no idea a turbo program was even in the works.

Disparate issues plagued the Dunmurry plant during this time, including its firebombing during the hunger strike of IRA officer Bobby Sands. The £14 million in damage it suffered was never recouped and only exacerbated DeLorean’s deteriorating financial condition.

By my last trip to Ireland, the assembly plant was up and running at full capacity. Bennington took me on a tour, highlighting the improvements that had been made with assembly worker participation. The vehicles still had issues, but the quality had improved since launch. It was encouraging to see Catholics and Protestants working side by side, but nerves were still frayed. Back in the engineering offices, for example, where things remained a bit tense after the bombing, a fire hose had been rolled out along the center aisle, just in case.

Because development of the DeLorean was behind schedule, it was difficult to make progress on the turbo program. However, by early 1981, we had received enough drawings and engines to begin development. Initial testing indicated that we could take the rather anemic 130-hp, 2.8-liter V-6 engine, a joint project of Peugeot, Renault, and Volvo, up to 175 horsepower and over 250 lb-ft of torque, even without intercoolers. We also discovered that the PRV engine was rather fragile and would need to be upgraded.

Meanwhile, the National Auto Dealers Association Show was coming up in February, and DeLorean asked us to prepare a mock-up of the turbo package for the show. Working around the clock, we barely finished the display in time to get it to Los Angeles.

The DeLorean’s unveiling at NADA on opening night was surreal. Rather than putting up a display at the convention center, DeLorean rented out the ballroom of the Biltmore Hotel in downtown L.A., no expense spared. With the cars on show, a string quartet played as guests strolled through displays of violin makers, glass blowers, and countless other high-end crafters, intended to signify the car’s high-quality bona fides. The ballroom was packed with celebrities and dealers, and I presented the turbo to investors like Buddy Hackett and Johnny Carson. The party didn’t end until 2 in the morning.

Legend received its first vehicles in March—two Renault Alpines and two early DeLorean prototypes that were in rough shape. We installed a twin-turbo, twin-intercooled engine in the Alpine first, since both DeLoreans needed serious debugging. The lightweight Alpine was incredibly fast—0-to-60 in five seconds. This indicated that the heavier DeLorean would be good for 0-to-60 in well under seven seconds, a serious upgrade over the unremarkable 10.5 seconds of the naturally aspirated car.

As the delays continued and it became apparent that internal-engine upgrades would be required, Dellis and I knew we needed to revisit the “something for nothing” contract with John. We met at his New York office in August to hammer out the details, which would include progress payments for achieving development milestones and royalties for production units. The meeting was cordial, but what struck me that day was John’s candidness. At one point, he strolled behind his desk, pulled out a file, and said that they were about to take DMC public. John said he had secured the rights to Smokey Yunick’s “vapor engine,” with its outrageous claims of fuel efficiency. To spike the stock price, John planned to make a public announcement at the appropriate time. I couldn’t fathom why he was telling us this, and I can’t imagine how many SEC rules were being violated. Upon reflection, I suspect it was this openness that made John DeLorean the perfect con man.

By late 1981, with early setbacks in the rearview, things were looking good for Legend Industries. The Fiat Spider Turbo was in production and receiving great reviews, and the DeLorean program was proceeding with the promise of a pay-as-you-go contract to keep the cash flowing. The high point of the entire endeavor came on November 16, 1981, at Bridgehampton Race Circuit, on the east end of Long Island, when we scheduled a ride-and-drive of the twin-turbo DeLorean prototypes for a handful of industry people—including the father of the Corvette, Zora Arkus-Duntov.

We spent the morning going over program status and providing a competitive drive on the public roads surrounding Bridgehampton. At lunch, Dellis and I did a dog and pony technical presentation, complete with storyboards showing all the affected parts. Then the fun began. We first conducted instrumented quarter-mile performance runs of the naturally aspirated and turbocharged DeLoreans, then demonstrated rolling side-by-side comparison tests before turning everyone loose on the track. John and Dellis jumped in the turbo DeLorean, while I got in the naturally aspirated car with Arkus-Duntov. Everyone was impressed with the turbo DeLorean’s performance, and even Arkus-Duntov had plans for it: He took me up to the timing stand where he unrolled some blueprints and showed me his proposal for an all-wheel-drive DeLorean, which he thought would be perfect for the turbo package. At the end of the day, Dellis and I celebrated another successful event, and, subsequently, the initial DMC turbo purchase order was increased to 7000 units.

The PRV V-6 used by DeLorean was technically interesting but disappointing in execution, the perfect example of too many chefs in the kitchen. What started out as a V-8–engine program had morphed into an unbalanced 90-degree V-6 because of the fuel crisis. Moreover, the block was an aluminum die casting. Rather than inserting or casting around iron cylinder liners, the PRV utilized “free-standing” liners. This meant that the cylinders were held in place solely by compression from the cylinder head. This worked reasonably well for the naturally aspirated PRV engines, but the addition of boost meant the head gaskets would likely fail. To make the twin-turbo engine reliable, we designed new head gaskets, head bolts, pistons with new ring packs and free-floating piston pins, along with revised rods and bearings. The only financially efficient way to accomplish these upgrades was to have the PRV engine plant install the new components. And the only way to make that happen was to persuade all of the chefs, firstly those on the PRV technical committee and then those at the PRV assembly plant.

To my surprise, I met little resistance from the PRV technical committee, to which I presented our case at their gathering at Volvo’s technical center in Gothenburg, Sweden. Shortly after, at the PRV factory in the northern French city of Douvrin, the plant manager took me around the facility. The place was impressive and highly automated, and the most interesting station was the installation of the free-standing cylinder liners. To achieve sufficient “crush” of the head gasket, individual shims were automatically selected and fit under the cylinder liners to accommodate manufacturing tolerances. The complexity was unbelievable and accounted for five different displacements and nearly two dozen engine variations. In this consortium, it seemed there was no compromise; everyone got what they wanted.

Still, I was worried that the plant manager would reject additional complexity, the very enemy of manufacturing efficiency. Instead, he was eager to accommodate the new components. With manufacturing issues out of the way, I was confident that we would be ready to put the DMC turbo into production.

Although the Fiat and DeLorean programs were progressing, Dellis and I knew we needed to garner additional business from other manufacturers. We were in discussions with Volkswagen of America for turbo Rabbits and Sciroccos; with Ford for a turbo Escort, Lynx, LN7, and EXP; and with Pininfarina for an intercooled version of the Fiat Spider for Europe. The future looked bright indeed.

If November 1981 had been the high point for Legend, it certainly didn’t take long for the business to go south. By year’s end, Fiat withdrew from the North American market, and DeLorean sales, which had started off with such promise, slowed to a trickle as the U.S. moved into recession. Of the 7681 DeLoreans manufactured in 1981, only 4756 had been sold to dealers, and just 3085 of those had been retailed by January 1982.

We scrambled to get new business, but it was too late. By March of ’82, Ford had decided to give its turbo program to a new joint venture made up of ex-Ford engineers and Jack Roush. VW wouldn’t commit to anything. Malcolm Bricklin, of all people, was negotiating with Fiat and Pininfarina to import the Spider, which Legend could continue to turbocharge, but talks dragged on. Out of sheer desperation, we proposed to John a single-turbo conversion package to help move some of the vehicles stored at the ports. Adopting Bricklin’s idea, I even suggested importing the Lancia Montecarlo/Scorpion built by Pininfarina, as it bore a striking resemblance to the DeLorean, used the same 2.0-liter four as the Fiat Spider, and could be marketed as a lower-priced DeLorean model. But time ran out when the British government closed the Dunmurry plant, and Bank of America got an injunction on the sale of DeLoreans in the states. Any potential source of income for Legend had vanished.

To try to keep things going, Dellis sold his Porsche dealership, but it was too late. One Friday, we called everyone together to give them the bad news. I felt responsible for bringing all these talented people on board, letting them down, and disrupting their lives. Fortunately, in time, they all landed on their feet and went on to bigger and better careers.

I stayed on for several months with Dellis, trying to revive the business. John kept telling us he had new backers, and we tried to follow up on other leads. Finally, my wife reminded me that, without a paycheck, we would not be able to make the next house payment. It was time to find a new job.

Legend Industries declared bankruptcy before John DeLorean’s infamous arrest, on October 19, 1982. Although we were DeLorean’s second-largest creditor next to Renault, having spent millions on engineering, tooling, and facilities on the turbo project, Legend never received a penny from DMC.

As a coda before Legend’s bankruptcy liquidation, Dellis arranged a fitting end to the turbo DeLorean saga by inviting Road & Track editor John Dinkel to take the prototype for a test drive, where he recorded a 0-to-60-mph run in 5.8 seconds and hit the quarter-mile mark in 14.7 seconds. Dinkel reminisced about his drive in the December 1984 issue of R&T, a bittersweet taste of what might have been: “The DeLorean is an amazingly responsive car to drive … The boost is so perfectly matched to engine characteristics and gear ratios that it’s difficult finding a condition where the V-6 isn’t immediately ready to spring into action. It’s the sort of all-around drivability the DeLorean should have had right from the start.”

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The Lincoln Motor Company is celebrating its 100th anniversary with events around the world, showing its past alongside its present and future. It’s a power move from the less-than-Lexian brand, because very few automakers can pull off this level of provenance. For its local, Michigan audience, Lincoln opened up its Dearborn archives for members of the media, much like what Ford did for the Bronco back in 2020. The program’s curators call it the Lincoln Archive Experience, and they’ve truly unearthed some gems for us to behold.

But first, a suggestion: Consider this a supplement to our “Missed the Mark” primer on a century of Lincoln vehicles, please read that first to get the whole picture of the brand’s history. When you’re up to speed on 100 102 years of Lincoln automotive annals, feast your eyes on what the folks in Dearborn had for us.

Unlike future vehicles from the brand, the V-8–powered Model L overtly prioritized engineering excellence over a flashy design, as the young startup didn’t have quite the cash/customer loyalty of Duesenberg, Rolls-Royce, and the like. This meant no fancy chrome grille and no custom coachbuilding from bespoke craftsman. Still, even in those turbulent start-up times, Lincoln made 834 Model Ls roughly two years before Henry Ford purchased the lot and banished founder Henry Leland from its ranks.

This particular Model L was made during Ford’s tenure before it was gifted to Thomas Edison, and it currently belongs to The Henry Ford collection. The swag table associated with this Lincoln was a curated collection of 1922-and-up memorabilia, including the purchase documents (previously seen in our primer) from Henry Leland, the greyhound mascot, and the 1922+ grille emblem representing both the Lincoln and Ford brands.

The 1931 through ’40 Lincoln Model K was an excellent representation of a luxury car of the 1930s, doing battle with Packards, Pierce-Arrows, Duesenbergs, and, of course, the Cadillacs of the company’s post-Henry Leland, post-Henry Ford Company era. The V-8 soon gave way to a series of class-appropriate V-12s (sometimes denoted with a KB, depending on year), which earned them praise from power players on both sides of the law. The usual suspects of the custom coachbuilding world also built bodies for the K, KA, and KB Lincolns, giving the brand the prestige it so deserved in this era.

The swag table for this 1937 Model K featured a Yat Ming 1:18th scale die-cast, PR photos, advertising/marketing materials, a pewter Lincoln greyhound mascot, and a letter from Lincoln that formalized its relationship with Brunn & Company. No doubt that letter of intent was chosen because this Model K (on loan from The Henry Ford) also featured a Brunn & Co. body. Nice touch!

As noted in our previous coverage, the Lincoln Zephyr was a successful implementation of Streamline Moderne design, ushering in a new era of luxury vehicle with factory coachwork that beat (rivaled?) the bespoke builders and a new unitized frame. This example from 1936 is on loan from the Gilmore Museum and is notable because it is a 2-door sedan and not the Business Coupe that every customizer turns into hot rod.

The swag table sported a Precision 100 1:18th scale die-cast Business Coupe and an odd smattering of Lincoln information that would be a stretch to call even tangentially connected to the Zephyr. While avoiding connections to the regrettable 2006 Zephyr-Fusion luxury sedan is a good idea, choosing the sales brochure for a 1995 Lincoln Continental is rather perplexing.

The main gallery had what might be the pièce de résistance of the collection: Edsel Ford’s personal 1941 Continental. While Edsel technically owned the prototype (1939) Continental fashioned to be a show/concept car before such terms were commonplace, this ’41 is a production model that belongs to The Henry Ford’s collection. Speaking of this museum, they suggest that the original concept was destroyed, so it’s a safe bet that Edsel’s affection for this production model was strong.

The Continental came with a series of artifacts giving rare insight into Edsel Ford the artist. I had never seen Edsel’s fine art in person before, and his charcoal rendering of a still life (pot and vase) proves what the history books have always suggested: Edsel was a far, far different person than his father, Henry Ford. Edsel’s portrait, painted by Diego Rivera, hangs a few feet away from the 1941 Continental and is reported to be the only work of the famous artist that didn’t show the automotive industry from the perspective of hard labor and assembly line automation (see: his massive Detroit Industry Murals in the Rivera Court of the Detroit Institute of Arts).

While the 1939 Continental was a show car intended for a very small audience (i.e., only Edsel’s friends as he vacationed in Florida) the 1953 Lincoln X-100 was Ford’s first official concept car intended to wow auto-show attendees in the same way as the vehicles present in General Motors’ Motorama. The X-100 coincided with Ford’s 50th Anniversary, and featured cutting edge innovations like heated seats, a panoramic power sunroof, and an in-car telephone. Perhaps it was William Clay Ford who ensured the X-100’s themes didn’t make production, as the understated 1956 Continental Mark II instead made the cut. The X-100’s swag table included promotional material, including a press release.

The historical significance of the 1956 through ’57 Continental Mark II cannot be understated for the Lincoln brand. That said, it has been discussed at length in previous articles, so instead enjoy these photos of this example, borrowed from a private collection, and all the historical items that led to the creation of this car (and the standalone Continental Division behind it) displayed alongside it.

To cover Lincoln’s fabulous 1961 through ’69 Continentals, we were treated to a 1961 Continental convertible (on loan from the Gilmore Museum) and a 1964 Lehmann-Peterson stretch limousine (from The Henry Ford) used by the Pope in a 1965 visit to New York City.  Again, we’ve gone into painful detail in our Continental buyer’s guide, so please enjoy the photos of the vehicles and the supporting documents. They include PR materials for the Presidential limousine, marketing/press materials from the first year, and even a feasibility study of the Continental’s now famous “coach doors” paired with a pillarless hardtop design.

Apparently enough time has passed that the once-infamous Malaise Era of automotive design has now become palatable for everyone, whether the favorable reflections occur online or in a curated exhibit from an OEM. Considering Lincoln’s sales successes (the Continental Mark V was the best-selling Mark Series) and cultural relevance (every TV/movie “bad guy” of the era was driven in a black Town Car) this 1979 Continental Mark V Cartier designer edition (from a private collection) is the last year of peak luxury from Lincoln. The swag table associated with the pinnacle of American personal luxury even included a letter from the folks at Cartier, all the way back in 1926!

See above for a few more displays of Lincoln memorabilia: While some of this is readily available from collectors on eBay, there are plenty of items I’ve never seen online. The combination of all these items was rather stunning—almost as impressive as the secret stash of vintage renderings the kind folks at Lincoln presented to us in a museum-quality setting. Those works of art are seen below.

The Lincoln Archive Experience was loaded with surprise and delight, for just about every decade in the brand’s history. Even better, Lincoln offered up a guided tour from Robert Gelardi, Lincoln’s chief interior designer. His insight into the future of the Lincoln brand, complete with renderings of electrified vehicles we may see in the next few years, was a rare treat. But “rare treat” is an understatement on a personal level, as a kid who got into cars because of one particular example, and never stopped soaking up all things Lincoln ever since.

I literally felt like a kid in a candy store. The Lincoln Archive Experience opened up memories, brought new insight, and delighted my senses to the point where I felt child-like joy. It was something I haven’t felt in decades. That said, if you’ll forgive the unprofessional camera-phone nature of this unedited video below, enjoy part of the tour with Mr. Gelardi’s insight in the background. It truly proves that a video speaks … well, a whole lot more than a thousand words.

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Every time a new car culture buds from the streets, there are those who want to prune it with regulation. Buried in most motor vehicle codes are these attempts to vilify certain unruly elements of vehicular expression. At best they’re bureaucratic solutions to problems and forces with deep community roots—the kind not easily controlled with difficult-to-enforce Band-Aid rulemaking. At worst, they serve as excuses to punish and supress.

History proves that these repressive efforts are more theater than action. Time and time again enthusiasts find a way, and in the process a new flavor of car culture flourishes. Today it’s street drifting with side-shows and take-overs that are currently in the spotlight, but at some point in the past, practically the entire spectrum of car culture has been in the crosshairs of mainstream society, from stage rallies or drag racing. Naturally, that includes low riding.

At one time, there was no such thing as a low rider. The idea of using hydraulic cylinders to alter the ride height of a car on demand, while today a central element of the low-riding archetype, didn’t even develop as an engineering solution to a technical problem—it was rooted in expression, and later, rebellion.

At the end of the 1950s, as America continued on a path leading to the civil rights movement of the following decade, California began to clamp down on car communities in the hopes of disbanding the impromptu cruise nights and crowds that were making headlines in NIMBY-minded newspapers. In particular, the focus of this negative attention was on urban Latinos. These communities were starting to develop their own subset of the established Kustom culture of the 1950s through the economic opportunities of East Los Angeles’ industrial might, a deviation that drew substantial ire from regulators. The powers that be blamed the clampdown on everything from neighborhood traffic to increases in crime.

Lowering cars for style was nothing new in and of itself, and Kustom culture had already become a rare, common meeting ground between car lovers of different ethnicities for the better part of the 40s and 50s through the fascination with making a car sit as close to the ground as possible. But increasing tensions between Southern California’s Latino communities (following the Zoot Suit Riots, especially) and whitewashing law enforcement certainly stand out as a catalyst for the effort that went into the ensuing crackdown on low riders. In this case, as in many others, a particular type of modified car became emblematic of a larger societal conflict.

Nowadays you can order a lowrider out of a catalog, but the L.A. guys sixty years ago were cutting or torching coil springs, Z-ing frames, and packing bags of concrete in the trunk in order to drop their cars onto the ground. These chassis-scraping antics were ways of standing out and expressing individuality. Needing a clean, legal basis to bust up cruise nights, California regulators began brainstorming creative measures.

In 1958, the first “lay low” law came into effect—a measurement between the lowest portion of a car’s frame and the lowest portion of its wheels within California motor vehicle code 24008:

“It is unlawful to operate any passenger vehicle, or commercial vehicle under 6,000 pounds, which has been modified from the original design so that any portion of the vehicle, other than the wheels, has less clearance from the surface of a level roadway than the clearance between the roadway and the lowermost portion of any rim of any wheel in contact with the roadway.”

In short, if the car was modified such that the frame rode lower than the bottom lip of the wheels, that vehicle was no longer street-legal and subject to impounding and fines. In the following year, California brought in motor vehicle code 24400, further regulating vehicle ride height through the distance between the ground and the headlamps:

“A motor vehicle, other than a motorcycle, shall be equipped with at least two headlamps, with at least one on each side of the front of the vehicle, and, except as to vehicles registered prior to January 1, 1930, they shall be located directly above or in advance of the front axle of the vehicle. The headlamps and every light source in any headlamp unit shall be located at a height of not more than 54 inches nor less than 22 inches.”

Armed with the legal basis to define a vehicle as unsafe, California’s leaders had a fresh tool for law enforcement to bust up low rider cruise nights. In response, the burgeoning low rider community came up with the solution that would go to define the ingenuity of their genre.

Ron Aguirre is often credited as the innovator who first looked at a body shop port-o-jack and the stockpiles of war birds retired after WWII and saw a solution: hydraulic cylinders could easily lift an offending car off the ground once The Man’s prying eyes came threatening. Aguirre’s custom 1956 Corvette, known as X-Sonic, was targeted heavily by local cops, and using hydraulics became his way of teasing officers. As he told the Lay It Low forums in 2001, Aguirre recounted one notable reaction by an officer that frequently gave him a hard time:

“But it wasn’t until 1959 that I was able to raise a lot of hell with the system the way it was and I was going to drive ‘Sandy’ the cop crazy. We waited for him to ride his bike to his spot across the street from the local hangout in Berdo, Ruby’s Drive-in. I was parked on the lot with my car lowered way down. There were about 100 of my school friends at the drive-in waiting to see what would happen. I left the car down and started to drive out and the side pipes were scraping the pavement (It was way cool to have your car dragging on the pavement.) I had my girlfriend get out and my buddy got in with the instructions to pump hard on the handle of the pump as soon as I gave him the word. Well, knowing ‘Sandy’ was across the street and waiting for me to leave the restaurant so he could give me a ticket in front of all my friends and teach them that this punk was not going to get away with breaking the law, again. I pulled out onto the street and watched Sandy start his bike, I told my buddy to start pumping. I didn’t get 20 feet and Sandy had his red lights on me. I got out of the car and everyone from the drive-in was standing on the sidewalk. I greeted “Sandy” by name, as no one called him Sandy to his face. “Hi, Lester, what seems to be the problem?” He stated, ‘You know your car’s too low.’

‘But Lester,’ I said, ‘it isn’t too low any more, I took your advice and raised it to legal height.’ He smiled at me and took his ticket book. Back then, this is how the cops checked cars. If their ticket book did not pass freely under your car you would get a ticket, and he slid it under my car without hitting anything. Boy, was his face red and with all the witnesses yelling and screaming, he didn’t say a word, he gave me a confused look and got on his bike and left.”

The culture of low riding took this very same personality of skirting these targeted regulations, or others written in the same vein. Local municipalities attempted again to squash low riding with anti-cruising laws on particular streets, citing anyone on such grounds as passing a particular sign multiple times within a certain time period. One look around the area today proves how futile these efforts were, and in many cases these sorts of punitive measures have become much more of a blight in the history of So Cal—which today prides itself on preserving the diversity of its people—than the cars or cruising ever did. In subtle (or arguably not-so-subtle) ways, low riding stood for resistance and protest, even as the culture matured into the more established, organized genre its adherents enjoy today, complete with its own footprint of established events, media, legends, and heroes.

Headlines about some form of harmful new car culture persist in 2021, and states like California continue efforts to enforce things like exhaust noise laws (think 2018’s defeated AB 1824) to push them out. If the history of low riding can be taken as a guide, these efforts won’t accomplish anything but push the communities to more elaborate expressions of their identities.

In every form, from organized motorsports to clandestine street meets, car culture is a social matrix as much as it is a collective love of machinery. For more than a century now, it has forged and strengthened bonds between different streets, neighborhoods, countries, lifestyles, demographics—each genre within car culture is a potential haven for anyone seeking to find comfort from the often harsh realities of life. Attacking a means of expression, instead of understanding and addressing the source of its necessity, is a hopeless endeavor. Someone will always show up with the proverbial hydraulic cylinder around which to rally.

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We recently had a look at the Carter Two-Engine, an eight-cylinder, Brass Era–car equipped with two identical four-cylinder gasoline engines, ostensibly for the sake of reliability. Today we’re turning our eyes to another early automobile with double powerplants, though the two were not of the same breed: One chugged gasoline and the other ran on electrons. The Woods Dual Power wasn’t the first hybrid-powered car—that was likely the work of Ferdinand Porsche—but it was a remarkably sophisticated machine whose technology predated that of modern electric vehicles by nearly a century.

If you, like me, pore over histories of alternatively powered automobiles, you’ll often read that, in the early days of the motorcar, gasoline fought with steam and electricity for dominance. While it’s true that Stanley, White, Doble, Baker, and Detroit Electric sold advanced steam- and electric-powered automobiles when gasoline-powered cars were still relatively primitive, the truth is that the most successful electric car company before the modern era—Detroit Electric—sold fewer than 5000 vehicles in its peak year of production (1914). By comparison, Henry Ford sold over 200,000 Model Ts that year alone, a number that would more than double by 1916, when the subject of the present article, the Woods Dual Power hybrid, was introduced. By the mid-teens gasoline was simply a more practical power source. Steam-powered cars needed to generate steam before they could be driven and electric automobiles faced the same obstacles that they do more than 100 years later: limited range and long recharging times.

Still, gasoline power had its shortcomings. Gas-powered cars were noisy, dirty, and required constant maintenance. In that era, the vast majority of internal-combustion engines also needed to be hand-cranked to start.

Woods Motor Vehicle Company had been producing electrically powered automobiles and commercial vehicles since 1899. It’s likely that Clifton Woods, the firm’s founder, saw the Model T’s sales numbers and embraced, at least partially, internal-combustion power. Woods thought that if he joined together gasoline and electric powerplants serially, their combined merits would overcome their individual flaws. Unfortunately, though his basic concept was sound and the Dual Power did work as advertised, the Dual Power was woefully under-powered. Woods decided to equip his hybrid with a 14-hp gasoline engine supplied by Continental and a General Electric–supplied electric motor that meted out 5 to 6 hp and was powered by a smaller bank of batteries than used by contemporary electric vehicles. While he managed to avoid the packaging constraints of fitting a large battery pack, and the hassle of starting a combustion engine, he essentially scrimped on both electric motor and engine. Perhaps he genuinely believed his system was more efficient. Maybe he foretold the dim future of electric cars, or his hand was forced by manufacturing costs—unfortunately, while Wood’s creation seems to have worked better than pure battery-electric vehicles, it couldn’t compete with other cars in its price range.

The Dual Power was advertised as “a self-charging, non-stalling, two-power car with unlimited mileage [range], adequate speed, and greatest economy.” Among the Dual Power’s unique selling points were a top speed of 35 mph, compared to the 20 mph that most electric cars could accomplish; easier operation, as there was no gear shifter or clutch to operate; and lessened maintenance. Plus, you didn’t need to install a home charger or find a public charging station. You can peruse the Woods Dual Power sales brochure here.

The Dual Power was based on the work of inventor Roland S. Fend (U.S. Patent # 1,303,870), an electric vehicle pioneer who worked for the leading EV makers of the day, like Baker and Rauch & Lang. The combustion engine (called an “explosion engine” by EV makers) was a L-head, inline four-cylinder displacing just 68.7 cubic inches (approximately 1125 cc). It was connected to what Woods called a “dynamotor,” a compound-wound DC motor with both series and parallel windings rated at 48 volts and 60 amps, through a Cutler-Hammer electromagnetic clutch. Exide provided a purpose-designed battery pack of 24 cells, rated at 115 amp hours at a five-hour discharge rate, about half the size and weight of contemporary EV battery packs. The electric motor was connected to the rest of the drivetrain by a standard driveshaft.

There was no transmission. When the clutch was activated the combustion engine would be connected to the final drive through the electric motor’s armature. Operating controls were simple—a steering wheel mounted with two control levers, one longer than the other, a brake pedal in front of the driver, a reverse pedal below them, and a locking, multifunction “ignition” switch. Instruments were also simple, with a combined ammeter/charge indicator and a Stewart Warner speedometer and odometer. For safety purposes, all high voltages were controlled through solenoids.

Getting the Dual Power up and running was straightforward. The switch on the steering column was turned to the On position. That activated the ICE’s ignition circuit as well as part of the circuit for the electric motor’s main solenoid. The longer of the two “throttle” levers was moved forward, which completed the circuit for the main solenoid, allowing current to flow to the traction motor and nudging the car forward. The longer lever was also connected to a field rheostat mounted under the floorboard; when the lever was pushed farther forward, the field resistance on the motor changed, increasing the motor’s speed.

The Dual Power operated on batteries alone up to about 15 mph, though the combustion engine could be engaged and started at any time once the vehicle was in motion. That was effected by pushing forward the shorter of the two levers on the steering wheel. That lever was connected to the throttle on the combustion engine’s carburetor and a solenoid that operated the magnetic clutch. Because it was already being spun at a high crank speed by the electric motor, the inline-four could fire up immediately. Woods claimed that the dual powerplant layout also made the car stall-proof: Because the two powerplants were connected, either could spin along while the other propelled the car. Should the combustion engine become overloaded and start to “lug,” all the driver had to do was move the longer lever forward and energize the electric motor to provide a little extra oomph.

The idea was to use the electric motor’s torque to get the 3600-pound car moving and, later, to engage the gasoline engine to sustain the Dual Power at moderate speeds. At that point, the lever for the electric motor would be pulled back. Under those circumstances, the motor would be operating as a generator, putting out more current than it was drawing. In other words, the Dual Power could recharge its own batteries on the fly. By nineteen-teens, knowledge of battery chemistry had progressed to the point where chemists and engineers understood that overcharging or completely depleting the batteries created problems like gassing and sulphating. Woods encouraged owners to charge or discharge the batteries “at will” at any speed between 10 and 30 mph and to manage the batteries’ charge properly to prolong battery life.

Along with that early battery-management system, the Woods Dual Power had regenerative braking—what the company advertised as “Dynamic braking”—effective at speeds above 6 mph. To first slow the car, the electric motor’s control lever would be switched to its initial position. That would put the motor in full generating mode, slowing the car as its forward motion put an electrical load on the generator. The gasoline engine would then be throttled back, but the driver would leave the clutch engaged so that engine braking would further slow the vehicle. To come to a complete stop, the driver disengaged the the electromagnetic clutch and depressed the brake pedal to activate the mechanical drums. That pedal did more than operate the brakes, though: It also shut the ICE’s throttle, disengaged the clutch, and moved the field rheostat to its regenerative position.

Since there was no conventional transmission with a reverse gear, to go backwards you had to engage the mechanical brakes, which were interlocked with the reverse pedal. Then, you’d press the reverse pedal to flip the polarity to the direct-current motor, making it spin backwards. The reverse pedal also disengaged the magnetic clutch so the combustion engine—which was still running forward—disconnected from the reverse-spinning electric motor.

The Wood Dual Power was an impressive feat of technology, using mechanical linkages and solenoids to provide relatively simple controls for a fairly complicated drivetrain. Today it would take integrated circuits with a host of transistors along with thousands of lines of code to do the same thing.

Today’s car companies can’t switch from gasoline to hybrids and electric power fast enough, but Woods Motor Vehicle Company went in the other direction, going from electric to hybrid power in 1916. They were out of business by 1918, after selling just a handful of Dual Powers and fewer than 14,000 Woods branded vehicles in total.

Why didn’t the Woods Dual Power succeed? To begin with, it was not an inexpensive car. $2650 in 1916 works out to more than $66,000 in 2021 dollars, about what a decently equipped Mercedes-Benz E-Class will run you today. A Dual Power cost as much as four Model Ts, and while it was economical to operate (it returned a claimed 48 mpg), we know that rich folks don’t buy Teslas to save on fuel costs. Economy has never been a factor in selling expensive cars.

In addition, the Dual Power apparently wasn’t as smooth and as reliable as Woods had promised, resulting in some changes for the 1917 model year. It failed to woo well-heeled, luxury-minded customers with speed, either. While the Woods Dual Power was faster than competing electric cars, its top speed of 35 mph was no match for the plebian Model T’s 40- to 45-mph V-max, let alone the speeds posted by contemporary Duesenbergs or Bugattis. Specifying a larger, more powerful gasoline engine might have made the Dual Power more competitive in the market, but electric vehicles were already declining in market share upon its introduction.

Today only four, or possibly five, Woods Dual Power cars exist. The 1917 Woods Dual Power Model 44 in the photographs accompanying this post is on display at the Driving America exhibit of the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. While it is in original, unrestored condition with just 11,085 miles on the odometer, it is not in operating condition. Another 1917 Dual Power has been on display at the Petersen Museum in Los Angeles. It is owned by the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and it has been the subject of a museum-quality conservation by Howard Auto Preservation. The only operational Woods Dual Power on record is a restored example residing at the Louwman Museum in the Netherlands.

Brian Howard, who performed the conservation of the car in Los Angeles, said that he believes that a fourth Woods Dual Power body exists, though it has been mounted on a Stanley Steamer chassis. It’s possible that Howard might have confused that with this car, a 1917 Woods Dual Power whose body had been destroyed in a fire and was subsequently rebodied as a custom roadster in the style of Hispano-Suiza. If you’d like to own a piece of hybrid history, that car is listed for sale at £35,000, about $48,000 USD.

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Grandpa Munster’s Drag-U-La is looking for new haunts

Intake: Fifty-seven years ago this month, CBS television launched The Munsters, a spooky sitcom known not only for its ghoulish characters but also for its crazy custom cars. One of the most famous was Grandpa’s gold-flake Drag-U-La. Its first appearance on the show was love at first fright for Herman Munster, who praised his father-in-law’s car-building skills. “I’ve really gotta hand it to ya, Grandpa, this is quite an attractive vehicle. Detroit could take a lesson from this design.” Now it could be yours. Mecum’s 2022 Kissimmee Auction is featuring one of the five Drag-U-La coffin cars that Barris Kustoms built for the show. The iconic car features a real fiberglass coffin for a body, a purple driver’s seat and bubble top, and numerous creepy accents. It’s powered by a 350-horse, 289-cubic-inch Ford Mustang V-8 with two four-barrel carburetors mounted on a Mickey Thompson Ram-Thrust manifold.

Exhaust: The Munsters ran for only two seasons, but even people who aren’t car enthusiasts recognize the Drag-U-La. That’s testament to the TV show’s place in pop culture history and to George Barris’ lofty perch among the world’s greatest custom car builders. We’re just sad that the Drag-U-La’s new owner won’t have it in time for Halloween.

Ducati’s new Multistrada V2 wants to steal a slice of the adventure touring market

Intake: Expanding upon its adventure touring line, Ducati has just announced the Multistrada V2. The bike aligns with the Multistrada formula and is based around the 937cc Testastretta 11-degree V-twin, which makes 113 hp rather than the 170 hp of the big V4. Ducati will continue to build the V4 for those who demand the ultimate adventure touring machine, but this new bike presents a great option for those seeking out a feature-packed bike that is also inviting to ride. The 19-inch front wheel gives the option to fit aggressive adventure (ADV, in moto-speak) treads, and the Skyhook active suspension adjusts automatically to the terrain. With a seat height of just 32.7 inches, the Multistrada V2 may be more friendly to smaller-framed riders than many bikes in this segment.

Exhaust: With its long-travel suspension and adventure looks, the new V2 honors the spirit of the original Multistrada models, but true ADV riders will want a more specialized tool. This Ducati is more akin to a grown-up and overbuilt supermoto than a down-and-dirty exploration machine—though most riders will be far more comfortable finding its limits than those of the 170-hp V4. With a base model priced at a reasonable $15,295, the Multistrada V2 stands a chance to steal middle-weight ADV buyers away from KTM and BMW.

Ken Block gets crazy in Audi’s most iconic rally cars

Intake: As part of a new partnership with Audi, Ken Block got to have a go in two of the marque’s most iconic rally monsters. Both are part of the not-for-public-consumption Audi Tradition garage, a living collection of Audi race cars from its rally and endurance racing heydays. First up is the legendary Sport Quattro S1 E2, then a one-of-one mid-engined prototype Group S race car with a shocking (by mid-1980s standards) 1000 horsepower. He also had some fun with Audi’s newest EV, the e-tron GT.

Exhaust: When standing inside Audi Tradition’s garage, Ken totally looks like a kid in a candy store. The footwear magnate-turned rally driver seemed properly humbled to get a chance behind the wheel of some of Audi’s greatest machines.  Who wouldn’t be?

90 years ago, the innovative 170 W15 set the tone for Mercedes-Benz “compacts”

Intake: On October 1, 1931—90 years ago today—Mercedes-Benz unveiled its technically innovative, compact, and affordable passenger car, the 170 (W15) model, at the Paris Motor Show. The 170 would become the world’s first mass-produced passenger car with independent suspension and a swing axle. Powered by a 32-horsepower, 2.0-liter, inline-six engine and equipped with hydraulic brakes, the 170 was an immediate success. In 1932, the car’s first full year of production, Mercedes-Benz sold a total of 5996 passenger vehicles, and 4438 of them—nearly 75 percent—were 170s. Overall, 13,775 (with 10 different body variants and chassis) were built until 1936, when the Mercedes-Benz 170 V (W 136), with a four-cylinder in-line engine, replaced the W15 series.

Exhaust: The 170 was the culmination of Stuttgart’s vigorous years-long effort to produce a compact, state-of-the-art car, and the automaker’s determination paid off. The public was impressed with the car’s comfort and handling—something that hadn’t been said previously about vehicles in that price range—and it immediately raised the bar for what was possible. 

Buying a fleet of Maseratis was “a terrible mistake” says Papua New Guinea government

Intake: The government of Papua New Guinea spent over $5 million on a fleet of 40 Maserati Quattroportes in 2018, despite the country not having a single Maserati dealer to support them, and now they’re being sold at a hefty discount. “If we had any foresight, the Maseratis would not have been purchased in the first place. We made a terrible mistake. If you have got no dealers of Maseratis in PNG, there was no reason to buy Maseratis,” Finance minister John Pundari confessed to the local Post Courier.

The 40 cars were supplied by a dealer in Sri Lanka to chauffeur foreign dignitaries about during the Asia-Pacific Economic Coopoeration (APEC) Leaders summit and, as if that wasn’t extravagant enough, they were flown over in a chartered jumbo jet. The APEC minister at the time answered public criticism of the purchase by saying that the cars would “sell like hot cakes” after the summit. Unfortunately for him, that hasn’t happened and only two cars have been sold so far. Now the Quattroportes, which have barely been used at all, are for sale at the knock-down price of K400,000 or $113,660.

Exhaust: Papua New Guinea’s government didn’t really think through its bid to impress its diplomatic visitors did it? With nobody to service a Maserati on the tropical island, they’re understandably proving hard to sell off. The nation was in the midst of a sharp economic decline and a public health crisis (this was before the COVID-19 pandemic) when the fleet was announced, and it’s looking like those who were outraged at the time are being vindicated in the aftermath.

New fast charger adds 20 miles a minute

Intake: The world’s fastest EV charger has been launched in Europe. The ABB Terra 360 can fully charge four cars in less than 15 minutes or add 62 miles of range in less than three minutes. You’ve probably not heard of ABB, but the German firm has already installed 21,000 DC fast chargers and 440,000 AC units around the world. The new charger runs at 360 kiloWatts (compared to Tesla’s 250 kW Superchargers) and installations will begin by the end of the year. ABB says that the charger will then be rolled out to the rest of the world, including the U.S.A. in 2022.

Exhaust: A solid network of rapid EV chargers will be vital to increasing the receptiveness of EV skeptics still mired in range anxiety. As far as we’re concerned, the more companies focusing on building out the nation’s charging infrastructure, the better. That said, modern EV batteries aren’t able to take charge at that rate, so this is likely a projection for future batteries with greater charge rate capacities.

The post Drag-U-La looks for new haunts, Ducati’s new adventure tourer, Ken Block’s vintage Audi rally romp appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Marvin M. Tamaroff passed away this summer, in early July, at the age of 95. The auto industry will remember him as a pioneering dealer who helped shape the way cars and trucks are sold. Car enthusiasts, however, will remember him as the automotive world’s preeminent collector of car mascots and hood ornaments.

Tamaroff didn’t just collect these badges and figurines, either. An early member of the Classic Car Club of America, Tamaroff donated a collection of nearly 700 mascots to the CCCA’s museum within the Gilmore complex in Hickory Corners, a few miles north of Kalamazoo, Michigan, where they are on permanent display.

Tamaroff was born in Detroit in 1925. By the time he graduated from high school, World War II was raging and he went straight into the military. He found himself in combat in Europe by the age of 18 and spent six months in a German P.O.W. camp, where he contracted dysentery. After the war he returned to Detroit, where he enrolled in the General Motors Institute, GM’s in-house engineering and management college, known as Kettering University as of 1998.

When GM ran the school, a GMI diploma practically guaranteed you a job with the automaker. Tamaroff graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1949 and interned successfully with the company but, according to Tamaroff, his supervisor made it clear that he would never recommend hiring a Jewish engineer such as Tamaroff.

Still wanting to work in the auto industry, Tamaroff tried his hand at selling new cars, first at a Chrysler-Plymouth dealer and then at a DeSoto-Plymouth shop. He soon decided he could make more money in used cars, so he got a job on the famous row of used car dealerships on Detroit’s Livernois Avenue. He did well enough to start his own used-car shop, Marwood Motor Sales, in 1954, which he operated until 1969. That same year, he opened up his first new car dealership, a Buick franchise on Telegraph Road, in the Detroit suburb of Southfield, among what was then mostly woods and farms. Today, it’s part of a mile-long string of new car dealers on both sides of Telegraph.

Not only did Tamaroff break new ground with the location of his dealership, he was one of first car dealers to expand into owning a group of authorized dealerships for more than one brand. Over the years, that Buick store was joined, at various times, by Opel, Volvo, Mazda, Acura, Nissan, Isuzu, Dodge, Rolls-Royce, DeLorean, and Avanti. Tamaroff opened a Honda car dealership in 1971, one of the first Honda car franchises in the United States, starting with the 600-cc N600.

The Opel dealership is responsible for one of Southfield’s landmarks, “Tammy,” a lifesize replica of an elephant sitting in front of Tamaroff Honda, now painted red, white, and blue. The Honda store is located where the original Buick shop was—and the connection between the two is less strange than you might expect. In the 1960s, Buick dealers carried Opels so they’d have compact cars to sell. Opel advertised itself in the United States as the “Mini Brute,” and featured actual elephants in its ads. Opel has long since departed from these shores, but there’s still a pachyderm in front of a Tamaroff store on Telegraph.

With his success, Marvin Tamaroff started collecting classic cars like prewar Packards, a Hispano-Suiza, and a show-winning 1930 Mercedes. His car-collecting hobby soon spawned an enthusiasm for racing trophies, which extended to a fascination with mascots and hood ornaments.

Today we call them hood ornaments, and associate them with specific vehicle brands, like Rolls-Royce’s Spirit of Ecstasy. In the early days, however, these emblems were called mascots and were as likely to be custom accessories designed to reflect an owner’s personality and tastes as they were to be supplied from the factory. Mascots sprang from the desire to decorate the rather plain radiator cap and ran the gamut from fine art created by famous sculptors to humorous caricatures. Judging from Tamaroff’s extensive collection, there was an entire menagerie of cast and chromed animals, jaguars, greyhounds, plus lots of birds, pelicans, cormorants, and storks. Putting a car on your car might be a bit recursive, but ships and airplanes made frequent appearances.

Tamaroff’s collection of mascots and hood ornaments grew to 1100 items, likely the largest of its kind in the world, including many rare, one-of-a-kind, sculpted pieces. He even was able to acquire a large, dealer-display version of the Spirit of Ecstasy, but, without a doubt, the jewels of his collection are the Lalique mascots.

René-Jules Lalique was a French jeweler who switched to working with enamel, glass, and crystal in the early 20th century, just in time for the automotive age. Starting in 1925, Lalique’s workshop produced a series of 29 glass mascots, many of them in an art-deco style, that became de rigueur on the radiators of upper-crust cars. Six years later, the Great Depression descended. Dropping cash on an ostentatious hood ornament was no longer in style, and the Lalique firm discontinued the mascots.

Today, though, they are highly collectible and very valuable, with auction prices reaching into the tens of thousands of dollars. Tamaroff is said to have amassed two complete sets of the Lalique mascots, one of which he sold at auction in 2000 for $550,000. A number of Lalique mascots are on display at the Gilmore, as is another very valuable mascot: the elephant that Rembrandt Bugatti sculpted for his brother Ettore’s cars.

One admirable thing about Marvin Tamaroff’s collection of mascots is that he didn’t focus only on the elite end of the hobby. The unusual and oddball hood ornaments that are part of the collection show that his passion for history included a sense of whimsy.

Tamaroff initially donated 520 of his mascots to what was then the Gilmore Institute and made further gifts over the years. When the Classic Car Club of America built its own museum in the Gilmore complex, the collection was put on display there. After recent renovations to the CCCA museum, including a new display devoted to the art of the automobile, some of the Tamaroff collection is now on display in the adjacent Hickory Corners train depot, along with the Owen Morton collection of automotive badges.

Any excuse is worth a visit to the Gilmore, but if you can’t make it to central Michigan, the CCCA has put the entire collection online where you can view each item individually.

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Detroit is rightly known as the Motor City. Less well-known is that, for much of the 20th century, Detroit was a major locus of motion-picture production, with sound stages and facilities that rivaled anything in Hollywood. In fact, in an era when Hollywood was scrambling to establish itself as the global center of the film industry, the largest motion-picture production and distribution operation in the world was based in Michigan, not California. While their films rarely made headlines, Detroit-based filmmakers had a significant impact on American culture and consumers.

The American motion-picture industry got its start in New York, with studios established on Long Island. They soon moved across the continent to Hollywood. Some say the move was prompted by a desire to create some distance from Thomas Edison, based in nearby New Jersey. In an early example of a tech baron trying to control content created with their technology, it seems that Edison, who made the motion-picture system used by those early filmmakers, wasn’t happy with what he considered unsavory and salacious content in New York’s films.

A notice to readers: Comments on new Hagerty articles have been disabled due to technical issues since July 29th. Don’t worry, the comments are coming back soon, and when they do, we’ll have a contest or giveaway to reward our readers for their patience. Never stop driving! — Jack Baruth

D.W. Griffith shot his first film in Hollywood in 1910 and the following year the city’s first movie studio was opened on Sunset Blvd.

Just a couple of years after that, in the summer of 1913, Henry Ford allowed a newsreel production crew to film operations at his Model T factory in Highland Park, Michigan. Being in one of the scenes gave Ford a close look at the filmmaking process and he immediately grasped the potential of the new communications medium. He could use movies to train his workers, a serious challenge at a time when he was hiring tens of thousands of men a year just to keep a fraction of that number working the mind- and body-numbing jobs on his assembly lines. He could also promote Ford vehicles and his own public image. Perhaps the purpose nearest to Henry Ford’s heart, though—even before he took over the Dearborn Independent newspaper—was educating and informing the public about the world as he saw it.

Ever the tinkerer, Ford bought a movie camera, shooting scenes of his family and his factory. As he planned his entry into commercial film production, he had the advantage of being a personal friend and former employee of Thomas Edison himself. In the spring of 1914, Ford directed Ambrose Jewett, who headed Ford Motor Company’s advertising department, to establish a motion-picture department, what became known as the Ford Motion Picture Laboratories. Jewett bought modern 35-mm cameras and hired a two-man crew, which quickly grew to a couple dozen technicians. Ford funded the construction of state-of-the-art film processing and editing labs at the Highland Park facility that matched or exceeded the capabilities of any contemporary studio in Hollywood.

The first film Ford produced, a newsreel titled How Henry Ford Makes One Thousand Cars a Day, was released in mid-1914, followed by the Ford Animated Weekly, which was produced regularly for two years. These ten-to-fifteen-minute newsreels featured three-to-five news items, stories of general interest, and the occasional Ford Motor Company announcement. Although the newsreel generally featured no explicit advertising, the readily identifiable outline of a Model T radiator grille was used as a background to the silent films’ title cards. Using independent film distributors, the Ford studios made the newsreels available to theater operators at no charge. The enthusiastic public response to the series meant that movie houses couldn’t refuse the deal, and by July 1916 Ford claimed that every week four million people in over 2000 theaters viewed the Ford Animated Weekly.

As the films were distributed at no cost to the theaters, Ford absorbed all the production costs along with the fees for processing and printing the movies. Soon, however, Henry decided to reduce the complexity of the operation and in 1916 many of the Animated Weekly films were replaced with single topic shorts called the Ford Educational Weekly, also provided to theaters for free. While theater operators thought the topics might be boring, a year later Ford’s movie audience had grown to as many as five million people in over 3500 theaters in the U.S. alone, with additional distribution in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Title cards and subtitles were translated into 11 different languages. By 1918, Ford Motor Company was budgeting $600,000 a year on film production and distribution, making it the largest film distributor in the world.

With the entry of the United States into World War I, film crews were tasked with promoting the company’s military production, including the construction of the River Rouge complex (which built submarine chaser boats before it built cars), the making of Liberty airplane engines, and testing the three-ton tank FoMoCo designed for the U.S. Army.

After the end of hostilities, Ford hired the Goldwyn Distribution Corporation to distribute the Educational Weekly and by the end of 1919, it was being screened at over 5200 theaters a week. That was the peak for the Ford Motion Picture Laboratories. To subsidize production costs, Ford started to charge operators one dollar a week as a rental fee. Theater owners objected and some stopped showing the Ford films entirely. Then, in May 1920, Henry Ford’s Dearborn Independent started publication of a series titled The International Jew, a rewriting of the notorious Jew-hating Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Many theater operators boycotted Ford’s movies in protest. Less than a year after that per-week peak of 5200, the number of screens showing the Educational Weekly had plunged to around 1300.

In 1920 the Ford Motion Picture Laboratories was folded into the newly established Ford Photographic Department, which included both still photography and motion-picture operations. The Educational Weekly was discontinued at the end of 1921. Instead the Ford Educational Library series was developed, starting in 1920. Offered to K-12 schools, colleges, churches and other educational organizations at a price of a half-dollar-a-day rental per reel or for purchase at five cents per foot of film, topics covered included transportation, agriculture, geology, medicine, safety, and civics. Subjects were chosen by a committee of college professors. Though the Ford Educational Library was heavily promoted, it failed to find an audience and was discontinued in 1925.

While theatrical releases waned at Ford, the Photographic Department was still busy making promotional films for Ford dealers and regional sales branches. In addition to being shown at dealers, the promotional films were shown just about wherever Ford could find an audience—at county fairs, fraternal lodges, schools, recreation facilities, and even on the sides of buildings if there were no screens available. Though the audiences for the Ford theatrical releases were fading, by the mid-1920s, the Ford company estimated that its promotional films were viewed by about two and a half million people a month, in both rural and urban areas. Remember, Ford had a thriving tractor business besides selling Model Ts. In some rural regions, the promotional Ford films were the first motion pictures some people had ever seen.

In 1963, the United States National Archives received a donation of more than 1,500,000 feet of motion-picture film produced between 1914 and the early 1940s by the Ford Motion Picture Laboratories and the subsequent Photographic Department. They are a valuable documentation of American life and industry in the first half of the 20th century.

Physicists have taught us that you can’t observe something without affecting it, and the Ford filmmakers had a similar influence. At a time when the automobile was drastically changing that way of life, from the mid-teens to the mid-1920s, in addition to documenting Ford Motor Company and how it built cars, the Ford films depict almost every aspect of the American experience: urban life, rural life, farming, business, industry, news, recreation sports, transportation, and even celebrities. It is estimated that between 1915 and 1925, fully one-seventh of the American motion picture audience viewed movies made by Ford Motor Company. The historical Ford films didn’t just document American life, they affected the way Americans saw themselves and the world.

What began as a bit of a vanity and promotional project for Henry Ford is now a historical treasure. You can check out over 2000 historic Ford films at the National Archives. Using source footage from the Ford Collection, the National Archives produced a documentary about Henry Ford’s motion pictures, titled Henry Ford’s Mirror of America.

In the second part of this series, we’ll take a look at the Jam Handy Organization, which may have had an even deeper impact on American culture with the movies it made in the Motor City.

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The best speed parts discoveries are always on accident, pure serendipity while following yet another classifieds lead for old tools or a dead-man’s estate of unloved projects. Call it fishing for gear-heads; the adventure to new places, along with the window shopping of another person’s financial mistakes stock pile, can be enough entertainment even if there’s nothing worth reaching into the wallet. And so it was the past weekend, going through the leftovers of a recently deceased enthusiast. The stash I was looking over this past weekend had already been picked of decent tools, leaving behind abandoned blow-molded cases and common hand-tools that plague every one of these hunts. Perhaps it was the oil-stained NHRA shirt I arrived in, or maybe it was just boredom, but the man’s son thought I should get a peek behind the curtain, so to speak.

“My dad also had a work shop in back, he was a mechanic, if you want to look.”

“Oh?”

Sure enough, the old man had at some point built himself a hidden shop in the backyard, tucked into the hillside overlooking Lake Havasu. I had to have been one of the first people back there that weekend; the usual shop-tool staples were still plugged into the walls, many with their last projects still on the work surface. The self-built shack was clearly the result of a hard-knock man, so focused on self-reliance that there was even a brake lathe in the corner for machining drums and discs clean flat. The tip-off that this mechanic dabbled in speed, keenly, was the shelf of well-labeled carburetors, stacked like a used car lot. From there, my eyes began scanning deeper and deeper between the shelves and wall studs, unearthing piles of spare parts and jets.  I had already lapped the shop like an angry Cup car and earmarked a drill press and stand-mounted grinder before I spotted the pile of turbo parts hanging out by the garage door.

My chaotic imagination latched onto the mysterious pile. A quick internet search of the patent number clued me in that this was a turbo kit, though it had no obvious markings to confirm whether the patent’s inventor and owner had anything to do with the pile of parts I was trying to assemble while making sense of everything. Frankly, the son was just happy to have someone appreciate the equipment, and we struck up a $100 deal for everything.

Early turbocharging is a total wild-west era for speed, one that had been dropped into hot rodding by the aerospace industry throughout the early 20th century as the gear-heads were desperately searching for the fastest solution to get from A to B. While their pursuit was largely recreational, for the military it was a matter of deadly competition for airspace superiority. Belt-driven superchargers had become practical by the turn of the century, but it was General Electric who saw more potential for Dr. Alfred Büchi’s innovative means of cramming more air in the early marine engines, thus allowing more fuel to be burned resulting in more power. The efficient “turbo-supercharger” harnessed the otherwise wasted exhaust energy via a turbine to spin a centrifugal supercharger, finding a home in relatively steady-state applications before appearing in pre-war air-craft. Initial tests by GE were done by bolting an aircraft engine to the back of a truck, driving it up the Pikes Peak Highway to its 14,115-foot climax to utilize the low oxygen density for simulating flight conditions, with Dr. Sanford A. Moss leading the development program at altitude. This data in hand, Dr. Moss would go onto turbocharging a LePere bi-plane’s Liberty V-12, beginning the arms race in airborne horsepower.

These innovations would become pivotal during WWII, where the altitude-compensating, efficient turbochargers found their way behind the props of everything from P-47 Thunderbolt fighters to the ominous B-17 Flying Fortresses in order to secure their superiority in dog fights and safety from ground-based attack at the highest altitudes. As the story often goes, of course, once the surviving enlisted men returned home, they carried with them the ideas, training, and technology that would go on to build the hot rodding and kustom community’s earliest archetypes — and while turbocharging wasn’t yet ready for its prime, it’s in this intersection of motorsports and military history that one J. C. “Cliff” Garrett enters the fray.

Forming Garrett AiResearch during the peak of the depression era in 1936, Mr. Garrett’s turbocharging company would earn several key military contracts over the next decade. First specializing in heat exchangers, cabin pressure pumps for the B-29 Superfortress, oil coolers for the Douglas DB-7, and perhaps most famously the intercoolers of those aforementioned GE-turbocharged B-17 Fortresses. This would transform AiResearch into a money printer as its technology answered every problem the U.S. government threw at them. After the war, Mr. Garrett would continue selling his innovations to the military, such as a starter for early jet engines that could be entirely self-contained in the aircraft. Instead of needing an external electric starter and Jeep-mounted battery pack, AiResearch’s compact, kerosene-fueled turbines produced enough airflow to spin the blades of the aircraft’s jet engines, meaning that it needed no special equipment to launch.  According to the Times in 1951, that contract was worth $36 million— the equivalent of $3.6-billion today after inflation — and it would mark the expansion of AiResearch into the production of turbochargers as an absolute industrial giant, beginning with the contracts for Caterpillar upcoming D9 earth-movers.

Entering the 1960s, Garrett had begun to make inroads into the automotive market, and finally, the infamous 1962 Olds Jetfire hit the streets with an AiResearch T5. While it served its purpose of bumping horsepower up, bringing an extra 20 horses for a total of 215, the “Turbo Rocket” utilized an unusually-high (for a forced-induction application of this period) 10.75:1 compression ratio, which detonated heavily on typical pump gas. More marketing jargon for water/methanol injection, dubbed “Turbo Rocket Fluid,” was sprayed when the turbocharger produced boost, helping to cool the heated intake charge, but it required extra maintenance. Worse yet, Oldsmobile technicians typically weren’t trained on the low-production, first-generation system, which made diagnostics and repair of the temperamental turbocharger package that much more difficult and leaving Olds with no other choice than to provide a cash incentive for dealers to remove the Turbo Rocket… replacing the draw-through turbocharger with a conventional, naturally-aspirated carb.

Despite the Jetfire’s failure to revolutionize the market, it would inspire fresh-faced Grumman Aircraft engineer Bob Keller to fall down the rabbit hole of turbocharging. Three years into the gig at Grumman, Keller formed Turbonics, Inc with AiResearch’s own Wolf Schlegel in 1963. Schlegel had sold Keller his first turbocharger just a year earlier when he installed a T5 between the fenders of his slant-six Valiant. Initially, they focused on marine engines and other commercial applications, but the turbo-gurus would soon draw the attention of performance parts giant Accel and the Eichlin Corporation. The early 1970s had made it clear that fuel economy and emissions would draw demand for turbocharging, and the Echlin’s strategic buyout of Keller and Schlegel’s split of Turbonics set Keller in motion to begin designing the TurboSonic in 1973 under Accel’s umbrella of performance parts.

The concept was simple enough: provide a bolt-on turbocharger upgrade for the period’s low-compression motors. The execution is above and beyond, with careful attention to alleviate the typical issues seen with draw-through-carburetor configurations. Keller utilized a standard 4150/4160 flange pattern so that the TurboSonic could sandwich between an off-the-shelf Holley and just about any common intake, ducting the fuel charge from the carburetor into the turbocharger’s inlet before hustling the compressed mixture into the intake via the other chamber in the TurboSonic. Cleverly, there’s a pair of check valves dividing the inlet chamber and intake manifold chamber that allows the fuel charge to bypass the turbocharger entirely while the intake manifold remains under vacuum. This was vital for aiding in low-speed drivability as the atomized fuel would travel a shorter, direct path into the manifold instead, where air speed is minimal. Once the turbocharger is spun up and began to build boost, the two check valves shut, and 100-percent of the carburetor’s fuel charge was fed into the turbo. This innovative “priority valve” would lead Keller to filing for a patent with backing from Echlin in 1973, which was awarded to them in 1975.

This single adapter plenum could be configured with several different turbocharger placements for different engines, with the exhaust manifolds and charge piping being unique to a small-block Chevy vs. a Ford — which have opposing distributor placements — for instance, though the kit I came across is appears to be universal for forward or rearward turbo placement. The finned manifold for feeding the turbo inlet even carries a water block inside, presumably to heat the floor of it so any pooled fuel would vaporize back into the air stream. This meant that no major modifications to the engines were needed to fit the turbocharger given that it could bolt onto popular engine combos from the era, giving gear heads their first real taste of turbocharging in the greater aftermarket. Better yet, it massively simplified fueling a turbocharged application in a time where they were barely understood outside of a few skunkworks racing programs and secret corporate laboratories.

A turbocharger’s ability to vary air density based upon the engine’s load, and not just its RPM as was the case in supercharging, meant that the fueling system had to adapt to many different situations in order to maintain the correct air-fuel ratio. With supercharging, the linear response of boost pressure to RPM thanks to its crank-driven compressor meant that the fuel curve was relatively predictable, but a turbo could demand as much air and fuel at cruising RPMs at it could at redline, meaning that a fuel system had to respond to a much less predictable power-adder compared to a supercharger.

At the time, there were three common fueling systems in turbocharging. Mechanical injection was expensive, temperamental, and didn’t handle the dynamic air density of turbocharging particularly well. Blow through turbos offered an ideal placement for a carburetor’s boosters, fueling the pressurized air post-turbo and just before the intake manifold for superior atomization, but the passive vacuum-reference nature of common carburetors created challenges for maintaining the appropriate air-fuel ratio at different boost pressures while driving, and modifications to either fully encase a carb in a sealed boost chamber (meaning its ambient-pressure circuits would treat boost like atmospheric pressure) or boost-reference some of its circuits, adding complexity. Draw-through systems solved many of the fueling issues as the fuel charge would be metered before entering the turbocharger. Today, electronic fuel injection precisely measures and calculates air density on the fly in order to inject the ideal amount of fuel for the given load, predicting its next move with every next ignition event, but before, we were largely building reactive fuel systems that suffered from their indirect means of metering fuel. With Keller’s experience, and building upon the likes of hot rodders like Ak Miller and GM’s own follow-ups to the Jetfire (such as the 1980-81 turbo Trans-Am), the TurboSonic was created as a distillation of the era’s best turbocharger tech.

Records I’ve found so far are unclear as to exactly when Accel put the TurboSonic onto market, but sometime between 1973 and 1975 the kit went into production as the fuel crisis and its subsequent malaise era began to set in. AiResearch’s T04B turbo unit was chosen for being quick-spooling, targeting a modest 10-15 psi and allegedly bumping the output of a box-standard small-block Chevy into the neighborhood of 450hp. The combination of a  simple draw-through carb and the one-way priority valve for directing atomized fuel into the intake manifold solved many of the hurdles for home-built hot rodders, and as the decade began to close, the market for these bolt-on intake kits would grow, with the strongest competition coming from likes of RayJay and Martin Turbo Systems. More than just a piece of speed equipment, these drop-in draw-through kits were popular in gasoline-fueled RVs, where it became a familiar sight to see a RayJay, AiResearch, or RotoMaster turbocharger hanging over the valve cover of a 440 to provide a little extra oomph on steep grades. These kits were quickly superseded by the rise of EFI technology in the eighties and nineties, along with the return of factory horsepower thanks to EFI’s ability to meet modern emissions requirements without heavily sacrificing performance.

While I’m not 100% committed to installing it yet, the crucial pieces of this puzzle are sitting loosely mocked up on my CST/10. A pair of flipped-over exhaust manifolds, a weekend of cutting and bending pipe, a little time to upgrade the fuel system, and we may have something that just puts a smile on everyone’s face even if it is a comparatively terrible way to fuel a turbo engine by today’s standards. Though its fate isn’t determined, its history has been. While TurboSonic and its competition eventually folded to EFI technology, Keller would take his love affair of turbocharging technology to form Turbonetics in 1978, which continues to produce products today (though Keller no longer operates the company). While it only rose to the top for a few short years, the TurboSonic represents a freak era of curiosity, innovation, and entrepreneurial spirit that defines much of today’s aftermarket world.

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High-level video-game competitions, including racing sims, have become career opportunities, with the prize pools for major events running into the tens of millions of dollars. Sixty years ago, there weren’t racing simulators, and only major league athletes made a living playing games; but with sponsorship from a major automaker, one toy company gave young people the chance to race to win. The cars may have been tiny and the prizes well below seven figures, but the competition was life changing.

In the early 1960s, it was popular for big companies to sponsor youth competitions, often with college scholarships as prizes. General Motors had the Fisher Body Craftsmen’s Guild, the National Football League started its Punt, Pass, and Kick competition, and in 1961 Ford Motor Company teamed up with model maker Aurora Plastics Corporation to run the Ford-Aurora Model Motoring Championships, which ran for five years, starting in 1962.

Aurora—based in Hempstead, Long Island—was originally a maker of plastic model kits. By the late 1950s, however, kids wanted more than static models and the slot-car craze was born. In 1957, Scalextric in the U.K. introduced the first modern slot-car sets with 1:30 (later changed to 1:32) scale vehicles. By late 1959, the fad had crossed the Atlantic. U.S.-based Strombecker company was first to the stateside slot-car party with a system that used the bodies from existing 1:24-scale model-car kits.

Thinking that table-top layouts might appeal to parents more than the large-scale tracks, which could take up an entire room, Aurora jumped into the craze, buying the rights to the U.K.-based Playcraft’s Model Motoring HO-gauge racing set and introducing the first Aurora Model Motoring versions in time for Christmas, 1960. HO is technically 1:87 scale, so the cars and tracks are a fraction of the size of the larger scales (modern HO cars may diverge from the measurement). Aurora’s intuition proved accurate, and the company would sell over 25 million HO-scale race cars over the next five years, surpassing the sale figures of Ford and Chevrolet combined.

Someone at Ford apparently noticed, too. Since Aurora already cooperated with the Blue Oval in the production of accurate, licensed models, it was probably not too difficult to set up the racing championships. As with the NFL’s Punt, Pass, and Kick competition, there were local competitions held at popular hobby shops and slot-car raceways. Winners progressed to state, regional, and finally national championships, which were significant enough to merit a live television broadcast.

Though it was a national competition with thousands of participants, a group of three boys in Rapid City, South Dakota—a small city of about 43,000 people in the 1960s—came to dominate the Ford-Aurora Model Motoring competition. One of the trio made the finals in the event’s first year; of the four remaining championships, two belonged to one of these Rapid City contenders. The late, great Mark Donohue was famous for wanting an “unfair advantage” when he strapped himself into one of Roger Penske’s race cars. One might say that the Rapid City boys—Jeff Davis, Ron Colerick, and John Seele—had a similar leg-up on the competition.

Slot-car raceways proliferated in the 1960s. At its peak, the hobby generated a half billion dollars a year in sales, with as many as 3000 raceways in the United States. Compared to the simple figure-eight tracks most kids used at home, the raceway circuits were more complex, much longer, and much, much faster. The industry and hobbyists consistently developed stronger motors, lighter chassis, and stickier tires. Speeds, naturally, increased.

As the hobby grew, however, slot-car establishments developed a bit of an unsavory reputation among parents. Those shops charged per lap, and often had other coin-operated amusement devices like pinball machines. Both of those things could drain a kid’s piggy bank. Fortunately for the boys of Rapid City, their parents didn’t object to them hanging around a slot-car joint. That’s because Ron Colerick’s father Lloyd owned Toy Hobby Center, the nexus of slot-car in Rapid City.

“We had races every Friday night and all day Saturday,” Colerick told the Rapid City Journal in 2003.

Colerick was coached by Davis, a finalist in the event’s first year, who may have enjoyed even better odds than Colerick. “I spent hours racing at the [Toy Hobby Center] store. I was there so much that Lloyd gave me a job.”

With Davis coaching, Colerick would race for up to five hours a day at his father’s hobby store. When Seeley and Colerick made it to the semifinals in New York City in 1963, they asked Davis to come along as a coach. Colerick narrowly earned a spot in the finals, winning the last semifinal heat by just an 1:87-scale car length, about two inches. With the slowest qualifying time, Colerick also ended up in the worst lane for the finals, and an early spin-out made things even worse; but once he got going, nothing could break his focus.

“I was in kind of a trance. It was good that I had practiced so much that I was able to just race on reflex, Colerick told the Rapid City paper. “My age may have been an advantage,” he continued. “At 12 years old, I might have been numb to the pressure.”

That year’s finals were broadcast live on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, with play-by-play announcing by Stirling Moss. Aurora sold racing sets branded with the racing legend’s name, and Moss awarded a trophy that was almost as big as the young contestant.

Years before he could get his driver’s license or graduate from high school, 12-year-old Colerick won a $2000 college scholarship and a 1963 Thunderbird Sports Roadster (that’s the one with the fairings on the tonneau cover). That car is now owned by Aurora Model Motoring collector and guru Bob Beers. Lest you think $2000 a stingy amount for a college scholarship, consider that it would have covered all but $200 or so in tuition for the average four-year college in 1963—for all four years.

According to Thomas Graham’s book on Aurora slot cars, when Moss handed the young man the keys to his new T-bird, Colerick cheekily said: “Neat, man. I’ll let my Dad drive it sometimes.” The Aurora folks were less pleased with Carson’s ad lib—”You mean he gets a Thunderbird for that?”—since it sounded like a slight on the event’s significance. Perhaps in a dig at Carson, Aurora moved the broadcast for the following year’s championships to the popular I’ve Got A Secret game show, hosted by comedian Steve Allen, The Tonight Show‘s original host. Once again, Stirling Moss was on hand.

Seeley won a 1966 Ford Mustang in the ’65 championships, which was broadcast on the Mike Douglas talk show. He was likely the only 9th-grader in America with his own full-scale Mustang, and it made him a popular guy: “When you’re 14 or 15, and you have a brand-new Ford Mustang, that doesn’t hurt your appeal,” he said. Seeley sold the Mustang while in college, and it’s currently owned by Bob Beers.

Three finalists in five years, all from the same small city in the Midwest. It looks like a statistical anomaly—even a suspicious one—but the secret to the Rapid City boys’ success wasn’t breaking the rules. It was hard work, lots of practice, and some technical mods.

“We didn’t cheat, but we were making adjustments to the cars that the others guys at the national level weren’t even thinking of, ” Davis said. His finals were broadcast live on NBC’s Today Show since, as a major advertiser, Ford had some influence on network programming.

All three of the boys, now senior citizens, have said that the Ford-Aurora Model Motoring Championships were influential events in their lives. Seeley used his scholarship to go to Grinnell College, later earning a MBA from Dartmouth. After eight years with Proctor and Gamble’s marketing department, he started his own marketing, management and consulting firm in Boston. He’s currently the president of The American Consulting Group, an agency with clients at the top tiers of corporate America. “The people I interviewed with at Proctor and Gamble specifically mentioned this one event that signaled that I was someone who could focus and excel and was very competitive early on,” he said.

After serving for 43 years as a judge in Iowa’s 7th judicial circuit, Davis retired in 2019. Davis said that the discipline and commitment he learned from “an intense four or five years” competing in the Ford-Aurora championship was good preparation for law school.

Colerick started North Central Supply and NCS Manufacturing to make and sell doors and other related hardware for commercial buildings, employing dozens of people and passing on the lessons he learned as a young slot car racer.

“I always tell my employees that the competition gets pretty thin after 5:30 p.m. Staying a little longer and working a little harder will eventually pay off,” he said.

If only we could all spend those extra hours at a slot-car track, like this Midwest trio did. Who would have guessed that the same kids who haunted Rapid City’s Toy Hobby Center would make national television—and, decades later, point back to Aurora’s championship as a defining moment in their careers? Their stories prove that, whether full-scale or 1:87, simulated or real, cars have the power to influence and shape lives.

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Was the 1907 Autocycle a diamond in the rough? Considering it lasted only one model year and no one ever tried to replicate its unusual design, probably not. The Autocycle was definitely unique, however, especially when it came to wheel configuration.

Built by the Vandegrift Automobile Company of Philadelphia, the odd-looking vehicle had four wire wheels arranged in a diamond pattern, with one wheel in front, two slightly smaller wheels on the sides, and one in the rear. The wheel arrangement was designed to give the Autocycle a short turning radius.

A news story at the time reported that James N. Vandegrift—with the assistance of Henry G. Morris and Pedro G. Salom, who previously built electric vehicles—created his Autocycle “on the principle of the bicycle,” which explains its name. Power was supplied to the rear wheel by a six-horsepower, two-cylinder, air-cooled gasoline engine. The 380-pound, two-passenger Autocycle was steered via its front wheel. Maximum speed was estimated at 45 mph.

“This vehicle will carry readily a heavy person who might persist in sitting upon one side instead of at the middle of the vehicle,” Vandegrift told trade magazine The Horseless Age in 1907. “A true bicycle condition is, of course, only realized when the vehicle is perfectly balanced and the weights are equalized, and under this condition the highest speed is attained with practically no weight upon the balance wheels. In practice, however, it is found that an excess of 125 to 200 pounds in weight on either side of the vehicle makes little material difference in operation, and may be readily compensated for by the check spring device upon the balance axle. The links in connection with the balance springs allow the small side wheels to follow depressions and irregularities, thus remaining in contact with the surface of the highway even when they carry no weight.”

In other words, the Autocycle’s smaller side wheels were simply there to help balance the vehicle, much like training wheels on a bicycle. Although the design seemed logical in theory, it worked best on paved city streets but struggled on rough and rutted roads, where the side wheels made it more difficult to maneuver.

There is no record of how many Autocycles were built before Vandegrift threw in the towel. Ironically, a motorcycle with a similar name—the Excelsior Auto-Cycle—found success during the same era.

We’re guessing people found little need for a motorbike with training wheels.

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Charles Richard Patterson, born a slave on a Virginia plantation in 1833, became patriarch of the first and last automobile manufacturing enterprise organized by Black Americans.

At age eight, Patterson escaped bondage in Virginia with his parents and a dozen siblings and traveled via the underground railroad to Greenfield, Ohio, a small town between Cincinnati and Columbus. Lacking much formal schooling, Patterson worked to become a skilled blacksmith with a local carriage and coachmaker. Before he left that job for greener pastures, Patterson oversaw the efforts of several white workers.

In 1873, Patterson joined another Greenfield carriage builder founded by James Lowe. Twenty years later, he bought out his employer, renaming the company C.R. Patterson and Sons. Soon his enterprise had a staff of 10–15 employees that manufactured 28 distinct body styles ranging from $120–$150 each.

Racism and discrimination at first prevented Patterson’s son Frederick from access to Greenfield’s only school, but thanks to a favorable 1887 legal judgment, he did ultimately attend and graduate from high school before enrolling at Ohio State University in 1889. There, Frederick became the first Black varsity football player and president of the class of 1893. His two sons also studied at Ohio State.

Upon the death of his brother Samuel in 1899, Frederick returned home to work at his family’s carriage business. Production swelled to some 500 horse-drawn buckboards, buggies, phaetons, surreys, and doctors’ jitneys per annum.

Of course, coachbuilders eventually shifted their attention to newfangled horseless carriages. Without abandoning their existing trade, C.R. and Frederick founded the Patterson-Greenfield Automobile Company and commenced repairing cars. Unfortunately, C.R. died in 1910 before any serious effort could be devoted to manufacturing automobiles.

In 1915, Patterson-Greenfield finally introduced a touring car and a roadster for sale. Advanced features included a 30-horsepower Continental four-cylinder engine, electric starting and lighting, a windshield split for ventilation, cantilever springs, and a full floating rear axle. At a time when the less-sophisticated Ford Model T roadster started at $390, the Patterson-Greenfield autos ranged from $685–$850.

Competing against dozens of budding automakers, Frederick Patterson and his sons built and sold only 30 or so cars, none of which survive intact today, before reverting to the repair business. In the early 1920s, under the Greenfield Bus Body company name, they began manufacturing truck and bus bodies to be used atop chassis built by Ford, GM, and others.

Frederick Patterson died in 1932. Six years later, his sons Frederick Jr. and Postell again restructured the business, moving what became the Gallia Body Company to Gallipolis in the southeastern corner of Ohio. With the Great Depression still raging, investment funds in 1939 were impossible to find and the Pattersons were forced to shutter their company for good.

Except for records compiled by the Greenfield (Ohio) Historical Society, the Smithsonian, and the Historic Vehicle Association, the Pattersons’ efforts remain largely unknown. Their achievements were modest but quite significant when you consider the family’s enslaved origins and all they were up against.

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Eight is enough—exactly the right amount, as it turns out, when it comes to the number of wheels on a car. In 1911, Milton Reeves tested that theory with an eight-wheel vehicle he called the Octoauto. The odd-looking automobile wasn’t his first creation or his last, but it was definitely Reeves’ most significant, even though it wasn’t a financial success.

Reeves, a native of Indiana who was born during the Civil War, was among the early architects of the horseless carriage in the late 1880s. In fact, his initial iteration is widely considered the fourth or the fifth American automobile ever created.

Reeves’ historic roots as an inventor officially began at age 15 when, while working in a sawmill, the teenager noticed that his coworkers could not control the speed of the pulleys used to power the saws, a problem that often caused the wood to split. Reeves provided the solution by designing a variable-speed transmission that allowed the saw blades to turn slower or faster as needed. He would go on to patent 100 inventions in his 60 years.

Reeves was in his early 20s when he was sold on the idea of motorized transportation and began to build his first automobile—a four-wheeler then referred to as a motocycle—with the financial backing of his brothers. According to silodrome.com, his variable-speed transmission was ideally suited to work in tandem with a twin-cylinder, two-stroke, 6-horsepower Sintz marine engine. Reeves’ three-seat motocycle was steered by a tiller operated from the back seat; the body was built by the Fehring Carriage Company.

Reeves also created a seven-seat “Big Seven” model, and in 1898 built the “Big Motocycle,” a 20-seat bus with huge wheels that were nearly six feet in diameter. To reduce noise from the two-stroke engine, Reeves invented a double-muffler exhaust system (an industry first), but he grew tired of the heavy fumes and decided to build a more efficient engine instead. By 1898, he had created two—a 6-hp version and a 12-hp variety.

Instead of continuing to create and develop his automobiles, Reeves closed shop in 1899 when his family decided to concentrate on agricultural and industrial products. It would be five years before Reeves picked up where he’d left off, and he quickly made up for lost time by unveiling two new models in 1904: the Model D, with a 12-hp engine, and the Model E, boasting a 18–20-hp mill.

A year later, Reeves unveiled his new valve-in-head, air-cooled engine, which featured individually cast cylinders to help with air cooling, splash lubrication, and inlet and exhaust on opposite sides of the engine to create a “cross flow” effect. The engines were so successful that they were used in vehicles built by Auburn, Moon, Chatham, Autobug, and Mapleby.

In spite of his success as an engine builder, Reeves is best known for his eight-wheel, 20-foot long Octoauto, which may seem unconventional today but made perfect sense for the time. In 1911, Reeves modified a 1910 Overland by adding four wheels and creating two sets of four in front and back. Roads in his time were generally horrendous (particularly in rural areas), and since suspension consisted of leaf springs and tire design wasn’t what it is today, passengers felt every bump and pothole. Reeves simply borrowed a design employed on railroad cars, which used quad-wheel “bogies” to distribute the weight and smooth out the ride. According to silodrome.com: “The design incorporated front twin steering coupled with steering by the wheels on the rearmost axle. The forward rear axle had no steering and was the only one that was driven, making this an 8×2. The driven axle was the only one that had drum brakes on each wheel.”

The idea worked brilliantly. So much so that few argued when Reeves began calling the odd-looking automobile “the only easy riding car in the world.” The problem was that it cost too much to build. The four-passenger Octoauto—powered by a 40-horse engine—retailed for $3200, which is nearly $100,000 today.

No amount of praise or attention could save Reeves’ Octoauto, so he remodeled it—most notably removing two wheels from up front—and in 1912 rebranded it as the Sextoauto. Reeves later took a gamble by building the six-wheeler on a new Stutz chassis, but that only increased the price. Sales were few.

Reeves never built another car, and he died in 1925, two months before his 61st birthday.

Although the Octoauto and Sextoauto were financial failures, and none are known to exist today, there’s no disputing that they were technological marvels, regardless of how many wheels they had.

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A four-part HBO docuseries titled The Lady and the Dale, set to debut on January 31, digs into quite a strange and largely unknown story of automotive industry chicanery. The series trailer involves boastful brags, guns, and secrets, and yet none of that scratches the surface of the full story.

The series focuses on Twentieth Century Motor Car Corporation that was founded by Elizabeth “Liz” Carmichael. The supposed goal of the company was to market and sell the Dale, a three-wheeled car that would be inexpensive and fuel-efficient, right at a time when the United States was in the grips of an oil crisis that had left fuel prices sky-high. The Dale was supposed to be built in southern California using a BMW motorcycle engine, advanced electronics, and lightweight, composite construction. Its two-cylinder engine would supply 40 horsepower and allow a maximum speed of 85 mph while returning an advertised 70 mpg. That wasn’t much thrust, but an air-cooled VW of the mid-‘70s packed just 48 horses after emissions improvements dropped down its 1600cc four-cylinder output from a 1972 high of 60 hp. The compact, aerodynamic Dale would be able to do more with less.

As Twentieth Century Motor Car Corporation leased production space at three hangars in Burbank and planned for not only production of the Dale, but two other models, a larger sedan and a wagon, the company received a tremendous amount of media buzz as the tiny company taking on the Big Three. Carmichael had buyers lining up to leave a deposit, investors scrambling to get a piece of the business by buying stock, and potential retailers throwing money at the Twentieth Century Motor Car Corporation in order to secure franchise rights. That’s where Carmichael ran afoul of the Federal Trade Commission and the IRS, among other missteps. Twentieth Century Motor Car Corporation had no license to manufacture cars, which was really only a minor issue … seeing as they weren’t manufacturing anything. Of the three Dale prototypes built, only one was capable of moving under its own power and even the most completed version was shoddily built and not at all what was advertised.

As investigators began to scrutinize Carmichael’s business they discovered that she had jumped bail on a 1961 counterfeiting charge. Carmichael loudly proclaimed her business was legitimate but was eventually convicted in 1977 of fraud, grand theft, conspiracy, and counterfeiting. The assets of her company were sold, with buyers grabbing the molds for the Dale’s body at an IRS auction. Perhaps the most well-known version of the Dale, the yellow copy seen in the photo up top from the Petersen Museum’s Vault, was built by Dean Moon of Moon Equipment after he tracked down the winners of the liquidation auction held by the IRS.

After appealing her sentence for four years, Carmichael and her family went on the lam in 1980 and she wasn’t apprehended until 1989 after her story appeared on Unsolved Mysteries. Carmichael passed away in 2004.

While there were contemporary articles written about Carmichael and Twentieth Century Motor Car Corporation, we’re looking forward to seeing The Lady and the Dale and getting the story from Charmichael’s family. There are sure to be some wild revelations, so we’ll definitely be watching.

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The VW Beetle enjoyed a storied production run that saw a total of 21,529,464 vehicles manufactured over nearly 60 years, as Beetles continued to roll off the assembly line in Mexico until 2003. Although the Beetle was a smash sales success and continues to be a collector favorite, it all got off to a very shaky start.

Development of the people’s car began before WWII, but wartime production in Germany focused on the military, including at VW’s now-famous Wolfsburg plant. The British military took over Volkswagenwerk GmbH in June 1945 during Britain’s occupation of German and began working on getting the Type 1 into production to provide transportation and kickstart the post-war economy. It wasn’t easy.

Allied bombing during the war had damaged the plant and surrounding infrastructure in order to hamper military production and movement. Those same supply lines would be necessary to get civilian car production up and running. The Wolfsburg plant itself was under threat of demolition, but British Major Ivan Hirst saw the facility’s potential and it was his determination that helped spearhead the transformation from wartime to civilian production in the latter half of 1945.

The British military ordered 20,000 vehicles in August of 1945, spurring Hirst and the Volkswagenwerk employees to get an assembly line up and running. They delivered. Wolfsburg began Type 1 Beetle production on December 27, 1945, despite an uncertain supply of production materials and a shaky power grid. Even getting food and housing for the workers was a struggle. Those early employees managed to turn out 55 Beetles by year’s end and soon improved to churning out 1000 vehicles per month through 1946, even with prolonged rationing of materials.

Supply lines smoothed out, Germany and the rest of Europe sprang back from WWII, and demand for vehicles grew. By 1947 VW was exporting Type 1 Beetles and eventually, Beetles would catch on all over the globe. All told, German production of the Type 1 Beetle totaled around 15.8 million units. It remains one of the most beloved collector cars because of its simple, robust construction, cheerful design, and ease of ownership. It owes a lot of its early success to Major Ivan Hirst and those Volkswagenwerk employees that saw Wolfburg’s potential.

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Few OEMs can resist the allure of the record book. Not all records are created equal, of course: Compare Porsche’s 19 Le Mans wins with Jaguar’s Guinness-approved seven Hot Wheels loop-the-loops. Despite the disparity in glory, any track-related “record” is laden with marketing potential. Every automaker wants a place in the history books—even Yugo.

In 1988, the Eastern Bloc automaker—via its Yugo America importer—embarked upon an ambitious attempt to set a number of endurance records at Alabama’s Talledega Superspeedway. Spearheading the project was none other than the legendary Zora Arkus-Duntov, revered as the godfather of the Corvette.

Unfortunately, while a pair of track-prepared Yugos did make it to Alabama in October 1988, they never turned a wheel on the track. The Yugo was seemingly destined to hold a single, uncontested title: The Worst Car Ever Made.

While researching an unrelated project at the GM Heritage Center near Detroit, your author was handed a sheaf of seemingly misfiled documents. Within was a trove of Duntov’s personal correspondence—including a number of papers bearing his personal letterhead and dated after his retirement from GM in 1975. A pair of letters, reproduced here with the permission of General Motors, stood out.

Zora the Engineer

Before coming to GM in the ’50s, Zora Arkus-Duntov and his brother Yura started Ardun Mechanical Corporation, a company that became famous for the replacement hemispherical cylinder heads it offered for Ford’s flathead V-8. Zora later worked for the British Allard Motor Car Company, even driving for the factory team at Le Mans. Though he joined General Motors as an assistant staff engineer in May of 1953, Zora returned to the Circuit de la Sarthe in 1954, this time with Porsche, and drove his 550 Spyder to a class victory. Back in the states, he built the legacy for which he is best remembered: forging the Corvette into a performance car.

Once he moved on from GM in ’75, Zora continued with his engineering consulting work. He developed performance intake manifolds for Holley through the ’80s. Later, he was contracted by Global Motors (the parent company of Yugo America) via its enigmatic leader, Malcolm Bricklin, to help develop the Yugo’s performance image.

One thing stands out about Zora—his intense curiosity. In his quest for speed, he relentless tinkered and tweaked whatever vehicle in which he found himself. Tony Ciminera, then Yugo America’s senior vice president of production and engineering, says that Zora once wanted to set an aviation speed record with a home-built airplane. He intended to use the Suzuki three-cylinder engine from the Chevrolet Sprint/Geo Metro—but his wife would have none of it. Ciminera says that she “told GM to make excuses so he couldn’t get an engine.”

Zora was the one who decided on a Yugo endurance record attempt. According to Jerry Burton’s biography of Arkus-Duntov (Zora Arkus-Duntov: The Legend behind Corvette, Bentley, 2002), Bricklin and Ciminera originally planned a single-marque road-racing series in the vein of the Corvette Challenge. Then Zora, after poring through the FIA record books, found a number of records that sounded easy to conquer.

Bricklin had little to do with the record attempt. In a brief interview, Bricklin told us “that was Zora and Tony [Ciminera]’s pet project.” And if the timeline of Yugo’s corporate machinations is correct in Jason Vuic’s excellent The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History, Bricklin would have been mostly out of the loop by this time, since he was bought out in March 1988 by an investment firm (though he stuck around as a consultant).

Why Talladega?

Duntov noticed that the Yugo would fit into the FIA Category A, Group II, Class 6 for endurance (or speed) records. Group II was restricted to naturally-aspirated Otto-cycle engines; Class 6 included engines over 1100 cc but under 1500 cc. The records that existed had been established on July 31, 1981 at the Bonneville Salt Flats by Larry Wilcox and his Mercury LN7, the upmarket version of the Ford EXP. A glance at the FIA record book shows that the records stand to this day. (For fans of campy ’70s TV, the name Larry Wilcox might ring a bell. Yes, he was the actor who played Jon Baker on CHiPs.)

Zora scoured the records for a challenge that would suit the Yugo’s, er, peculiar strengths. The flying mile and standing kilometer were the two longest records in the Yugo’s class, making long-distance records ripe for the taking. Zora settled on an endurance test held on an oval track.

The Cars

Ciminera enlisted Massachusetts racer Kim Baker to build a pair of Yugos—one red, one blue—for a 24-hour run around Talladega. Baker is likely best known for his success racing C4 Corvettes in various endurance racing series, but prior that effort, he ran a Fiat X1/9 in SCCA competition—with occasional help from Fiat’s importer, International Automobile Importers (IAI). (At the time, Ciminera was the VP of IAI.) Since the Yugo was a licensed development of the Fiat 127 and 128—the ancestors of the X1/9—Baker was the Yugo’s last best hope to get in the record books.

Baker tells us that his modifications to the pair of Yugos were minimal and focused on reliability rather than on speed. The cars were based on the Yugo GVX, which started with a larger, 1300-cc engine and a five-speed manual transmission. Baker modifying the transmission with a straight-cut fifth gear that lessened friction and added much-needed strength to the Fiat-based transaxle. Both cars were fitted with 32-gallon fuel sells and filler necks on both sides so a pair of crew members with dump cans could quickly refuel each during a long run.

To minimize attitude change over long runs, Baker moved the fuel cells well forward of their usual location. Belly pans helped smooth airflow underneath the Yugo, and the wheels were pushed outboard. A smaller radiator was fitted; the engine required just a third of the airflow through the radiator compared to stock, so the fascia could be closed off for improved aerodynamics. Baker mounted the exhaust to run nearly flush with the belly pan.

Since little braking was needed on Talladega’s 2.66-mile oval, Baker actually downgraded the stopping system to save weight, using lighter discs and drums along with smaller pads and shoes. He installed a device to retract the pads further to minimize drag and chose larger-diameter wheel bearings to minimize friction losses. In the place of suspension bushings, he used bearings designed to keep the wheels at both zero camber and zero toe—again, to lower drag. Baker even conducted coast-down tests at a local airport to verify the Yugo’s increased slipperiness.

A minimal roll cage was fabricated to protect the drivers, and all glass other than the windscreen was replaced by plastic. Since the speed at which they’d be hitting Talladega’s banks would not generate an extreme lateral load, Baker fitted the Yugos with low rolling-resistance tires. He even implemented a trick he learned in his endurance-racing Vettes to reduce tire-change times: coarse-threaded wheel studs.

Baker gave each car’s engine a displacement bump to just under the class limit of 1500 cc plus, as he puts is, “the usual race mods.” Interestingly, he swapped each car’s factory fuel-injection system with a pair of Weber carburetors. Sure, the carbs were easier to tune than ’80s-era fuel injectors—especially for a long run at steady rpm—but Baker had a more practical concern. The Webers were cheaper.

Yugo America never actually paid Kim Baker for his work, though the company let him take possession of the cars. The whereabouts of the two Yugos are now a mystery—if anyone knows of a caged Yugo with some odd mods laying around, please leave a note in the comments! Baker thinks the cars were scrapped, though we’d guess that the powertrains ended up in Fiat club race cars somewhere.

Alabama, October 1988

Why haven’t we heard about these record attempts? Certainly the late-night comics that skewered Yugos and Yugo drivers throughout the ’80s would have latched onto the novelty of a race-liveried GVX, right?

Well, the runs never happened.

Yugo America did rent the Talledega Superspeedway for a week in October 1988. Ciminera and Baker brought the cars south. But Yugo America pulled the plug while the cars were being unloaded.

“Duntov got the call at his hotel the night before the run,” writes Burton (374). “The cars never turned a wheel. ‘It was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life to tell Zora the program was off,’ said Ciminera.”

Why did Yugo stop the record attempt? There are two scenarios, both plausible—it’s likely some combination of both:

• Political unrest at home in Yugoslavia meant a highly publicized record attempt would look frivolous to a country still wrestling with Communism.
• Global Motors, the parent of Yugo America, was experiencing financial difficulties. The investment firm that bought Global Motors from Bricklin et al had expected a new product line to come to market via Proton of Malaysia, but that never happened (Vuic, 179).

With one phone call, the dream of a record vanished. Eleven years later, that factory itself vanished via NATO airstrike during the civil war that tore apart Serbia. The plant has since been retooled to build Fiats, including the 500L, though the factory’s future looks dark in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Compared to the Yugo, however, we’d like to think that even the 500L stands a chance at making the endurance record books. Any takers?

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Ted Ryan may have the greatest job in the world. Ford’s heritage and archives manager spends much of his time buried in the past—figuratively speaking—as the caretaker of Ford’s treasure trove of historical documents.

“Few [outside Ford] have ever seen this stuff,” Ryan told us in July. “We’re the memory of the Ford Motor Company.”

That responsibility provides Ryan with the opportunity to share some of his fascinating discoveries. Yesterday we told you about unpublished 1968 archival photos of Santa Claus and an iced-over, first-generation Bronco inside Ford’s extreme-weather testing facility. Today, we’re bringing the heat with never-before-seen GT40 development documents that were recently donated by retired Ford Motor Company engineer Don Eichstaedt.

Eichstaedt’s donation came after a referral from another retired Ford engineer, Mose Noland, who had been part of the winning GT40 team at the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans. The GT40 program received national attention in last year’s hit movie Ford v Ferrari.

Among the items from Eichstaedt is the Testing and Development Booklet from the GT and Sports Car Project for the Advanced Vehicles Division.

“While the story of the initial test run at Le Mans has been told many times, this booklet gives first person accounts and documents each of the trial runs of the GT,” Ryan says. “Via the project summary of the beginning of the booklet, we can track the development and refinement of the cars throughout 1964.

“I have highlighted two test events, the initial trial of the car at the M.I.R.A Proving Grounds in England on April 8, 1964, and the first trial at Le Mans on April 18, 1964. As you read through the reports, it becomes apparent that the cars still needed considerable work before they could be considered race worthy.”

Ryan says “the most glaring issue was the car’s instability at high speeds—not what any driver wants to hear on a track where top speeds could be in excess of 200 mph.”

The second document Ryan shared is the John Wyer Illustrated Parts List.

“Many people forget that while the racing versions of the GT40 were winning the headlines and races at Le Mans, a passenger version of the GT was also being produced,” Ryan says.

After Ford Motor Company closed the Advanced Vehicles Division following the 1967 racing season, John Wyer—who had been working on the program—opened J.W. Automotive Engineering Limited (cofounded by Wyer and his partner, John Willment), to produce the street version of the GT40.

“These vintage vehicles are extremely rare and quite valuable,” Ryan says. “The version of the parts list that Don donated was the first I had seen and will be a tremendous addition to our collection.”

Ford’s archives include 16,000-cubic-feet of paper material, more than 1,000,000 photos, and countless films and videos stored in an environmentally controlled space, but Ryan says there’s always room for more. And thanks to Eichstaedt, “we now have some new treasures to add.”

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The Volkswagen Beetle is among the most successful vehicle designs ever produced. VW built the simple, timeless, and affordable car for more than 65 years and, for most of that time, it exported them—in pieces.

A vehicle (or other product) exported from its manufacturing origin in pieces that are assembled elsewhere is called a “completely knocked down,” or CKD, kit. VW’s Beetle—known for its simple air-cooled powertrain and novel, stamped floorpan chassis—was the first vehicle to use the process. The first CKD Beetle was shipped from VW’s Wolfsburg plant and assembled in Ireland in 1950. Soon after, similar Beetle kits were shipped to South Africa, Mexico, and South America. VW’s current factories in Brazil and Mexico owe their existence to these early export efforts.

Knockdown kits serve a number of purposes. They often help an OEM to lighten the burden of tariffs, as complete cars are often more highly taxed than individual parts. Separating manufacturing from assembly also controls cost by allowing an automaker to equip only one factory (or a few central ones) with stamping dies, which are extremely expensive to build. Instead of building a die-equipped factory in each market, which individually might not support the cost, the company can set up an assembly location and ship the components to it. This arrangement also allows the central manufacturing factory to run more efficiently.

While VW no longer builds the Beetle (Wolfsburg production ended in 1978 and Mexico production ended in 2019) its CKD operations are still going strong. Orders for CKD vehicles are processed in Wolfsburg, where a supply team gathers parts from VW’s European suppliers at one of eight distribution centers. Next, parts are shipped around the world by sea, air, or rail to VW’s assembly sites, including those in Russia, South Africa, Mexico, China, Brazil, and the U.S.

WWII jeeps were shipped unassembled in their crates, and flat-fender fans have long daydreamed of discovering one that has yet to be assembled. That dream makes us wonder if any VW Beetles sit in storage somewhere, never assembled, like a time capsule to 1950.

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I got a text recently from one John Adams in El Cajon near San Diego, inviting me to come help shove a rebuilt engine back into a chassis. Now, anyone who has received an invite to an engine-install party knows that it can go one of several ways. The car owner can be fully prepped and the engine is ready to slide in, as if doused in Vaseline. Or there are still six jobs undone, including figuring out why the crank pulley has half an inch of play, and one penlight to be shared as darkness descends on an open driveway.

John was ready, and several neighbors pulled up lawn chairs to watch the proceedings. After all, it’s not every day that you get to witness a 3.3-liter Bugatti straight-eight being shoved back into one of the three Bugatti Type 64 chassis known to exist in the world. And the day’s agenda not only included the shoving; gas would be burned if all went well.

John and his brother, Rick Adams, own five Bugattis between them because their father, Richard Adams, got hooked on these odd French carriages back when most Americans could more easily rattle off the cast of The Dick Van Dyke Show than tell a Bugatti from beef stroganoff. As John tells it, one day in 1947, his dad stumbled on a story in Esquire magazine by one of the founding fathers of automotive hackery, Ken Purdy. It was titled “Kings of the Road,” and life at the Adams household was never the same after that. John’s dad eventually acquired nine of the machines from Molsheim.

There, in the Alsace region, toward the end of the great interwar period of art deco French styling, Jean Bugatti, son of Ettore and a self-styled artist who imbued the brand with much of its trademark flamboyance, penned the Type 64. It was meant to be another flowing, futuristic sports streamliner with a rakishly low roof punctuated by what Bugatti termed “papillon,” or “butterfly” top-hinged doors. Unfortunately, Jean Bugatti’s premature end came in August 1939 in a tumbling Type 57, and only three chassis were built. Sculptures themselves, made of curvaceous aluminum-alloy trusses bridged by exquisite cast-aluminum firewalls and crossmembers, the three chassis were squirreled away from the Nazis in various stages of completion. The first chassis received a body with conventional doors and is now in the former Schlumpf collection in France. The third chassis never had a body, until current owner Peter Mullin commissioned a wild creation for it in 2012. The second chassis sits on jack stands in John Adams’s garage in El Cajon.

After the war, that chassis went to Belgium, where it was made drivable with a sporty boattail body from a no-name local builder. Richard Adams spotted an ad for it in a British Bugatti club rag in 1960 and bought it via letters written by hand and dropped in the mail. When the car eventually arrived after a 10,000-mile sea journey from Antwerp through the Panama Canal to the B Street Pier in San Diego, John and his dad went down, put gas in the car, and drove it home. Not long after, it needed to come apart for various reasons, and the car stayed apart until John started restoring it in 2016. “I haven’t heard that engine run in 55 years,” he told me.

It was my honor to work the hoist for a bit, slowly inching the big dual-overhead-cam unit, a gorgeous ingot of machine-turned aluminum, down and rearward until the mounting bolts could be inserted. John was ready with the radiator, some improvised hoses, and a small plastic gas tank from a lawn mower. After the hookups were made, the engine cranked, and it lit with a melodic roar from all eight cylinders. John worked the throttle with an intense face while a cheer arose from the onlookers. Mission accomplished, and in only about three hours.

It’s not drivable, though; much work is left, including pulling the engine again to fix clearance issues with the oil filler. It is, after all, just a car, with bolts that fit wrenches turned by devoted folk who cheer when an engine first breathes life. Keep an eye out—you may get a text from someone like that inviting you to a party. You should grab a mask and go.

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I was on a podcast recently and part of the conversation centred around the notion of using familiar corners as points of reference when learning a new track. I’m one of thousands who use the technique, but my racing education was different than that of most drivers. My home track is Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (CTMP), and I learned much of my craft there.

Sure, the Nürburgring Nordschleife may be more complex, and Road America and Road Atlanta are nearly as fast, but CTMP’s ten-corner Mosport Grand Prix circuit presents a unique set of challenges. Many Canadian racing drivers who proved successful on tracks all over the world started here, 20 kilometres north of Bowmanville, Ontario. Even when I was young, the adage ran: “If you can go fast at Mosport, you can go fast anywhere.”

Conceived in 1958 by the British Empire Motor Club, the organization established a company called Mosport Limited to construct a road racing circuit an hour or so east of Toronto.

As the story goes, Sir Stirling Moss was shown the circuit plans, and he suggested changing the proposed, single-radius corner five into a corner combination. Under his guidance, 5A became a longer-radius, uphill corner that immediately blended into 5B—a tighter, flat, 90-degree corner that led onto the long back straight. This corner combination bears Sir Stirling’s name: Moss Corner.

The name Mosport, a portmanteau of “motor” and “sport,” is pronounced MO-sport, not MOSS-port. The latter is still used by many racing fans today and, given Sir Stirling’s involvement, one can understand the ongoing confusion.

The circuit still follows the original layout. Fast, sweeping corners rise and fall with the hills quicker than a rollercoaster. The long back straight—the Andretti Straight, as it’s now known—isn’t even a straight. As the elevation rises from Moss Corner, you turn a little left and a little right as your speed climbs, until you brake and settle into the final corners before the front straight.

Sanctioned competition began in 1961 and that summer, the Player’s 200 attracted the top names in motor racing. Records show that Moss won the event, followed by Jo Bonnier and Olivier Gendebien. Since that event, all of the racing greats have competed or have won races at Mosport.

Mosport hosted its first Formula 1 Grand Prix in 1967. Jack Brabham, piloting a Brabham, snagged first, with teammate Denny Hulme finishing second and Dan Gurney taking third. With the exception of 1968 and 1970, when the event moved to Quebec’s Circuit Mont-Treblant, the Canadian Grand Prix stayed at Mosport through 1977. In 1978, the race moved to its current home of Montreal at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

Mosport has hosted IndyCar (then USAC), Can-Am, TransAm, American Le Mans, IMSA, and even NASCAR Truck championship events. The list of entrants over the decades reads like a who’s who of motorsport: Clark, Stewart, Andretti, Fittipaldi, Foyt, McLaren, Lauda, and Villeneuve.

Since the facility is located many kilometres from the nearest town, Mosport’s the perfect venue for non-racing events, too. Not long ago, I read a story by modern music historian Alan Cross about the Woodstock-style music festival held at Mosport in 1970. The Strawberry Fields Festival was held just a couple of years after the Summer of Love, so concert-goers were treated to a weekend’s worth of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. (Cross is a driving enthusiast and happens to be one of my more notable performance driving school students.)

Incidentally, Mosport’s president and general manager, Myles Brandt, was thirteen years old when he started working at the circuit in the summer of 1970, cleaning up after the Strawberry Fields Festival. Through the years, Brandt has worked in all parts of the operation, from concessions to sweeping the track to cutting the grass. He’s done it all.

At the time, Mosport was operated by Harvey Hudes, a legend in Canadian motorsport. Brandt recalls: “Harvey was like a second father to me. He was hard-nosed, but he was very fair. He ran it as a business, but he also was an enthusiast about it. He liked racing and wanted racing to succeed. He did a lot of things that people probably don’t remember, but he did a lot to keep the Can-Am series going and trying to promote open-wheel racing in our country.”

Hudes was the driving force behind Mosport from 1966 through to his death in 1996. If running a profitable racing circuit were easy, everyone would do it—and in Hudes’ time, he had to watch every penny.

Naturally, all of the great tales about Mosport orbit motor racing legends, and Canadian journalist Norris McDonald told me a funny story about Mosport in Hudes’ era.

“In 1976,” McDonald says, “There was an invitation to the media [personnel] who was there for the grand prix to take a tour of the track with James Hunt doing the hosting. They had forty or forty-five reporters from various parts of Canada and a number of the international media.

“We got on the bus and I noticed Bernie Kamin (Hudes’ partner in Mosport) was sitting right in the front row and Hunt didn’t know who Bernie was. The bus pulls out of the pits and Hunt is telling the usual story about the fact that it’s a really challenging track.”

“Hunt stops and says: ‘I gotta say something and if I’m treading on someone’s toes, so be it. These guys are the cheapest guys to ever have a grand prix in the history of grand prix promoters. They won’t even buy a gallon of paint and make this place look like it’s a grand prix! How much would it cost to buy thirty or forty for all of the drivers’ different nationalities?’ And he talked about that for a good half-lap about that.

“I remember thinking, Bernie is going to go back and tell Harvey and maybe they’ll spruce the place up. It never happened,” McDonald says.

After Hudes’ passing, the circuit changed hands. It was run for a couple of years by International Motor Sports Group—which was owned by Bill Gates’ banker, Andy Evans—and renamed Mosport International Raceway.

Don Panoz bought the facility outright in 1998 and made the first meaningful improvements in decades, though he retained the racing circuit’s original layout. The updates allowed Panoz’s American Le Mans Series to make annual appearances at the track from 1999 through 2013 and paved the way for future events like the annual Mobil 1 Sportscar Grand Prix for IMSA prototype GT entries and the Chevrolet Silverado 250 for NASCAR trucks.

In 2011, Canadian motor racing legend Ron Fellows and his partners Carlo Fidani and Alan Boughton bought Mosport from Panoz. A few months later, they entered into an agreement with Canadian Tire, and the facility is now known as Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

I asked Fellows how they got the idea to buy the place. “I can tell you it was not my idea,” he says. “Carlo would probably deny it, but it was Carlo Fidani’s. We were at my school in Nevada back in 2010 and we were there with his two sons and Al Boughton. We were talking and Carlo said, ‘We should buy a track. Do you think Mosport would be for sale?’

“And I said, ‘Well, I don’t think it is, but I know who would call.’ And that’s how it started with a call to Don Panoz and Scott Atherton. Given Carlo’s business and understanding of what’s involved in a commercial property acquisition, we couldn’t have done it without him. We’d still be trying to figure it out.”

“It wasn’t something Don Panoz was looking to do,” Fellows says. “He liked us. He liked Carlo and they hit it off. He thought that it was likely a good idea that it gets back in the hands of Canadians. That was really how it started. On June 1, 2011, we took over.”

Though the new partners retained Brandt as general manager, major changes followed. Boughton exited the ownership group, leaving Fellows and Fidani at the helm. CTMP now includes the Mosport Grand Prix track, the Driver Development Track, a karting facility, and a modern event centre situated perfectly on the hill across the circuit from pit lane. One thing remains the same, however: the flat-out character of the Grand Prix circuit.

Fellows’ racing career is inextricably connected to CTMP’s history and has come full circle. “Importantly for me was the relationship I had with Harvey Hudes, one of the original owners. Harvey gave me some good advice in the early ’80s.” Fellows laughs, “He said, ‘Ron, forget about open-wheel cars—you don’t have enough family money, you’re too tall.’

“He said, ‘Go sports car racing. There’s Trans Am and IMSA. There’s manufacturers looking to hire drivers and if you’re any good, they’ll find you.’ That was very good advice,” Fellows recalls.

The rest is history. Fellows went on to earn the nickname ‘The Mayor Of Mosport.’ When I pressed McDonald on who should be credited with bestowing that nickname on Fellows, he said, “I don’t remember who coined it, but it might have been Myles!” Whether true or not, it’s a great story.

CTMP has been a magical place for me. I first visited as a spectator in 1988, and hiking around the four kilometre-long circuit was an eye-opening experience. After watching races on television and devouring photographs in the periodicals of the time, nothing prepared me for the size of the 450-acre facility nor the wild elevation changes at different parts of the circuit.

After a couple of racing schools and track days elsewhere, my first laps were in the passenger seat of Fellows’ Players Ltd./GM Motorsport Chevrolet Camaro. It was a wild ride. Mosport was the fastest circuit I’d ever experienced. Most corners were blind—and if you weren’t going uphill, you were descending rapidly. Even as a young twenty-something, these high-speed rollercoaster laps that Fellows gave me had me questioning my decision to become a racing driver.

I asked Fellows whether he attributes his success to honing his skills on CTMP’s Mosport Grand Prix circuit, and he began to answer before I could finish asking the question. “Yes, yes, and yes. And it’s not just me,” he says. “It’s a number of generations of Canadian drivers. I quickly found out that, when I went into the Trans Am series, that learning how to go fast and learning how to win—if you could do that at CTMP, you could go fast and win anywhere. All the lessons learned in managing elevation change, high-speed cornering, [and] we learned that predominantly at CTMP.”

“Emerson Fittipaldi told me exactly the same thing,” Fellows continues. “His son was racing at our kart track two years ago and I get a phone call and it says ‘Fittipaldi,’ and I said, ‘I’ll be answering this!’ He wanted to come and see the Grand Prix circuit. He hadn’t been here since last raced there in ’77.”

“We drove around in a Camaro ZL1 and he said the same thing: ‘If you can be fast here, you can be fast anywhere.’ He said even with all the safety upgrades, the character of it remained for him and he just thought it was so cool. He kept saying, ‘It’s a fantastic circuit! Fantastic circuit!’”

I asked Fellows what it’s like to be a custodian of this important part of motorsport history. “That’s exactly the right term. Carlo, Myles, Lynda [Fellows, Ron’s wife], and I talk about that a lot. We’re the next generation of ownership and that’s been our job right from the start: Take this iconic racetrack, create some further development, and leave it better than when we got it.”

2021 is the sixtieth anniversary of this historic circuit and the entire team at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park hopes to mark the occasion with a celebration worthy of the facility’s history. I hope to be there, too.

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What two things could be more unlike than cars and buildings? Automobiles are concerned with motion, architecture with the fixed and immobile. Leave it to Frank Lloyd Wright to draw parallels—and connections—between the two.

You may already know that America’s most celebrated architect was a serious car guy. However, Wright’s appreciation of automobiles went beyond a well-stocked personal garage. The never-realized Gordon Strong Automobile Objective, a structure whose design would later influence one of Wright’s most famous buildings, reflects just how deeply he saw the automobile integrated into human society.

As might be expected of someone with his level of professional success, Wright owned and drove vehicles that resonated with his ideas of design and elegance—Jaguars, Cadillacs, Mercedes-Benzes, and Packards—but luxury and elegance weren’t his only automotive interests. He considered the original Lincoln Continental to be the most beautiful car ever made, though that didn’t stop him from customizing 1940 and 1941 Contis to his own taste. Wright liked open cars. He owned two different open-roof Cord L-29s (a phaeton and a cabriolet) and a 1953 Bentley R-Type convertible. Wright was also a bit of a sports car buff, having owned a 1937 16/80 Competition Sports model from AC (better known as the progenitor of the ACE roadster that Carroll Shelby turned into the Cobra) and a total of five 1949 Crosleys, including a Hot Shot, a model considered by many to be the first genuine American sports car. Many of the architect’s automobiles were painted in his favorite color, Cherokee Red.

Wright’s automobiles got plenty of use. After setting up winter quarters at Taliesin West in Arizona, Wright would commute twice a year between there and his summer home in Wisconsin, employing his students—”fellows,” as he called them—to ferry his fleet of cars between the two locations.

It’s uncertain whether Wright was widely recognized as an automobile enthusiast in his own day, but when Gordon Strong (1869–1954), a successful Chicago attorney with real estate interests in Illinois and in Washington, D.C., became enchanted by Maryland’s Sugarloaf Mountain and wanted to build a tourist location for motorists on the promontory’s peak, he contracted with Wright in 1924 to render the design.

Strong had bought the mountain and surrounding real estate, hoping to build a resort to attract urban motorists from nearby D.C. and Baltimore who were eager to escape the urban hubbub. He had a road built to the summit, with a series of overlooks to take advantage of the remarkable vistas. Strong’s plan for the facility was to “serve as an objective for short motor trips on the part of residents of the vicinity,” and the project was named the Automobile Objective. In addition to sightseeing, Strong wanted the Objective to offer dining and entertainment. The design brief he gave Wright was threefold:

1: To be striking and impressive so all that hear of it will want to visit.

2: To be beautiful and satisfying, so visitors will want to return.

3: To be enduring, a permanent monument.

After taking the commission, Wright wrote to Strong, “An automobile ‘objective,’ I take it, should make a novel entertainment out of the machine in normal use.” Explaining his use of spiral ramps, Wright said that they allowed for the “movement of people sitting comfortable in their own cars … with the whole landscape revolving about them, as exposed to view as though they were in an aeroplane … The spiral is so natural and organic a form for whatever would ascend that I did not see why it should not be played upon and made equally available for descent at one and the same time.”

The design was definitely striking and impressive—you might even call it beautiful, if Wright’s work is to your taste—but the Gordon Strong Automobile Objective was not at all enduring. In fact, the proposed facility was never built. Despite the fact that it only exists on paper, the facility and its creators’ plans for it illustrate just how dramatically the automobile had changed society in just two decades since Henry Ford and Ransom Olds started selling motorcars. Strong was a man of conservative tastes in both art and architecture, so his choice of the modernist Wright may sound a little odd. The men did eventually butt heads over Wright’s designs, but Strong shared with the architect an appreciation for modern technology. Strong’s writings indicate that in Wright the businessman recognized an artist, a dreamer who could render something new and fantastic—which is exactly what Wright created, at least on paper.

Unfortunately for the building, what Wright came up with might have been too fantastic.

Wright envisioned a multi-purpose facility that would attract a variety of guests. Some would stop simply for the views, while others would want to picnic while enjoying the scenery. The layout included snack bars and full dining facilities along with two dance floors and a small number of bedrooms for overnight visitors and staff. Open-air terraces, covered galleries, and enclosed rooms provided various degrees of all-weather accommodation for up to a thousand visitors.

Central to Strong’s plan, though, was the automobile. His primary requirement was “to provide maximum facility for motor access to and into the structure itself.” People wouldn’t just drive to the Automobile Objective in their cars; they would experience the Automobile Objective inside their cars.

Wright’s circular ziggurat included an ascending, clockwise ramp and a descending, counterclockwise one layered beneath the first. The original plan was to fill the inside of the structure with a theater, but that concept morphed into a large, domed planetarium.

As with his other designs—most famously, Fallingwater, the Kaufmann house in Pennsylvania, which is built around a waterfall—Wright wanted the GSAO building to be fused with the landscape itself. Strong wanted the structure placed at the peak of the mountain, but it was Wright who chose the precise location, extending the building out over the summit’s cliff. Wright also implemented his characteristic melding of nature and structure with a sunken garden on the northern terrace and planters and flower boxes on the southern terrace. At the spiral’s apogee Wright placed a roof garden. His drawings also show vines trailing down the concrete walls from the balconies and parapets plus terraced gardens on the contiguous triangle tower. The building was to become part of nature.

It took Wright almost a year to complete the design. In August of 1925, he made a formal presentation to Strong and his fellow Chicago businessmen. However, though the design brief intended to supply visitors with a “satisfying” experience, the proposed building’s patron was anything but satisfied. In a scathing letter to his architect, Strong wrote:

 Your proposed “automobile observatory” impresses me as just that. As a structure of complete unity and independence, without any relation to its surroundings. It looks to me as it were designed to be used anywhere in the United States—on any sloping hill or mere raise of ground.

The businessman compared Wright’s work to the Tower of Babel, sending him a drawing—perhaps in imitation of Pieter Bruegel the Elder (shown below)—of that biblical structure, mocking the architect’s concept of “organic integrity” with a building’s environment:

“Perhaps the particular view which I have of the Tower of Babel may not be in your collection … You will note in the foreground a gentleman who, according to the Bible, lost his voice, and, according to the picture also lost his shirt: in endeavoring to explain that the structure under way possessed one thing anyhow—organic integrity. But the more he repeated the phrase, the less his hearers understood him. Finally, their understanding became so mixed that they did not understand each other. Which was the end of the first attempt at an externally ramped automobile observatory.”

A lesser artist might have meekly complied with his patron, but Wright responded acidly, defending integration of the design with the site and implicitly criticizing his patron’s architectural conservatism:

“Knowing your considerable capacities as I do I found … a new one—that of an actor, an actor in love with his own make-up—standing upon a stage built by himself. I hesitate to distribute the underpinning of that stage and spoil a clever if superficial conceit.

But why the ponderous precedents [the comparison of Sugarloaf design to Tower of Babel] and omit … the fact that every carpenter that drives the screw proves me up. I have found it hard to look a snail in the face since I stole the idea of his house—from his back.”

I have given you a noble “archaic” sculpted summit for your mountain. I should have diddled it away with platforms and seats and spittoons for introspective or expectorating business men and the flappers that beset them, and infest the whole with “eye”-talian squirt guns and elegant balustrades … leaving the automobiles in which they both now really live and have their beings, still parked aside—betrayed and abandoned as usual.

Wright was intent on making the automobile the objective of the Automobile Objective.

While Strong’s rejection of his design was a bitter disappointment, the commission did give Wright the chance to experiment with new forms, and he used those forms in other project drafts—though it appears that only one design achieved reality. Wright’s spiral ramps reappeared in the community center of his conceptual Broadacre City and in two 1947 projects commissioned by Edgar Kaufmann, the same man who commissioned Fallingwater.

None of the three were ever built, but that didn’t stop Wright from resurrecting his spiral ramps for two more unbuilt projects: his Self-Service Garage and the proposed Point Park civic center. The latter was supposed to include a theater, planetarium, and aquarium; essentially, it was a scaled-up Automobile Objective. A decade later, Wright rendered another never-built variation on the ramp theme: Baghdad, Iraq’s Opera House and Garden which, he claimed, harkened back to the Garden of Eden.

Not until 35 years after he sketched the rejected Gordon Strong Automobile Objective would Wright’s ziggurat see the light of day. In 1959, he literally turned the design upside down to create one of New York City’s icons, the Guggenheim Museum.

The George Strong Automobile Objective exists only on paper—in Wright’s original drawings archived by the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. Recently, however, Spanish architect and graphic artist David Romero, whose project “Hooked On The Past” recreates historically significant architectures of prior years using 3D modeling techniques, rendered realistic images of how the GSAO would have looked had it actually been created. Romero and the Foundation have graciously given Hagerty permission to reproduce those images, as well as Wright’s original renderings, for your enjoyment and edification.

One of my favorite categories of special-interest automobiles is what I like to call “one of nones”: cars built to honor conceptual automobiles that never actually existed. Peter Mullin’s Bugatti 64 or the Fleetwood Catalog Cadillacs that Fran Roxas has built come to mind. Perhaps someday, an architecturally-inclined automobile enthusiast will do the same for the Gordon Strong Automobile Objective. The plans are ready and waiting.

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She was a gorgeous former model and dancer, paramour of some of the richest and most powerful men of her time. She set world speed records and raced against other legends such as Louis Chiron, Tazio Nuvolari, and Count Carlo Felice Trossi. But at the end of her life, she was so poor she was reduced to stealing the bowls of milk her neighbors had put out at night for their cats, and she died completely broke and utterly alone. Her name is Hellé Nice, and this is her story.

She was born Mariette Hélène Delangle on December 15, 1900, near Chartres, France, the daughter of the local postman. In 1916, she went to Paris where she initially found work as a nude model for artist René Carrère. Carrère encouraged the young woman to take up ballet, and she became quite successful, first dancing under the name Hélène Nice, which she later changed to Hellé Nice. Her career as a model and a dancer was successful enough to allow her to buy a house and a yacht.

One of her lovers was the racing driver Henri de Courcelles. De Courcelles introduced Nice to Europe’s great racing venues just as grand prix racing was sweeping across Europe. In 1921, Nice attempted to enter a race at Brooklands in England. When her application was rejected because she was a woman, she was furious. She raced when she could, but she was never allowed to compete on the strength of her talent and instead was excluded due to her gender. She turned to skiing to fuel her need for high-speed excitement; an injury she sustained in 1929 while outrunning an avalanche during a ski run put an end to her career as a dancer.

Nice turned to racing. She trained for and won the first Women’s Grand Prix held in June 1929, piloting an Omega 6 that was given to her by the manufacturer Jules Daubecq. Daubecq had been persuaded that photos of a glamorous female champion in one of his vehicles would help sell his cars. This grand prix was part of a weekend of female-only races held at Montlhéry, the first purpose-built racetrack in France. In December 1929, she drove a Bugatti Type 35C to a world record of 198 kilometers per hour (123 mph) over a 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) course, again at Montlhéry. “The driving was magnificent: nobody who saw it would feel able to argue that women drive less well than men,” stated the newspaper L’Intransigeant.

The French press dubbed her La Reine de Vitesse—the Queen of Speed. The day after her victory, Nice received a telegram from Bugatti asking her to drive for the factory. She immediately accepted the offer and won the Actors Championship in a Bugatti, succeeding in a major tournament in which men competed, too. In addition to the victories, Nice signed with Lucky Strike, the “cigarette of the championship winner,” and thousands of posters appeared featuring her visage. Within a few months, she became one of the most famous people in France.

In 1930, she traveled to the United States to race supercharged Miller cars on dirt tracks. At first, she was signed as a salaried exhibition driver, preferring to get behind the wheel without wearing a helmet because, she said, “the crowds always like to see my hair when I am driving.” She signed another lucrative advertising deal—this time with Esso—and was crowned “the Bugatti Queen” by the press. Rich and now famous worldwide, Nice returned to Europe, determined to make her mark as a grand prix driver. Her desire was rewarded in the season’s first grand prix, when she placed fourth racing against the sport’s best drivers, including Philippe Étancelin, René Dreyfus, and Louis Chiron. She competed on tracks across France and Italy, earning the equivalent of $100,000 in today’s dollars as an entry fee for each race.

In addition to racing fast cars throughout her career, Nice lived fast, too. As her renown increased, she found no shortage of lovers. Some of her affairs were brief; others were longer and included, beyond the wealthy and powerful Philippe de Rothschild (also a racer of grand prix cars in the era), members of the European nobility and other personalities such as the aforementioned Henri de Courcelles, Jean Bugatti, and Count Bruno d’Harcourt.

Despite her many successes, she never took first place in men’s races driving her Bugatti. While often the focus of attention wherever she raced, she was not the top female driver of the day; that honor went to Elizabeth Junek, who also raced a Bugatti. Regardless, Nice was without question a talented driver of cars that were dangerous and difficult to drive, regardless of who sat behind the wheel.

On September 10, 1933, then piloting an Alfa Romeo, Nice drove in one of the deadliest races in history. During that year’s Monza Grand Prix, three of the period’s leading race drivers—Giuseppe Campari, Baconin “Mario Umberto” Borzacchini, and the Polish count Stanislas Czaikowski—were killed. Nice placed third (and last of the finishers) in the race’s second heat, in which Campari and Borzacchini had been killed. She was flagged off in ninth place, two laps behind the winner, in the shortened final in which Czaikowski had died.

In 1936, she journeyed to Brazil to compete in two grand prix races. During the São Paulo Grand Prix, she was in third place behind Brazilian champion Manuel de Teffé when a freak accident almost ended in her death. Her Alfa Romeo pinwheeled through the air and smashed into the grandstand, killing six people and wounding more than thirty others. Nice was launched from the Alfa and she landed on a soldier, who bore the full impact of her body, saving her life. The impact killed the soldier and because Nice lay unconscious, she, too, was thought to be dead. Taken to the hospital, she was comatose for three days before regaining consciousness; two months later, she was discharged from the hospital.

As a result of the serious head injuries she had suffered, she was not able to convince a manufacturer to risk hiring her. In 1937, she attempted a comeback, hoping to race in the Mille Miglia and the Tripoli Grand Prix, both of which offered substantial purses. Unable to find backers, she instead entered endurance trials for female drivers, sponsored by the oil company Yacco. Nice teamed up with three other women at Montlhéry and alternated stints behind the wheel. Together, the women drove for 10 days and nights straight and broke 10 world records over distances and timespans ranging from 12,500 miles to 10 days. Still she was unable to secure financial backing.

Over the next two years, Nice drove in rallies and held out hope to be signed once more with the Bugatti team. But then came the double blow: Jean Bugatti, the son of company founder, Ettore, was killed tragically on August 11, 1939, while testing a Type 57 tank-bodied racer. Three weeks later, Germany invaded Poland, and the world was once more at war. France fell in late June 1940; in 1943, Nice moved to the French Riviera and set up with a lover in a sprawling estate overlooking the city of Nice. It was here that the pair spent the duration of the war.

Did she become an informant to land this swank residence on the French Riviera? Nice’s biographer, Miranda Seymour, does not arrive at a definitive conclusion on the issue. What is clear is that the mere appearance of the situation was sufficient to destroy any hopes Nice had of resuming her career in postwar Europe. In 1949 at a party in Monaco, her former racing adversary Chiron flung at her the accusation of “collaborating with the Nazis.” Despite a lack of proof, Chiron’s claim left her unemployable. Her family, too, believed the rumors and disowned her.

The final years of Nice’s life were a stark and bitter contrast to the first. Destitute and abandoned by her friends and family, she was forced to rely on meager handouts from an actors’ charity—the very type of charity she had helped to fund during the halcyon days of her youth as a showgirl. At age 75, Nice was reduced to moving into an attic in a run-down part of Nice. Her neighbors told biographer Seymour that they recalled seeing Nice “taking the milk out of the cats’ saucers because she had nothing to eat or drink.” She died eight years later on October 1, 1984, age 83.

Nice’s family refused to add her name to their memorial stone, and it took Seymour four attempts to finally locate Nice’s unmarked grave. A foundation was eventually established to establish a memorial plaque at her gravesite and continues its work to restore Nice’s reputation as one of the greatest drivers in history.

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For those of us who’ve been enjoying the fall colors in our classic cars, it might be difficult to imagine those tree-lined roads being anything less than beautiful this time of year. For that, we have the Highway Beautification Act to thank—at least in part.

Fifty-five years ago, on October 22, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Highway Beautification Act, a law which limits junkyards, billboards, and other outdoor advertising and unsightly clutter in rural, scenic, and agricultural areas.

The act, spearheaded by the First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson, also encouraged “scenic enhancement” by funding local efforts to clean up and landscape the green spaces on either side of the roadways.

“This bill will enrich our spirits and restore a small measure of our national greatness,” President Johnson said at the signing ceremony. “Beauty belongs to all the people. And so long as I am president, what has been divinely given to nature will not be taken recklessly away by man.”

The Highway Beautification Act, in the First Lady’s opinion, not only cleaned up the land bordering our roads, but it also served as an opportunity to create social unity. According to excerpts from her diary, “The subject of Beautification is like a tangled skein of wool. All the threads are interwoven—recreation and pollution and mental health and the crime rate and rapid transit and highway beautification and the war on poverty and parks … everything leads to something else.”

Although she wasn’t alone in that opinion, the First Lady didn’t receive much support from business groups and advertisers, who fought against the measure. The proposal that LBJ ultimately signed into law is a diluted form of the original plan, and companies that were forced to remove their billboards received compensation from the government. In fact, today the non-profit environmental group Scenic America claims “the HBA is the only federal environmental regulation that requires taxpayers to pay the polluter to stop polluting. Loopholes have made the HBA little more than a Billboard Protection and Proliferation Act.”

Still, the Highway Beautification Act was the product of good intentions, and it required compromise to get it passed in the House of Representatives. After hours of squabbling—and with some very influential citizens in attendance—the proposal was finally agreed upon early the following morning.

According to the Washington Post, “Fifty or more congressional wives decked out in their party clothes watched from the gallery and must have wondered what kind of business their husbands had got into. The House does not take kindly to late sessions, and members hooted and yelled and shouted across the aisles …”

After the bill was passed in the House, on October 8, 1965, it went back to the Senate “for reconciliation of minor differences.” Congress completed its work on October 14 and then sent it to the White House.

President Johnson signed the bill into law on October 22, two weeks after having surgery to remove his gall bladder and a kidney stone at Bethesda Naval Hospital. At the signing ceremony, LBJ described the drive from the hospital to the White House, along the George Washington Memorial Parkway.

“I saw nature at its purest. The dogwoods had turned red. The maple leaves were scarlet and gold … And not one foot of it was marred by a single unsightly man-made obstruction—no advertising signs, no junkyards. Well, doctors could prescribe no better medicine for me …

“We have placed a wall of civilization between us and the beauty of our countryside. In our eagerness to expand and improve, we have relegated nature to a weekend role, banishing it from our daily lives. I think we are a poorer nation as a result. I do not choose to preside over the destiny of this country and to hide from view what God has gladly given.”

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A test driver I met once who worked at Lamborghini around 1974 told me about Ferruccio Lamborghini’s last days with the troubled company. One afternoon, a group of workers confronted the comandante by the gate and asked about rumors that the factory was for sale. “Yes,” Ferruccio is said to have responded, “I found some idiota to buy this company.” Lamborghini retired to his vineyard with his fortune and watched as the idiota failed—as did the next one, and then the Italian government and a few idiots after that. The fact that Automobili Lamborghini still exists is in defiance of enormous odds.

It’s not that Lamborghini was managed entirely by incompetents—though surely there was some of that. It’s that the economics of building luxury playthings are so brutal. After all the development and certification costs, the profits can be vaporous. Enzo Ferrari figured that out way back in the 1960s and, after famously dabbling with Ford, sold out to Fiat. And that was when the business was easy, before regulations.

Aston Martin’s recently fired CEO, Andy Palmer, liked to point out that Aston had gone bankrupt seven times and had only been profitable for two years of its century-long existence. And McLaren is reportedly considering selling shares in its storied F1 team to raise emergency cash. In the sports car racket, if you haven’t partnered with a big car company, you’re broke or likely soon will be. And should you survive, your future is electrified push-button slot cars in which anyone with a pulse can go warp speed, protected by software that makes everyone seem competent enough to do so.

And with that, a glorious chapter in our automotive story will be over. The few new cars left with spirited engines and direct mechanical controls have a meteor coming with their name on it. It’s sad, but the evolution is inevitable. Throughout history, certain art forms have simply run their course. Orchestral music enjoyed a few centuries of rabid popularity at the pointy tip of the cultural spear before spluttering largely to idle sometime in the mid-20th century. It was replaced by jazz, which was replaced by rock, which was replaced by pop, which was replaced by noise. As one art form stalls, the culture moves on, leaving some of its greatest masters dumped in pauper’s graves.

Most of us aren’t out shopping for McLarens, but this shift affects the plebes, too. The modern auto industry will likely never replicate the Datsun 510 with a light, small, rear-drive sports sedan. It doesn’t matter how many people plead for it. Or for a new Cadillac styled with the flamboyant confidence of the 1960 Eldorado. Or for racing cars with the sultry magnetism of the Porsche 917. For various reasons, nobody does that kind of thing anymore. What most of us think of as the quintessential era of automotive art is over, done in by technology and regulation and everyone’s apparent desire to have grilles the size of Connecticut pasted on trucks the size of Texas.

But what a tremendous body of work the departed left us, a gift to humanity that will be enjoyed down through the generations. As Mozart continues to pack the seats, we will continue to hum over to car shows in our e-pods to see the treasures that the old virtuosos created for an earlier age. And if you’re lacking motivation to spin wrenches on your own classic, think of yourself as a deputized, badge-wearing preserver of culture. By fixing up your old car, you’re like a saxophonist who blows a few hours a day so people can still hear Charlie Parker the way the Yardbird was meant to be heard. Or a cellist who practices without fail so when that glorious surge of the bass strings arrives in the middle of Beethoven’s Fifth, the audience will soar right up to the gates of paradise.

OK, changing the oil on your Spitfire might not be quite that transcendent, but as the auto landscape moves into the silent silicon era, there is a nobility in preserving the old arts that future generations will thank you for. What Ferruccio probably said quietly after everyone walked away was, “God bless all the idiots.”

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The Buick GNX. The Nissan 300ZX convertible. The BMW Z3. The Pontiac Trans Am WS6. The Mitsubishi 3000GT Spyder. The Saab 900 convertible. The Porsche 944 and 968 convertibles. The Chevrolet SSR. These and other German, Japanese, and American enthusiast vehicles were all touched by one huge business empire with the unlikeliest beginnings. That lineage can be traced back to a single man cutting holes in the roofs of cars in a body shop, in a back alley of San Francisco. That’s where ASC began.

“He really did start from scratch,” says Henry “Hank” Huisman, who worked for the American Sunroof Company in the 1970s. “[Heinz Prechter] had a small shop he rented from George Barris, bringing in Golde sunroof products from Germany. Barris told him to go to the Ford Motor Company, and that’s really where it all began.”

Huisman is currently the go-to source if you’re interested in one of the fairly rare ASC/McLaren Capris or Mustangs. He bought up most of the remaining stock once ASC stopped building their specially modified Fox-body machines and is today something of a walking encyclopedia on ASC history.

The American Sunroof Company was founded in the fall of 1963 by Heinz Prechter, an enterprising foreign exchange student from what was then West Germany. A farmboy who loved wrenching in his uncle’s auto repair shop, Prechter had been training as a mechanical engineer and was on a one-year visa to the U.S. He’d moonlighted as a cab driver in Germany to make the trip possible.

Prechter also worked part-time in a body shop while he studied at San Francisco State, and it was here that he made the introduction sparked ASC’s genesis. In Germany, he’d been at school with Hans-Dieter Golde, scion of a family company that made optional canvas and sliding metal roofs for the Volkswagen Beetle and Porsche 356. Golde roofs had appeared on American cars before, such as the 1960 Thunderbird, but sunroofs, in general, weren’t all that common. Prechter used his connection with the Golde family to make a pitch to his boss at the body shop.

Soon enough, Prechter had opened up a branch of ASC in Los Angeles and was installing sunroofs in cars belonging to the likes of Frank Sinatra and James Garner. He rented a garage from legendary customizer George Barris, which his business soon outgrew. Barris, however, had been impressed by the young German’s workmanship and recommended him to Ford. Prechter did a number of special projects for the Blue Oval, including a sunroof installation in a Lincoln for President Lyndon B. Johnson, and then landed a larger contract that spurred on his move out of L.A.—to Detroit.

In 1967 and 1968, ASC began installing factory sunroofs in Mercury Cougars, including the highly-optioned XR7-G model. Of the latter, two-thirds left the factory with ASC sunroofs. ASC was now part of Detroit’s supply chain.

As of 1970, ASC was still operating in California and had consolidated its Michigan operations. It had also formed a new subsidiary called ASC Custom Craft, which sold—there’s no other word for it—pimpmobiles. The Custom Craft catalogue was filled with custom hood ornaments, “Super-Fly” headlight treatments, fender skirts, and dash-mounted televisions. You could order all of this stuff from your local Cadillac or Lincoln dealer, and Custom Craft’s body division also converted a number of DeVilles, Fleetwoods, and Eldorados into wagons.

At the same time, ASC’s main operation was to supply sunroofs and T-tops to multiple manufacturers. The company employed over 2000 people and was resilient enough to suffer through tough times in the early 1980s. During that time, ASC would produce possibly the most badass Buick of all time.

McLaren Engines was started by Bruce McLaren in Michigan, in 1969. In those days, it was a specialist engine development team set up to support Indy and Cam-Am racing, with the F1 efforts based in the U.K. By the mid-1980s, McLaren’s racing enterprise had largely moved across the Atlantic, but the Michigan-based outfit still did development work. ASC bought them up as a potential powertrain division, at first using the name when creating the ASC/McLaren Mercury Capris and Ford Mustangs.

Expensive in their day, the ASC/McLaren Fox-bodies didn’t feature much in the way of engine performance modifications, but they did receive some suspension tuning. They’re highly collectible today, especially the Capri versions. ASC/McLaren, however, had something even more potent yet to come.

In 1987, a sunroof company wound up building the definitive turbocharged muscle car: the GNX. Standard Buick Grand Nationals arrived at ASC/McLaren to receive an upgraded Garrett turbocharger, reworked transmission and suspension, and 16-inch mesh wheels with high-performance rubber. At the time, it was one of the quickest machines on the road, capable of holding its own against Italian exotics.

Only 547 GNXs were built, and prices today are steep. Hunt around a bit, and you can find yourself a more affordable ASC/McLaren in the form of the Pontiac Grand Prix Turbo. These have a turbocharged 3.1-liter V-6 with the McLaren touch, and the cars rare but accessibly priced.

ASC helped Saab design its 900 convertible and entered into a contract with Porsche to build the 944 convertible. Prechter GMBH, the German subsidiary of the spreading ASC empire, purchased a well-established German coachbuilder, built a new factory, and began cranking out 944S2 drop-tops. Porsche executives were so pleased with the arrangement that they gifted Prechter a one-off four-doored Porsche 928.

Meanwhile, in Long Beach, California, ASC was turning Japanese cars into convertibles. These ranged from relatively affordable fare like the Celica and Nissan 240SX to the enormously complicated Mitsubishi 3000GT Spyder. Cars left Japan with a little extra bracing but their roofs intact. ASC cut and reworked everything, with the Spyder’s folding hardtop a lighter and more elegant solution than the Mercedes-Benz 500SL‘s.

At its peak, ASC was a half-billion-dollar company. If you bought a made-in-Ohio Honda Accord with a sunroof, you took home an ASC product. If you bought a Pontiac Trans Am with the Ram-Air WS6 snout, that hood was also an ASC effort. If you wanted a BMW Z3, then both the original soft top and optional hardtop were both made by ASC. The company also began producing all kinds of conceptual vehicles for OEMs.

Yet things were not well with Heinz Prechter. Battling mental illness, he died by suicide in 2001. He was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 2004, and in the following year, ASC produced its one-millionth convertible. The company would eventually dissolve in 2017.

“My favorite vehicle they made is probably the SSR,” says Huisman, “It was a pretty neat project, something that nobody else was doing.”

Today, the Chevrolet SSR is seen as a unique niche product. A production pickup truck with a folding hardtop and an available six-speed manual transmission is certainly a pretty unusual offering, and its fans love them.

That sentiment is true of nearly every vehicle ASC handled. Heinz Prechter looked up and found some sunlight in an opening. His company changed the automotive world.

For more information on the work going on to better understand brain health, check out the University of Michigan’s Prechter Bipolar Research Program.

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When it comes to those who have left their mark across multiple eras and arenas of motorsports, names like Penske, Petty, and Andretti often come to mind. Less familiar to those who aren’t fans of touring car competition, however, is Walkinshaw. This Scottish-born outfit is now entering its fourth decade on the starting grid, having endured boom, bust, scandal, and glory on its path to an enduring legacy in racing history.

At the center of it all was Tom Walkinshaw, a Scotsman who made his name in Formula Ford with a 1968 championship. He managed to parlay that victory into a string of opportunities in Formula Two, Formula Three, and Formula 5000. A return to the top eluded him, but his relentless pursuit of a professional racing career kept him on Ford’s radar. The Blue Oval would give him the big break that would set the course for the rest of his life.

When Ford’s British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) team came calling in 1974, it could be argued that Walkinshaw was staring a step backwards straight in the face. Unlike his previous efforts in open-wheel racing, there was no clear path from the BTCC seat he was being offered to the era’s pinnacle of racing: Formula 1. Still, the Ford opportunity was more than just a season’s drive. Recognizing Walkinshaw’s skills in developing open-wheel race cars, Ford hoped he could perform the same magic with the brand’s Capri entry.

They were bang on. The Capri won its class in the 1974 BTCC, and in the space of just two years Walkinshaw broadened his horizons to exercise his special talent for producing very fast, very competitive race cars. Tom Walkinshaw Racing was formed in Kidlington, England, in 1976 for this express purpose, and the team would quickly spread its roots through the world of sports car racing.

Leaping into contention

TWR’s impact in touring car classes both in the British Isles and on the Continent was swift. Early campaigns relied on BMW (CSL) and Mazda (RX-7) platforms, with Win Percy taking a pair of BTCC crowns in 1980 and 1981 in the Japanese entry and Walkinshaw himself winning the Silverstone 6 Hours in the German.

Still, it was the shift to Jaguar and its sleek XJS coupe in 1982 that proved Walkinshaw’s ticket to the next phase of his blossoming career. Within two years, TWR had won the European Touring Car Championship as well as Walkinshaw’s second first-place finish at Spa 24 Hours. By that point, TWR had vastly expanded its operations, working in partnership not just with Jaguar but also Rover to build competitive racing programs both on and off road.

In 1984, Walkinshaw experienced a fiery baptism in the southern hemisphere after crashing spectacularly at the start of Australia’s Bathurst 1000. The wreck was anything but a bad omen, however, as Walkinshaw was on the verge of become an Aussie racing legend.

Despite Jaguar withdrawing from ETCC competition, TWR forged on Down Under using the same XJS platform, treating fans to the most unexpected spectacle of 12-cylinder British luxury coupes dueling it out door-to-door with the more commonplace muscle found on the legendary race’s starting grid. Although these flying Jags were not especially successful there, TWR’s entertaining, plus-size efforts carved out significant real estate in the hearts and minds of Australia’s racing fans. The country would also later provide TWR with some of its most profitable, and longest-lasting business partnerships.

TWR takes Jaguar to victory

It’s at this point that TWR’s operations exploded. Although out of touring car contention, Jaguar enlisted Walkinshaw to run its operations in both IMSA and the World Sportscar Championship, securing back-to-back WSCC titles in 1987-88 (plus a win in 1991) with the purple-and-white Silk Cut Jaguar XJR-9.

Overall victory at Le Mans belonged to TWR’s Group C cars in 1988 and 1990, using V-12 power first in the XJR-9 and later in the XJR-12. In IMSA competition, TWR employed a twin-turbocharged V-6 engine for the XJR-10. Jaguar eventually dropped out of World Sportscar, but that six-cylinder drivetrain survived to power the brand’s very first supercar—the XJ220—which was designed alongside TWR’s team of race engineers.

So definitive was TWR’s success in IMSA competition during this era that when Porsche elected to get involved in the series in the mid-’90s, it snagged the XJR-14 platform, stuffed a Porsche turbo flat-six engine inside of it, and renamed it the TWR-Porsche WSC-95. Porsche would abandon the effort after an IMSA rule change in 1995, but an entry from Joest Racing that had Porsche’s blessing (but no official involvement) won at Le Mans in 1996 and 1997. Porsche even returned to the platform at the end of the ’90s to be used as the basis for its LMP1-98 race cars.

Saving Aston Martin

TWR participated in another corporate cross-pollination with a British firm during the 1990s: Aston Martin. TWR had from 1990 to 1992 sold the XJR-15, under the JaguarSport name and in limited numbers, as a road-going version of XJR-9 prototype, and in the past it had offered TWR Sport editions of the Jaguar XJS. After these projects, Walkinshaw wanted to get in on bespoke sports car action that promised additional profits.

To that end, as XJR-15 sales were winding down, he convinced a young Ian Callum to sketch out the sheet metal of the XJ41—Jaguar’s failed sports car project that had been percolating since the late 1980s and had been killed by Ford after it purchased the company—over the older XJS chassis. Callum completed the effort remarkably quickly, with TWR relying heavily on the Ford parts bin to keep costs lower.

Jaguar passed on Walkinshaw’s Frankenstein, but Tom did not want to take no for an answer. The car ended up in front of Aston Martin’s Walter Hayes, who was convinced that this was the vehicle that could restore the storied English luxury marque to profitability. Hayes pushed the project into development, giving birth to the Aston Martin DB7, and the minor sensation it caused at its 1993 Geneva Motor Show unveiling persuaded parent company Ford to put it into production. TWR never got its own sports car brand, but Aston Martin was saved.

F1 highs and lows

By the ’90s, nearly two decades after his Formula Ford championship, Walkinshaw found his way into the Formula 1 paddock. With a track record of success in sports car racing that was impossible to ignore, he joined Benetton as head of engineering in 1991. He played a key role not just in the furor over electronic driving aids that would briefly grip the F1 world in the mid-’90s, but also the blossoming of Michael Schumacher into a dominant world champion.

During the same time period, his TWR operation was also responsible for one of the most iconic British Touring Car Championship entries ever: the Volvo 850 Estate. Primarily entered to attract attention in 1994, it was eventually hobbled by rule changes designed to limit the aerodynamic advantage offered by its wagon platform (sedans were allowed a new rear spoiler which made them more slippery than the long-roof).

Buoyed by his success, Walkinshaw financially over-extended his presence in Formula 1. First he attempted to buy a majority stake in Ligier, and when that did not pan out, he purchased Arrows outright in 1996. The latter would prove to be both reaper and phoenix for the Scottish entrepreneur, as the team’s collapse in 2002 would lead to the sale of most of TWR’s assets.

New chapter Down Under

Rising from those ashes came an entirely new company—Walkinshaw Performance—that beginning in 2005 refocused its efforts on the growing Australian market. In the late-’80s, TWR had played a vital role in reviving the long-dormant Holden Special Vehicles division through its engineering and design services, and Walkinshaw returned to that well for a new partnership on both the street and the track.

By the mid-2000s, Walkinshaw Performance added the management of Holden Special Vehicles, the Holden Racing Team, and the newly-purchased Elfin Sports Cars to its portfolio. The effort further spawned Walkinshaw Racing (currently operating as Walkinshaw Andretti United), which competed in Australian GT and won six V8 Supercars Championships, picking up where the original TWR Australia involvement with Holden’s racing teams had left off after the Arrows collapse.

The victory lap would unfortunately be short-lived. Tom Walkinshaw had been personally devastated by the bankruptcy of TWR after the Arrows fiasco, and although he tried to diversify his interests by getting involved in professional rugby, he wasn’t able to make the same recovery as his racing empire. Walkinshaw died of cancer in 2010 at 64 years of age. His son, Ryan Walkinshaw, continues to champion the family name as team principal for Walkinshaw Andretti United, with his other son Sean competing as a driver in Super GT. Together, they ensure that their father’s legacy continues on the continent that most fully embraced a Scottish farmboy who couldn’t keep himself away from the track.

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In 1997, British actor Robbie Coltrane hosted a documentary show on Channel 4 called Coltrane’s Planes and Automobiles. One episode of the six-part documentary was focused on the V-8 engine. Naturally, Coltrane visits America for that segment. He pulls timber through a forest in a Chevy pickup, gets a driving lesson in a stock car, and meets Don Garlits at his drag racing museum in Ocala, Florida. Coltrane notes that part of the appeal of the V-8 is its signature sound, but the V-8 Hemi that “Big Daddy” Don Garlits fired up for the show is known for another sound entirely.

In the early 1950s, Chrysler Hemi V-8s were used in air raid sirens that were meant to warn U.S. residents of an impending Soviet missile attack. The 331-cubic-inch engines produced 180 hp in production-car spec but were modified to run on propane in their siren configuration.

Of course, Garlits is intimately familiar with Chrysler’s Hemi V-8. He used the Gen 1 Chrysler Hemi—which grew to 354 and, eventually, 392 cubic inches—in a series of dragsters before he finally cracked the code of tuning the Gen 2 Hemi and moved to the 426.

It doesn’t take long for Garlits to get the long-slumbering V-8 up and running, and it sounds great. After it’s settled into it a nice idle, Coltrane engages the pulleys that spool up the siren. The crescendo doesn’t seem like it’s going to stop. The Hemi-powered siren is reportedly the loudest air raid siren ever built and is capable of producing 138 decibels at a distance of 100 feet. That’s roughly as loud as a jet engine taking off. Note the megaphones, which look freshly fabricated.

The U.S. government and law enforcement agencies purchased the sirens and placed them across the United States. Some are still up on their turntable towers and a few are in Los Angeles, which boasted the greatest density of Chrysler air raid sirens in the country.

Coltrane’s Planes and Automobiles aired in 1997, and the siren looks much different today. If you make it to the Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing you can see the siren in its fully-restored glory.

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In May of 1940, soon after the German army overran and occupied France, a Gestapo officer visited the headquarters of the Automobile Club de France on the Place de la Concorde in Paris. He demanded that the club’s librarian bring him the records for races sanctioned by the club. As his subordinates carted off the record books, he dismissed the librarian, saying, “We will write the history now.”

Consensus holds that Nazis wanted to rewrite a particular piece of racing history, an embarrassing break in Germany’s state-supported teams’ dominance of Grand Prix Racing in the 1930s. The Silver Arrow cars campaigned by Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union had to remain the übercars, according to the Nazi narrative. The Gestapo wouldn’t stop at paper records, either; according to rumor, the Gestapo was also trying to locate and destroy the very cars that disgraced the Reich in one of motorsports’ great underdog victories.

Fortunately, the Nazis’ revisionary attempt failed, and the truth prevailed. The Silver Arrows’ defeat has now been ably documented by New York Times-bestselling author Neal Bascomb, in his book Faster: How a Jewish Driver, an American Heiress and a Legendary Car Beat Hitler’s Best (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, 2020).

Bascomb, who traveled the world exploring private archives and experiencing 90-year-old vintage race cars firsthand to research the book, has done a remarkable job; in addition to documenting in great detail the pre-war Grand Prix scene, Bascomb has captured the flavor of the era and the larger-than-life personalities that inhabited it.

African-American track and field star Jesse Owens winning four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics refuted Nazi notions of Aryan racial superiority at those competitions, but Owens’ victories were not entirely unexpected. Owens had already established himself as a world-class athlete, setting track and field records in America before the ’36 Olympics. On the other hand, when René Dreyfus sat on the grid for the 1938 Pau Grand Prix, in a Delahaye 145, few gave him a chance at winning—but Dreyfus, whose father was Jewish, would also put the lie to the Nazi narrative.

Dreyfus had a notable racing record and could boast Grand Prix victories with Alfa Romeo (then headed by Enzo Ferrari) and the Maserati brothers on his resume. He competed against legendary racers like Ascari, Caracciola, and Nuvolari but in 1936, he hadn’t had a competitive ride in years.

By the later half of the 1930s, Grand Prix racing had become intertwined with international politics. The German racing teams received substantial financial support from the Nazi regime and their parent companies aimed to turn profits making military material for the Reich. While René did not identify religiously as a Jew, there was simply no way that Mercedes or Auto Union would put someone with Jewish blood and a Jewish surname behind the wheel of race cars intended to demonstrate Aryan superiority. Nationalism in Mussolini’s fascist Italy meant that Dreyfus, a native of France, also could not get a ride at Alfa or Maserati.

Today, we know Delahaye as a French marque that made beautiful Art Deco roadsters and coupes and folded in the mid-1950s; but, if weren’t for a rewarding foray into racing, Delahaye might never have survived that long. In the early 1930s, the company made staid sedans and a line of commercial vehicles, neither of which were selling particularly well. With a worldwide economic depression in full swing, difficult decisions loomed.

The company was then owned by Marguerite Desmarais and her brother Georges Morane. Together with Desmarais’ late husband, Morane had bought the company from its founder in the late 19th century. In 1932, Delahaye’s manager, Charles Weiffenbach, presented the owners with two paths forward: drastically expanding midrange passenger vehicle production to compete with Citroen, Peugeot, and Renault, something that would require a substantial investment; or dropping the passenger cars altogether and concentrating on commercial vehicles. Neither option was guaranteed to save the company.

Madame Desmarais surprised Weiffenbach by offering a third proposal: “If you can’t build automobiles in quantity, build fewer but better ones. Win races to make the marque better-known and to sell more luxurious and expensive cars.”

Weiffenbach assigned engineer Jean Francois the task of turning Delahaye into a performance brand. Francois designed a lightweight chassis that boasted independent front suspension, a first for Delahaye, and a 3.2-liter straight-six gasoline engine based on one of the company’s truck engines. That choice of a reliable truck engine was deliberate, based on the need of race cars to run at full throttle for extended periods of time. Testing at an average speed of 100 mph over 500 miles on the high-speed, banked Montlhéry autodrome proved the design was worthy.

At the 1933 Paris Salon de l’Automobile, Delahaye introduced two new luxurious and fast models based on the test car, each clothed in a sweeping coachbuilt body. There was the short-wheelbase, 2.1-liter four-cylinder 134, and the larger 138, with the 3.2-liter six. The new models were a hit and put Delahaye on firmer financial ground.

While one woman made it possible for Delahaye to get into performance cars and racing, it was another woman to put those cars on the track. Lucy O’Reilly Schell was a wealthy American expatriate heiress, whose husband Laury also possessed considerable worldly means. They lived in the Paris suburbs with their two sons and Lucy’s beloved bulldog. The Schells competed, fairly successfully, in a number of international rallies, including the Monte Carlo rally.

Though not as well known today as some other female automotive pioneers like Alice Ramsey, Dorothy Levitt, and Hellé Nice, Lucy was one of the best female drivers of her era. More impressively, she remains the only woman to own a winning Grand Prix racing team.

The Schells approached Weiffenbach with the idea of going rallying in a short-wheelbase 134 powered by the bigger six-cylinder engine. That concept became the Delahaye 135. While they never won a rally outright in the cars, the Schells rallied Delahayes until a bad accident convinced Lucy to retire from competition. She didn’t leave racing, though.

For much of the 1930s, the polished aluminum-bodied cars from Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union, nicknamed the “Silver Arrows,” traded Grand Prix victories. Although the two companies had radically different approaches, with Mercedes favoring traditional front-engine layouts and Auto Union, which hired Ferdinand Porsche as a consultant, using rear-engine (and later mid-engine) configurations, both teams were technically proficient. With government support, they also had the resources to effectively develop and campaign their race cars. At one point, Mercedes had about 300 people working for its Grand Prix racing team, including dedicated and trained pit crews.

In 1936, organizers proposed a new formula for the Grand Prix championship, with engine displacements limited to 4.5 liters for naturally aspirated engines and 3.5 liters for supercharged or turbocharged motors. While Delahaye had never previously competed at that ultimate level of motorsports, Lucy Schell approached “Monsieur Charles,” as Weiffenbach was known at Delahaye, with a deal he could not refuse.

Schell wanted to take on the Germans in Grand Prix racing, and she was willing to completely underwrite a Delahaye effort to create a competitive French team under her leadership. She wanted Weiffenbach to build her four race cars suitable for the Grand Prix events to race for her own team. That seems to have been an important point for Lucy, because some journalists had been dismissive of a female-owned racing team and often treated her rally team as the Delahaye factory crew.

Francois designed an all-new, 4.5-liter V-12 engine with a lightweight magnesium block for the new race car, which had a blunt, cigar-shaped body with a large hood scoop and aerodynamically shaped “motorcycle” fenders that could be removed, depending on the event.

When it came to picking a suitable driver, it appears that Schell had only one logical choice. Dreyfus was the most experienced and successful Grand Prix racer who, at the time, had no ride. He was also French. To give him some seat time in the Delahayes, Lucy had Dreyfus compete in the 1938 Monte Carlo rally and then Italy’s Mille Miglia, where he finished fourth despite having to repeatedly stop to top off a radiator, which was leaking from a puncture caused by a flying rock.

Coincidentally, embarrassed at the continued German success in auto racing, the French Popular Front political consortium had offered a million franc prize for the first French race car to average 146 km/h over 200 kilometers on the Montlhéry track. Though the competition was tilted somewhat in Bugatti’s favor, Dreyfus was able to exceed that mark in the newly completed 145, with just seconds to spare, just a day before the prize’s September 1, 1937 deadline. He wore his Dunlop tires down to the fabric cords in the effort. Weiffenbach split the prize with Lucy, who, in turn, gave Dreyfus half of her share.

To honor the French national racing colors, the four Delahaye 145 racers and the team transporter were painted in a lovely shade of blue, for Écurie Bleue, the team’s official name.

The first Grand Prix race with the new 145s was the 1938 Pau Grand Prix. Auto Union’s new mid-engine racer wasn’t quite ready, but Mercedes-Benz brought its new W154, designed by Rudolf Uhlenhaut, which had a substantial horsepower advantage over the Delahaye. Though Écurie Bleue was well-funded by Lucy, compared to Mercedes-Benz her team was a shoestring effort.

In practice and in qualifying, Dreyfus, however, noticed that Caracciola had a hard time controlling wheelspin from his W154 when accelerating out of corners; the Mercedes was overpowered for the course. The Pau Grand Prix was held on city streets, with tight corners and short straightaways, thus minimizing the Benz’s power advantage. That power advantage also came at the cost of a fuel burn rate of about 1.5 miles to the gallon. The Delahaye, however, could run the entire race without refueling.

Dreyfus’ strategy was to hang close to Caracciola until the W154 had to pit for fuel and then pull away. Dreyfus was able to pressure Caracciola so much early in the race—even swapping the lead position—that when Caracciola pitted for fuel, the German asked to be replaced by Hermann Lang, a reserve driver. (An earlier racing accident had left Caracciola with a severely damaged and painful leg. Much of the time he drove in pain, and most of the time he overcame that pain—but at Pau in 1938, he was dispirited by Dreyfus.) René finished ahead of Lang easily. Two weeks later, Dreyfus would go on to win the Cork Grand Prix in Ireland, but neither of the German teams competed in that race.

Surprisingly, Lucy Schell wasn’t at the scene of Écurie Bleue’s greatest victory; she was busy showing her award-winning Delahaye cabriolet by Chapron at the Cannes concours d’elegance.

Jean Francois designed a new car, the 155, for the 1939 racing season, but the car was not successful. Frustrated by French officials’ favoritism, which cut out Delahaye, Lucy switched to Maseratis, which also struggled to place. The German teams continued to dominate.

In September of 1939, soon after Germany invaded Poland, Lucy Schell and her husband Laury were seriously injured when their chauffeur collided with a van as they were being driven from Monaco to Paris. Laury died soon after. Lucy was heartbroken by his death and seems to have lost some interest in racing.

As the war approached France, Lucy used her influence to have Dreyfus exempted from military service so he could drive in the 1940 Indianapolis 500, where he finished 10th in relief of René Le Bègue. (It’s possible that Schell was more concerned about getting Dreyfus out of Europe than representing France in the race, because she later convinced her friend and driver to stay in America.) Dreyfus first started working at a restaurant and then enlisted in the U.S. Army where he served as an interpreter after the invasion of Italy. After the war, Dreyfus started another Manhattan eatery, Le Chanticlair, with his brother and sister, who had survived the Nazi occupation of France. The restaurant became an unofficial club house for much of the international racing community.

Whether or not the Gestapo hopied to destroy the car that embarrassed them, it appears that’s what the French automotive community anticipated. When Lucy Schell was done with her four 145s, she sold them, with Weiffenbach apparently handling the sales. The cars ended up at the shop of coachbuilder Henri Chapron, who dispatched two of them far from Paris, where they were hidden in barns and caves for the war’s duration. He disassembled the other two, scattering the parts around his shop.

After the war, Chapron reassembled and rebodied those two 145s with Art Deco designs. The cars changed hands a number of times until they were both acquired by Peter Mullin for his incomparable collection of classic French cars. One of the two remaining 145s hidden in the countryside was rebodied as a roadster by Franay and eventually acquired by New Jersey collector Sam Mann.

As for the provenance of the fourth Delahaye 145, it was raced after World War II, but then spent decades sitting abandoned under the banked track at Montlhéry, missing the front two-thirds of its body. In 1987 Mullin and his partner Jim Hull negotiated its purchase for $150,000, after which it underwent a three-year restoration to the specification in which it ran the 1938 Pau Grand Prix.

Mann and Mullin have a good-natured rivalry as to who owns the actual car that Dreyfus drove to victories at Pau and in the “Million Franc” competition. They both have documentation and experts to argue their cases, though Mann concedes that Mullin’s car may have the stronger case. In reality, though, race teams swap parts on their cars all the time, so it’s just as likely that each collector owns parts of the “Million Franc” car that took on the Nazis and won.

Bascomb has done a commendable job with Faster. He could have focused exclusively on Dreyfus and Schell’s success at Pau in 1938 and it would have made a compelling story. Instead, he took a deeper dive into the subject and produced a comprehensive look at the European racing scene of the 1930s—the racers, the cars, the engineers, and the political intrigue as well. Documented to an academic level with 40 pages of endnotes, Faster will likely become a reference source for automotive historians for years to come. Some reviewers have quibbled with Bascomb’s nearly lap-by-lap detail of a decade of racing, but his focus on the personalities of Schell and Dreyfus and their competitors behind the wheel, behind the drafting tables, and behind the political scenes keeps the book an entertaining and engaging read. We highly recommend it.

The post How a woman and a Jewish racing driver beat Hitler in 1938 appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Jolted to attention by the metallic slam of the Boss Bronco’s door, we settle onto the white vinyl seat and reach for the Mustang-sourced automatic shifter. There’s no need to turn the key, since the truck’s owner, Colin Comer, has done the tricky work of navigating the one-of-a-kind Bronco, its 351-cubic-inch V-8 rumbling deep in its throat, out of a Ford display tent crammed with display cases and structurally vital wood poles. Clear of obstacles, we swap seats.

We’re at Holly Oaks ORV Park in southeast Michigan to check out the 2020 Ford Bronco family, and though the facility—not yet open to the public—boasts 18- and 19-degree inclines worthy of the Bronco R race truck, there’s also a convenient, mildly graded loop that’s calling our name. Seems like a good option for a legendary prototype Bronco, which Ford invited to help highlight the off-road nameplate’s heritage.

“This one has hydraulically assisted brakes,” says Comer, anticipating the question as we prod the brake pedal with some trepidation. Right, then, no unassisted drums. With an easy tug of the shifter, we’re in drive. The Boss Bronco eases forward, and we hand-over-hand the wide steering wheel to the left, guiding the truck down a sandy path.

What exactly is the Boss Bronco? Think of it like a 1969 Bronco Sport that swallowed the mechanical guts of a contemporary Shelby GT350. Though the Boss was originally born on the Ford Assembly line, the real magic happened at Kar-Kraft, the Michigan race shop responsible for the Boss 429 Mustang and Ford’s Boss 302 race cars. Together with Bill Stroppe, the head of Ford’s off-road racing team, the engineering wizards at Kar-Kraft set about building a Bronco that was unmistakably in charge.

Stroppe and Kar-Kraft had a reputation for building machines that were every bit “go” as much as “show.” The Boss was no hollow promo piece for Ford; it was constructed as a proof-of-concept to convince Ford’s president at the time, Bunkie Knudsen, that a high-performance Bronco was both possible and worthwhile. Knudsen liked yellow, and rumor has it that the Boss Bronco’s Empire paint scheme catered to his specific taste.

The Boss Bronco is much more than an engine swap and a paint job, however. That 210-S-code 351-cubic-inch Windsor V-8 is mated to a C4 automatic transmission via a custom Kar-Kraft adapter (the conversion is implicit in the “210-S,” which designated a M-code 351 with a four-speed manual). Power reaches the wheels via a Ford 9-inch rear with a 4.11 ratio and a limited-slip differential. A Dana 30 axle sits up front, and Stroppe dual shocks sit on all four corners. Dirt-churning duty goes to 15 x 10-inch wheels clad with 10-15LT Gates Commando tires.

The Boss Bronco needed to announce its presence in more ways than one, of course, so designers installed Stroppe fender flares—for both form and function—and laid on black hockey-stick stripes. That four-barrel V-8 needed to breathe, so Kar-Kraft engineers went rummaging in Ford’s muscle car parts bin and emerged with a hood scoop from a Cougar Eliminator. The truck’s interior, wrapped in white vinyl, also received some extra aluminum bits and some black-and-white upholstered door panels.

The Boss Bronco was a smash hit, right? Unfortunately, we have no idea whether it won over Knudsen, because Lee Iacocca fired him before the fire-breathing truck could go from prototype to production. In fact, the Boss Bronco is lucky to have survived at all; when Kar-Kraft was liquidated in 1970, records show the yellow truck was destined for the crusher. The nature of its escape is shrouded in mystery, but the fact remains that, after disappearing for nearly 40 years, the Boss Bronco is alive and well and in the hands of an owner who lets it run free.

Though you’re likely more familiar with Hagerty marketplace expert Colin Comer for his Shelby expertise, he and his wife Cana also have a soft spot for Broncos. (You can hear them chat about their Bronco adventures in this livestream.) Comer came across the Boss Bronco through a friend, who had uncovered the prototype (by way of an expired eBay listing) residing in Washington State. Though Comer had to sell his Holman-Moody-built 1969 Bronco to make the purchase, it was worth the sacrifice.

The Boss Bronco isn’t some fantasy truck recreated from a surviving VIN plate and errant spark plug; aside from a repaint, Comer says the truck is largely untouched. It may show 60,000 miles on the odometer and have the paint chips to prove its 50+ years of use, but it’s the real deal, down to the original carburetor and prototype exhaust. The changes Comer did make were either in service of restoring the Boss Bronco to its rightful look or to help make it roadworthy. Today, the truck boasts resprayed side decals and a set of period-correct chrome wheels wearing new BF Goodrich 32-inch all-terrain tires.

The truck roars along at a sedate pace, windows down and a small trail of dust rising behind it. We crest a slight rise and hold the accelerator steady. The engine and the tires do the work, growling and churning through the sandy soil with little drama. Even with the summer air flowing through the cabin, the scent of old-truck mustiness lingers. Though the truck isn’t totally Spartan by 1969 standards—it has a radio and an automatic, after all—but the experience of driving it is no less immersive and raw. The roar of the engine, the dirt, the fresh air—it’s all there, unfiltered. The Stroppe rollcage arcs overhead, ensuring essential safety, but the slim doors, without the modern burdens of wiring, insulation, or even cupholders, feel skeletal and utilitarian by 2020 standards. The sound of the contemporary GT350 mill, even at low speed, permeates the cabin. That steady rumble, combined with the shallow dash and upright windshield, make you keenly aware there are but a few panels between your hands and the overhead-valve V-8. There’s a tachometer mounted on the steering column, but you rarely need it.

Comer’s been standing in a tent guarding his truck most of the day, so he hops behind the wheel to take a turn in the Boss. We’re immediately glad we buckled our seatbelt because Comer guns it, provoking a delicious V-8 bellow, a cloud of dust, and a sideways step from the unique-irreplaceable-very-expensive truck. (Better the owner goof off in it than us.) Obviously, the Boss doesn’t need to be babied. Though it’s here as a showpiece, this very special off-roader can still walk the walk.

In light of the new Bronco’s upcoming arrival to showrooms, and our ride-alongs in both the two-door and Bronco Sport variants that day, we can’t help daydreaming about the potential for this Boss Bronco theme writ for the modern age. Can’t you just imagine the GT350’s flat-plane-crank Voodoo V-8 in the 2021 Bronco? Ford, you’re welcome.

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“And you know what they call a Quarter Pounder with cheese in Paris?” Vincent Vega asked rhetorically as he barreled down the road in a beater 1974 Chevy Nova with Jules Winnfield at the wheel. His fellow hitman was chuffed: “They don’t call it a Quarter Pounder with cheese?”

The conversation sparked up when Jules, who had spent most of his lifetime around the streets of Inglewood, California, let Vincent go on about his recent European travels and the little differences he noticed in daily life.

“No man, they got the metric system. They wouldn’t know what the **** a Quarter Pounder is,” Vincent retorts. “They call it a Royale with Cheese!”

Brute-force muscle cars, world-beating but affordable sports cars, and ever-dependable and reliable pickup trucks—surely our very own American delicacies, right? The funny thing about global industry is that parallel universes of nearly everything we buy and love here in the United States get remixed to suit other parts of the world, including our beloved domestic automobiles. Whether the changes were made to meet the production capabilities of another country or simply restyled to hide the roots of last year’s sedans, these machines of the mechanical multiverse have identities all their own. Here are, if you will, five automotive “Royales with cheese.”

Shelby de Mexico

Through the ’60s, the Mustang was practically unstoppable in showrooms. It dominated pony-car sales with a flavor-for-everyone approach that ran the gamut from straight-six economy cars to gas-huffing V-8 bar fights.

South of the border, Eduardo Velazquez Contreras had a plan to build an automotive empire after making his riches practicing law in Mexico City, where he was born and raised. Contreras had invested into a friend’s Chrysler de Mexico operation converting U.S.-market Valiants for the local market, but the 500-unit order into the country from Chrysler wasn’t exactly lighting the books on fire with profits. He next turned his attention to the burgeoning Volkswagen market after that company had begun its conquest of Mexico (later becoming the country’s most popular vehicle in total sales and eventually in domestic production volume), securing an exclusive parts deal with the European Motor Products Incorporated to import and supply replacement parts.

Shelby, however, would become his most famous partner.

In 1966, Contreras began first by importing Shelby parts into Mexico so that locals could spec up their Mustangs into a true “Gran Turismo” car, with authentic Ford cosmetic bits that were manufactured and sold in Mexico. This was just the first step for the enterprising businessman, though. Via negotiations with Carroll Shelby the following year, Contreras expanded his import activity to the GT350 in 1967. To clarify: not the whole GT350 from Shelby, but specifically the kit of parts that Shelby American used in its own conversions of the U.S.-built Mustangs.

These kits allowed Contreras to buy notchback Mustangs from the local factories in Mexico and then essentially carry out the same GT350 conversion Shelby was doing in its shop, except for one notable difference: no fastback. The Mexican factories only produced the standard, “notch” Mustangs, so for 1969, Contreras began work on the fiberglass buttresses to flank the trunk of his Shelby de Mexico Mustangs. This unique buttress had the side-profile of a fastback, but the recessed rear windshield was more reminiscent of a Dodge Charger or AMC Javelin.

Underneath, the Mustangs were a mixture of Shelby and Mexican-market Ford parts. The Mexican-built Fords already received beefier suspension components to deal with the huge expanse of rural, rough roads in the country, and Shelby’s recipe included its 10-spoke aluminum wheels, lightweight fiberglass panels, Shelby-specific suspension upgrades, chassis bracing, and all the appropriate accouterments to the Windsor small-blocks to help spice up the high-output 289s and 302s with minor bolts-ons. (Think dual-point ignition, tri-Y headers, an aluminum intake manifold from the Cobra, and the required Shelby branding.)

Production numbers, much less current survivors, are largely the stuff of legend by this point, but our research points to Shelby International, S.A producing approximately 678 cars. Allegedly, only six of the original 1969 flying buttress conversions remain, while most of the ’66 to ’67s have fallen off the radar. Of those half-dozen, the only one we could surface in a recent auction was this unit from Barrett-Jackson, which sold for a $49,500 in 2016.

Chevy 20-series

We Amurikans think we’re the only ones who hold the pickup truck in such esteem, but for the same reasons we love rough-and-tumble trucks, South America goes crazy for them as well. (Keep in mind that this region also has a larger dependency on rough country roads.) South America didn’t grow its own widespread domestic auto industry, but it did benefit from partnerships with many North American companies, such as General Motors. For the most part, GM in the U.S. handled the core engineering and parts production before components were married to their South American-spec bodies, as was the case for Chevrolet and GMC trucks throughout GM’s history in Latin regions.

The 10 series was originally based on a unique South American-spec chassis and body, but in 1985, it converged with the familiar 1973 to 1987 C/K-series trucks and SUVs as the new 20 series (also known as the Bonanza and Veraneio in Blazer and Suburban form). At first glance, the 20 series, and its variations, look like a generic SUV model out of Grand Theft Auto or some other game that doesn’t want to pay licensing fees. Bits like the roof and A-pillars look familiar, and maybe the cutout for the side glass seems recognizable, but below the beltline, it’s all-new sheet metal for the 20 series.

Assembled in Brazil and Argentina, where GM had a foothold in South America, the 20 series could be found with either a late-version of the 250-cubic-inch Stovebolt six (which saw a second life down south to heavy regulations and taxes on larger displacement V-8s), or a 3.9-liter Perkins diesel, which was eventually replaced by a turbocharged Maxion mill. The C, D, and A prefix align with the fuel type (gasoline, diesel, and ethanol, respectively); in the U.S., C and K refer to 2WD and 4×4 chassis.

South America would eventually adopt the C/K nomenclature for the GMT400 in 1997, along with the US-spec body, but it would once again deviate from the US trucks mechanically. They carried their own line-up of engines, with the Stovebolt returning for its last appearance along with a new MWM 4.2-liter inline-six diesel engine updating the oil-burning option, and they also utilized a unique mix of 1973 to 1987 front suspension components under the newer GMT400 in order to utilize the massive stock of Square Body repair and maintenance parts produced by the local factories. The GMT400 was practically a clean-sheet design, thus it would have been a major undertaking to update the South American supply chain for the new-to-them platform (which was due to be replaced in 1999 by the GMT800, anyway).

The irony here is that the General Motors heavily leveraged South America in their Pan American record attempt from Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego to Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay, piloted by Gary Sowerby and Tim Cahill, in order to promote the brand-new GMT400 heavy-duty trucks with the 6.2-liter Detroit Diesel and Muncie SM465 four-on-the-floor. The route was more than just an endless climb, it was a massive marketing adventure as the two made their way North through South America and into Mexico while leveraging a multitude of GM and local contacts in Latin America in order to get the 1988 GMC Sierra 3500 across corrupt border checkpoints and treacherous cliff-edge roads, making a big splash along the way in major cities with the kinds of police escorts and fanfare usually saved for idolized politicians — only to receive the GMT400 nearly a decade later that was, for the most part, little different than the locally-built 20-series of yore.

Willys Aero

Speaking of Willys, Kaiser, and AMC, back in the day these now-defunct automakers were often up against the unstoppable forces of the Big Three’s incredible production, marketing, and design resources. In various niches, each of these underdog automakers broke barriers that wouldn’t be challenged for another decade or two, but a combination of the wrong-place-wrong-time situations, along with leadership challenges spurred by the cyclical dissolving and reconstituting of these three brands, ultimately conspired to cut short the legacies of several models for U.S. consumption.

Where one door closes, another one opens—and for South America, the death of a car in the U.S. market was a chance to buy every bit of tooling needed to create slightly modified domestic vehicles. Machines like the defunct Willys Aero were craftily spun off into affordable, local favorites.

For all its forward-thinking in size and economy, the Aero was essentially a failure as far as sales volume. Launched in 1952, the Aero never surpassed 100,000 units out of its Toledo, Ohio, assembly plant before Kaiser came into the mix to kill everything off in 1955. Willys had designed the Aero to be a do-all economy car based around the familiar Jeep Hurricane flathead-six, sitting nearly a foot shorter than many of its American compatriots at the time (such as the Chevrolet 210). It was a hard sell to cut V-8s from the line-up at a time when the Big Three were meanwhile building an image of style and performance.

Kaiser had acquired Willys in 1952, a year after the Aero lineup of sedans and coupes had launched, before deciding to exit the automotive industry as a whole. Only Jeep survived the transition. It was at this pivotal moment that led Industrias Kaiser Argentina (IKA), formed in 1956, entered the picture. IKA picked up the Aero’s production in Brazil by scooping up every bit of tooling: the dies and molds for the body and trim, the jigs for the frames and anything else it could, in 1958. The Brazilian Aeros began production in 1960, with about half their components imported from the U.S., but would bring everything in-house, including a styling refresh by Brooks Stevens by 1963.

For those first few years, the Aero was practically identical to its U.S.-built cousins, but as details like the interior and much of the chassis’ supporting hardware had moved to Brazilian components, the Willys’ identity had been slowly replaced by IKA’s. This would essentially mark the IKA Aero as Brazil’s first production car, even though it was initially designed and engineered in America. Production would continue with minor updates until 1971, when the then-Ford-owned Willys Aero finally retired.

IKA/Renault Torino

Designed in the United States, restyled in Italy, and sold in Argentina, the IKA Torino was a pure international affair. IKA, Kaiser’s Argentinean subsidiary, was practically commissioned in 1951 by the Argentinean government to shop an import and production plan with the major American OEMs. Kaiser ultimately took the bait to supply its own cars alongside the Willys Jeep after Argentina’s burgeoning (but still small) automotive market was deemed too low-volume for any of the Big Three to justify a partnership.

By the 1960s, IKA had worn through Kaiser’s aging 1950s platforms and was looking for a new donor when Dick Teague penned the new-for-1964 AMC Rambler American in the United States. The clean-sheet design dialed back the frumpy post-war Edmund E. Anderson design of the prior generation Rambler American for a sleeker, more stately profile that came to define the automaker’s styling in the 1960s.

To bring the Rambler American to market, IKA first shipped it to Pininfarina to have the space-age styling toned down in favor of a classic European affair. The refrigerator-like front grilles were removed to make room for a taller opening flanked by a pair of fog lamps. The turn signals were moved onto the body so that the bumpers could be trimmed down into more subtle bumperettes, while the hood was also lightly reshaped. Larger, slightly rounder tail lamps were complemented by another bumper diet, adding extra character to the no-nonsense styling of the Rambler American’s tail.

Underneath, IKA largely carried over the U.S.-spec chassis, but in lieu of big-inch V-8s, the IKA Torino utilized the overhead-cam inline-six from Jeep. The venerable “Tornado” straight-six had its block beefed up, while the heads were opened up with a triple Webber DCOE setup in its top-performance trim. This gave the Torino real chops in road racing, owing to its relatively low weight and healthy power—nearly 190 hp out of the refined Jeep mill.

In fact, the Torino dominated the 84-hour Marathon de la Route endurance race at the Nürburgring, with the factory-backed assault on the Green Hell managed in part by none other than Juan Manuel Fangio. The famous racer’s roots in Argentina catapulted IKA’s status as the “national car of Argentina” as drivers Eduardo Copello, Oscar Mauricio Franco, and Alberto Rodriguez Larreta won their class and settled at fourth-overall after penalties. Fangio was also later gifted a 1970 IKA Torino 380S as something of a “thank you” for his efforts. That car sold for approximately $45,000 in 2012.

The humble AMC Rambler American would go under one final rebadge, when IKA merged with Renault in 1975, spawning the Renault Torino—the car’s final form as a French-owned, Italian-styled, American-designed, and (taking in another breath) Argentinean-built sports coupe.

GAZ A/AA

Without a doubt, if the Ford Motor Company had never approached Moscow to start hawking Model Ts at the start of the 20th century, Russia would have struggled to develop as a world power the way it did. It’s hard to imagine life in the U.S. a hundred years ago, much less in pre-World War II Russia as communism swept the country with promises of a “bright future.”At the time, this was a land that in general lagged behind the industrial revolution that had mechanized the U.S. and much of Europe. Russia’s relationship with the Western world has always been tenuous, but in the early days of post-revolution Russia, the country connected with the Ford Motor Company to fulfill a need for a mass of tractors: the Fordzons.

Ford had opened a Moscow sales office in 1909 as it began its international conquest. Henry’s new-age assembly-line ethos, by that point, had yielded sufficient production capacity to begin export efforts in earnest. The War Ministry was Ford’s largest customer initially, with officials enjoying the capabilities of the American-built machines, but a small event known as the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, and its subsequent chaos, distracted Ford and the Russian Empire from their import/export dreams.

After the USSR was established in 1922, talks quickly resumed. Ford continued bringing in vehicles, while the interim Bolshevik government used shell organizations and proxy contacts to begin building ties in Washington and Dearborn in 1919. One of those contacts was one L. Marten, an engineer who had been exiled from Russia for his pro-revolutionary views prior to the civil war. Marten’s mission was to begin establishing a source of tractors for the USSR in order to rebuild the economy and jump-start Russia’s own industrial revolution. Ford has applied its mass production methods for automobile to tractors, which made it cost-effective to import for the USSR thanks to their low unit cost out of U.S. factories.

Moreover, Marten came back with a genuine appreciation for Henry Ford’s vision. “The Ford tractor will be the ideal machine for the communist farms in Russia,” Martens reported. “In addition, I hope we will be able to convince Ford to build a plant in Russia for the production of tractors and cars. We are also promised assistance in passing several hundred Russians through the Ford tractor school in order to train experienced instructors for Russia. These will, of course, be our people.”

Ford’s tractors imported to the USSR quickly began to outpace the sales of its cars, with nearly 20,000 of the iron horses delivered into the hands of the Soviet people within the first few years. It became clear that domestic manufacturing would be vital to maintaining the supply, training, and repair of Ford tractors, and so the Soviets approached Ford to help build the USSR’s first-ever automotive factory.

The process was arduous, for many reasons. Ford had sent over a five-person commission to study the government, its people and culture, as well as current Ford customers. The goal was to ascertain if the proposition was not only good business sense but if it was compatible with the collective mindset required for an assembly line to properly.

Their report reads like a school kid’s field trip report, with absolute wonder and confusion over a world they hadn’t seen before. While optimistic, the report was largely unimpressed with the state of industry in the Soviet Union, and it classified the findings in secrecy to stave of Soviet espionage. Ford staff was worried that the Soviets could become offended by their unfiltered opinions, jeopardizing future travel visas and business opportunities. Diametrically opposed in their backdrops, the American commission was disappointed in the lack of organization, discipline, and forethought with the USSR’s factories, and in conflict with Ford’s philosophy, hand fabrication of both production and spare parts was still common. Worse, the USSR emphasized the need to be able to buy parts and whole vehicles on credit, at a national level, in order to recoup the costs with their produced goods down the line. This proposal put a large financial risk upon Ford to fulfill the large orders, especially with the USSR’s tight grip on pricing and production, but the Soviets were at the end of the day Ford’s largest customer outside of the U.S.

Ford’s commission came back to the Soviets with a careful plan that emphasized local support for farmers in the form of parts and repair shops. It was a total rework of the behavior of port workers (who often left Ford’s imports to rust in the sea air or dropped them onto the ground, crashing from the deck of a rail car), meant to instill a sense of pride in the engineering by creating permanent displays for Ford machinery. The relationship ebbed and flowed as competition from International Harvester entered the fray, but by 1927, Soviet leadership had entered into steady discussions to potentially build a Ford factory in the USSR.

In May of 1929, an agreement between Ford and the USSR officially created GAZ: Gorkovsky Avtomobilny Zavod, or, the Gorky Automotive Plant. The USSR would build two factories: one in the Russian town of Nizhny Novgorod and the other in the capital city of Moscow. The Soviets would supply the raw materials to construct the facilities while Ford brought to the table its intellectual property, production machinery, and industry experts to oversee the new factories.

GAZ would produce three basic models (A, AA, MM) centered around the Model A body, supplementing the Soviets with everything from touring cars to troop carriers before the partnership mutually dissolved in 1935 as the Great Depression set in. Though Ford recorded many productivity and craftsmanship problems given the region’s complicated bureaucracy, largely untrained labor force, and sub-par metallurgy, these facilities and the lessons learned within them nonetheless proved vital to Moscow’s rise as an industrial power heading into World War II.

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On August 19, 1909, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway held its first race of automobiles, setting the stage for some of the most exciting races in history. What had started out as the vision of Carl G. Fisher had become reality, with a 2.5-mile oval track lined with grandstands seating 12,000, dozens of buildings and garages, several bridges, and an eight-foot-tall perimeter fence. The property glistened thanks to freshly painted white walls outlined with green trim.

In the early days of the automobile, races were held on horse tracks and public roads. Fisher had observed how poorly suited and dangerous these were for racing. In addition, Fisher realized that at such tracks, race spectators were only able to get short glimpses of the racers as they shot down a simple, straight track. An oval track, Fisher believed, would give race viewers a better view and more value for their dollar.

Construction of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway began in March 1909 on 320 acres bought specifically for the purpose, employing 500 workers, 300 mules, and a number of steam-powered machines. The track surface was composed of graded and packed dirt that was covered by two inches of gravel, two inches of limestone covered with a mixture of tar and oil known as “taroid,” then an additional one to two inches of crushed stone chips that were also soaked with taroid. To top it all off, a finishing layer of crushed stone was added. The work was completed at a cost of $3 million ($85 million in 2020).

Initially the track was intended to function as a shared proving ground for what was becoming a thriving automotive industry in and around Indianapolis. By 1908, the town ranked fourth in the country in terms of automobiles built. By 1913, Indianapolis was second, right behind Detroit. Along with private testing, Fisher and his fellow investors believed the Speedway would be an excellent venue for automobile-racing events. There, the public could witness the competition of the racing versions of the autos then for sale in showrooms.

At first, Fisher had planned for the track to be a five-mile oval, but he later revised the design to consist of a rectangular-shaped, three-mile oval with a two-mile road course inside of it. When connected together, they would create a five-mile course. P.T. Andrews, the civil engineer in charge of the project, pointed out that a three-mile outer oval would be possible on the allotted acreage. However, that would place the straightaways so close to the edges of the property that there would not be sufficient room for the grandstands. Instead, Andrews proposed an outer oval of 2.5 miles; the road course was omitted soon after work began. The final track’s configuration is much the same as it is today: a 2.5-mile oval with four corners banked at nine degrees, 12 minutes. The 50-foot wide front and back straightaways are five-eighths of a mile each, and the four turns are 60 feet wide and a quarter-mile long. The turns are connected at the north and south ends of the track by one-eighth-mile straights—the “short chutes.”

A hot-air balloon race held on June 5, 1909, was the first public event held at the Speedway. The first motorized-vehicle event was a motorcycle race that ran on August 14, 1909. Originally scheduled as a program of 15 races held over a two-day span, the event was cut short after just one day. Jake DeRosier, riding an Indian motorcycle, was severely injured when the bike’s front tire exploded after being pierced by the track’s sharp stones.

The first automobile race was held five days later, on August 19, with a total of 15 manufacturers showing up for practice. Once again, the surface of the track was an issue, with drivers being sprayed by the dirt, oil, and tar that was kicked up by the drivers ahead of them. As practice progressed, ruts and potholes began to appear in the turns. Speedway workers were hurriedly dispatched to oil and roll the track surface before the gates were opened.

Somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 spectators attended, paying as much as one dollar for a ticket. The third race of the day, a five-miler, was won by Wilfred “Billy” Bourque. On Lap 58 of the main Prest-O-Lite Trophy Race, a 100-lap event, the leader—Swiss-born Louis Chevrolet, piloting a Buick—was temporarily blinded by a stone that shattered his racing goggles, causing Chevrolet to exit the race. On that same lap, Bourque’s Knox race car crashed, flipping end over end on the front stretch and smashing into a fence post. Some witnesses claimed the cause of the crash was a rear-axle failure; other witnesses said the crash occurred when Bourque’s riding mechanic, Harry Holcomb, warned Bourque that another car was gaining on them. With Bourque turning to look back, the car swerved, hit a rut and crashed, making him the first driver to die racing at Indy.

That first day of racing at the Speedway yielded four finishes as well as two land-speed records. Worries about the safety of the track, though, caused officials to consider canceling the remaining two days of racing. Fisher vowed that he could repair the track by the next day and persuaded the officials that the races could go on as planned. Twenty-thousand spectators attended the second day of racing; there were no major accidents, and additional speed records were broken.

On day three of the racing, 35,000 spectators attended the grand-finale, 300-mile race. At the 175-mile point of the race, the right-front tire of Charlie Merz’s National blew, sending him through five fence posts of the track’s outer fence and into a group of spectators. Merz avoided injury, but his riding mechanic, Claude Kellum, and two spectators were killed; several more suffered minor injuries. Just ten laps later, Bruce Keen struck a pothole that sent his car into a bridge support. The race was halted, and the remaining drivers were presented with engraved certificates instead of trophies. As a result of the race, AAA boycotted any future races at the Speedway until significant improvements were made. It was an inauspicious beginning for the track.

Fisher and his partners started exploring the viability of using bricks or concrete to pave the track. Since methods of paving in 1909 were still relatively unknown, with only a few miles of paved public roads existing in the entire country, there was little knowledge of what method would work best. Bricks were subjected to traction tests, proving that they could endure the abusive environment of racing.

Less than a month after the first car races had been held at the Speedway, the repaving project began. Five Indiana manufacturers supplied 3.2 million bricks, each weighing ten pounds, to the track. Each brick was laid by hand over a two-inch-deep cushion of sand, then leveled, and the gaps filled with mortar. At the same time, a 33-inch-tall wall of concrete was constructed in front of the main grandstand and around all four corners to protect spectators. The final brick that was added to the track was made of gold and was laid in a special ceremony by Thomas R. Marshal, the governor of Indiana. Before the work was completed, locals had already nicknamed the track “The Brickyard.”

Asphalt gradually was added to various sections of the brick surface; patches were added to rougher sections of the turns in 1936 and all turns were completely paved with asphalt in 1937. In 1938, the entire track was paved with asphalt except for the middle portion of the front straightaway. Today, three feet of the original bricks remain exposed at the start-finish line.

Celebrating its 111th birthday, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing,” is today the oldest continuously operated race track in the United States. It is the third-oldest permanent automobile racetrack in the world, behind Brooklands in England and the Milwaukee Mile in Wisconsin. It was named to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987 and is the only site to be associated with automotive racing history. And with a seating capacity of 257,325, it is the highest-capacity sports venue in the world and hosts the largest single-day sporting event in the world, the Indianapolis 500. Not even a visionary such as Carl G. Fisher could have imagined such success, and it is a tribute to his persistence and dedication that Indy is the shrine to motorsports that it is today.

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What’s better than foraging in the nether regions of a newly-purchased vehicle, probing for hints of its past? Absolutely nothing. The longer said car’s been sitting, the better the archaeological dig, of course. And who doesn’t love discovering forgotten treasure, or as sane people call it, “old junk”? Here is an itemized list of what I was able to locate and identify inside of my recently acquired Soviet-come-East German classic:

Item 1: Russian to German quick translation text

Published in 1987 in Berlin, this state-issued press relic seems to be a hangover from the last attempt to understand just what the hell all of these gauges and plaques under the hood said. I love a good former DDR thrift store and these kinds of texts litter the shelves. Why? Beginning in 1949, Russian language was a mandatory East German school subject. I think it will continue to live in the glove box for emergency “Nyet“-to-“Nein“-type translations.

Item 2: Medium Format film negatives

In perusing images from 1960s America, the various bell bottoms, Jesus sandals, vinyl tops, and other context clues can help one estimate the age of an image within a range of approximately 3-5 years. In the Moski’s home environment, all of that guesswork goes right out the window. These lovely folks stand proudly next to their wonderful half-timbered barn and horse and carriage. But is it 1968 or 1868? Faced with the names on the title documents, I’m tempted to seek out some descedants and share some stories over a beer.

Item 3: Roadside kit

In a car with a built-in lamp under the hood, I expect a fantastic roadside emergency kit. I was not disappointed. The safety triangle is built more like a loudly reflective easel than you’d see in the boring plastic markers of today. Next to it is a red flag attached to a stick that had clearly doubled as a hand towel. A newfound motor hand-crank coupled nicely to the nose of the crank and clued me into the fact that the motor wasn’t locked up—my new favorite discovery! In the trunk there was a jack, and I’ve managed to find three lift points on body where the jack slots in and sits on a bit of a pedestal. Apparently there are four of these structural points in total from the factory, each chopped from an entirely different vehicle.

Item 4: Unser Sandmänchen

A sticker of a small, mouthless Claymation character stands in the center of the dash. I found the thing slightly creepy, until a German friend explained: It was not just a character, but a fantastic story of Cold War espionage. OK! In 1959, the East German broadcasting bureau, DFF, had somehow obtained a transcript of a new West German children’s television show, titled “Sandmänchen” or “Little Sandman,” in its East Berlin office. Finding it unacceptable to lose its own audience to a Western show, the order came down to replicate the concept and beat it to market. With nine days to spare before the West German show’s release, the copycat version aired first, titled “Unser Sandmänchen” or “Our little sandman, not yours.” The East German version continues to put kids to bed today. This sticker absolutely rules.

Item 5: Ladies

What adorned the dash and rear-view mirror was a massive motivator for me to go all-in so early with this car. From my first glimpse of the DDR pinups, I was already convinced this would be no one else’s bad idea but mine. After a limited amount of research, it would appear that these stickers are a part of a larger collection with a brief story of what each particular animated character might like to do. Walks on the Baltic. Canning of goods. Reporting of neighbors. I don’t have any of the backgrounds on these nice women in particular but Ingrid, Birgit, and Sandra will ride and surveil wherever we go.

Item 6: Spare Parts that cast suspicion

Some of this car’s scattered parts were not suspicious, partly because I loaded them in there in the first place and they had no first-hand connection to the vehicle. A hood. A trunk lid. A gas tank for a different Moskvich.

But … why are there four ignition coils? Why is there a small pedestal glued to the dash, perfectly sized to fit a distributor rotor, which it currently holds? These findings present a foreshadowed vision of me on the shoulder of the A81 highway, reflective easel and dirty-red-rag-on-a-stick deployed, with a pell-mell of smoldering ignition components underhood. Nevertheless, I appreciate the care and preparation.

Item 7: Extra switches

When walking around the vehicle, I noticed three extra sets of doo-dads that must be switched on. There is a rear fog light dangling from a piece of twine, looped over the bumper guard. Two sets of DDR-approved driving-in-the-fog lights fill the gap between the normal driving lights. There are five accessory switches, and, by the way, no power to the coil. I fear that some manual relay logic must be performed to obtain the right sequence for ignition. Lord only knows about the lights.

Item 8: Superfluous registration paperwork

I expected some degree of mysterious and/or inscrutable documentation, but this is on another level. According to the paperwork, I’ve taken ownership of five different Moskviches and a Berlin Motoroller motorcycle. I cannot tell if this is a windfall or some sort of unshakeable hex. The array of title documents and bills of sale is dizzying. Of equal mind-numbery are notary stamps from the Volkspolizei. As far as the actual vehicles go, unfortunately, only some trim remains and there is no trace of the bike. (Note to self: track down Moskvich 2140, 408, or 412 with a missing grille, all of which are apparently my legal property.)

Item 9: Miscellaneous

What use does one have for three shop lights and a “Jingle Bells” cassette tape, aside from opening up a brick-and-mortar nightmare shop? Well, I also found a fairly large Bakelite emblem that—thanks to my Russian-born German teacher—I now know reads “Generator Brushes” in Cyrillic. With a spare couple of steering wheels and complete dash and instrumentation, I foresee some interesting home décor projects that my wife will really love.

With all of the stories this car has amassed so far, I feel a great duty toward its preservation. The spare parts, the translation text, the accessories—they all show that this was a vehicle that someone truly cherished. Very often I buy a project car and have no idea what direction to take or how far to go with it. The findings from this archaeologic dig through the past give me a clear direction to the future: 1) Keep the history fully intact. 2) What must get touched in some way will be done carefully, as the old custodians would have done themselves. 3) Keep the stories coming.

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There’s something special about the vehicles of our youth. The sight of one, the sound of it, the smell—they can all can trigger memories. Even if that vehicle of choice was a public bus.

“People tend to gravitate to the vehicles they grew up around or spent time with, whether it’s Mom’s station wagon on road trips, a first car, or even a city bus used day-in, day-out,” says Evan McCausland, author of Rapid Transit Series Buses: General Motors and Beyond.

The RTS, according to a tweet by the New York Transit Museum, first began operating for the New York City Transit Authority in Brooklyn 39 years ago on August 5, 1981. To those in metropolitan areas—New York City, in particular—that’s a big deal.

#TodayinHistory: #OnThisDay in 1981, the first @GM RTS Advanced Design buses went into service in #Brooklyn. The RTS-04s were equipped with push-type exit doors, rear wheelchair lifts, front kneeling suspensions, 2-way radio equipment, and electronic “flip dot” destination signs. pic.twitter.com/UHHpBt1MZW

— NY Transit Museum (@NYTransitMuseum) August 5, 2020

McCausland admits that “it’s hard to delve into RTS history in a short summary—it was an incredibly complicated gestation, thanks in no small part to federal involvement on exactly what a next-generation transit bus should be.” Still, we’ll give it a shot.

According to McCausland’s book summary, “General Motors wanted to revolutionize transit bus design after having success with its New Look Bus through the 1960s. Being protagonists for progress, GM’s engineers worked to push the envelope from a design and engineering perspective, and the resulting 1968 RTX (Rapid Transit Experimental) was a shock to the transit industry. It wasn’t until 1977 when the RTS— a less radical evolution of the RTX and GMC’s later Transbus prototype—finally entered production.”

Thousands of RTS buses, known for their curved body and window panels, were built by four different manufacturers over three decades, starting with GM. Once considered cutting-edge, the RTS was gradually replaced, especially once low-floor buses became a viable option. New York City’s final RTS order was placed in 1999, and the last active model in service was retired only last year.

Although early RTS models were somewhat problematic, the Series 04 that New York City pressed into service on this date in 1981 “was improved, and arguably helped reverse the RTS’ fortunes,” McCausland says. “Amongst a number of other changes, the original fastback roofline was ditched in favor of a squared cap, making room for an enlarged A/C system to be located outside of harm’s way. Had that not occurred, I doubt it would have continued to find favor with operators.

“Compared to earlier buses, the RTS was transformational in that it did offer a smooth, modern appearance, and it offered improved accessibility to passengers with limited mobility, thanks to kneeling front suspension and a factory-installed wheelchair lift. It’s remarkable to think that the basic design dates back to 1966 and the final design as we know it is essentially from 1974.”

At the time of his book’s release 12 years ago, McCausland was an undergrad at Detroit’s Oakland University—which begs the question, why not wait to write it until after graduation?

“I was fortunate to write the book when I did, mostly because I managed to meet and speak with a number of people who were involved with the RTS’ creation, including designers, chief engineers, and service representatives,” says McCausland. “I grew up not only interested in GM truck and bus history—tagging along with Dad to ‘take your child to work day’ probably had an effect—but also reading all sorts of books chronicling the development of the Mustang, Corvette, Camaro, Firebird, and so on. I loved seeing the behind-the-scenes stories behind their development, and wanted to try and provide a similar perspective for the RTS. I’ve since found some additional materials that may have helped illustrate the story a little more, but I’m glad I didn’t hesitate.”

“Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot of written history for vehicles like buses that are simply taken for granted, despite the fact they’re ingrained in our cityscapes for decades at a time. It’s not unlike the Checker Cab in that regard—watch a film or TV show set anywhere in urban America within the past four or five decades, and chances are you’ll see an RTS in the background.”

If only more of them had been preserved.

“Some of the earliest RTS examples were often ignored as being ‘too new’ for preservation and were simply sent to scrap,” McCausland says. “Those who grew up riding the RTS as kids in the ’80s and ’90s are now doing their part to preserve examples when they can, but I wish there had been a little more interest years ago.”

Do you have a particularly vivid memory of an RTS bus? Share it below!

The post What Checker Cab was to taxis, RTS was to NYC buses appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Conventional gas and diesel engines do a commendable job serving car and truck owners’ needs, but futurists insist that electric motors will eventually supplant them as the power source of choice. Some 50 years ago, a similar situation cropped up: Mazda’s ultrasmooth rotary engine had bright hopes of sending pistons the way of the buggy whip. With Mazda celebrating its 100th birthday this year, what better time to toast the brand’s most ambitious technical stride?

First things first: Mazda didn’t invent the rotary. It was German Felix Wankel who, in the 1920s, drew inspiration from pumps, compressors, and turbines to create an engine without the stop-start, up-down reciprocating motion of pistons and connecting rods. After working on disk valves and rotary compressors, the self-taught engineer earned a 1934 patent for an engine consisting of components that rotated, with no hint of reciprocation. Since the Otto-cycle gas engine (which powers most of our cars today), Rudolf Diesel’s compression-ignition concoction, and Karl Benz’s two-stroke all arrived late in the 19th century, Wankel’s rotary was the 20th century’s only new engine type.

Following more than two decades of experimentation, in 1957 Wankel finally persuaded NSU Motorenwerke, a leading German motorcycle manufacturer, to construct a prototype engine. It produced 28 horsepower at 17,000 rpm from only 125 cc of displacement. But the 1957 design was flawed. Both the rotor and its housing rotated, an arrangement totally impractical for mass production; changing the spark plug required a complete teardown. Unbeknownst to Herr Wankel, Walter Froede, a fellow NSU engineer working down the hall, created an elegant variation with a fixed housing. Though Wankel scorned, “You have turned my racehorse into a plow mare!” the rotary we know and love today descended from Froede’s simplified design.

In 1960, NSU and the U.S. aircraft manufacturer Curtiss-Wright (CW) signed an agreement to promote the new engine’s development. Wowed by performance claims, more than 20 British, European, Japanese, and American manufacturers took the bait, signing licenses in hot pursuit of rotaries for automotive, aircraft, marine, motorcycle, farm implement, and military applications. The Soviets also carried out experiments without paying a ruble in fees. Recognizing the rotary’s tremendous potential, Mazda was an early adopter. The formal agreement between NSU and Mazda was signed in July 1961.

Rotaries are fundamentally simpler, lighter, and more compact than piston engines. A triangular-shaped rotor orbits within a chamber to convert combustion energy to torque delivered to a shaft rotating at the engine’s center. There are no connecting rods or camshafts opening and closing valves. Instead, as the rotor sweeps past ports in its housing and/or side covers, a fresh mix of fuel and air enters the moving combustion chamber while spent gases are swept out the exhaust port. Counterweights attached to the output shaft cancel vibration. Thus the rotary’s ace in the hole is supreme smoothness: one power pulse every turn of the output shaft versus one every other turn for single-cylinder four-stroke piston engines.

Touting the rotary’s size and weight advantages, CW compared its RC2-60 rotary engine to a 1960s-era 283-cid Chevrolet V-8. The 185-hp rotary weighed 237 pounds compared to the 195-hp V-8’s 607 pounds. Although the rotary occupied only 5.1 cubic feet of space, the V-8 was more than four times larger, at 23.2 cubic feet. The number of individual components in each engine was also dramatic. The Chevy engine had just over 1000 parts, 388 of which moved, as opposed to the rotary’s 633 parts, only 154 of which moved. The rotary’s size, weight, simplicity, and smoothness were undeniable.

In our cutaway drawings, take note of the center of the engine. That’s where the eccentric shaft resides, a device functionally similar to a piston engine’s crankshaft. It is supported by a bearing at each end, also like a crankshaft. Near its middle, there’s an offset journal called an eccentric, which functions exactly like a conventional crank’s throw.

The rotor is a triangular-shaped component about 3 inches thick. The distance from its center to each tip, or apex, is roughly 4 inches. This hardworking element performs piston, connecting rod, and valvetrain duties. A plain bearing lining the rotor’s center mates with the aforementioned eccentric shaft journal.

The rotor’s orbital motion is a two-part symphony driven by combustion pressure on one flank following ignition. This pressure forces the rotor to spin like a pinwheel on its eccentric journal. The eccentric also moves because the rotor pressure is asymmetrical (offset, from one flank only). To keep this compound motion in sync, there are two phasing gears. The smaller one, located at engine center, is fixed; this gear’s external teeth mesh with the rotor’s internal gear teeth. A 2:3 gear ratio yields three full turns of the eccentric shaft for every 360 degrees of rotor motion. To visualize the overall kinesis, think hula hoop: rotor spin compounded by eccentric-shaft rotation.

The moving rotor’s apexes define a path called an epitrochoid. (Google this word for an extra helping of confusion.) The rotor housing mimics this shape—what resembles a figure eight in our illustration—to keep the apexes permanently within half a millimeter (0.02 inch) of their confines. Think piston-to-bore clearance. Add a plate covering each side of the rotor and you have a contained volume. As the rotor orbits, the changing space between each of its three flanks and the rotor housing supports the four standard Otto-cycle operations: intake, compression, expansion (power), and exhaust. The rotary’s parlor trick is that three of these cycles occur simultaneously.

As with a two-stroke engine’s pistons, the rotor exposes ports as it rotates to admit fresh fuel-air charges and to broom out exhaust. Ignition occurs when spark plugs fire on cue through small holes in the rotor housing. Due to the long, thin shape of each combustion chamber, Mazda uses two spark plugs firing sequentially to light the compressed fuel-air charge.

The rotary engine’s operation sounds simple and elegant once you grasp the subtleties, but developing one to provide years of faithful service was a feat; there are vexing issues galore. The hardworking rotor and its housing must be kept within tolerable temperature limits. Air cooling has worked in a few applications, but the more common approach is to circulate the lubricating oil through the hollow rotor to cool it while also routing a water-antifreeze mix through internal passages to cool the rotor housing and side plates. Unlike a piston engine’s cylinder, which is cooled by the fuel-air charge once per cycle, the spot where combustion occurs in a rotary remains permanently hot. As a result, keeping ample cooling flow through that area of the engine is critical—and difficult. Seals that keep the cooling, lubricating, and working fluids in place have posed the tallest developmental hurdles. For some idea, compare the five-part piston ring set of a conventional engine with the 30-or-so parts required to seal each rotor’s apex and flank surfaces.

Following years of development, NSU won the race to production with its 1964 Spider. Unfortunately, the single-rotor engine’s apex seals weren’t perfected by the time the two-rotor NSU Ro80 luxury sedan arrived three years later. A common salute when one Ro80 owner encountered another such soul on the road was a multi-finger wave to signal the number of engines replaced. Modest sales and high warranty claims drove NSU so near bankruptcy that in 1969, its assets were taken over by Volkswagen.

The first durability issue Mazda discovered after commencing rotary research in 1961 was chatter marks across the inner surfaces of the rotor housing caused by apex seals resonating (skipping along) as they swept over that area. The Japanese termed these “nail marks of the devil.” Before Mazda launched its first rotary, the 1967 Cosmo 110S two-seat coupe, engineers made sure that chatter-mark and apex-seal issues had been resolved. A small flat spring combined with combustion pressure behind each seal helped press them in touch with the rotor housing. For the seals themselves, Mazda experimented with self-lubricating carbon, various sintered metals, and cast iron “chilled” and shaped by an electron beam. To ease the seal’s sweep over the housing surface, oil was metered with the incoming fuel-air mix, a technique borrowed from two-stroke engines. Ultimately, Mazda achieved a durable rotor housing by lining an aluminum casting with a thin sheet of steel finished with an electroplated-chrome wear surface.

Strapping several rotors together to build a larger, more powerful engine is complicated by the fact that each rotor must be inserted from the opposite end of the eccentric shaft during assembly. That’s easy in a two-rotor setup, but combining three or more requires an awkwardly long eccentric shaft or an intricate coupling of two eccentric shafts.

The mix of materials Mazda chose to make its engines durable—aluminum housings, cast-iron rotors and side plates, steel eccentric shafts—resulted in widely varying expansion rates, which hindered the design and development of the O-rings responsible for sealing coolant passages. Since the rotary was born when gas cost pennies a gallon, fuel mileage wasn’t a concern. But in the mid-1970s, following the first energy crisis, the EPA began measuring and reporting mpg, exposing the Mazda rotary’s poor efficiency.

The problem of efficiency was two-fold. The ample surface area defining the rotary’s combustion chamber results in substantial energy loss to the cooling system. In addition, a portion of the unburned fuel-air charge is simply swept out of the engine as exhaust. To curb tailpipe emissions in 1970 U.S. models, Mazda employed a thermal reactor that mixed fresh air with the exhaust constituents to continue combustion outside of the rotor housing.

Bitter fights soon ensued between Mazda and the EPA over urban mileage tests that included cold starting. Mazda demonstrated real-world results better than EPA figures, and the government did begin efforts to align its procedures more closely to customer experiences, but the damage was done: Mazda’s rotary-powered cars were stuck at the thirsty end of their size class. During a 40,000-mile test of a Mazda RX-2, Car and Driver recorded city driving mileage as low as 14 mpg and rarely topped 18 mpg on the highway. The only saving grace was that rotaries were happy swilling regular-grade gasoline.

Emissions were a related issue, but here the rotary enjoyed one advantage. Because its peak combustion temperatures were below those typical of a high-compression piston engine, there was less formation of polluting oxides of nitrogen (NOx). Unfortunately, that plus was offset by the rotary’s long, flat, moving combustion chamber, which is hardly the ideal way to achieve a complete fuel burn. As stated, unburned fuel-air mix was simply swept out the exhaust port, raising hydrocarbon (HC) and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions in the process.

General Motors, the world’s most prominent rotary license holder, invested heavily in this engine. This included a manufacturing plant tooled and ready to produce what it called a Rotary Combustion Engine for the 1975 Chevy Vega and for AMC’s Pacer. Difficulty meeting emissions standards and poor fuel economy forced cancellation of those plans. In fact, the plug was abruptly pulled the instant GM president and rotary advocate Ed Cole retired in September 1974.

If GM could not solve the rotary riddle, who could? Hercules/DKW, Norton, and Suzuki did enjoy modest success building and racing rotary-powered motorcycles. Arctic Cat and Outboard Marine offered them in snowmobiles. Mercedes-Benz had high hopes with its magnificent three-and four-rotor C111 Gullwing sports cars, but Citroën went bankrupt developing its Comotor engine. There have been plenty of aircraft and helicopter experiments and hundreds of home-builts powered by Mazda engines. Ultimately, though, Mazda became the last manufacturer standing mainly because of its patient, persevering rotary engine devotion.

Such devotion was certainly encouraged by motorsports success. Along with turbines, rotaries thrive on track. With no reciprocating parts or valvetrain fragility, they love to rev. Huge intake and exhaust passages with minimal flow restriction are an easy upgrade. Except for their notably high fuel consumption, rotaries run for hours on end with minimal need for pit stops. They also shriek like furious banshees, requiring huge mufflers to curb their din, because hot, flaming exhaust gas leaves the combustion chamber unimpeded by valves. Even with earplugs inside a helmet, your author suffered two days of partial deafness after codriving an RX-7 at Daytona in 1979. Bonneville spectators wince every time a rotary leaves the starting line.

Sanctioning bodies struggle comparing rotary engine displacement to that of piston engines. The Southern California Timing Association, which oversees salt flats competition, bought the one-power-pulse-per-output-shaft-revolution argument (versus a piston engine’s two turns) to assign rotaries a 2:1 “correction” factor. Other bodies, such as the FIA, justified 3:1 by the fact that each rotor has three working side surfaces. Some agencies simply banned rotaries outright, especially after witnessing their speed and reliability. In 1968, anxious to strut its stuff, Mazda campaigned two race-prepped Cosmos at the 84-hour Marathon de la Route staged at Germany’s Nürburgring. One entry dropped out after 81 hours with axle failure; the other finished a surprising fourth behind two Porsche 911s and a Lancia Fulvia.

By 1976, Mazda RX-3 coupes had logged 100 victories in Japan. In 1979, the RX-7 launched its illustrious competition career with first-and second-place GTU class finishes at the 24 Hours of Daytona. Mazda’s sports car ultimately earned the GTU series championship 10 times, including eight consecutive titles.

Privateer assaults on Le Mans commenced in 1970, with the first rotary finish requiring a decade of effort. Respectable class finishes followed in the 1980s. Mazda’s day finally arrived in 1991 when its wailing four-rotor 787B thumped the Jaguar and Mercedes factory efforts to win overall, the first Le Mans victory by a Japanese manufacturer.

Even without seemingly essential all-wheel drive, Mazda RX-7s finished as high as third overall in World Rally Championship events during the 1980s and ’90s. And in 1994, Norton won the British Superbike Championship with its RCW588 ridden by Ian Simpson.

Unlike 20 or more enterprises around the globe that failed to advance the rotary’s cause, Mazda stuck with this engine through thick and thin for 44 years. Production ceased with the last RX-8 in 2012. In truth, the introduction of the magnificent piston-powered Miata MX-5 sports car in 1989—only a decade after the RX-7’s birth—marked the beginning of the end.

Despite its relative longevity beneath a Mazda badge, the rotary’s service record was hardly perfect. A rash of O-ring seal failures in the 1970s forced Mazda to operate an engine rebuild center near its U.S. headquarters in Irvine, California, to service warranty claims. RX-8s had a reputation for high oil consumption, and poor gas mileage was a concern from the start.

Piston engines got lighter, more powerful, more efficient, and cheaper to build at a faster rate than the rotary, mainly because only Mazda championed its cause. When Mazda’s engineering, manufacturing, and ownership allegiance with Ford ended in 2015, the small Japanese brand became totally responsible for its future. In 2017, Kenichi Yamamoto, who guided rotary development from the beginning and later served as Mazda’s president and chairman, went to rotary heaven without a successor who shared his passion.

That said, various Mazda powertrain directors have touted the rotary’s suitability as a range extender for gas-electric hybrid applications. The engine’s size, shape, and centered output shaft match electric generator characteristics nicely. And operating the rotary at a constant speed and load would diminish its emissions and fuel efficiency shortcomings. If the brand is truly serious about advancing the hybrid cause, there’s a chance the rotary just might outlive its piston engine nemesis. That was the hope all along.

As the rotor turns

10A:

1970–’72

A 982-cc two-rotor with 4-bbl carburetor making 100–120 hp in the R100 coupe. Built under license from NSU, Mazda’s first rotary sold in North America incorporated notable advancements in apex-seal design to improve durability. The water-cooled rotor housings were aluminum castings; rotors and side housings were made of cast iron.

12A:

1971–’78

An 1146-cc two-rotor with 4-bbl carburetor making 120 hp in RX-2 and RX-3 coupes and sedans. To add power to propel larger and more sporting models, rotor width was increased by 10 mm (0.39 in). Basic engine design and materials were otherwise carried over.

1979–’85

An 1146-cc two-rotor with 4-bbl carburetor making 100 hp in the RX-7. Like the 10A design, the larger 12A featured intake ports in its side housings and peripheral exhaust ports. Peak torque occurred at 4000 rpm, and the power curve crescendoed at 6000 rpm.

13B:

1974–’78

A 1308-cc two-rotor with 4-bbl carburetor making 135 hp in RX-4 coupes and sedans, Cosmo coupes, and pickups. Another 10-mm (0.39-in) increase in rotor width boosted displacement, torque, and horsepower. The torque peak remained at 4000 rpm, but peak power now occurred at 6500 rpm.

1984–’86

A 1308-cc two-rotor with fuel injection making 135–146 hp in the RX-7 GSL. The addition of Nippondenso electronic fuel injection yielded a broader torque curve peaking at a streetworthy 2750 rpm. A sophisticated engine management system, relocated spark plugs, dual mufflers, and lighter rotors for 1986 raised output to 146 hp at 6500 rpm and boosted torque another 4 percent to 138 lb-ft at 3500 rpm.

1987–’95

A 1308-cc turbo-charged two-rotor with fuel injection making 182 hp in the RX-7. Adding a twin-scroll Hitachi turbo (6.2 psi of boost), an intercooler, and a detonation sensor yielded speedy throttle response, with peak power at 6500 rpm, and a healthy 183 lb-ft of torque at 3500 rpm. Remarkably, there was little or no loss of fuel economy over the previous naturally aspirated rotary.

1991-’95

A 1308-cc twin-sequentially-turbocharged-and-intercooled two-rotor with fuel injection making 255 hp in the RX-7. Bosch D-Jetronic injection metered fuel to three side intake ports per chamber. Torque peaked at 5000 rpm, power at 6500 rpm, and the redline was an enthusiastic 7500 rpm.

20B:

1990–’95

A 1962-cc twin-sequentially-turbocharged-and-intercooled three-rotor with fuel injection making 276 hp in the (Japan-only) Eunos Cosmos. Internal dimensions were identical to 13B engines, but a two-piece eccentric shaft and special assembly procedures were required.

R26B:

1991

A 2616-cc four-rotor with fuel injection powered the 900-hp 787 and 787B sports prototypes at Le Mans, winning the 24-hour race in 1991. The engine had three spark plugs per rotor and peripheral intake and exhaust ports.

Renesis:

2003–’12

A 1308-cc two-rotor with fuel injection and side exhaust ports making 207–247 hp in the RX-8 2+2 coupe. This was a new design with exhaust ports moved to the side housings for improved efficiency. Two versions were offered, with modest and competitive power outputs and a remarkable 9000-rpm redline.

The post Engine revolution: Mazda’s rotary and its uncertain future appeared first on Hagerty Media.

BBS wheels have adorned some of the coolest classic and modern-classic cars of recent times. They’ve even helped steer the likes of Michael Schumacher to Formula 1 World Championships, with both Benetton and Ferrari, but on the eve of its 50th anniversary the German company has filed for bankruptcy protection. It’s the third time in 13 years.

Established in 1970, by Heinrich Baumgartner and Klaus Brand in Schiltach, a small German village to the south of Stuttgart, BBS began in business supplying plastic car styling parts but it wasn’t long before its focus turned to wheel design.

Heinrich Baumgartner created the BBS Mahle, so called because it had to be manufactured by Mahle as BBS lacked production capability in the early ’70s. Soon it was one of the most in-demand aftermarket wheels available.

The company went on to create the “split-rim,” a three-piece wheel that was light and ideally suited to high performance vehicles. Having identified a demand for a light, strong wheel, it developed a forged center with a rim in two sections, making it easy to vary the width of wheels according to the vehicle to which they’d be fitted. A gasket between each rim half created an airtight seal.

The aftermarket scene went wild for the split rims and their distinctive cross-spoke pattern, and soon car manufacturers, race teams and even motorsport championships came calling on BBS’ technical expertise.

BMW was a particular fan. Cars such as the 3.0 CSL, 635 CSi and E30 M3 wore BBS alloy wheels, while later the likes of the Porsche 911 GT3 (996), Volkswagen Corrado G60 and Mazda RX-7 Type A also featured BBS rims. More recently, even exotic hypercars including the Lexus LFA wore BBS with pride, albeit fashioned from magnesium.

The company has also supplied Formula 1, IndyCar, World Sportscars, NASCAR and countless other motorsports championships.

Announcing its bankruptcy, BBS GmbH said it was a “necessary step to prevent an imminent insolvency.” The company blamed its troubles on the coronavirus pandemic, and the “sudden omission of confirmed payments.”