Belleville, Michigan, located midway between Hagerty’s Ann Arbor editorial offices and Detroit Metro Airport, is aptly named. Some 4000 residents—including this writer—enjoy a magnificent lake, fine restaurants, exotic street art, and a cordial vibe. But Belleville’s most compelling attraction are summer Monday evenings, when two long blocks of Main Street are restricted to classics, customs, hot rods, homebuilts, and the occasional motorcycle.

In that regard, Belleville’s not so different from countless other little downtowns across the country: You know it’s summer when the classics make their weekly gathering.

An estimated 300 cars showed up at this year’s first meet—everything from a chopped ’34 Ford street rod to a pair of Tesla Cybertrucks—to celebrate the joys of motoring before an admiring crowd.

Although civilian traffic isn’t blocked from Main until 5 p.m., the star cars begin gathering in prime spots by three. Event host Egan’s Pub sells portable food and adult beverages. A farmer’s market offers fresh beef, fruit, vegetables, eggs, and honey. A DJ plays a distinctly ’60s soundtrack.

I spoke to a half-dozen car owners, and while domestic brands dominate the turnout, there is the odd import invader.

John Koelber has seized the same parking spot every Monday night for more than a dozen years since he purchased his ’32 Ford coupe, which features a fiberglass Outlaw Performance body riding atop a Fatman square-steel tube frame. He’s especially proud of the 383-cid Chevy V-8 poking out of the hood with its 871 Weiand supercharger fueled by a Holley Demon 775 carburetor. To ease steering effort, Koelber added an electric power-assist unit that mounts out of sight, under the dash.

This pristine ’67 Corvette 427 coupe has had the same owner for 32 years, and he’s piloted it for 5000 of its 80,000 total miles. The only modification to the Vette was upgrading to a five-speed manual transmission with an overdrive top gear, which is better suited for highway cruising.

We last encountered Sonny and Rose Ann Hall’s ’49 Mercury lead sled three years ago. Sonny chopped the top 3.5 inches, dropped the ride height, installed Buick side chrome, and gave his pride and joy a custom grille and a magnificent paint job. Not especially interested in speed or acceleration, he’s happy with the 454-cid Chevy big-block under the hood, which produces an estimated 300 horsepower.

With American Motors rides fewer and farther between these days, Ron Goodnough’s 1970 AMX salutes that manufacturer with a striking red-white-and-blue exterior. He noted that the paint job was applied by his father over the original lime green metallic. “My late pop Pete Goodnough was an AMC employee who helped design the AMX3 prototype,” he told me. “The first mid-engined sports car designed by any American company. Only seven such cars were ever made.” 

Ron’s two-seat AMX two-seater is equipped with five-spoke American Racing aluminum wheels and BFG Radial T/A rubber. The hood has aggressive scoops, and the side sills are decorated with faux exhaust piping, while the growl from the 360-cid V-8 underhood trumpets out the back.

Dave Remus, a proud Hagerty member for 20 years, loves his 1965 Mercury Comet Caliente. We love the fact that a version of the 302-cid Ford V-8 that came from the factory remains loud and proud under the hood. As Remus explained it: “A quarter-inch stroke and a 0.030-inch over-bore have raised the displacement to 331 cubic inches. I’m guessing it makes at least 450 hp in its current state of tune.”

There’s a fresh C4 automatic transmission under the floor to make best use of the small-block’s 6500-rpm redline. Except for additional instruments and fresh carpeting, the interior is all original. According to Remus, the cheater slicks fitted to the rear axle are street legal.

Dawn and Jeff King brought their 2006 Chrysler PT Cruiser convertible to Monday night’s gathering. It looks brand new and has been well cared for during each and every one of the 17,000 miles on its odometer. A turbocharged 2.4-liter four-cylinder engine drives the front wheels. The factory Linen Gold Pearl paint job and stock chromed nine-spoke wheels are to die for.

Belleville has done a fantastic job making its prime downtown streets an ideal place to enjoy a major chunk of what makes small-town summers so great. While my suggestion that adding a side street for sanctioned smokey burnouts has thus far been ignored, there’s always hope in this special corner of Michigan.

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Yes, the sales of little Japanese Kei trucks (it’s pronounced “kay”) were up in 2023, one reason they have been getting a lot of attention from the media. The compact haulers, built to conform with Japan’s keijidōsha class of light vehicles, are practical as well as cheap and charming, so smitten American buyers have been importing them from their home markets at a higher rate. But we should keep things in perspective: According to the Japanese Used Motor Vehicle statistics, 7594 Kei trucks were imported into the U.S. last year. Ten years ago, before many of these Japanese market vehicles met the 25-year age limit to legally import into the U.S., that number was 797.

Meanwhile, Ford sold 750,789 new F-150s in 2023. Those who suggest that the backlash from state governments seeking to keep Kei trucks off the road is even partly motivated by the desire of manufacturers of full-sized pickups to keep the market for themselves, a view that has also been represented in the media, are probably incorrect.

Governments keeping them off the road is the other reason the tiny, right-hand-drive Kei trucks have been in the news, and we blame Rhode Island. While the federal government writes the rules controlling the importation of foreign market vehicles like Kei trucks, it’s up to individual states whether or not you can register and drive them on the road. According to multiple sources, Kei trucks are street-legal in 19 states. But in Rhode Island there are only 30 or so Kei trucks on the road so, as they’ve done in many places, Kei trucks have sort of driven under the radar when it came to the law.

Until this happened, as told last month by the Providence Journal: “Imagine this: You import a mini-truck from Japan after calling the Rhode Island Division of Motor Vehicles and being assured that you’ll be able to register it here. Several years later, you receive a notice from the DMV: The Japanese mini-truck’s registration has been revoked, and you’ll need to hand over the license plates.”

One of those owners was a constituent of State Senator Louis DiPalma, who began asking questions. Apparently, the state DMV had, since 2021, been re-evaluating its decision to issue registrations for Kei trucks based on existing law, and recently started demanding that owners return their license plates.

Publicity ensued, and the story was picked up by a raft of media sources, and officials in other states began asking questions about what their DMVs were doing about the danger represented by allowing Kei-sized vehicles on the road. Citizens began picking sides, and the next thing you know, outlets like NBC News and The Economist are reporting on the Kei kerfuffle.

And the whole mess is confusing. In Wyoming, you can drive your Kei truck on any road but an interstate highway. In Georgia, the Motor Vehicle Department conclusively insists that Kei vehicles “are not ‘street legal.’ Kei vehicles are barred from titling and registration.” That said, “…both customers and county tag offices have been confused by the title and registration laws relating to these vehicles. Due to this confusion, certain customers have successfully, albeit unlawfully, had their Kei vehicles titled and registered in Georgia.” Gee, whose fault is that?

Angry Kei truck owners have pointed out that motorcycles and scooters are allowed on public roads, as are hundred-year-old, 20-horsepower Ford Model Ts: Are they any safer than a Kei truck? In some states, the battle over Kei rights is getting downright contentious. Kei truck owners are banding together to advocate for fair treatment; the Texas Kei Vehicle Advocates, for example, report that they’ve already been successful in getting the state to reverse its ban on titling Kei trucks. A memo issued April 4 by the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles said, “The department has revised the titling and registration requirements for these vehicles. Effective immediately, mini vehicles are required to be titled and must be registered if operated on public roadways.”

This cultish American enthusiasm for Kei trucks likely calls for an explanation. While we are talking about the tiny, single-cabover pickups or microvans that you’ve likely seen, say, doing maintenance on a golf course, “Kei” refers to more than that.

Kei is short for kei jidōsha, which is Japanese for “light motor vehicle.” A vehicle that is considered a Kei—and this has changed over the years, dating back to 1949—is, since late 1998, the following: Has an engine no larger than 660cc (about 40 cubic inches); no more than 63 horsepower; is no longer than 3.4 meters (just over 11 feet), and no wider than 1.48 meters (just under five feet). By comparison, the 2024 Nissan Versa, one of the few remaining small cars sold here, is 14.7 feet long and has 122 horsepower.

Since—obviously—the tiny Kei is not built to the U.S. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, only Kei vehicles that are older than 25 years can be imported into the U.S., because vehicles that elderly aren’t subject to FMVSS. That’s why the newest Kei vehicles you see for sale in America are typically 1999 models.

There are also Kei cars, including some sporty ones like the Honda Beat and Suzuki Cappuccino convertibles, and the Autozam AZ-1, built by Mazda and featuring gullwing doors: Those three are especially appreciated by American collectors, and quite a few have been imported. Decent Beats and Cappuccinos start at under $7000, while the rare Autozam AZ-1 starts at about $12,000, and can climb to over $30,000.

But it’s the Kei truck that is pulling in the (relatively) big numbers, and there are many companies in America that want to sell you one. Among them is Japan Car FL, based in Oldsmar, Florida, just south of Tampa. They have been importing JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) vehicles since 2018. The small, family-owned company advertises that they are licensed, bonded and insured, which is important in the JDM world, because not every company is.

Among Japan Car FL’s Kei vehicles is a 1999 Honda Acty Kei truck with four-wheel-drive, air conditioning and custom wheels for $10,850, and an air-conditioned 1999 Subaru Sambar Classic Kei microvan for $12,250. Each, says Japan Car FL, “comes with a clean Florida title, and is ready to be driven home on the day of purchase.”

While Japan Car FL handles all types of JDM imports, the business is driven by Kei trucks and microvans, said owner Lana Kashchuk. “There has been an increase in queries as they become more and more popular. It’s the top seller.”

Buyers vary. Some customers use them for work—Kei trucks are affordable, maneuverable, and their small engines are easy on gas. Many have six-foot beds that rival bigger trucks in cubic-foot capacity. “We have a lot of small business owners who buy them for tree-trimming, pool service, that sort of thing. But we also have customers who use them instead of golf carts locally to take them shopping or to Home Depot, or they drive them on weekends to go to the beach,” Kashchuk said.

There’s no problem in Florida—for now, anyway—to get them registered and tagged. The state now officially refers to them “mini trucks,” for use on roads where the speed limit is 35 mph or less. “But at the same time they are not branded as ‘low-speed vehicles’—they are not golf carts, so they get a regular tag and a regular title,” she said. “We have a lot of customers who aren’t having any problems or issues because they have a license plate like any other car, and they have a title like any other car, but it says ‘MT’—mini truck.”

Modern Kei trucks and microvans have no problem keeping up with the normal flow of traffic—that 1999 Subaru Sambar Classic, for instance, has 54 horsepower, and is good for 70 mph. Yes, they may technically be limited to roads where the speed limit is just 35 mph, but many traffic officers will look the other way as long as a Kei isn’t holding up the show.

As in most states, you can’t register a vehicle in Florida without proof of insurance. You can insure Kei trucks, but you may have to shop around for an agent familiar with the category, Kashchuk said. “It all depends on the agent. He or she might be confused about the shorter VIN number—because it isn’t the usual 17 digits and letters like a typical U.S. car, and because they may have a model name that is not familiar to them, not in their system.” As far as financing, Japan Car FL works with several companies that make loans on Kei trucks.

Even as states struggle to decide exactly what a Kei truck should—or should not—be allowed to do, there will likely still be a market for them, if for no other reason than because they are reasonably affordable. And cute.

Oh, and what’s happening in Rhode Island, where this confusion arguably began? Senator DiPalma is co-sponsoring legislation that would restore the ability of Kei truck owners to register their vehicles, and get license plates. That’s the good news. The bad news for Kei lovers: The new law would only apply to the 30-odd Kei trucks that are already on the road there, for use “until they can’t function anymore,” DiPalma said. There is no provision for adding any new Kei trucks to Rhode Island roads.

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New parts can stick out like a sore thumb in an. . . aging. . . engine compartment. Those shiny new parts might restore the function but sometimes ruin the look. Want the best of both worlds? Here are a couple tips to make new parts blend in without losing the function.

Of course, these tips are highly dependent on the goals of your project. Not everything deserves or needs restoration. In fact, the desire to keep things looking well-worn or authentic to the rest of the car can keep the whole operation from looking half-finished and more like a survivor. No one needs to know that survivor has had a heart transplant.

Don’t use new parts at all

Known good used parts can sometimes be found cheaper through a junkyard, eBay, or other resellers than new parts. If the right look matters it could be worth going through the effort of gutting a new alternator and putting all the important bits in the “seasoned” housing, yielding restored function without the look of restored parts. Win/win.

Flat clear or paint match

For items like suspension and steering, there isn’t the option to only use the good bits to make the part right again. Since almost everything new comes slathered in gloss black paint it is easy to make them blend in a bit by simply knocking the gloss off by spraying a flat clear coat over the new shiny parts. This will instantly put a bit of age on without removing any of the corrosion protection of the factory paint.

If you want to get even fancier, lay down a coat of matching paint. Most automotive paint stores can mix a custom color into an aerosol can. Take in the old part, have them mix up some paint, and before you know it that new piece will disappear—but in a good way.

Careful cleaning

One of the things that gives away where I have been and haven’t been is the clearly defined line of where I stopped cleaning. A spotless section of the car right next to 50 years of built-up road grime sticks out like a sore thumb. By cleaning only the absolutely necessary bits and areas to ensure safe and proper function it will create a less obvious fingerprint as to where repairs happened.

“Curated wear”

Call it fake patina if you want. A few carefully placed scratches, dents, or smears of oil can go a long way in transforming something brand new off the shelf and camouflaging it into the larger picture. Some Scotchbrite, steel wool, or sandpaper can take the paint off an area to match an old piece that has lost its paint after years of wear. Alternatively, a little bit of polish to brighten one spot on a dull part can accomplish a similar result. Is it slightly disingenuous? Sure. This technique can also look quite tacky if done poorly, but when done well, this is a real option for keeping the right feel to your vintage ride while also keeping it in top running condition.

Reuse hardware

Even if the part is new, the bolts and nuts don’t have to be. Shiny new hardware is a dead giveaway of where a mechanic has been to those who know where to look. Shiny new grade-5 bolt heads from the local hardware store will stick out immediately. If your old hardware can be cleaned up and reused it will hide most repairs far better. Focus on the thread with a wire wheel or thread chaser to ensure the hardware works like it should but leave the head alone for maximum sneaky factor.

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Welcome to This Week on Hagerty Marketplace, a recurring recap of the previous week’s most noteworthy cars and significant sales from the Hagerty Marketplace online auctions.

How do you take your horsepower–American or British? This varied trio of collectible cars check a lot of boxes for enthusiasts.

1964 Studebaker Avanti

Sold for $38,788

One of the cars offered from the Studebaker-centric Dr. Karl Peace & Georgia Southern University Car Collection, the lovely Avanti was styled in just 40 days by esteemed industrial designer Raymond Loewy and his team in 1962. Loewy was responsible for the look of everything from the Shell gas logo, to Coca-Cola vending machines, to the livery of Air Force One. The Avanti was essentially a Hail-Mary effort by Studebaker to compete with Ford, GM and Chrysler for attention, and while the reception was quite positive, the company went dark in 1966.

Just 4,643 copies of the fiberglass-bodied four-seater were built, making it a true collectible. This example is a 1964 model, likely one of the first ones built, as early 1964’s had round headlight frames instead the rectangular ones found in most ‘64s. It’s powered by a 240-horsepower, 289-cubic-inch V-8 with the coveted four-speed manual transmission. Since it as been in storage as part of the collection, it will take some work to bring it back to pristine condition, but once that is completed, the new owner will have one of what we consider to be the most gorgeous American luxury sports cars ever built.

1968 Jaguar E-Type 2+2

Sold for $51,895

Speaking of gorgeous, here’s a Jaguar E-Type, which Enzo Ferrari reportedly called “the most beautiful car ever made.” The E-Type, or the XK-E as U.S. customers came to know it, had a long life, being built from 1961 to 1974. This car is a 1968 model, and comes with a numbers-matching 4.2-liter straight-six engine with 245 horsepower, coupled to a four-speed manual transmission. It’s a 2+2, meaning it has the compact rear seat that folds down for additional space in the rear. The optional 15-inch knockoff wire wheels set the car off with a proper British profile. To be able to buy a well-cared-for classic like this for just over $50,000—sign us up.

1971 Chevrolet Nova SS

Sold for $34,775

How about a little all-American, Detroit-built muscle? The Chevy Nova was long waiting in the shadows of its stablemates, the Corvette and the Camaro, but performance versions of the Nova have truly come into their own as legitimate collectibles. This 1971 Nova SS is powered by a 350-cubic-inch V-8 backed by a Muncie M20 four-speed manual transmission. While the engine was rated at 270 gross horsepower, it’s likely this car makes more than that, judging from the Hooker headers, Flowmaster dual exhaust, and a Winters intake manifold with a Holley double-pumper carburetor. The last owner, who had the Nova SS for nine years, believes the displayed mileage of 81,640 is correct, and it seems likely there are plenty of enjoyable miles left in this pampered car.

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Few cars have been as emblematic of their era as the Ferrari Testarossa. The work of Leonardo Fioravanti and his team at Pininfarina transcended car design and became part of the visual iconography of the 1980s. Those side strakes alone are as ’80s as early MTV, shoulder pads and brick-like cellphones.

Serious Ferrari enthusiasts will point out, correctly, that the Testarossa was a lot more than just an extra on Miami Vice. It was also a hugely significant car for the marque. Ferrari built almost 10,000 over three major iterations between 1984 and 1996, meaning that it spent as long in production in the 1990s as it did in the 1980s. Ferrari itself changed hugely over those dozen years, and it is reflected in how it developed and improved this 12-cylinder, grand-touring flagship of its standard range. The relatively high production volumes, significant updates, and longevity also mean there is huge variation between first and last in quality, dynamics, and market value.

But the cultural significance of the Testarossa is important to collectors, too. We often buy the cars that were on our bedroom walls as teenagers, and there were a lot of Testarossa posters masking bad wallpaper back then. Some of those kids now have the means to own a Testarossa, and values have soared.

Along with Ghostbusters and Beverly Hills Cop, the Testarossa turns 40 this year. To mark the occasion, Monaco Car Auctions assembled five examples of the Testarossa series for its recent Ferrari-only sale. Each represents a stage in the car’s development.

The first three were all badged Testarossa. There was an early version known as the Monospecchio for its mad single high-mounted wing mirror. The later Monodado has two conventional wing mirrors but gets its name for its single-bolt wheels that came in 1987. The final Testarossa-badged version from 1988 has two mirrors and five-bolt wheels.

With subsequent, more substantial mechanical and design revisions the Testarossa got new names: the 512 TR came out in 1991, and the final F512 M version appeared in 1994. The auction house offered one of each of those too, and bravely offered Hagerty the vanishingly rare opportunity to drive the first, the last, and the one that some people consider to be the best back-to-back. If they all sold, the auction might also provide a useful snapshot of their relative values too.

Seeing all three parked side-by-side in fierce, bleaching Italian sun, keys in the ignition and ready for me to to drive is almost too much for this child of the ’80s. I’m naturally drawn to the original, purest expression of that famous shape. The Monospecchio version with that single mirror on a stalk and an offset lower air intake adds an appealing asymmetry to the Testarossa’s otherwise square-jawed good looks. To my eyes, the original front-end treatment is also easily the best. The two later cars echo the noses of their ’90s V-8 stablemates—the 348 and 355—and lose some of that ’80s appeal as a result. If you asked me before driving them which one I’d choose, there’s no question what the answer would be.

The first Testarossa of 1984 succeeded the 512 BBi, and fixed some of the criticisms of its predecessor. The nose-mounted radiators moved to the rear, making room for a capacious trunk under that broad flat nose and preventing heat collected from the 4.9-litre flat-12 from dissipating into the cockpit as it passed through.

X-ray the Testarossa in your head and you’ll see why Fioravanti and his team gave it that wild shape. Mounting the radiators behind the doors required a much wider rear end. At nearly 78 inches across, the Testarossa was over a foot wider than a contemporary standard 911. Even after 40 years of dimensional inflation it remains six inches wider than the average new car in Europe, and an intimidating drive on the tight Italian mountain roads where we’re testing them.

Legislation required those famous side-strakes over the air intakes to prevent small children or pets from being sucked in as the car passed, and unlike modern car designers who often seek to disguise the visual mass of their bloated cars, Fioravanti was unapologetic about the Testarossa’s width, carrying it through undiminished to a square-cut rear end rather than tapering it away, and even emphasizing it with the full-width, black horizontal rear grille which echoes the side-strakes.

The Monospecchio in front of me is a 24,000-km (14,900-mile) example made in 1985. You reach deep into those strakes to find the door handle, and slide in over a wide, flat sill. Much has been said about the poor ergonomics of ’80s supercars, and it’s all true. I have to duck my head hard to get under the cant rail, and once in it’s still tight against the headlining, despite being under six feet tall. The pedals are offset heavily to the right and the space where your left foot should be is occupied by a speaker.

The metal-spoked Momo steering wheel is angled hard away from you, the clutch gives your left thigh a proper workout, and the five-speed black ball-topped shifter feels lumpy as you run through the open-gate shifter before starting. The cabin is mainly assembled of slabs of black leather and plastic, and the layout of the switchgear and dials is deeply random. The Veglia odometer is housed in the console by your right knee, bizarrely. The fog light switches are in the roof. The orange dials ahead of you run optimistically to 10,000rpm and 320 km/h (200 mph).

Of course, the heavy clutch, steering and gearchange lighten and cohere with speed. Driving a Testarossa isn’t a fight but it remains a physical experience. That dry-sumped, four-valve flat-12 developed by Nicola Materazzi is a mechanical masterpiece: it doesn’t howl like a modern, expensively elocuted Ferrari but just emits a glorious, sonorous, multi-multi-layered thrash, with the click-clack of that open-gate shifter as percussion. It makes 390hp, and when new it was the most powerful engine offered in a standard production sports car. There’s sufficient torque to make low-effort, high-gear driving easy when you want to back off a bit, but the power really comes in above around 5000 rpm and peaks at 6300 rpm.

While this is a 40-year-old car, it still feels fast. A 0-60mph time of 5.3 seconds might sound modest by modern standards (Ferrari’s official claim was 5.8) but it feels plenty quick when keeping the thing pointing in a straight line, while setting it up for the next bend commands your very full attention. Of course it’s a thrill to drive, but the satisfaction of getting your technique right and overcoming the mechanical and ergonomic challenges make the whole experience more rewarding, more organic.

The fundamentals of the 1994 512 TR might be the same as the original but the benefits of several years of development are immediately apparent. The later Viola Hong Kong paint of this 65,000km example is striking, but underneath it’s more conventional than the Monospecchio with two mirrors, five-bolt wheels and longer rear buttresses breaking up that broad rear deck. Inside, the speaker has disappeared from the footwell and the ashtray from the door, the spokes of the steering wheel are now trimmed with leather and the odometer and trip meter are now in the dials, where they should have been all along.

X-ray the Testarossa again and you’ll notice how high the engine sits in the chassis, atop its gearbox. That configuration never changed and the car never lets you forget it, but in the 512 TR the combined unit is mounted 30mm lower in the tubular steel chassis to the clear benefit of handling. Internal revisions yielded 428bhp over a broader rev range and a higher redline at 6750rpm. The steering is quicker, the brakes bigger, the clutch lighter, and the gearchange less truculent. It’s the same car, but more coherent and cooperative, your extra speed due as much to the extra confidence the chassis imparts as the extra power of the engine.

You still treat the 512 TR with the respect its size and configuration demand, but the pleasure comes more from its inherent qualities than from conquering its quirks. Within a few miles, even on tight Italian mountain roads I was slicing into corners far faster than in the original, overtaking rather than waiting, and stretching that glorious mechanical package rather than merely managing it. This was the Testarossa experience I’d hoped for for 40 years.

Then I got into the F512 M, wondering how much better it could be, given that the fundamentals didn’t change much in this final iteration. The looks did, though. The pop-up headlamps were replaced with Perspex covers, the rear grille was now punctured by twin round lamps that echo the earlier 512 BB, and it rides on a very ’90s set of wheels. For me, it’s easily the worst-looking of the three (your view may differ).

But it’s also the rarest, the last, and the most developed. Ferrari only built 501 examples, compared to 7177 Testarossas and 2261 512 TRs. There were some detail changes to the engine, such as titanium connecting rods, high compression, and less back-pressure in the exhaust. It’s slightly more sonorous, keener to rev and, of course, more powerful at 440bhp. There were more changes to the steering and suspension (gas dampers), and minor revisions to the interior including a new polished aluminum ball atop a long and very solid gearlever, a general improvement in quality and, as fitted to this 41,000-km (25,500-mile) 1995 car, the option of carbon-shelled race seats.

Ferrari claimed only a tenth of a second advantage to 60mph over the 512 TR at 4.7 seconds, and one extra mile per hour in top speed to 196mph. On the road the F512 M feels further developed than that, but not by the same margin as the TR improved on the original Testarossa. It’s a little quicker and more exploitable, but also more grown-up and refined, which may not be what you want from a Testarossa. All three, though, have distinct but similar personalities.

In the end, the Monaco Car Auctions sale didn’t yield the market comparison we’d hoped for. Only 12 of the auction’s 30 car lots sold. To be fair, this was only the second year for this event, and it might also reflect European sentiment generally: Bonhams’ sale at the Historic Grand Prix of Monaco the previous month saw 24 of 52 car lots sold.

Of the cars I drove from the MCA sale, only the Monospecchio sold, making €150,000 before buyer’s premium ($161,000) against an estimate of €150-€180,000. The earlier Bonhams sale also saw a lovely, single-family, 26,500km 512 TR in Rosso Corsa over beige sell for €212,750 with premium ($228,000) against an estimate of €200,000-250,000.

In the Hagerty Price Guide, the Monospecchio’s price was close to the model’s condition #3 (“good”) value of $142,000, while its condition #2 (“excellent”) value currently sits at $206,000. That 512 TR at Bonhams, meanwhile, looked very cheap, coming in just above the average condition #4 (“fair”) value of $211,000, with a condition #2 car now sitting at $334,000. Values for both Testarossa and 512 TR have been relatively volatile over the past decade, making big gains in the hot Ferrari market of the mid-2010s, retreating significantly at the end of the decade, and then shooting back up again during the pandemic boom.

The F512 M has followed a similar pattern but sits at a much higher price point. Driven by its much greater rarity and slightly greater usability, a condition #2 car is now worth $596,000, a near four-fold increase over 10 years, in which time the original has increased 240 per cent in value, and the 512 TR 288 per cent.

The oldest Testarossas are now 40 years old. The kids who wanted them when they were new might now be 55, and there’s a younger breed of collectors coming through who might have a stronger affinity with the 10-years-newer F512 M. Looking at buyer interest, over the past five years the share of policy quotes on the F512 M to Gen X and younger owners has risen by a third, and that group now accounts for 42 per cent of quotes issued. For the 512 TR it’s 32 per cent, and for a Monospecchio just 25 per cent. So, interest is naturally correlated to buyers’ ages, doesn’t seem to be abating, and might continue to shift in the F512M’s favor as more ’90s kids start to buy old Ferraris.

Again, these are three similar cars that nevertheless have distinct personalities with their own pros and cons. The F512 M feels like what it is: the product of company boss Luca Cordero di Montezemolo’s ultimately successful efforts to improve Ferrari’s road cars. In its manners and build quality it feels closer to the V-12-powered 456 and 550 of the nineties. If you want that era of Ferrari, though, maybe get one of those cars. You’ll pay a a lot less—a #2 condition 550 is worth less than half as much. The F512 M might be—by a small margin—the best to drive, but I’m not sure it’s the best Testarossa, all things considered. Had I been lucky enough to be bidding on June 8, and having driven all of them, I’d have been torn between the Monospecchio and the 512 TR. The early Testarossa is the easiest on the eyes, certainly. But if you buy your cars to drive as well as to look at, the 512 TR is the Testarossa to have.

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Italians are renowned for their obsessive attention to the aesthetics of pretty much everything. As a result, the country enjoys a reputation for style and flair that the marketing teams of brands like Alfa Romeo or Maserati waste no opportunity to exploit to their advantage.

Yet, few would argue that, when it comes to car design, that reputation was mainly established between the 1950s and the 1980s, the golden era of the Italian “Carrozzieri.” These were a handful of small firms located around Turin that, at the height of their creative powers, managed to exert an outsize influence on the aesthetic development of the automobile worldwide.

But it’s plain to see that those days are gone. Bertone is no more, ItalDesign is an outpost of VW, and if you want your new car to come with a Pininfarina badge, your only choice is the Battista hypercar.

So, what went wrong?

The question may be simple, yet the answer is anything but. The downfall of Italy’s famed design houses wasn’t triggered by a single event or circumstance. Instead, it was a gradual process characterized by multiple contributing factors. But to understand what knocked the likes of Pininfarina and Bertone off their perches, we first need to look at how they got there in the first place.

The postwar years weren’t kind to the European coachbuilding industry. The sector’s traditional client pool was dwindling, and as the continent’s automobile industry embraced unibody construction, so was the supply of suitable donor chassis to work on.

By 1955, many prestigious Italian names from the pre-war era, such as Castagna and Stabilimenti Farina, were gone. The few coachbuilding firms that survived this tumultuous period were those with closer ties to the local automakers. These were the strongest, most resourceful outfits that could work with unibody structures and take care of small production runs—all while serving as actual design partners, too. Genuine one-stop shops that, on short notice, could ease the pressure from an automaker’s factory and design office.

That’s because while the switch to chassis-less construction made for lighter, more efficient cars, it also made tooling up for low-volume derivatives like coupès or convertibles significantly more expensive. And that’s where companies like Pininfarina and Bertone entered the picture. Outsourcing their design and production allowed Fiat, Lancia, and Alfa Romeo to offer sporting derivatives of their regular models without investing in additional production capacity. This became even more critical by the second half of the 1950s, as a booming Italian economy sent the demand for new cars through the roof.

By the mid-’60s, these lucrative contract manufacturing arrangements had transformed Pininfarina and Bertone into small industrial empires. Both companies built car bodies by the thousands, yet their fortunes depended as much on ideas as they did on sheet metal. Being perceived as the cutting edge of automobile design was crucial to keep commissions coming in, so wowing the crowds at the Turin, Paris, or Geneva motor shows with sensational show cars was an integral part of these firms’ business. And the results were as spectacular as the cars themselves: Design commissions came pouring in from France to Japan and everywhere in between. It seemed the Turinese masters could do no wrong, but their success was due in no small part to favorable circumstances.

As we intend it today, car design was practically invented in Detroit in the late 1920s when GM established its “Art & Colour” section. It didn’t take long for each of the Big Three to have a well-funded and fully-staffed design department. But, strange as it may sound to our modern ears, during the ’50s and ’60s, most European automakers had yet to realize the essential role design played in market success. If they had an in-house design team, it was often understaffed and placed under the engineering department’s thumb. Management frequently had little understanding or appreciation for design matters and, lured by their flashy dream cars, didn’t think twice about handing the job to the Italians.

Of course, that’s not to say these people weren’t good. Unencumbered by the internal pressures the home teams were subjected to, the Italian studios repeatedly delivered the freshest, most original proposals. Sometimes, when one particular automaker was stuck in a dangerous creative rut, that outside input—think Giugiaro’s work for VW in the 1970s, for example—could even prove vital. But nothing lasts forever, and as the 1980s gave way to the 1990s, dark storm clouds were already looming on the horizon.

The first cracks began appearing right in the contract manufacturing business that had served Bertone and Pininfarina so well. Quality standards across the industry increased, while more advanced, flexible production methods allowed different cars to be made on the same line. As a result, automakers lost the incentive to outsource the production of lower-volume models. Moreover, if an international customer faltered, falling back on Fiat’s shoulders was no longer possible. Italy’s former industrial giant was all but broke heading into the turn of the new millennium and could no longer offer the support that had been so crucial four decades earlier. Few things can dig a larger hole in a company’s finances quicker than an idle factory, but the problems didn’t stop there.

By the time the last 747 full of Cadillac Allantés left Turin’s airport, design culture was much more widespread worldwide. Automotive executives were now acutely aware of design’s importance, and wanted to keep tighter control over it. Consequently, manufacturers invested heavily in their own design studios and often had multiple ones on different continents. With that, any incentive to involve third parties in the process was gone.

Especially when said third party counted most of your competitors among its customers. In an excellent biography published a few years ago, the legendary designer Ercole Spada shared a poignant anecdote from his time at BMW. He recalled how the company routinely asked each of Turin’s most prominent studios for proposals despite not intending to pursue any. But, since Pininfarina, Bertone, and ItalDesign all worked with BMW’s rivals, having these companies “compete” against its own design studio was, for the Bavarian firm, an indirect way to get a glimpse of its rivals’ general direction.

Last but certainly not least, complacency set in. There may still have been a space for Turin’s storied design firms in the modern era if they had kept their foot hard on the accelerator and their gaze locked on the horizon. Perhaps even more than in their 1960s heyday, being at the forefront of automobile design was a matter of life or death. Yet, one look at Bertone’s post-2000 output is enough to see why their phone stopped ringing.

Of course, Pininfarina is still around. Its latest work, the lovely Morgan Midsummer, shows that the company hasn’t lost its touch. But the days in which every Ferrari and every Peugeot on sale was a Pininfarina design are gone, never to return.

Nevertheless, it can be argued that what was created all those years ago in Turin continues to wield a certain influence on automobile design today. As a part of our shared cultural heritage, it’s in the back of every car designer’s mind, providing inspiration and being reinterpreted in novel ways. There are many examples out there, but the best one may be Hyundai’s brilliant Ioniq 5. It’s a resolutely contemporary and highly distinctive design, yet its design language’s roots are in Giugiaro’s “folded paper” cars from the 1970s.

Ultimately, the tale of Turin’s fallen design giants is as much about their amazing cars as it is about the fleeting nature of success. Left behind by the industry they once ruled, what’s left of the Italian “Carrozzieri” currently faces an uncertain future. What is certain, however, is that their massive legacy will stay with us for a very, very long time.

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Man versus machine. The epic conflict is top of mind for many of us these days. Though AI’s inevitable takeover may have us humans feeling defeated, it’s comforting to consider that this battle has been raging for decades—and that we have a secret weapon up our sleeves.

Enter the World’s Strongest Man competition. For nearly 50 years, this series of spectacular events has been the recognized gold standard for finding, well, the world’s top strongman. When it comes to machines, these men mercilessly bend them, lift them, and throw them. As far as vehicular opponents go, these legendary titans have gone up against some equally legendary classics over the years:

Car Lift

This event has a storied history in the strongman universe dating all the way back to the inaugural 1977 World’s Strongest Man competition, held at Universal Studios in California. Competitors had to wrap their bare hands under a car’s rear bumper and successfully complete a full deadlift of the vehicle, with nothing but a pair of basic Adidas sneakers and possibly a weightlifting belt to support them. 

Among the cars was a 1977 Datsun B210 hatchback, though this proved too easy for the skilled giants (including Lou Ferrigno, the Incredible Hulk), and they inevitably had to add more weight.

The following year, the competition was again held at Universal Studios, though the producers made a more concerted effort to embrace the spirit of their setting. Competitors lifted Jack Benny’s 1916 Maxwell Model 25 tourer, a Ford Model A coupe used in The Sting, and Columbo’s 1959 Peugeot 403 cabriolet (which the owner was looking to sell in 2022 for a mid-six-figure price), though this time with a slightly more ergonomic metal bar attached to the back end.

Though the World’s Strongest Man seemed to take a break from the Car Lift in the 1980s in favor of other car-related challenges, the event made its triumphant return in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Highlights included a squat-off featuring a 70-series Toyota Land Cruiser in 2001, a classic deadlift of a Chrysler PT Cruiser in 2007, and, at the 2018 contest in Manilla, Hafþór Björnsson (“The Mountain” of Game of Thrones fame) took on the Filipino “King of the Road,” the Sarao Motors Jeepney. For those unfamiliar with Sarao, at one point the Jeepney outnumbered vehicles from other brands on the roads of Manilla by almost 7 to 1. It’s good to be the king.

Car Rolling 

This next event gives the strongmen a chance to unleash their appetite for destruction (though sadly not in time for Mr. Ferrigno to show off his Hulk pedigree). While the rules of Car Rolling, occasionally referred to as the more benign “Car Turnover,” vary—sometimes it’s flipping one car a full 360 degrees, other times it’s flipping multiple cars 90 or 180 degrees—the discipline is always an entertaining bout of sanctioned rampaging. 

What poor cars bore the brunt of this madness?

To start, French ones. At a lovely park in Nice in 1986, the strongmen had to berserk their way through a sequence consisting of a Renault 5, a Renault 3 (the budget-friendly Renault 4), and a Citroën 2CV. Considering the 2CV’s reputation as the great un-flippable wonder, it’s fair to say it made a worthy foe. This wouldn’t be the last time the pride of France gave the strongmen a good fight, either.

By 1989, Jón Páll Sigmarsson (a.k.a. “The Viking,” and one of the sport’s most magnetic showmen) had developed a new technique to clear the course: grabbing the tires. This time, the foes were a Fiat 127, Renault 5, and finally a Renault 4.

Moving forward all the way to 1996, the event consisted of just one Austin/Morris 1800 Mk III that had to be rolled a full 360 degrees. The winner, Gerrit Badenhorst of South Africa, managed to accomplish this feat and run to the finish line in just under 12 seconds.

Car Walk

Possibly one of the most adorable—and challenging—of all strongmen events, the Car Walk brings to life Fred Flintstone’s prehistoric means of transportation. In preparation for this event, a car is hollowed out to varying degrees, has its roof removed, and is fitted with enormous shoulder straps. The strongmen must then climb inside, lift the weight of the car onto their massive shoulders, and take their turns yabba-dabba-doo-ing down a course of varying lengths.  

The first Car Walk, in 1993, featured all-time Icelandic great Magnús ver Magnússon hauling the strongman nemesis Citroën 2CV (engine still inside) almost 25 meters.

The following year upped the ante, employing two 2CVs in a heated walk-off. The strongmen had to not only make it down the track, but now had to avoid any disastrous fender-benders with their meet-mate while doing so.

It should also be noted that this is the same year competitors also had to survive the so-called “Sampson’s Barrow,” a version of a wheelbarrow race in which the wheelbarrow was a Mitsubishi L300 flatbed truck with two kegs and a full-grown man as cargo.

Unfortunately, for most of the remaining years when audiences were treated to the Car Walk, the models used were merely referred to as anonymous “saloons.” One announcer in 2006 went so far as to comment about the Citroën AX being hauled around that year: “Now, the only redeeming feature as far as I can tell with this car is the outstanding head room.” Ouch. 

Honorable Mentions

Beyond those impressive feats of strength, other automotive highlights of the World’s Strongest Man have included the time they made the strongmen push a Hummer H1 roughly 20 meters, the time competitors had to hold up a BMW E46 sedan for as long as humanly possible, and even some less-official Strongman content, where 2017 British champion and real-life Gears of War character Eddie Hall squeezed himself into a tiny Peel P50 replica and attempted to drive into a McDonald’s. Here’s to hoping that last one makes it to the main stage.

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Drag racing’s first Funny Cars weren’t called “Funny Cars.” They were factory experimental (FX) cars—stripped down two-door coupes fitted with lightweight parts and big engines. In 1964, give or take a year, these special hot rods were given to the favored race teams of a few Detroit manufacturers. Other racers cobbled together their own versions of an FX racer. There were Fords, Mercurys, Chevys, Pontiacs, Dodges, and Plymouths of the most recent vintage. The racers who campaigned them in match races hopped them up, first with fuel injection and later adding superchargers and, ultimately, nitromethane fuel. Seen as the bad-boy class of drag racing, the most heavily modified FX cars—and the supercharged S/FX cars—weren’t welcome at the events of drag racing’s sanctioning bodies. But they were embraced by track owners who just wanted to offer a show that would put butts in seats. And put butts in seats they did, with loud, rocking radio ads that promised Ford vs. Chevy, Dodge vs. Pontiac, and David vs. Goliath, at speeds Detroit’s passenger cars were never meant to achieve.

“I’m gonna put that Pontiac-driving farmer right back on his tractor,” screamed a voice on the radio that was supposedly Gary Dyer, driver of Mr. Norm’s Grand Spaulding Dodge S/FX car. And the fans came out in droves to see Arnie Beswick—an Illinois farmer—and his Pontiac take on Dyer and his Dodge.

“Factory experimental” was somewhat of a misnomer in that only a few of the cars on the match race circuit were genuine factory efforts. Among the factory-supported cars, however, were Mercury Comets along with Dodges and Plymouths with Chrysler’s new 426 Hemi V-8 engine. Chevy didn’t officially sponsor cars, but it has been said that trucks left the GM Tech Center in Warren, Michigan, loaded with blocks, crankshafts, and cylinder heads for that maker’s big-block engine, before dropping off said iron at the garages of racers. So too, Pontiac, which covertly supported a few favored racers.

Chrysler Corporation invested in FX racing by producing short-wheelbase, lightweight clones of its street cars for select racers. Because the altered wheelbase made them appear odd, they were disparagingly dubbed “funny cars” by GM and Ford racers. The name eventually stuck.

And it was a battle royale, as no maker wanted to be left in the dust. Dodge took advantage of stock-body drag racing’s popularity early on with a pair of blown and injected cars running on gasoline that raced each other at various tracks in 1964. Ford got serious about FX and provided modified Mercury Comets to numerous racers, including Jack Chrisman, a former top fuel dragster racer. Chrisman was not impressed with the performance of the normally aspirated Comet, and he built a second Comet with a nitro-burning, supercharged engine. 

In 1965, Ford upped the ante and installed its newly developed single-overhead-cam (SOHC) V-8 in several Comet FX cars. The engine had originally been developed for NASCAR and was meant to run carbureted on gasoline. When NASCAR banned it, Ford turned to drag racing, giving it to select FX racers and top fuel dragster teams.

At first, the SOHC Ford-powered cars dominated, and Ford performance management responded by asking a local builder of dragsters, Logghe Stamping Company, to build tube chassis underpinnings for its best Mercury Comet race teams. Another maker produced a fiberglass replica of the Comet body, and the first “modern” Funny Car was born. The SOHC Ford engine made good power on moderate loads of nitromethane, and the “flip-top” Comets were kings of the quarter mile. But durability would eventually become a problem.

Ed Pink, who developed Ford SOHC engines for top fuel teams, struggled with the engine. In a 2015 Motor Trend article he said, “This engine was meant to handle maybe 750 horsepower, and we were getting 2500 horsepower out of it. We would be lucky to get four runs for qualifying and four for eliminations from a block. If we did, the crank would be laying in the bottom of a broken-up block.”

By mid ’65, a number of Dodge and Plymouth racers were matching the Ford upgrades piece for piece, bolting on blowers and tipping the nitromethane can. Gary Dyer, who had raced one of the factory Comets in ’64, teamed up with Norm Krause of Chicago’s Grand Spaulding Dodge to build a supercharged Dodge Funny Car on a mildly modified standard-issue two-door sedan body and chassis. At first, he ran high-9-second ETs on gasoline, but midway through the season he switched to nitromethane fuel and was soon equaling the numbers of the Mercury cars. 

Toward the end of the ’65 season, Dyer and Norm purchased a lightweight altered-wheelbase car that Chrysler had built for Dodge racer Roger Lindamood. Dyer installed his engine in the Lindamood car, which had been normally aspirated, then he bolstered the unibody chassis, pushed the nitro percentage up a bit, and was soon running eights. At the end of the season, Dyer towed the car out to California for a big Funny Car show at Lions Drag Strip in Long Beach. While most match race teams were stuck in the nines and tens, he put down an 8.653-second, 163-mph pass in the modified steel-body Coronet.

The gauntlet had been thrown down, and to be competitive in Funny Car match racing you had to make big power. Arnie Beswick and his Pontiacs were staying close to Dyer, occasionally beating him in their frequent match-race appearances. Numerous Ford and Chevy racers were running big numbers, too, and a Ford vs. Chevy match race guaranteed a big draw for the track owner and, more often than not, a lot of oil and chunks of aluminum on the dragstrip

As the 1967 season got underway, it became obvious that a modified steel-bodied production car wouldn’t cut it on the match-race circuit. Soon, fiberglass-bodied, tube-chassid Funny cars were sprouting like weeds. By late ’67, the best cars had broken the 8-second quarter-mile barrier, and competition became heated. Mopar racers in their Dodge and Plymouth cars were faring well, making plenty of power with Chrysler’s Hemi. Those with good mechanical skills could do so without a lot of carnage. For example, the “Chi-Town Hustler” team of Farkonas, Coil, and Minick ran the same engine for all of ’67 and ‘68 in their ’67 Barracuda Funny Car, recording mid-7-second ETs, setting track records, and winning consistently on the match race circuit.

“Jungle” Jim Liberman campaigned a ’67 Chevy II with a big-block engine and had to settle for 8-second ETs to avoid expensive engine failures. The Chevy engines were stout enough and were very good powerplants in normally aspirated form, but they didn’t like big loads of nitro and a supercharger. Austin Coil, who is considered one of the best supercharged nitro-fuel engine tuners of all time, explained why. 

Like most V-8 engines, he told me, the Chevys have ports that are offset from the valves and curve a bit on their way to the combustion chamber. So when fuel enters the chamber it swirls around the circumference. Fuel mixture swirl is generally an advantage in a normally aspirated engine because it enhances combustion. But in a supercharged nitro-burner, it’s a distinct minus because fuel is forced down to the ring lands as the piston comes up on compression. With lots of cylinder pressure and a high percentage and volume of nitromethane, the resulting violent explosion lifts the ring lands, effectively destroying the piston. Make another run without swapping in a new piston, and the damaged part could escape through the side of the block, igniting a fire as oil hits the exhaust pipes.

As fierce competition led to racers pushing their engines harder, the Chevys destroyed pistons regularly. The same was largely true of Pontiac engines, but they were also plagued with head gasket problems. Pontiacs had only 10 head bolts per bank, while the Mopars had 17, and the big-block Chevies had 14. All builders of supercharged nitro-fuel engines augmented the seal of the head gaskets with copper-wire O-rings in a groove around each cylinder. Because of the bore spacing on the Pontiacs, it was impossible to install separate O-rings for each cylinder. Instead, racers “siamesed” the O-ring grooves between cylinders. Installing the wire perfectly was difficult to say the least, and even when installed correctly that fix wasn’t as effective as two distinct O-rings. So head gasket failures were common on the supercharged fuel-burning Ponchos. A failure usually meant a destroyed engine block as combustion heat and pressure burned away the block deck.

Some racers were able to make Chevy fuelers work well into the 1970s by limiting fuel loads and exercising extreme caution with boost and other tuning variables. Most notable was Dick Bourgeois, who drove and tuned the Doug’s Headers car. Bourgeois was running 6.60-second ETs as late as the mid-70s. But long term, running a Chevy engine supercharged on nitromethane was a losing battle.

Although the Ford SOHC engines weren’t designed to tolerate supercharging and big loads of nitromethane, they ultimately disappeared from lack of support. Ford stopped manufacturing the engine because it couldn’t use it in NASCAR and probably deemed it too expensive to produce for passenger cars, as Chrysler had done with its 426 Hemi. But Ford had another engine waiting in the wings: the Boss 429 “Shotgun” motor.

In 1971, Mickey Thompson, with support from Ford, built a Pinto Funny Car with a titanium chassis and a Ford Boss 429 engine, supercharged and on nitromethane. After running very well at times with Dale Pulde in the driver’s seat but also encountering breakage and numerous fires, the team eventually switched to a Chrysler 426 Hemi. Asked why they gave up on the Ford 429, Pulde said, “The aluminum heads fell apart, the valvetrain was weak. The deck was short, which made for a less-than-ideal connecting rod angle. We built 1-inch spacers and sleeved the engine all the way through the spacers to enable longer connecting rods, but it was a losing battle. There was great parts availability for the Chrysler Hemi, so we eventually made the switch.”

Most other Funny Car racers who were running engines that matched the brand of their car’s GM or Ford fiberglass body eventually gave up on the maker’s powerplant as well. Arnie Beswick, for example, who had gained a large following with his Pontiac-powered GTOs, Firebirds, and Tempests, finally threw in the towel and switched to a Chrysler 426 Hemi in 1972. 

If there was competition to become the dominant engine in Funny Car racing, Chrysler won going away. But the 426 Hemi wasn’t bulletproof. When competition and the resulting horsepower race led to more fuel volume, more supercharger boost, and increased displacement, cracked main webbings became a significant problem for the cast-iron Chryslers. High-strength aluminum aftermarket blocks addressed that issue, with Ed Donovan introducing a block based on the 1958 Chrysler 392 Hemi and Keith Black producing a stout aluminum version of the ’64–’71 426 Hemi. 

The Keith Black 426 clones proved far more popular than the Donovans, likely because most racers were already running cast-iron versions of the later-model Hemi. By this time, the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) had welcomed Funny Cars and the crowds they drew into the national event ranks. To standardize specifications for professional Funny Car and Top Fuel racing, NHRA developed engine specifications based on the Chrysler 426 that would dictate the design of aftermarket manufactured engines. 

Those specs still define the basic design of the 11,000-plus horsepower fuel motors that thrill fans today. Several companies make cast aluminum or aluminum billet versions of the Hemi drag racing engine, but they’re all made to the same specifications, and the aluminum two-valve cylinder heads atop them are nearly indistinguishable from those used in the late ’60s 426 Chrysler Hemis. If you walk through the pits at a national NHRA event you’ll see Hemi valve covers emblazoned with Dodge, Chevrolet, Ford, and Toyota logos, to match the branding of the race car’s fiberglass body. But deep down inside, they’re all direct descendants of Chrysler’s 426. 

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If you’re a fan of this site, or if you’re a racing nerd, you probably know about the first time a Cadillac raced at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. That was in 1950, when American millionaire Briggs Cunningham entered two Caddies into the legendary endurance race in France. One was a stock model, the other a weird-looking wedge the locals dubbed Le Monstre. (Cadillac the company wasn’t involved; Cunningham entered on his own dime.) You probably also know that Cadillac returned to Le Mans last year, got onto the podium, and is back at it in 2024 with its eyes on the top step. What you might not know is the chapter of the Cadillac and Le Mans story that’s set in the early 2000s. 

Two things come to mind when looking back at early-aughts Cadillac: The original Escalade, and grandparent-era (as the kids might say now) coupes and sedans designed primarily for comfort. Either way, neither screamed performance. (The V-Series was just about to become a reality, and hadn’t yet begun to define at least part of the brand as a sporting alternative to BMW). So why did GM decide that Cadillac should go race sports cars—and internationally? 

At first blush, it made sense given GM’s existing footprint in racing, and due to its existing relationships in motorsport. GM was already represented in almost every major motorsports discipline, promoting its brands wherever it thought the money would do the most good: NASCAR, NHRA, IndyCar, and the GT class of sports car racing. One of the few places it wasn’t racing was in the top echelon of sports-cars, in which the cars are built from scratch rather than based on production models (as in the GT levels). As of 1995, however, GM had a connection to a prototype constructor, Riley & Scott, which was the first team to compete with Oldsmobile’s 4.0-liter Aurora V-8. (Beginning in ‘96, it would supply the same engine to IndyCar’s IRL series.) With Olds power, Riley & Scott’s Mk IIIs won the Rolex 24 at Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring. They had even raced at Le Mans, in 1996, though a gearbox failure cut their time short. Why not use the elements that already existed—Riley & Scott, the Mk III, and the familiar engine architecture—to put GM into prototype racing, with the Cadillac brand? 

In 2000, Riley & Scott was back at Le Mans, backed by GM, with not one but four cars—two campaigned by Europe-based DAMS, the other two by Team Cadillac. The model was called the Northstar LMP and was adorned with a grille to look like a Cadillac.

“The return from 50 years was a big deal and I would say from a marketing perspective it succeeded because back then ‘Arts & Sciences’ was the Cadillac marketing theme and this was the bridge from the vinyl top Cadillacs to the CTS-V, which 2003 was the first year of the production car,” Jeff Kettman, GM’s manager for the Northstar LMP program, told Daily Sports Car last year. “The whole reason that Cadillac got involved in motorsports was to shift the public perspective of Cadillac to more of a sporty vehicle.”

The problem? GM showed up to Le Mans with a design and a budget that was four years out of date. “Back in 1996–97 you didn’t need tons of money to run well at Le Mans,” Bill Riley told Gary Martin of Autosport in a 2021 interview. “By the time the car rolled out on the grid, the game had changed dramatically.” The Cadillacs finished 19th, 21nd, and 22nd overall, with one DAMS car a DNF. 

Obviously, something needed to change. They needed a new car. GM began to shop around, chatting with the likes of Prodrive and Dallara, and ending its relationship with Riley later that summer. Months passed. GM eventually decided to rely on a new team headed by Wayne Taylor, Nigel Stroud, and Jeff Hazell, a key figure behind McLaren’s jaw-dropping win at Le Mans on its first try.  By the time GM made a decision, however, there was no time to build a new car. Taylor, Stroud, Hazell, et al. tried anyway, putting “80 percent” of the design team into rehauling the old car while the rest worked on the new one. It wasn’t ready by the 2001 running of Le Mans: Only the two DAMS cars ran, with new bodies on cars built to 2000’s spec. They finished eighth and twelfth overall. The new car, dubbed the Northstar LMP-02, was ready in time for the 2003 event, and then GM cancelled the program. 

The sad irony is that since Audi (the 2002 winner) did not run Le Mans in 2003, Cadillac would have been favorites to win along with Bentley (who did win in their Speed 8, a car that shared much with Audi’s prototypes of the era). 

Though it campaigned the CTS-V and subsequently an ATS-V Coupe in the Pirelli World Challenge series through 2017, Cadillac took a lengthy respite from the top level of sports car racing, particularly international competition. In the meantime, a lot of history’s been written: Audi’s era of dominance (including Le Mans wins in 2002, 2004–08, and 2011–2014), the revenge of Porsche (2015–17), and the recent establishment of Toyota (2018–22) as the somewhat unexpected king of Le Mans.

When IMSA made a rules pivot for the 2017 season, Cadillac decided it would return to prototype racing. The Cadillac DPi-V.R, a Dallara-built prototype with a Cadillac-developed engine, debuted in November of 2016. 

Off the bat, the effort was more successful. For its first year back, Cadillac fielded three cars in partnerships with three different teams: Mustang Sampling, Whelen Engineering, and a familiar name—Wayne Taylor Racing. Sponsored by Konica Minolta, the Wayne Taylor car won its first-ever outing, which was also the longest race on the calendar: The 24 Hours of Daytona.  

Like the Northstar LMP, the DPi was powered by a V-8, and made a subtle nod to Cadillac’s street cars with similar wheel and headlight designs. Unlike the LMP, this new car won—a lot. During its six-year lifespan, the teams running DPi-V.Rs posted 27 wins and 80 podium finishes across 60 races. The cars also took home three manufacturer’s, three driver’s, and three team championships in that time.

Cadillac had mojo like it never had before in racing. In June of 2021, the FIA, ACO, and IMSA announced new regulations the prototype class, outlining a “Hypercar” with a hybrid powertrain that would be eligible for competition in both IMSA and World Endurance Championship (WEC), with minor changes. The crown jewel of the WEC is Le Mans, and Cadillac quickly declared its intent to return.

Unveiled in June of 2022, the Cadillac Hypercar prototype was beautiful, and more strongly visually related to production models. Why Cadillac bought into the regulations, says GM sports car program manager Laura Wontrop Klauser, is that the rules “allowed us to keep the styling of the bodywork to make that car uniquely a Cadillac.” The car’s hybrid V-8 heart is a bespoke design that shares nothing besides a displacement figure with that in GM’s GT-class competitor, the Corvette C8.R. 

Cadillac headed back to Le Mans in 2023. As the checkered flag brought the rain-soaked race to a close, Cadillacs crossed the finish line in third and in fourth, the brand’s best-ever results at the most prestigious endurance race in the world. Both cars, #2 and #3, were fielded by Chip Ganassi Racing. Ganassi is back for 2024, joined by Action Express.

Change is coming, though: Cadillac will no longer be partnering with Ganassi for its prototype efforts in IMSA or in WEC after this season. Action Express, who fielded the Whelen-sponsored IMSA car for Cadillac in 2023–24, will likely take up the mantle of Cadillac’s primary racing partner in that series. DSC reported in March that multiple teams are already bidding for Ganassi’s space as Cadillac’s partner in WEC, an encouraging sign of the maturity of the program.

What does the lackluster 2000–02 program illuminate about the current effort? By way of contrast, it shows just how much GM has to prove at the 2024 Hours of Le Mans. The podium finish last year shows that Cadillac has remedied its worst missteps of the earlier era; clearly, it has gotten wiser and more efficient when making decisions alongside its partner teams, and it has handily run cars in two series simultaneously. Speaking of the podium finish, Klauser says: “We got a couple minutes to be just completely blown away—Hey, we had this success—and then the hunger set in, and the only answer from here on out is first place.”

Can a Cadillac win Le Mans in 2024? For now, the brand finally has everyone asking the right question. More than ever, Cadillac has skin in the game—and that’s what makes for good stories, and great racing. 

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A glowing review? Sure, you can call it that. We published it on April 2, 2023. The second-generation BMW M2 is “The M car to get, and the one that tracks most closely to enthusiasts’ image of the brand,” we wrote. The M2 “remains the pure driving enthusiast’s choice in BMW’s lineup.”

So what can the 2025 BMW M2 do for an encore? An extra 20 horsepower, for one thing, upping the muscle from 453 horses to 473. Which lowers the 0-to-60 mph time to 4.1 seconds, a tenth of a second quicker with the manual transmission, and quicker still with the M Steptronic automatic transmission at 3.9 seconds.

Called in the business a “mid-cycle refresh”—which happens when a manufacturer updates a current vehicle to keep it interesting until the arrival of the next-generation model— BMW has tweaked that second-gen M2, introduced in 2023. The worldwide launch of the ’25 model happens this August. It will continue to be built in BMW’s plant at San Luis Potosí in Mexico, alongside a similarly-refreshed 2 Series Coupe.

As far as increased performance goes, that added horsepower can come with more torque, too, but at an experiential price. Torque remains a healthy 406 lb-ft in the manual, but opt for the M Steptronic plus the no-extra-cost Drivelogic feature that enhances the Steptronic’s shifts, and the torque jumps to 443 lb-ft. BMW also says that “advances have been made with the accelerator mapping and response in all the drive modes selectable via the M Setup menu,” resulting in a quicker response when you hit the accelerator, regardless of which transmission you have.

Aside from that, the powertrain is untouched—it remains a twin-turbo 3.0-liter inline six-cylinder engine, connected (thankfully) to a standard six-speed manual transmission, or the eight-speed M Steptronic.
Other updates for the ’25 model include new design accents for the exterior and interior, four new exterior colors, and the introduction of BMW Operating System 8.5 to support the latest generation of BMW iDrive. We’ll be interested to see how OS 8.5 works; in our review of the 2023 model, we reported that the “iDrive 8 interface is reasonably intuitive,” but that leaves some room for improvement.

More digital controls have been added, including for the seat and steering wheel heat and the climate control system itself, thus reducing the number of buttons and switches. The instrument panel has also been redesigned, and there’s a new flat-bottomed steering wheel. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto remain as standard equipment.

Wheels are double-spoke alloys in Jet Black or a bicolor finish, or—and this is new—a bright silver finish. The M quad tailpipes will be finished in black, and the model designation badges, located on the trunk lid and grille, are also now black, bordered in silver.

And those four new colors we mentioned: Java Green metallic, Voodoo Blue, Grigio Telesto Pearl Effect metallic and Twilight Purple Pearl Effect metallic. If you can guess exactly what those colors look like from their names, congratulations.

In all, probably not enough enhancements here for 2025 to make you trade in your 2023 or 2024 BMW M2, unless 20 more horsepower means that much to you. As expected, the price goes up, but not by a whole lot: The 2025 M2 starts at $64,900, plus $1175 destination and handling. The second-gen model was introduced for 2023 at a base price of $62,200, plus $995 destination and handling.

When it comes to four-wheel transportation that just makes you smile, the BMW M2 has been doing that since it was introduced as a 2016 model. We see no reason why that won’t continue.

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BMW is refreshing its sporty smaller coupes with a “focus on digitalization.” The big news is BMW’s new iDrive 8.5 with QuickSelect: It operates the interface on the curved 12.3-inch Information Display and 14.9-inch Control Display, and that now means fewer buttons and knobs—climate control, seat heating functionality, and optional steering wheel heating all use the touch-screen Control Display or voice commands using BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant.

BMW says that its Operating System 8.5 allows interaction with the driver using natural language via said Intelligent Personal Assistant. Both the Information Display and the Control Display are highly configurable, and QuickSelect shortcuts can keep frequently used menus in easy view, without delving deeper into submenus. Also helping to keep the driver focused on the road, the full-color BMW Head-Up Display works with the navigation system and is supplemented by the Augmented View function to deliver real-time information like directional arrows.

Aside from the tech that makes more thorough use of the large screens, 2025 BMW 230i models come standard with heated sports seats for the driver and front passenger, and offer a choice of four colors of perforated SensaTec upholstery, including new Tacora Red, along with four colors of Vernasca leather. M Fine Brushed Aluminum trim is now standard in M240i models, with two options for open-pore wood trim available on all 2 Series Coupes. Carbon Fiber trim is optional as well, but only on M240i models.

230i buyers can opt for the M Sport Package, which comes standard on M240i models. It brings front air intakes, side skirts, and a rear apron with a “diffuser-like” insert. Inside, it replaces the new two-spoke steering wheel with the new M leather steering wheel that comes standard on M240i. The M wheel is distinguished by its flat bottom, red center marker, and BMW M tricolor contrast stitching. Additionally, an M Sport Professional Package is available on all BMW 2 Series Coupes. It adds M Shadow Line lights, a black M rear spoiler, and Extended Shadowline trim to compliment M Sport brakes. Those brakes are already standard on M240i models, but they’ll get red calipers. 230i models equipped with the M Sport Professional Package can also opt for red or blue calipers.

Two new metallic paint colors are available for 2025 2 Series Coupes, Vegas Red and Skyscraper Grey, while two BMW Individual metallic finishes, Frozen Pure Grey, and Frozen Portimao Blue II, are also available. Zandvoort Blue, previously exclusive to the M2, can now be selected on the M240i.

2025 230i models are powered by a turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder that produces 255hp and 296lb-ft of torque, a 14hp improvement over its predecessor. The M240i models use a turbocharged 3.0-liter inline-six that cranks out 382hp and 369lb-ft of torque, equalling the output of the current M240i models.

The base MSRP for the 2025 BMW 230i, including destination, will be $40,375, with the M240i starting at $51,275. Adding xDrive all-wheel-drive to either model will cost $2000. The new BMW 2 Series Coupe will be built in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, and should arrive at dealerships starting this August.

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The Hemi is dead. The Challenger and the Camaro as we know them are gone for good. Only the seemingly eternal Mustang remains. I think we can call the second golden age of American performance as being officially over, and what comes next is uncertain. It’s time to take stock of an automotive epoch that lasted over three times as long as the original, and produced cars that were arguably much better. In the future, the best of these twenty-first century muscle cars may even be more collectible. Does that sound like heresy? Maybe, but hear me out on this.

The original golden age of American muscle lasted just a decade or so, give or take, depending on what you believe was the first muscle car.  It came to a crashing halt around 1974 with the multipronged assault of rising insurance rates, soaring gas prices, fuel shortages, and ever-tightening emission regulations. What followed the muscle car years has been dubbed “The Malaise Era” by journalists. It too lasted about a decade, and it took yet another generation before the next golden age of American performance cars arrived. But this one greater than the first, not just in acceleration and handling numbers but in the diversity and quality of the cars. Here are a few to try on for size:

The last manual V-8 performance sedans

As is so often the case, the apex of an epoch comes just before the end. Just as the T-Rex was around for the explosive end of the dinosaurs, the Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing is here to see out the second golden age of American automotive performance as the industry moves towards electrification and away from driver-focused fun like manual transmissions and high-displacement V-8s. The Cadillac is perhaps the greatest American sedan of the modern era, and given the endangered status of sedans in general, it’s likely to go down as the greatest of all time. With a 668 hp supercharged V-8, polished handling, and an available 6-speed manual (the take-rate for which has been around 50 percent). Not even out of production, the CT5-V Blackwing is already being viewed as semi-collectible. If the history of its GM super sedan predecessors is any indicator, these cars aren’t likely to get any cheaper in the future.

Its predecessors in super sedandom were of course the Chevrolet SS and the Pontiac G8 GXP. Yes, technically these were products of GM Australia’s Holden division, but in execution, powertrain and conception, they were thoroughly American-inspired. For years, American brands had tried and failed to build a credible sport sedan to tackle the Europeans, but with this pair GM finally succeeded in building what was essentially an American take on BMW’s beloved E39 M5, minus the crippling costs of ownership, and also with an available manual transmission. They never seemed to depreciate significantly once they became used cars, and today it takes around $50,000 to secure a manual transmission version of either one. After cars like the CT5-V Blackwing inevitably go extinct, it’s unlikely they’ll get any cheaper.

The most powerful muscle car, ever

This second golden age of American muscle gave birth to something muscle car fans of the 1960s couldn’t conceive of even in their wildest nitromethane fume-fueled fever dreams—The 2023 Dodge Challenger Demon 170.

Superbird, Schmooperbird, this 1025-hp rolling affront to mundanity had what Dodge billed as “Holy $#!&” level performance: 0-60 in 1.66 seconds (which incidentally subjected the driver to 2.004G) and history’s first production 8-second muscle car in the quarter-mile (8.91 seconds ET at 151.17 mph). Holy $#!&”, indeed. And it is likely destined to be the fastest road-going muscle car with the classic big front-engine V-8 and rear-wheel drive formula. Because they’re likely to be among the most sought after muscle cars of the current golden age, even the eye-popping $150,000 to $200,000 asking prices of today may seem like an incredible buy in the future.

The best handling (and braking) muscle cars

Muscle cars from the 1960s gained a reputation as being one-trick ponies. Straight-line acceleration is where they excelled, and they didn’t do much else. There were exceptions, of course—the 1969 SS and Z/28 Camaros with four-wheel discs both handled and stopped well, for example. But the latest crop of muscle cars presents an embarrassment of riches from a braking and handling standpoint. The Mustang Shelby GT350R and Camaro SS 1LE were among the best. The headline to Car and Driver’s 2017 test of the latter said it all—”Born to run. And turn. And stop.” The myth of the one-dimensional muscle car was shattered. Brembo 6-piston calipers and GM’s FE4 suspension with Magnetic Ride Control gave it about 1.11G of grip, matching that of a Ferrari 488 GTB. It really was a supercar for everyman. Both the Shelby and the Chevy are phenomenal cars. It really comes down to whether your allegiance lies with the blue oval or the bowtie.

Do the muscle cars of this current, second golden age have the same charm and sense of nostalgia as those of the 1960s? No, of course not. But give them time. Production numbers also tended to be higher, and as the second golden age cars get older, their thoroughly digital nature will likely present greater serviceability issues. But in terms of build quality, performance, and handling, they’re light years removed from their predecessors. Automotive nostalgia also grows with time. And since it’s a virtual certainty that there won’t be another V8/ICE-powered muscle car revival, their end-of-an-era status makes a powerful case for collectability in the not-very-distant future.

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Most race cars retire without fanfare; their exploits quickly forgotten for the latest round of quicker machinery. The cars that weren’t winners are often scrapped, forgotten, or scavenged for spare parts in service of their successors. Lucky ones get a more relaxed second life in historic racing series.

But what of would-be motorsport machines that never arrived at the starting line in the first place? They’re lucky to end up with a few lines in a listicle a decade after their stunted chance at glory.

The racing version of the eighth-gen Volkswagen GTI was headed down a similar path after Vee-Dub pulled the plug on all factory motorsport programs in 2020, midway through the GTI touring car’s development. The Volkswagen Motorsport staff was split up and reassigned to work on other projects within the company, and the prototype they’d been working on—the Mk8 GTI TCR—joined the brand’s museum inventory, unfinished.

The one-of-one work-in-progress subsequently traveled to the United States as a marketing and PR asset, trotted out to local circuits to reel off routine demonstration laps instead of traveling the world and angrily banging doors with the Hyundais, Hondas, and other competitors in TCR-class racing series. But fate had another path for this special GTI, and it would soon be yanked out of obscurity and onto one of the biggest stages in motorsport.

As part of the 50^th birthday celebrations of the Golf nameplate in 2024, VW decided to honor its hatchback’s venerable racing history with a special project that evolved into a plan to compete at the Nürburgring 24 Hours (N24). With just months until the race and without a factory racing division, building a new car was out of the question—but what about that old Mk8 GTI TCR prototype that’d been kicking around in America?

And so began the fast-tracked process of turning a half-finished racer into a world-class competitor. The Volkswagen Motorsport engineers who’d formerly been involved with the project the first time around were willing and eager for another go. They knew the car well and were champing at their bits to pick up where they’d left off, but they’d have to work at night after their day jobs, and they needed a little extra help.

And Max Kruse Racing was there to provide it. Co-founded and run by Volkswagen development driver, brand ambassador, and professional racer Benny Leuchter, the racing team complemented VW’s in-house engineers by providing invaluable experience with setting up and running a car in a 24-hour endurance race. Leuchter’s familiarity with Volkswagen Motorsport made the partnership even stronger.

The Mk8 GTI TCR prototype was shipped back to Germany, where it was immediately routed to Max Kruse Racing’s HQ in Duisburg. With a four-month countdown to the N24, time was of the essence.

The powertrain package was largely left as-is, with the most significant changes occurring on the software rather than hardware side. Namely, the ECU was adapted to run the newly developed Shell E20 fuel that would power the GTI in the N24. “The engine is the stock GTI gen-four 888 engine [a 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder],” VW spokesperson Martin Hube told us at the Nürburgring. “We are competing in the alternative fuel class, so it’s running E20 that we are using together with Shell, [which is] capable of getting rid of nearly 50% of CO2. We wanted to show that a stock engine is capable of competing with this new [bioethanol] fuel under the hardest conditions. [The car] also gained some power because the fuel is a bit more than 100 octane.” The total output in the rechristened Mk8 GTI TCR—now called the Volkswagen GTI Clubsport 24h—is 348 hp, which is just about 50 more than the recently unveiled road-going version.

The GTI Clubsport 24h’s most noticeable augmentation, though, is its redeveloped aero package. Marketing is one reason for the revamp, seeing as the prototype featured the pre-facelift Mk8 GTI’s styling cues and would need to be updated to match the current model’s look. Win with a one-off car on Sunday, sell more base Golfs on Monday, or something like that . . . However, those with extra keen eyes for GTIs will notice that the Clubsport 24h has a mix of pre- and post-facelift design elements.

That said, the main impetus behind the aero makeover was performance-focused, with the engineers incorporating the latest principles into their old car’s new fenders, wings, splitters, diffusers, and every other wind-shifting bit and bob. The resulting look is the meanest looking widebody ever worn by a factory-backed Volkswagen. Like the prototype, the finished Clubsport 24h completes its silhouette with a chunky rear wing hung from swan-neck supports attached to the hatch, and a single very purposeful-looking center-exit exhaust.

With the bodywork buttoned up, it was time for the new roll cage and safety structures to be homologated with just a few weeks before the green flag, so the Clubsport 24h was flat-bedded to a testing and certification center in Spain to make sure everything was in order. With its up-to-date safety compliance in hand, it then headed back to Germany for last-minute shakedowns at Volkswagen’s test track in Ehra-Lessein. The VW engineers and the Max Kruse Racing team had just enough time to define the parameters and tolerances of their car’s systems—for example, how hot the gearbox oil could get without leading to mechanical failure, and which shift points to use to maintain the appropriate operating temperature—before it was time to put all their efforts to the test at the Clubsport 24h’s first-ever race.

There are less daunting debuts than a day-long trial by fire (and fog) at the Nürburgring, but the Clubsport 24h was immediately impressive upon its arrival in Nürburg. Before the race proper, the car set a new front-wheel drive racing car record at the track (which combines the shorter and more modern Grand Prix circuit with the infamous Nordschleife for a total lap length of just under 16 miles) during qualifying: With Benny Leuchter at the controls, the Clubsport 24h clocked a 8:53.239 lap to start the race at the front of its class.

On race day, the #50 car was to be driven by Leuchter, Johan Kristoffersson, Nico Otto and Heiko Hamme over the course of the 24 hours. Mother Nature had other plans however, and the dense layer of fog that immobilized the emergency services helicopter saw the race halted after 7 hours and 22 minutes. Track conditions were closely monitored as hundreds of thousands of fingers were crossed for a restart that never came. To the disappointment of nearly a third of a million people who’d come to compete at, watch and camp out next to this year’s race, the 2024 edition was the shortest in the N24’s 52-race history.

Despite that, the team behind the Clubsport 24h wasn’t upset with taking home the class win. The car finished in 43^rd overall, conquered its category, beat more than half the overall field of finishers, and fulfilled its purpose. “We wanted to show the people in the woods, the people around the track, that this car is really capable,” Hube said, “and now we have the fastest museum car ever made by Volkswagen.”

It still is a museum piece, after all. With one race and one class win under its belt, the Clubsport 24h’s next job is back under the marketing and PR umbrella, where it will be attending the annual GTI Treffen—the world’s largest hot hatch VW celebration—in Wolfsburg during the last weekend of July. But its time as a contemporary racer may not be over, either…

On that topic, Hube told Hagerty, “We have huge motivation now. We expected to be competitive, but we haven’t expected to come to the ‘Ring and record a record lap time. That shows the capabilities of this car, and the engineers have so many ideas for further development. We’re really inspired and there is an idea to use [the Clubsport 24h] as a development car for the next years. We have two more things to celebrate: in 2026 it will be 50 years of GTI. 2027 will be 25 years of R.”

Could this car’s successful second chance revive the defunct Volkswagen Motorsport department? “Now we have to convince the board that it’s necessary to be here [at the Nürburgring], that it’s necessary to present the Golf in front of the fans here. We have to come back.” Asked how they will convince the board, Hube smiles and says with typical German playfulness masked in straightforward phrasing: “It’s better to argue our case with a good result than with a bad result.”

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BMW has two factory entries in the Hypercar class at this week’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, one of which will be adorned with the art of Julie Mehretu. BMW revealed this M Hybrid V8, its 20th Art Car, at the Centre Pompidou in Paris on May 22nd and subsequently shared it at Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este at Lake Como, Italy later that week. Mehretu met with media at Villa d’Este and talked about her first rolling work of art and how the process gave her a new appreciation for the automotive world.

Mehretu, a New York-based contemporary artist, originally declined BMW’s offer to create the latest Art Car. She was unanimously selected by an independent jury of international museum directors for the role in 2018. During the Covid pandemic lockdown in spring 2020, she reconsidered: I was checking in with a lot of the people that I went to for guidance . . .  I think all of us were doing that around the world to make sense of this time when we [had been] hypermobile. And then the next thing you know, we’re all sheltering in place and under strict quarantine. I was thinking these are the times where you push yourself, and so while we’re all sheltering in place to think about mobility became a really interesting space. I thought, just take this [commission] and open up a new door.

She knew nothing about racing but became a racing fan: I really enjoyed going to the pit stop [at the 2023 Rolex 24 at Daytona] and seeing the numbers of people who work in there that are all communicating in some way or another with the vehicle itself and with the drivers [and realizing] that it is a team sport in that way. Going to Daytona was exhilarating—it was so much fun.

Although the Art Car debuted in May, Mehretu says it will not be done until after it races at the 24 Hours of Le Mans: The car will go through many transformations. Even the drivers you see going in and out of the car will mark up the car, and I made marks in that area thinking about that. There’s all the debris from the [track], the exhaust on the back, the car comes out just looking very different and we’ve discussed leaving it that way—you know, we’ll see what it looks like. If there are too many insects, we might have to do a little bit of hand washing, but we’ll see. I think with all of the [BMW Art] cars, the car has gone through the experience of the painting. The painting has transformed and marked up the car and then the painting—the car—will go through the race as the second major project [the first project being the wrap], and then it will be finished.

Her nephew, a car geek, was instrumental in helping her decide to take the BMW Art Car commission: My brother loves cars, and since my nephew was a child, tiny cars, toy cars, were always in his hands. That would be his meditation: Parking about 100 or 150 different toy cars in different configurations. He’s here with me [in Europe, for the Art Car’s debut] and he’s part of the reason I’ve done this project. He really was like, “please don’t say no, don’t say no. This is one of the things you should do!” And he’s loved it.

How she conceived the BMW Art Car in her studio: I had a scale model [of the BMW M Hybrid V8 race car] in the studio for a long time. I would just push the model around on a cart and it would go in front of different paintings at different times. And I just kept it there while I was working for the whole year. And then, about six months in, I saw this painting in front of it and then just thought of them together—I felt like the car could actually experience the painting. At first, I didn’t know how we were gonna approach that. [My assistant] Jackie Furtado worked with me on the digital sketches that [BMW] gave us, the vector files and the 3D model. And we were able to simulate how the car could go through the painting as a portal.

Mehretu also designed the racing suits and helmets that the three drivers— Sheldon van der Linde (South Africa), Robin Frijns (Netherlands), and René Rast (Germany)—will wear at Le Mans; she is an honorary fourth driver. I worked with another person who used to work at my studio, Minnie, who is now working on her own in fashion and apparel. She came back and we worked together on the driver’s uniforms, or overalls, and then the helmet as well. I know the helmets are very special, so we had a meeting with the drivers on Zoom. Each driver, from the different places that they live, showed their own helmets. And we tried to do something different on each helmet according to who they were.

Mehretu wanted to change the appearance of spare body parts for the race car, but Le Mans regulations prohibited it: One desire I had, and BMW tried really hard to get this to happen, was for the spare parts for the car—I wanted to do them in the ghost of the painting. So, they would be the negative of the car. If a part of the car had to be replaced, it would be replaced by its ghost, so the car would also shift and [change] shape through the race. We couldn’t do that; we tried hard. [It would have made it] part of this active performative painting, but in that sense, it’s ok. I mean, the point is to win, not to be disqualified.

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In The High Window, a 1942 detective novel by Raymond Chandler, the main character and private investigator Philip Marlowe earns the less-than-affectionate moniker “the shop-soiled Galahad.” In the new Apple TV+ series Sugar, a genre-bending sendup to film noir, our titular hero and knight errant John Sugar is not yet the sort of cynical, world-weary detective that Chandler would make famous in Marlowe.

From the very first episode, there’s something strange about Sugar (Colin Farrell). The character is an oddity, an anachronism, an outsider in a lonely place. He is softer than his heroes, detectives in the hardboiled American mold, like Marlowe or the compassionate Lew Archer. Filmmaker Robert Altman wrote of The Long Goodbye, a 1973 adaption of another detective novel by Chandler: “While we were making the film, we literally called [Phillip Marlowe, played by Elliott Gould] Rip Van Marlowe, as if he’d just woken up 20 years later and found out that there was absolutely no way to accommodate himself.” That particular portrayal of the iconic detective is clearly in the DNA of Sugar.

With an encyclopedic knowledge of the classics, Sugar is nostalgic for a past he never lived, a past that never really existed—except for on the silver screen. The editing of the series reflects the way Sugar’s mind functions: When something reminds him of a particular film (e.g. Gilda, Johnny Guitar, Kiss Me Deadly), a clip from that film flashes on screen. Although Sugar is undeniably good at what he does, his PI persona is an invention. He has modeled himself after his celluloid idols: a little bit Mitchum, a little bit Bogart. His gun was used by Glenn Ford in The Big Heat. So it’s not surprising he chooses a ride that is as cinematic as it is old-school elegant: a Corvette Sting Ray. 

To be specific, Sugar drives a pristine ’66 convertible in Nassau Blue with a white and blue interior. A private eye should probably drive something a little less showy, but Sugar’s so good at what he does—locating the lost and the missing—that it doesn’t really matter.

The first fictional detectives operated like roving eyeballs: Edgar Allan Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin, a Parisian, and Sherlock Holmes kept their distance from the action. But John Sugar is made in the mold of the 20th-century American detectives. When the granddaughter of Jonathan Siegel goes missing, Siegel (James Cromwell) seeks out Sugar. Siegel is a legendary producer, the patriarch of Hollywood royalty. No one loves film more than Sugar. His handler Ruby (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) assigns his cases, but Sugar decides to investigate this Chandler-esque mess on his own, despite Ruby’s attempts to stop him. He’s only meant to observe, but Sugar becomes involved, immersed. He detests violence and cruelty, and the mystery becomes something bigger for him than simply finding a missing girl; it becomes an awakening, a soul-jarring lesson in the evil that men do.

John Sugar tools around Los Angeles, often with the dog he accidentally adopted as his passenger, or his new rockstar friend Melanie, played by co-star Amy Ryan. The car shimmers under city lights, almost changing colors as it passes by neon signs. Atmosphere partly drives the story of creator Mark Protosevich, but these scenes are not without purpose. They give us a sense of Los Angeles’ bizarre geography: built in these little enclaves that eventually came together to form some semblance of a city, but its sprawling layout still keeps its denizens isolated from each other. L.A. is the perfect place for someone to disappear and for a mystery to unfold.

Sugar provides one of the greatest pleasures of the detective story, and of television and film in general: watching someone drive through the city in a pretty car. Next to stepping into a movie theater, driving is the most cinematic way you can see L.A.; the windshield becomes a widescreen framing the city. And Colin Farrell loved the experience, describing himself driving the Corvette “like a kid in a sweet shop.”

Farrell tells the Movie Podcast that he got to actually drive for the series, sometimes for hours a day, rather than getting hauled around on a rig like a process trailer. So “it was a lovely little door to experience the character through.” He also discusses how his character’s idealization of the past “takes form in his visiting to his local picture house and watching old noir films and the driving of this car, the appreciation for the kind of tactility of old-fashioned cars, the shape of them, the lines of them, and how aggressive they are to drive at times.”

The Sting Ray is a perfect car for Sugar. The C2 debuted in 1963 and would be replaced by the more beast-like, Mako Shark II–inspired C3 in 1968. In both looks and in performance, the C2 was a dramatic departure from the C1, its predecessor. At just 22 years old, Peter Brock sketched what would eventually become the Sting Ray. The car was a dream made real by a crew that included (but was not limited to) designers Brock, Chuck Pohlman, Anatole “Tony” Lapine, the brilliant Larry Shinoda, and engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov, director of high-performance vehicles at Chevrolet. Arkus-Duntov earned the nickname “the father of the Corvette.” 

It was a dream they had to chase after hours, in secrecy, migrating from GM’s Head of Design Bill Mitchell’s basement Research B studio to the Hammer Room and finally landing in the legendary (and legendarily clandestine) Studio X. The C1 hadn’t reached its full racing potential, it was a relatively basic car, but there was a major roadblock in the team’s way to improving on it: following the Automotive Manufacturers Association’s ban, GM had outlawed factory-supported racing. The recession of 1958 hadn’t helped their cause much either. So Mitchell had quietly taken on the Corvette racing program on his own.

The secrecy and perseverance of the design team paid off, and their gambit was a success. Motor Trend’s Roger Huntington wrote, “This is a modern sports car. In most ways it’s as advanced as the latest dual-purpose sports/luxury cars from Europe. The new Corvette doesn’t have to take a back seat to any of them, in looks, performance, handling, or ride.” The “solid-axle” generation of the C1 had been exclusively made and sold as a convertible, but the C2, which debuted with independent rear suspension, offered two body styles, a coupe and a convertible. (Mitchell’s split rear window also made production for the 1963 model year. It caused some turmoil: although it looked cool, and is a revered feature today, it diminished rear visibility, even causing some in-period customers cut it out.)

The second generation also brought better transmission options and Chevy’s 327-cubic-inch V-8. Chevrolet continued to beef up the engine through the years, and by 1966, it introduced new big-block V-8s: As the brochure for that year boasted, “two brand-new 427-cu.-in. turbo-jet V8s cap Corvette’s quartet of engines.” The most powerful engine offered 425 horsepower. Chevrolet had also finally jettisoned drum brakes in 1965 and replaced them with “Sport-Master” discs. 

The Sting Ray design team bid farewell to the era of American “fat cars,” opting for a leaner European look. Mitchell had found inspiration at the Turin Auto Show in Italy, where he was especially impressed by the Abarth 750 Streamliner and the Zagato-bodied Alfa Disco Volante. But the final product was an unmistakably American car with a European flavor. (Duntov famously said of his Sting Ray: “For the first time, I now have a Corvette I can be proud to drive in Europe.”) In that way, the Sting Ray is not unlike the hardboiled detective: a concept with European styling transformed into an American icon.

Before the events of the first episode of Sugar, the detective has been keeping his Sting Ray in storage. He soon reunites with it. As Sugar rolls out of the garage in the Corvette, his handler Ruby tells him, “I hate that you drive this relic.” 

“Relic?” Sugar says. “This is a work of art.”

***

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If the headline didn’t get your attention then the sight of a Ferrari Testarossa being cut up surely will.

The mid-engined supercar was the centerfold star of many a young boy’s bedroom wall and now one fan is having his 1987 example turned into a targa by coachbuilder Niels van Roij Design.

The Dutch designer has become the go-to guy for one-off Ferrari conversions having previously created a Breadvan Hommage from a 550 Maranello and a Daytona Shooting Brake based on a 599 GTB.

This time there are still 12 cylinders in play, but in a flat formation behind the passenger cell and with the rosso engine covers looking like they’ll be on proud display. As well as cutting away a section of the roof work-in-progress photos show that the engine lid is being redesigned. In other images the front wings have been removed and the interior has been gutted suggesting that there’s much more to the design that just chopping the top off.

The car has been named the Guida Touring Sport and its development is being documented on van Roij’s social media platforms, Facebook, Instagram and X.

“This project exemplifies our dedication to pushing the boundaries of automotive design while paying homage to the rich history of this iconic sports car,” says van Roij. “The Targa conversion not only enhances the driving experience – just listen to that twelve-cylinder – but also celebrates the spirit of individuality and passion for bespoke automobiles.”

The project is a close collaboration with a British collector who lives in Andorra, so when the car is complete he can enjoy the fresh mountain breeze as he tackles the Pyrenees principality’s steep switchbacks.

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As the weather gets hotter and driving season is now in full swing across North America, the collector car market continues to cool off. That doesn’t mean all classic cars are getting cheaper, though, as a lot of them started this year with significant appreciation. We surveyed the vehicles from the Big Three (GM, Ford, and Chrysler) in the Hagerty Price Guide, and below are the ones that have seen the biggest rise in values so far in 2024.

1979-93 Ford Mustang: +15 percent

Third generation, aka “Fox-body” Mustangs have been getting pricier for over a decade now, and kept right on going through the first part of 2024. A 15 percent bump in a quarter is remarkable, and so is the 258 percent surge in average Fox-body values over the past 10 years.

A big part of the Mustang’s appeal is that there’s one for most budgets, and that’s still the case with Fox-bodies despite the big numbers above. Condition #2 values for this generation of America’s pony car range from $13,000 for some of the humble early cars to over 100 grand for high-spec Saleens and SVT Cobra Rs.

1983-92 Lincoln Mark VII: +15 percent

The love for Ford’s Fox platform isn’t limited to Mustangs. In total, 15 different FoMoCo vehicles rode on the Fox chassis, and one was the Lincoln Continental Mark VII, renamed Mark VII for 1986. The 1985 LSC model was the first American car with four-channel antilock brakes, and the combination of reliable 302-cubic inch V-8 with Lincoln luxury made it a decent seller. Maybe it’s a case of the Mustang’s rising tide lifting all Fox-platformed boats, but the Mark VII’s growth isn’t limited to 2024. Since 2021, this car has more than doubled in value, with current #2 prices ranging from $22,000 to $24,500.

1999-2004 Ford SVT Lightning: +18 percent

The 1993 F-150 SVT Lightning was Ford’s original sport truck, and alongside the ’93 Mustang SVT Cobra, it introduced the buying public to Ford’s Special Vehicle Team. Ford retired the Lightning name in 1995, but brought it back on the 10th generation F-Series platform for 1999. Whereas the original Lightning used the tried-and-true 351 Windsor, the 1999 Lightning used an Eaton supercharged 5.4-liter Triton engine good for 360 hp (up to 380 from 2001). MSRP for the 1999 Lightning came in at $29,355 (about $55,800 when adjusted for inflation) when the regular F-150 XL V8 listed from $16,015, and Ford sold over 28,000 units of the boosted pickup from 1999-2004. When adjusted for inflation, then, Lightnings haven’t quite caught up to their original price unless they’re in #1 (“best in the world”) condition.

1965-68 Plymouth Fury/VIP: +11 percent

Plymouth’s fourth-generation Fury rode on Chrysler’s new, full-size C-body platform and was available in a wide range of body styles, engine configurations and trim levels, including a luxury version called the Plymouth VIP. Given the wide range of equipment and body styles, Fury values have a broad range as well, from under 13 grand for a 318-powered Fury I sedan to over 100 for a Hemi-powered Sport Fury. Prices have moved differently among the various body styles: Most convertibles and sedans have actually moved down about three percent, while two-door sedans and hardtop coupes are up 20 percent since January.

1965-68 Dodge Polara: +9 percent

Also built on the full-size C-body platform and available with a wide range of engines, body styles, and trims, the third generation Polara similarly has a wide range of values that move differently from each other. And, like the Fury, it isn’t the first name in American muscle despite being available with big V-8s, including 440s and Hemis. While most versions haven’t moved at all, convertibles are up 15 percent since the beginning of the year.

1984-2001 Jeep Cherokee XJ: +10 percent

Introduced for 1984, the XJ-generation Jeep Cherokee was Jeep’s first all-new design since the 1960s as well as the first with unibody construction. This proto-SUV was so popular that when Chrysler bought the Jeep brand from AMC in 1987, it retained the XJ and kept on building it until 2001. That’s an impressive run, and XJs are still in demand. Their #2 values are up by 10 percent across the board so far this year, and have more than doubled over the past five years.

1973-75 Pontiac Grand Am: +16 percent

Pontiac debuted the Grand Am model in 1973 as a sort of mix between the luxury-oriented Grand Prix and the sporty Firebird Trans Am. Built on the GM A-body platform, the “mid-sized Pontiac with Foreign Intrigue…American Ingenuity” (according to the ads) was available as a 2-door colonnade or 4-door “pillared” hardtop, and adorned with the massive beak found on most ’70s Pontiacs.

Introduced after the golden age of muscle was already over, the first-gen Grand Am is like many ’70s American cars in that it isn’t very expensive and its prices historically haven’t moved much. They started getting pricier in 2020, however, and have started the year with a 16 percent gain on average.

1961-63 Oldsmobile F-85 Cutlass: +13 percent

Olds used the Cutlass name on a 1954 Motorama show car, but it didn’t reappear until 1961, with the introduction of a deluxe coupe version of the all-new F-85 “senior compact.” It came with a 215-cubic inch aluminum V-8, similar to the Buick engine that went on to become the famous Rover V-8. The Cutlass-based 1962 Oldsmobile Jetfire was also the first production car offered with a turbocharger.

F-85 values were flat for most of the 2010s and didn’t move dramatically during the earlier part of this decade. Convertible models and Jetfires are also flat so far this year, but all other trims (F-85 and F-85 Cutlass) and body styles (coupe, sedan, and station wagon) are up 20 percent since January.

1973-77 Chevrolet Monte Carlo: +30 percent

The redesigned ’73 Monte Carlo was a big success for Chevrolet. Motor Trend named it their “Car of the Year,” and the Monte helped the company set a sales record that year. New features like standard radial tires, wrap-around interior styling, and one-piece swiveling bucket seats helped the Monte Carlo lead the parade of entries in America’s personal luxury car market. Through several restyles and despite shrinking engines and power figures, the second-gen Monte remained a sales juggernaut through its five-year production run.

These cars shot up in price starting in 2022, and #2 values are up a whopping 82 percent over the past two years.

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As the longest-running automotive nameplate in America, the Suburban is a familiar face. The most recent generation is especially well represented: For 2021, the first year it was on the market, Chevrolet sold a healthy 85,000 copies. On the eve of the arrival of the facelifted version, we decided to re-familiarize ourselves with the 12th generation. We found that 2024 model year may be a sweet spot—not just among modern Suburbans, but among full-sized SUVs that don’t wear the label of a dedicated luxury brand.

As vehicle platforms go, the one underneath the 2021–present Suburban is relatively new, as GM introduced its latest body-on-frame architecture on the 2019 Chevy Silverado. It now underpins the Chevrolet pickup’s sibling, the GMC Sierra, and all GM SUVs derived from the platform—the shorter-wheelbase Chevrolet Tahoe, GMC Yukon, and Cadillac Escalade; and the longer Suburban, Yukon XL, and the Escalade ESV. Engine choices across that versatile platform include V-8s, V-6s, and even an inline four-cylinder. On the current Suburban, you can choose between two gas V-8s and the 3.0-liter Duramax inline-6.

The primary virtue of the twelfth-generation Suburban is the design of its rear suspension: Rather than a solid rear axle, as all Silverados and all previous Suburbans used, it has an independent multilink design. (The Suburban’s main competitor, the Ford Expedition Max, has had IRS for … 21 years now.) Each year has sweetened the Suburban: 2022 added Google Built-In, plus an electronic limited-slip diff for the Z71 model, and made the 6.2-liter V-8 and the digital instrument cluster available on cheaper trims. In 2023, Super Cruise became available on the top two trims. Given the absence of any press materials for the 2024 model year, and its presence on the configurator, it appears that 2024 is essentially a carry-over model.

The 2025 model arrives with extensive but mostly superficial changes: New sheetmetal that closely resembles that of the newest Silverado; the large, two-panel digital display that is permeating Chevy’s lineup, and revisions to the diesel powerplant. Those changes will likely mean an uptick in price, so if the new look doesn’t speak to you, maybe your best bet is a 2023 or 2024 model, which have all the nice things Chevy added since 2021.

We tested the most powerful, most luxurious Suburban offered for 2024—a High Country 4WD with the optional 6.2-liter V-8, a two-speed transfer case, air suspension, and every electronic gadget and interior nicety available. If your goal is maximum luxury, we recommend the Advanced Technology package, which includes the hardware for Super Cruise, GM’s hands-free highway driving system, and a three-year subscription to the software; power retractable running boards ($1745), the panoramic sunroof ($1500), and air suspension ($1000). Don’t waste $2K on the rear entertainment package—a last-generation iPad would put the two second-row screens to shame, and the headphones are uncomfortable and fragile. 

Specs: 2024 Chevrolet Suburban High Country

The Suburban welcomes you into a living room worthy of some cozy cabin in Montana or Wyoming. The digital dash and center screen treat you to animations of autumn foliage, a snow-capped mountain, and a lake. Leather is everywhere, on the doors and on the binnacle and even below the touchscreen and above the A/C vents. It’s the color of Werther’s candy. The fabric trim on the edges of the seats is an odd black-and-white-sorta-zebra affair, which looks like it belongs on the strap of a Kayu shoulder bag. There are a few wood inlays and brushed metal accents, the latter used with admirable restraint. Almost all the controls are black plastic, from the four buttons that serve as the gear selector on the dash, to the window controls, to the climate controls.

Chevy hasn’t chased intricate details like Jeep has with the Wagoneer (see its knurled metal gear selector), but the Suburban’s interior still communicates luxury through light—the giant glass sunroof lets in a lot of light and comfort. The seats are curl-up-with-a-book comfortable. 

A disclaimer, before we discuss the driving experience: I did not grow up in the back seat of a Suburban. (We were a minivan family—Honda, then Toyota, because of the Odyssey’s pesky transmission failures.) Today, I daily drive a small, feisty hatchback, and I frequent old (read: small) downtown areas that have few parking lots and no parking decks. The Suburban is by far the largest vehicle I have ever piloted. Tip to tail, it measures nearly 19 feet.

I loved it.

When you slide behind the wheel and thunk the door shut, your first experience is one of regal isolation. Not only is your perch lofty and supremely comfortable, but the cabin is very quiet, thanks to windows made of acoustically-treated glass. Whether at idle or highway speed, the only noise from the V-8 is a subdued, reassuring burble. Under acceleration, the roar of the engine is as powerful and calming as a distant waterfall. 

For all its size and weight, the Suburban is a remarkably docile vehicle. Visibility is excellent thanks to upright B- and C-pillars and giant sideview mirrors. (Though it takes a little getting used to, the camera rearview mirror helps a lot in this regard. It’s standard on the High Country.) The 6.2 and the ten-speed are a delightful combination: Whisper-quiet at highway speeds but, at the prod of the accelerator pedal, ready to hurl you down an on-ramp or execute a purposeful merge.

The body-on-frame construction is evident in the gentle shudder you feel over bumps, but thanks to the independent rear suspension, the rear end never gets twitchy over imperfections in the road surface, as a solid-axle vehicle often does. The air suspension and the 22-inch wheels, the largest diameter offered, pair up nicely. Only the most severe bumps make it through to your bum: Most pass with only a gentle thunk sound, if we can use that word twice in one story.

When the ride is this relaxing, it’s easy to cultivate the patience needed for driving a Suburban in traffic. You don’t perform any maneuvers impulsively in a vehicle this large, whether it’s snatching a parking space or squeezing into a queue ahead of a split in the freeway. Parking is probably the most frustrating activity in a Suburban: I had to spot spaces much further ahead than I expected, and I often entered at too shallow of an angle—even aborting the mission required a three-point-turn, during which I blocked the entire aisle. However, with more time, any semi-competent driver should adapt to the process. Thankfully, since so many Americans drive pickups, most parking spots are appropriately sized—I parked on a downtown street in Farmington, Michigan, and the Suburban fit between the little white corners neatly. 

It’s easy to forgive the Suburban its parking-lot clumsiness when you see the space inside. By ditching the solid rear axle, the designers could drop the floor of the SUV. The main beneficiaries are the third-row passengers: As a 5’6” person, I had plenty of headroom in the third row. I might not want to spend six hours back there, but the space was definitely tolerable, and it didn’t feel like punishment, like the third row of a Traverse.

Capacity isn’t the only virtue of the interior, as its configurability is good, too.  (Pictured is the Goodwill run that your author made: The amount looked huge sitting in my hallway, but once I got it in the Suburban, it looked downright puny.) The second-row captain’s chairs are easy to stow out of the way, whether to ease access to the third row or, with that rearmost seat folded, increase stuff-hauling space. Yank the plastic lever on the lower side of the seat once, and it folds on itself; twice and the folded chair unlatches from the floor and rotates toward the front of the vehicle. You can fold (and raise!) the second and third rows from the rear thanks to a set of plastic rocker switches and an array of electric motors. The only additional control I wished for was a button to close the tailgate from the driver’s seat, but that may be frowned upon from a safety perspective.

If you think the best infotainment screen is the newest one, the 12.3-inch unit in this Suburban will disappoint you. The resolution is adequate but far from liquid, and it frequently lagged when switching menus, prompting a yellow progress bar. However, after several recent experiences with the larger unit that is coming to the Suburban for 2025 (it’s currently in the Silverado and Equinox EV models), I’d like to make a counterargument: Simplicity is also a virtue. I have yet to spend a week with that larger panel, and when I do so, I’ll be asking whether it actually works better than the one currently in the Suburban.

I could easily reach the far corners of the center screen from the driver’s seat without stretching. The smaller size of the screen made it easy to ignore: The message was “I’m here if you need me,” not “I moonlight as a flatscreen TV.” The digital instrument display never washed out in sunlight, thanks to its recessed position under a leather-upholstered binnacle. It’s a relief to a new driver to find an infotainment system that doesn’t require de-coding: Just plug in CarPlay and go. (You even get your choice of USB-A and USB-C!) For those who love the Suburban for its modern execution of an old-school mission, this two-screen setup is just right.

If you prioritize V-8 luxury but worry about seeming gauche, an optioned-out Suburban like this one is may be the answer. (The Expedition Max only offers a V-6.) The near-$95,000 price of our tester puts it firmly in the territory of ritzier American three-rows like the Cadillac Escalade and the Jeep Grand Wagoneer, and the interior of either would likely embarrass this Suburban. Perhaps the presence of this absurdly expensive Suburban variant suggests that buyers are willing to pay up to avoid standing out. Yes, you could drive an Escalade or a Grand Wagoneer for this money, but then you become a person who drives a Cadillac, or One of Those Fancy Jeeps. An everyman Suburban LS, in contrast, can be had for around $62,000. When you drive a High Country, you are simply one of the hundreds of thousands of respectable people who drive Suburbans. Nobody needs to know how much you paid. 

The Chevrolet Suburban isn’t just an old nameplate that GM enjoys recycling: It is a remarkably consistent recipe that GM has been refining for decades. As of 2024, the General has that recipe down to a science. If you are shopping for a full-size SUV, and you treasure old-school comfort in an understated package, this is your vehicle. It’s packed with the latest driver-assist features and capable of integration with your Google-centric lifestyle, but lacks the big-infotainment-screen pizzazz of the upcoming facelift—or its Ford rival, the Expedition Max. Sometimes, big enough is best. 

2024 Chevrolet Suburban High Country

Highs: Serenely comfortable ride, engine is remarkably punchy and quiet. 

Lows: Rear-seat infotainment system is a waste of $2K. Motifs of High Country are a little kitschy. Small parking lots are a no-go. 

Summary: The Suburban is for those who like their luxury SUV large, independently suspended, and understated, with old-school simplicity. 

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The action-packed buddy-cop story trope was hugely popular in the 1980s, whether it was Crockett and Tubbs on Miami Vice, Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy in 48 Hrs., or Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon. At the same time, video arcades were booming, so it only made sense for a game developer to create an experience where players got to experience the thrill of two police officers in hot pursuit. This was the concept behind 1988’s Chase H.Q., which lets you hunt down exotic sports cars on busy highways while behind the wheel of a black Porsche 928.

Chase H.Q.‘s gameplay is similar to Sega’s classic 1986 game OutRun. The camera looks downward from behind your car, providing a wide angle at other vehicles and obstacles you’re speeding past. Whereas OutRun is a point-to-point race, with the player needing to reach a goal before a countdown runs out, Chase H.Q. adds a more exciting objective by tasking players with pursuing a suspect in a sports car and bumping into them until the criminal crashes.

The developers picked some of the coolest cars from the late 1980s for these criminals to drive. In the first level, you’re chasing “Ralph, the Idaho Slasher,” who is running away in a white Lotus Esprit. Next, “Carlos, the New York armed robber,” flees in a yellow Lamborghini Countach. For stage three, “a gang of Chicago pushers are fleeing toward the suburbs” in a white Porsche 911 Turbo. The game calls the villain in stage four simply “the L.A. kidnapper,” and he appears to be driving a blue Ferrari 288 GTO. The last level is about going after an “Eastern Bloc spy from Washington” in a red Porsche 928.

Chase H.Q. doesn’t use graphics with three-dimensional polygons like most modern video games. Instead, the artists worked with two-dimensional elements called sprites, so we can only view the cars from the angles that the developers wanted us to see. Judging from what’s visible, the player seems to be driving a 928 S4. This variant debuted for the 1987 model year, while Chase H.Q. came out in the latter half of 1988.

The real-world 928 S4 boasted an upgraded version of Porsche’s 5.0-liter V-8 that made 320 hp. Exterior styling differed from its predecessor with revisions like a smoother nose and a tweaked rear bumper with flush-mounted lights. Both of these elements show up on the car in Chase H.Q. The prominent wing on the tail was another addition and is also easily visible on the vehicle in the game.

While not accurate to an actual 928 S4, the arcade game’s high- and low-speed gearshift has a button for activating a temporary turbo boost up to three times each stage. This ability is especially useful if you crash while chasing down a bad guy and need to catch up quickly.

By late-1980s standards, the driving in Chase H.Q. offers a fantastic sense of speed. There are many obstacles along the side of the road, and they move past your Porsche rapidly to give you the sense of traveling at high velocity. There’s also heavy traffic to maneuver through, so the player is seldom steering straight ahead.

Beyond the cool vehicles to pursue, Chase H.Q. has some visual and audio flourishes that add to the crime-fighting excitement. At the beginning of the first stage, you hear the engine start and emit a rumbly V-8 sound. One of the cops then says, “Giddy up, boy,” and the Porsche peels out. When you get close to the villain, the officer in the passenger seat of your 928 reaches out and puts a flashing red light on the roof. Voice clips also encourage you to smash the bad guy’s sports car.

Chase H.Q.’s period advertising to arcade operators didn’t shy away from showing the game’s inspirations. One brochure depicted a cop in a white blazer and pastel purple T-shirt who was clearly taking cues from Miami Vice’s Sonny Crockett. Another ad included officers who looked a bit like Gibson and Glover from the Lethal Weapon poster.

Chase H.Q.’s major weakness is the game’s short length. The video embedded above shows a complete play-through in just over 15 minutes, including the “attract mode” gameplay demonstration at the beginning and the end credits. I played all the way through recently, and it took me about 20 minutes while using seven continues.

Chase H.Q. spawned a sequel, S.C.I. – Special Criminal Investigation, in 1989, where the cops swapped their Porsche 928 for a Z32 Nissan 300ZX with T-tops. Rather than crashing into criminals, one of the cops stood up out of the roof and shot at the fleeing suspect’s car. The spiritual successor, Super Chase – Criminal Termination, arrived in 1993 and added a first-person driving view.

With nonstop action during the game’s limited runtime, Chase H.Q. is a must-play if you ever see it at a local arcade, especially if it has the sitdown cockpit, which provides a more immersive experience than the stand-up version. In an ideal world, pair the experience by playing the Miami Vice theme song or Phil Collins’ In the Air Tonight to set the mood.

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Let’s pretend we’re in Southwest England, watching a couple enjoy a ride in the countryside in a 1931 MG Midget. As they travel into the Cotswolds beyond Bath, they putter along peacefully, at a leisurely speed that allows for plenty of sightseeing and interaction with travelers on foot. On occasion, they stop and offer a ride in the diminutive back seat of their car to a pedestrian. 

Although the couple’s attire and their automobile suggest that the calendar has been turned back some 90 years, these photos were taken in May of 2024. The couple is Ken and Melody Klemmer, and here they are standing in Farmington Hills, Michigan, outside their home, styled after a historic English cottage. (Their MG is named Edwin, because the Klemmers name their automobiles. That’s true love!)

The Klemmers are enthusiastic Anglophiles who have owned more than a few English automobiles. They currently own two: A Midget D-Type, a four-seater, and a Midget M-Type, the original, two-seat car. Like many other lovers of MGs, Ken read The Red Car—the story of Hap Adams and his love for an MG TC, written in 1954—at an early age and fell head over heels for those sporty little cars that were so unlike the machines most Americans drove in the 1950s—or in the 1930s.

The first weekend in September, Ken and Melody will drive the roads of Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan as part of the annual Old Car Festival. Greenfield Village’s beautiful collection of historical homes and artifacts is part of the Henry Ford Museum complex and was created by Henry Ford to recall and honor the past. Every fall, the village welcomes car owners and their automobiles to an antique car show, the longest running event of its kind in the United States. The Klemmers never miss Old Car Festival. When they attended last year, they drove their MG Midget M-Type. This year they will drive the D-Type. “It’s like Christmas and my birthday, rolled into one,” says Ken.

The Klemmers love to dabble in the world of long ago; Ken is a renowned historical expert and architect who consults on the restoration of historically significant buildings. Their automobile is itself an important part of motoring’s past. Bearing serial number DO252, it is the second of 250 Type Ds that MG built after unveiling the model in October 1931 at the Olympia Motor Show in England. When s/n DO252 left the factory in Abingdon on Thames, it was black with a green interior. On November 21, 1931, it became the property of 18-year-old Eton student Ralph Hope, nephew to Neville Chamberlain.

Like his uncle, whose tenure as England’s prime minister was less than successful, Ralph and his MG experienced hard times. Theirs came in the form of a serious road accident in Scotland that resulted in the MG being returned to the factory for a rebuild. Whether Ralph required reconstruction is uncertain, but car and driver rebounded well enough to compete in the MG Car Club Chiltern Trials in 1933. Fate would not be kind to Ralph: He learned to fly,  became an RAF pilot, and was shot down in the Battle of Britain.

Ken Klemmer acquired this special Midget D-Type in 2023 and was able to trace much of its history through a study of original factory records that were fortuitously saved at some point during MG’s tumultuous history. From those records Ken determined that after Ralph Hope perished in the war, his MG became the property of a Welshman in 1949. From there, the trail turns a bit fuzzy, but the car resurfaces in 1969 Berlin, where it was purchased by Maine Porter and taken to America. It was restored in the 1980s and painted in its current colors by Bud Conn. A British ex-pat named Mike Goodwin acquired the MG in 2007 and showed it in Florida. The Klemmers acquired the car in September of 2023.

While the original production volume of D-Types was quite low, at 250, the cars are even less common than that number might suggest, as many were converted to C-Types. The C-Type was the competition version of the Midget, built on the same chassis as the four-seat D-Type and the rarest.

Edwin had been restored in the 1980s, but by the time the Klemmers brought him to their century-old garage in Michigan, he was a bit of a mess. Wires had been cut and signs of neglect were prominent. But the wooden frame was intact (Ken doesn’t think the body has ever been off the frame). The four-cylinder engine barely ran, and it was covered with oil that hid mismatched paint. Fortunately, Ken is both a historian and a skilled mechanic and he soon had that little engine ticking over reliably. 

Little is an apt description of the powerplant in an early MG Midget. The four-pot displaces only 847 cc and delivers a whopping 27 horsepower at 4500 rpm. First used by MG in the M-Type and borrowed from the 1928 Morris Minor and Wolseley 10, the engine is not without sophistication, featuring valves in the head and an overhead camshaft.

Although Edwin is only the second D-Type built, it is equipped with the later, four-speed gearbox. (The car was originally built with a non-synchromesh three-speed.) Ken believes the four-speed may have been swapped in early on to make the car more competitive in hill-climb competitions.

Edwin accelerates with a wee bit of urgency, thanks at least in part to a stout 4.89:1 rear axle ratio, but he soon runs out of steam in high gear, where the engine just isn’t torquey enough to propel the 1484-pound car beyond about 45 mph. The mill’s lack of high-end oomph is due at least in part to a minimal compression ratio of 5.4:1. We can thank the low-octane gasoline of the early ’30s for that lack of power-enhancing compression. 

On our way back from the photo shoot, Ken urged Edwin to a speed of 43 mph. Not exactly race-ready, but plenty fast enough to putt around Greenfield Village. You can be sure that Ken, Melody, and Edwin will be there and looking good on September 7.

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I once heard an automatic transmission referred to as “The Black Box of the Devil Himself.” How the myriad pumps, bands, fans, valves, accumulators, gears, clutches, and even computers work in harmony to provide smooth and durable power delivery for decades remains a mystery to the uninitiated. I certainly haven’t disassembled a gearbox, nor do I have the time and knowledge base to do so.

It’s likely that many of us in the car hobby do not know how an automatic transmission actually works. Watching YouTube videos as a hobbyist doesn’t really count, and I reckon very few people have torn down the Devil’s Black Box (as it were) to see the insides firsthand. Those who have are potentially rewarded with a skilled trade that could pay quite well. But that’s only one example, so what other parts still don’t make any sense to us?

Yaw’ll Help Me With This

Meet the yaw sensor. This little gyroscopic doo-dad is at the heart of many an active handling system, and its been commonplace in vehicles for well over a decade. Heck, even my 2011 Ford Ranger has one, and it barely has anything else. I give this part a lot of credit for making travel on low friction surfaces a whole lot easier, and it all starts with gyroscope in the sensor.

One day I’d like to dissect one of these sensors. I’d love to see how changes in yaw are translated into a change in values that a computer processes, eventually leading to a change in power or brake application at any of the four wheels on a vehicle. It’d probably be quick, easy, and clean, not unlike taking apart a throttle position sensor. It would be much easier than finding the space to do that with an automatic transmission!

So the question goes back to you and everyone else in the Hagerty Community: What parts of a car still make no sense?

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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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Twenty-one seems pretty young to retire, especially when your predecessor served for 61 years. Nonetheless, after just two decades and 12-odd months, Bentley’s W-12 is being put out to pasture, replaced by a new hybrid V-8.

Significantly, since the replacement engine is built by Porsche in Germany, it will be the first time in Bentley’s history that the British company has not manufactured its own motors. Pedants may point out that the 1998 Arnage was launched with a BMW M62 V8, but it wasn’t long before a Red Label version re-introduced the venerable 6.75-liter engine that had been assembled in Crewe since 1959.

When it was unveiled in 2003, in the W12 was the Volkswagen Group’s flagship engine, powering a whole new generation of Bentley in the form of the Continental GT Coupe (and, in 2005, the GTC cabriolet).

The engine would also make appearances in the Continental Flying Spur and Bentayga SUV as well as the Audi A8, VW Phaeton, and even the Touareg. Bentley has hand-built more than 100,000 examples of the W-12 since its launch, each taking six and half hours to assemble. Over the years, development has enabled a total power increase of 37 percent, and torque has been boosted by 54 percent, while emissions were cut by 25 percent. In its ultimate guise, as fitted to the Batur, Bentley eked out as much as 750 hp from the W-12. When the last of these 18 coupes and 16 convertibles are completed, the W-12 will be no more.

To bid this remarkable engine a fond farewell, I’m at the undulating Oulton Park circuit, a short drive from Bentley base in Crewe, where an early 2003 Continental GT and one of the final 2024 Continental GT Speeds are waiting in the pit lane.

Bizarrely, Bentley is less precious about the newest $300,000 car than the 20-year-old model the company’s heritage arm recently bought for less than $40,000. So I get three flying laps with an instructor at my side in the Speed and just one in the older GT.

Nonetheless, it’s just about enough to quantify 21 years of W-12 progress. The green-over-tan 2003 Conti has aged well for the most part. It was never considered beautiful, but the looks have proven to be quite timeless—although I’d still avoid choosing one in gray—its snout and wide flanks are more hippo than hip. The quality of the cabin is exceptional overall, excepting the dated digital display and the plastic gear paddles, which are a bit VW parts bin.

The reality is that you probably wouldn’t touch them anyway as it feels very much the GT and therefore all-at-sea here on a circuit. The steering is super light, suspension soft and wallowy, and brakes on the spongy side. Really though, I’m here to talk about the engine, and it certainly outshines the chassis and lethargic six-speed transmission.

The W-12 is effectively two VW VR-6 engines joined together. The unique configuration makes the block quite compact and allows it to sit relatively low. With a pair of twin-scroll turbochargers, it delivers 560 hp at 6100rpm and a 479 lb-ft torque tsunami from just 1600 rpm. Driving all four-wheels through a Torsen system it can accelerate from 0-62 mph in 4.8 seconds and top about a tad below the double ton. It feels effortlessly brisk, and smoother than a silk worm secretion, but there’s no hiding its 5000-pound bulk.

After hopping into a fetching blue over black 2024 Speed model, the opposite seems true of the new car. Aided by rear-steer and another 90 horses, it’s a totally different beast. Now we’re looking at just 3.6 seconds to reach 62 mph, much more eager throttle response, and a gearbox that reacts instantly instead of pausing to consider your request.

It’s properly fast, squatting down and firing out of corners with gusto. Perhaps even more impressive is the way that it dives in, the steering offering far more feedback and the front end really rather keen to catch an apex. By all accounts (by which we mean Henry Catchpole’s), the upcoming V-8 hybrid handles even better and packs an even greater punch.

No doubt it’ll be far more efficient than the thirsty six-liter W-12, which despite deactivating a few cylinders could only muster a combined 15 MPG on the EPA cycle. Yet despite all the gains, there is a uniqueness that will be lost in the transition.

It may have powered a few other VW Group vehicles, but only Bentley truly made the best of the W-12. If that’s something you’d like to experience for yourself from new, there are reportedly a few cars still available.

Or you could do what I’ve just done and start browsing the classifieds where you’ll find early models in tidy condition for less than $30,000.

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British race car driver Jamie Chadwick continued her American invasion last weekend with a history-making win in the Indy NXT Series, which used to be called Indy Lights. It’s the developmental feeder series for IndyCar, and many of its graduates have gone on to solid IndyCar careers, recently including Kyle Kirkwood and David Malukas, and in less recent history, Josef Newgarden, Scott Dixon, Helio Castroneves, Pato O’Ward, Marco Andretti, James Hinchcliffe, Colton Herta and Tony Kaanan.

Chadwick, who drives for Andretti Global, qualified on the pole for the Grand Prix of Road America, a 20-lap race on the tough Wisconsin road course. She is only the third female driver to win in the NXT/Indy Lights series, with the first being Ana Beatriz, who won in 2008 and 2009, and Pippa Mann, who was the most recent winner in 2010. Those wins were on oval tracks, so Chadwick becomes the first female driver to win on a road course.

“I have no words,” Chadwick said after her victory on Sunday. “Honestly, I’m a bit emotional. We’ve had an unbelievable car this year and just haven’t been able to do anything about it. I’m just so happy we held on there.”

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She beat Andretti Global teammate Louis Foster by 0.82 seconds, with Jacob Abel in third. Foster and Abel already have two wins each this season, and are the top two in the points, with Abel leading.

This is the second NXT season for Chadwick, 26, after winning three championships in the Europe-based, all-female W Series. That series was cancelled after three seasons for lack of finances, and last ran in 2022, when Chadwick returned with support from Caitlyn Jenner to win her third championship, this time for the newly-formed Jenner Racing team. The W Series was essentially replaced by the female-only, F1-backed F1 Academy in 2023. F1 Academy is on the Formula 4 level, considered a step down from the competition in the W Series.

Prior to racing in the W and NXT Series, Chadwick competed mostly in Europe, but she had several starts in the F3 Asian Championship. She has also been a development driver for the Williams F1 team, and a test driver for the NIO Formula E team. Chadwick co-drove an Aston Martin to a win in the Silverstone 24 Hours in 2015, and to fifth in class in the 2019 running of the 24 Hours of Nürburgring. She’s also competed in Extreme E, the electric off-road series.

Additionally, Chadwick is also the official advisor for 17-year-old Lia Block, daughter of the late stunt driver and rally racer Ken Block, as she competes for Williams in the F1 Academy series this season. After four of the scheduled 14 races, Lia is 14th in points out of 17 drivers.

Chadwick moved to the NXT series in 2023, where she had a best finish of sixth, and ended the season 12th in points. It took her a while to get acclimated to U.S. tracks and the NXT car, which is a Dallara chassis with a turbocharged 2.0-liter Mazda-AER four-cylinder, with six-speed gearbox. The series is owned by IndyCar, which means it’s owned by Roger Penske. Her best finish this season had been third on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s road course.

While Chadwick led Sunday’s race from the pole and never gave up the lead, it wasn’t easy. A crash on lap 16 caused officials to fly the red flag, stopping the race to allow for a clean-up and ensure that it wouldn’t finish under a caution flag. It was restarted with two laps to go.

“With the red flag at the end, I was like, ‘Come on!’” Chadwick said. “We started to lose the tires a little bit. I just knew I had to be aggressive. I knew they [Foster and Abel] have a championship to worry about, and I just had to get my head down. I really wanted to win today.” The victory moved Chadwick up to ninth in points.

This was the sixth race in a 13-race NXT season. Next up is a doubleheader at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca on June 22-23.

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Supercharging has interesting roots (pun intended) in the automotive world. The idea of pressure-feeding air into an engine for a car is only a few years younger than the automobile itself. The first production examples were available on Mercedes models in 1922, and it has only become more popular since. As with many examples of technology, there were some interesting attempts at supercharging that didn’t last and ended up on the side of the long road that is automotive history. One such example is the Latham axial flow supercharger.

Supercharging an engine relies on the crankshaft to drive on a compressor that forces air into the intake, effectively increasing the volumetric efficiency of the engine by cramming more air into the cylinders than it would pull in on its own during the vacuum created by the intake stroke. The most common forms of superchargers are centrifugal, roots, screw, and scroll. Before the market settled on the common types we’re familiar with today, there were several efforts to create the next best thing. Norman Latham of West Palm Beach, Florida, hoped his new product would be a must-have performance bolt-on.

Latham’s idea was to create an axial supercharger. This is essentially a turbine, where the supercharger housing contains “fans” that can create positive manifold pressure. Latham’s design went into production in 1956 and was sold until 1965. It was radically different than a roots or centrifugal supercharger, yet also combined a few of the better parts of each. A centrifugal supercharger was a bear to tune 70 years ago because carburetors were still the most popular way of mixing the air and fuel entering an engine.

Carburetors rely on the incoming air to pull in the fuel into the airstream from the float bowl. If the throat of the carburetor is under pressure rather than vacuum, that fuel draw doesn’t work very well. This made centrifugal superchargers finicky. Roots-style blowers could more effectively be set up to draw air through carburetors, but the size and location made packaging tough. Latham used the long and low design of the axial supercharger to put the blower low and further forward with the carbs off to the side, keeping a lower profile. The air and fuel are drawn in through two or four carbs, depending on the model, before being compressed through the turbine and then fed into the intake manifold.

The problem is that axial compressors tend to be less efficient than the more popular styles of supercharging. Their peak efficiency orrurs during a very narrow window and prefer steady-state running at that speed rather than changing RPM quickly like most automotive engines tend to do. It was a solution, but we know now that it was not the best solution.

The design still caught people’s attention though. After an eight-page spread in the June 1956 issue of Hot Rod things seemed to take off. Over 600 Latham superchargers were built and are now highly sought after. The company was sold in 1982 and transitioned to producing a modern interpretation of the axial design. The vintage units stand as an interesting reminder of the times when its innovation was almost as rapid as the cars it was going into.

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Never underestimate the power of just driving around.

On a brisk fall weekend in 1978, cruising my SoCal neighborhood revealed a 1970 MGB parked curbside, leaves under the tires and grit covering the teal blue paint, top, and windows. The car looked too good for such neglect. Inquiring at the nearest house, I learned that the clutch had “gone out,” an expensive repair. 

Intrigued, I sought permission to examine the car. The odometer read under 50,000 miles, and the tires appeared original. Facing the unwanted clutch expense, the nice lady quickly offered it for $800, and I agreed. After returning with funds, I checked the car’s vitals, including the radiator water, the oil, the brake fluid, and the hydraulic clutch fluid. Shockingly, that small reservoir was dry. No wonder the pedal went to the floor.

Refilling the reservoir restored clutch operation immediately. A jumpstart then got the MG running, and with the convertible top lowered, I was away, cavorting about the neighborhood and, with some guilt, passing by the previous owner’s house.

The virginal MGB was the nicest car I’d yet owned. With 95 horsepower, it wasn’t fast, but it was extremely cute and everything worked, including the clutch, which elevated the roadster to “daily driver” level. This didn’t last. One day on the freeway, a Ford pickup made a desperate multilane sweep toward an offramp, spearing the little MG hard in the driver’s door. The truck’s bumper shoved the metal in just inches from my shoulder, while outside the window, the Ford’s headlight bezel stopped two feet from my head.

On scene, the truck owner accepted responsibility and we exchanged information. But when I presented the repair bill a week later, he recanted, instead claiming I was at fault. And so began my flirtation with litigation. I sued in small claims court, he didn’t appear, and the judge awarded me full damages and court costs. Soon, law enforcement ordered a tow truck to the man’s house to seize the pickup, and the officer later told me with delight how quickly he’d scurried out waving a checkbook.

The wounded MG got a new door, some bodywork, and a paintjob, and the settlement even afforded new tires. It drove faithfully thereafter and gave no reason for disillusionment, save the lack of air conditioning. Hence, when a 1977 Volkswagen Scirocco Champagne Edition with A/C appeared for sale locally, the MGB was also served with papers. As Jim Croce sang, “But isn’t that the way they say it goes?”

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The weekend before Memorial Day, I took my customary road trip down to “The Vintage” in Asheville, North Carolina. This is the biggest vintage BMW event on the East Coast, with 600 cars in the village of Hot Springs nestled in the mountains north of the city, and the event hotel in Asheville is a non-stop, three-day hoopla where walking round the parking lot is as much fun as the official event itself. I’d missed it last year due to a family health issue, so I was looking forward to returning.

In addition, I decided to drive Hampton, my 49,000-mile survivor BMW 2002. I’ve written quite a bit about Hampton in these pages, describing how I’d bought the car from its original owner in 2019, how I revived it while taking care not to disturb its remarkable originality, how it didn’t sell on Bring a Trailer because people may say that they love survivor cars but what brings the money are shiny powder-coated vapor-honed mirages, and how I gradually warmed to the car’s survivor vibe. It’s not a quick 2002 like my 2002tii, but it’s an incredibly solid car, virtually free of the usual thunks, klunks, and rattles that haunt 50-year-old vehicles.

Even though it appeared that I would be keeping the car, the 50,000-mile rollover strongly affected how I used it. I know, it was stupid; it’s not like it was some ultra-low-mileage vehicle. It was already a survivor car, not some Cosmoline-coated hangar queen, but I still felt that the mileage was something to be hoarded like Bitcoin or virginity or something equally silly. But between one road trip to Vermont a few years ago and the required back-and-forth to the Monson warehouse on the MA/CT border where I store cars, the mileage had crept to 49,900. I had this epiphany: Do you want it to roll over on the way out to Monson, or do you want it to happen when you’re doing something big and fun?

So big and fun it was. Hampton was going to The Vintage. I took it for a shakedown drive, found a sticky front brake caliper, replaced it, drove it again, and by the time I got back, I was within 28 miles of the big rollover.

Then something unexpected happened. Two days before departure, one of my two road-trip companions called me saying that his BMW 2002 had problems and couldn’t make the trip. I thought about how I have these cars in the Monson warehouse gathering dust, and offered him my ’73 BMW Bavaria. After all, the Bavaria ran fine when I used it a few years ago for a mini-road trip to upstate New York to be used in a movie, and in my recent piece about how all my cars seemed to be rising in revolt, the only issues with the Bavaria were a dead battery from sitting and low-rpm buffeting from imperfectly synchronized Webers.

However, something occurred to me. I’m a big proponent of replacing convention mechanical ignition (points and condenser) with an electronic triggering unit such as a Pertronix (you can read about the debate here). The main reasons are A: points can wear down and close up, causing the car to die, and B: the quality of new points and condensers is absolute garbage these days. And yet I was about to head off on a 2,000-mile round trip in my only two vintage cars still running points. Why? Well, when I was trying to sell Hampton, I wanted to keep it original, and now there wasn’t time to order a Pertronix. With the Bavaria, after its first trip to The Vintage in 2014, I tried installing Pertronix, but for reasons unknown, the car didn’t want to rev over 4000 rpm with it installed, and I never figured out why (I’ve never had this happen on any other car), so I reversed back to points. So both of these cars were not only running points, but were still running the points that were in them when I bought them. (Spoiler alert: Point gap would figure prominently in repairs on this road trip, though not in the way I expected.)

So early on a Wednesday morning, my two companions met me at the Monson warehouse. We put a charged battery in the Bavaria and checked the fluids, then I checked the point gap in both cars with a dwell meter and adjusted it. Then we headed south for Asheville.

Oh, Hampton’s big mileage rollover? It happened 30 minutes into the trip. Over and done. I did my best impression of Paul McCartney singing “Let Me Roll It.” She’s a road trip car now.

We made it to the night’s destination Winchester, Virginia, a little over halfway, without incident. Hampton seemed genuinely happy to be free of its cloistered stored-in-a-barn-in-the-Hamptons-for-10-years-then-treated-like-a-wallflower existence.

When we were about to go to dinner, I got a phone call from a friend—professional vintage BMW mechanic Paul Wegweiser. He said that his friend and customer Mike was about 30 minutes south of me with a dead 2002, and asked if I could help. I called Mike and learned that he and the car were safe in a gas station parking lot with several hotels within walking distance. I said that it made the most sense for me to look at the car in the morning (daylight, it’s on my way to Asheville, auto parts stores are open, etc).

So the following morning I found Mike and his 2002. I’ve written over and over about the common things to strand a vintage car on a road trip (ignition, fuel delivery, charging, cooling, belts, and to a lesser extent clutch hydraulics). A car that goes from driving to dead is highly likely to be a victim of one of the first two. You can give a blast of starting fluid down the carb throat to test which it is (if doesn’t start, it’s ignition, but if it starts and runs for a few seconds, it’s fuel delivery), but for some reason I went right for the points—I yanked off the distributor cap and watched them while Mike cranked the engine. They clearly weren’t opening.

Setting the point gap is usually easy, as points usually have a notch that sits between two little bumps on the distributor plate that allows you to put a screwdriver in the notch and lever it against one of the bumps to increase or decrease the gap. However, the nylon block on these points was so badly worn that the slot wasn’t between the two bumps, and they didn’t really fit right on the plate. Plus, these were the unusual left-opening points used on 2002s with vacuum-retard distributors. I didn’t have a spare set of these with me, and the odds of any AutoZone having them was zero. It took quite a bit of fettling to get the point gap dialed in. When it was, Mike tried starting the car. The carb let out such a loud belch-and-backfire that it startled us all. I theorized that Mike had probably flooded it trying to get it to start with closed points. Eventually it started and idled, and a test drive verified that the car appeared happy. Mike joined our caravan, and we made it down to Asheville without further ignition-related issues.

It was a wonderful event. The organizers of The Vintage refer to it as “a gathering, not a car show.” It’s not a concours. There are no trophies. No one “wins” anything. While there certainly are some lovely restored high-dollar vintage BMWs there, it’s far more about shared passion and enthusiasm irrespective of budget. It’s the kind of event where, on the drive down or in the parking lot, if you need a part or expertise because your car is broken, there are hundreds of people who have your back, and that is a beautiful thing. My having helped Mike was part of the spirit that naturally flows out of the event.

There’s also a long history of my friend Paul Wegweiser pranking me at The Vintage. One year, he bombed my Bavaria with yellow chicken feathers that I’m still finding inside the car. Another year, he actually zip-tied burned-out wires under the dash of my 2002 and a burned-out fan motor under the front seat so I’d smell it on the drive home and wonder where the electrical fire is. He has threatened to put zip-ties on my driveshaft and half-axles so he can read about me going crazy trying to find the source of the noise. However, this year, he said that, since Hampton is such a lovely survivor example, he wasn’t going to screw with it. Like an idiot, I believed him.

The drive home hit a bump on our first stop in southern Virginia. Mike’s car had the good fortune of dying literally as we were heading into a gas station parking lot. Again, it was due to the points having closed up, but this time things were worse—the inside of the distributor cap was coated with soot, the points were noticeably more pitted than before, and I found that the thin braided wire grounding the distributor plate to its body had detached from its connector. And, to add insult to injury, we appeared to be parked near a leaking sewage line or septic tank.

My theory was that the detached ground strap was causing a much stronger spark across the points, which in turn caused both the pitting as well as the soot on the inside of the cap. I got everything buttoned back up, and we continued heading north. I rechecked the distributor on Mike’s car whenever we stopped, and it appeared to be soot-free with the point gap holding stable. One of my travel companions noted that another service area was also, uh, fragrant, but we were parked next to a drainage culvert at the time.

We arrived that night in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. While we were unloading our bags from our cars, someone noted that the smell of Virginia rest stops appeared to have followed us. While we were waiting in line to check into the hotel, the red light went on in my head: It was my “friend” Paul. After all, someone who zip-tied burned wiring into my car certainly wasn’t above putting something foul-smelling into my BMW. After I checked in, I went back outside and did the nose test under the hood, along the rocker panels, and at the tailpipe, but nothing jumped out at me. I thought that maybe, whatever he’d done, it was heat-activated. He’s a clever guy.

Before we headed off in the morning, I re-checked Mike’s car. I pulled off the distributor cap and was relieved to see both the absence of soot and that my repair of the little ground strap was holding.

Then I borrowed his key and went to start the car so I could check the dwell. It clicked but didn’t start. I pulled out my voltmeter and measured the battery voltage. It read 13.1 volts. Standard resting voltage of a fully-charged battery is 12.6 volts, so it had plenty of voltage.

To make testing easier and eliminate the car’s ignition switch as the source of the problem, I connected a jumper wire to the starter solenoid. I touched the other end of the jumper to battery positive. Again, click but no start.

The no-start decision tree is pretty easy to follow and usually quite definitive. This was beginning to look like a bad starter motor. Pulling the starter isn’t a 10-minute job like the alternator, and we didn’t have a spare one with us anyway, so I wanted to be sure. I was about to swing my car in front of Mike’s to jump it when one of my other companions said he had a new fully-charged lithium jump pack. We hooked it up, it buzzed, and still… click, but no start. Just in case there was a bad connection in Mike’s battery cables, I used my jumper cables to connect the battery directly to the starter. It made no difference. And Mike’s car is an automatic, so there was no way to push-start it.

I lit the Hack beacon and posted a the “2002 down, 2002 needs starter motor” message on the Facebook page for The Vintage, then began removing the starter. With it out, I did the on-the-asphalt test of connecting it directly to the battery. It did spin, but the spin-up time seemed unusually long. Two people quickly answered the post, one of whom had two used 2002 starters at his repair shop just 20 minutes north. He said that we’d actually met once in the parking lot of a Sheetz convenience store nearby. When I got home after the trip, I looked through my old trip photos to The Vintage and found pics of the meeting. Incredibly, it was 10 years almost to the day, and I was driving the same Bavaria.

I tested both used starters by jumping them with Mike’s car’s battery. They both seemed to spin up a bit slowly, but one was obviously faster than the other. Installation, however, was a bear. The solenoid on the replacement starter was fatter than on the original one, and it couldn’t get past the bracket for the kick-down cable for the automatic transmission. I had to loosen the bracket to move it out of the way. It was the kind of bent-over pulling-up-wrenches work that angers up my aging back, but I seem congenitally unable to say “Good luck with AAA” when there’s a problem I can diagnose and fix.

Finally, with one of the starter’s bolts holding it snug enough to the bell housing to verify the repair, I reconnected the battery cables and again touched the jumper wire to battery positive.

Click, but no crank.

No. NO. Not possible.

My first thought was that the engine was seized or otherwise prevented from turning. I chocked a rear wheel with one of the other starter motors, had Mike put it in neutral, and manually rotated the engine (it’s easy to do this on a BMW 2002 by just grabbing the cooling fan and leaning on the belt with the heel of your hand). It rotated easily.

Stumped, I jumped in my car and swung it nose-to-nose with Mike’s to jump it. Why? Don’t know. Just to try something, I guess.

It spun instantly.

Wait, what?

As I put the car back together, I began to accept the idea that I’d gotten the diagnosis wrong. It probably never needed a starter motor. If it started with a jump, the problem was likely the battery. Just because the battery had more than the necessary 12.6 volts, that doesn’t mean that it was able to deliver the cranking amperage to spin the engine. I hadn’t suspected the battery since it looked new (Mike said he’d installed it when he bought the car last year). But it was a mystery why it didn’t start with my friend’s jump pack.

With the starter fully secured and the ignition switch reconnected, the started instantly with a jump and a twist of the key. I re-checked the point gap using the dwell meter, and it was still fine. I verified with my voltmeter that, with the engine idling, there was about 13.5 volts at the battery, indicating that the alternator was charging it. Mike and I said our goodbyes as he was peeling off to drive home to Pittsburgh, about 250 miles. I advised that, as long as he didn’t shut it off the car, he’d likely be fine.

Does anyone get it? Anyone see what I missed? I’ll give you a hint: It’s as plain as the nose on your face.

A few hours later, this text appeared on my phone: “Update! The good news: I am safe at a rest stop off the turnpike. Bad news: I am kaput! Car puttered out and battery is fried. Smoking and a little stuff coming out. I am 96 miles from home, which puts me within the free 100-mile tow! P.S. I think that [expletive deleted] smell was ME!”

Oh. My. God.

The smell! I can’t believe I missed this.

An old-school voltage regulator is designed to to rapidly open and close (not unlike ignition points), bringing the alternator in and out of the charging circuit so that the average voltage to the battery with the engine running is about 13.5 to 14.2 volts. When a regulator fails, it can fail in two ways. They usual “fail open,” which means they never bring the alternator into the charging circuit, so the battery runs down and eventually the car dies (or won’t start). But if they “fail closed,” they cause the alternator to always feed the so-called full-field voltage (about 17 volts) to the battery. This over-charging boils the sulfuric acid in the battery and produces gaseous sulphur which smells like rotten eggs. THAT’s what we all were smelling. It wasn’t sewage. It was the battery being fried.

If someone had said “I smell sulphur,” or “I smell rotten eggs,” my voltage-regulator-stuck-closed neuron would’ve fired, but I missed it. This is why the car’s resting battery voltage read 13.1 volts instead of 12.6 (I can’t believe I missed this one too). And, most important, this is why the battery wouldn’t crank the starter in the car—it was ruined. It’s also why, when removed, the starter was slow to spin up. Had I dropped my own battery in Mike’s car, or used my battery to bench-test his starter, it would’ve spun fine. It was also likely a contributor to why the points were pitting and the distributor cap was coated with soot.

I think that part of the reason I got it wrong was that it was just a few months ago that I wrote about buying a new battery for Hampton when the problem turned out to be a bad starter motor, but I felt like an absolute idiot. The entire episode could’ve been avoided had I simply jump-started the car like anyone who doesn’t pretend to be a know-it-all would’ve done, and if, once it was running, I checked the battery with a voltmeter both while the engine was idling and while it was revved up. I would’ve seen the over-voltage. I had a spare regulator in my trunk. That and a trip to an auto parts store for a battery… it would’ve been so easy.

I still, though, didn’t understand why the car didn’t start off my friend’s lithium jump pack.

A day after we got home, my friend messaged me:

“So I figured out why the starter didn’t crank with the jump pack. It’s a ‘smart’ jump pack that sensed that the battery was at 13.1 volts. That’s the buzzing we heard when you hooked it up. Per the instructions: ‘HOMPOW [brand] car jump starter with intelligent clamps provides protection against over-charging, over-discharging, surge voltage, overload, over-voltage, short-circuit, reverse polarity, and high-temperature protection, making your devices jump faster in a safe way.’”

Oh, my two cars, with their decades-old points? Flawless. Absolutely flawless.

When you blow a diagnosis, all you can do is learn the lesson, and hope that the consequence of being wrong isn’t too painful in time, effort, money, and the degree to which you’ve caused yourself or someone else a pain in the butt. At least this one made for a good story, and two good arrows in the diagnostic quiver.

***

Rob’s latest book, The Best Of The Hack Mechanic: 35 years of hacks, kluges, and assorted automotive mayhem is available on Amazon here. His other seven books are available here on Amazon, or you can order personally-inscribed copies from Rob’s website, www.robsiegel.com.

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A one-off Porsche 928 testbed that served for more than three decades has deservedly won a place in the Porsche Museum.

The car’s main purpose during its long life was to help Porsche pass noise tests and the manual coupe was picked because because of the low-end power from its 5.4-liter V-8.

“Whether the engine was in the front or the rear, or how much interior space was available was irrelevant,” explains engineer Harald Mann. “Primarily, the testing required a lot of power in the lower engine speed range. Using the 924 was therefore a non-starter, and a 944 with its typical gearbox rattle at low loads was also out of the question. And an air-cooled 911 was too loud. It was important to minimize the noise of the vehicle as much as possible.”

Drive-by noise was a particular focus so being able to isolate each noise source in the car for testing was crucial. “The mechanical noise of the engine and the tires is, in fact, hard to influence,” says Mann. “In the end, it is always a mixed calculation: if the engine and gearbox are particularly quiet, the exhaust can be a little louder, for example. If the tires are excessively loud, then the intake noise might need to be quieter.”

The acoustic engineers literally wrapped the car in cotton wool to dampen major noise sources, mounted the radiator in front of the bumper, removed the fan, and fitted an enormous intake silencer. An over-sized exhaust silencer was strapped to the back window, the transaxle transmission was enclosed and the underbody insulated as well, giving it the look of one of George Miller’s Mad Max machines.

Initially the car was tested, not on Fury Road, but a section of the skidpan at Weissach before a dedicated section of track was created to measure the sound levels as the 928 whooshed by. At its most hushed the car was clocked at just 63 dB(A) at a time when the legal limit was 74 dB(A), making it the quietest 928 ever made.

Pirelli would also borrow the car to test new compounds and tread patterns so the 928 was fitted with wider arches to accommodate all manner of wheels and tires. It’s currently fitted with the same low-profile rubber as the 991-generation 911, showing just how recently the 928 was still working.

“It could still do the job today,” adds Mann.

***

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James writes:

Hello, last year during one of my morning walks I passed a nearby home where an S-Class Mercedes was parked on its driveway. As I approached, the silhouette was that of an early 2010’s Mercedes S-Class with noticeably flared wheel arches. As I passed by I observed the model identification on the left side of the trunk. Instead of the anticipated S 550 badge, it displayed a CLS 550 badge.

I did eventually meet the owner, an elderly man who could not provide any information about his car. And by this time he had replaced this “CLS 550” with a newer S 580 Mercedes. I did research on the internet, but no luck with a possible CLS 550 S Class.

I am fairly certain with my identification that this vehicle is at least an S-class Mercedes. (As a previous owner of a 2014 CLS and a current owner of a 2022 CLS, I have some familiarity with Mercedes models.) So, are the trunks of this S-Class and the CLS Class of this era interchangeable, and a junkyard CLS trunk was used to repair a damaged S-Class trunk? Or, the S-Class Mercedes needed its trunk repaired and the repair shop put the wrong model identifier on the repaired trunk?

I seriously doubt there ever was a CLS 550 S Class Mercedes. What do you think?

Sajeev answers:

Dang, I really would love to see a photo of this machine. But I share your doubt, and I suspect someone with an S-Class Benz bought those CLS 550 emblems from a place like eBay to be cheeky.

I get the vibe, however. Both the W221 (2007–13) and W222 (2014–20) bodies of the S-class have a distinctly sleek, curvilinear CLS flavor to them. Once the CLS hit the ground running, all sedans (save for Rolls-Royce) had to re-think their position as being staid and stately. Perhaps the CLS offered the sedan a lifeline to coolness in the wake of CUV/SUV dominance. Even the S-class can’t be immune to this trend.

Adding a body kit to the S-class also aids in the CLS-ification of these flagship Mercs. But let’s focus on the phrase “flagship”, as that answers your other question. Sheetmetal on a flagship isn’t interchangeable with cheaper models from the same brand. Not that the CLS is a bad car, but it’s based on the smaller E-class: That trunk lid is unlikely to have the same hard points as an S-Class.

Even if it technically could bolt up to an S-class, the surfacing and cut lines would make absolutely no sense. There’s a good chance you saw an S-class with an aftermarket body kit that made it look sleeker, and the owner decided that it became a CLS in the process.

And the W221 makes a rather awesome CLS-daddy. It’s hard to tell what’s an actual “wide” body kit on these cars, as this era of S-class came with flared-out rear fenders from the factory. But there’s also the issue of looking at 2-D photos on a computer screen, which is my current conundrum.

What say you, Hagerty Community? Did James see a widebody S-class, a CLS-class, or just some CLS emblems on that big-body S-class Mercedes?

Have a question you’d like answered on Piston Slap? Send your queries to pistonslap@hagerty.com—give us as much detail as possible so we can help! Keep in mind this is a weekly column, so if you need an expedited answer, please tell me in your email.

***

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Lambos were expensive this week. A 2003 Murciélago sold for $508,500, 67 percent over its #1 (“best in the world”) value in our price guide. But even more special than that Murci was a 1972 Miura P400 SV that sold for $4.9M. That’s 34 percent above its #1 value and comfortably more than the previous world record for the model, a $4.26M sale back in 2020.

What was a six-figure Italian classic 15 years ago is now, with the right specs and condition, a blue chip collectible approaching the $5M club.

The words “Lamborghini” and “supercar” tend to go hand in hand these days. Indeed, the brash, brightly colored exotics from Sant’Agata Bolognese are some of the most popular supercars out there. Throw a stone in a nice part of Miami or L.A. and you’re bound to hit one. This wasn’t the case in 1965, however—Lamborghini was a much different company back then. The tractor-turned-carmaker focused on producing small batches of refined, mature gran turismos that aimed to best Ferrari’s equivalent road cars. Frivolities like racing just weren’t part of the equation. The car that changed that philosophy, and put Lamborghini down its current loud, wedge-shaped path, was the Miura. No wonder it’s the most valuable Lamborghini of them all.

After Lamborghini’s first car—the 350 GT—began steady production in 1964, several company engineers and designers started thinking about what to do next. Everybody in the group was in their mid-20s. Ferruccio Lamborghini was 48. They were enthusiastic about racing, where mid-engine cars were dominant. Mr. Lamborghini wasn’t, and insisted on staying away from motorsport. Nevertheless, he budged and gave the team the go-ahead to develop a mid-engine sports car.

The chassis design was a monocoque with an integral roof, leaving the front and rear of the bodywork as unstressed, hinged panels. The steel chassis included drilled holes for lightness. Meanwhile, Lamborghini’s signature V-12, then displacing four liters, was a long unit. Mounting it longitudinally would have meant lengthening the wheelbase and compromising the handling. The clever solution was to mount the engine transversely in parallel with the rear axle, sort of like an Austin Mini but on a much larger scale and behind the driver instead of in front. Due to limited space, Lamborghini also fabricated a transaxle, mounted at the rear of the engine and in unit with the crankcase (like on a motorcycle), so the engine and gearbox had to share oil with each other.

A rolling chassis debuted at the 1965 Turin Auto Show, and just the naked mechanicals were enough to cause a stir and send potential customers rushing to the Lamborghini stand. But Lamborghini, still a boutique carmaker just a few years in the business, thought of the project as a promotional tool. It wasn’t just lacking a body. It didn’t even have a proper name.

When they finally decided to put this new mid-engine design into production, Bertone won the deal to design a body and gave the job to a young Marcello Gandini. The finish product debuted at the Geneva Salon in 1966 and it once again caused a stir. Its name—P400—referred to the engine placement (“P” for Posteriore), and the engines displacement of 400 deciliters. But Mr. Lamborghini, a Taurus, also wanted a proper name and went with Miura, after a renowned breeder of fighting bulls. Bullfighting-themed monikers have been a Lamborghini trademark ever since.

The original Miura’s shape was a masterpiece and its $20,000 price in the U.S. was enough to buy five brand-new Corvettes, but there was still room for improvement. The P400 has numerous ergonomic quirks, and at over 100 mph the nose starts to generate lift. The common oil supply between the engine and gearbox also didn’t allow for a limited-slip differential. A first batch of upgrades arrived with the Miura P400 S in 1969, which added vented brakes, power windows, optional air conditioning, improved rear suspension and better tires as well as a bump in power from 350 hp to 370.

Then, in 1971, the SV came with even more rear suspension improvements, a slight lowering of the nose to alleviate that pesky front-end lift and wider 15-inch wheels under flared fenders. The retractable headlights also lost their signature black trim, aka “eyelashes,” and engine output again grew, this time to 385. Later P400 SVs got a split sump, which meant separate oil supplies for the crankcase and gearbox and made a limited-slip feasible, although it wasn’t standard factory equipment.

Lamborghini built 762 Miuras, and just 150 of them are the higher-spec SV models. The hierarchy of values is straightforward, with three distinct series carrying three distinct prices. Basically, the first P400 sits at the bottom, the improved P400 S in the middle, and the fully developed P400 SV at the top.

This Miura SV, Chassis 4972, was built in 1971 and finished in Rosso Corsa with gold rocker panels over tan leather. It sold new to an Italian living in Germany, before a later British owner converted it to right-hand drive in the 1980s. A Hong Kong collector bought it in the 1990s and commissioned a full restoration. Then, singer Jay Kay of Jamiroquai bought it, and it featured in a 2004 episode of Top Gear. It sold on again and received a full restoration in Italy in the 2010s, returning it to its original left-hand drive but giving it a blue leather interior instead of the original tan. Otherwise, it has its original engine, chassis, and body and was represented in concours condition.

It sold at the RM Sotheby’s “Dare to Dream” auction, which featured a collection owned by financier Miles Nadal that included 140 cars and motorcycles as well as hundreds of pairs of collectible sneakers. Despite top shelf Ferraris like an F40 (sold for $3.47M), an F50 ($4.24M), an Enzo ($4.295M), a LaFerrari ($3.69M) and a 275 GTB/4 ($3.305M), the upstart Lamborghini flew past its $2.75M—$3.5M estimate and its #1 value of $3.65M to take the top spot of the sale and become the most expensive Miura ever sold at auction. It’s a bit of a surprise given the interior change and the steering wheel switcheroo, which would ordinarily be hindrances at auction on a car like this.

Condition counts for a lot, though, and this car wears its restoration well. The car was also vetted by Lamborghini’s PoloStorico and issued a Certificate of Authenticity. And, speaking of documentation, we’ve heard that the stack of books and records that come with the car is a foot high. The setting, an auction full of high-dollar classic European cars in excellent condition, also helped. Then there’s the trajectory of Miuras in general. They have been consistently getting more valuable for well over a decade. “It is absolutely one of the most beautiful piece of automotive design, ever,” says Dave Kinney, publisher of the Hagerty Price Guide of Lamborghini’s breakout supercar. As for the market for them, “most people are realizing that Miuras really are worth the big money they’ve been selling for, so I don’t necessarily think this result is a one-off.” For now, though, the red and gold over blue beauty is the new king of the bulls.

***

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If you’ve been reading my columns long enough, you’ll know I’m a big fan of the full-size, “Nimitz Class” cars GM built from 1971 to ’76, from Caprices to Delta 88 Royales to Fleetwood Talismans. They were the last GM hardtops, and the last GM full-sizers that were available in every basic body style: coupe, sedan, convertible, and station wagon.

Buicks were still pretty big in 1976—in fact, this was last call for truly unapologetic room and length. In 1977 all the big Buicks—indeed, all big GM cars—would be downsized to tidier dimensions, except for the Olds Toronado and Cadillac Eldorado, who had to wait until the 1979 model year.

There were three versions of Electra for 1976: The Electra 225, the Electra Limited, and the super plush Electra Park Avenue, the last of which had a center console—though the transmission lever was still mounted on the steering column. The Park Avenue was available as a sedan only.

I have seen two very nice Park Avenues too, and will be writing at least one of them up sometime, but that’s for another day!

Technically, the Limited was also an Electra 225, though it was not badged as such. The lowest priced Electra was the 225 coupe, at $6367. GM built 18,442. Limited coupes started at $6689 and were more popular, to the tune of 28,395 units sold.

Most popular Electra of all was the Limited four-door hardtop, with 51,067 cars built at a starting price of $6852. For comparison, the priciest ’76 LeSabre was the Custom four-door hardtop, at $5166. LeSabres looked more like their flossier Electra brethren this year as well, adding the quad rectangular lights the Electras first gained in 1975.

As one would expect, there were plenty of standard features on the Electras, including the 455-cubic-inch V-8, Turbo Hydra-matic automatic transmission, power front disc/rear drum brakes, High Energy ignition, power windows, and Custom seat and shoulder belts. The Limited added a two-way power seat, a 60/40 divided front seat upholstered in cloth, a quartz crystal digital clock, and of course the much more luxurious seats and door panels. The 225 interior was nice too, but it was a bit plain in comparison.

And there were still many optional extras, as you’d expect of Detroit in the ’70s. Such as the Landau roof seen on our featured example. You could also get steel-belted whitewall tires (steel-belted blackwalls were standard), automatic level control, a four-note horn (these were loud and well worth the extra charge), carpet savers, a litter container, power antenna, automatic climate control, power door locks, power trunk release, and more.

The seats, of course, were really plush. While they perhaps were not as scientifically fashioned as Volvo’s famous orthopedically designed chairs (I can speak to those seats too, as a former Volvo owner) they were definitely cushy. It was the kind of car that was pretty much like driving around in your living room.

And if you were on a business trip to Omaha and the Holidome was full up for the night, the Limited’s seats made for rather nice first-class sleeping quarters—in a pinch!

I saw our featured car at the annual car show held indoors each January in downtown Rock Island, Illinois. I had seen the car before a couple of times, but hadn’t gotten any really good pictures. It was interesting, of course, due to its color. I recall seeing it the previous summer and thinking if it wasn’t the original color, the paint was done very well.

Well as it turns out, the car came out of the factory wearing this color. I did recognize the color, but believe it was limited to the smaller Buicks like the Skyhawk (Buick’s version of the Chevrolet Monza 2+2) and Skylark coupe, sedan, and hatchback. But I was fairly certain it was not available on the LeSabre/Electra/Estate Wagon.

Shortly before I began this column, I saw the car advertised on my local Marketplace: “All original 76 Electra Limited. 2 door, 455/400. 37K original miles. Factory optioned “Firecracker Orange” paint only offered in 76.” So the car apparently was special-ordered in this color. Of course, back then, you could do such things. Today, not so much!

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Germany’s Eifel Mountain region is perfect for early-summer camping and hiking. The forested peaks rise and fall through the fog and are populated by charming hamlets and farms, the edges of which are often lined with shocks of wildflowers. Rain clouds and bluebird skies trade places throughout the day before the sun sets about 10 p.m.

Peaceful.

That is, unless you arrive at any part of the Nürburgring Nordschleife during the Nürburgring 24 Hours (N24) race weekend, where a quarter-million fans show up, dedicated to a schedule that’s dominated by three things: drinking beer, grilling sausages, and watching cars hurtling up, down—and occasionally off—one of the greatest circuits in the world. The chirp of songbirds is replaced by the thrum of generators, a half-dozen Eurobeat tracks thumping out of temporary discotheques, and the constant doppler effect of racing engines near redline.

Unlike this year’s shortest-ever N24—red-flagged for nearly 17 hours due to dense fog that wouldn’t let up—the party rages at all hours, impervious to foul weather. The peace is thoroughly disturbed. 

In the weeks leading up to the ‘Ring’s premier endurance race, dedicated fans descend on the countryside to stake out their plots along the nearly 13 miles of asphalt. There they erect temples to Bitburger, Jägermeister, Paulaner, and Warsteiner.

Their plywood scaffold creations sometimes include mud-stained living room couches draped in Christmas lights. One setup even had an assisted-mobility chair on an electric track to ferry guests up and down. Plastic banners span these double- and triple-decker structures, broadcasting motorsport allegiances and beverage brands of choice.

On the trampled ground below, empty alcohol bottles and cans are stacked into pyramids, or unceremoniously piled up, or just flattened into the earth. Cigarette smoke wafts through the leafy canopies, joining the plumes of bonfires and barbecues that still linger in your clothes Monday morning. 

It is a wonderful place to be, and not just as a racing fan. The camaraderie is infectious, regardless of what team you’re rooting for. And believe it or not, it can be very family-friendly: Toddlers are perched on their parents’ shoulders, heads lolling, all top-heavy thanks to the comically oversized earmuffs that mom and dad insist upon. Little hands furiously wave cheap plastic flags adorned with car brand logos with the same enthusiasm of older diehards who’ve made this race an annual tradition. The kids are alright. 

And so are the adults. I lost count of the number of beers I had to politely turn down as I tromped around the perimeter of the circuit, pulling at my photographer’s credential to show that I was, despite my senses telling me otherwise, at work. In addition to watching one of the official Nürburgring-owned jumbotrons, I popped my head into a few tents to check out the race feeds to see what was happening on the rest of the course. Without fail I was offered some form of hot food, a shot of liquor or another bottle of beer.

After miles of trudging and eight hours of holding stiff photographer stances, my feet ached and my stomach pleaded, so I broke down and accepted an offered plate of currywurst. I was grateful for the kindness that endurance racing seems to foster.

On Sunday morning, the bonfires were fed with the wooden frames that provided the prior night’s grandstands. Some people were still drinking, some slowly packing their cars and campers, hot coffee in hand. It was quieter this year as the red flags for weather left the track empty since before midnight. People grumbled about that, but you know they’ll be back next year, just like they were the year before. The traffic jam to leave the ‘Ring is thick but quickly disperses once you get clear of the main parking and camping zones. They come from every direction and leave the same way. 

With the race over, the countryside quickly returns to its idyllic natural state. Sounds from the forests and farmland take up where the cars and crowds left off. Cleanup crews stab bits of trash with their pokers and a few service trucks prowl the circuit to make minor repairs to the guardrails.

We’ll all be back next year, weather permitting or not. See you there.

***

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We love driving our vintage cars, but sometimes local law says we can’t, shouldn’t, or are not welcome to do so. It’s frustrating, and the complexity of traffic law makes the situation confusing, even if those layers of legalese were accumulated over a century of incremental change targeted at keeping our roads orderly and our drivers safe.

The laws that govern driving are something that we agree to follow when we apply for and are granted our driving license. So what do we do when we want those laws changed?

The process is not simple or quick, but it is possible. Just a few weeks ago, a committed group of car enthusiasts won a long-awaited victory: The state of Michigan announced that it would alter the driving code as it pertained to the usage of vehicles with authentic or historic registrations (to qualify, a vehicle has to be 26 years or older).

The vehicle code of Michigan was written to restrict the driving of vehicles with these types of registrations to “club activities, exhibitions, tours, parades, and similar uses, including mechanical testing.” The law barred their use for regular transportation but granted a lower annual registration fee. A handful of drivers were issued tickets while at Detroit’s beloved Woodward Dream Cruise because the event did not fall under any of the approved scenarios yet drivers took their vintage rides out regardless of registration. John Russell, along with other members of the Twin Bay British Car Club, thought the situation was absurd, so they began the process of removing the restrictions.

Most states help people like you or I by giving us a roadmap to enact the change we wish to see. For example, Michigan.gov has a four-page explainer of the exact steps needed—in order, no less.

If only it were that simple. I reached out to a few of the people who were behind the recent change in Michigan, and they provided some valuable perspective. “I guess the word I would look for is perseverance,” said Dr. Fred Stoye, who worked closely with John Russell and other members of the Twin Bay British Car Club to march the path laid by the state. “We saw the need for positive change, followed all the legal steps, forged alliances in the legislature, and presented a plan that worked and was voted into law.”

The process was not quick. There were multiple dead ends along the way that put pauses on any progress and sometimes kicked them back to square one. In the end, the group persevered for ten years before they achieved the big victory. One of the tougher steps in the process was getting a lawmaker to pick up their cause. They struggled to find a sponsor who was willing to introduce the bill and to continue advocating for it as the bill stepped through committee review, which can take months to years, depending on a multitude of factors.

Even with a sponsor, and after the bill passed the Michigan House of Representatives, Russell and his compatriots had no time to relax. All the work up to that point could be done from afar, but when the bill entered the Michigan Senate, they were asked to testify at a hearing to explain why the relaxation of driving restrictions was worthwhile. Stoye, Russell, and other team members went to Lansing with a measured approach: “We expressed the need to drive our classic cars to keep them healthy and how there would be no adverse damage to our roads.” Their argument boiled down to the fact the current law was not particularly helping anything—so why did it exist?

Their argument might not apply to every change you or I would like to see regarding restrictions to the use of vintage cars, but the members of the Twin Bay British Car Club set a great example for automotive enthusiasts. What it really takes to change a law is the right group of people, motivated in the right way, who are willing to stick out the process.

If there is a restriction or driving law you think is outdated, superfluous, or otherwise unhelpful to the vintage car hobby: The power is in your hands. People just like you have succeeded in making change. Now it’s your turn.

***

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Willow Springs International Raceway, located about 60 miles north of Los Angeles in Kern County, California, has hosted almost every type of road race since it opened in 1953. Everything from Can-Am and Trans Am to go-karts and Spec Miatas have plotted for position and hustled around the seven tracks at the facility. Bill Huth purchased the site in 1962 and it has been in the Huth family ever since. Now, nine years after Bill Huth’s passing, the family is offering up the race facility and its several tracks to the highest bidder.

The facility at Willow Springs is famous for its fast, sweeping, 2.5-mile “Big Willow” race track, also known as “The Fastest Road in the West.” The course wraps up the side of a hill and back down, creating elevation changes that keep the course interesting. The quick turn eight, followed by the decreasing-radius turn nine that leads onto the front straight, has bruised plenty of egos and wrinkled multiple fenders. It remains a racer favorite.

The facility is more than the main road course, however. Street of Willow is another fun, challenging track that is smaller and tighter. It was added to the facility in 1988. Horse Thief Mile, perched further up the hill, was added in 2003. Two oval tracks, dirt and paved, a kart track, and a pair of skid pads that can be used as an autocross track are also located on the 600-acre property along with paddocks, a restaurant, and several restrooms.

With all of those facilities and its proximity to Los Angeles, it’s no surprise that Willow Springs has been a favorite location for many Southern California media outlets, including film production and automotive testing for magazines and award-winning YouTube channels. There’s no asking price listed, and we have no idea what it would take to acquire such a big chunk of land and several tracks, but some of our favorite stories have come from our on-track experiences at Willow Springs. We hope that whoever buys the facility will manage it successfully and keep the fabulous tracks humming with events.

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Among second- and early third-generation Corvettes, big-block cars tend to dominate any debate about which spec of America’s sports car is king. There are some exceptions, though: The L84 “Fuelie” in the early cars is a favorite, though the small-block Chevy that’s perhaps in the best position to fight for the prize is the 350-cubic inch mill that came with the Regular Production Option (RPO) LT1.

LT1-equipped third-generation Corvettes delivered a balanced blend of power, higher-revving personality, and handling that contrasted with the brute force of the big-block cars. Today, they remain among the most sought-after C3 Corvettes, though their prices haven’t gone through the roof.

By 1970, the Mako Shark II-concept-inspired design of the third generation was in its third year, and Chevy decided to perform some subtle stylistic updates and improvements. The fender flares were widened to reduce rock chips, while the front end got an egg-crate grille and treatment to the side vents similar to those on Bill Mitchell’s Aero Coupe styling exercise from 1969. Side markers front and rear grew in size.

Inside, high-backed seats integrated the headrest, and the Corvette was now available with a “custom interior” option that offered better touch points all around—leather seats and shift boot, woodgrain dash, and improved carpeting. This may have been appreciated, but the real cause for conversation was what was available—and not available—beneath the Corvette’s forward-tilting hood.

Before getting too far, let’s take a brief pause for clarification of references. LT1 is, as mentioned above, an RPO code. The engine it came with is commonly—though not always—referred to as the LT-1 (dash included), not to be confused with the 5.7-liter LT1 (no dash) that powered Corvettes, F-bodies, and select full-size GM cars in the ’90s. You will see the RPO and the engine designation in this piece in their appropriate circumstances.

Coming from the L88 427-cubic inch big blocks of 1967-69, and with the 450-horse, 454-cubic inch LS6 headed for use in the Chevelle, there was a good deal of anticipation for a high-output 454 in the Corvette. Chevy did intend to provide one—RPO LS7 was rated at 460 horsepower, and though early ’70 Corvette brochures did include this beast, the engine was unfortunately never put in a Corvette that was sold to the public.

That left the 390-horse LS5 454 as the only big block option for that year. In offering a massive 500 lb-ft of torque, the LS5 confidently got the job done, but was neither a wind-it-out screamer nor the outright monster that the L88 had become known as.

All this created a lot of context for the new-for-1970 LT-1. When comparing the LT-1 to the LS5 and the 270-horse engine in the base Corvette, Car and Driver in-period characterized the differences bluntly: “But those powerplants are of little interest to the Corvette purist, the man who remembers the soul and vitality of the high-winding fuel-injected 283 when it was the only street engine in the country that put out one horsepower per cubic inch. Today’s equivalent is the LT1…” High praise indeed, and truly highlighting the LT-1’s position in the lineup.

At its core, the LT-1 represented a thorough hot-rodding of Chevy’s proven small-block formula. It’s often characterized as a more hardcore version of the potent hydraulic-lifter 350-horse L46 that debuted the prior year, and the two did share a number of parts, including the same block and cylinder heads, along with the same 11.0:1 compression ratio in 1970.

The LT-1 traded those hydraulic lifters for a set of solid ones that responded to a more aggressive cam. Lighter, TRW forged aluminum pistons with revised rings were added to help put up with more abuse, while stronger connecting rods and wrist pins along with a forged, balanced crankshaft rounded out changes to the rotating assembly. Four-bolt mains held the crank to the block, and improved rod and main bearings, a gear-driven oil pump and a different oil pan design helped ensure proper lubrication. Up top, 2.02-inch intake valves and 1.60-inch exhaust valves made for freer-breathing heads over the base 350, and a Winters aluminum high-rise manifold wearing an 800-cfm Holley carburetor voraciously mixed the fuel.

The result was 370 horsepower at 6000 rpm—the LT-1 would keep pulling to a then-heady 6500 rpm—and 380 lb.-ft. of torque at 4000. Peak power was up by 20 over the L46, and it was made a full 400 rpm higher in the power band. Torque figures were the same, though again there was a 400-rpm difference in the peak. Backed by a standard four-speed manual or a more assertively-geared Muncie M-22 “rock crusher” gearbox, and optional performance gear sets, Chevy had built an engine and drivetrain that wanted to go.

And go it did, on the straights, and through the corners. Those who have driven both big- and small-block examples note that the balance of the car is markedly more even, with the small block weighing as much as 300 pounds less than the 454-powered cars. Though the big block cars wore a rear anti-sway bar to help offset their nose-heavy manners, the lighter front end of the small block-powered cars was effective in improving steering feel and overall agility.

Whether it was as easy to live with every day was a different question. The LT-1’s ability to run at higher rpms coincided with a tendency in testing to throw air conditioning compressor belts, and as a result, AC wasn’t immediately available on the model. The L46 or even the LS5 may have been the more sound, if less dynamically pleasing, choices for drivers who wanted power in everyday driving scenarios, but it was the LT-1 that pulled at the enthusiast’s heartstrings. Of the 17,316 Corvettes that would sell in 1970, 1287 were LT1s.

1971 brought about more changes, two of which weren’t good for the LT1. The first and most notable was a drop in compression to 9.0:1. That two-point drop trimmed horsepower to 330—still a solid figure, but the wrong direction nonetheless. The second was the late arrival of the LS6. Though compression neutered it somewhat to 425 horses, down 25 from its rating in the 1970 Chevelle, the LS6 still had plenty of character. “It’s like the LT1 only bigger,” beamed Car and Driver. That was a boon for the go-fast crowd, but maybe not for the future of the LT-1. The availability of a raw, rowdy LS6 with nearly 100 more horsepower, along with the LS5, which was more relaxed but still faster than the LT-1, begged the question: Did buyers really want a high-strung small block, too?

The answer to that question was mixed. Sales did improve for 1971, with 1949 buyers choosing the LT1. (It should be noted that 1970 was a short model year, with cars debuting in February, so sales figures between years aren’t truly apples to apples.) The LS5, though, sold significantly more, at 5097. Also, the L46 was no longer available, likely steering buyers who wanted more livable power over the base car to the LS5.

Those who know this era well can easily recite what’s coming next. 1972, the final year for the LT-1, GM switched its horsepower rating from gross to net, and power “went down” to 255 hp. The good news was that this was a paper number—the engine remained essentially unchanged from 1971. On the upside, Chevy figured out how to keep the AC belt from flying off the engine, so cool interior air was available as an option in ’72. Even though the power wasn’t the same as the LT-1 that wowed small-block fans in ’70, it maintained the personality that it debuted with, and a 4.11 gear swap did wonders to help wake up the performance of the later cars. That said, sales dipped to 1741 LT1s out of more than 27,000 total Corvettes.

Come 1973, the LT1 disappeared from the order form, leaving the base 200-horse L48 350, the 250-horsepower L82, and the lumbering 275-horse LS4 454 to carry on. The days of the screaming small block were done, at least for the moment.

It’s worth rewinding the tape a bit and highlighting an even more performance-oriented Corvette where the LT-1 engine found a home. Chevy had an inkling that buyers ordering a high-strung small block were a different breed, many of whom were seeking more of a sports car feel from their Corvette. So, to complement the LT-1’s personality, RPO ZR1 helped transform the rest of the car.

Possessing the LT-1 engine but going by its ZR1 RPO code, these first Corvettes to bear the ZR1 designation made the M-22 transmission standard, added an aluminum radiator, heavier-duty springs, shocks and sway bars, more powerful brakes, and a different fan shroud. Several options were unavailable on the ZR1, including air conditioning, a defroster, radio, and power steering. This truly was the hardcore option, and as you might expect, sales reflected that. Just 25 ZR1s were sold in ’70, eight in ’71, and another 20 made it out the door in 1972. It stands as the most potent and capable small-block C3 Corvette package, and among the most collectible as well.

“Looking back, the LT1 is one of the most admired Corvettes and ‘Vette engines in history,” says Don Sherman, a marque expert and regular Hagerty contributor. “There were two camps: Big block and small block. But the character built into the LT-1 would be very important for future Corvettes, and the LT-1 remains much loved to this very day for its performance and its historical impact.”

This reverence is generally reflected in the LT1’s values: Setting aside the ultra-rare ZR1, RPO LT1 commands a solid premium over the other third-gen small block-equipped Corvettes. And, among 1970 Corvettes, the LT1 is the most valuable, regardless of displacement—a #2 (excellent) condition LS5 454 is $9000 cheaper while the tamer L46 comes in 12 grand beneath the LT1. Naturally, the most potent 1970 LT1s are also the most valuable, but it’s also worth noting that solid driver-quality examples can be had for less than $40,000.

The slight premium the LT1 carries over those other ‘Vettes pales in comparison, though, to the value delta between the top-flight big blocks and the rest. Number 2 condition values for L88 cars from ’68 and ’69 come in north of $400,000, and a same-condition 1971 LS6 is valued $188,000, more than double a ’70 LT1. In that light, the LT1 delivers quite a bit of attitude per dollar.

Perhaps surprisingly, given its place in Corvette history, the LT1’s allure does not appear to have been picked up on by younger generations of enthusiasts. Boomers make up the overwhelming majority of quotes sought for LT1 Corvettes at 62 percent. Gen X and younger generations each make up shares markedly less than their overall market stakes. That said, we don’t think the LT1 will be forgotten anytime soon—rather, it may continue to represent a solid entry point to a high-performance, third-generation Corvette experience.

Its three-year lifespan may have been fleeting, but the LT1 effectively put a capstone on early small-block performance in the Corvette and served as an inspiration as the model returned to a powerful era again in the ’90s. For modern enthusiasts who are looking for the right mix of history and capability at a non-stratospheric price, the LT1 makes perfect sense.

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If you plan to win one of the two inaugural Ford Mustang Challenge races this weekend at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, you’ll have to beat one of the biggest names in Ford Motorsports.

No, not a professional race car driver, but the chief executive officer at Ford, Jim Farley. It shouldn’t come as too big of a surprise that the company CEO wants to compete—Farley is no stranger to racetracks, especially historic racing, competing in cars from his collection that include a 1965 Ford GT40, a 1966 427 Cobra, and a 1978 Lola 298.

“This is an amazing time for Mustang as we grow our family to include grassroots racing all the way up to the Mustang GT3 which will compete at Le Mans next week,” Farley said. “Like all the racers this weekend, I have a lot to learn in a short amount of time, but I can’t wait to get out there and enjoy some close battles with like-minded Mustang racing fans.”

He’ll be racing the number 17 Mustang, with a livery that recalls the first Mustang to win a race at Mid-Ohio—Jerry Titus’ Trans Am victory in 1967 in a Terlingua Racing Team entry.

The new Mustang Challenge series was created last year by Ford, and sanctioned by IMSA. The one-make series features the Mustang Dark Horse R, powered by a 500-horsepower, 5.0-liter Coyote V-8 with a Tremec manual transmission, racing on 19-inch Michelin slicks. The engine has been upgraded with enhanced cooling and oiling, and has a Borla racing exhaust. The track-only Dark Horse R starts at $145,000.

There are two 45-minute races per weekend. Besides Mid-Ohio, the series will also travel to Watkins Glen International, Road America, Circuit of the Americas and the road course at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

There are 26 entries for this weekend’s series kickoff. Farley will be driving a car owned and prepared by MDK Motorsports, which also has two additional cars in the field for drivers Tom Tait, Jr., and Gabe Tesch. MDK is owned by Mark David Kvamme, a venture capitalist based in Ohio and an experienced competitor. He has raced in the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona and at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The original Mustang Challenge series launched in 2008, using the Mustang FR500S. It was the brainchild of the late Larry Miller, a Ford dealer in Salt Lake City, Utah, who built the Miller Motorsports Park outside the city. The cars, which sold for $75,000, were turn-key racers powered by a 4.6-liter V-8 and a Tremec manual transmission. You can watch a race here.

As with the new Mustang Challenge series, the original featured two 45-minute races per weekend. It was sanctioned by Grand-Am, which became IMSA, and it lasted for three seasons.

For information on the new Mustang Challenge series, click here.

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The Ford Mustang II doesn’t get a lot of respect. They were born during an oil crisis and when they debuted as 1974 models, they did so without a V-8 engine option. Still, their styling, size, and fuel economy made them a sales success. While their ‘70s engines and suspensions don’t do them any favors when compared to more modern Mustangs, the underlying design is worth celebrating.

Brett Behrens used a fastback from the final year of Mustang II production, 1978, to show what could be done with a lot of vision and even more talented fabrication. Now in its second iteration, this custom street machine is up for sale at Mecum’s Tulsa Auction set for June 8.

The custom build, handled by A-Team Racing in Bend, Oregon, used a C6 Chevrolet Corvette suspension front and rear, a totally custom interior, a host of body modifications, and a custom chassis. A 12-inch stretch to the wheelbase is the most striking change. It made a massive difference to the Mustang II’s troubled proportions, righting one of the most egregious wrongs in the car’s original design. The rear wheel opening was enlarged and looks like it was shifted back a bit, but most of the change came by coaxing the front wheel opening forward. The increased wheelbase drastically shortened the front overhang and had a huge impact on the car’s balance, as the engine is well behind the front spindles.

Despite plenty of custom bodywork, including new wheel openings and flares inspired by the fifth-gen Mustang, this ambitious custom still has the best bits of ‘70s style that the original Mustang II offered. The result is a purposeful stance that looks appropriate for a sporty car and it still works well 10 years after it was completed, not an easy task for a custom car this ambitious.

When this car was first built, it was painted Kona Blue and powered by a 6.8-liter Ford V-10, the kind you’d find in a Super Duty truck. The iron-block engine made a statement and although we never got to hear it driven in anger, it had to make a unique sound as it produced just shy of 400 horsepower. This version of the car is a more iconic Mustang color, Grabber Blue. We think it suits it nicely and better highlights all of the custom bodywork. The other welcome change is the switch to Coyote V-8 power. Yeah, the V-10 was interesting, but the Coyote is shorter, lighter, and more powerful. That’s tough to argue against.

We hope this car finds a new owner who will appreciate its interesting melding of Mustang styling trends and can inspire others to put some effort into rehabilitating some unloved classics, Mustang II or otherwise. It’s already got us thinking about how this sort of treatment could transform a Chevy Monza Spyder or even an AMC Gremlin. What other Malaise-era coupes would you consider?

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Overtaking opportunities are rare on the B-roads that wend their way through the Wye Valley. Here on the border between England and Wales, a region that literally prompted the very first use of the word “picturesque,” finding a straight with sufficient visibility and length to safely pass a car ahead requires patience.

Since collecting this Morgan Plus Six from the factory, its BMW TwinPower engine has barely been tempted above tickover. The eight-speed automatic upshifts to the highest gear appropriate to road speed as I meander through the country lanes. Even so, I find myself catching up to a couple of cars that are nowhere near troubling the speed limit.

A press of the Sport + button immediately adds an eagerness to the throttle, and I slot the gear selector over to allow the use of the paddle shifters in anticipation of a possible passing shot. It comes as I round a right-hander, so I nudge the left paddle down a couple of clicks and floor it.

What follows is quite the surprise. For me—and the two dawdlers that I fly past. The acceleration is, frankly, brutal and really quite incongruous with the Morgan’s outward appearance. Then there’s the noise. A whoosh of turbos spooling up, a pop from the exhaust between upshifts, and a crackle on the overrun as I back off.

I’d experienced some of this in the Plus Four last year, but in the Six everything is cranked up above and beyond any expectation you might have from looking at it.

The styling is as traditional as ever. The flowing curves are hand-formed over an ash frame, using tools that haven’t changed for 70 years. It’s 4 inches wider than the Plus Four, to accommodate a greater track and bigger 18-inch standard alloy wheels, or 19-inch optional rims (the Plus Four runs 15-inchers). The Six also has a pair of extra driving lamps and is yet to benefit from the latest tweaks to the Four, which house indicators within the main lamp units and simplify the rear end with two instead of four taillights.

The cabin is pleasingly minimalist, with a flat painted dash, a lovely wooden center console, hand-trimmed leather, and deep wool carpets. A small digital screen is a little out of place, but the other analog instruments are spot on. Morgan’s own aluminum buttons look great, but the BMW parts are a bit of a letdown. It’s a necessary evil, of course, but the shiny gear selector, column stalks, and fixed paddles distract from an otherwise wonderfully hand-made feel.

On the plus (sorry) side, the BMW powertrain is a belter. With an extra two cylinders and 80 more horses over the Plus Four (for a total of 330) the Plus Six shaves a full second off the 0–62 mph acceleration time, bringing it down to just 4.2 seconds. Top speed increases from 149 mph to 166.

The truth is it feels even faster than that. The Plus Four I drove in the mountains of Switzerland was on winter tires, which squirmed under full load, while the Six is shod with sticky Continentals and never seems to struggle to put its power down, or trouble the now-standard ESC system.

The AP Racing brakes are superb, and so is the way the car whips through winding roads on revised bushes and dampers. Even with the heft of the bigger engine, the Plus Six only weighs 2456 pounds dry, and that gives it impressive agility through rapid direction changes. The steering is quick and decently feelsome too, loading up appropriately as the cornering forces increase.

Specs: 2024 Morgan Plus Six

• Price: £93,603 ($119,361)
• Powertrain: 3.0-liter fuel-injected, BMW TwinPower six-cylinder; 8-speed automatic transmission
• Output: 330 hp @ 6500 rpm; 369 lb-ft
• Layout: Rear-wheel-drive, two-door, two-passenger convertible
• Fuel Economy: 38 mpg (U.K.) 31.6 mpg (U.S.)
• Competitors: none

It’s a far cry from the last big-motor Morgan I drove. That was a Plus Eight, equipped with a 3.9-liter Rover V-8, and despite having only around 200 horsepower it was a wildly different ride, lacking the braking or cornering ability to match its straight-line speed. There was scuttle shake, a shocking ride quality, and attempting to drive it quickly was a white-knuckled, sweaty-palmed experience.

Some 30 years later, it’s only to be expected that the Plus Six is a marked improvement, but still its dynamic ability and outright performance are remarkable. Underneath that timeless body truly sits a modern sports car.

There is some bad news, however. Morgan has no current plans to bring the Plus Six to America. Instead, just 325 Plus Fours are to be imported each year under the Replica Bill approval process, and the Plus Six will remain forbidden fruit.

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This week a video emerged of a prototype Ford Mustang GTD testing at the Nürburgring racetrack in Germany. Painted in black, the king of all Mustangs looks and sounds sinister. There’s no place like the ’Ring to establish the GTD’s bona fides, as it’s where the highest-performing street cars from other manufacturers are routinely shaken down.

Every so often a mainstream automaker manages, against considerable odds, to produce a special, low-volume sports car like the GTD. Companies like Ford, GM, and Toyota have tens of thousands of employees, shareholders, and customers to answer to, not to mention regulators. These parties want profitable SUVs and pickups, a swift transition to electrically powered vehicles, or both, but they don’t often demand limited-edition, six-figure sports cars. The GTD, then, is incredibly audacious, an 800-hp Mustang that Ford is selling for a cool $300,000.

The Chevy Camaro ended production last year and the Dodge Challenger is in transition, which leaves the Mustang as the sole pony car. Ford is leaning into its survivor position by producing a smorgasbord of nine street Mustang models and three racing versions, not including the electric Mustang Mach-E. This weekend, I’ll be at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course to sample the tamest of the racing trio, the Dark Horse R, in the first race of the new Mustang Challenge series. Next week, a trio of heavily modified Mustang GT3s are racing at the 24 Hours of Le Mans against Ferrari, Corvette, Aston Martin, and Porsche.

Ford CEO Jim Farley is a gasoline-fueled motorhead who frequently races on weekends. An early version of the Mustang GT3 race car reportedly inspired him to approve a street car that morphed into the mighty GTD. When the GTD debuted last summer, Ford announced a targeted sub-seven-minute lap time around the Nürburgring.

The Nürburgring Nordschleife, or “north loop,” was built a century ago and is about 13 miles long. As a cross between a racetrack and a curvy mountain road, it’s a unique testing venue, scary fast and dangerous, which adds to its mystique. Last summer, two engineers were killed in a crash while testing tires. Car companies routinely rent the facility not only for chassis development testing but also to achieve lap times for promotional purposes. Such test days are closed to the media, but that doesn’t stop spy photographers from hiding in the thick forests that surround the Nordschleife to capture prototype performance cars as they run the course. A lap time under seven minutes would put the GTD in rarefied air.

The GTD is a sterling example of the engineering artistry and creativity I’ve frequently written about. The car has, for example, a novel hydraulic system that prepares it for track duty by lowering the chassis and stiffening the dampening and spring rates. Much of the tech sprang from the unconventional mind of engineer and racer Larry Holt, who is a modern mix of Carroll Shelby and his famed fabricator, Phil Remington. Watch Holt explain the car here.

Ford has not said how many GTDs it will produce. Some buyers undoubtably hope to buy and flip a GTD for profit, a common scenario with low-volume sports cars. I know of a local Ford GT, the last special-edition sports car Ford made, that has never been driven because its owner hopes to profit from a future sale. Ford requires potential GTD buyers to apply for the privilege, which is now commonplace in the industry, and some 7500 people responded.

The GTD was created by car nuts for car nuts. That’s why it exists; not to please Wall Street or regulators. It’s the sort of passion project that makes me love the car business.

When you’re not out driving this weekend, check out the latest from Hagerty Media including:

• The Shelby Cobra that Herbie Hancock bought new and still owns.
• The Cadillac Ranch turns 50.
• Is Mazda bringing back the rotary?
• Super sweet Mercury sled for sale on Hagerty Auctions.
• Don’t miss my podcast interview with NASCAR crew chief Ray Evernham.

If you’re at Mid-Ohio this weekend, come say hi. If not, get out and drive this weekend!

Larry

P.S.: Your feedback and comments are welcome!

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The post Never Stop Driving #102: The Mustang King appeared first on Hagerty Media.

It wasn’t just Lancia that had its sights set on rally glory in the early Eighties. Italian stablemate Alfa Romeo also hatched plans for a Group B special to take to the world’s stages.

The Alfa 6C was to be based on the Alfasud Sprint, but totally transformed for the FIA’s new homologation rules. Out went the 1.5-liter front-mounted four-cylinder boxer engine, to be replaced by a 2.5-liter V-6 positioned amidships and sending its power to the rear wheels via a ZF five-speed as previously seen in the Lancia 037.

The car made its debut at the 1982 Paris Motor Show, completed with box arches, a louvred lid in place of the rear window and wide wheels with grippy Pirelli tires. It soon became apparent that the 6C would need four-wheel drive to be competitive so a second prototype was developed but by 1983 the money had run out and the project was axed.

Forty years later rally fans can finally get to drive a modern interpretation of the 6C thanks to Portuguese tuner Alma. In its Alma Sprint you get the same widebody styling as the original, albeit with closer panel gaps and a redesigned front end with Hella headlamps. The interior is pretty plush, with leather, Alcantara and corduroy trim, racing seats, and Sabelt harnesses.

Alma hasn’t gone as far as Alfa did when it comes to power, however. The Sprint retains its four-pot motor, bored out to 1.8-liters and much modified. There are redesigned heads, forged pistons, custom camshafts and valvetrain, a stainless steel exhaust and Dellorto carbs with polished velocity stacks. The changes increase output to 160 hp and drive goes to the front wheels through a five-speed manual transmission and an open Torsen differential.

Alma hasn’t released prices, but says it will build 20 examples, with the first delivery due by the end of 2025.

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The post Alfa Romeo’s Abandoned Group B Rally Car is Reborn as a Restomod appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Be it a scoop, duct, or even speed holes (they make the car go faster, you know), there’s little doubt that negative space improves a vehicle’s design. Some are real and help with induction, cooling, or aerodynamics, but many are fake. With the wide variety of body side holes available, we asked the Hagerty Media team for their thoughts on the best examples of the breed. While many of their answers won’t surprise you, some are likely to do just that!

RUF CTR Yellowbird

“I’m a sucker for the side scoops in the original 1987 RUF CTR ‘Yellowbird.’ So massive, so bold, and necessary for that car to cement its name in history as one of the all time greats. Speaking of which, it’s about time for my monthly watch of Faszination on the Nürburgring. —Nathan Petroelje

Ferrari 308

“I’m going Ferrari here. Testarossa is the obvious choice, but it’s almost too obvious. The F40 nearly nails the look with its twin NACA ducts, but everything on that car is overshadowed by the rear wing. The 348 is too ‘baby Testarossa,’ and while the 355 is a bit more understated, I’m going to go with the long, sharp simple scoop carved out of the belt line of the 308.” —Stefan Lombard

Pontiac Trans Am (Second Gen)

“I had a hard time pinning one down. First-gen Shelby Mustangs, Cayman GT4RS, Italian anything. Even the box-flare scoop on the mid-engined Ford Shogun looks cool to me—I like aggressive-looking cars. But I’m going to go with second-gen Pontiac Trans Am fender vents. They’re a cool design, I’ve been drawn to them since I was a kid, and they’re a nice bit of ‘means business’ on the side of a car that was all about bravado.” —Eddy Eckart

Ferrari Testarossa

I have to go with Testarossa. Not picking it as an icon and pop culture masterpiece is like not acknowledging Harley Earl’s impact on car design. The way Pininfarina got away with ensuring small critters wouldn’t take residence into its side scoops is pure brilliance. It’s literally aluminum window dressing that looks like it could slice an apple, but man, what a way to decorate an empty space. —Sajeev Mehta

Cizeta-Moroder V16T

“A good side scoop has to grab your attention, so I’m going to go with the Cizeta V16T. Its strakes and scoops aren’t as elegantly pulled off as the Testarossa it’s ripping off, but they are more over the top. And in a car with 16 cylinders and two sets of pop-up headlights, being over the top fits with the theme. Honorable mention to my Lotus Elise. Those are some damn good scoops.” —Andrew Newton

Corvette Grand Sport (C6)

“The sixth-generation Corvette has been hot and cold throughout my life as an auto enthusiast. Lately it has been on the rebound and my interest only growing stronger. Of the available C6 models, the Grand Sport seems to be the car for the buyer in the know who actually plans to drive it and wants a great balance of performance and livability. The twin scoops on the side are unique to the Grand Sport trim and enhance the lines of the C6 in a positive way, unlike those of some of the other trims.” —Kyle Smith

McLaren 765LT

“The scoop carved into the door of McLaren’s modern 765LT (along with its many siblings whose names begin with 7). Its placement and rake recalls that of the F1, McLaren’s legendary ’90s road car. The vent that exists here mimics the side strakes of the F1, with some sort of flare and tuck and crease business behind and below it. I don’t speak enough designer to really break it down, but wow, it’s nice to look at. The hard edges of the vent, both at top and at the trailing edge, are such a yummy contrast to the smooth surfacing of the rest of the door.” —Grace Houghton

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of great or at least interesting side scoop and vent designs out there. Which one is your favorite?

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The post 7 of Our Favorite Side Scoops and Vents appeared first on Hagerty Media.

We’ve known for quite some time that Formula 1 is changing the rules, beginning in 2026. The cars themselves, as well as the engines, will be significantly different, and now we have the answer to just how different the F1 future will be.

Formula 1 has released many of the details, condensed into this 15-minute, 48-second video. In short, says F1, the cars will be “lighter, safer and more competitive!” That’s part of the caption on the video, titled “The Future of F1.”

You’ll also hear “more nimble” several times in the presentation, as well as multiple references regarding the new car’s ability to close up behind another car, something “dirty air,” generated by the lead car’s extensive aerodynamics, prevents in the 2024 F1 field of cars. You’ll also hear “more sustainable,” including the use of renewable fuel and an increased reliance on hybrid electric power.

These 2026 rules are set to be approved on June 28 by the FIA World Motor Sport Council. None of it comes as a surprise to the teams, the manufacturers, or the powertrain suppliers, as they have been kept in the loop, and have even run some of the proposed configurations on their simulators.

The FIA is estimating that the new car’s less-aggressive aerodynamics will reduce downforce by 30 percent, which is expected to reduce cornering speeds. But a 55 percent reduction in drag will mean higher straightaway speeds. Both front and rear wings will be cockpit-adjustable.

Pirelli, the tire manufacturer, will make the tires narrower by 25mm (almost one inch) in front, and 30mm (1.18 inches) in the rear. The cars will still use 18-inch wheels.

The new cars will be about 66 pounds lighter, with a wheelbase nearly eight inches shorter and a width about four inches narrower. Replacing the DRS (drag reduction system) on current cars is a “manual override” that will provide more electrical boost to a following car. F1 has been stung by complaints that there isn’t enough passing, and they are seeking to change that for 2026.

The cars will still be hybrids, with a far greater concentration on the electric aspect. The internal combustion engine will still be a 1.6-liter turbocharged V-6, though its power will be reduced, while the electrical end of the power unit will be increased by about 300 percent. F1 claims a record six future “power unit” suppliers—Ferrari, Mercedes, Renault, Honda, Ford and Audi. No mention of Cadillac, which hopes to power the proposed Andretti entry.

While the cars will be smaller and lighter, F1 says they’ll be safer, too. The rollover hoop has been strengthened, and the new nose will be recast as a two-piece unit, with the forward piece designed to give way in the event of a collision, while the second piece will still offer protection in the event of a subsequent impact.

“The key features of the 2026 F1 Regulations are advanced sustainability, technology, and safety,” said FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem. “Our aim, together with Formula 1, was to produce a car that was right for the future of the sport’s elite category. We believe we have achieved that goal.”

We’ll see.

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The post What Will F1 Look Like in 2026? Here’s Your Answer appeared first on Hagerty Media.

The last five years have been pretty crazy. There was a pandemic and a whole bunch of other newsworthy items, but even sticking with the classic car market—since that’s what we at Insider know best—things have been topsy-turvy. Aside from some uncertainty in the earlier months of 2020, prices rose at a fast clip for just about everything interesting on four wheels, and kept rising in 2021 and 2022 before slowing down in 2023 and so far in 2024. Many vehicles have even come down in value after their pandemic boom highs, but on average the #2 (“excellent”) value for vehicles in the Hagerty Price Guide is 33% higher than it was five years ago, in the spring of 2019. That outpaces inflation: A hundred dollars five years ago translates to over 120 bucks today.

That doesn’t mean every classic car jumped in value by a third, though. In fact, while quite a few of the market’s most popular classics have been quite active, prices for many others have held steady. The values of these cars have for the most part chugged along at their own pace rather than responding to the whims of the market, or after a brief blip settled back into their prior trajectory. All these examples serve as a reminder that while big numbers can impress when the hammer falls, the meat of the market hasn’t fluctuated as much as some of the top lines would suggest.

Measured by insurance activity, the 1965 Ford Mustang is the most popular classic car in America, and the second most popular is the 1966 Mustang. America’s pony car has indeed had an active five years, with the median condition #2 value up 28 percent over that time. Meanwhile, America’s sports car—the Corvette—has been more stable, at least in its earlier C1 (1953-62) and C2 (1963-67) iterations. The median #2 value for C1s is up 11% over the past five years, and the average up nine percent. For C2s, the median #2 value is up less than one percent, and the average is actually down three percent.

Keeping in the Chevrolet camp, in contrast to the 1967-72 Chevy C/K pickups, which are up an astonishing 72 percent on average over the last five years, muscle car mainstays from the same period have been more understated. The 1968-72 Nova is up just 11 percent, and over the last decade just 13 percent. The median #2 value for 1970 Chevelles is up less than three grand over the last five years. A few other GM muscle staples have been relatively stable as well, with the median #2 value for 1964-67 Pontiac GTOs down three percent and 1968-72 GTOs up 15 percent.

Turning back the clock again to the 1950s American cars, this has generally been a sleepier segment of the market, both before and during the 2020s. A ’50s favorite—the 1957 Chevy Bel Air—has barely moved since 2019. The 1956-57 Lincoln Premiere hasn’t either, while other era-defining cars like the 1957 Chrysler 300C (three percent), 1957-58 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser (two percent), and 1958-60 Edsel (three percent) have also barely nudged.

Even further back, both the Ford Model T and Model A have been mainstays of the old car hobby for longer than almost anything else because they’re so, well, old. The market for them is mature, and they’ve spent the last five years tracking straighter than most other classics. Average #2 values for the 1909-27 Model T are up less than one percent over the last five years. The 1928-31 Model A is up 18 percent, although the median is up 12 percent and many versions haven’t moved at all.

Even with all the movement, both up and down, during this very eventful decade so far, some of our favorite classics have been a lot more consistent. For buyers and sellers of these favorites, it’s always reassuring when a car brings a price that feels right.

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The post These Popular Classics Are Tracking Straight in a Mixed Market appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Buying tools is an addiction to some. The seemingly endless utility of these objects designed to enhance our lives and abilities can be intoxicating. Hence why even when we don’t need them, new (and new to us) tools find their way into passenger seats, truck beds, and backpacks as the artfully organized cache in my workspace grows and grows. I could probably just name my toolbox Audrey II, though my garage is only occasionally full of horrors, and the ‘box feeds on tool steel and carbide rather than human flesh.

My toolbox is not overflowing, but that only speaks to my self-restraint and judicious control over how often the solution to a problem is using the credit card versus my brain. We all want to own one of every tool. They are just fascinating. But even with one of everything, we would likely still want more. Some jobs simply require duplicates. Or at least I have convinced myself that occasionally having two of the exact same tool is the solution to my problems. Whether the logic makes sense or not, here are seven tools that I must have two of inside my shop:

Vice grips/clamps

Despite years of trying and a few consultations with my doctor, I have yet to grow a third hand. Something about evolution taking millions of generations just really puts a damper on me getting the extra holding power I could use most days.

Luckily, not only does a solution exist, but it’s affordable and easy to store. Years ago I resigned that anything that is locking or clamping should be purchased in pairs. This realization followed a discussion with a fabricator friend who hammered into me that it is impossible to have too many clamps. He was right.

Screwdrivers

To be clear, I’m dialing in the discussion of duplicates to exact duplicates. Two of the same tool. My drawer full of screwdrivers is surprisingly full when you consider there are relatively few popular styles and a minimal number of usable lengths.

Maybe it’s my use, but I always fear damaging a screwdriver tip just as much as damaging the hardware. A damaged screwdriver stalls a project as once the head is stripped the options for removal get destructive quickly. A spare screwdriver is a security blanket I shouldn’t need, but won’t wrench without.

10mm

You thought I wouldn’t include a 10mm joke? Impossible. A lot of my projects these days were built in countries that believe in base 10 measurement systems. If you have a more American bent to your tooling needs this might be the 1/2″. Regardless, not having a 10mm socket or wrench could easily stop a few of my projects in their tracks, thus duplicates make sense.

Extensions

The easiest to justify on this list might be the extensions for a socket set. Stack them on each other to reach the depths of the engine bay that was previously reserved for engine-out services. It’s also convenient to have multiple to so I’m not constantly disassembling my tooling mid-job.

Wire brushes and cleaning supplies

Cleaning parts is one of the tasks that I do not seek out and only after some time have I figure out that any tiny roadblock in the process will flip the switch in my brain that says “not worth it. Just reinstall the part as is. It’ll be fine.”

But I want to do higher quality work than that, so having a surplus of cleaning supplies and materials has helped eliminate the feeling that cleaning things has a barrier that must be met. I keep these brushes and supplies around to not only remove the perceived barrier but ensure that it does not return unexpectedly.

Flashlights

Having worked on cars in situations ranging from ideal to downright dangerous, I’ll say one thing I have never heard is, “Wow, it’s too bright. I can see everything I need and it’s frustrating.” No, more light is often a cure for frustrations while working on cars. Small LED flashlights have gotten downright cheap, so a few in various sizes, shapes, brightness, and magnetism are just downright handy. It’s a struggle to work on something you can’t see, so light up your project.

Drill bits

They break and dull, and when you need one there is pretty much nothing else that will do the job. Drill bits are wildly affordable for the function they serve and having a duplicate set, or even just a few of the most commonly used sizes in your shop, allows a certain peace of mind that your projects will move forward even if an unfortunate happenstance breaks a bit. Good setups and usage will make drill bits last a very long time, but it’s not if things go sideways, it’s when. Preparation for that takes a lot of frustration out of your projects.

This is just the list for my shop and, of course, every shop is unique. I typically only have one major project apart or being worked on at a time and the tools go back into the box after each working session. In a larger shop or for someone with many projects running it might make sense to duplicate common tools just so things don’t get lost in the shuffle. What tools do you have to have duplicates of in your toolbox?

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The post 7 Tools I Will Always Have Duplicates Of appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Welcome to This Week on Hagerty Marketplace, a recurring recap of the previous week’s most noteworthy cars and significant sales from the Hagerty Marketplace online auctions.

It was another busy week on Hagerty Marketplace, but this trio of rides—one of the last great Packards, a brown-over-brown Lincoln Continental Mark III, and a delightful example of Volkswagen’s droptop Cabriolet—piqued our curiosity. Let’s explore each offering a bit further.

1956 Packard Four Hundred Hardtop Coupe

Sold for $16,168

By 1954, the once-great Packard car company was forced to merge with Studebaker to survive. Following the merger, Packard sought to redefine itself with bold new models for 1955–56, penned by young designer Richard Teague. The new cars featured full-width grilles, expansive front glass, tri-color paint schemes, and more. The Four Hundred Hardtop Coupe was the company’s ritziest ride but ultimately failed to reverse the firm’s downward trend, selling just 3224 units in 1956.

The example seen here is one of the last aspirational Packards to leave an assembly line. It was the 849th Four Hundred model produced in 1956. Power comes from a 372 cubic-inch V-8 that made 290 horsepower. The two-tone Dover White and Scottish Heather paint still looks fantastic, especially for a car that reportedly was stored for 20 years and saw rare use. Once the new owner handles some necessary prep work, this should be a delightful cruiser for years to come.

1970 Lincoln Continental Mark III

Sold for $8,828

When Ford President Lee Iacocca commissioned Ford’s Advance Design Office to create a two-door personal car for the luxury space in 1965, he wanted to see something resembling the handcrafted Continental Mark II of the 1950s. The resulting luxury coupe, which debuted in 1968 with a long hood, short rear deck, lavish grille, and integrated spare tire was an immediate hit with buyers, immediately outselling the Cadillac Eldorado. By 1970 the Mark III received a handful of upgrades such as new wheel covers, concealed windshield wipers, genuine walnut veneers on the instrument panel, and more.

Seen here is an example of that light update. This brown-over-brown car seems purpose-built for our in-house Lincoln and brown car aficionado, Senior Editor Sajeev Mehta. (We checked and can confirm that he is not, in fact, the new owner of this car—much to his chagrin.) This Mark III shows just 29,097 miles on the clock, meaning there’s lots of life left for this 460 cubic-inch V-8. It, too, sat for around 20 years, so it will need a once-over before it’s ready to waft about once more. Still, from a dollar-per-square-inch, or dollar-per-horsepower standpoint, it’s hard to beat this cruiser for value.

1989 Volkswagen Best Seller Wolfsburg Limited Edition Cabriolet

Sold for $17,758

Filling shoes as big as those left by the Volkswagen Beetle is a tall task, but in 1980, the newly-debuted Volkswagen Rabbit Convertible attempted to do just that. It was an immediate hit, soldiering on for five lovely years before a name change that came from the Golf replacing the Rabbit here in the U.S. The convertible model was henceforth referred to as the Cabriolet.

Following a 1988 facelift, a few trims were offered, but the most sought-after was the Wolfsburg Limited Edition, which was based on the Best Seller trim. Wolfsburg-trimmed Cabbies received special Star Blue Metallic paint, a unique “Helios” blue velour interior, and a dark blue soft top, creating a one-year-only color combo that quickly became collectible.

Looking at this example, listed with 68,852 original miles, it’s not hard to see why these little charmers were so desirable. The 1.8-liter, 90-horsepower inline-four isn’t what we’d call a rocket, but this lithe car didn’t need much power to be enjoyable. Features include a heated glass rear window in the soft top, dual remote control side mirrors, a folding rear seat with trunk access, and more. Though the paint, which is believed to be original, shows a few nicks and signs of patina, we’d reckon there aren’t many more enjoyable ways to take in the summer sun.

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The post This Week on Hagerty Marketplace: Post-Merger Packard, Maximum Brown Continental, Charming Cabriolet appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Parnelli Jones—who died Tuesday at the age of 90—was the avatar of steely-eyed, crew-cut oval-track racing in the 1960s. Yes, he also won a hard-fought Trans-Am championship in 1970, famously outbrawling Mark Donohue, aka Captain Nice. But Parnelli didn’t have much use for road racers back then. As he told his car owner, NASCAR stalwart (and D-Day veteran) Bud Moore, “Ain’t none of those fruitcuppers gonna outrun me.”

So I was a bit worried about the reception I was going to receive when I sat down in his office to interview him for a magazine called Sports Car International, which was written, edited and published by a small band of devoted fruitcuppers. This was 30-something years ago, when Parnelli was long retired from a driving career that had seen him win everything from the Indy 500 to the Mexican 1000. He’d shut down his Vel’s Parnelli Jones Racing team, which had been the King Kong of American motorsports in the 1970s, and he’d sold off the extensive portfolio of Firestone tire shops that had made him a very rich man. By then, he spent his time managing his Southern California real estate empire and puttering around local golf courses.

Close friends called him Rufus—his given name—or Rufe. The rest of the world knew him simply as Parnelli. He’d mellowed over the years, but he wasn’t soft. He still had the arctic-blue eyes, the granite jaw, the thrice-broken nose. Unlike his great friend and even greater rival, A.J. Foyt, he was still trim enough to climb into a midget and sling it around for hot laps, and there was nothing that tickled him more than outrunning his sons, P.J. and Page, who were embarking on careers as professional racers. “He always had to lead,” Al Unser, who won Indy twice while driving for him, once told me. “If he’d ever settled down, he probably would have won twice as many races as he did. But he just couldn’t stand running second. It’s not just racing either. If you’re playing pool or golf, or if it’s just arm wrestling, the man has to win.”

Parnelli greeted me with a firm handshake and a chilly smile, and I figured the interview would last about as long as a heat race in one of the many USAC sprint car shows he dominated in the early 1960s. Much to my surprise, he spent the rest of the afternoon with me. He squired me around the museum he maintained upstairs, passing along loving histories of each of the cars. Then we sat down with his partner, the large and expansive Vel Miletich, and longtime right-hand man Jimmy Dilamarter.

A few weeks earlier, Dilamarter said, he’d been out with Parnelli when another driver tried to cut in line at a freeway onramp. Parnelli ran him onto the shoulder and off the road, and he would have driven him into a bridge abutment if the guy hadn’t backed off. Then, with a big belly laugh, Miletich recalled how Parnelli had terrorized the NASCAR regulars in a Ford stock car at Darlington, repeatedly pulling slide jobs that forced the other drivers to stand on the brakes to avoid a wreck in Turn 3. After the car went several laps down due to mechanical issues, Miletich put driver Marvin Porter in the cockpit. After the race, a perplexed Porter told him, “These guys sure are polite. Every time I reach a corner, everybody backs off for me.”

Of course, these stories fit squarely into the Parnelli mythology. What I didn’t expect to find was that the man was genuinely funny. Whenever I saw him, he’d regale me with stories from a treasure trove of hilarious anecdotes. One of his (and my) favorites was about how he got involved in the relatively new sport of off-road racing.

“That was Bill Stroppe’s doing,” he said. “He asked me to do a race in Las Vegas. I wasn’t interested, but Bill said, ‘I guess you’re not man enough to do it.’ Well, that was like waving a red cape in front of a bull. So I agreed to do it, and I told the guy riding with me, ‘Alright, you tap my leg if you think I’m going too hard.’” Parnelli snorted. “That guy plumb beat me to death. And I beat the shit out of the car. I mean, I knocked the front tires clean off of it. And I ran it on the rims for so long that they had to take a torch and cut them off.”

But what was so refreshing—and surprising—about Parnelli was his humility. Well, maybe humility is the wrong word, because he was clear-eyed about his skills. Once, when I asked him which drivers he’d feared back in the day, he was silent for a long time before saying, “I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging. But I always felt that other drivers were there just to be beaten.” That said, he wasn’t what he called “an ego guy.” He gave credit where credit was due, and he wasn’t always the hero of his own stories.

He admitted that he pushed his cars too hard—he’s the all-time leader of the Broke While Leading category—and he blamed himself for the failure of the STP turbine whooshmobile that crapped out within eight miles of winning Indy in 1967. He acknowledged that he was terrified by running sprint cars on Midwestern high banks, which was a major reason he quit racing open wheelers while he was still in his prime. And when he made a mistake, he owned up to it.

In 1972, VPJ went to Indy with Al Unser, who’d won the 500 for the team the previous two years. “Penske was there with the McLarens,” Parnelli recalled. “Donohue set on the pole, but they kept puking engines. At the last minute, we sold them one of ours. Well, Donohue won the race, and our cars finished second and third. That’s when I designed a belt that goes around your waist, and it has a boot on the back and a push button, and you can kick your own ass.” He roared. “Al would have won three years in a row if we hadn’t sold Donohue that engine.”

But the more I talked to Parnelli, the harder I found it to reconcile the many contradictions he embodied. He grew up poor—and poorly educated—and did a long, painful apprenticeship running jalopies on Southern California bullrings. Yet despite racing during what was statistically the most dangerous era in motorsports history, he was never seriously injured, and he ended up as one of the wealthiest drivers in the world.

On ovals, whether the rutted dirt of Langhorne or the smooth pavement of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, he was uniquely relaxed and precise. “He never looked like he was going fast,” said Johnny Rutherford, who raced against him on both tracks. “He made it look effortless.” But in road racing, he was a wild man, infamously punting John Surtees halfway to Salinas during a Can-Am race at Laguna Seca (which he won). And as his one-time Trans-Am teammate Dan Gurney recalled, “When you were following right behind him, he’d carve the edge off [the corners] and throw rocks at you. He did that to me once at Kent and broke my windshield.”

And then there was the man himself. Away from the track, he was too tightly wound to be truly avuncular, but there was nothing about the way he carried himself that hinted at his legendary combativeness. I mean, this was a guy who punched out another driver after winning the Indy 500. As Bobby Unser, who’d been mentored by him, once told me, “Parnelli’s a very gentle person, but he can be extremely ornery. Extremely ornery. He was one guy Foyt never picked on. Foyt might have been able to whip him, but Parnelli was like a wolverine. He would have chewed on his ears and bitten his nose off. And even if he’d gotten whipped, he would have waited until he healed up, and then he would have come right back at him.”

Parnelli didn’t exude the swagger of A.J. Foyt or the charisma of Mario Andretti. He wasn’t as sunny as Dan Gurney or as quotable as Bobby Unser. But he was one of one, and what a great one he was.

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An E30 BMW with a 3.2-liter six-cylinder engine from the E23 7 Series? It’s not a nasty swap by crazy speed junkies after the fact, no. Rather, it was an alternative to the four-cylinder M3, and it came off the production line as standard. At least, in South Africa it did, and they called it the 333i.

BMW and South Africa have been closely linked for more than 50 years. In 1968, BMW began assembling cars in the country using the CKD process (completely knocked down—parts shipped elsewhere to be assembled) via the subcontractor Praetor Monteerders, north of Johannesburg in the industrial suburb of Rosslyn. BMW took over the business in 1973, and from then on manufactured 3, 5, and 7 Series right-hand-drive cars for the local market under the name BMW Group South Africa (BMW SA). Rosslyn was the first plant outside Germany to produce BMW vehicles and marked the beginning of the company’s globalization strategy. By contrast, BMW has only been building cars at its Spartanburg, South Carolina, facility since 1994.

Early South African sales were slow, and by the mid-1980s, the bosses wanted to boost sales. At the time, the best way to do that was as applicable to African countries as it was to those in Europe and North America: through motorsport.

Against competitors such as the V-8–powered Ford Sierra XR8 and Alfa Romeo GTV 3.0, the Bavarian strategists figured they had a good chance. They just needed the right car. Local Group 1 regulations had little use for a high-revving four-cylinder, however, which ruled out the 2.3-liter M3 that was starting to make its name elsewhere in the world. That left only one thing to do—build something else. Now, BMW SA already had some experience with hot-rodding its offerings; in 1984, it had stuffed the M1’s 282-hp 3.5-liter M88 straight-six into the 7 Series, calling it the quite nondescript 745i. For its latest enterprise, the process began with some phone calls back to Germany—to BMW Motorsport in Munich and to BMW tuner Alpina in Buchloe.

At the time, the Rosslyn plant’s shelves were full to bursting with tasty things. Like, for instance, that 3.2-liter M30 engine from the 732i. The engine mounts, the water cooler, the intake manifold, and the air filter box all came from the Alpina B6, so dimensionally, it would fit into the narrow front end of the 3 Series. The short-ratio five-speed Getrag gearbox was sufficient for handling the power. For more traction on racetracks, there was a ZF limited-slip differential, with 25 percent locking effect. It all seemed ideal, but for one small snag: Because of the space constraints, customers could choose to have air conditioning or power steering but not both.

Unfortunately, there was another, much bigger snag: In 1985, just when the 333i looked ideal to pay off in competition, Group 1 was cancelled. Thankfully, production trickled on, and by 1987, BMW SA had produced 204 of them (210 including pre-production models).

The entire formula of the 333i—South Africa’s mini muscle car—is still pleasing today, especially when you let it off the chain. The sonorous straight-six, fueled through Bosch K-Jetronic, makes all of its 197 horsepower at 5000 rpm, all of its 210 lb-ft of torque at 4300 rpm, with redline at 6300. Reaching 62 mph from a standing start takes about 7.4 seconds, and the car with hit 141 mph (contemporary tests measured even more, 143.53 mph). The exhaust gases escape via a fan manifold and a catless exhaust system from Alpina, and it still sounds so good, nearly 40 years on. Even the name rolls off the tongue, 333i, or as the South Africans call it, Triple Three.

Despite its added weight, today you’d swear that no engine feels better suited to the E30 than this one. Even better, the 333i is understated and does without the add-ons that so blatantly called out the M3: the flared wheel arches and raised trunk, the deep fascia and big rear wing. Instead, its Alpina touches are subtle, like those 20-spoke 16-inch wheels. Available colors included Henna Red, Diamond Black, Alpine White, and Arctic Silver. Antilock brakes were optional, and just a few luxuries were standard, like a sunroof and power windows, plus a trick little computer mounted in the driver-side vent.

The model initially cost ZAR 41,300, which would have been around $21,000 at the time. All were built exclusively as right-hand-drive two-door sedans. That so few were made is a shame, too, as the Triple Three surely would have been a hit in any other country BMW cared to offer it.

Then as now, they are far too good to sit unused, and once up to temperature, the six feels smooth and purrs like a fully-fed cat. Thanks to its big torque, it is tractable in most gears, as easy to putter around town as it is to storm ahead on back roads. The shifts fall quickly through the narrow gearbox, and the whole machine is particularly comfortable at around 2500 rpm. Even the higher weight over the front axle does nothing to interfere with cruising.

It’s amazing how ergonomic the 40-year-old still is today. The thick leather wheel is sized perfectly, your hand falls easily to the shifter, your body seems to become one with the leather sport seat. Meanwhile, your gaze is drawn to the nervously twitching red needles, which were otherwise reserved for M cars at the time.

Johannesburg traffic is relaxed. And though normally the weather is sunny and hot, today it is pouring down rain. All the more reason to crack the windows so that the car doesn’t mist up. And, of course, to listen to the sweet six-cylinder powering this Triple Three, the rarest of E30s.

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For three years in a row, from 1984 to 1986, McLaren won the F1 World Championship with TAG-branded but Porsche-built power units. Forty years later, three of those very engines are being installed into a trio of TAG Championship Porsche 911s by the engineering wizards at Lanzante.

It’s not the first time such a feat has been achieved, with McLaren originally building a prototype to test the 1.5-liter V-6 turbo engine in the Eighties and Lanzante re-interpreting the idea with its TAG Turbo in 2019. Just 11 of those were built and now Lanzante reckons it’s time for a few more.

With the aid of Cosworth the wick of the TAG TTE P01 V-6 has been dialled up from 503 to 625 horsepower and the redline raised to 10,250 rpm. There’s a new exhaust system, titanium turbochargers, new pistons, conrods and valve springs, uprated cams, plus a new intake and cooling system. A 993 six-speed gearbox with revised ratios sends drive to the 18-inch Dymag magnesium and carbon rear wheels.

An Eighties’ 930 Turbo is the donor car, but the body panels, doors, front wings, roof, bumpers and rear spoiler are all made from F1-grade carbon fiber. The brakes feature carbon ceramic discs. Further weight is saved by gutting the interior and installing carbon-backed Recaro seats with six-point race harnesses and a roll cage, while electric windows and mirrors are ditched to shed a few more pounds. A lightweight air conditioning system is added, but there’s still a saving of almost 950 lbs compared to the original 930 Turbo.

The three cars will each be a tribute to one of McLaren’s winning years and drivers Niki Lauda and Alain Prost with bespoke livery. The first example, which will be revealed at July’s Goodwood Festival of Speed pays homage to Prost in 1995 with a main paint scheme based on his MP4/2B and his helmet design.

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In 2000, High Performance Pontiac magazine featured a wide-ranging interview with Bill Porter, chief designer at the GM Design Center, and studio chief at Pontiac Styling through 1979, the meat of development years for the second-generation Pontiac Firebird. By the time he’d worked his way up to studio chief, he said, the first-generation Firebird was just about wrapped up. “I never identified with that car personally,” he said. “But that ’70½ second-generation Firebird was another story altogether. I was absolutely crazy about that car from day one and I really threw myself into it. I put the best designers on it, and we were consciously trying to create an important American sports car. We knew we had our chance, and we wanted to do it bad.”

They did, and it was bad, in the best sense of the term. With the exception of the Corvette, the Trans Am and the Formula 400 were the baddest street cars available at that time, cramming high-horsepower 400-cubic-inch V-8s into a platform built to turn as well as it took off in a straight line. The Camaro was tough enough, but the Pontiac Firebird—with its own interior and exterior design staff and engineering teams—kept Pontiac on the map during some exceedingly grim years in the 1970s.

Of course, the Trans Am and Formula 400 get the attention, but lower-trim cars like the Esprit were massively popular. Long before Burt Reynolds drove a Trans Am in 1977, Jim Rockford put a series of brown Esprits in millions of American living rooms. Sales commensurately took off and stayed elevated throughout the entire decade, almost until the very end of production.

From the beginning, the Firebird was a driver’s car, and not just for drivers of the hot-performing trim levels. It went right down to the base car, and everybody involved with the Firebird’s production wanted to deliver a holistic driving experience.

Good ergonomics, for example, were a Firebird standard feature in every trim level. “Too many people cling to the notion that the inside of a sports car—especially a low-budget sports car—is a wind-in-the-face, knees-in-the-chest, pain-in-the-neck,” read the promotional material. Even the back seat gets a mention for its overall comfort, comparing its relative spaciousness to international sports cars that considered the rear seat an afterthought better suited for bag lunches than human occupation.

The basic shapes of the interior were similar to the Camaro, but as Porter mentioned in his interview, there was a unique synergy between the inside and the outside of a second-gen Firebird that might have been a bit lacking in the Chevrolet. “One of the design approaches pioneered in the ’70½ F-car and that’s coming into the industry in a more widespread way is the integration of the interior and exterior,” he said.

John Shettler designed the interior of the Firebird to mimic shapes that were used on the outside of the car. “I actually had templates taken off the grille openings and the nose profile,” said Porter. “John used those for the seatback shapes, the instrument panel cowl shapes . . . so that the exact same curves were used through the interior and exterior of the car. When you open the door of a Firebird, there is—I would like to think—a subliminal sense of the unity of the interior and exterior.”

John DeLorean—at the time general manager of the Pontiac Division—exerted his own influence on the interior design. “[I]f your hand didn’t fall right where it should’ve been when you reached for the shifter, or maybe for a switch, [DeLorean] and Johnny [Shettler] would talk about it, make modifications and try again,” said Porter. “Everyone involved with that vehicle wanted it to be really good, not only from a performance standpoint, but from an ergonomic standpoint.”

Like all cars of the era, the Firebird was challenged by increasing restrictions from the EPA and corporate mandates, by inflation, and by the general malaise that overtook the country, but it simply didn’t seem to hurt what most Americans considered to be a fun, good-looking mode of daily transportation. Especially in the early years of production, it wasn’t the Trans Am or the Formula 400 that kept customers flowing into Pontiac showrooms. From 1970 to 1976, it was the Esprit and the base trim Firebird that represented the largest sales volumes. That’s kind of fascinating for a car that has long been synonymous with the excess of the era.

1970

Depending upon who you talk to, the second-gen Firebird was a 1970 or a 1970½. Porter talks about the half-year, but the brochure clearly identifies it as a 1970. Regardless, the Camaro and Firebird debuted within a day of each other, on February 25 and February 26, 1970.

Like the Camaro, these cars were built at the Norwood, Ohio, and Van Nuys, California, plants. Later in the production run—from ’72 to ’77—Norwood exclusively built Firebirds. Cars built in Norwood will have an “N” in the fourth digit of the VIN from 1970 to 1971, in the sixth digit of the VIN from 1972 to 1980, and in the ninth digit in 1981, when the 17-digit VIN finally arrived. Van Nuys cars will all have an “L” (for Los Angeles) in the same positions.

Pontiac offered four trim levels in 1970: The “basic Firebird,” as identified in the sales brochure, the Esprit, the Formula 400, and the Trans Am.

“Economy is what the basic Firebird is all about,” read the copy, leaning on the car’s overall value proposition rather than its performance. The Endura nose, for example, is called out for its long-lasting resistance to dents and chips and its imperviousness to rust. The long door with no rear quarter window is identified for ease of access to the rear seat.

The base car sadly avoided the Pontiac-specific overhead-cam straight-six in favor of Chevrolet’s 250-cubic-inch six, though a Pontiac-specific 350-cid V-8 was available. Horsepower jumped from 155 in the six to 255 in the V-8, with the larger engine putting out an impressive 355 lb-ft of torque. It made a base 1970 Firebird with a 350 and a Hurst-shifted four-speed a smoking bargain.

The Esprit was marketed as a “luxury” Firebird, but not at the expense of performance. “We never let luxury get in the way of sport,” read the promotional materials. “You won’t find anything frivolous or wasteful about Esprit’s kind of luxury.” And you won’t, especially through a modern lens. “Luxury” includes things like knit vinyl upholstery (along with straight vinyl and cloth options), an available console, storage pockets in the doors, and “soft, squeezable vinyl” wrapping the wheel. Even in the “luxurious” Esprit, power steering was still an option, but you did get chrome window opening trim, and a 15/16-inch front stabilizer bar.

A differentiator from the Camaro was the fact that the Esprit was only available with a V-8 engine, either the base 350 or a 265-horse 400-cid V-8 with almost 400 lb-ft of torque. You could buy an Esprit with a manual transmission, but only the three-speed, and only with the 350. The Esprit with a 400 came exclusively with a TH350 automatic.

In nearly every way, the Formula 400 may have been the best car in the Firebird lineup for 1970. With its lack of spoilers, side scoops, and tape stripes, the Formula is a much cleaner design, hewing close to the car’s original sketches and avoiding nearly all identifying markers except for the fender callouts. The brochure called the styling “almost stark.” Dual exhaust, a flexible fan, fat front and rear stabilizer bars, and F70-14 tires were all part of the trim level.

The Firebird 400 featured—as the name implies—the 400-cid V-8, delivering 330 hp and 430 lb-ft of torque. The 400 could also be had with the 345-horse Ram Air III package (the same engine was rated at 366 hp in the GTO), though fewer than 700 were so-equipped. The Hurst-shifted three-speed was the base transmission, with a four-speed or an automatic transmission on the options list. The optional Ram Air twin-snorkel hood scoop was a particular bone of contention for Bill Porter. “I always kind of wished the double-scooped hood that became the Formula hood—originally done for the Trans Am—would have prevailed [as the hood for the Trans Am] because it’s functionally superior,” he said. “Those twin boundary scoops up front really gulp in the air.”

Top shelf was the Trans Am, with its spoilers, air extractors, and shaker scoop, all of which was functional. The 345-horse Ram Air III came standard in the T/A, while the 370-horse Ram Air IV 400 was an option that only 88 buyers took advantage of. The stabilizer bars are the thickest available for 1970, with 1¼-inch up front and 7/8-inch in the rear. Heavy-duty shocks, Rally II wheels without trim rings, and F70-15s rounded out the handling package.

There were 15 color options in 1970, and that year, Pontiac produced 18,874 base Firebirds, 18,961 Esprits, 7708 Formulas, and just 3196 Trans Ams. Watch that Trans Am number between now and 1979, because it goes through some wild fluctuations.

1971

The biggest news for 1971 was in the engine room of the Formula and Trans Am trims. The Formula now offered the two-barrel 350 and a four-barrel 400, and the cars were identified as “Formula 350” and “Formula 400.” Then there was the Formula 455, which shared the 455-cubic inch V-8 with the Trans Am. Compression ratios had dropped across the board, but the 455 was available in two flavors: The four-barrel 455 delivered 255 net horsepower (though gross horsepower was still listed in the brochure), with 455 lb-ft of torque. Then there was the 455 HO, with 305 net horsepower and a Wide Oval–boiling 480 lb-ft of torque.

Several trim items were revised, too, including fake side air extractors all the way down to the base Firebird, a new console-like armrest with an ashtray between the rear seats, and new Polycast honeycomb wheels. Bill Porter designed those himself, with the help of Maurice “Bud” Chandler, with whom Porter shares a patent. “It was inspired by Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes that I had admired since I was a student,” said Porter. “The idea of doing a wheel with a deep cell structure that would be inherently strong, not only radially but laterally, was intriguing.” Porter’s intent was to make the wheels completely aluminum, but that never made it to production. Instead, they were Polycast, “much to my regret,” said Porter. “In the Polycast approach, all of the structural requirements are taken care of by the underlying stamped steel wheel. The honeycomb pattern—now an injection molded appliqué—merely goes along for the ride, reduced to just so much pastry icing, only there for its decorative pattern.”

For 1971, again, 15 colors were available. Pontiac produced 23,021 Firebirds, 20,185 Esprits, 7802 Formulas in all three engine sizes, and 2116 Trans Ams.

1972

The Firebird underwent some exterior changes in 1972, including a new honeycomb grille pattern that mirrored the design of the Polycast wheels. Inside, the front seats all featured a new high-back design, the third consecutive year the front bucket seat design changed. In 1970, the low-back seats had small individual headrests. In 1971, the seat backs got slightly taller and the headrests left. And for 1972, the headrest was fully integrated into the high-back design, which would essentially carry through until the end of second-generation Firebird production.

Power outputs took it on the chin across the board, with the 250-cubic-inch six dropping to 110 hp, the 350 two-barrel to 160 hp, the 400 two-barrel to 175, and the 400 four-barrel to 250 hp. The standard 455 in the Formula 455 and Trans Am was eliminated for 1972, focusing solely on the HO, which dropped to 300 hp and 415 lb-ft of torque. (Some of the change in output coincided with the switch from SAE gross to SAE net calculations.)

The VIN code change for 1972 is significant. Prior to 1972, the only engine identification in the VIN was that V-8 cars had serial numbers starting at 100001, and six-pluggers started at 600001. From 1972 through 1980, the VINs got much more specific, helping future owners understand the DNA profile of their Firebirds. These letter designations change through the years, though they are fairly consistent for the next three model years. For a more explicit breakdown, visit PontiacFormula.Free.fr:

• D = 250-cid
• M = 350-cid 2-barrel, single exhaust
• N = 350-cid 4-barrel, dual exhaust
• P = 400-cid 2-barrel, dual exhaust
• R = 400-cid 4-barrel, single exhaust
• T = 400-cid 4-barrel, dual exhaust
• X = 455-cid HO 4-barrel, dual exhaust

Fifteen colors were again available in 1972. Thanks to a UAW strike, this is the lowest-production year for the second-generation Firebird, with just 12,000 base cars, 11,415 Esprits, 5250 Formulas, and a scant 1286 Trans Ams.

1973

It’s interesting to consider just how far ahead Pontiac was with the Firebird compared to the Camaro. Over at Chevrolet, there was hustling afoot to make the split bumper comply with new 2.5-mph crash requirements. The second-generation Firebird was born with it, thanks to the Endura bumper, which required no design changes to comply, regardless of trim level. The slender rear bumpers were beefed up a bit, but still chrome.

Inside, the Esprit got a “Custom Interior” as standard, with deeply scooped bucket seats, a grab handle on the dash for the passenger, rear ashtrays, a fitted rubber trunk mat, and a body-color insert on the exterior door handles. The Custom Interior package was optional on the Formula and Trans Am.

And most notably, the exterior of the Trans Am featured—for the first time—the bird decal on the hood that had been an emblem and a small decal in prior years. Porter said he sketched it roughly on a napkin and had intended it for the 1970 Trans Am. Norm Inouye—who later attained greater fame for designing the logo for Disney’s EPCOT Center—worked out the graphics, and Porter had it applied on two concept cars. “[GM styling chief Bill] Mitchell saw it in the paint shop and just went into one of his horrible tantrums. I was back in the studio. He called me up and I had to hold the phone away from my ear. That was the end of that,” said Porter.

But three years later, designer John Schinella had another bite at the apple. Schinella had worked on the Chaparral 2, the Mako Shark II, the ’67 Camaro, and the ’68 Corvette, before making his way to Pontiac. In a 2014 interview I conducted with Schinella for Bangshift.com, Schinella shared that Mitchell was driving a Trans Am in custom John Player Special livery that had been a show car. Schinella had a set of gold foil decals made up, applied them to the John Player Special car Mitchell was driving, and parked it outside Mitchell’s office. Evidently, that was enough to seal the deal for the hood bird to reach production.

Power reset again for 1973, with a paltry 100 hp for the inline-six, 150 for the 350 two-barrel, 170 for the 400 two-barrel, and 230 for the 400 four-barrel. The 455 HO disappeared, and in its place were the 455 four-barrel with 250 hp, and—one of the last significant muscle car–era engines—the 455 Super Duty with 310 hp.

A choice of 16 colors provided the most extensive palette to date, and seven vinyl top colors expanded the range as well. Five interior colors were available, but only two were available in cloth trim. Production picked back up to more normal levels, with 14,096 Firebirds, 17,249 Esprits, 10,166 Formulas, and 4802 Trans Ams.

1974

The 5-mph federal bumper standards came into effect for the 1974 model year, and it changed the nose of the second-generation Firebird for the first time. As a result, the Endura bumper morphed into something that was much more in line with the design of the Camaro.

The bumper itself is interesting and unique to the Firebird. Instead of the aluminum bumper that the Camaro had, the Firebird got a full rubber bumper, along with bumperettes that were all cast in one giant rubber piece. A body-color Endura chin piece covered most of it and provided the housings for the lower air intakes and marker lights.

Inside, seat belts changed to a three-point design, which moved through a seat-mounted holder, along with an inertia reel.

Power steering moved to the standard features list for all Firebirds, while power brakes became standard on the Trans Am. The fuel tank increased from 18 gallons to 21. Mechanical changes also included the late introduction of HEI ignition on the 400 and 455 engines, beginning around May 1, 1974. The balance of the engines kept their points distributors.

Sixteen colors made up the paint options. Production ramped in a big way, with 26,372 Firebirds, 22,583 Esprits, 14,519 Formulas, and Trans Ams broke the five-digit mark for the first time, with 10,255 units.

1975

The HEI distributor made its way to all Firebirds for the 1975 model year, and that’s probably the only positive news for performance. It was part of what the brochure pitched as “The Pontiac Travel Plan,” which included radial tires and a catalytic converter. The 455 bowed out, and the Trans Am instead featured a 400 four-barrel just like the Formula.

There were only minor exterior updates again, including the ever-moving marker lamps, which now moved up to the grille inserts. Like the Camaro, this was the year the Firebird got a wraparound rear window for better visibility, made more crucial because of the high-back bucket seats.

The brochure shows a new AM/FM stereo as an option, along with infant and child love seats (GM-branded baby seats), which were a first-time option for the Firebird. Again, 16 colors were available, but black was not one of them. Production dipped slightly to 22,293 Firebirds, 20,826 Esprits, 13,670 Formulas, and—in what would now be a relentless march skyward for the next four years—27,274 Trans Ams.

1976

Most of the changes for 1976 were cosmetic, but they seem rather dramatic in some cases. Take the Formula, for example: The twin scoop hood was still there, but it was drastically scaled back for 1976, with the two nostrils almost vestigial and moved back at least 10 inches on the hood.

Two full model years before the Camaro had them, the Firebird sported monochrome bumper covers rather than the aluminum bumper employed over at Chevrolet. It made the Firebird look much more modern, and it provided some interesting color contrast between the standard Firebird and the Formula, which now had more elaborate lower colors and graphics. The “Canopy” vinyl roof was new for 1976, essentially a reverse landau top with the vinyl over the front passenger compartment.

Hurst T-Tops were available for the first time in 1976, a late-enough option that they didn’t make the brochure that year. They were only available on the 1976 Trans Am Special Edition and had unique, one-year-only weatherstripping that both sealed the T-Tops and held up the headliner. The design changed in 1977 to a plastic trim held in with a series of screws. The Hurst T-Tops used between 1976 and 1978 were smaller—only 30¼ inches x 17½ inches wide—and left a foot of roof between the two panels.

In the engine room, things carried on pretty much as before, with a 250-cubic-inch inline-six as the standard in the Firebird, with a jump up to a 350 as an option. Formulas had a TH350 automatic as standard equipment, which was optional on all other trims.

There were 14 colors for 1976. This was the first year when Trans Am production really started to raise some eyebrows. The Firebird still sold respectably at 21,209 units, with another 22,252 for the Esprit. The Formula still sold well at 20,613, but the Trans Am massively outpaced all other Firebird trims at 46,701 cars.

1977

You can make arguments for the merits of Firebird design prior to 1977, but this is the Trans Am that everyone remembers, thanks to the second-most popular movie that year behind Star Wars. For the first time, the Trans Am was the halo car, showcased prominently on the cover and the opening spread of the Pontiac brochure.

The biggest obvious change was the nose, with a phoenix-like beak, and four DOT-certified rectangular  headlamps, set deep into the grille. The front fascia is one continuous piece, and it set the stage for more elaborate soft bumper covers to come. Incredibly, this icon of Pontiac design was around for just two years before it underwent a significant change in 1979.

The initial 1977 Trans Ams had shaker scoops that were recessed a bit into the hood, before a design change made the scoop more prominent later in the production year. Formulas also got another revision to their twin-nostril scoops, which moved them from the center of the hood to the leading edge, for a more aggressive look. Formulas and Trans Ams both shared the iconic chrome quad exhaust outlets.

Wheel and wheel cover designs changed as well, with Trans Ams using the Rally II as the base offering, while new cast aluminum wheels to replace the old honeycombs were available on all trim levels. Firebird, Esprit, and Formula all had a spoked wheel cover available as an option, a tragedy for any Formula.

Sadly, the lesser Firebirds really started to get pushed to the back of the line, though they did have their own redesign for 1977. With it came the all-new 3.8-liter Buick V-6, years before the Camaro would finally move away from the mid-1960s–era 250 as the base engine. The Buick 3.8-liter was as good here as it was in the rest of GM’s lineup, providing 105 hp and 185 lb-ft of torque. For the first time, the Esprit would start out with a six-cylinder as the base engine.

The Formula also got serious engine revisions, including an all-new Pontiac 301-cubic-inch two-barrel V-8 as the base engine, which providied 130 hp. That engine was optional on both the Firebird and the Esprit, along with an Oldsmobile 350 with a four-barrel that was available on all three lower trims. A Chevy 305 would come in later as well. The larger engine options in the Formula and Trans Am got even more busy. The 180-horse L78 400 Pontiac engine was available only with an automatic and was visually identified by the “6.6 Litre” on the Trans Am’s shaker scoop. The hotter 200-horse W72, denoted by the “T/A 6.6” on the scoop, was available with a manual or automatic. California and high-altitude locations got a 403-cubic-inch Oldsmobile V-8 rated at 185 hp.

New for 1977 was the Sky Bird, which was an appearance package only available on the Esprit. It featured blue velour seats, two-tone blue paint, cast aluminum wheels with unique blue-painted inserts, a dark blue rear panel, blue grille panels, and accent stripes.

Colors became more limited in 1977, with just 13 offered. All sales ticked up in 1977: The Firebird sold 30,642 cars, the Esprit 34,548, and the Formula 21,801, while Trans Am sales grew to 68,745.

1978

Styling didn’t change much at all, with a gold Trans Am stealing the show on the cover and the first spread in the brochure. There were slight revisions, with the grille surrounds in black, but otherwise, the design went essentially unchanged.

The T-Tops were still the Hurst design, featuring screwed-in plastic pieces that held up the headliner. Continuing through the interior, cruise control appeared on the options list. The radios included a new AM/FM stereo with a digital readout, though it was still an analog tuner.

Power increased on the W72 6.6-liter V-8 to 220 horses, making it the engine to have. Some sources note that it was partway through the ’78 model year that the automatic ceased to be available with the W72.

While the Camaro offered just nine colors, the Firebird palette grew to 14. Sales for 1978 saw growth across the board, with the Firebird at 32,672, Esprit at 36,926, Formula at 24,346, and the Trans Am at a staggering 93,341 units.

1979

Depending on who you ask, 1979 might be the last year for the “real” second-generation Trans Am. It marked the end of 400-cubic inch V-8 production.

The basic shape was unchanged, but it was bookended by radically different front and rear fascias. The front was a return to something similar to the Endura nose, a rubberized nose cover unbroken by anything but low-mounted grille openings with the marker lights at the outside edges, and four headlamp buckets. The nose design was shared throughout the Firebird lineup, with the exception of the Trans Am’s chin spoiler.

At the rear, the pads on the bumpers mirrored the design of the grille up front. Replacing the individual taillamps was a full-width red panel that hid the fuel filler and incorporated the lights, predating designs that used full-width LED lamps by 40 years.

The 10th Anniversary Trans Am was a bona fide hit, with a ton of unique features that had never been available before, including mirrored T-Tops, leather seats, and a hood bird that reached the front fenders for the first time. These cars had their own unique X87 VIN code and only one option: The Olds 403 with an automatic, or the Pontiac 400 with the four-speed. Base price was a hefty $10,620, or nearly $46,000 in 2024 dollars.

If there’s one thing to take note of for 1979, it’s that it was all Trans Am. The Formula Firebird rated exactly one picture in the Pontiac brochure. The Esprit and Firebird none at all, though the Esprit did have a special package in the Red Bird, which replaced the Sky Bird. It was essentially the same idea but red instead of blue.

Mechanical changes were few but presaged what was coming in 1980: For the first time, the Trans Am was available with a small-block V-8, the 301 that was optional in the standard Firebird. High-altitude cars were available for the last time with a Chevrolet 350, and California was only offered the optional 305.

There was also the addition of four-wheel disc brakes as part of the WS6 package, which included fat stabilizer bars and wide 8-inch wheels. The big issue was the take rate on the package, which caused supply chain issues and resulted in Pontiac offering a WS7 package that included everything but the brakes.

The T/A was so immensely popular in 1979 that the last page of the brochure featured a pitch for a limited-edition 20 x 50-inch poster of the car, which was available for $2. Again, 14 colors were offered, and 1979 marked the most popular year ever for the nameplate: Pontiac sold 38,642 Firebirds and 30,852 Esprits (the first year that trim level had seen a dip since 1975). The Formula managed to hold steady at 24,851 cars. For Trans Am sales, though, hold onto your hats: 117,108 cars were produced, a number it would never come close to again.

1980

The Turbo Trans Am got a bad rap in its day, but it’s actually a more exciting car than most people thought in 1980. That year’s 301 wasn’t the run-of-the-mill engine that it had been in years prior. The block was beefier, along with the head gasket and pistons, and there was a high-pressure oil pump. The turbocharger was electronically controlled and was shipped over to Pontiac from Buick, which knew a thing or two about turbocharging. The Garrett TBO-305 delivered 9 psi of boost and used a modified Q-Jet four-barrel and a knock sensor, just like the early T-Type from Buick. (Imagine what might have happened if the second-gen had hung around long enough to steal the Grand National’s later setup . . .)

The engine delivered 210 hp, which wasn’t much to get excited about, but torque was respectable at 345 lb-ft. Sadly, this engine was crying out for a manual but only got an automatic, with a 3.08 rear gear to boot. That put the kibosh on any enthusiasm for the car, as did the 17.02-second quarter-mile that Car and Driver reported that year.

The other major intro for 1980 was the Indy Pace Car, 5700 of which were built in Cameo White with gray details. The Esprit had one more trick up its sleeve with the Yellow Bird appearance package, which continued the legacy of the Sky Bird and Red Bird before it.

This was also the first full year of the Fisher T-Top, which replaced the Hurst T-Tops that required cars be shipped out to Hurst for modification. Now they were built right at Fisher Body, and the modified design addressed a few issues. First, instead of having two latches at front and rear, the Fisher T-Tops had just one latch, with pins at the front and rear that extended into matching holes in the roof. They were also 3 inches longer, stretching back to match the side window opening. And they were each 5 inches wider, leaving a narrow strip of just 4 inches of steel roof between the two panels. If there’s anything truly improved about the 1980 model year, it’s the T-Top design.

Pontiac offered 15 colors in 1980. The Firebird’s sales glory came to an end that year, with every trim level seeing significant drops. The Firebird sold 29,811 units. The Esprit dropped to 17,277, and the Formula was barely on life support, with 9,356 cars sold, less than half of the year before. The Trans Am fared not much better, with a total of 50,896 cars, a year-to-year drop of significantly more than 50 percent.

1981

In its final year, the Firebird was virtually unchanged, except for the deletion of the Indy Pace Car and the Yellow Bird trim package. The Pontiac brochure squeezed the entire Firebird lineup in between the Phoenix and the Bonneville. It did manage to feature Burt Reynolds in the main spread, atop a black Turbo Trans Am, and next to a Formula.

The biggest revision was the standard Computer Command Control emissions system, an ECU that monitored fuel mixture, throttle position, and transmission performance, since the computer controlled the new lockup torque converter. There were 14 colors available in the final year. Sales took another massive dip in 1981, with just 20,541 Firebirds, 10,938 Esprits, a paltry 5927 Formulas, and 33,493 Trans Ams produced.

Before Inspection

If you’re hunting for one of these cars, you’ve got a lifetime worth of resources for figuring out every possible nut and bolt. Note that most of those resources are going to be focused on the Trans Am and to a lesser extent the Formula, and not necessarily the six-cylinder cars, the Esprits, or the odd trim packages like the Sky Bird. For the most part, though, many of those same resources for everything from headliners to wheel covers will transfer.

FirebirdNation is an excellent forum, with more information in one site than we could possibly add to this document. Check out the sticky topics at the top of the forum, which focus on things like paint colors, fabric types, how to adjust door glass, and where you can find whatever parts you may be looking for.

As with the Camaro, VINs in these cars changed three times during production, so be aware that the information encoded in those VINs will change depending upon the year. There’s a good VIN decoder at Classic Industries.

F-Body Warehouse is a parts supplier specializing in Firebird and Camaro restoration. Their video on what to look for when buying a second-gen Firebird—specifically a Trans Am, but it applies across the trim levels—doesn’t have Ingmar Bergman–level production quality, but the information within is solid and a must-see before you decide to look at one of these cars.

Rust is going to be your biggest concern. It can quickly turn a half-decent prospect into something that’s not much better than a parts car when areas like frames, floors, trunk pans, fenders, rockers, window pinchwelds, and firewalls are rusted beyond reasonable repair. Keep in mind that while these cars do have an excellent aftermarket, the cost for parts and labor to set a car like this right is going to be expensive.

These cars were built in the same two plants as the Camaro, so build sheets will likely be in the same locations—that is, all over the place. They could be tucked under the package shelf, under carpets on the transmission tunnel, over gloveboxes, under the front seat springs, under the rear seat backs, or on top of the fuel tank.

The cowl tags are also a vital source of information. Trans Am Country has good information on cowl tags, from their location to their contents to why it should be considered an international war crime to swap a tag.

Unfortunately, the GM Heritage Center has no information on these cars at all, so you won’t find order guides, brochures, or sales documentation the way you do for a Chevrolet (or a Geo, inexplicably.) All of that information is now with PHS Historical Services, which will sell you a full report on your car based on its VIN for $95 via email in four to five days, or $125 for a rush turnaround.

Before You Buy

When you’re considering what you’ll have to put into a potential project, know that there really isn’t a part that you can’t source through one of the major suppliers. And some of these aftermarket suppliers are dedicated to nothing but cars from Pontiac, like Ames Performance Engineering. They’re probably the best place to start for technical advice and sourcing. Start with the PDF version of the Firebird catalog. Other suppliers, like Classic Industries, Year One, Classic Muscle, and National Parts Depot, can fill in the gaps. You may need to hunt for highly specific things. For example, the folks at Restore-a-Muscle Car have successfully 3D printed the T-Top headliner trim we mentioned earlier. But the good news is, it’s not like owning a second-generation Buick Riviera, where the only parts available are in a junkyard.

Mechanical components for the Chevy 250, the Buick 3.8-liter, the Pontiac 350, the Pontiac 400, the Olds 400, and the Pontiac 455 are all readily available. F-Body Warehouse even has a number of restoration parts for the 301. Transmissions and rear differentials are plentiful, no matter which example your Firebird came with.

The best car to buy is wildly subjective. Most people are going to be interested in the Trans Ams throughout the build history, but you can have a lifetime’s worth of entertainment with a 1973 Esprit with a 350 and save yourself a boatload of money in the process. Cars like the Sky, Red, or Yellow Birds add an extra element of rarity with period-correct luxury touches, ensuring you’ll never find a duplicate of yours at a local car show.

What to Pay

Since the middle of 2021, median #2 (good) value is up a little more than 20 percent, with even more growth for the Super Duty, though prices stabilized and have been flat for about a year, according to the Hagerty Price Guide, #2 values range from $11,400 for a 1981 Firebird with a 120-hp V-6 to $165,000 for the aforementioned Super Duty. As always, get the latest valuation data from Hagerty by clicking here.

According to Hagerty’s data, it almost doesn’t matter what year of Trans Am you choose, a #1 (concours) example will be expensive. The 1970 and 1973 Trans Ams with the largest engines and four-speed manual transmissions push up over the $200,000 mark, with the best of the rest still fetching around $60K. On the other end of the economic spectrum, there are deals to be had if you don’t necessarily want to go fast. Driver-class 1980 base Firebirds and Esprits with a 350-cid V-8 and an automatic can be had for less than $13,000, and the 301-powered cars are even more affordable.

The count of insurance quotes sought for these cars has remained even in the last year, but the Firebird—in all trim levels—is the sixth-most popular vehicle in Hagerty’s database. Gen X quotes a fairly stunning 40 percent of second-generation Firebirds, even though that cohort makes up a 32 percent share of the market. Right behind them, boomers quote 34 percent of the second-gen cars, about even with their share of the market. Millennials quote 17 percent of second-gen F-bodies, with an even smaller share of the market at 21 percent. Gen Z quotes 8 percent of F-body examples, and comprises exactly the same percentage of the overall market.

Bookended by the memorable blue-and-white early Ram Air cars and the Bandit-era black-and-gold Trans Ams, all of Pontiac’s second-gen Firebirds have come to epitomize the charm of 1970s American iron. Whether you go understated or full bird, this Pontiac delivers plenty of character.

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The post Your Handy 1970–81 Pontiac Firebird Buyer’s Guide appeared first on Hagerty Media.

The 52^nd edition of the day-long endurance race through the Green Hell was the shortest in history, clocking a total of just 7 hours and 22 minutes of racing over the course of 50 laps. The stunted duration of the “N24” was thanks to the Eifel region’s infamously inclement weather, which draped the course in a dense layer of helicopter-immobilizing haze that compromised emergency safety services and wafted through the forested hills as if pouring from the devil’s very own fog machine.

The red flags flew at 11:23 PM local time, and the nearly 130-car field was rendered stationary until a handful of formation laps were run behind the safety car in the final hours of the race weekend—a small but welcome concession for the soggy fans. The #16 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II of Scherer Sport PHX claimed the big trophy, local favorites Manthey Racing snatched silver in their #911 Porsche 911 GT3 R, and BMW M Team RMG’s #72 M4 GT3 filled out the podium’s third spot. 

The result marked the seventh overall victory for the Audi R8 and Scherer Sport PHX at the N24, which sees the team now tied for the record with Manthey Racing. But it was a bittersweet moment for the blue-and-white R8, as this was the first year that it raced without Audi’s factory support. It will also likely be the model’s last chance at winning the event due to Audi’s withdrawal from GT racing, and a Scherer team that is readying itself to compete with a new car next season. There are worse ways for a competition car to age into retirement than winning at the Nürburgring, even if it was under weather-shortened circumstances.

Despite the race’s record-breaking brevity, there was still sufficient time for motorsport drama. Cars caught fire, were flung into the air, and fiercely fought for position on the Nordschleife’s narrow and undulating asphalt. It might not have the same prestige as the 24 Hours of Le Mans, but there’s nowhere but the Nürburgring where you can see a top-spec GT3 Porsche getting airborne before weaving through a bunch of 3-Series sedans—and a Dacia Logan!—and clipping a moving apex in the form of a flatbed truck hauling the carcass of a wrecked race car. At the N24, the recovery vehicles share a live track with the racers, making for some spectacular displays of adaptive driving and adding another bit of flavor to this singular event.

When combined with the Grand Prix circuit, the full course for the 24-hour race is a memory-testing 15.77 miles long, and during the race weekend it was lined with over 240,000 spectators and their architecturally questionable homebrewed grandstands, sausage-sizzling barbecues, and bountiful beer bottles. Like the infield at Talladega and the ritzy balconies of Monaco, the atmosphere during the ‘Ring’s premier race weekend is its own spectator sport. More on that in a story to follow—in the meantime, enjoy the sights of the shortest-ever Nürburgring 24.

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Tom Cotter made a stop by an old friend’s garage in Los Angeles for the latest installment of Barn Find Hunter. Cotter introduces us to Steve Beck, who owns some very cool cars of his own, but is also the caretaker for one of the earliest Shelby Cobras, which jazz legend Herbie Hancock purchased new and still owns.

Cotter, who has had the opportunity to meet Hancock and talk about their shared love of the powerful roadsters, tells the story of how the car was originally sold to Hancock when he was a young musician in New York City. Just the sixth Cobra ever built, its single-owner status means that Hancock has owned a Cobra longer than anyone else. Besides its famous owner and all of the great stories involving Hancock and other jazz legends, its early production status makes for a Cobra that is interesting on its own.

“This car is so early in production that it’s still very British,” says Beck. It was so early that it was built with a 260-cubic-inch Ford V-8, rather than a 289 as you might expect. The early Windsor engine, equipped with a solid-lifter cam, could be a leftover from the Mercury Comet’s overseas exploits in the 1964 East African Safari. The roadster’s amalgamation of American V-8 and British chassis is apparent when Beck pops the hood. The car’s brake and clutch master cylinder aren’t what you’d expect, and neither is the generator. Like its AC counterparts, this Cobra is positive ground and uses a Lucas generator.

Cotter and Beck look over some of the car’s early-production oddities and some of the accessories that have miraculously survived its long ownership. One of our favorite aspects of the car is its odometer, showing just over 30,000 miles. Rest assured, though, that this car served as Hancock’s daily driver for years, and that odometer has rolled over once. Hancock plans on that number to go up, as the car is destined to go to his grandson, keeping this Cobra and its interesting history in the family for years to come.

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After September 24, 1994, it was always about Page. Most every conversation I had with Parnelli Jones, the racing legend who died Tuesday, was about his son, Page, who was 22 and racing in the famous 4-Crown Nationals at Eldora Speedway in Ohio, a famous dirt oval track now owned by former NASCAR champion Tony Stewart.

Page was driving his black number 26 sprint car when he hit the wall and flipped, then was struck by another car. Page suffered a traumatic brain injury, and for three days, as he was in a coma, doctors feared for his life.

It took years, but Page recovered to an unexpected degree, eventually becoming a husband and a father. “He’s doing better,” Parnelli would say, and then tell me about Page’s latest small step back.

A documentary, Godspeed: The Story of Page Jones, was made about Page’s life. He was 37 when he said this: “I had just won the race and I hit the wall and flipped on to my side,” Page recalled. It is his last long-term memory. “I remember looking through the window of the car at the flag guy and he was throwing the yellow flag up and I thought, ‘Throw the red flag up so they stop.’ But it was too late. The guy that had crashed with me hit my roll cage and I was (unconscious).”

That day, brother P.J. was racing in Tucson; IndyCar team owner and STP CEO Andy Granatelli offered his Learjet to fly the family to see Page. P.J. boarded the plane in Phoenix, flew to Los Angeles to pick up mother Judy, flew to Utah to pick up Parnelli, then headed to Dayton, Ohio, where Page was in the hospital, still not out of the woods. It was a month before Page could be flown to a rehabilitation center in California.

It was 18 months before Page could speak, and then it was just one word at a time. It was two years before Page could get out of his wheelchair and begin the long process of learning to walk again. “He was like a six-foot-tall baby,” Judy said in a 2004 story posted by USAC, the sanctioning body for the 4-Crown Nationals and for the Indianapolis 500 when Parnelli won it in 1963.

At the beginning of rehabilitation, physicians painted a dark picture. “One of the doctors told me that he was going to need 24 hours of help a day the rest of his life, as well as a special training table, a handicapped bathroom, wheelchair, the whole shebang,” Parnelli said. “He gave me the worst scenario in the world.”

Rehab was frustrating for Page, who Parnelli said tore up nearly 150 T-shirts. “He would reach down, grab them and put them in his mouth and just rip them right off his chest,” Parnelli said. “He was just nervous; it was just unreal. But he never ran out of T-shirts because his friends kept sending them to him. One of his friends sent him a T-shirt that had a dotted line across it, and it read, ‘Tear here, Page’. His friends really, really stuck by him.”

“It was like being born again,” Page said. “The simplest things were difficult. Instead of being a baby two or three feet off the ground, I was six feet above the ground.”

After two years in rehab in California, Page was sent to Indianapolis, then New York City, for more specialized rehabilitation. Page continued to improve. He married Jamie on April 14, 2001, and they have two sons.

“He’s just a little bit different than he was before,” Parnelli said. “What he might have lost he gained in a lot of other ways.”

Older brother P.J. went on to an uneven but generally successful racing career, the highlights being a win at the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona sports car endurance race in 1993, co-driving Dan Gurney’s All American Racers Eagle MkIII Toyota. He also made two Indianapolis 500 starts, 60 IndyCar starts and 33 starts in the NASCAR Cup series.

As for Rufus Parnell Jones, born August 12, 1933: His racing career began in 1950, at age 17, and ended in 1974, when he was 41. As he was easing out of the driver’s seat, he became co-owner of Vel’s Parnelli Jones Racing, and won the Indianapolis 500 in 1970 and 1971 as a car owner, with Al Unser driving. Then he built a Formula 1 car for Mario Andretti; it was called the Parnelli VPJ4. He helped develop a turbocharged version of the Cosworth DFV V-8, which went on to win every Indianapolis 500 for the next 10 years. Parnelli was an astute businessman, investing in real estate and maintaining a close relationship with Firestone, which began in 1960 when he became their test driver. He owned a Ford dealership, 47 Parnelli Jones Tire Centers in four states, and was a Firestone racing tire distributor in 14 states.

Decades after he hung up his helmet, his name still resonates. In 2021, at a Mecum Indianapolis auction, Parnelli’s Baja 1000-winning 1969 Ford Bronco, named Big Oly, sold for $1.87 million.

So, there was never a shortage of topics to cover. But he always wanted to talk about Page, and how P.J.’s racing career was going.

Just seven months ago, P.J. posted this on Facebook: “Parnelli is still hanging in there at 90, driving my mom crazy!” But yesterday, P.J. confirmed that his father had died with a sadder Facebook post. “My father, Parnelli Jones, passed away today at the age of 90. He had battled Parkinson’s for the last few years. I will miss him greatly!”

Acclaimed motorsports journalist Bones Bourcier is the official biographer of Parnelli, titled As a Matter of Fact, I AM Parnelli Jones, named for the answer to multiple traffic cops who, at the time, would pull drivers over for speeding and ask, “Who do you think you are, Parnelli Jones?”

The day Parnelli died, Bones posted this on Facebook: “If you love racing of any kind, you understand that this is a great redwood falling in the forest. He was among the very best in an era when the very best drove any vehicle they could climb into. Parnelli won Indy Car races in front-engine roadsters and rear-engine Lotus creations; won in NASCAR and USAC stock cars; won in USAC, CRA, and IMCA Sprint Cars on dirt and pavement; won in USAC Midgets on dirt and pavement; won in SCCA sports cars and Trans-Am sedans; won in Baja off-road trucks; basically, he won in everything he sat in, all the way back to the 1950s heyday of the California Jalopy Association, where it all began for him. ‘There’s no ifs, ands, or buts about it,’ A.J. Foyt said of his old pal and rival. ‘Parnelli was a great race driver.”’

We’ll leave the last word to Roger Penske, who owns IndyCar, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a NASCAR Cup team and an IMSA GTP team, and, at 87, is a contemporary of Parnelli: “The racing world has lost a great competitor and a true champion. Parnelli Jones was one of the most accomplished racers in history, and his determination and will to win made him one of the toughest competitors I have ever seen,” Penske said. “I was proud to call Parnelli a good friend for many years, and our thoughts are with his family as we remember one of the true legends of motorsports.”

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We love talking about obscure cars—not an auction goes by that we don’t look for the weirdest, most off-beat vehicles. We also love the cars that never made it, the wild ideas that, even if they made it past sketch to clay model and to the floor of an international auto show, never made production. Such concept cars are not just a window into the creative minds at the companies that build them: They often witness to the unique constraints and attitudes of their time.

Today we take a trip back into the 1980s—the era of shoulder pads, the Cold War, and MTV—to see what we can learn from six vehicles that never made production.

1981 Globe-Union Maxima

The first oil shock of the 1970s may get most of our attention—and for good reason. The embargo put in place by Arab producers in 1973 diminished the supply of oil in America and sent prices skyrocketing. It wasn’t the only disruption to the global supply of oil in the ’70s, though: A second shock hit in 1978, in the wake of the Iranian Revolution. Once again, fuel efficiency was the name of the game in the U.S. automotive industry.

Globe-Union sensed an opportunity. Since the ’50s, it manufactured lead oxide batteries and sold them to the auto industry. How hard would it be to make a car that ran exclusively on its own batteries? In 1978 It built the Endura, which featured a rack of batteries mounted to a subframe that integrated a set of rollers, enabling the batteries to slide out from the front of the car. A few years later, Globe-Union built the car above, starting with a Ford Fairmont station wagon and using the same driveline as the Endura: 20 12V lead-acid car batteries powering a 20-hp rear-mounted motor made by General Electric. Foreshadowing today’s design trends, the EV got a row of lights all the way across its front.

1981 Ford Probe III Concept Car

Ford didn’t go quite as far afield as Globe-Union in its pursuit of efficiency. The Probe III concept, introduced in 1981, stuck with a gas powertrain and focused instead on increasing efficiency by minimizing aerodynamic drag. The final cD figure was .22, which puts it among the slipperiest production cars of the modern age. Many of the strategies used by Ford you’ll find on today’s EVs, which minimize aero drag in search of more range: A smooth underbody pan, wheel covers, a rear spoiler paired with a lip on the rear bumper, and side-view mirrors mounted close to the body. More exotic tricks include a section of the bellypan that can electronically lower at speed to create ground effect, and rain gutters inside rather than above the doors.

The third in a series of five Probe concepts between 1979 and 1985, the Probe III made its mark on production reality in the Ford Sierra / Merkur XR4Ti. Both had wild spoilers, too!

1988 Chrysler Portofino Concept Car

When the Chrysler group came to the rescue of a financially ailing Lamborghini in 1987, Sant’Agata got money to replace the Countach with the Diablo, and Chrysler got a company to transform its iron-block V-8 into an aluminum V-10 that was a fitting heart for the Viper. But Lambo also had to let Chrysler use its name on a very un-Lamborghini concept car, the Portofino, introduced at the 1987 auto show in Frankfurt.

Can you imagine the wedgy, wild Coutach sharing a showroom with this snub-nosed sedan? Not only does rumor hold that Chrysler started by recycling a concept from the year before, but the Portofino looks more like something from Oldsmobile than from Lamborghini. Okay, the engine was in the middle, which was an out-there choice, and the naturally aspirated V-8 engine and five-speed transmission were of Lamborghini design (Chrysler used a lengthened Jalpa chassis), and the rear-hinged butterfly doors were pretty cool … but it looked like what it was: Chrysler taking over Lamborghini. The influence of the Portofino lives on in the cab-forward design of Chrysler’s front-wheel-drive, LH-platform cars: The Dodge Intrepid, the Eagle Vision, and the Chrysler 300M.

1989 Chevrolet-PPG XT-2 Pace Truck

Intended as a pace vehicle for the 1989 CART PPG Indy Car World Series, Chevrolet’s XT-2 Pace truck was an awkward effort to pursue performance amidst an energy crisis. It draped ultra-curvy, fourth-gen-Camaro-esque body lines atop a 4.5-liter, 360hp V-6 that GM never offered in the third-gen Camaro but which it plucked from the contemporary Trans Am racing series. The front glass dropped so low that it doubled as a hood. It was also a ute—a serious tease for fans of the El Camino, which Chevrolet had taken out of production just two years before.

The XT-2 is so awkward that we kinda love it. Plus, in this original iteration, the bed floor lifts up to provide access to the rear drivetrain. How cool is that? However, a renaissance of the utes was not to be: At the end of the next decade, America’s love for SUVs was firmly established.

1989 BMW M3 Pickup

Despite its outrageous profile, this one-off E30 M3 pickup had a practical raison d’etre: Provide an opportunity for green employees to practice their fabrication skills, and haul parts around what is now BMW’s M Division, in Garching. The first powerplant it received was from the “Italian M3,” a 2.0-liter engine with 192 hp. Eventually, it got the 2.3-liter, 200-hp mill. It served BMW’s M division for more than 26 years and was only retired in 2012. As Jakob Polschak, the head of vehicle prototype building and workshops at M said in 2016, the division happened to have an E30 convertible lying around, and its additional bracing made it “the ideal choice for a pickup conversion.”

Isn’t that exactly what you would do if you were in Polschak’s shoes?

1989 Cadillac Solitaire Concept Car

Like the Chevy XT-2, the Cadillac Solitaire is a strange combination of efficiency and performance. Cadillac touted the aerodynamic efficiency of the design—it had a drag coefficient of .28 and cameras instead of side-view mirrors—but under its remarkably flat hood sat a 60-degree, 6.6-liter DOHC V-12 developed in collaboration with Lotus. (GM was already working with Lotus on the LT5 for the C4 Corvette ZR-1, which would debut soon after.)The goal of the Solitaire was high-speed travel in utmost comfort: The glass roof automatically darkened in sunlight. The seats were both heated and cooled. The interior was bedazzled with digital displays.

Sadly, when it comes to GM-Lotus tie-ups, we have to content ourselves with the (quite excellent) ZR-1; the Solitaire would remain just that—one of a kind, never put into production.

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If you had “Cadillac mulling a hypercar” on your 2024 automotive bingo board, kudos to you—we sure didn’t. Speaking with Australian automotive media during a brand briefing event for Cadillac, which launches in the Australian market later this year with the Lyriq EV, General Motors global design chief Michael Simcoe left a few breadcrumbs that, if you squint, may point to a potential high-performance hypercar coming from the luxury brand.

“Could we build a hypercar? Yes,” Simcoe told members of the Australian motoring media, including carsales.com.au, where this report comes from. “Would we like to build one? Yes. Are we building one? That would be giving too much away,” Simcoe said.

The topic, according to carsales.com.au, was addressed after Simcoe, a Melbourne native, was asked about Cadillac’s desired involvement with Formula 1 with Andretti Global—which has hit a roadblock within the soap opera that is F1—and whether involvement in the pinnacle of racing could spur development of such a car. (Recall that the Mercedes-AMG One is essentially the automaker’s current Formula 1 powertrain transplanted into a limited-run, ultra-high-performance road and track car.)

Perhaps more interestingly, Simcoe also reportedly admitted that such a hypercar may yet retain some element of internal combustion, despite the brand’s intention to go all-electric by 2030. “No, [the hypercar] wouldn’t have to be [electric], but it could be,” Simcoe said. “Whether it’s ICE or whether it’s EV, Cadillac is committed to performance.”

Keeping some form of internal combustion as part of the potential powertrain for the hypercar would make sense, as F1’s impending technical overhaul in 2026 will still retain some element of internal combustion for those power units as well.

Our minds went in another direction, however, and we immediately thought of the brand’s GTP cars that race in IMSA. Imagine that bellowing 5.5-liter, race-bred V-8 attached to the rear end of a road car that looked as good as the GTP car. Hey, dreaming is free, right?

It’s all just rumors and speculation for now, but that’s half the fun of it. Let’s cross our collective fingers and hope that Cadillac shocks the world with a hypercar in the near future.

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I’ve been measuring the progress of the rebuilds for the pair of Honda XR250R engines on my home workbench in fractions of an inch. It may sound like the whole situation is going nowhere fast, but the project is going quite quickly: After fitting and sizing new valve guides into the cleaned and prepared cylinder heads, it’s time to take a seat—or eight.

For me, the cylinder head of the Honda XR250R is the gift that keeps on giving. Back in 2020 I brought home an absolute piece of junk that immediately dropped a valve and made a paperweight of the piston. Back then my goal was simply to have a running motorcycle, so the engine got a new piston, along with a a new valve and some fresh gaskets. I didn’t know what I didn’t know, so I shoved that new valve into place and crossed my fingers that the engine would work properly. Somehow, it did.

The further I get from that project, the clearer it becomes that the engine ran again because of pure luck.

The two engines on my bench now are a far cry from that project. Four years on, I understand the importance of the smallest aspects of an engine and know the risks that come with throwing an engine together with half used parts, half new parts, and zero real preparation. This pair of cylinder heads has taught me to do things the right way, to understand not only what I am doing but the proper way to do it, and which tools to use along the way. With a fresh set of valves sitting on the workbench, my most recent job was to mate each set of four valves to their seats: four ring-shaped surfaces in the hardened metal of each cylinder head.

The second stroke in the four-stroke cycle is often underappreciated. So much of the power potential in an engine comes from compressing the fuel and air mixture before burning it. Leaky valves bleed off that compression, and leaks are often due to bad valve seats. When functioning properly, seats help limit wear and tear on the valves, which open and close thousands of times per minute.

The tools for cutting valve seats can be relatively affordable all the way to wallet-draining. I elected to go on the more affordable end of the price spectrum and picked up a kit from Neway Manufacturing. After trying it out by refreshing a very poorly running engine, I was impressed with how simple the three cutters made the process of cutting the perfect valve seat: Install the pilot into the valve guide with a light twist, dab a bit of oil onto the pilot to reduce friction, slide on the first cutter, use the T-handle to rotate the cutter clockwise just a few turns, slide the cutter off and check the work.

I quickly developed a feel for how much material was removed by each clockwise rotation of the adjustable carbide cutters. Setup took seconds, then it was two quick passes with the 60-degree and 30-degree angle cutters to establish the rough geometry before sliding the 45-degree tool in place and dialing in the surface against which the face of the valve would actually sit.

A three-angle valve job is more or less the bare minimum for valve seats these days. A machinist would have happily lightened my wallet and added two more angles, and the additional cuts would help airflow, but a five-angle valve job is overkill for the agricultural nature of the Honda XR engines. I was able to do a three-angle job at home, and the performance of these engines will likely be very close.

After marking the seats with Prussian blue and checking the width of the 45-degree seat after the final cut, everything got cleaned before I re-blued and lightly lapped the valves against the fresh seats to check the contact on the valve faces. Once everything fit perfectly, the only thing left was the final cleaning and preparation for installing the assembled cylinder heads on the engines.

This marks the end of an adventure that was at times a nightmare but in the end was so rewarding. Every step of the top end of these engines was done right, by my own hands, in my own shop: Disassembly, parts selection and replacement, fitment, assembly, and soon break-in. Just four years after stumbling through a rebuild hoping the engine would run at the end of it, I am now staring at the possibility of two rebuilt engines that are stronger than they were before I worked on them and that, because of that work, will last longer than I can probably imagine. The contrast makes me laugh at who I was then, and that person would likely laugh at me now, panicking over a fraction of a millimeter of additional valve seat width. Neither is more correct than the other: We were both just having fun making broken engines work again. Neither completely right nor completely wrong, just happy to be fixing things.

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The Ford Mustang celebrated its 60th anniversary a few weeks ago, and it got us wondering where it is in the U.S. of A that America’s pony car is most popular. We surveyed our insurance data to find out, and learned that a little county in Kansas is Mustang-crazy, and created an interactive map to see where the rest of the country stacks up. Well, in the tradition of GM’s pony car lagging behind a bit, here’s another map, this one showing where in America the Camaro is most popular. Hover over it to see which counties have the most Chevrolet Camaros per capita.

Located at the very tip-top of the Lower 48 and sharing a border with both Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Bottineau County, North Dakota gets its name from nineteenth-century frontiersman Pierre Bottineau. Per the 2020 census, it has a population of 6379 people, and there is a Camaro insured by Hagerty for every 199 of them. It seems the rest of North Dakota is Camaro country, too, because seven of the top 20 counties with the most Camaros per capita are in the Peace Garden State.

We noted in our last map that Kansas loves Mustangs, but apparently Kansans just love pony cars in general. Sheridan County, KS, which has the most Mustangs per capita in the country, also has the second most Camaros, with one for every 243 people. The county with the third highest Camaro count per capita is in Kansas as well. As for the rest of the country, where does your hometown stack up?

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If any car deserves a cheerful color palette, it’s the Mazda Miata, introduced in the U.S. for 1990 in your choice of bright red, white, or blue.

Now, muted variations on that original red, white, and blue are still offered, but so are four additional colors: black, two shades of gray, and Zircon Sand Metallic, which Mazda says is an “earthy tone.”

It’s kind of a funeral, this trend toward neutral car colors. That was not overlooked in our review last week of a 2024 Mazda Miata Club that Andrew Newton drove: The Miata’s color options are “bland as a bowl of sawdust,” he wrote. “If you’ve been praying for a handsome British Racing Green or a nice bright blue, keep praying, because Mazda has ignored you yet again. There is a new shade for 2024 but it’s… another shade of gray.” His test car was Zircon Sand, which he described as a “sort of muddy sand color, with some green in it.”

Turns out that it isn’t just the Miata—the entire industry has been steering away from colorful cars, according to a study by the website iSeeCars.com. Grayscale colors (white, black, gray, and silver) made up 80 percent of cars in 2023 compared to 60.3 percent in 2004, the study said. This despite the fact that there were nearly the same number of colors offered in 2023 as there were in 2004, with an average of 6.7 colors per model today compared to 7.1 colors per model 20 years ago.

iSeeCars analyzed the colors of over 20 million used cars from model years 2004 to 2023 sold from January 2023 to April 2024. The share of each color within each model year was calculated, as was the difference in share between model years 2004 and 2023.

“Colorful cars appear to be an endangered species,” said Karl Brauer, iSeeCars executive analyst. “Despite a diverse palette being offered by automakers, there are far fewer non-grayscale cars sold today. They’ve lost half their market share over the past 20 years, and they could become even rarer in another 20 years.”

Colors like gold, purple, brown, and beige have each lost more than 80 percent of their share over this period, and even mainstream colors like green, red, and blue gave up some ground. Interestingly, green has made a small comeback in the last few years as the only non-grayscale color to gain some market share back since 2020.

And it isn’t just cars. “Trucks followed the overall market trend, though some primary colors, like red, lost far more share than others, like blue,” said Brauer. Red is down 57 percent in the truck segment, while blue lost less than one percent.

“If drivers think they’re seeing less color on the roads these days, they are,” he said. “Every non-grayscale color lost ground over the past 20 years.”

It should not come as a surprise, then, that color affects resale value, but it doesn’t necessarily follow the grayscale-dominant formula. Hagerty Valuation Analytics Director John Wiley wrote a year ago that cars “slathered in eye-catching colors never fail to garner attention. The degree to which those colors impact value, however, can vary wildly from model to model.”

For vehicles with relatively few trim choices or minimal differences, color can be a much more important consideration, Wiley said. The 2012–13 Ford Mustang Boss 302 didn’t offer a lot of options, but it did allow buyers to select from 10 colors: Black, Competition Orange, Gotta Have It Green, Grabber Blue, High Performance White, Ingot Silver, Kona Blue, Race Red, School Bus Yellow, and Yellow Blaze.

Three of those colors—Black, Kona Blue, and Yellow Blaze—can mean a discount of up to 11 percent (sorry, Yellow Blaze) on the average value, while three other colors, High Performance White, Competition Orange, and Gotta Have It Green can provide owners a premium of about 17 percent.

Wiley wrote another story in 2021 about how color affects the value of Chevrolet Corvettes. Comparing apples to apples, the research was applied to 1700 sales. “The median premium for each major color group reveals white as the most valuable [adding 8.9 percent], followed by yellow, purple, and red. At the other extreme are earth tones like copper, green, bronze, and brown [down 10.2 percent].”

Still another story from that year explored what color does to Porsche 911 values. “The winner? Yellow. Porsches painted that color tended to sell for nearly $3000 more than average.” At the other end of the (color) spectrum, “black Porsches tended to earn $1385 below average.”

If you’re talking about a pure, mainstream, just-transportation car like a Toyota Camry or Honda Accord, the exclusively-grayscale palette may be a good rule of thumb to help bring solid resale values. But for sportier cars, the answer may lie somewhere over the rainbow.

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The Prius has earned this. Whereas the humble city car once represented the avant-garde of electrification, it’s now a veteran in the space and, in some sense, the victim of its own success. The vehicle’s hybrid technology—what Toyota calls Hybrid Synergy Drive—now powers the RAV4, Corolla, Highlander, Crown, Sienna, and a litany of Lexus models. Even as fully electric models have proliferated over the last few years, both conventional (parallel) hybrids and plug-in hybrids from automakers across the globe are in huge demand. As Toyota group Vice President and General Manager Dave Christ put it, “The weight of the Prius name is heavy—it carries with it the identity of an entire category of vehicle powertrain.”

The new Prius, launched last year for 2023, may not deserve your undying passion as a driver. That would be a stretch. But it does deserve your respect. Not only is this fifth-generation the best-driving Prius in the model’s nearly three-decade run, it’s by far the best-looking, all while remaining a committed MPG maven.

Heavy may lie the crown, but this latest Prius is only marginally porkier than its predecessor. Base curb weight is up between 50 and 150 pounds, give or take, depending on trim. That’s despite a larger, 2.0-liter gas engine and significantly more overall power than the outgoing fourth-generation car. Whereas the prior Prius’ 1.8-liter engine and hybrid system peaked at 121 hp and 105 lb-ft of torque, here output ratchets up to 194 hp and 139 lb-ft (or 196 hp with all-wheel drive). That translates to a 0-60 time of 7.2 seconds for the new front-drive Prius, versus 9.8 seconds for the car it replaces.

Toyota says that the new Prius’ second-generation TNGA-C platform is lighter and more rigid than before. The battery pack now uses lithium-ion chemistry rather than nickel chemistry, saving space and as much as 40 pounds while increasing output by 15 percent.

Specs: 2024 Toyota Prius Limited AWD

Price: $37,160 (base); $39,938 (as-tested)
Powertrain: 2.0-liter four-cylinder gas engine, two electric drive motor/generators (one front, one rear), one integrated starter-generator; electronically controlled continuously variable automatic transmission
Output: 196 hp combined; 150 hp @ 6000 rpm, 139 lb-ft @ 4400 rpm gas engine
Layout: All-wheel-drive, four-door, five-passenger liftback sedan
EPA Fuel Economy: 49 mpg city, 50 mpg highway, 49 mpg combined
Competitors: Honda Civic Hybrid, Hyundai Elantra Hybrid, Kia Niro

Given that we’d previously reviewed a 2023 Prius Prime, the plug-in variant that comes exclusively with front-wheel drive, for 2024 we went with a Prius Limited with all-wheel drive. The $37,160 Limited is the loaded trim, incorporating the XLE’s standard features plus a 12.3-inch touchscreen, JBL eight-speaker audio system, heated steering wheel, heated and ventilated seats, eight-way power driver’s seat with memory, and a power rear liftgate. Optional extras on our loaner: the Advance Technology Package’s 360-degree camera and automatic parking ($1085), heated rear seats ($350), carpeted floor mats and cargo mat ($299), door sill protectors ($250), a rear bumper appliqué ($69), mudguards ($150), and a dash camera ($375). All in, MSRP came to $39,938 including destination fees.

For nearly 40 grand, a mainstream car better turn heads, and the Prius does. We got a number of neck snaps and stares from Prius drivers in particular. The new design is sleek and elegant, rather than the drab or dorky appearance that usually results from cars drawn exclusively for their aerodynamic efficiency. Sure, the car’s lines are significantly cleaner and simpler than the overwrought fourth-gen Prius it replaces, but the success of this design starts with its proportions. The car’s roughly one inch of extra width allows for a more planted stance and a lower hip point. The roofline is two inches lower, and the wheels are pushed out closer to the bumpers. Our Limited tester rides on standard 19-inch wheels, which hamper fuel efficiency by about 4 mpg over smaller wheels, but look damn stylish in the process.

Nothing about the interior suggests outright luxury, but neither does it betray obvious cost-cutting. Behind the better-than-average-quality plastics is a logical, practical, unfussy design. The starter button is right where you expect it to be. Climate functions operate via two rows of buttons positioned below the center screen. Two of the car’s six USB-C ports are situated just below that, alongside a 12-volt accessory port and conveniently above a handy phone tray. Press the release lever on the tray and you’ll find yet another storage tray—this one perfect for hiding valuables out of view when the car is parked. I wouldn’t call the center console generous, but given the other storage options in the vicinity, it’s alright. As for the phone slot in which you can lay your phone on its side—twofold brilliance. It charges in there wirelessly, and while stored there it seemed much less tempting to reach for at long stop lights. 

Longtime Prius fans may notice a few other important shifts. For starters, the giant iPad-like screen from the upper trims of the outgoing car has been replaced with a much more handsome center touchscreen. Beyond that, the instrument cluster now sits behind the steering wheel on a little perch, rather than up in the center of the dashboard behind the display. The shifter, too, is positioned in a more conventional location between the seats rather than on the dashboard like some electro-mechanical proboscis. All of these choices indicate a kind of design maturity—the Prius doesn’t have to constantly remind you it’s a hybrid, because the West has already been won. Instead it can focus on, well, being a thoughtful and useful car.

To wit, the new Prius’ liftback body style works great in daily use. The trunk is nice and wide, with a reasonably low load height. The all-wheel drive hardware on the rear axle—an electric motor and its accompanying components—contribute to a slightly taller trunk floor, but it’s within reason. On either side of the main floor are useful cubbies, perfect for the odd single grocery bag or tote. My favorite feature: a molded plastic piece on either side of the rear seats that, when said seats are folded, keeps the seat belt in position and out of the way of large cargo. 

The interior’s sole weak point I found during a week with the Prius is that rear-seat headroom is worse than before. (The price we pay for that sweeping roofline.) The seats could use a bit more support for longer drives. Oh, and when the windows are open at speed, the wind causes the moonroof shade to flap like a beached carp.

My only other major gripe concerns the noise of the gas engine when it kicks on from pure-electric operation. (It stays on if you select B mode, which better charges the battery.) The 2.0-liter sounds hoarse and unhappy, as if it just swallowed a cylinder of black peppercorns. 

That clatter arrives in contrast with what is otherwise a serene driving experience. The ride is composed, comfortable, and not excessively floaty. Turn-in isn’t exactly crisp, and the steering feels artificially weighted, but the Prius changes direction with poise. It’s sure-footed on bumpy roads, twisty roads, freeways, you name it. The car’s biggest achievement is how it blends brake feel, resulting in a seamless transition between mechanical and regenerative braking—no easy feat. (Those brakes do groan a bit at low speeds, however.)

In several hundred miles of mixed driving, the Prius had no problem getting 50 mpg, equaling its mixed highway rating from the EPA. The new car’s combined rating of 49 mpg is 2 mpg greater than the outgoing XLE e-AWD’s 47 mpg, but the older Prius highway rating beats this car’s 50 mpg rating by 1 mile. Suffice to say, the new car is about as efficient as the Prius it replaces while offering much more useful passing power and far superior handling. 

All that said, unless you live in an area that experiences severe winter weather, I’d much sooner buy a set of top-shelf winter tires for a base Prius LE ($29,470) or a mid-grade XLE ($32,490) and stick with front-wheel drive. This Prius makes a lot more sense as a mainstream car that punches way above its weight than it does as a luxury-adjacent commuter, and the LE returns an impressive 57 mpg. 

In fairness, the heated seats are nice and the 360-degree camera works flawlessly, but for $40,000 a Prius—even one this good—is facing competition from the Audi A3s and Mercedes-Benz CLAs of the world, not to mention the more spacious Honda Civic Sport Touring that comes with a standard hybrid powertrain for 2025. Hell, for the same price you could lose 6 or 7 mpg and pick up an Accord Hybrid Touring, which is a whole lot more spacious and luxurious.

Naturally, none of the above can boast Toyota’s track record for reliability. That and low long-term maintenance costs remain major factors in new-car decisions, which also explains the Prius’ generally fabulous resale value.

So far in 2024, its first full year of sales, Toyota is on pace to sell about 45,000 examples of the new-generation Prius. That’s a long way off from the heyday of the early 2010s, when sales topped 200,000 for three years running. However, don’t take that to mean the Prius has lost its way—if anything it has found it, maturing into a well-sorted and sophisticated hybrid commuter nobody should be embarrassed to drive. Think of this fifth-gen car as the Prius entering its golden years as a silver fox—older, wiser, and relieved from the burden of carrying so much early water for hybridization. Like it or not, this is the Prius’ world; we’re just living in it.

2024 Toyota Prius Limited AWD

Price: $37,160 (base); $39,938 (as-tested)

Highs: Useful power, practical interior, handsome styling. Excellent brake feel. And, of course, 50 mpg.

Lows: Sub-par headroom in the back seat. Noisy gas engine. Limited’s nearly-$40K price pits it against more spacious rivals.

Takeaway: Far and away the best-driving, best-looking Toyota Prius in history.

The post 2024 Toyota Prius Limited AWD: Elder Statesman, Youthful Verve appeared first on Hagerty Media.

It’s a measure of just how serious Ford is about taking the fight to the Porsche that it’s testing the new Mustang GTD on the German firm’s home turf.

The 800-hp supercharged pony car has been caught lapping at the Nürburgring and it’s not hanging about. In the spy video below the driver sends it over the curbs, bottoms out in the kleines karussell and redlines its thunderous 5.2-liter V-8.

The start of the video gives us a good look at the car’s rear aero and its trunk-mounted transaxle cooler, complete with twin fans to dissipate heat. Are those tailpipes part of the optional Akrapovič titanium system? It’s hard to say from the footage, but they sound like a roar from Thor himself.

The most track-focused Mustang ever appears to put its power down with precision thanks to its race-proven unequal-length double-wishbone plus coilover suspension, fitted with Multimatic’s Adaptive Spool Valve damping. The GTD’s unusual twin spring setup means it can quickly switch from a softer road spring rate and ride height to the stiffer and hunkered-down track setup put to good use on the ‘Ring.

Listen well and you’ll hear the rapid shifts at upwards of 7500 rpm from the eight-speed automatic transmission, which is driven via a carbon propshaft. Moving the transmission to the rear gives the GTD a 50:50 weight distribution for an ideal handling balance. It certainly looks pretty planted as it hauls ass through the Green Hell.

Brembo carbon-ceramic brakes slow the GTD down for the corners and its lightweight magnesium alloy wheels are clearly shod with some seriously sticky rubber as they barely protest even in the tightest of turns.

The first two years of GTD production for the U.S. are already sold out, with more than 7500 people applying to own one of the $325,000 machines. The order book for Europe is opening imminently, and based on this showing at the ‘Ring it’ll fill fast.

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If you had a blank check and the brief to build “The closest thing to a life-like R/C car that you could,” what would it look like? While the outcomes of such a thought exercise are myriad, I’d bet many of you would end up with something that looks an awful lot like this creation from California-based design firm SV Vintage.

Meet the SV Rover, a purpose-built desert racing truck that pushes the boundaries of what an off-roader can do—so much so that the company is boldly proclaiming it to be the world’s first “Hyper Truck.” The SV Rover is loosely based on the design of a classic Land Rover Defender, but to say the two share anything in common is like saying my 75-lb Golden Retriever is “loosely based on” Mystik Dan, the thoroughbred horse that took home this year’s Kentucky Derby.

This two-seat, rear-midengined monster truck wears carbon-fiber bodywork that shrouds a fully bespoke, custom-fabricated tube chassis and space frame with all sorts of neat engineering tricks. In fact, in the walk-around video below, founder and CEO Joe Scarbo explains that the original goal for the SV Rover was to build a truck that was compliant with the Trophy Truck regulations for the SCORE international off-road racing series. It just so happened that once the truck’s development phase was complete, the thing could be legally driven on roads—in California, at least.

The SV Rover first debuted at the F.A.T. International ice race in Aspen, Colorado, earlier this year. If the Scarbo Vintage name sounds familiar, recall that the outfit is also responsible for a Corvette-engined mid-60s F1 tribute car, aptly named the SVF1, as well as the bonkers SV RSR 911 restomod race car.

So what all is hiding beneath that bodacious bodywork? The magic really starts with the suspension, arguably the most important system for an off-road vehicle. The SV Rover boasts inboard pushrod suspension at both ends enabling 30 inches of wheel travel at each corner. The ride height is fully adjustable thanks to a four-corner air-ride system that compliments the massive, remote reservoir dampers. The system enables you to optimize ground clearance for rock crawling, where you want as much space as possible between your vehicle and the earth, and for off-road racing, where a lower center of gravity is better suited to desert hijinks.

More than just the damper system, though, the brilliance here is in how the suspension works with the chassis—or rather, as part of the chassis. The front and rear differential carriers are both chassis nodes, meaning that the suspension components bolt into those carriers rather than to other points on the chassis. This technique is common in R/C cars and gives the resulting machine increased wheel travel and articulation—Scarbo cites the Traxxas Revo as a big influence for this design.

Unlike those R/C cars, though, the SV Rover had to make room for actual passengers in the interior. To accommodate the added packaging constraints, the front dampers are positioned ahead of the inboard rocker arms instead of behind them, like you’d see if you popped the bodywork of one of those Traxxas cars.

On the other side of that little passenger compartment, you’ll find the business end of this brute. Scarbo Vintage will build you an SV Rover with your choice of two very distinct powertrains. Your first option is an 1100-hp supercharged V-8 setup with a 65-gallon fuel tank positioned beneath the cabin area. If you’d rather, you can also spec your SV Rover with a 750-kW EV powertrain that draws from a 75-kWh lithium-ion battery pack that, conveniently, sits in that same protected enclosure below the floor. The V-8 will get an 8-speed paddle-shifted automatic transmission, while the EV variant does without a dedicated gearbox. Scarbo says that for the V-8 configuration, the total weight for the SV Rover will still ring in below 4500 lbs, which is pretty impressive.

Both powertrains will propel the SV Rover in two-wheel- or four-wheel-drive, selectable by the driver. The two-speed transfer case is divorced from the transmission and positioned in the front in both configurations, but the choice was made specifically to accommodate the EV drivetrain. The front and rear differentials are selectable locking, depending on your crawling or cruising needs.

Despite all that capability, the interior of the SV Rover looks like a fine place to spend some time. The fully digital cockpit incorporates two screens—a 12.3-inch unit ahead of the driver and a 12.8-inch unit off on the center of the dashboard for multimedia duties. There are even a few comfort amenities such as power-locking doors and windows, and climate control.

So, what will all this goodness run you? Unsurprisingly, it won’t come cheap. Pricing starts at a heady $1.5M, though each vehicle is configured for a specific client, so the final price tag could ring in a bit lower or much higher, depending on what the buyer wants. At least it’s not a lump sum payment, however; Scarbo Vintage says each build will take about 10 months to complete. A deposit of $500,000 is due upon completion of your order, with another $500K due when the rolling chassis is fitted with the suspension and drivetrain components. The remaining balance is due when a client takes possession of their SV Rover.

Be sure to check out the walkaround video below, where Scarbo reveals all sorts of interesting tidbits about what went into building such an audacious machine.

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Put yourself in the shoes of a product planner at Ford during the 1980s. It must have been a great gig by the time 1985 came around, when this particular Lincoln Continental was in production. After all, your company’s stock price has tripled since the beginning of the decade. People wanted to buy these fresh-faced Fords over their competition, and your role at the company can take some credit for it.

Every year since 1981 had been a smashing success, and it was only a matter of time before everyone knew it. The 1981 Ford Escort “World Car” was a gamble that paid off with over 400,000 units sold in 1985 alone. The 1982 Continental was a brilliant blend of cost-engineered downsizing and flagship Fox Body engineering, with sales five times higher than the outgoing Versailles. (An admittedly low bar, but still a noteworthy accomplishment.)

The 1983 Thunderbird was a bellwether for the revolution of aerodynamic design and European-ish road manners, while the 1983 Ranger sold over a quarter million units in its freshman year. This was definitely a good time to work in Dearborn.

The hits kept coming. In 1984, something on par with the Ranger’s success happened for the Lincoln brand. The Continental Mark VII didn’t necessarily set the world on fire, but it provided a new baseline for how a personal luxury coupe should look and perform. To compare the Mark VII to a 4.1-liter Cadillac Eldorado is disingenuous. It’s an insult to mention one and the same breath as a K-car based Chrysler LeBaron. It was closer to a Mercedes SEC (C126) than anything from America.

Continuing that Ford truck analogy for Lincoln in the 1980s, if the composite-headlight Mark VII was a fresh-faced Ranger, then the wildly popular Town Car was akin to the iconic F-150.

That puts the 1984-87 Continental and its retro Rococo styling in a difficult spot, as its 1984 redesign wasn’t terribly different than the now-dated, neoclassic 1982 model. It threaded a difficult needle, getting lost in all the hype and fame given to other Fords of the era.

This is where I mention Project Valentino, as it has parts from a yellow-ish beige 1984 Continental donor car. The 1984-87 body style never did it for me, but it certainly possessed items that I needed for a restomod. The later Fox Contis are odd mix of give and take from my jaded viewpoint, likely best explained in a list of attributes. So here are the items Lincoln added to the redesigned 1984 Continental:

• Four corner, computer controlled air suspension
• Rear anti-roll bar
• EEC-IV engine computer
• Power front vent windows
• Power trunk pull-down
• A front end almost as ramp-like as the rear
• Bumpers that look suspiciously similar to the Mark VII
• Multi-function overhead console
• New door trim with (optional) real wood veneers
• Power recliners and (optional) seat heaters
• Rear seat heat ducts
• Push button electronic climate control

To aid the transition, here’s what they “took” from the 1983 model:

• Aluminum hood
• Engine temperature gauge
• External, backlit thermometer
• Spring-loaded chrome fender trim (to give the bumpers a wraparound look, but emerge unscathed in a frontal or rearward impact)
• Aircraft style, adjustable reading lights for rear passengers
• Bespoke cast iron front wishbone suspension

Those front wishbones were then donated to the European-influenced, turbocharged 1984 Mustang SVO. Knowing that fact brings some irony to the following Motorweek Retro Review: While it’s about the 1985 Continental, the video starts with the Mustang Vignale show car based on said SVO.

Was this brilliant work of foreshadowing actually an editing choice on the part of Motorweek’s Social Media team? Do they love 1982-83 Continental engineering as much as yours truly, or is this all just coincidence?

All joking aside, Motorweek host John Davis pushes hard on advancements “that few foreign cars can offer.” That might be a stretch to some, but he proved the point by discussing the innovative air suspension and spent an inordinate amount of time on the unique ABS brakes for 1985. The latter included everything from detailed explanations to brilliant B-roll footage of ABS in action.(Some literature suggests anti-lock brakes were a mid-year upgrade to 1985 Continentals and Mark VIIs, and only if they were not equipped with the BMW-Steyr turbodiesel engine. I suspect this Motorweek video was filmed closer to 1986, when the Corvette also received ABS as standard equipment.)

But the 1985 Conti’s hardware was never tuned for blatant high performance, so explaining all the interior gadgets that owners can show off to friends with flagship BMW and Mercedes products (with more austere interiors) was a smart play. Motorweek also noted the clumsy AOD transmission performance, and called the styling “neo-nauseous.”

Considering this is the era of the ballyhooed Ford Taurus, such a phrase is a journalistic sick burn worthy of a TikTok throw down. And Motorweek likely got away with it by Ford’s judgmental eyes, as the deck lid emblem on this particular 1985 Continental Givenchy designer series suggests it came from a Lincoln-Mercury dealership. (Continentals in Ford’s press fleet wouldn’t have an emblem on the driver’s side of the trunk.)

Watching this Motorweek Retro Review reminded me how the air-sprung 1984-87 Continentals had the potential to be so much more. It was a wasted opportunity for Lincoln, as 1985 could have been the year to add a legit “touring suspension” to the Continental. It could have blown away other efforts to add performance to the American luxury sedan, thanks to the magic of being based on Ford’s Fox Platform.

Witness the 1984 Continental Valentino in the photo above. It was a safety car when the radical Mark VII PPG Pace Car was made for the paint-company-sponsored IndyCar race series. Someone had the bright idea to make a souped up Continental with color-matched BBS wheels for the sake of safety. If only someone at Ford did this for the sake of mass production!

Indeed, there were a firmer set of air springs, shocks, sway bars, and wider alloy wheels for better handling just lying around in the Mark VII LSC parts bin. Not to mention a faster steering ratio for the superior road feel available on the Thunderbird Turbo Coupe. And don’t forget the high output 5.0 engine with tubular exhaust headers, dual exhausts, and dual intake snorkels already in production for the Mustang GT and Mark VII LSC. That provided a respectable 165 horsepower: Ten more ponies than a 380SE Benz and only eight less than the spritely BMW 733i. The motor’s extra punch could be multiplied by Ford’s selection of quicker axle ratios for that Fox body rear axle, not to mention a readily available “Trac-Lok” limited slip differential for aggressive corner carving.

Imagine you are that product planner from the beginning of the story, and the calculus it took to not make a high performance Continental the year after its lukewarm redesign. Sure, there’d be some validation testing and corporate hoops to overcome, but all the parts were just lying there at your disposal.

I coulda built a contenda I tells ya!

I couda scared Mercedes and BMW owners if Ford had the nerve to let me!

Considering the gravity of the risks taken elsewhere at Ford in the late Malaise Era, making a Hot Rod Continental feels like another no-brainer. It’s a shame that missed opportunities are just that, and that we can’t always get what we want. But now you know another reason why Project Valentino came to fruition, as wrongs must be addressed: Better late than never!

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Dodge is planning some new thrills for the ninth installment of its annual Roadkill Nights this summer. Once again, Woodward Avenue will be the venue for legally sanctioned drag racing as the Direct Connection Grudge Race pits six competitors against each other in fresh builds they should be wrapping up about now. Some of the biggest changes at the event will reflect recent shakeups at Dodge.

To highlight the company’s shift in powertrains, the Direct Connection Grudge Race competitors will all be using the HurriCrate, the crate engine version of the turbocharged 3.0-liter twin-turbo inline-six powering Ram, Jeep, and Dodge trucks, SUVs, and upcoming performance cars. This will also mark the first Roadkill Nights without Tim Kuniskis at Dodge’s helm. Kuniskis was instrumental in getting the grassroots event up and running and was fully behind the ambitious plan of drag racing on Woodward. Dodge seems to be in good hands, however, as Matt McAlear is at the reins and has big plans for the event.

“For nearly a decade Roadkill Nights has brought horsepower enthusiasts together for a celebration of performance like none other, and the 2024 event will add to the legacy of Dodge and MotorTrend’s horsepower circus,” said Matt McAlear, Dodge brand CEO. “In addition to drag racing and the Direct Connection Grudge Race, we have surprises in store this year that are sure to send a charge through all Roadkill Nights attendees.”

For more information on Roadkill Nights, and to track the Direct Connection Grudge Race competitors, visit DodgeGarage.com.

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Keeping classic vehicles up and running isn’t always easy, and these days, that’s just as true for shops as it is for DIYers. I recently talked to four owners or operators of restoration shops to find out what their top business challenges are in 2024. Some of the answers I received were not a surprise. Frankly, everyone has been talking about finding qualified labor in almost every field. But some of the answers I got were eye-openers. 

Every independent restoration shop operates differently. Some shops are very well-established with a long track record, and a few have major national or worldwide concours wins under their belts. Some are more focused on their local area, building a reputation as well as a customer base. Many shops also tend to specialize in a particular field, such as engine and transmission rebuilds, paintwork, or a specific type or decade of cars. In 2024, even full-service shops tend to utilize independent rebuilders or repair shops for specific skills such as radiator repair and rebuilding, powder coating, or rebuilding clocks or radios.

The repair, not just restoration business is also thriving at many restoration shops. Those services that might have been handled by a local service station 20 or 30 years ago—tune-ups, hose and belt replacement or air conditioning repairs—now represent part of the day-to-day work docket of many restoration shops.

Adam Hammer, owner of Hammer and Dolly Automotive Restorations LLC in Traverse City, MI, sees the value in doing many of the small jobs alongside the full restorations that they also perform. The “small work adds more volume, and helps to make sure that everyone in the shop keeps busy” says Hammer.

Hammer, a graduate of the McPherson College Automotive Restoration program, has been in business as Hammer and Dolly for 13 years, has 10 employees and offers services ranging from full restorations to maintenance. Challenges include increasing costs for parts and equipment, as well as labor. In addition to increased cost, backorders for those parts is also an ongoing issue. Hammer also mentioned environmental challenges, as some regularly used compounds such as paints and solvents are no longer sold, making substitutions, often seen as harder to work with, a necessity. As to finding qualified workers, Hammer says “find the right person with aptitude to grow the skills, and we can teach the skill.”

Husband and wife Ed and Melissa Sweeny are the co-owners of Proper Noise, LTD, a restoration shop located in Mount Penn, PA that specializes in both postwar British and Brass Era cars. In business for seven years, there are six employees including the Sweeneys. They specialize in the mechanical side of a restoration, and will outsource paint as well as some other areas of restoration if needed. When asked about current challenges, Ed focused on a few areas such as the quality of parts that they source from vendors. The issue is serious enough that Sweeney has turned in-house to scanning and 3D printing parts when necessary. Another challenge? Finding correct tires post-pandemic for those cars that use odd sizes, including many of the Brass Era vehicles he works on. “No one can go into production for just a small amount of tires, making it too expensive for the supplier, it becomes impossible for them to make any money,” says Ed.  

Another problem facing all of these small shops? “It’s always hard to say no to clients, but sometimes scheduling work can be very tough.” Sweeny is talking about “job creep”, where a car comes in for brakes, for example, but, upon inspection, tie rods and shocks and more are needed, turning a few days repair into a week, or longer.

Mechanical Arts, located in Tenants Harbor, ME, is owned by Philip Reinhardt, also a recent McPherson College graduate. In business for four years, the shop has three employees. Specializing in repairs and restorations of pre-1980s vehicles, with a sweet spot for cars of the 1930s through 1960s, Reinhardt is facing another common problem in the restoration world: Running out of space to work on client’s cars. Their 3000 square foot shop is overwhelmed with customer cars, forcing staff to “play musical cars.” Although he characterizes this as a “good problem to have” Reinhardt hopes to expand soon, with plans to more than double the size of Mechanical Arts. Reinhardt also sees the “job creep” on client cars which can make effective scheduling tough. “Maine doesn’t have a State Inspection for older cars, so a car coming in for a routine service can have a completely worn out front-end” said Reinhardt. This type of problem is especially important to owners who are new to the old car world, some of whom have grown up in an era when going 10,000 miles between services is expected.

Finally, Eric Peterson is the manager of Leydon Restorations in Lahaska, PA, a shop that has been in business for just over 50 years. Peterson has worked there for 16 years, and been manager for 13. Leydon is known almost exclusively for mechanical restorations, which you can expect to see (or hear) at concours lawns around the globe. Peterson has a bit different take on finding talent. With the advent of television “rebuilder” shows and pop culture expectations of the mythical 30-minute total restoration, occasionally managing expectations of potential new hires is a challenge. “The realities of the work-a-day life at a shop is much different than what some might expect. You can’t have someone who is only interested in the glitz and glamor side of  the restoration.” That said, Peterson reminds us that good people are an investment, and that he feels very fortunate to have a great crew aboard.

Like other shops, Peterson laments the quality of parts that are currently available. “The quality keeps getting worse. I have one car that has had three ‘bad from new’ condensers. Few things are of the lasting quality (that we used to see). Manufacturers are just looking for the cheapest way, the least expensive supplier. Charge us more the first time if you have to, but give us a part that works!” 

Peterson also brought up a theme that ran through just about all of my discussions with restorers. Perhaps the biggest problem facing restorers in 2024 is simply finding the right specialty shop that can do the smaller jobs that used to be easier to farm out. A town that used to have three, four or five radiator shops might have one remaining. The owner is usually older, too, and often looking for someone to take over. It’s the same deal at a radio repair facility or that automobile clock repair shop. Finding someone who can reline brakes, grind cams or even make replacement keys is becoming increasingly more difficult.

The takeaways are twofold: For the consumer, understand that constraints are tightening for the shops that keep your ride on the road, so once you’ve found a good one, be patient with them. For the entrepreneurs who might be reading:  Perhaps you should set your focus on becoming a specialty supplier. Find a need and fill it. And do it soon, because the demand is strong.

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There are seemingly endless secrets in land-speed racing, which makes sense considering we have been running cars as fast as possible in a straight line for over a century. Beyond the obvious wisdom about adjusting for the environment (temperature, air pressure, race surface) and minimizing aerodynamic drag, there seems to be a very deep well of knowledge filled with solutions to other problems unique to land-speed racing. Case in point is the video below, which dropped into my feed a few days ago.

Sometimes the YouTube algorithm is terrifying. It knows me better than I know myself, and I see the proof when it serves up a video with just a few thousand views from a channel that has only posted that single video. I won’t pretend I haven’t wasted a lot of time-consuming piles of content on the internet, but low-view videos aren’t typically what draw me. But the thumbnail image of a massive chunk of billet aluminum with the text “555mph” sang a siren song. I clicked, expecting the video to be clickbait.

It wasn’t.

The video was posted by Traction Products, a business started in 1963 by Peter and Albert Weismann to engineer and produce solutions for high-performance drivetrains. One such problem is the transaxle for a car that is about to attempt a land-speed record. That component is exactly what is discussed here, from the mechanical sequential shifter to the extremely narrow axles to the fascinating reason Traction Products chose not to use a ring-and-pinion setup to turn the power 90 degrees.

The common solutions for multiplying torque and transferring power work really well up to a point, and that point is well under the sort of output and top speeds that this team is working with: 500 mph and thousands, not hundreds, of horsepower. No, that wasn’t a typo: It takes big power to get a vehicle most of the way to Mach 1 on the ground. Multiplying that power through a dozen gears that can be power-shifted is an interesting solution in itself, but even more interesting is that the gearbox serves as the mount for the steering rack, which does not transfer power ring-and-pinion style to the axles.

A ring and pinion setup creates a lot of force and, as I learned from this video, that force is transferred to the chassis of the land-speed race car. That means the car would be fighting itself just as much as the conditions of the race course. So the Weismann transaxle uses a bevel drive to turn the thousands of horsepower, a decision that keeps the twisting force inside the billet case of the transaxle. Voilà: the chassis works like it should rather than fighting itself.

There are all kinds of problems in racing, yet few people get to chase solutions with the mad scientist minds that Traction Products does. It’s fascinating to see a company share its ideas and experiences so freely and we can only hope for more videos and stories from this shop in the future.

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On June 21, 1974, which was 50 years ago this month, eccentric oil and gas millionaire Stanley Marsh 3 (as in “the third,” but that’s one of the things that made him eccentric) and the crew from the Ant Farm in San Francisco completed work on Cadillac Ranch outside Amarillo, Texas.

Along with The Big Texan Steak House—home of the “World Famous 72-ounce Steak Challenge,” where if you can eat the whole steak in one hour (along with the shrimp cocktail, baked potato, salad and a buttered roll) it’s free—the Cadillac Ranch has become one of Amarillo’s top tourist attractions, an admittedly short list.

Really, that’s not fair. Amarillo was once known as the “Helium Capital of the World,” and it operates one of the largest meat-packing areas in the United States, and it’s also the home of Pantex, the only nuclear weapons factory in the country (thanks, Wikipedia!).

You have about as much chance of making sense of Cadillac Ranch as you do finishing a Big Texan steak which, incidentally, 11 percent of the people who attempt it actually do. Sort of a Texas tribute to England’s Stonehenge, except Stonehenge is about 2800 years older, Cadillac Ranch consists of 10 vintage Cadillacs (they weren’t “vintage” in 1974, they were just old) buried nose-first, at a 60-degree angle, in a field alongside Interstate 40.

That field was way out in the country when Cadillac Ranch was constructed, but as Amarillo grew, the Cadillacs were dug up in 1997 and planted in another field on I-40 two miles west of the original, and that’s where they are today.

The idea essentially belonged to the Ant Farm, formed in 1968 in San Francisco by architects Doug Michels, who died at age 59 in 2003, and Chip Lord. They were eventually joined by New Orleans artist Hudson Marquez. They called themselves the Ant Farm in recognition of the plan they made to become underground [as in “ants”] architects, “ready to restructure the built environment of the counterculture,” Lord wrote in an obituary of his friend Michels, who died while climbing to a whale observation point in Eden, Australia.

If you weren’t around then, the “counterculture” was big in 1968.

One columnist described the Ant Farm’s projects, including Cadillac Ranch, as “half art, half science, half social commentary and half outright prank.” They include “Media Burn,” in which a Cadillac Eldorado was driven through a pyramid wall of burning televisions, and “The Eternal Frame,” a surprisingly serious video reenactment of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, in which Michels, sporting a Jackie Kennedy wig, plays the First Lady. Stanley Marsh 3 even plays Texas Governor John Connally.

Marsh turned out to be the perfect partner for the Ant Farm. For the Cadillac Ranch project, the members of the Ant Farm mailed letters to various eccentric millionaires around the country, asking for funding. Marsh reportedly responded in a letter written in 36-point type, roughly the size of the headline on this story, saying that he was interested, but only if the project took place in Amarillo.

This is a good place to mention that the Ant Farm members really liked cars in general, Cadillacs in particular. After all, counterculture or not, in August of 1968, Michels and his wife, Carol, arrived in San Francisco in a lime green Cadillac convertible. From an article in Texas Highways: ‘“At Ant Farm, we were car crazy,” Hudson Marquez recalls. “It was always drawing cars, collaging cars, making art with cars. I had an idea to make seed packs where you could plant seeds that would grow cars. You could have a field of ’49 Fords or ’59 Cadillacs that would grow out of the ground.’”

So the Ant Farm temporarily moved to Amarillo. Marsh would pay them $2000 and give them a budget of $3000 to buy 10 Cadillacs, plus $250 to rent a backhoe. The Ant Farm started looking for cheap Cadillacs. The 10 they found ranged from 1949 to 1964 models.

It took five days to bury the Cadillacs. According to the Amarillo Globe-News, Marsh—who lived with his attorney wife on a 262-acre estate he named Toad Hall, after the residence of Mr. Toad, the fictional character in the 1908 novel The Wind in the Willows—would show up with fried chicken and beer.

On July 21, 1974, and every 10 years since, there was a party at Cadillac Ranch. For that inaugural party, the Ant Farm members rented tuxedoes and celebrated with Marsh 3’s friends, then promptly returned to San Francisco to work on other irreverence.

To passersby on Interstate 40, Cadillac Ranch was an unbilled surprise. There were no signs, no explanation, no road to the unconventional art exhibit. Nobody outside of Amarillo knew what it was.

That changed when CBS newsman Charles Kuralt, who toured the country in a motorhome collecting stories for his popular “On the Road” segments that aired on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, discovered Cadillac Ranch, and made it famous in a 1975 broadcast.

Here’s a link to that story. It features Kuralt and Marsh 3, who is wearing his trademark “Mad Hatter” top hat, telling Kuralt that Cadillac Ranch is “the most important roadside attraction of our generation.” What’s amazing about Kuralt’s story is that it shows the Cadillacs as they were then, before tourists began bringing cans of spray paint and covering the cars with graffiti.

According to the Texas Highways story, Stanley Marsh 4, son of Stanley Marsh 3, has placed a merchandise truck at the site selling, among other things, cans of spray paint to tourists who forgot to bring their own.

In its 50 years, Cadillac Ranch has become a legitimate exhibit of abstract art, even spawning imitators, most notably Airstream Ranch next to Interstate 4 in Dover, Florida, where Frank Bates planted seven and a half Airstream trailers, as in 7.5, commemorating the 75 years Airstream had been in business. Bates, a Texas native inspired by Cadillac Ranch, was an Airstream dealer, known for ads that showed him dressed in a black and white cow suit, dancing and holding up cards that suggest you can save some MOO-lah at Bates RV. But neighbors complained, and Bates’ efforts to have Airsteam Ranch declared art, in the same fashion as Cadillac Ranch, failed. The county gave him 30 days to remove the trailers. He did. That was in 2008.

As for Stanley Marsh 3, he continued his puckish ways, like the time he interrupted a live Weather Channel broadcast from Amarillo when he performed a Native American snow dance in front of the cameras while wearing an Indian headdress and a fringed jacket. Here’s a link to it. He also had hundreds of diamond-shaped signs posted around Amarillo, an effort he called the Dynamite Museum, with a variety of often-nonsensical messages such as “The Wine Has Eaten Away My Brain,” and “Wild Packs Of Chihuahuas Dragged Conquistadors From Their Horses And Ate Them For Snacks,” and “His Father Was A Rancher But He Could Not Eat The 72 Ouncer.”

Despite his antics, he and his wife, Wendy, were highly regarded in the community for decades of philanthropy.

Marsh 3 suffered strokes in 2011 that left him incapacitated. Unfortunately, his legacy was tainted by a series of lawsuits first filed in 2012 that alleged Marsh paid at least a dozen underage male teens for sex. In 2013, he was indicted on eight felony counts of sexual performance by a child, four counts of sexual assault of a child and two counts of indecency with a child. It never went to trial. He died in a hospice in 2014 at the age of 76.

Cadillac Ranch, though, has a life of its own, though most of the cars are rusting into the ground, held together by coats of Krylon. And as for Marsh 3: In 1994, he was asked what he wanted on his tombstone. He said, “Thanks, everybody. I had a good time.”

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How does a young boy living in Sicily become interested in Porsches? How does he grow up to become a master Porsche mechanic? 

The Targa Florio.

Gaspare Fasulo was born on the island of Sicily in a little town south of Palermo, Castellammare Del Golfo, population 3000. His father was an automotive machinist, and two uncles were mechanics. Fasulo’s little hometown didn’t have much in the way of exotic cars—mostly Fiats, some Lancias puttering about, and every now and then, an Alfa. 

Every year, however, the Targa Florio came to town. This was a big occasion. Fasulo’s father would put on his best suit, his mother would put on a pretty dress, they’d put young Gaspare in his finest outfit, and off they would go to witness the howling parade of race cars laying siege to their town as they lapped the island.

You might think a Sicilian would be cheering on the machines from the mainland, but it wasn’t the Ferrari Dino 206S, the 250 LM, or even the Alfa Romeo T33/2 that captured young Fasulo’s imagination. It was the Porsches. It’s not that he didn’t care for the Italian cars—in fact, he loved them—but they just didn’t inspire him like the screaming 911s, 910s, and 907s. To see a 907 back then flashing past you, inches away, was like seeing a spaceship today. There was just something about the sound and the looks that got under the boy’s skin, and it would stay with him.

Gaspare Fasulo was still young when he and his family arrived in the United States in 1974. The first picture that graced the 7-year-old’s bedroom wall was of a Porsche 911, and it stayed there for years.

His father’s uncle had come to America ahead of them and had started an Alfa Romeo shop in Brooklyn, called Autodelta. This was where the family worked. By the time Fasulo was in junior high school, he was hanging around the shop, and by high school he was working there in the afternoons, as long as he promised his mother that all his schoolwork was done. He’d tell her it was complete so that he could get over to the shop, but his schoolwork mostly got done late at night. And he was always at the shop on Saturdays, honing his mechanical chops and learning everything there was to know about Alfas. But his true love was still Porsche.

At the age of 15, before he could even drive, Fasulo bought his first Porsche, a 1966 912. A buddy of his had told him about the car. The 912 had been languishing in a body shop in Coney Island for years, the subject of a restoration gone bad. Fasulo took a peek and put down eight grand for the car—big money for a 15-year-old, but he had earned it. The car was in pieces: The fenders were off, the glass and interior were out, the engine and transmission were on the floor, and there was some missing hardware, but Fasulo knew he could take it on, and he proceeded to put the car back together mechanically.

While he was reviving the 912, a buddy told him about a shop in Elmsford, New York, called Rennwerke, that specialized in Porsche repair. Fasulo made up a detailed list of what he was missing for his build and took a drive up to Westchester.

At the shop, he met with John “Cheech” Fernandes. Fasulo handed over his list of parts. Cheech took a look at the youngster and they talked about the project as Cheech got him his parts. “If you need anything else,” Cheech said, “let me know.”

Fasulo spent the next year or so working on the 912 as time allowed, then took another ride back out to Westchester, this time with a stack of Polaroids, to show the car’s progress to Cheech. Cheech was impressed at what the kid had achieved. As he left, Cheech wished him luck, but Fasulo got the sense that Cheech didn’t think he would ever finish the build. But the next time Fasulo went up to Elmsford, he arrived in his newly restored Porsche. Cheech was impressed.

“If you want to work for me part-time or on the weekends,” Cheech told him, “I always need good help.” Fasulo  stayed at Autodelta, but he and Cheech remained friends. He kept buying parts from Rennwerke, and in the mid-1980s, at age 18, he finally jumped ship to go work there. 

He started at the bottom, worked his way up, and was a fixture of the Rennwerke shop until 2000, when he left to go work for DeMan Motorsport in Nyack, New York. There Fasulo learned a great deal about race cars, race prep, and tuning engines on a dyno, and he spent more and more time at race tracks. By now he was married, and a daughter came along, and then another. But he was hardly ever home. He would leave early in the morning and arrive home late at night, and he never had a chance to see his children. Things had to change. In 2004 he found his way back to Rennwerke and was there for the next 10 years. The family even moved from Brooklyn to Westchester in 2007 in order to shorten his commute. 

During his second stint at Rennwerke, Fasulo was introduced to car dealer Chris Turner by Turner’s long-time friend and fellow dealer Mark Starr, of Hunting Ridge Motors. Turner wanted work done on his underperforming 964 RS, so Gaspare went through it, gave it his magic touch, and gave Turner back a different car.

Turner was so thrilled he told Starr he didn’t want anyone else working on his cars. This was the start of a long line of Turner’s Porsches coming into Fasulo’s care, along with other air-cooled models that Turner and Starr bought together to sell.

Finally, however, Fasulo came to an impasse. Things were no longer working out in his second go at Rennwerke, and it was time for a change. He left in 2017, began planning for the future, and went searching for space.

In the meantime, Chris Turner showed up at Rennwerke to check on one of his cars and was told Fasulo no longer worked there. Turner immediately got in touch to see what the problem was. “I’m starting my own shop,” Fasulo told him.

Turner asked Gaspare to come to see him the next day before he did anything. He owned a number of dealerships—surely Fasulo could come work for him. So they toured Turner’s McLaren dealership, but it didn’t seem the right fit, and there really wasn’t enough space for Fasulo to work. Turner then took him to his Lamborghini dealership, where he led him into a brand-new shop: The front half was for the Italian machines, and the back half was being used for prep, but it could become Fasulo’s domain. Five lifts, LED lighting, tile floor, A/C, two garage doors, the works.

Fasulo was interested, and Turner told him, “If we’re going to do this, you must come up with a name. It’s going to be your shop. You’re going to run it, so you name it.” Turner was ready to move and make things official. Gaspare Fasulo gave it some thought and then took his name and the German word for “work”: Gaswerks. The logo is derived from a 911 crankshaft pulley; if you look closely, you can see the TDC marks and the timing marks.

And like that, Turner had his own in-house air-cooled guru to take care of his machines, but the word got out about where Fasulo had gone, and within the first week of opening, there were 911s and 356s waiting for the master’s touch.

To keep up with demand, Fasulo surrounded himself with techs who had the same mindset, passion, and drive as he did. He and his team make Porsches sing, and they’re given the freedom to create some special machines, like a 911R recreation, a 914/6 GT tribute, and the car Turner always wanted to build—a 934 clone. Turner dreams it, he and Fasulo sit down together and design it, then Fasulo and his team make it a reality.

Five years in, Gaswerks is humming right along, always busy with service work and special builds, and Turner and Fasulo take time to run their creations in rallies and on track. The eventual plan is to separate Gaswerks from the Lamborghini dealership to create a standalone facility, with a proprietary engine room, a service area, a showroom, and fewer interruptions.

Over the years, Fasulo has worked with and learned from some great people, and most of his knowledge doesn’t rely on a computer to tell him what’s wrong. He’s been able to share that personal knowledge along the way. Case in point: A rough-running 911 came into Gaswerks. One of his techs was trying to figure out how he would start the diagnoses to determine which cylinder wasn’t firing. “I showed him the simplest method possible that I learned from an old drag racer I worked with,” Fasulo says. “I filled a spray bottle full of cold, soapy water and warmed up the car. We went under the car and I had my tech start spraying the header tubes. The first one sizzled when sprayed, the second one as well, but the third didn’t, and the rest did. Bingo, we found the bad cylinder.” No electronic gizmos required.

“You have to be mentally in tune with the car,” Fasulo adds. But even with all his knowledge, he still hits the books. He goes home and does deep dives into technical manuals to learn all the ins and outs—the minutiae—of all things automotive generally and Porsche specifically.

In 1988, after Fasulo sold that 912 of his, he picked up a 1975 2.7 Targa with a Sportomatic. It was not a great car, but because he can never leave anything alone, he took out the automatic and put a five-speed in its place. He also swapped out the 2.7 for a 3.2. This was not something normally done 30 years ago, but for Fasulo, it was natural. His next car was a black-on-black ’88 Carrera cabriolet. He replaced the stock exhaust with a hideously loud muffler. “My ears would be ringing after a short drive, and my neighbors hated me!” He wishes he could go back in time and tell young Gaspare what to do sometimes.

Next came a Ruf 930, purchased because he wanted something with power and boost. Eventually he rebuilt the powertrain, and it is still in his collection. These days, to satisfy his urge to go fast, he runs a 997 GT3 Cup car in Porsche Club of America races. But when he’s looking for a change of pace on track, Fasulo gets behind the wheel of Turner’s Porsche-powered Sabel fiberglass special, or his VW Empi Crusader. And when he really wants to get back to his roots, he races a 912 in the Vintage Sports Car Club of America. He knows that going fast is cool, but going fast in a slow car is cooler.

That first 912 was the car that started Gaspare Fasulo down a lifelong path. All his friends were into muscle cars and didn’t understand his attraction to the little German machine. The engine was small. It was in the wrong place. They didn’t get it, but he did.

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Last week we asked the Hagerty Community about when they decide its time to take a break from working on a project. Not necessarily quitting, just merely quitting for the day.

Your answers were insightful, and are likely to give everyone reading some personal validation in their own circumstances. One particular response was aimed directly at my comment about throwing in the towel when a hydraulic lift fails. Hagerty Community member JW suggested a better alternative:

Lifts are a frustration that I don’t want to deal with if I don’t have to. Which is why when I design my dream garage it’s going to have an inspection pit so general maintenance things are free from the stress of worrying about 4000 lbs falling on my head.

Not going to lie, my dream garage would have enough space for both an inspection pit and enough vehicle lifts to store all the cars I wanted as a child. If only dreams could come true … in the meantime, let’s get back to the things that make you “call it a day” on your project:

Don’t Try To Get It Right

Jeepcj5: Dread. I never understood “running when parked” until I did just that because I dreaded a complete front end rebuild on a car. I was afraid of it snowballing into more, so I kept putting it off. Time, life, kids, etc. and before I knew it 10 years had passed and the car hadn’t moved.

My 12 year old son had no memories of the car ever running. One day last year I decided it was time to do the repair and either drive it or sell it. I think it took a Saturday and a few evenings and it was done. We’ve been enjoying it and aren’t going to sell it. I try to take Freiburger’s motto to combat my dread now—don’t get it right, just get it running.

Take a Break and Tough It Out?

(Several interesting points came out of this particular thread, so we are publishing them in series, unedited.)

hyperv6: My limits are general: Lack of parts at 1 AM and no one open, or the major loss of blood or related major loss of flesh.

Otherwise just keep on trucking. You can’t let things rattle you or you will never get it fixed. If frustrated, just stop get a drink of cold water, look for advice on Youtube and get back at it. If I had things going wrong rattle me too much I would never get much done. All 15 min jobs take an hour.

Joe King: Agreed with parts availability and tending to a wound, but I don’t know that I fully agree with that last point. There is little glory (or sense of accomplishment) to me in toughing it out when something just won’t go my way, unless that means I need to hitch a ride to work the next day. I can’t tell you how many times not calling it a night has resulted in something even more broken than when I started.

hyperv6: Well, my mind set comes from making a living working on cars. You just can’t walk away from a customer’s car. It takes a degree of emotional intelligence or maturity to keep things in check and you just have to learn it when working on cars for a living. Walking away is not an option.

Joe King: I honestly didn’t get the impression that was the mindset from the “lack of parts at 1 AM piece”. I know few mechanics who are that dedicated or hate their families that much to stay at work that late.

Anyways, I think 99% of the readers here come from a hobbyist background and the professional mechanic mindset doesn’t need to apply and the “some people can and some people can’t” comment somewhat gives me the impression that your view is that if you can’t tough it out, then you shouldn’t be in the shop.

Either way, I get your view, but I am just not sure it is applicable to most of the people in this space. If you have the luxury to walk away, regroup and hit it again fresh in an hour or two or even the next day, then there is a lot of honor in that.

Know your limitations

hyperv6: The greatest key to success here is also know your limitations. Be it knowledge or even the lack of correct tools to do the job. Know the job before you take off the first part. Today Youtube is a great help, as are forums and other sites that hold info. Like taking a trip read the map before you go not after you get lost same here on working on the vehicle.

“Frustration is what you make of it”

BMD4800: When I used air tools it was time. Now with electrics, it is mostly dictated by what is happening the next day. Frustration is what you make of it. Laugh it off, take a moment and re-examine the scenario.

I keep a box of pawn shop tools that can be cut, welded, bent, or modified for specialty purposes. Fabricating a solution makes it enjoyable too.

Frequency of Cuss Words?

DUB6: There are so many examples and variables that I can’t just cite a “general rule—” but for the most part, I will just know that the limit is reached, and it’s time to stop “for now”. Often, my level of cuss words is an indicator.

Maybe Do Something Else To It Instead?

DUB6: Just this past weekend, I was struggling with removing a buggered key-lock hood pin mechanism. After breaking a drill bit and nearly scratching a shiny hood, I put the tools away, wiped off my fingerprints, and just took the car for a drive. I don’t really need under that hood for awhile, unless I get an engine fire!

Yesterday, a calmed-down me successfully drilled out the offending hood pin and installed a new one. It was obviously the correct thing for me to stop wrestling with it for a few days and go back to it when my frustration level had subsided. I was so happy that I decided that an under hood detailing session was in order!

Well, What Time Is It?

TG: 7:00 PM is my general cutoff point for wrapping up a project for the day. I have enough toys to drive that there is never an extreme need to finish a project today.

When I Feel Like a Kid Again? 


Craig: I know it’s time to stop when I start to feel like I’m an inexperienced angry teenager again. Back then I had to fix it to get to work and there was no YouTube for help. I used brute force and stupidity when anger took intelligence out of the equation. Ha.

Now I have so many luxuries. Time, experience, the internet, alternative transportation. When I start to feel like I did as a kid and this fun hobby isn’t anymore I realize how silly I’m being and take a break. I call a buddy, watch a YouTube video, finally feed myself. I like to channel my inner Stacey David from the show “Trucks!” back in the 90’s. That guy was so prepared, patient, happy, and dedicated to doing a good job. He is always my ideal when I lose my crap.

When The Instructions Become Contradictory

Not old not grumpy: If I am diligently following directions and turn the page on said directions to find they directly contradict what I was told to do on the previous page, I take a break.

When Something Intervenes

John: Actually it’s quitting time when I need a part and can drive another old car to the auto parts store, or when it’s too cold to keep going or when lunch or dinner is prepared by family and continuing would jeopardize that situation.

Cars are fun, getting old cars going is fantastic but rushing to the finish line more often than not results in time wasted, pointless arguments with loved ones and less focus on better fixes, which come from enough time to plan and mentally rehearse an operation.

***

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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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A 1972 Ferrari 246 Dino GTS once owned by rock goddess Cher is currently up for auction.

Cher bought the car new in December 1972 from Hollywood Sports Cars on Hollywood Boulevard and the following March added a CHERS vanity plate, just in case anyone missed her jet black mane flowing in the breeze as she cruised with the roof panel removed.

The Dino is finished in Rosso Chiaro over Nero leather, its 2.4-liter V-6 is fed by triple Weber carbs and it breathes out through an ANSA exhaust system. Cromodora five-lug alloy wheels wearing Michelin XWX tires complete the look. Inside there’s a MOMO steering wheel, Becker audio system and power windows.

Cher’s affair with this particular Ferrari was cut short in spring 1974 when her divorce from Sonny Bono loomed. She sold the car to IMSA racer Chris Cord via Hollywood Sports Cars. Cord didn’t keep it long, but the next owner architect Donald MacDonald looked after it for the next 39 years, keeping it in immaculate condition.

Over the last ten years the current keeper opted to turn back time and fully restore the Dino to its original state. With 65,000 miles on the clock and a complete history file including authentication from Ferrari specialist Marcel Massini, the car is being sold with a mass of memorabilia including LP records and photographs.

This car wasn’t Cher’s only Dino. Not long after she split from Sonny the singer bought a dead ringer GTS, although she then is said to have had George Barris paint it (Am I) blue with white stripes.

At the time of writing the auction on Bring A Trailer had reached $500,000 but as there’s still six days to go before one lucky buyer is able to say I Got You Babe about this fabulous Ferrari.

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Mazda hasn’t offered a car powered by a rotary engine since the last RX-8 ended production in 2012. The rotary engine’s impact on enthusiasts is so great that many still clamor for the chance to own another if one ever comes to fruition. Mazda’s latest news on the subject, from a joint press event with Toyota and Subaru, revealed that a sports car is under consideration. Still, it’s probably not the RX-7 successor we’ve been wishing for.

The two-rotor engine, placed perpendicularly between two sports car tires on the stage during Mazda’s rotary presentation, was not subtle. It pointed to a longitudinal, front-engine car as opposed to the transverse application currently in production in the MX-30 hybrid. It wasn’t just a hint: Mazda admitted that a sports car application was a possibility. Then, when asked directly by CarScoops, a Mazda spokesperson gave this nebulous answer, “There are various issues that need to be addressed, including emissions compliance, before it can be marketed. We believe that the first priority is to clear the technical hurdles. Once that is done, various things will become a reality.”

Ah, yes, “various things.” That’s settles it. While there’s not much to go on, we’re still happy about the possibility of a rotary-powered sports car becoming a reality. That reality might not be ideal, however.

Rotary engines offer plenty of benefits that make them a great choice for a sports car: they’re light, compact, and use fewer moving parts than a comparable piston engine. Because they don’t have reciprocating parts, they can more easily rev high and churn out a lot of power for their size. Sounds great, right? Unfortunately, there are also a lot of downsides to the basic rotary design: they typically offer poor fuel economy, their emissions tend to be high, their apex seals take a tremendous beating, and they’re difficult to cool. As promised earlier this year, Mazda has a 36-engineer team dedicated to rotary engine development to combat those deficits.

One way that Mazda has been chipping away at emissions and fuel efficiency has been by eliminating direct human control of their operation. With the rotary engine decoupled from the driver, it can act as a generator for a hybrid powertrain and operate only under the most efficient conditions. That is a great use for a power-dense engine, but it doesn’t scratch the itch in a sports car like it did in the RX-7. Take a look around—nobody is planning a letter-writing campaign to get BMW to bring back the i8.

Mazda has been the only automaker dedicated to rotary engines, and perhaps it’s found the right niche for them as compact generators for hybrids. The performance metrics and the technology might be impressive in a hybrid sports car application, and we’d be glad to see something with the Iconic SP’s lines make it to production. But will Mazda still be able to cash in on the nostalgia if the driver isn’t the one in command of the potent rotary engine?

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Despite Honda sweeping the podium at Sunday’s Detroit Grand Prix, it was a Chevrolet that paced the field for most of the afternoon. The series’ Corvette Z06 pace car, to be exact, spent 47 laps in front of the pack, as the race was slowed for a total of eight cautions throughout the 100-lap affair.

Tight confines, a bumpy temporary track surface, and one hellacious hairpin set up for an entertaining sophomore attempt at Detroit’s 1.7-mile street course.

Motown has a rich history of open wheel racing: Formula 1 first visited in 1982 on the streets of downtown. IndyCar took over after F1 departed after 1988. The contest moved to Belle Isle, a neighboring island park out on the Detroit River, in 1992 and stayed until IndyCar returned to the heart of Detroit’s downtown in 2023.

The new nine-turn course, which includes a three-quarter-mile straight, encircles the Renaissance Center, General Motors’ global headquarters since 1996.

In the shadow of the towering RenCen, the Detroit course features another oddity: A split pit lane. Cars are serviced on either side of pit road, depending on the team’s stall selection. This year, the track layout remained largely unchanged save for some smoothing and widening of certain portions of the track. Still, it proved treacherous for many, including a gaggle of drivers involved in Sunday’s biggest wreck in the first turn of lap one.

Perhaps the biggest change was the inclusion of IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar racing on the weekend slate. Prototype racers (GTP) as well as GT cars kicked off the weekend, serving as an epic opening act. Manufacturer diversity was on display as Cadillacs and Corvettes attempted to defend their home turf in their respective classes to no avail. Acura took home GTP victory and Porsche was triumphant in GTD Pro.

Sunday’s race was dominated by Scott Dixon in the Chip Ganassi Honda. The six-time champ pitted early and saved enough fuel throughout the yellow-laden race to make it back to the checkers a few car lengths in front of fellow Indy 500 winner Marcus Ericsson.

Many were critical of the on-track action, labeling the race as a demo derby. It was easier to list the cars not involved in the opening lap pile-up, and the seven flags that slowed action throughout the rest didn’t help erase that first impression. Post race, a few drivers took to social media to vent. “I miss Belle Isle,” wrote this year’s Indy 500 runner-up Pato O’Ward.

The drivers’ frustration is understandable, but the dance in downtown Detroit is way better than any Belle Isle battle for a few reasons. First, the new location is second to none for spectators. For a series that is in dire need of new fans, Detroit’s street course brings the action to the people. Attending Belle Isle required planning and execution. You had to take a shuttle across a bridge to the island just to get to the course.

Second: Visibility. The island park was flat with not enough decent views of the track. Detroit’s downtown course has plenty of perches, as numerous parking garages allow for different bird’s eye views—not to mention an incredible view of cars racing along Detroit River waterfront.

And finally, the most important aspect for your humble author: The new course is a photographer’s dream. There are infinite places to shoot from, whether you have photo credentials or are just attending as a fan. This year was the first time I donned a photo vest for the event, shooting all three days. Check out some of my favorite shots below.

Still, at the end of the weekend, I felt like there were vantage points that I missed. Oh well, there’s always next year. Fingers crossed it will still be downtown.

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Toyota is recalling roughly 102,000 Tundras and Lexus LX 600s from the 2022 and 2023 model years for an engine issue that could cause rough running, knocking, or even loss of motive power.

The issue, according to Toyota, stems from machining debris that may not have been properly cleaned out of the engines during the assembly process. If the 3.4-liter V-6 engine still had contaminants from the machining process in it, those little bits of debris would wreak havoc on vital surfaces such as the those of the main bearings. Ultimately, the debris could cause knocking, poor running/misfires, or even total failure.

Importantly, this recall only affects the non-hybrid versions of the Tundra from those model years. If you bought one of the new Tundras and it came equipped with the i-Force Max hybrid powertrain, which pairs the twin-turbo, 3.4-liter V-6 engine and 10-speed automatic transmission with an electric motor integrated into the bell housing of the gearbox, you needn’t worry. (All existing versions of the LX 600 are non-hybrid, so pay extra attention to your mailbox if you own one of those.)

Toyota is working on a fix for the issue, and owners of involved vehicles will be notified by late July of 2024, the automaker says. If you want to find out if your Tundra of LX 600 is involved with this recall before then, head to nhtsa.gov/recalls or toyota.com/recalls and put in your VIN number.

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It began as a “parts bin special”—cheaply developed and launched in 1994 with minimal fanfare. The first Speed Triple shared its 885cc engine and almost all other parts with other Triumph models. It looked fairly ordinary, in fact, with its low handlebars and single round headlight.

Three decades later, the Speed Triple has arguably been Triumph’s best loved model—having helped establish the firm as a maker of exciting, well-engineered bikes, and contributed hugely to its success. Revamped numerous times over the years, it has starred in Hollywood movies, frequently topped the firm’s sales chart, and spawned the hugely successful Street Triple family.

Triumph was a very different company when that original Speed Triple was developed, shortly after building magnate John Bloor had revived the brand in the late 1980s. In 1992, the new Hinckley factory’s second year of operation, it produced barely 3000 bikes (compared to almost 100,000 last year). The firm was still committed to a modular format that reduced costs by sharing most components of bikes ranging from 750cc triples to 1200cc fours.

Depending on your view, the first Speed Triple was either the existing Daytona 900 sports bike with its fairing removed, or a sportier version of the Trident 900, the naked triple that had been the most popular of the original six-model range.

The Trident’s responsive, 885cc triple engine had been much praised, but that model was a simple roadster, with conservative styling and basic suspension. By contrast, Ducati had scored a big hit with its M900 Monster in 1993 by combining a softly tuned V-twin engine with aggressive naked styling and high-quality chassis parts.

The Speed Triple followed a similar format. Its liquid-cooled, 12-valve engine produced 97 hp and, apart from having a five-speed gearbox rather than a six-speed, it was identical to the unit that powered the Trident and Daytona. The bike’s steel spine frame was also shared with the other models.

But like the Monster, the Speed Triple had superior cycle parts: adjustable Kayaba suspension from Japan and a front brake combination of big twin discs and four-piston Nissin calipers. Its cast rear wheel held a fat, sticky Michelin radial tire.

Styling was little more than stripped-down Daytona, with a single round headlight. But the retained low handlebars gave an aggressive look, highlighted by a memorable brochure image featuring a Rottweiler. And the Speed Triple name—inspired by the 1937-model Speed Twin that had been one of the former Triumph company’s greatest models—suited its café racer image perfectly.

That first Speed Triple struck a chord. Its zippy engine, responsive handling, and windblown riding position combined to give an impression of easy speed. Without a fairing and with much of its rider’s weight over the front wheel, it steered with appealing urgency and less of the top-heavy feel of other Triumphs.

After borrowing a bike from Hinckley for a test, I rode to the site of the old Ace Cafe, legendary North London haunt of the 1960s Rockers, which had become a tire depot. The leather-jacketed riders were long gone, and the traffic was much denser. But it was still fun to follow the classic lap down the North Circular Road, over the infamous Iron Bridge (scene of numerous fatal crashes), and back, just as the slick-haired Rockers did when attempting to return with a song by Gene Vincent or Eddie Cochran still playing on the juke box.

The Speed Triple was an excellent accomplice, and it proved a hit in 1994, becoming Triumph’s best-selling model—although in those early days that only meant 2683 were produced (including a small number of 750cc variants that were otherwise identical) out of a total bike production that by then had climbed past 10,000.

That was a good start, but the Speed Triple’s stroke of inspiration was still to come. By 1995, Triumph’s engineers and design team were developing the T595 Daytona—the 955cc, aluminum-framed sports triple that abandoned the modular format and would elevate the British brand to a new level of performance and sales on its launch in 1997.

In those days, much of Triumph’s development was based at the Northamptonshire workshop of John Mockett, the designer who had shaped many of the firm’s early models. At one point, while working on the Daytona, Mockett realized that the bike, with its distinctive tubular aluminum frame, looked good without its curvaceous twin-headlamp fairing.

“I said to Stuart Wood [chief development engineer] that we ought to do this without the bodywork,” recalled Mockett, who admired the aggressive streetfighter specials built by firms such as Harris Performance. “Stuart said, ‘No, we’ve got to get the 595 finished in time for the Milan show,’ so I said, ‘Okay, we’ll work on it in the other shed and see what we can do.’ John Bloor was always down there but we kept this thing secret from him.”

A few months later, Bloor arrived to inspect the finished Daytona T595. “We’d painted it and added decals by then and he said it looked alright—in fact he was very pleased. Then I said, ‘I’ve got this other one,’ and uncovered the naked bike. He looked at it and said, ‘F***ing hell, it looks like it’s been crashed!’”

The Triumph boss’s instinctive reaction summed up the naked triple’s appeal. The previous decade had seen the emergence of a biking subculture, especially in Britain, where Streetfighters magazine had become popular, highlighting the urban look that had grown up initially around twin-headlight Suzuki GSX-R750 and 1100 sports bikes whose fairings had been removed following a crash.

At that time, no major manufacturer had a model with comparable style. Bloor took some persuasion, but decided to put the naked triple into production alongside the Daytona. “He was so pleased with the Daytona that he accepted the other one on the back of it,” Mockett later recalled. “If it had been on its own he’d have turned it down, but the fact that it was on the coat-tails of the 595 appealed to him, because it didn’t need many extra bits.”

This new Speed Triple, initially codenamed T509 (until, like the Daytona’s T595, this was found to cause confusion), retained its predecessor’s 885cc capacity but gained a new bottom end, intake system, and exhaust. It produced 106 hp, with strong midrange torque. The aluminum frame was identical to the Daytona’s except for being painted instead of lacquered, and it held similarly high-quality suspension, brakes, and a single-sided swingarm.

As with the original Speed Triple, Triumph introduced it with minimal fanfare, almost as an afterthought. I was one of two freelance journalists allowed to ride a T509 that was brought along to the T595 Daytona’s riding launch in Spain. A blast on local roads and on the Circuito de Cartagena race track confirmed that it had an addictive midrange punch, and that its handling, braking, and roadholding were excellent.

The T509 Speed Triple’s 1998 arrival was perfectly timed, its price was competitive, and it was an immediate hit, selling almost 2500 units to become Triumph’s second-most popular model, behind the Daytona. And its success proved lasting, helped by Triumph’s decision to enlarge the engine to 955cc in 1999.

By the turn of the millennium, the Speed Triple had become a cult model, its bullish style and performance highlighting that Triumph was now a serious player in the motorcycle scene. It was boosted by vibrant paint schemes, including an acidic Roulette Green and even more corrosive Nuclear Red (in reality a bold pink, as ridden by Natalie Imbruglia in the movie Johnny English). Speed Triple appearances in The Matrix (ridden by Carrie-Anne Moss) and Mission: Impossible 2 (Tom Cruise) also boosted Triumph’s profile.

The firm did a good job of keeping the Triple’s essential look and character intact, while updating it every so often. One significant step came in 2002, when its output rose by 10 hp, to 118 hp, and its chassis was tweaked to quicken the steering and reduce weight. I also rode that model to the site of Ace Cafe, which, fittingly, had recently reopened as a nostalgia-themed motorcyclists’ meeting place; it continues to thrive to this day.

Another major update came in 2005, when a new, longer-stroke 1050cc engine increased maximum output to 128 hp. A new chassis contributed to a quicker, more agile bike that topped Triumph’s sales charts that year, with 8796 out of a total of almost 35,000. In 2011, Triumph was sufficiently confident to combine a sharpened chassis with non-round headlights—a controversial move that did not damage sales as some had predicted.

By this time, Triumph had ceased production of the Daytona 955i, leaving the Speed Triple as the firm’s sporting flagship. For 2012, the new Speed Triple R combined an unchanged, 133-hp engine with an upmarket chassis incorporating Öhlins suspension, Brembo Monobloc  brake calipers, and a sprinkling of carbon fiber. It was exotic, expensive, and took the trademark Speed Triple blend of naked style and punchy performance to new heights.

Triumph was now facing a dilemma, as the arrival of Aprilia’s Tuono V4R sparked a new class of fierce “hyper-naked” machines: stripped-down superbikes created in similar fashion to the original Speed Triple but producing over 150 hp and backed by sophisticated electronics. The challenge was to keep the Speed Triple competitive, without losing its familiar charm and accessibility.

Triumph took a sizable step in 2018, with an overhauled Speed Triple whose 1050cc engine contained more than 100 new parts, revved 1000 rpm higher, and produced 148 hp, an increase of 10 hp. Alongside the standard model was an upmarket RS version with Öhlins suspension and a sophisticated electronics package incorporating traction control and cornering ABS.

Three years later came an even bigger leap, with an all-new Speed Triple 1200RS. Its engine was enlarged to 1160cc and produced 178 hp—slightly up on Aprilia’s latest Tuono, if not on Ducati’s outrageous 205 hp Streetfighter V4. This RS was also sharper and 22 pounds lighter, helped by a new aluminum frame.

Not every Speed Triple enthusiast was a fan of the new lean and mean naked superbike, or of the stylish, half-faired Speed Triple 1200RR that shares most parts and is even more aggressive and expensive. That’s not surprising. Both models have more than double the power-to-weight ratio of the Speed Triple that started the family 30 years ago.

The Speed Triple is a different class of motorbike now. Its evolution has taken it away from the raw, streetwise, firmly road-focused models of the past. These days, even the middleweight Street Triple 765R makes 120 hp—more than the T509 that did the most to earn the Speed Triple’s cult following back in 1997.

All of which means that the Speed Triple’s days at the top of Triumph’s sales charts are probably gone for good. Its status as one of the Hinckley firm’s most important and fondly regarded models, on the other hand, remains beyond doubt.

***

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Sorry to have separated this from Part I by nearly a month, but two other stories—the Cobra story and being a hostage negotiator for Larry Webster’s Ferrari turn signal assembly—were both too good not to tell . . .

When I was last in the warehouse in Monson, on the Massachusetts/Connecticut border, where I store five cars, they all had difficulties starting, or running, or passing inspection, or all three. “Lolita,” my ’74 Lotus Europa Twin Cam Special was the most troublesome, as it was leaking gas from the 50-year-old rubber O-ring and plastic plug at the bottom of both float bowls. I broke one of the plugs removing it, so I needed to procure the part and go back the following week.

With the leak literally plugged, I got the Lotus inspected. The plan was to then drive it home, but as I described in the first installment, dealing with the vagaries of the other cars made the session in Monson run long, and I didn’t want to drive the tiny Lotus home in rush-hour traffic, so I left the car’s retrieval for another trip.

This created the very happy problem of which car to drive out to the Monson warehouse and leave there when I drove the Lotus back home. Of the “fun cars” at my house, my ’73 BMW 3.0CSi has permanent at-home-pampered-in-garage status. I was planning on taking my 49,000-mile survivor BMW 2002 on its first real road trip, so it needed to stay. Normally, my BMW M Coupe (“the clown shoe”) would be the swapper, but I’d loaned it to a friend for a couple of weeks.

So I did something that you’d think would’ve already happened, but was in fact new to me: I drove “Zelda” the Z3 out to the warehouse. I’ve owned the little ’99 BMW Z3 2.5-liter straight-six roadster for 10 years, interrupted by my selling it to a friend, whose son then drove it over a median strip (no crashed sheet metal, just bent suspension components), and I bought it back so her insurance company wouldn’t total it and part out the car. I’d only sold the car to her in the first place because I’d run out of storage spaces, so when I bought it back, it needed to sit outside, under a cover—something I swore I’d never do to a roadster, but I was out of options, and the car really wasn’t worth anything at that point anyway. It worked out pretty well; I found that as long as it sat covered in the part of the driveway that got sun, both the cover and the car would dry out and stay mildew-free. I haven’t used the Z3 much recently, but whenever I do, I’m instantly reminded how wonderful any drop-top car is in terms of giving you that sense of whole-body relaxation, and a zippy responsive little roadster is just sublime.

So I did a mini road-trip in Zelda, keeping off the interstate and staying on local roads out to the Monson warehouse as a dry run for doing the same but in reverse in the Lotus. It was heaven, until I heard a scraping sound from the left front wheel during braking. I had this same thing happen with the Lotus when I was sorting it out, and it turned out to be due to pistons on one side of the caliper being seized and thus shoving the rotor into the caliper itself, making it sound like a lathe cutting metal. I drove Zelda gingerly the rest of the way, and made a note to myself to buy a left front caliper and be prepared to replace it in the warehouse when I want to retrieve the car.

So now it wasn’t just the five original cars in the warehouse that were revolting.

Still, if the cars could talk, Zelda would’ve said, “I’m being pampered with indoor storage!” And Lolita would’ve said, “He’s not only spending time with me, he’s bringing me home!”

Little did I know that Lolita was about to throw a total hissy fit.

This was the first lengthy drive I’d had in the Lotus since I put it in the warehouse last September to wait out a registration issue (a story I’ll save for another day). Other than the fact that the lowering springs and adjustable shocks I’d installed cause the car to bottom out on anything other than glass-smooth roads, the drive began well. The Europa is the kind of car that, when you drive 42 mph in a 35 zone, you feel like you should be arrested for the amount of fun you’re having, and, off the interstate, there were many of those roads between the warehouse and home.

Then, on one of these lovely leafy winding New England two-lanes, I got caught behind a lumbering gravel truck. While I was bemoaning the truck’s harshing of my mellow, the Lotus began to behave strangely. At first it stumbled in a way that made me think that the plugs were fouling, but I eventually realized the car was losing power. The narrow windy road didn’t have a great breakdown lane, so I toughed it out as long as I could. Fortunately a church appeared. The car basically died as I rolled into the parking lot.

Then I recalled that, during a drive in the Lotus last year, something similar had happened, and I solved it by reseating the distributor cap. I did the same thing here. It took me a little while—the cap isn’t easy to get to, as the Lotus-Ford Twin Cam engine has a Ford four-cylinder block with the distributor driven by the “jackshaft” (the engine’s original in-block camshaft), so it’s down underneath the intake manifold. The car started, revved, and drove.

And then, about 10 miles later, it happened again. The car began missing, ran worse and worse, lost power, then died where the small road I was on intersected with a local two-lane. And the engine exhaled its last gasp with a backfire so loud that a nearby road worker looked for the source of the gunshot.

Fortunately, there was a wide shoulder and plenty of visibility, and cars had to come to a full stop at the intersection anyway, so I felt safe troubleshooting there. I poked around under the hood (well, under the boot; mid-engine car and all that), and found what was certainly the problem.

Federal-spec Europas like mine have dual Stromberg carbs, which have a warm-up circuit that utilizes cross-pipes from the exhaust manifold to heat up the carbs, as well as a second set of butterflies between the carbs and the intake manifold.

I, like nearly every other Federal-spec Europa owner, had removed the cross-pipes and wired the secondary butterflies open. Only I hadn’t used wire. I’d used zip ties. And I could see that the zip tie on the linkage to the front secondary butterfly had broken, leaving the thing free to just flap around. You don’t have “Eureka!” moments often while troubleshooting, but this fit the symptom perfectly. If the thing flapped shut, with one carb completely starved for air, of course it ran horribly.

I didn’t have any zip ties with me. I almost cut a piece off one of my shoelaces, but then I realized the bag the Lotus’ cover lives in was in the car. I cut the bag’s drawstring, used a piece of it to tie the front secondary butterfly linkage open, patted myself on the back for my diagnostic skills, and set off to what surely would be an uneventful remainder of the trip.

Of course, I was wrong. It died again, this time in the middle of a four-way intersection. In general, Lolita has been remarkably reliable since the excruciating resurrection and sort-out depicted in my book, The Lotus Chronicles, but on this trip, it was completely justifying the old adage that Lotus stands for “Lots Of Trouble, Usually Serious.” I got the car restarted, and with another lunge-and-gunshot-and-die maneuver, got through the intersection and onto a shoulder.

As I sat in the car and thought, I realized that the common thread here was simple: It was time. The car ran fine for a certain amount of time, then ran worse, then died, then revived when I’d waited for a certain amount of more time. What I was doing during that time wasn’t relevant; it was the waiting that was fixing it.

Clogged fuel filter. This is the textbook system of a clogged fuel filter. Contaminants in the gas tank, likely particulate matter like rust or sediment, get carried into the fuel filter. The flow of fuel deposits them against the mesh screen inside the filter. The longer you drive, the more fuel flows, the more blocked the screen gets. When you stop, the contamination doesn’t go away, but enough of it falls off the screen that fuel can flow again. This tends to be worse in fuel-injected cars, where the electric fuel pump delivers 100-psi fuel pressure (typically regulated down to 30 with the surplus sent back to the tank via a return line) that can easily cause contaminants to block either the big visible filter or the tiny mesh screens that are often hidden in vintage fuel-injected cars, but it can also happen in a carbureted car with a mechanical fuel pump delivering 3 or 4 psi of pressure.

The fact that the filter was (apparently) clogged didn’t really surprise me. When I revived the Lotus after its nearly 40-year slumber, I was unable to remove its twin 5-gallon gas tanks to clean them out, so there was no bag of drywall screws dumped in and the tanks thrown into the back of a pickup truck and driven down a bumpy road. There was no taking them to a radiator shop to have them boiled out. There was no rust encapsulation treatment. There was no Red-Kote internal bladder. Instead, I simply took a Scotch-Brite pad and zip-tied it to the end of a rod that I slid around on the bottom of both tanks, then washed them out with gas (hey, you do know what the title of these columns is, right?). Really, the only surprise was that I got five years out of the first filter. But, yeah, I had forgotten about the rusty tanks.

I didn’t feel unsafe where I was, but I was in a highly visible area to be working on a highly visible car. Now that I had the problem nut-shelled—the data showed that I had five to 10 minutes from first-hesitation to dead car—I continued driving to find a better work area. It arrived in the form of the parking lot of a Lowe’s and a BJ’s Wholesale Club. I drove to the edge of the lot, away from prying eyes who might see the amount of gas I was almost certain to dump onto the asphalt.

The fuel filter for the Europa is very difficult to reach. It’s too low and too far forward to easily access from the engine compartment, but the car itself is too low to easily get at it from underneath, unless the car is on a lift. Because the filter is below the tank, I knew that gravity was going to do its thing and cause fuel to go everywhere when I disconnected the lines from the filter. And, of course, because I was lying on the ground and holding the filter in my hand, I also knew that I was going to have the quintessential mechanics’ experience of gas running right into my armpit. As they say in the Army, enjoy the suck.

Fortunately, I had my regular travel tool kit with me (which I throw in the trunk of whatever car I’m running out to Monson), so in addition to grabbing a screwdriver, I readied a pair of quarter-inch ratchet extensions, hoping I could use them to plug the deluge that would certainly flow out of the fuel lines after I pulled them off the filter. I reached up and under, found the filter, found the first clamp, undid it, got the armpit wash, plugged the line with the first extension, then had the repeat experience for the second. Hey, livin’ the dream, right?

With the filter in my hand, I emptied the fuel inside onto a paper towel, expecting to see rust and sediment.

Nothing.

I tapped the filter on the paper towel. Still nothing.

I was stunned. When I’ve had this problem on fuel-injected cars, what’s come out often looks like coffee grounds.

Crap. Had I gotten this wrong?

I wiped off the inlet end of the filter, pursed my lips around it, and blew, like blowing bubbles through a straw.

It wasn’t plugged shut, but I could clearly feel a restriction.

I wiped off the other end and back-blew through it several times. To my delight, I could see a fine gray mist come out. I returned my lips to the inlet side. The restriction appeared to be gone.

Booya!

I re-installed the filter (and re-experienced the armpit enema), verified that the car started, took my bottle of drinking water and rinsed both my actual armpit as well as that of my T-shirt, and drove the remaining 40 miles home, fragrant but satisfied, without incident. Aren’t vintage cars fun?

So, Lolita is home again. I have a lot of work planned for her. I’m going to yank out the suspension, as my attempt to lower the car to Euro specs looks great but produced a car that bottoms out on the smallest of surface imperfections. The plan is to reinstall the springs that were originally on the car, but keep the adjustable shocks.

But not before I replace the fuel filter.

***

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Cadillac’s “Standard of the World” slogan—first adopted in 1908 after the marque won the prestigious Dewar Trophy for automotive engineering—was a lot to live up to. But the V-16-powered 452A models were certainly worthy of the moniker. This particular 452A All-Weather Phantom, owned by Leigh Brent, was judged worthy of Best in Show at this year’s Greenwich Concours D’Elegance.

Cadillac dropped a 452-cubic-inch V-16 bombshell at the New York auto show in 1930. Well-heeled buyers increasingly expected their engines to offer strong acceleration while being smooth and quiet, and luxury manufacturers turned to more cylinders to increase power and reduce vibrations. Rival Packard had enjoyed a considerable head start in the prewar cylinder-count arms race with its V-12-powered Twin Six in 1916. But Cadillac’s 452A flagship leapfrogged Packard and was the first production car equipped with a V-16.

Engine output was an impressive-for-the-time 165 horsepower and 320 lb-ft of torque. But almost as important was the engine’s character. An English road tester reported “an engine so smooth and quiet as to make it seem incredible that the car is actually being propelled by exploding gases.”

Unfortunately, the Cadillac V-16 was a victim of bad timing. Only months before its debut, the stock market crashed hard, sending the economy into a tailspin. As such, the car’s high price ranging from $5350 to $9200 (Model As could be had for between $435 and $650) insured that few were ever sold. However, the rarity and prestige of the 452A has made it a perennial collector favorite and a frequent Concours winner.

Brent’s 1931 452A is the latest to take top prize at a major Concours. This 452A is just one of four All-Weather Phaetons known to survive and is among the final cars built by Fleetwood in Pennsylvania. The All-Weather Phaeton (different from a standard Phaeton because it features roll-up side glass rather than side curtains) was one of approximately 70 body styles and configurations available through in-house coachbuilders Fleetwood and Fisher. This example is also equipped with a rear division, separating the chauffeur from the passengers.

Although the Cadillac is an older restoration—done by Pruitt Automotive in 1986—it has been refreshed over the years and was recently treated to some paintwork. The fresh paint paid off as the Cadillac presented beautifully on the lawn of Roger Sherman Baldwin Park and wowed the crowd and judges.

“I was stunned to get a class award, let alone the overall win,” exclaimed Brent after accepting his first Best in Show trophy with the Cadillac. “I couldn’t be more thrilled.”

***

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Best in Show for the Greenwich Concours de Sport is usually reserved for a vintage racer that was campaigned by a famous driver in a famous race. However, the criteria for the Concours de Sport extends to all cars that epitomize automotive style, performance, and innovation. So, perhaps it’s not surprising that the wildly customized “El Capitola” owned by Tim McMann clinched this year’s top honors.

“El Capitola” started life as a 1957 Chevrolet 210, but it didn’t stay stock for long. Original owner Don Fletcher took his 210 to Sam Barris to be thoroughly customized. At the time, Barris was tiring of the customs industry. He had already moved away from his brother George’s shop in Los Angeles to pursue a quieter family life in northern California, but he still took on some work for Barris Kustoms out of his home shop in Carmichael, California near Sacramento. “El Capitola” was the last car that Sam Barris customized before becoming an insurance investigator and the fire commissioner for Carmichael.

“I think he used every trick he ever learned on this car,” remarked owner Tim McMann. Indeed, Barris did not hold back on his final car, as it scarcely resembles the ’57 Chevy it started out as. For starters, the top was chopped three inches in the front and five inches in the rear, the b-pillar was removed to convert the car to a hardtop, and the badges, emblems, and door handles were deleted. Many body parts from the likes of DeSoto, Lincoln, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, and Studebaker were grafted on to the Chevy in addition to one-off pieces like the taillights and fender skirts. The magenta parts of the body sit proud of the rest of the sheet metal. In an era before plastic body filler, all of the work was done with lead—630 pounds of it according to McMann.

Unsurprisingly, the interior was treated to the same lavish attention to detail as the exterior. Legendary custom upholsterer Eddie Martinez went all-out with rolled Naugahyde faux leather and gold frieze fabric. The instrument panel was chromed, and the original seats were swapped out with four individual swiveling buckets. The color-matched, free-standing TV in the rear is a feature way ahead if its time.

“El Capitola” took two years to finish, but once completed, it was featured in magazines like Car Craft and Customs illustrated. Original owner Don Fletcher sold it in 1961, and the car swapped hands multiple times before McMann took stewardship in 2019.

“My whole deal is to buy customs from the ’50s or earlier, and bring them back to the exact build the first time they were built,” explained McMann. “It had a lot of things on it that weren’t original. For example, it had a 350 engine, and it came with the original 265 in a crate. So, I put the 265 back in.”

Ultimately, the judges rewarded McMan’s dedication to originality. “It’s unbelievable that a custom should even be a finalist, much less win Best of Show. I’m over the moon!” We’re just as excited to see a custom win.

***

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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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Phil writes:

I have a beautiful 1956 Ford Fairlane Victoria Town Sedan. I would like to get the car re-chromed, but cannot locate a service provider in Maryland. I’m trying not to drive the car too much, because I am not interested in adding a huge amount of mileage to something with 31,000 original miles and great paint.

Sajeev asks:

What a beauty!  Sedans don’t get enough love in my book, and I am glad you are caring for this one. Would you be comfortable removing the chrome and shipping it to a business? That might help me with your answer.

Phil answers:

My current mechanic is dealing with health issues, so I’m not sure he could help remove parts and ship them off for re-chroming. The car is in phenomenal condition, and perhaps I’m just being picky.

I’m happy with this car so please do not spend a huge amount of your time on this.

Sajeev concludes:

Here’s the perk about emailing pistonslap@hagerty.com with your automotive questions—it’s my job to spend a huge amount of time on this! And if there ever was a car to go out of my way for, this is definitely it!

But the term “huge amount of time” is relative. I’ve already discussed the need for auto enthusiasts to embrace the Google Near Me search, and Chrome Plating Near Me is no different. When I click on the second link in my last sentence, my preferred plating shop in Houston shows up first on the Google Maps, and is the second website in its list of suggestions. The reviews are overwhelmingly good (but not five stars, as that’s often a red flag). Their website gives you the right amount of insight into the work they do, the company history, and how they operate as a business.

So I did the same search, except for a chrome shop in Maryland. One company ranked as high as my shop in Google search, so I was immediately intrigued. Their website has the right amount of content, and they seem willing to get the ball rolling (i.e., send pics of your chrome issues) via their contact page.

Another good website served up to me by Google was this one. While they have five stars, that’s not really a red flag because they only have six reviews collected. So you have at least two options in your area, but you can scroll down the “near me” search and see if other shops work better for you.

In case it needs to be made clear, I am not specifically naming or recommending any shop, as I can’t verify their work from my position as an armchair quarterback. This is where I pass the ball to you, so you can send them photos of the trim, and see what vibes you get back. Tell them your needs and concerns, and see how good they are at reassuring you. My biggest concerns would be quality and turn-around time, so you might ask pointed questions about those in particular.

If these two businesses aren’t as rock-solid as you’d like, expand your search by using the zoom feature on the Google Map or enter a different location in the “chrome plating near (location)” search.

Now you need to find someone willing to remove the parts from your Ford that you can trust. Is a Classic Car Mechanic Near Me search also in order? (Same principles apply, quality and turn-around time is important, because you don’t want your classic put on the back burner while they work on newer cars.)

Best of luck in your hunt! Or maybe just “happy motoring,” if these flaws aren’t worrisome enough to address? Sometimes they aren’t, especially on a car so original.

Have a question you’d like answered in Piston Slap? Send your queries to pistonslap@hagerty.com—give us as much detail as possible so we can help! Keep in mind this is a weekly column, so if you need an expedited answer, please tell me in your email.

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In 1986, BMW turned the sport sedan space on its head when it homologated the E30 3 Series for German DTM and Group A touring car racing. As was BMW’s ethos, the 3 Series was already a competent, fun-to-drive little machine, but the M3 was a different beast entirely, with a race-derived powertrain and upgraded suspension and brakes. Bodywork included fat fender flares to accommodate wide Pirelli P700-Z tires, a deep front splitter and rear valance, aggressive sill trim, revised C-pillars, and a taller trunk with big rear wing atop it. Only the hood and roof were shared with its “lesser” 3 Series counterparts, and the changes resulted in a car far more slippery and far more stable at speed. 

The car was nothing short of a revelation and easily embarrassed some of the world’s great sports cars. In 1988, the M3 finally arrived in America. Naturally, it became an enthusiast favorite and today commands a hefty premium over other E30-generation BMWs.

Never one to ignore a winner, with each successive generation of 3 Series, BMW stuck with the M3’s formula. The E36 of 1992–99 introduced convertible and four-door variants, along with an extra hundred horsepower over its predecessor, this time from a straight-six. 

When the third-gen E46 M3 hit the streets in 2001, journalists and enthusiasts alike reckoned it was just about perfect. With its sonorous 333-hp 3.2-liter inline-six, available six-speed manual, and sure-footed handling, it did the badge justice, whether in two-door coupe or convertible form.

On condition alone, the Laguna Blue E46 M3 that sold on Bring a Trailer this week was not perfect. Chiefly, it was a 29,000-mile car with an underside showing some of the grit and grime of those miles; it had a resprayed hood; a cracked and dented front fascia; and a front end peppered with tiny rock chips. Its record $117,600 sale price, however, suggests that bidders simply didn’t care. So, how did a car with flaws like these achieve a best-in-the-world result?

Answer: a great blend of rare options. That color, for one. Laguna Seca Blue (LSB) is lovely in photos. It’s even better in person. The BMW Registry tells us that 26,202 E46 coupes were sold in North America. Just 1128 came in LSB, the bulk of them from 2001–03. After the M3’s mid-2003 “lifecycle impulse” (which, for some reason, is BMW-speak for “facelift”) just 154 LSB coupes appeared, and there were none in 2005–06. 

Also rare was this car’s Cinnamon Nappa leather interior. Nearly 90 percent of all LSB coupes had either gray or black leather interiors; just 1.7 percent of LSB coupes (19 total cars) featured this lovely orangey-brown inside. In a world of power everything, refreshingly, this car had lighter, manually adjustable (but heated!) seats. Similarly, sunroofs were almost de rigueur on these M3s, but this car was spec’d from new without, making it one of two cars in this color combo with a slick roof. One of them featured BMW’s SMG automated manual transmission, the other a row-your-own six-speed. If it was a Ford and this was a Marti Report, here’s where we’d arrive at the pay-off line: This is that car. 

So, rare colors inside and out, a lightweight no-fuss roof, manual seats, and DIY gear changes. That was the recipe here, and bidders were all too happy to overlook the minor foibles that might otherwise knock a car down in value. And, to be fair, the miles, the dings, and the repainted hood (reportedly done before the car’s original/only owner took possession) probably did hold back the final price. But no one is complaining. This car has been driven. It will get driven more.

In January, an 18,000-mile LSB-over-gray E46 M3 with a sunroof sold on Bring a Trailer for $94,500, very near the #1 (concours, best-in-the-world) price, according to the Hagerty Price Guide. The selling dealer of our feature car, OTS and Co., considered that result closely when it consigned this one to BaT, but given the earlier car’s more common features, the seller here was confident of a bigger result.

“I don’t think there’s another E46 M3 that could get close to this,” says Derek Tam-Scott, a principal at OTS and Co. who is also a Hagerty contributor and host of the Carmudgeon podcast. “Except maybe a Laguna Seca Blue slicktop manual with Impulse cloth interior or Laguna Seca Blue interior, if any were made. A slicktop black leather interior car could also get close. Our car was literally the only manual slicktop LSB/Cinnamon car sold in North America. The paint color makes a huge difference, and interior also helps.”

In the comments for our Sale of the Week, Tam-Scott asked and answered the following: “Can you get an E46 M3 that drives very similarly (or even identically) for less money? Absolutely. But we like cars because of how they make us feel. This is why we’re more enthusiastic about decades-old manual naturally aspirated sports cars than we are about almost all new stuff you can buy today, even though old cars are less performant, less safe, less efficient, less feature-rich, and just less objectively good generally.” 

It’s hard to argue with that. And it’s hard to argue when the market speaks. Sure, yes, this is one result (on the back of that $94,500 sale, however . . .), but it is still a statement: Enthusiasts hanker for purity over perfection, and when the right car comes along, they’ll pay up for it. 

Then they’ll go drive it.

***

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Packard was such a great luxury car. And I’ve always loved Studebakers too, from the Art Deco-style cars of 1932-33 to the bullet nose ’50-’51s and the Gran Turismo Hawks of 1962 to 1964. But long story short, the merger of the two was not good for Packard. However, it did produce some interesting variations. Perhaps the most interesting offshoot of those times—or most odd, if you prefer—is the one-year-only Packard Hawk.

The Hawk was an extension of the all-new 1953 Studebakers, the sleek Commander two-door hardtop in particular. In 1956, a new, taller hood and trapezoid central grille were added among other new trim details, and they became the Hawk series, with the Golden Hawk the top of the line, complete with a Packard V-8 under the hood.

But starting in 1957, Studebaker’s own 289-CID V-8 was found under the hood of new Golden Hawks, and was supercharged to boot. New and oh-so-trendy fins were added as well. With its power and style, it was one of the more compelling—and fast—choices in new cars that year.

Unfortunately, Studebaker-Packard Corporation was in poor health financially during this time. “True” Packards ended in 1956. 1957 Packard Clippers were essentially super-deluxe Studebakers, though they did receive 1955-56 Packard styling cues, including the instrument panel. But beneath the skin, it was mostly the top Studebaker sedan, the President Classic. A nice car in its own right, but not really a Packard.

Originally, this was to be a stop-gap solution, with all new and truly large Packards to appear a year or two after, partially designed by Richard Teague. But the money never came in, and there never was another all-new Packard, strictly speaking.

That said, there were the 1957 Packard Clippers, available only as a four-door sedan and a four door wagon, dubbed “Country Sedan.” And 1958 brought, surprisingly, additional Packard models.

It was the final year for the company, yet the Packard series, comprised of the Packard 4-door Sedan, Packard Hardtop, and Packard Station Wagon (all without model names) got a heavy, and rather wild, facelift with quad headlamps and unusual double fins on the rear.

Then there was the Hawk. The Packard Hawk was essentially a Studebaker Golden Hawk with a long, low “catfish” style grille, gold Mylar inserts in the fins, leather interior, and a simulated spare tire sunk into the trunk lid, among other minor details.

As an ad declared, “It is designed with that imaginative flair you only expect to find in Europe’s most fashionable automobiles…a regal air that immediately distinguishes its owner as a man of position. Put yourself in that position…behind the wheel of a Packard Hawk, soon.”

While I’m sure few people were fooled, it was all in all a nice car. It still had the swoopy lines of the Golden Hawk, an even more sumptuous interior (borrowed from the extra glitzy and rarely seen Golden Hawk ‘400’), full instrumentation in a handsome engine turned dash, and—best of all—the supercharged 289-CID V-8, with a 3.56-inch x 3.63-inch bore and stroke, and good for 275 horsepower!

The 1958 Packard Hawk had a $3,995 MSRP, weighed in at 3,470 pounds, and only 588 were built. For comparison’s sake, a ’58 Golden Hawk based at $3,282 and sales were slightly better, but still really low, to the tune of 878 units. But then, 1958 was a recession year, and even fat, healthy car companies like GM were losing thousands of sales.

Not too many folks were optimistic about Studebaker-Packard. And indeed, it was last call. Come 1959, Packard was no more, though the corporation continued to be called Studebaker-Packard for several years after the cars’ demise.

And those final cars were not really the majestic luxury cars folks of a certain age at the time had remembered. But the last new car from Packard, this Hawk, was still a pretty cool conveyance. Leather, supercharged V-8, sleek lines, what’s not to like? And a rare birdie, too!

Our featured car was spotted by your author at an SDC Club meet in Iowa City, Iowa, back on August 11, 2018. I was lucky in that I had no idea this show was going on, but my uncle, David Klockau, texted me about it, so I hopped in the Town Car and made the hour jaunt down Interstate 80. I was not disappointed!

In addition to this fine ’58, there was an aquamarine ’58 Golden Hawk, a Wagonaire, a really nice mint green ’53 sedan, and many others. I’d actually been meaning to write this car up for years, but kept forgetting about it. There’s always more shows to attend and cars to gawk at! I’m happy to finally give this final-year Packard model its due.

But wait, there’s even more! While I was working on this column, I ran across pictures of another ’58 Hawk I saw when I visited the Studebaker National Museum (if you find yourself in South Bend, I highly recommend it) back in 2015 with my friend Jim Cavanaugh, an Indianapolis resident and fellow Studebaker nut.

It was fetching in its gunmetal gray paint with saddle tan leather, and I recall gawking at it for some time. At least until I caught the last Studebaker built, a turquoise metallic ’66 Cruiser, out of the corner of my eye, and went scampering away to it! So expect more Studebakers sometime soon.

One final note. In preparing this column, I used some brochures I received from Suzanne Reid. Her dad was another Studebaker fan and owned several. She had a number of booklets and brochures from the ’50s and ’60s and was kind enough to send them to me when they needed a good home.

I was thrilled to receive them and spent quite some time reading through them. They were a great help in pinning down some of the details for this column. I thank you, ma’am!

***

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It’s been nearly 10 years since Mazda unveiled the fourth, “ND” generation MX-5 Miata, continuing an exceptional sports car tradition. So enjoyable is Mazda’s two-seater, in fact, that I bought a 2020 Miata RF ND2. (In Zoom-Zoom nerd circles, 2019–23 cars are called “ND2”, referring to the second iteration of the ND generation.) It remains my daily driver. With a revised Miata now out for the 2024 model year, I was keen to sample the ND3’s host of tweaks and upgrades.

Part of the Miata’s appeal these days is that it has no direct competitor. Its closest rival—the Subaru BRZ/Toyota GR86—has rear seats and no available sunroof. Lotus does not even make a sub-3000-pound car anymore, yet 2300-pound Miatas are still out there roaming the roads.

Although a decade is an eternity in the car business, the Miata still looks and drives like nothing else in showrooms today. It’s agile, tossable, and friendly. For the ND3, Mazda thankfully didn’t mess with success. Small but significant improvements are focused on appreciable areas: the steering rack, differential, and interior. In sum, they make an already great car a little bit better. Rumors are swirling that the next-generation Miata will be either hybrid or electric, which, if true, would render this ND3 the final with Mazda’s 35-year-old formula: a lightweight open-top machine with a naturally aspirated four-cylinder, rear-wheel-drive, and a manual transmission.

The Miata’s last major update came five years ago for the 2019 ND2, when Mazda massaged the 2.0-liter, twin-cam four-cylinder (largely shared with the Mazda 3) to make 181 horsepower (instead of 155 in the 2016-18 “ND1”) and wind the tach up to 7500 rpm (instead of 6800), while also revising the six-speed manual gearbox. In the new-for-2024 ND3, both the drivetrain and overall weight are carryover.

The 2024 Miata is still available in two basic body styles and three basic trim levels, but prices are up slightly. MSRP for the cheapest soft top “Sport” model is $30,170—nearly a grand more than the 2023 version. The retractable hardtop RF body style is not available in Sport trim. The mid-range “Club” soft top (the ND3 I drove) costs $33,670 to start. Our test car also had the optional Brembo brakes/BBS wheels/Recaro seat package, which adds $4800 to the soft-top Club but comes baked into the $41,395 Club RF. The slightly more luxurious “Grand Touring” trim costs $36,390 in soft-top form and $39,165 in RF form. The Brembo/BBS/Recaro trio is only available on the Club, which is a shame if you want a dead-simple Sport or a cushy Gran Touring with a performance punch.

Specs: 2024 Mazda Miata Club

• Price: $33,670 (base); $38,470 (as tested)
• Powertrain: 2.0-liter fuel-injected, naturally aspirated, dual-overhead-camshaft inline-four; 6-speed manual transmission
• Output: 181 hp @ 7000 rpm; 151 lb-ft @ 4000 rpm
• Layout: Rear-wheel-drive, two-door, two-passenger convertible
• EPA Fuel Economy: 26 mpg city, 34 mpg highway, 34 combined
• Competitors: Subaru BRZ, Toyota GR86

One of the chief complaints ever since the ND first came out, compared with the fun and flamboyant NA lineup from the ’90s, is that Mazda’s color palette is as bland as a bowl of sawdust. Other than Soul Red, it’s been mostly some version of black, white, or gray for the ND. If you’ve been praying for a handsome British Racing Green or a nice bright blue, keep praying, because Mazda has ignored you yet again. There is a new shade for 2024 but it’s… another shade of gray. Aero Gray, to be specific. Our test car was at least painted Zircon Sand Metallic, a shade added to the roster last year (and featured in our Gas + Stick article); it’s a sharp-looking, sort of muddy sand color with some green in it. Nice, but still somewhat muted for a very happy sports car.

Other changes to the exterior of the 2024 ND3 include new LED headlights and taillights. The daytime running lights, which used to flank the grille, are now integrated into the headlights. There are also new wheel designs and they look good, but so did the old ones. They’re also of the same size and ride on the same Bridgestone tires.

The interior wears the same basic design, laid atop a clean, functional, tight-ish cabin. Mazda uses its share of mass-market plastics and knobs, as well as cheap-feeling removable cupholders, but in concert with the brand’s premium aspirations there are some nicer touches: body-color paint on the tops of the door panels, padding and stitching in the middle of the dash, and chromed gauge bezels. The trim running around the shifter and down the sides of the console used to be plastic, but now it’s stitched and padded. The gauge cluster (tach in middle, speedo on right, analog-style digital readout on left) stays essentially the same but now uses higher contrast graphics that are easier to read, and the rear-view camera benefits from higher resolution. USB-C ports also replace the old USB ones.

By far the most notable interior change, though, concerns the infotainment screen. In the ND1-ND2 the interface was good enough, but the square screen looked like an overgrown, circa-2008 Garmin GPS glued to the top of the dash. The ND3 remedies that with an all-new 8.8-inch rectangular display that’s lower, thinner, better integrated into the dash, and much nicer to read. It’s still operated via touch, with some controls available on the steering wheel or on two small metal knobs behind the shifter.

Mechanically, the two major changes for the ND3 affect steering feel and how the rear end navigates corners. The steering rack is a new unit and the software in the electronically assisted power steering has been revised for both smoother steering and sharper response. At the back, Mazda redesigned the Miata’s conical clutch limited-slip differential. It now more strongly locks the rear wheels together on deceleration to combat oversteer and reduces locking during acceleration to mitigate understeer. This makes for more controllable cornering compared to the earlier, more tail-happy cars. The ND3 Club’s stability control system also adds a new “DSC-Track” mode, activated by a fun little checkered flag button, that raises the threshold of when the system intervenes, without shutting it off entirely. Only the Club model gets DSC-Track.

Entering, or rather fitting into, this car has never been comfortable for everybody. I’m 6’2” and fit alright, but if you’re within a haircut of 6 feet, haven’t had a salad in a while, and/or are more leg than torso, it’s a good idea to try before you buy. Getting in with a helmet (and remaining underneath the top of the windshield) is an additional challenge for the vertically blessed, although there are aftermarket seat options as well as kits to lower the factory chairs. As for the Recaros in our test car, they’re beautiful. With black leather, gray piping, and Alcantara inserts, they look like they’re out of a much more expensive automobile. They’re well-bolstered for track driving as well, but a little tight beneath the shoulders and around the hips of this driver.

There’s no glovebox in an MX-5—just a small cubby between the seats and another, secret cubby behind the passenger’s seat. The storage bin in the console is of limited use. The narrow but surprisingly deep trunk (no spare tire), meanwhile, has enough room for a two-person weekend getaway or a week’s worth of groceries.

On the nice days for which this roadster is intended, operating the soft top is a simple pull on a single central clip, pulling it back behind you, and clicking it in to stow behind the seats. It can all be done in a few seconds from the driver’s seat.

For the not-so-nice days, like the “derecho” storm that slammed Houston in May 2024 with 100-mph winds and three tornadoes, the soft top is reassuringly stout. I briefly got caught out on the road in the derecho, and despite wind and rain that can only be described as biblical, the soft top held tight as a drum. No flapping around, no leaks, and surprisingly little noise. Apart from an actual crash, it would hard to think up a much tougher test for a top, so this one passed.

Jumping straight from the driver’s seat of an ND2 into the ND3 is not a night and day difference, but it is a noticeable one. Steering feel is indeed sharper, smoother, and a little heavier. The change is noticeable at any speed, not to mention from the instant the steering wheel (which is the perfect size and looks great, by the way) moves from center. The new differential leaves the rear end feeling more planted and firmer through an apex, and although Mazda didn’t say it revised the suspension, we wouldn’t be shocked to hear if there were some small tweaks. The car does feel like it’s flatter through the corners. It’s still somewhat softly sprung and takes a bit to settle into the corner. The signature Miata lean/body roll is still there, but it’s less pronounced. All of these adjustments, including changes to the limited-slip, it should be noted, are really only discernible if you’re hitting a corner at about seven-tenths or above.

The slick-shifting, short-throw six-speed, meanwhile, is one of the best manuals around and there’s nothing to nitpick about it. Our test car also averaged a little over 30 mpg in mixed driving conditions, before a lengthy stretch in heavy traffic dropped it into the high 20s.

And while the car does corner more confidently, it’s still easy enough to get the back end to rotate and then use small inputs to keep things under control. This is still a great sports car in which to learn the basics of car control, as overcooking it doesn’t immediately send you into a spin. The dynamics are also entertaining at real-world, law-adjacent speeds on real-world roads. More fun to drive a slow car fast, and all that.

Indeed, 181 hp and 151 lb-ft isn’t a lot, but this is a tiny car and with the roof open, the 0-60 scoot in 5.7 seconds feels quick enough. For reference, that’s around the same output as a Honda S2000 (more about that car later), and the Mazda’s 2.0-liter four is almost as responsive. It likes to rev, really wakes up above 4000 rpm, and should be kept there for maximum smiles.

The Skyactive 2.0-liter isn’t a weak engine, then, but it sure sounds that way. If there’s any significant complaint one might have from behind the wheel of the ND3—and I only have one biggie—it’s the stock exhaust. It stinks. It’s too quiet. What sound does come out of the muffler is more rental-spec Altima than open-top toy. To be fair, not everybody likes their cars loud, but Mazda should absolutely offer an optional sports exhaust.

There are still small, specialist carmakers out there, but a driver-focused car like the 2024 Miata coming from a full-line automaker remains special. That it even exists in the electrified, increasingly automated new car market is a real treat. The closest thing in 15 years is, well, the last Honda S2000.

Thanks to its great reputation, great looks and jewel of an engine, a used 2000-09 S2K in excellent condition is worth about the same as a Miata in brand-new condition. The temptation to cross-shop is there. They have similar performance, similarly good looks, and similarly fine interiors. The Honda has a much sweeter engine, but the Mazda does most other things just as well or better. For the same price, it’s at least a 15-year newer car and thus comes with all the improvements in safety and convenience that have been made since the 2000s, plus a warranty. It’s the sensible choice.

Now, with the past out of the way, let’s end with the future. The next-gen Miata is slated for 2026. It will likely have a hybrid powertrain. What the whole package looks like and how it will be received by the MX-5’s legions of fans isn’t yet clear. What is clear, however, is that the ND3 is one of those “last of” cars. The Miata formula of basic, naturally aspirated four-banger, driving the rear wheels through a stubby manual ends with this car. Inevitably, snobs will call it the last “real” Miata. Good thing it’s the best one, too.

2024 Mazda MX-5 Miata

Highs: A shape that still looks special, even 10 years later. Lots of little improvements without losing any essential Miata-ness. Still exists in 2024.

Lows: Tight fit for bigger drivers. Quiet exhaust that makes a perfectly good engine sound like a weak one. Color choices remain frustratingly limited. Not much trunk space (duh).

Summary: A noticeable improvement on an already great car, and arguably the best Miata yet. If the next MX-5 is a hybrid, the ND3 also represents the end of a glorious era.

***

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Mecum’s annual mega-auction in Kissimmee, FL each January gets a lot of attention for its size and its “world’s largest” designation, but the auction house’s Spring Classic auction in Indianapolis is only slightly less monumental. Case in point: over 2500 vehicles crossed the block from May 10-18 this year.

Total sales were a few percent down from the $100M-plus Indy auctions in the more frenzied markets of Indy 2022 and 2023, but sell-thru rate was still a decent 72 percent. Indy is also an auction that, by virtue of its massive volume, truly has something for everyone. There were top-tier muscle cars, Japanese oddballs, prewar greats and European sports cars on offer, and the median sale price was a reasonable $31,900. Below and outlined in detail are some of our favorites from Mecum Indy 2024.

Lot F315: 1970 Oldsmobile 442 W-30

Sold for $110,000

Chassis no. 344870M179685. Platinum Poly and black over black vinyl. Concours restoration, #1- condition.

Equipment: 455/370hp, M21 4-speed, 3.42 Positraction, Firestone Wide Oval tires, power steering, tilt steering column, tinted glass, Rally Pac, bucket seats, console.

Condition: No penny spared on the restoration of this Olds 442, which just wrapped up in 2022. MCACN Concours Gold award the same year. Paint and body are excellent. Panel fit is right on. Brightwork is beautiful. Interior looks new with no wear. Engine bay is immaculate, with only slight paint discoloration on the heads at the exhaust. Underneath looks spotless like the rest of the car. Pretty much perfect.

Bottom line: This spectacular 442 W-30 sold here one year ago for $145,750, but the collector car market, including for muscle cars, has continued to soften since then. That, plus the second auction appearance in just 12 months, explains the lower but still strong price here.

Lot S231: 1973 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am Super Duty

Sold for $286,000

Chassis no. 2V87X3N138639. Brewster Green with Firebird graphics over black vinyl. Older restoration, #2+ condition.

Equipment: 455/310hp Super Duty, 4-speed with Hurst shifter, Rally wheels, Goodyear Polyglas GT Tires, radio, PHS documents.

Condition: Represented as one of seven Brewster Green Super Duty 4-speeds, and matching numbers. Fully restored in 2009. Paint looks very good with a few cracks on the front bumper. Brightwork looks very good. Weather stripping on the doors is cracked and torn. Interior looks very good with little wear showing. Engine bay is very clean, some discoloration on the heads at the exhaust manifold. Underneath is very clean. A rare muscle car with light but visible use on an older restoration.

Bottom line: This Trans Am, with the top-spec Super Duty engine and desirable rare color sold at Auburn Fall in 2018 for $231,000. That was a lot of money then and this is a lot of money now, but for Pontiac collectors this car ticks a lot of hard-to-find boxes, and the numerous high-spec Ponchos on offer in Indy this year brought them out in full force.

Lot S319: 1970 Chevrolet Nova SS

Sold for $115,500

Chassis no. 114270W396404. Forest Green with black vinyl roof over black vinyl. Visually maintained, largely original, #2- condition.

Equipment: 396/375hp L78, close-ratio 4-speed, Positraction, hub caps, Goodyear Polyglas tires, original manuals, Protect-O-Plate, column-mounted Sun tachometer, original AM radio, Soft Ray tinted glass.

Condition: Represented as matching numbers and largely original. Paint looks very good, with a few touch-ups in various places. Good panel fit. Brightwork looks very good other than some chrome bubbling up on the corner of the rear bumper. Interior looks very good with minimal wear. Engine bay is showing some age and wear with paint peeling off the engine block. Underneath is showing some age and wear, but holding up very well for its age.

Bottom line: The Nova was Chevrolet’s entry-level model in 1970 and most Novas were basic drivers, but the classic formula of small car plus big engine was available in the SS and it’s these tire-burners that get collectors’ attention today. This one had the winning combination of good colors, top-spec engine, 4-speed, and impressive preservation. Novas rarely crest six figures, but this one deserved to.

Lot F69: 1947 Hudson Super Six Pickup

Sold for $33,000

Chassis no. 17823103. Cream yellow over black vinyl. Truck restoration, #2- condition.

Equipment: 212cid six with Twin H-Power air cleaners, column shift 3-speed, hub caps and trim rings, amber fog lights, dual spares, dual mirrors, original radio, dash clock, Hudson Weathermaster cooler/warmer, wood bed.

Condition: From the last year of Hudson pickup production, with 2917 made. Paint looks good with some cracks around the roof seam. Brightwork has some pitting on the grille. Interior is very good, with slight wear showing on the driver’s side seat. Engine bay is good with a little paint flaking off the head. Inside of the bed looks very good. Underneath looks good and is holding up well since restoration.

Bottom line: It’s not clear how many pickup-bodied Hudson Super Sixes are left, but it can’t be much more than a handful. This one looks great and needs nothing to go out and enjoy. Its good looks and rarity would make it a highlight of any gathering of vintage trucks anywhere in the world. Getting all that for 33 grand is not a bad deal at all.

Lot T50: 1998 Mitsubishi Pajero Jr. Flying Pug

Sold for $15,400

Chassis no. H57A5004101. Wine over gray. Unrestored original, #3- condition.

Equipment: RHD. 1094cc four-cylinder, automatic, fog lights, air conditioning.

Condition: Showing 116,044 km (72,106 miles). Lots of paint blemishes, chips, and clearcoat peeling. Paint does not match on a few panels. Interior looks very good with only slight wear showing on the driver’s seat. Engine bay looks good, with some age showing on rubber and plastic parts. Underneath is good as well, with small amount of surface rust on the rear axle. Used, but a charming oddball.

Bottom line: Built on Mitsubishi’s tried and true Pajero Junior platform, the Flying Pug (that’s not a nickname, Mitsubishi actually called it that) was a Japan-only model that aped the design of classic British cars, which were popular in Japan during the 1990s. Design-wise, though, it was a swing and a miss. Mitsubishi planned to build 1000 but only wound up selling 139. One look at it, and you’ll understand why. There can’t be more than a few in the United States, so in terms of rarity per dollar, this was a fun buy.

Lot T223: 1989 Ford Mustang Saleen SSC

Sold for $88,000

Chassis no. 1FABP41E0KF269238. White over gray leather. Original, #2- condition.

Equipment: 302, Saleen high-flow heads, Saleen-modified intake manifolds, Saleen rocker arms, 65mm throttle body, Saleen headers, Walker Dynomax exhaust, 5-speed with Hurst quick ratio shifter, 3.55 Traction-Lok, Racecraft suspension, power windows, cruise control, air conditioning, original window sticker.

Condition: From the Jason Dietsch Saleen collection. One of 161 Saleen SSCs built. Showing 906 miles. Paint looks very good with a few blemishes showing, and a small touch up on the front bumper. Interior is very good, some slight wear to the driver’s seat outer bolster. Engine bay is very clean, small amount of corrosion showing on the throttle body. Underneath is clean, with mild oxidation on the rear axle. Not as spotless as the three-digit odometer reading would suggest, but still a clean, barely used example of one of the rarest and hottest Fox-bodies of all.

Bottom line: 1989, Saleen was finally able to combine its effective handling improvements to the Fox-body Mustang with a much more potent engine. The new model, dubbed SSC, bumped power from 225hp in the base car to 290, and it got the other usual Saleen treatments of body kit, decals, seats, wheels, and Racecraft suspension. The window sticker on this one reads $36,500 (well over $90K adjusted for inflation), so its 161-car production run is very small batch stuff by Mustang standards. This one’s condition didn’t quite match its mileage, but the result is still surprisingly low. With buyer commission the price isn’t much more than half the car’s low estimate.

Lot T221: 1988 Ford Ranger Saleen Sportruck

Sold for $43,450

Chassis no. 1FTBR10T6JUC85019. Regatta Blue over two-tone gray cloth. Original, #2- condition.

Equipment: 2.9-liter V-6, 5-speed, Racecraft suspension, alloy wheels, bucket seats, Momo steering wheel, Saleen gauges, power steering, air conditioning, cruise control, original window sticker.

Condition: From the Jason Dietsch Saleen collection. The ninth of 24 Sportrucks built for 1988, and reportedly the only one finished in Regatta Blue (all the others were white). Also represented as a one-owner truck and showing 1678 miles. Paint is very good with a few small scratches and chips on the front. Interior still looks new with little to no wear. Engine bay is very clean with some age showing on rubber and plastic parts. Underneath is clean for the most part with some oxidation on the driveline and suspension parts. Window sticker reads $11,230 (about $30K today) as the original price. Barely used, and surely one of the world’s coolest Ford Rangers.

Bottom line: While Saleen is better known for modifying Mustangs, Ford’s compact pickup was getting the Saleen treatment as early as 1987, when Saleen entered the SCCA Coors Race Truck Challenge with ‘roided up Rangers. The Ranger-based Sportruck came out in 1988, and in 1991 Saleen won the SCCA Race Truck title with five wins in six races. The last one of these ultra-rare Rangers to sell at auction that we could find was in Scottsdale way back in 2009, for just $6050. This one’s $75K-$90K estimate proved ambitious, but $43,450 is still probably the most anyone has ever paid for a first-gen Ford Ranger.

Lot S211: 1969 Chevrolet Berger COPO Camaro RS

Sold for $181,500

Chassis no. 124379N613366. Fathom Green with green vinyl roof over Midnight Green vinyl. Older restoration, #2+ condition.

Equipment: 427/425hp L72, automatic, horseshoe shifter, power front disc brakes, 4.10 Positraction, cowl induction hood, Endura front bumper.

Condition: Represented as one of fewer than 60 COPO Camaros built with the RS package. Ordered new by one of Berger’s top salesmen with both the COPO L72 high-performance engine package and the Sports Car Conversion Package, which included heavy-duty springs, power front disc brakes, bigger sway bars, and 4.10 Posi. Fully restored and has been kept in a museum since. Paint looks great, with a few very light swirl marks. Very good panel fit. Brightwork looks new. Interior looks new with no wear. Engine bay is spotless, with slight discoloration on the intake. Underneath looks great with no wear as expected. A beautiful, high-spec Camaro.

Bottom line: Grand Rapids, Michigan-based dealer Berger Chevrolet established a High-Performance Parts department in 1967, with the slogan “Prescribed Power.” High-performance COPO Camaros were commonly ordered there, and Berger is nearly as associated with special big-block Camaros as Yenko. This one has been to auction a few times, selling for $170,500 in Scottsdale in 2011, $170,500 again at Mecum Dallas last year, and once more in Kissimmee this January for $220,000. While this result is lower than in Kissimmee, three trips across the auction block in less than a year didn’t turn off the Indy bidders too much—this is still a strong price for a well-restored and well-equipped Berger Camaro.

Lot S238: 1953 Chevrolet Corvette

Sold for $137,500

Chassis no. E53F001115. Polo White over red. Unrestored original, #4+ condition.

Equipment: 235-cubic inch I-6/150hp, Powerglide automatic, AM radio, heater, wide whitewall tires.

Condition: An unrestored 1953 car, and one of the first 300 production Corvettes made. With the second owner for 56 years. Lots of cracks and discoloration to the paint. Fiberglass texture can be seen on the body, but that is a feature on these early cars, as are the uneven panels everywhere. Brightwork is faded, scratched, and pitted. The grille looks very good, though. The interior is showing wear and faded. Engine bay showing age as the rest of the car. Underneath has some surface rust on suspension parts, and signs of fluid leaks. A little rough around the edges, but as a preserved first-year Corvette, it’s also a piece of history.

Bottom line: The first-year 1953 Corvette was famously an unremarkable performer, and the only real reason to seek one out is to round out a comprehensive Corvette collection. Even if you love the looks, a ’54 is nearly identical, far easier to find, and significantly cheaper. On this car, though, originality didn’t inspire much bidding and this is a surprisingly low price for what it bought. Mecum has brought six ’53 Corvettes to auction so far this year, and after a freshly restored one brought $352K in Kissimmee, the other five have sold low, so it may be that everybody who really wants a ’53 right now already has one.

Lot F185: 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona

Sold for $396,000

Chassis no. XX29L9B400585. Hemi Orange and white over white vinyl. Older restoration, #3+ condition.

Equipment: 440/375hp, 4-speed with Hurst shifter, power steering, power brakes, broadcast sheet, A33 Track Pak with 3.55 gears, original radio

Condition: One of only 505 Daytonas produced, and represented with the original drivetrain, body, and interior. Also represented as one of two known cars in these colors. Paint and body are good, with some paint chips on panel edges, and the door fit is a little uneven. Interior is in good condition, though the driver’s seat and door armrests are showing some wear. Some age showing in the engine bay, with paint starting to bake off of the intake. Underneath is showing age/wear as well, including some surface rust on the exhaust and rear axle.

Bottom line: Chrysler sold several times as many Plymouth Superbirds as they did the similar Charger Daytona for NASCAR homologation, but with 505 built, the Daytona is only rare by muscle car standards. They pop up for sale semi-regularly. Engine, transmission and colors make a difference, so this car’s colors and 4-speed are big items even if it doesn’t have the coveted Hemi. And despite its unexceptional condition, it sold near the top of the range for a 440 Magnum-powered Daytona.

Lot S260: 1972 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1

Sold for $159,500

Chassis no. 1Z37L2S526397. Ontario Orange over black vinyl. Older restoration, #3 condition.

Equipment: 350/255hp LT1, M22 4-speed, heavy duty power brakes, transistor ignition, aluminum radiator, Rally wheels, Firestone Wide Oval tires, power steering.

Condition: One of only 20 ZR1s built for 1972. Bloomington Gold certified and multiple NCRS awards. Paint looks good with a few flat spots and some chipping on hood edge. Panel fit is a little uneven. Interior looks very good with a little wear showing on the driver’s seat. Engine bay is showing age and wear. Underneath showing age as well, with a little surface rust on metal parts and exhaust.

Bottom line: Big-block Corvettes boasted higher numbers, but the small-block, solid-lifter LT1 engine available from 1970-72 packed a lot into a 350cid package, and handled better, too. GM further built on that with a special “ZR1” package that added to the LT1 engine upgraded suspension and brakes, stabilizer bars, and close ratio M22 gearbox. ZR1 was an expensive box to tick as it cost about $1K, so just 25 sold in 1970, eight in 1971, and 20 in 1972. Although another 1972 ZR1 did sell at auction earlier this year for $220K, the typical going rate for these at auction over the past several years is in the mid-$100K range, so this car sold right where it should have.

Lot S245: 1965 Ferrari 275 GTB

Sold for $1,237,500

Chassis no. 06943. Rosso Corsa over black leather. Older restoration, #3+ condition.

Equipment: 3286-cc V-12/280hp, triple Weber carburetors, 5-speed, Borrani wire wheels (set of Campagnolo starburst wheels included), Michelin WXW tires, Tubi exhaust, books and tools.

Condition: North American model. With the same owner, the car’s second, for 54 years. Originally a short nose car but converted to more desirable long-nose appearance in the early 1980s, and has received restoration work over the years. The paint is showing some age, with chips on the nose and very light scratches throughout. The brightwork looks good, but the driver’s side vent window has a little pitting and looks worn thin. The interior looks very good with slight wear to the driver’s seat. Engine bay looks very good. Underneath looks good as well, with just a little wear and use showing.

Bottom line: Despite the long-term ownership, the generally good condition and the somewhat modest estimate, this car sold at the very bottom of the range for a 275 GTB. Mecum Indy isn’t just an auction for muscle cars, but it isn’t exactly heavy on 1960s Ferraris, either. Also, the altered bodywork is a big knock to this one’s value even if most people think it looks better with the long nose. It was reportedly bid to $1.6M at Mecum Monterey in 2017 and to $1.5M there a year later, both missed opportunities. Then again, if the seller had owned this car since 1970, $1.24M is still a hell of a lot more than he paid for it.

Lot F152: 1966 Shelby Cobra 427

Sold for $2,145,000

Chassis no. CSX3200. Red over black leather. Recent restoration, #1 condition.

Equipment: Center oiler 427/425hp, dual quads, Toploader 4-speed, sunburst wheels, wood-rim steering wheel, wind wings, Smiths gauges.

Condition: The last car in the initial run of 100 Cobra 427 street cars before Shelby switched to the cheaper, less powerful 428. Original purchase price was $6183. It suffered damage in transit to its first owner but was repaired and carefully kept by subsequent owners, who never modified it. By 1995 it still had just 16,000 miles and today shows barely 18K. More recently restored to incredibly high standards with an eye to originality, keeping the original leather in place and reusing original rivets. A gleaming, correct, gorgeous car that is essentially perfect.

Bottom line: Mecum is a nine-day auction, but CSX3200 took less than four minutes on the block to become the most expensive car of the week. That it’s a genuine 427 Cobra (not a 428) with its original engine, body that has never been cut up or modified, and a no-expense-spared restoration make the $2.145M price easy to justify.

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There’s never been a better time to be a steward of the obscure, rare, and obsolete. The steady rise of 3D printing seems to have followed an inverse path from the trickle-down of tech in decades past; while major automakers continue to utilize it on a relatively small scale, the democratization of the technology has led to a massive hobbyist community. Within this, automotive enthusiasts lead a collaborative, grassroots movement in spinning up all manner of tools and componentry for collector cars at every level.

Indeed, it’s the professional restorers, speed shops, and small-batch manufacturers who appear to benefit the most from 3D printing. In some ways, restoration and modification is the same as it ever was; metal fabrication and OE parts sourcing is as relevant as ever, but as cars once considered “modern” begin to slip deep into “classic” territory, a vast amount of plastic components—both vital and superficial—are only becoming more brittle and faded with each passing year.

And as much as we hoped modern production technology and OEM classic support from automakers like Porsche and Mercedes-Benz would guarantee an unbroken line of quality OEM replacement parts, a major European and Japanese parts shortage is brewing. And, when these parts reserves run out, some cars might be jerry-rigged lest they be permanently put on jackstands. 

This is hardly a new phenomenon—dwindling support has required creative solutions from generations of enthusiasts, and while 3D printing has been around for a long time, in its early days it showed more promise than result. To wit, Steve Dibdin, co-owner of Additive Restoration (AR) and one of the foremost experts on 3D printing in the automotive space, has seen the technology evolve from the get-go. He’s used 3D printing since its relative adolescence in the mid-1990s, when he says the end product could only be used for prototyping. “The early ones were incredibly brittle, and very expensive. I remember working on a product, it was a small plastic part—about three inches by four inches by half an inch—and it cost [about $2,000] in the 1990s,” he laughs. “I remember putting it on the table, and it just shattered!”

The tech has come a long, long way in the decades since. One of his first projects under the banner of AR was a twin-spark rotor arm for an OSCA MT4, a component that leaned heavily on 3D printing for both prototyping and actual production. A week after the first rotor arm was installed, the recipient OSCA was shipped abroad for a successful 500-mile endurance rally. 

AR still offers that OSCA rotor arm for sale on its website with a $750 tag. Hardly cheap, but as Dibdin explains, the alternative is your MT4 running poorly, or not at all, not to mention the actual production cost of the part is higher than you might think. OSCA built an estimated 72-79 MT4s between 1948 and 1956, and given these were hard-lived race prototypes, quite a few were lost to both time and tragedy. Prior to AR’s work, most OSCAs just “made do,” either with adapted off-the-shelf ignition or with time-consuming custom-fab parts. Dibdin says previous efforts from enterprising owners include a small batch of rotor arms hand-dremeled from a block of Bakelite.

With so few cars in existence and traditional means of parts production, it hardly made sense to produce even a limited run of production rotor arms. Economies of scale mean a minimum order for this part might have run into the hundreds, if not thousands of units, necessitating a unit price far, far beyond AR’s $750 ask. “We do a lot of one-offs, of course. But below between 1,000 or 2,000 parts, there’s this gray area that’s been difficult to make things efficiently, especially in plastics—until now.” 

He holds up a small, blue plastic component on our video call, apparently a 3D-printed prototype for a carburetor linkage for a Sunbeam Tiger. As he tells it, the nylon doodad is likely stronger and will last longer than the original part while maintaining the same appearance. I ask him if that’s the case for many now-ancient plastic parts. “Absolutely! Take the column switch repair kit for [Ferrari 330s]. If you have one of those, there’s a good chance your indicator stalk is going to fall off at some point.” He mentions poor injection molding done in-period that that produced a plastic part that was weak, brittle, and full of inclusions. 

“It was destined to self-destruct at some point. With 3D printing, we can make sure we don’t have those [imperfections], and I can predict exactly how something is going to fail,” he explains. “The technology we have both on the design side and the implementation of that is far advanced from where it was even 10 years ago.”

So, at the current state of the art, proper implementation of 3D printing produces components that are often better and far cheaper to produce than it was when it left the factory. For the smaller parts, is there still even a need for traditional restoration methods? “Machining still has its place,” he says. “What [3D printing] does is take out much of the man hours and required expertise of actual production. The design and development time is still the biggest expense.”  

Shucks—I was rather hoping each hobbyist 3D printer came with a button marked “Press here for 1950s Maserati wheel cap,” but I digress. Of course, plastic isn’t always the answer. “If we’re doing something like suspension or brakes that’s safety critical, we’ll machine it from billet,” Dibdin explains. “We can get parts printed in 3D metal, and they’re very good. But, there are significant considerations.” He mentions post-processing is a large part of the current output of 3D printed metal, both aesthetically and structurally. And you’re limited in the material and application, whereas machining is settled science. 

“When you machine something from metal, you know the material, you know the process, and the tolerances are far, far tighter,” Dibdin continues. “Though they can sometimes 3D print in metal or other material and then throw it on the CNC to finish it off.” The best of both worlds, then. 

Still, even modern material cannot out-maneuver poor design. Dibdin mentions a previous project involving 3D printing a commonly failed part found in a Ferrari 550 seat. After a full development period, AR’s recreation part failed a short while after installation. “You have to know where the technology is appropriate and compatible. It’s the difference between getting a microwave-ready meal versus going out for a sitdown meal,” he laughs.

Dibdin was keen on stressing that 3D printing, no matter how advanced it may be, is still just another tool in your workshop. “It helps us get to a point, but it’s still very much about human interaction and understanding how things go together. It’s sort of sexy with lasers flying around, but to get to that point, someone spent time developing a product, going through iterations, prototyping it, testing it, and making sure it’s suitable,” he says. “At the end of the day, it’s just a fancy hammer.” 

So, things are looking way, way up for micro-scale production of better-than-factory direct replacement components. But 3D printing has also irrevocably changed the aftermarket, especially when builds turn both restomod and big money. 

In a similar vein to Icon 4×4 and Gateway Bronco, Texas-based Vigilante 4×4 thoroughly modernizes and powers-up your choice of SJ-platform Jeeps, including ‘70s family truckster hotness like the OG Cherokee, Gladiator pickup, and Wagoneer. These are serious builds, and with a price tag starting at $300,000, each build is incredibly detail-rich, with little touches the Vigilante team says wouldn’t be possible without 3D printing.

Actually, the whole enterprise likely wouldn’t exist. “It’s important to say that it’s a very critical moment for us, as Vigilante is about modern technology, and we wouldn’t be able to do what we’re doing without 3D printing,” says co-owner Rachel van Doveren. “A lot of other vehicles can order [modern] parts straight from a catalog. Jeeps don’t have that luxury.” 

Like most shops that utilize the tech, Vigilante primarily 3D prints test components as part of prototyping ahead of machining. “As of right now, we have an FTM printer in-house that we prototype everything from handles to brackets before we machine the metal part to make sure it looks right and fits correctly,” explains 3D printing specialist Nick Douglass. But, where there is no old part to restore or modify, and the component sits more-or-less behind the scenes, Vigilante will create something wholly new. 

Jeep never installed rear air-conditioning ducts on any SJ-chassis vehicle, so some clever 3D printing ensures rear passengers are either frosty or toasty. Among Vigilante’s signature details are the repositioned (and modernized) air-conditioning controls, now made to look entirely original via careful post-processing. “We start with determining the need for the custom solution,” says Douglass. “We ask, ‘Are there factory parts we can restore and reuse?’ When there aren’t, we begin the process.”

It could be as complex as the A/C or as simple as a tiny bit of trim. “Take for example the clip that holds the sun visor in place. That’s not a complex piece. It just had to do its job and look good,” Douglass says. “Trying to get a factory piece sanded, repainted, and installing it with a screw without cracking that plastic can be a huge challenge.”

I ask Douglass about what developing 3D printing advancements he’s most looking forward to. He mentions metal printing, and material with integrated carbon fiber. Then, he pauses for a moment to reflect, thinking back on our discussion. “I wonder, personally, when it will become so hard to find a decent donor [body] panel, that the technology for sheetmetal reproduction will become more popular,” he muses. “There is a technology I’ve seen videos of, where a CNC-type machine uses a hammer-type object to form sheetmetal panels almost like a 3D printer, working a layer at a time. I wonder if that’s going to be the only option in the future.”

A fancy hammer, indeed. 

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California has passed SB 301, legislation introduced by State Senator Anthony Portantino (D-Burbank), which earmarked at least $2,000,000 from the state’s clean vehicle rebate program to be available to EV conversions rather than new vehicle sales. When proposed, the legislation planned on offering up to $2000 per vehicle for those converting gas- and diesel-powered vehicles into zero-emissions vehicles (ZEVs). The current bill, as amended and passed by the legislature, now offers up to $4,000 per vehicle.

The SEMA Action Network supported the bill, toting its benefits to small businesses. “Governor Newsom has the opportunity to create new jobs and support small businesses by signing SB 301 into law,” said Christian Robinson, SEMA’s senior director of state government affairs and grassroots. “This bill will also help California reduce emissions and make zero-emissions vehicle conversions more accessible to all residents. SEMA urges the Governor to recognize the tremendous benefits SB 301 brings to the Golden State and sign it into law.”

We spoke to Michael Bream, EV land speed racer and owner of EV West, an EV conversion company, about his thoughts on SB 301. He was grateful that SEMA and the California legislature had put some effort into incentivizing these DIY conversions, noting that small businesses and builders with smaller budgets will be able to benefit. “All these incentives were aimed at traditional automakers,” said Bream, referencing the rebates for new-car sales. He felt that the move would spur more hands-on involvement in EV swaps, noting that SEMA’s influence was a big part of the legislation. “I can speak for most of the conversion shops, we’re all grassroots people,” said Bream. “The DIY industry isn’t large enough to have a lobby.”

Bream sees EV conversions as an opportunity to give vintage vehicles with lackluster powerplants a new lease on life and make them viable once again. Not every vintage car is a fire-breathing muscle car or low-slung exotic. Many run-of-the-mill utility vehicles would benefit from an EV conversion, such as Bream’s own VW Bus, which can now keep up with traffic.

Putting modern components into classic cars is nothing new, and there are plenty of EV motors and batteries in salvage yards that can lead a second life. “The time, effort, and engineering that goes into a modern car is immense,” said Bream. Putting those complex and well-crafted parts into new vehicles without breaking them down into their components for scrap is often the best use for them. Remember, hot-rodders were recycling before recycling was cool.

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Dr. Karl E. Peace, a biostatistician, author, and philanthropist who has worked in public health for decades, has donated his 32-car collection to benefit Georgia Southern University. One of Dr. Peace’s previous contributions, an endowment in honor of his late wife, Dr. Jiann-Ping Hsu, allowed the university to establish a college of public health in her name.

Hagerty Marketplace is hosting the auction of The Dr. Karl Peace & Georgia Southern University Collection, the majority of which are Studebakers.

We can’t remember the last time we saw so many of South Bend’s finest under one roof. While there are a couple of post-Studebaker Avantis, a Chevy, a Buick, a Mercury, and a couple of Fords among the collection up for sale, let’s take a look at some of our favorite Studebakers that we’ll be paying particularly close attention to as the auctions come to a close starting on June 11.

1953 Studebaker Champion Regal Starliner

The 1953 model year marked the first year of the low, sleek Starliner coupes, penned by Robert Bourke at Studebaker’s design studio, which was headed by the legendary Raymond Loewy. Studebaker coupes of this era are a favorite among land speed racers because they perform much better than their peers, and it’s easy to see why: Their streamlined shapes were unlike anything else on the road. Later Studebaker Hawk variations expanded on the theme with fins and extra trim—we’ll be highlighting some of those as well—but the original Starliner is one of the best iterations and proves that sometimes less is more.

1957 Studebaker Golden Hawk

Studebaker’s most powerful and prestigious model at the time, the Golden Hawk debuted in 1956 with 352 cubic inches of Packard V-8 power, showing the fruits of the brand’s merger with Packard two years prior. For 1957, a Studebaker 289 replaced the larger Packard mill, but the output was the same 275 horsepower as before thanks to a centrifugal supercharger. These luxurious winged coupes are a rare treat, and because a 1956 model participated in the famed Mille Miglia, this one in particular could also be eligible for entry, adding another reason why a collector might see this Golden Hawk as the prize of Dr. Peace’s collection.

1960 Studebaker Champ Pickup

Studebaker didn’t have the deep pockets of its Big Three rivals, so it had to get creative in the late ‘50s when the brand needed to replace its aging pickup truck line that had been in service since 1949. Using the same chassis and stepside bed as its previous light-duty pickup, Studebaker cobbled a truck cab together by shortening a Lark sedan. We’ve gotta say, for something built on a shoestring budget, the styling works pretty well. 1960 marked the final year of a 170 inline-six as a flathead; it got an overhead-valve cylinder head in 1961. These pickups are a rare sight and would likely gather quite a crowd at any car show. Combine that with its fantastic gold paint and this one was an easy pick for our list.

1962 Studebaker Gran Turismo Hawk

The Gran Gurismo Hawk represented the final evolution of the sleek Starliner coupe into a more formal and stately touring car. The prominent grille might be a bit brash, but the new greenhouse gave the Gran Tursimo Hawk an all-new profile that matched its more upscale ambition. Inside, a plush interior kept up the theme. This one is powered by a 289 V-8 and a three-speed manual. Membership to the Brown Car Appreciation Society is complimentary.

1964 Studebaker Avanti

Plenty of Studebaker’s designs were vastly different from anything else on the market, yet we can’t help but think that the Avanti was perhaps the most ambitious effort the brand ever made. Its sleek fiberglass body is unmistakable. Studebaker-produced Avanti models were powered by 289-cubic-inch Studebaker V-8s, some with optional Paxton superchargers like the Golden Hawk. This one is naturally aspirated and backed by a four-speed manual transmission. Finished in blue over a blue and white interior, this example looks fantastic in photos, although a few mechanical and cosmetic issues need sorting out. It’s still a well-preserved example of a sporty personal luxury car bursting with style.

1964 Studebaker Daytona Convertible

Like the Champ pickup we mentioned previously, the Daytona used a lot of the mechanical underpinnings of its predecessor. In this case, that was the compact Lark, the same car that served as the basis of the Champ. Renowned designer Brooks Stevens was responsible for completely redesigning the Daytona to compete with rivals like the Dodge Dart, Chevy Nova, and Ford Falcon. We’d say he succeeded, as the lines look clean and sharp, even today. Just 416 Daytona convertibles were built in South Bend before production moved to Ontario, so this represents one of the last U.S.-built Studebakers in the company’s history.

There are plenty of other Studebakers in the Dr. Karl Peace & Georgia Southern University collection—plus the odd Chevy, Ford, and Buick. If you’ve got room in your collection for a bit of American car history outside of the Big Three, then you might consider one of South Bend’s stylish alternatives and help Georgia Southern University in the process.

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Ford’s $300,000, carbon-bodied Mustang is going to have a busy year. Following appearances at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the 24 Hours of Spa in June, and the retro-tastic Goodwood Festival of Speed in early July, the Mustang GTD will spend the summer testing in Europe for its end-of-year challenge: A sub-seven-minute lap of the Nürburgring Nordschleife. That time would put the GTD among the top ten fastest production cars at The Green Hell.

Ford must know that we can’t get enough of this road-legal track beast, because it’s further whetting our appetite for the unobtainium, road-legal track monster: Earlier this week, the automaker shared more details about its trick suspension, made by Multimatic, the Canadian company that designed the suspension for the most recent Ford GT. The GTD received Multimatic’s newest and most exotic tech, and the dampers are so fancy, they get their own window, made of polycarbonate and measuring about 24 by 10 inches:

Naturally, you can also see them from outside the vehicle:

Now, to the nerdy details. The rear suspension is a pushrod design that places the shocks atop the tubular rear subframe rather than inboard of the wheels in a more traditional setup. We expect that Multimatic and Ford decided to use a pushrod setup at least in part to accommodate the massive, 345-mm rear tires: Since the shock isn’t mounted vertically behind the wheel, taking up precious space, there’s more room for a larger tire—and for the engineers to design the suspension for just-right geometry.

Based in Canada, Multimatic Motorsports has campaigned both production-based and from-scratch race cars on the international stage since 1992. It boasts wins at Sebring, Le Mans, and Daytona. Multimatic is also a Tier 1 supplier of suspension systems to manufacturers as diverse as Ford (with whom it partnered to build the 21st-century GT supercar), Chevrolet, Aston Martin, Mercedes, and Lotus. Multimatic also has experience fettling ultra-exclusive production cars for ‘Ring times: It designed those on the one-off Evija X:

You’ll find Multimatic dampers, easily recognizable by their gold-and-blue housings, on Chevrolet’s 2024 Silverado ZR2, a Porsche 992 GT3 Cup car, the Bronco DR, and now the Mustang GTD.

Multimatic didn’t invent the spool-valve damper—the aerospace industry has used them for a long time—but it introduced the technology to motorsports. It’s developed the technology even beyond what’s legal in motorsports, and the Mustang GTD is one of the beneficiaries. Its adaptive dampers use a spool-valve design to adjust the flow of fluid within the damper (in contrast, a magnetorheological shock uses electricity to change the viscosity of the internal fluid).

“Adaptive damping allows more flexibility in absolute ride performance compared to a passive damper,” said Scott Keefer, vice president of engineering for Multimatic. “It lets you decouple the ride versus handling compromise that you would normally make in damper tuning. Our system is a double win in that adjustments feel very analog, very natural in terms of motion control.”

These proprietary Adaptive Spool Valve (ASV) dampers can adjust from their softest to their firmest setting six times quicker than you can blink (15 milliseconds). From a seat-of-the-pants perspective, that’s basically real-time. The range of adjustability is remarkable, and well-suited to a track-worthy car that you would also drive on the road: When set to Track mode, the dampers and the springs of the GT work together to lower the car up to 1.6 inches while nearly doubling the spring rate.

Ford’s press release also features some beauty shots of the optional, more expensive wheels, which are made of magnesium, but all we want to do is watch this video and watch the dampers go pinchy-pinchy-pinch.

***

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The post Watch the Mustang GTD’s Trick Multimatic Dampers Do Their Thing appeared first on Hagerty Media.

]]> https://www.hagerty.com/media/news/watch-the-mustang-gtds-trick-multimatic-dampers-do-their-thing/feed/ 5 https://www.hagerty.com/media/news/meet-the-2025-subaru-wrx-ts-likely-the-closest-well-get-to-an-sti/ https://www.hagerty.com/media/news/meet-the-2025-subaru-wrx-ts-likely-the-closest-well-get-to-an-sti/#comments Fri, 31 May 2024 16:00:00 GMT https://www.hagerty.com/media/?p=403022

Yes, of course, we miss the Subaru WRX STI, even though it could be a bit, well, frantic. An acquired taste, and arguably a bit extreme as a daily driver, unless you live on a dirt road in the mountains of Colorado. But knowing it was out there was a comfortable confirmation that extreme performance vehicles were still available without a six-figure buy-in. Subaru dropped it from the U.S. lineup in 2021, and there are no immediate plans to bring it back.

As a consolation prize, though, meet the 2025 Subaru tS, which, we’re told, stands for “tuned by STI.” It will make its first appearance Sunday at Subaru’s Wicked Big Meet at the Stafford Motor Speedway in Stafford Springs, Connecticut, a legendary half-mile oval owned by the Arute family, a name familiar to most racing fans in New England. The annual Wicked Big Meet is the world’s largest gathering of Subaru enthusiasts.

If you’re headed there, here’s a primer on the WRX tS so you can ask informed questions when you see it.

The Wicked Big News is that the tS features a new STI-tuned suspension with electronically-controlled dampers. It has Brembo brakes—six-pistons up front, two in the back—in the signature gold color, with larger pads and rotors. Rubber is the 245/35 R19 Bridgestone Potenza S007, chosen for their increased wet and dry grip and improved braking performance. Its wheels are finished in satin gray.

The outside mirrors, roof-mounted shark fin antenna and rear spoiler are painted Crystal Black Silica. There’s a tS badge on the rear deck, next to taillights that “glow with a look inspired by volcanic magma,” Subaru says.

Under the hood: The familiar 271-horsepower, 2.4-liter turbocharged Subaru boxer engine, connected to a six-speed manual transmission. Active Torque Vectoring is also standard as is, of course, Symmetrical All-Wheel Drive.

Inside, there’s a new 12.3-inch digital gauge cluster, which offers improved legibility and the capability to show additional information to the driver, including map display and route guidance. Gone is the power moonroof, deleted to save weight and provide some headroom for helmeted occupants. There’s also an 11.6-inch center information display and touchscreen for multimedia, climate control, and vehicle configuration settings. Drive Mode Select, which you could previously get only on the WRX GT, controls those dampers by offering Comfort, Normal and Sport settings.

WRX tS owners will be sitting on Recaros, which have a “Y-shaped design at the center of the seat backrest that embodies a design concept in which the sides and shoulder blades of the occupant are securely supported to maintain proper driving posture.” Upholstery is charcoal Ultrasuede with blue accents and a WRX tS logo embossed on the front headrests and carpeted floormats. The driver’s seat is eight-way power adjustable.

Subaru says the WRX tS will be at dealers the first quarter of 2025. Price? Doesn’t say. The base WRX starts at $32,735, plus $1120 for shipping. Prices rise for the Premium, Limited, TR and GT models, with the GT topping out at $44,215, much of that going towards the automatic transmission that has an eight-speed manual mode.

The existing TR is closest in content to the tS, including the moonroof delete, Brembo brakes, 19-inch tires and wheels, the six-speed manual transmission and Recaro buckets, and it starts at $41,655, before shipping. So we’d guess the new tS might start at a price close to the GT, somewhere around $45,000.

It’s still not an STI, but it’s probably the closest we’ll get until the next-generation model shows up.

***

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The post Meet the 2025 Subaru WRX tS, Likely the Closest We’ll Get to an STI appeared first on Hagerty Media.

One of the perks of being someone in our shoes is that we are often in an enviable position when it comes to cars, trucks, motorcycles, or anything in between. Maybe not to everyone we come into contact with, but at least to enthusiasts who have a keen eye for spotting the more desirable vehicles in a parking lot—which often means we’re approached for conversation. And, more frequently than you might expect, offers to purchase our rides. Whenever this happens, I am reminded of a not-so-famous scene from a long-forgotten crime drama about a man who loved his vintage Mustang.

Everyone has their price, I suppose, but for the most part, we tend to be motivated to hang onto our vehicles. Managing a would-be buyer can be difficult, depending on how you deal with them. And that’s what we asked the team here at Hagerty Media, as we wondered aloud how we handle those notes left on our pride and joy asking to contact them with a sales price.

Were we salty, sweet or did we just ghost them like a bad first date? The answer is a profound yes on all counts.

More than you wanna spend, pal.

“My piles of over-restored, highly maintained, undesirable junk normally rest below the surface of appeal to the general public. As they should, as they are the rolling embodiment of the sunk cost fallacy. Well, except for my 2011 Ford Ranger XLT: The one bright spot in my portfolio is this compact truck with a regular cab and manual transmission.

I am regularly asked if it’s for sale, often after it receives a compliment for its condition. My answer usually revolves around “an asking price higher than Carvana lists them on their website.” That ends the conversation quickly, nobody has yet to whip out their smart phone and start checking prices online. Everyone wants a cheap truck, and everyone wants it for cheap.” —Sajeev Mehta

But money can’t buy love?

“While on a run to the hardware store for a few bolts to wrap up a project, I came out of the crisp air conditioning of the bolt aisle to the steamy summer humidity. Before pulling my helmet back, on I noticed a slip of receipt paper folded and tucked between the two large gauges. Apparently someone named Tim took a liking to my 1977 Kawasaki KE175 and was interested in purchasing it. Sadly, I was more interested in riding this vintage enduro than sitting on my couch with a small stack of cash in my pocket. I can’t knock the attempt though. Sorry Tim.” —Kyle Smith

Your question is irrelevant?

“To avoid this headache, I simply don’t own any cars that anyone would ever offer to buy from me! Problem solved!” —Ben Woodworth

“Sir, I would like to buy your car, now you have a problem.” – Sajeev Mehta

No, but if it did happen…

“In a world where I had anything of value, I would pull up the Hagerty Price Guide and request the #1 value for the car.” —Cameron Neveu

“Followed by the classic words, ‘Don’t low ball me! I know what I got!'” – Ben Woodworth

Silence isn’t necessarily golden

“Yes! I street parked my 1986 Mustang over the summer of 2022. Over those three months, three separate people left notes asking to buy it. I didn’t reply to any of them.

In return, I’ve probably left a dozen notes myself and don’t remember ever getting a call.” —Larry Webster

Well, that’s a silly question!

“At least twice a year, some rando knocks on my door and offers to buy the shitbox Volvo 242 that has been growing moss in my driveway for the last eight years. ‘Why would you want to do that?’ I say, and then I close the door.” —Stefan Lombard

Delete, block, and unsubscribe?

“I haven’t gotten any notes on my cars, but Carvana didn’t hesitate to share its ongoing interest in my Cadillac ATS-V, especially at the height of the pandemic. The dealer reached out several times wanting my wife’s car, too, but we both tend to hold our vehicles for a long time. Thanks, but no thanks, automated offerers!” —Eddy Eckart

***

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The post Our Two Cents: How Have You Declined an Offer to Buy Your Vehicle? appeared first on Hagerty Media.

In celebration of the Golf nameplate’s 50^th anniversary this year, Volkswagen has updated the eighth-generation GTI with more power and usability. At Germany’s iconic Nürburgring today, it also launched a high-performance Clubsport model, which in comparison to the base GTI means more of almost everything. More power, more aero, more stopping power, more drive modes, more aggressive styling, more wheel choices, and even more motorsport cred in the form of a one-off 343-horsepower racing version that will compete in this weekend’s 24 Hours of the Nürburgring with a newly developed bioethanol fuel from Shell.

The only bad news of the day is that the Clubsport won’t be coming to the United States thanks to the pesky and pricey process required to homologate the higher-output version of the GTI’s two-liter inline-four turbo. The resultant MSRP to cover those costs would put the Clubsport very close to Golf R territory, and VW rightly believes that outside of a few GTI-only diehards, most stateside buyers would likely opt for the faster all-wheel drive Golf R than the front-wheel drive GTI Clubsport when faced with a similar sticker price. In other words, Europeans have more choices when shopping for European performance cars, as usual.

It’s a shame, too, because the Clubsport is the fastest and most powerful production-spec GTI ever made, and there’s more than just sentimental value at play in the evolution of FWD hatchbacks. 

Now in its fourth evolution, the souped-up version of the EA888 four-cylinder in the Clubsport produces a maximum output of 300 PS (296 hp) and 400 Nm (295 lb ft) of torque, and is capable of hauling the four-door to 267 km/h (165 mph) when equipped with the optional “Race” package—without that option, the Clubsport is limited to the same 250 km/h (155 mph) top speed as the base GTI. The updated but still eighth-generation GTI boosts output from 245 PS (241 hp) in the launch edition to a formidable 265 PS (261 hp).

Although they share a powertrain, the Clubsport boasts 31 more ponies and 22 more lb ft of twist than the updated GTI thanks to increased turbo boost pressure, a tweaked engine control profile, and “other internal engine measures” that we’ll just have to guess at. The same seven-speed paddle-shiftable gearbox routes the power to the new GTI and GTI Clubsport’s front wheels, but the Clubsport completes the 0-62 mph in 5.6 seconds compared to the GTI’s time of 5.9 seconds.

The eighth-generation GTI comes standard with four drive modes—the self-evident Eco, Comfort, and Sport, as well as a driver-modifiable “Individual” profile—while the Clubsport adds a “Special” mode directly influenced by the undulating elevation changes of the Nürburgring Nordschleife. These drive modes change the profiles of Volkswagen’s Vehicle Dynamics Manager (which controls the electronically locking front differential as well as the lateral characteristics of the shock absorbers) and Dynamic Chassis Control (which takes road surface, steering, acceleration, and braking data into account to control the overall suspension characteristics).

Both GTI and Clubsport Golfs get the latest edition of VW’s progressive rack and pinion steering system, which uses a variable ratio and an electric motor to adapt the response from the wheel to account for whether you’re turning into an Aldi parking spot or navigating the ‘Ring’s Karussell. Part of the steering system’s evolution came from adding former senior Bugatti tester Sven Bohnhorst to the team. We aren’t sure that drivers will notice the “particularly positive characteristics of the steering setup of the Bugatti Pur Sport” in a Golf, but it doesn’t hurt to have Bugatti under the same organizational umbrella, either. What they are more likely to notice is the increased braking ability of the Clubsport’s one-inch larger brake system over the GTI’s setup.

Styling-wise, the Clubsport relies on substantive bodywork and materials tweaks rather than an abundance of “Clubsport” badges. The most noticeable visual differentiator between the GTI and Clubsport is the front air dam, where the Clubsport’s body-colored blades extend more aggressively into the black honeycomb grille. The other major Clubsport signifier comes at the rear end in the form of a larger roof spoiler with an opening between its leading edge and the roof (whereas the GTI gets a smaller, “closed” roof spoiler). Both cars feature exhaust outlets on either side of the rear diffuser, with the Clubsport’s “Race” package adding an Akrapovič sports exhaust system. More subtly, the non-body-color trim on the Clubsport is finished in gloss black rather than the matte black of the GTI.

The GTI and GTI Clubsport both get VW’s new LED headlights and taillights, with an option box that can be ticked to include IQ.LIGHT LED headlights with a longer beam throw. The package also changes the taillights to 3D LEDs, which adds an effect to the blinkers.

The side profile of the Clubsport is distinguished by striated graphics on the bottom of the doors, as well as a Clubsport-only diamond cut finish on the optional 19-inch “Queenstown” wheels designed for the eighth-gen GTI. For those seeking the lightest-possible wheels from the factory, there is also a Clubsport-only option for 19-inch “Warmenau” forged shoes, which weigh just 8kg (17.6lbs) each.

Inside the new GTIs, Volkswagen has made the touchscreen-heavy interfaces more user-friendly (and finally illuminated the HVAC controls!) and debuted its newly designed software and hardware package for the infotainment system, which now is now a fourth-generation modular infotainment system. What does that mean? Most importantly, a new menu structure that includes a driver-customizable toolbar that stays on the screen no matter what. The hardware side of the updates is defined by a 12.9-inch touchscreen on the center of the dash.

Complementing that big tablet of toys is the 10.2-inch digital instrument cluster, which has three selectable configurations: Classic, with round dials; Progressive, with various tiles to display relevant info to the driver; and a performance-focused “GTI” option which puts the tach front and center and includes nifty sub-dials to monitor turbo boost and torque. Both the updated GTI and GTI Clubsport have an option for a head-up display on the windshield, as well as a 480-watt Harmon Kardon-designed sound system, which adds to the existing nightclub-like ambiance that comes courtesy of the 30-color-configurable interior accent lighting package that comes as standard in the GTI and Clubsport.

For drivers who like hands-free virtual assistants/assistance, there is an option for a new “IDA voice assistant” for the first time in a GTI, which uses ChatGPT to answer just about any question you can think to ask, such as “Why would anyone want their car to listen to them?” Some will prefer the GTI without this modern HAL 9000, but we’re not so cynical to think it won’t have the potential to be useful.

As for the materials in the cars’ guts, cloth sports seats are standard in the GTI, while the Clubsport gets VW’s ArtVelours fabric wrapping a premium version of those sports seats; both cars can be spec’d with leather interiors, heated and air-conditioned front seats, and authentic carbon fiber trim packages. 

All told, the Clubsport appears as a fitting celebration of VW’s 50 years of cranking out hot hatches, not to mention a likely send-off for fully-ICE powertrains in the GTI. It’s just too bad we won’t see it in the states.

***

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The post First Look: The New Volkswagen Golf GTI Clubsport Is the Hottest GTI to Date appeared first on Hagerty Media.

The new Bentley Continental GT is still under wraps for the moment, but Henry Catchpole has had the chance to drive one. The venerable W-12 engine is now consigned to the history books, and in its place we have a shiny new hybrid powertrain producing 771 hp. That figure makes this the most powerful Bentley road car ever. 

Creating all that power is a 591-hp four-liter turbocharged V-8 working in conjunction with a 188-hp electric motor. The former makes a surprisingly good sound, and the latter is capable of propelling the Continental GT in near silence for up to 50 miles. The torque figures are a respective 590 lb-ft and 332 lb-ft, giving a total system output of 737 lb-ft. All of which means the new car will do 0–62 mph in just 3.3 seconds, which is 0.3 seconds quicker than the old W-12 GT Speed. It still has a top speed of 208 mph. 

Of course, this new hybrid drivetrain adds weight—somewhere in the region of 440 pounds—but with the 29.5-kWh battery in the trunk, that weight is now perfectly balanced 50:50 across the car. Combined with new ZF dual-valve dampers, a 48-volt electric anti-roll system, torque vectoring, an e-diff, all-wheel drive, and four-wheel steering, the new Continental GT is not only powerful it is also surprisingly fun on a slippery track. 

Circuit ParcMotor Castellolí experienced all of the weather during our few hours there, but a rain-soaked track certainly let the Bentley’s chassis shine. It was playful and controllable and fun in a way you wouldn’t really expect a Continental GT to be. Turn the stability control off and it will slide with an easy abandon. Not something we imagine many owners will ever do, but as there was an empty circuit and someone else was footing the bill for the Pirellis, it seemed rude not to! And given that a Ferrari Roma or Aston Martin DB12 will always aim to be comfortable as well as sporty, why shouldn’t a Conti GT be a bit sporty as well as comfortable? 

We’ll have to wait a few more weeks until the looks of the new Continental GT are unveiled, and we need to do some proper miles on the road to assess things, such as what effect those new dampers have had on the ride comfort. Will it actually achieve 50 miles on electric power alone? And will the lack of 12 cylinders be a turn-off in the eyes of the Bentley customer base? All questions still to be answered . . .

***

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The post <em>The Driver’s Seat</em>: Henry Catchpole on the New Bentley Continental GT appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Cadillac’s history with the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race goes back to 1950, when millionaire Briggs Swift Cunningham entered two Cadillac-based cars to take on the motoring world. Fifty years later, in 2000, and then again in 2002, Cadillac returned to Le Mans with an LMP prototype racer powered by a 4.0-liter Northstar twin-turbo V-8.

Cadillac decided to return to the Circuit de la Sarthe for the 2023 running of Le Mans, and you can go behind the scenes as the team prepares for and competes in the race, thanks to No Perfect Formula, the exciting new film that documents the journey. The film debuts Friday, May 31 at 7 pm ET on the Hagerty channel #2545 on the Samsung TV Plus app on Samsung Smart TVs.

The film opens with scenes from the 2023 race. Shots of the crowd intercut with shots of the cars as they blast through the rain, then of the Cadillac team nervously looking on; all manage to capture the visceral thrills and palpable tension. 

Then the #311 Cadillac car spins out in the rain and crashes into a barrier.

Cut to Brian Scotto, co-founder of Hoonigan, who sets the stage: “As people, we love a good story. Nobody loves the story about the team that won last year wins again. They want to hear that story of the team that upset everybody. Stories come from struggle. You gotta give people a reason to care.”

By that metric, we as viewers come to care very much through a series of interviews with many of the members of the Cadillac team. We meet Laura Wontrop Klauser, sports car racing program manager; Vince Tiaga, sports car racing regulations; Kalvin Parker, assistant program manager; Aaron Pfeifer, vehicle technical lead, and Jim Igrisan III, engine build technician, to name just a few. Putting faces to names and hearing their stories, we become invested in the team members and can’t help but cheer them on.

Other cool, behind-the-scene highlights include sitting in with Tiaga, Parker, and Pfeifer as they discuss the reasons the team chose to go with a naturally aspirated V-8 rather than a turbocharged V-6. We get to join Igrisan as he accompanies the newly assembled LMC55.R V-8 to its first test on the dyno. Exhaust headers glow fiery red as the engine roars through its test cycles. As Igrisan sums it up, “Competitors, in my mind, took the easy way out. It’s easy to make power with turbos, easier to manage power with turbos. To compete with naturally aspirated engine is pretty cool. And who’s got the best-sounding car out there?” It’s a rhetorical question, of course. Igrisan is right: The Caddy sounds terrific.

The rest of the film follows the team through the testing of the Cadillac in the fall of 2022 and then on to opening of the 2023 racing season at the Rolex 24 at Daytona, then to the 12 Hours of Sebring, and culminating in June at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. No spoilers here—whether you know how the races turned out or not, you don’t know the stories behind them. For those, you’ll have to tune in on the Hagerty channel #2545 on the Samsung TV Plus app on Samsung Smart TVs. If you don’t have a Samsung Smart TV, you can watch on Galaxy Devices, and on the web. Global audiences can view on Hagerty’s Facebook.  After its premiere, No Perfect Formula will run all night, as well as every Friday at 7 p.m. ET in the weeks leading up to the 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans on June 15–16. It’s also available on Cadillac’s YouTube channel.

***

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The post <em>No Perfect Formula</em> Showcases Cadillac’s Return to International Sports Car Racing appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Last year, in my recap of the Indy 500, I talked about how much I loved seeing 86-year-old Roger Penske jump for joy when his team’s driver, Josef Newgarden, took the checkered flag. This year was much the same, with Penske celebrating as Newgarden again triumphed in a nail-biter of a race. Only the man known as “The Captain” is now 87. Talk about thriving in one’s golden years!

Truth is, everyone who saw the race felt excited, because it featured what every spectator wants to see: dramatic passes. Today’s IndyCars are so heavily regulated that there is little speed difference between them. The cars run in tight packs, and the drivers use the draft of the car ahead to slingshot past each other. That means lots of passing. So when Newgarden was leading in the second to last lap, I figured he was just a sitting duck because the second-place driver could swing by just before the checkered flag. And, indeed, Arrow McLaren driver Pato O’Ward passed Newgarden during last lap. Only he did so right at the beginning, which seemed too early to me. O’Ward’s the pro, however—not me—and down the long straight leading to the final two turns, his move seemed to be the right one. He pulled to the inside of the track leading into turn three and thus blocked Newgarden’s most obvious path back into the lead.

At this point, I should note that there is a wall that lines the track and that both Newgarden and O’Ward were traveling at some 220 mph. I also need to mention that the outside of a turn is treacherously slipperier than the preferred inside line, because rubber thrown off tires over the course of the race accumulates into little rubber balls called “marbles.” Imagine driving over a bunch of mini ball bearings. That’s why you rarely see drivers pass on the right. Except Newgarden did just that, pulling off an incredibly courageous—and dangerous—pass on the outside of turn three. Announcer Leigh Diffey exclaimed, “This is mind blowing!”

After the finish, O’Ward was in tears—surely mourning his loss but also, I imagine, feeling totally gutted by how it happened. He never thought Newgarden would attempt that kamikaze move and succeed. None of us did. The Indy 500 certainly delivered drama and heroics this year. Watch that final pass here.

It was a face-saving win for a Penske team mired in a cheating scandal. On April 24, IndyCar announced that Penske drivers had illegally used a push-to-pass system (a brief burst of increased power) during the season-opening race in St. Petersburg, Florida, which Newgarden had won. The infraction was considered so severe that IndyCar took the unusual step of disqualifying Newgarden and retroactively declaring the second-place driver, O’Ward, the rightful winner. In response, Penske conducted an internal review, admitted fault, and on May 7 suspended four senior team members for two races, including the Indy 500. One of those suspended was Team President Tim Cindric. They won Indy anyway.

Meanwhile, over in Monaco, Ferrari driver Charles LeClerc won a Formula 1 race that was expected to be a boring affair… and absolutely was, with the top 10 drivers finishing in the same order they started. Today’s wide F1 cars and the narrow Monaco streets leave almost no opportunity for passing. When a rare chance to make a move opens, drivers then take huge risks with often catastrophic results. That happened twice in the opening laps. Haas driver Kevin Magnussen saw a tiny lane alongside Sergio Perez, went for the pass, and caused a collision instead. Perez’s Red Bull was destroyed. Alpine driver Esteban Ocon enraged his team when he tried an optimistic move on his teammate Pierre Gasly, taking them both out of the race. The total damage cost several million dollars.

Still, can you really blame those drivers for trying? They’re athletes, born with a hunger to go for it and an unshakable confidence that they’ll succeed. That’s what got them to the pinnacle of motorsports. Sometimes it works, like it did for Newgarden. Sometimes it doesn’t.  

Fun aside: The Autopian ran a Monaco piece with this headline: The Most Exciting Part Of The Monaco Grand Prix Might Be This Out-Of-Control Boat Hitting A Yacht On ‘Billionaire’s Row’

This weekend, IndyCar heads to the streets of Detroit, which is, umm, not Monaco. Hagerty will be there, of course, covering all the action. Be sure to follow us on social if you don’t already. And if last weekend’s racing smorgasbord has you filled-up with motorsports for the moment, don’t worry, we’ve been busy off the track, as well. Below you’ll find a short list of the latest from Hagerty Media. I hope you’ll give these pieces a look and also consider supporting us by joining the Hagerty Drivers Club.

• Aussies also run their vintage hot rods on the sand.
• Hostage Ferrari part successfully freed by Rob Siegel.
• There’s a new 911 and it’s a hybrid.
• Can a Hyundai beat a Lamborghini?
• I wish I could buy this sweet MR2 that’s for sale on Hagerty Marketplace.

Have a great weekend!

Larry

P.S.: Your feedback is very welcome. Comment below!

Please share this newsletter with your car-obsessed friends and encourage them to sign up for the free weekly email. The easy-to-complete form is here. And if you’d like to support the efforts of Hagerty Media, please consider joining the Hagerty Drivers Club.

The post Never Stop Driving #101: Penske, Again appeared first on Hagerty Media.

A Series 1 Jaguar E-Type restored and enhanced by Helm in the United Kingdom, is on its way to the U.S. East Coast.

It’s the third car in Helm’s limited series of 20 restomods, with each a unique specification as determined by its buyer. In this case the American enthusiast opted for metallic emerald green paintwork applied to the mostly hand-beaten aluminum body using an electrophoretic technique for unparalleled uniformity and corrosion protection.

The rich Ochre interior has been crafted by Bill Amberg studio in aniline European calf hide and suede. None of the original plastics are to be seen, with even toggle switches artfully covered in leather. A matching set of luggage is provided to fill the space behind the seats.

Helm’s modifications extend to a blueprinted 300-hp 4.2-liter straight-six engine with a calibrated ECU, fuel injection and hand-polished stainless steel exhaust system. Cooling comes from a new high-efficiency radiator with uprated pumps, pipework and header tank. The gearbox is a Tremec five-speed manual and there’s an organic clutch kit fitted as well. Braking is via aircraft-grade aluminum calipers and vented discs all round, while the suspension is an adjustable Ohlins system with poly bushes front and rear. Speed sensitive electric power steering is also included.

A host of modern-day creature comforts have been added, from soft-close doors and a heated windscreen to a hidden seven-speaker audio system with Apple car play and a reversing camera. This is an E-Type designed to be daily-driven.

“The E-type is rightfully considered an icon in automotive design,” says Helm founder Chedeen Battick, ‘but I have always felt that it deserves a performance to match. The Rhode Island Commission is the continuation of our mission to take advantage of modern best practice in terms of build and engineering in order to create the ultimate E-type, fit for the expectations of today’s driver, without compromise.”

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The post This Helm E-Type Will Soon be Road Tripping Rhode Island appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Welcome to This Week on Hagerty Marketplace, a recurring recap of the previous week’s most noteworthy cars and significant sales from the Hagerty Marketplace online auctions.

We have a trio of rides—a killer 1960s-era cruiser, and a pair of low-mileage luxury cars. Let’s start with one of those.

1997 Lexus LS 400

Sold for $35,310

Few of us were expecting a lot when the Lexus LS 400 debuted as a 1990 model; Japan had tried to sell luxurious cars in the U.S. before, such as the fourth-generation Toyota Crown, which was marketed for a couple of years in the early 1970s. But it just didn’t fit with the American concept of luxury. When Toyota tried again, it was a laser-focused effort that benchmarked cars that U.S. customers definitely considered luxurious, such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Cadillac sedans.

While the LS 400 was a near-immediate hit, Lexus continued to refine the car, and for 1995, the company introduced the second-generation LS 400. Though it looked quite a bit like the original—why mess with success—90 percent of the parts were new or upgraded. This 1997 model is a suitable example of the Lexus flagship, with just 21,217 miles at the time of listing. Equipped with the optional moonroof and Lexus/Nakamichi sound system, this Lexus was clearly loved by the original owner from 1997 to 2019. There should be a lot of miles left in the car.

1966 Plymouth Sport Fury

Sold for $18,725

We can only imagine the pride the first owners of this Plymouth Sport Fury felt when their car was delivered to the Cooper Motor Company in Hayward, California in August of 1966: With a muscular 383-cubic-inch V-8 under the hood, mated to the durable Torqueflite transmission, with bucket seats inside and a black vinyl roof outside, it represented the epitome of Detroit performance and flair. This car spent its life in California, and came with a substantial file of paperwork, dating back to the original sale. A bold mix of the original and the updated, this Sport Fury is an appealing recollection of 1960s style in very nice condition at a very reasonable price.

1979 Cadillac Seville

Sold for $50,825

Who would have thought that a 45-year-old Cadillac Seville would have gotten this much attention? Apparently the nearly 168,000 people who viewed its online auction. With just 1927 miles on the odometer at the time of sale, this Seville was loaded with features, including wire wheels with time-capsule whitewall tires. It’s powered by a fuel-injected 5.7-liter V-8, mated to a three-speed Turbo-Hydramatic transmission. (Suitably) sold new in Boca Raton, Florida, this car, aside from some surface rust on the undercarriage, was in near-showroom condition. Priced originally at $12,479 (equivalent to $68,000 today), the Seville was the most expensive Cadillac you could buy in 1979.

***

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The post This Week on Hagerty Marketplace: Low-mile Lexus, Plucky Plymouth, Cool Cadillac appeared first on Hagerty Media.

For a car that helped define what pony cars were all about, the first-generation Chevrolet Camaro got off to something of an ignominious start. As we covered in a story about Bill Mitchell and Irv Rybicki’s interview in the mid-1980s, neither one of these icons of style at General Motors had any particular love for the design eventually became the First Generation Camaro.

The truly fascinating part of dual interviews that Mitchell and Rybicki gave to the Benson Ford Research Center at the Henry Ford Museum was that the second-generation Camaro, which ran from 1970 to 1981, should’ve been the first generation.

“We did what we were asked to do,” Rybicki said in that interview, regarding the First Generation Camaro. “But when that program was finished, I got with our vehicle packaging group, and we started planning the second-generation car, and there was no interference. We did a new underbody and placed the seats where we wanted them, and got the cross section.”

Mitchell echoed Rybicki’s sentiments: “[T]hey ran for ten years, because I got the right dash to axle, the right cowl height,” he said. The look stood the test of time.

So, the 1970 to 1981 Camaro exists as an example of what could’ve been in 1967 had the team had the time to fully execute the ideas that they had about what a personal sports car should be, rather than rushing to grind out cars in an effort to catch up with Ford’s Mustang.

The February 1970 debut of the second-gen Camaro was a clean-sheet design that nonetheless followed a familiar formula designed to meet a broad spread of buyer’s needs: Six-cylinder at the base level with a manual transmission, all the way up to the Z28 at the top of the food chain. (As an aside, the slash disappeared from “Z/28” in 1970, and wouldn’t return till the 2014 Z/28.) The broad range of engines was augmented by the order guide’s flexibility: You could buy the base car with absolutely no frills and a big block V-8 with a four-speed manual, meaning big power could be had without the added cost of stripes, emblems, and wheels that the Z28 offered.

During the second-gen car’s run, the Z28, along with the Type LT and SS, got all the attention, but the real sales numbers came from the low- to mid-trim levels like the Sport Coupe and Berlinetta, which provided basic transportation for Americans all over the country. These two-door sporty coupes were a significant part of what everyday American buyers drove daily before they shifted over to four-door sedans from Toyota and Honda.

As the years went from 1970 to the mid-1970s, a fuel crisis and perceived ebb in demand for performance cars further encouraged Chevrolet to position the Camaro as more of an everyday vehicle rather than the tire-smoldering drag car or road course dominator it had been in the past. Chevy’s marketing leaned on the universal appeal of a sporty car that actually worked as a daily driver, emphasizing the long doors and easy access to the back seat. “Getting in and out is a snap. Especially in the back,” reads one print ad from 1970. “It’s OK if you have to slip in an occasional shopping bag.”

Especially through a modern lens, with the sixth-gen Camaro selling around 25,000 units a year, the second-generation Camaro was an unqualified smash from the second it arrived. With the exception of 1972 and 1973, when strikes caused production numbers to dwindle, the second-gen Camaro always sold in the six digits. Between the years of 1977 and 1979, Chevrolet sold more than three quarters of a million Camaros. In 1979—when Chevrolet sold 282,571 units—it outsold the Toyota Corolla by about 8,000 cars.

Over 12 model years, the Camaro went from a tire-boiling performance car to a tape-stripe packaged personal coupe and nearly back again as the third generation loomed. That said, in any search for a second-gen car, you’re much more likely to find a Z28 or other performance-oriented model than you are a base coupe with its original six-cylinder engine intact.

1970

The 1970 Camaro was produced at two plants—Van Nuys, California and Norwood Assembly in Ohio. In that first year there were five engines available: At the base level was the 155hp Turbo Thrift 250-cubic inch inline six cylinder. Oddly, Chevrolet referred to the 307-cubic inch V-8 and all three of the variations of 350-cubic inch V-8 as “Turbo Fire.” The 307 delivered 200 hp, while the 350s offered 250 hp with a two-barrel, 300hp (L48) and 360hp (the LT1 in the Z28), both with four-barrel carburetors. At the top of the ladder were two versions of the Turbo Jet 396-cubic inch V-8, producing either 350 or 375 horsepower.

Four basic transmission setups were available, dependent upon the engine selected. The base was a three-speed manual, which was standard with the six-cylinder and the 307 V-8. The six-cylinder and the smaller V-8 were also available with the Powerglide two-speed automatic, while the 307 and 350 V-8s could also be ordered with the TH350 three-speed automatic. The 350s and the 396s could be had with Muncie four-speed manuals, and if you wanted an auto with your big block, a beefier TH400 three-speed would be fitted.

For the first time, the Z28 could be had with an automatic. You could also get two different low gears (a 2.52:1 and a 2.20:1) in the Z28’s four-speed manual, along with your choice of a 3.73:1 or 4.10:1 rear end. This choice of rear gears were available on big block cars, too, while lesser-engined cars based their gear sets on transmission choice.

Chevrolet offered five basic trim levels in 1970: A base car identified as “Standard” in the order guide. The “Style Trim” (RPO Z21) included parking lamps mounted in the front valence, bright hood trim, body-color inserts on the door handles, and bright “Dual Concentric” rings on the taillamps.  Rally Sport (RPO Z22) included Rally Sport emblems, the iconic split front bumpers and the valence-mounted parking lights. The SS (RPO Z27) came through with a standard 350-cu.in. V-8 with a four-barrel and dual exhaust, power disc brakes, hood insulation, and a black grille and rear valence panel, plus 7-inch wide Rally wheels. The optional 396 also gave the suspension a boost with a rear stabilizer bar.

At the top of the food chain was the Z28, which featured the standard 360-horse LT1 V-8. With 11.0:1 compression, four bolt main bearings, a unique cam, mechanical lifters and a four-barrel, extruded aluminum pistons, bigger valves, and a thermo-modulated fan, and other tweaks, this engine was among the most revered small blocks that Chevy produced. The Z28 also provided higher rate springs and shocks, a front and rear stabilizer bar and a quick-ratio steering box. On the outside, the Z28 received a rear deck spoiler, stripe kit, and gray-painted Z28 wheels with F60x15 white letter Goodyear Polyglas GTs.

There’s a lot of confusion about what constitutes a Rally Sport, in large part because that trim could be applied to anything from Z28s all the way down to six-cylinder cars. The only way to fully identify whether a car is an RS—five decades after it was produced—is to find code Z22 in the build sheet. It’s more than just the split bumpers, too, and buyers should note that people have been adding split bumpers onto standard noses almost since the get-go. True RS cars will also feature Hide-A-Way wipers (RPO C24) as well as the contents of the Z21 Style Trim Group. On SS and Z28 trims with the RS option, the only obvious callout will be the RS emblem on the steering wheel.

Inside, the standard car was a lot more stripped than popular imagination remembers. The floor console was an option, for example. It’s always a treat to run across a bare-bones base car with a floor shifted three-speed and no console. Interior packages included the Z23 Special Interior Group (additional instrument cluster lighting and wood-grained accents on the instrument cluster and steering wheel) and the Z87 Custom Interior (everything in Z23 plus deluxe seats in either cloth or vinyl, a glovebox light, additional instrument cluster lighting; a luggage compartment mat and engine compartment, hood, and interior insulation.)

Standalone options ranged in the dozens from air conditioning—though not on the Z28—to a forced air rear window defogger. Major option groups included ZP5 (Appearance Guard Group—door edge guards and front and rear floor mats), U14 (the Instrument Panel Gage Package that came with temp and voltage gauges, plus a clock and tachometer), and ZQ2 (Operating Convenience Group: a clock, sport mirrors and the rear defogger).

A few minor notes: 1970 was the only year the second-generation Camaro was available with the “Camaro by Chevrolet” emblem on the rear decklid. The side marker lights on a 1970 Camaro also don’t flash with the turn indicators, a one-off anomaly for that year.

There were 15 color options in 1970, with three tones of vinyl top, and five interior colors in total, three of which were available in Knit Vinyl and Pattern Cloth. The vast majority of the 124,901 Camaros produced in 1970 featured a V-8: Just 12,578 featured the 250-cu.in. six-cylinder, making these cars pretty thin on the ground in 2023.

1971

1971 was a pivotal year for performance, or more specifically, the lack thereof—GM lowered the compression ratios of all of its engines, and dropped its most potent 396 from the engine lineup.

The 250-cubic inch six and 307-cubic inch V-8 were identical in performance to 1970. The two-barrel-equipped 350-cubic inch engine dropped to 245hp from 250hp. But the big drop was for the four-barrel 350 (270hp from 300hp in 1970), the four-barrel 350 with dual exhaust in the Z28 (330hp from 360 the prior year) and the 396 (now marketed with its actual displacement of 402 cubic inches) sat at an even 300 horses.

The 1971 grille was the identical tight rectangular pattern of the 1970, and unique to those two years of Camaro.

Inside, there were further changes. 1971 debuted high-back bucket seats for all Camaro models rather than low-back buckets with a separate headrest. That high-back design would continue for the remained of the second-gen’s run. And for the first time, 1971 Camaro models featured a pictograph on the smaller rubberized headlamp switch, replacing a larger chrome pull knob from 1970. The two-spoke base steering wheel is slightly different in 1971, more of a rectangular shape than 1970’s somewhat triangular design. The four-spoke wheel (RPO NK4) was an option that would eventually become standard the following year.

15 colors were available, with four vinyl top options and five interior colors. In 1971, Chevrolet produced a total of 114,630 Camaros, with about 90 percent of that production allotted to V-8s, and just 11,178 six-cylinders.

1972

The order guide in 1972 looks different, and a lot easier to comprehend. The basic difference is down to “6-Cylinder Model” with the 250-cu.in. inline six, and for another $95, the “8-Cylinder Model” with the 307-cu.in. V-8, making it absolutely clear why V-8-powered Camaros made up most of the production in any given year.

Major options continued to include the Z27 Camaro SS (with the L48 350 or with the optional LS3 402); Z23 Rally Sport (still available on everything, but deleting RS emblems on Z28 and SS); Z21 Style Trim; and Z28 Special Performance Package. All of the engines were rated for SAE NET HP in 1972, showing a significant drop from 1971. The 250-cubic inch six was rated at 110hp, the 307 V-8 at 130hp, the L65 350 V-8 at 165hp, the L48 350 at 200hp, the Z28 350 at 255hp, and the 402-cu.in. V-8 at 240hp. Transmission offerings remained the same.

The big exterior change for 1972 was the larger grille pattern, which the 1972 model year Camaro shares with ’73. But it’s the only year that the Camaro has this grille pattern without the underlying larger, stronger bumper supports. Besides that grille, the exterior largely stayed the same, though lots of changes were occurring inside. The steering wheel went to the four-spoke urethane NK4 sport wheel that became synonymous with the Camaro until 1981. Three-point seatbelts became standard for the two front passengers. The door panels underwent a style revision, with map pockets and a change holder. Speedometers dropped to a 130-mph max, down from 150 in the first two years. In prior years, four-speed-equipped Camaros used a Hurst shifter, but that was eliminated for 1972.

In previous years, Z21 (Style Trim) was included in the Z23 Rally Sport package, but in 1972, the packages were independent, meaning you could buy a car that was Rally Sport equipped, but not have bright exterior trim. It’s important to note that prior to the 1972 model year, the engine code was not part of the VIN. That changed in 1972, with the fifth digit of the VIN signifying the engine:

• D = 250ci
• F = 307ci
• H = 350ci
• K = 350ci (SS)
• L = 350ci (Z28)
• U = 396ci (SS)

Fifteen colors were available in 1972, with another five vinyl top hues. Six interior colors were available with two reserved for vinyl only. This was a grim year for Camaro production, thanks to a strike. Just 68,671 Camaros were produced, with only 4,821 six-cylinders, and the balance in V-8 production.

1973

This was a big year in second-generation history, for a number of reasons. First off, it’s the last year for the original flat-faced design. This marks the last year for the split bumper, and the only year the split bumpers have additional reinforcement beneath, specifically to allow these cars to pass the 2.5-mph federally mandated bumper crash test.

On the performance side … well, there wasn’t a performance side. 1972 was the last year for an SS, and with it went the big block. From here through the end of second-gen production, the Camaro would have a six-cylinder as the base engine, and small block V-8s as options. Power ratings fell again: To 100hp for the six, 115hp for the 307-cu.in. V-8, 145hp for the two-barrel L65 350, 175hp for the four-barrel L48 350, and 245hp for the Z28 350. The transmission offerings also changed, with the deletion of the Powerglide. The only automatic available henceforth would be a Turbo Hydra-Matic 350.

In the SS’s place was the Type LT—ostensibly standing for “Luxury Touring,” a fact made obvious by the full foam front and rear seats designed to give “superb riding comfort” and “firm support.” Seats could be covered in either vinyl or cloth. The “deep twist” carpet was supposed to be more luxurious, and could be ordered in accent colors depending on the upholstery color. Standard on Type LT was the Décor/Quiet Sound Group, which included sound deadening on the floor, cowl-to-fender seals, a headliner insulating pad, and full hood insulation, along with woodgrain on the door panels. The LT got special emblems on the decklid and sail panels outside.

Turbine wheels were available for the first time in 1973 on every trim except Z28, and the full wheel covers were revised. The bad news of the Z28 losing its mechanical lifters was salved slightly by the Z28 finally being offered with air conditioning. Throughout the lineup, the console and automatic transmission shifter were revised to a single ratchet style shifter, rather than the basket-handle shifter of the first few years. Inside, all Camaros had a mandated seat belt warning buzzer. In the trunk, a space saver spare debuted.

16 colors provided the most extensive palette to date, and seven vinyl top colors expanded the range as well. Five colors were available for the interior, but only two were available in cloth trim. Production picked up nearly a third to 96,751, with 93,137 of those cars shipped with one of the V-8s.

1974

Federal bumper standards forced a major facelift for the 1974 Camaro. Look around at how other makes and models had their faces altered during the same time period, and you realize just how successfully Chevrolet designers were able to integrate the bumpers into the Camaro’s overall aesthetic.

Along with the new aluminum bumper up front came an all-new fiberglass nose with deep sugar-scoop headlamp buckets, and turn signals set between the grille and the headlamps. The rear quarter and rear valence was redesigned to add a larger aluminum bumper to the rear as well, which also integrated wedge-style wraparound taillights with full red lenses. Front and rear bumpers had jack slots, so the bumper jack was revised.

The delightful baby moon center caps of the first three years gave way to the same aluminum center caps from the Nova. Radial tires became an option for the first time. The Z28 got wild new graphics for ’74, just in time for the designation to disappear for a few years.

Changes were afoot inside, too, some subtle, some not. A retractable, inertia reel shoulder belt became standard, and an AM/FM stereo was on the option list. Gone as quickly as it arrived was a seatbelt interlock that prevented the car from starting if the seat belts weren’t engaged.

Mechanically, there were a few revisions, too: Power steering became standard on all V-8-powered Camaros. The fuel tank increased from 18 gallons to 21. The Z28 got an HEI electronic ignition, which would eventually make its way to all the cars. The 307 disappeared in favor of the two-barrel 350. 16 colors made up the paint options, along with the widest color range of vinyl tops to date at 10 colors. Nine interior colors were available, along with some great two-tone check patterns. Production skyrocketed in 1974 to 151,008, with 128,798 cars shipped with V-8s and the balance 250-cubic in. sixes.

1975

While the big changes all occurred in the 1974 model year, there was more in store for 1975, and most of it wasn’t good. The Z28 was gone, though the Rally Sport re-emerged toward the end of the year as a paint and trim package. The familiar “Camaro” cursive script was still on the glovebox lid, but the front fenders received a block script in all caps.  The rear window was also redesigned to mirror the wraparound look of the tail lamps, and to provide more visibility to the rear. The tricolor emblem in the grille on the 1974 model year moved up to an escutcheon on the fiberglass nose.

Inside, power locks were available for the first time, along with a new cruise control option. The Sports Décor package (Z08) showed up briefly, including body-colored sport mirrors, a body-colored insert on the door handles, and body-colored appliqué on the bumpers. That package disappeared halfway through the year, so it’s a relatively rare sight nowadays. The Type LT featured bird’s eye maple trim inside, versus the previous year’s meridian walnut. Even the handful of people who bought sixes could get air conditioning in 1975. According to the order guide for 1975, for the first time, leather seating was available in either Dark Saddle or Dark Oxblood. That option disappears in 1976 and wouldn’t return in the second generation.

There were also a few mechanical changes. The big one was the addition of the catalytic converter, which required the modification of the passenger side floor. All V-8 cars received twin exhaust outlets. HEI became standard on all engines, including the six. Rear brake drums were finned for better cooling.

16 colors were available, along with nine vinyl top choices. Interior colors were limited to just five. Production held steady in 1975 to 145,770 units, with a growing percentage of six-cylinder cars at 29,749, and 116,021 V-8s.

1976

It seems hard to distinguish the differences between a 1975 and 1976 Camaro, though there were a number of minor trim revisions, as well as some significant mechanical changes.

On the Type LT, the rear valence panel under the decklid received a smart brushed aluminum cover that set the entire back of the car off nicely.

Outside, a new Landau top trim was available. It’s essentially a reverse landau top from what you might be familiar with on a Colonnade body, where the vinyl is only over the front passengers, rather than wrapping around the rear window and quarter. This replaced the full vinyl top available up to this point. Custom-styled urethane and alloy wheels were also options for the first time in 1976.

Upholstery revisions were again in the mix, with new sport cloth-and-vinyl trim patterns. The instrument panel trim shifted from interior color to a tan simulated leather, which made the black-faced gauges seem to leap out of the dash. Optional gauge packages included a voltmeter rather than the old ammeter.

Mechanically, 1975 introduced the 305-cubic inch V-8 as the middle engine in the lineup. The 145-hp two-barrel split the difference between the 105 hp inline six and the 165hp of the 350. Power-assisted brakes were now standard, and the braking system received minor updates.

There were 14 colors for 1976, with another seven vinyl top colors. Five interior colors were available. Production numbers were way up again for 1976, with 182,959 total. That number is made up of an increasing percentage of six cylinder cars with 38,047, along with 144,912 V-8s.

1977

Camaro news for 1977 was big, if only for the return of the Z28. Tom Zimmer—the Camaro’s Chief Engineer—demanded it, reportedly after seeing the Pontiac Trans Am’s sales numbers take off.

The Z28 debuted at the Daytona Motor Speedway in February that year. While it wasn’t exactly the car that Pontiac delivered, it did pretty well for itself, with a 185-horse 350 fitted with a Rochester four-barrel carburetor. The exhaust went through a single cat, but split into dual resonators and tailpipes with no mufflers. The standard transmission was a Borg-Warner four-speed with a 2.64:1 low gear. The stick wasn’t available in California, which only got the three-speed Turbo Hydra-Matic, though the shift points were revised upward.

The Z28 emphasized handling over straight line performance, with revised 365-lb springs and a 1.2-inch stabilizer bar up front. Springs in the rear were 127-lb. versus the standard 89 to 99 pound springs in lesser Camaro trims. The rear stabilizer bar trimmed back a bit to .55 inches versus .69 inches, and the rear springs benefitted from higher durometer rubber shackle bushings. The 15×7 Z28 steel wheels returned, though they were painted body color instead of gray as in previous years.

The exterior package included Z28-specific decals on the hood, front fenders, front and rear spoilers, wheel wells, rocker panels, and door-handle inserts. The bumpers—the same bumpers as any other Camaro in 1977—were body color. Headlight and tail light bezels and window trim were black anodized, and the rear trunk panel, rocker panel and parking light buckets were painted black to match. Front and rear spoilers were standard and the Z28 received the full U14 gauge package. And for the first time, the Z28 received a unique steering wheel with faux rope “whipping” around the rim. That steering wheel would remain a Z28 component until the last model year of the second generation.

Only two minor changes occurred on the balance of the Camaro lineup: intermittent wipers were optional for the first time, and the four-speed transmission moved the location of reverse to far left and down. Colors grew a bit more limited to 13 in 1977, and you had more than half as many vinyl top colors to choose from, too. Inside, though, just four colors were available. Boosted by the popularity of the mid-year Z28, Camaro numbers exploded to 218,853, outselling the Ford Mustang for the first time, and including 14,349 Z28s. The total breakdown includes 31,389 inline sixes and 187,464 V-8s.

1978

A whole range of exterior changes occurred in 1978, largely centered around the bumpers. The aluminum bumpers that arrived in 1974 were reportedly supposed to be replaced with urethane bumper covers by 1976, but that change was delayed for two long years. When they finally came around, however, they gave the Camaro a significant refresh that helped propel the car to fresh sales highs.

Front and rear fascias were both revised, and hid impact-absorbing construction designed to withstand a five-mph impact without damage. The headlamp and turn indicator buckets were more squared off than previous years, and they were smooth chrome in all but the Z28. Prior years had a pebbled finish that didn’t fare well in the weather. The Camaro emblem once again moved to the middle of the grille. Tail lamps were revised to a more geometric pattern, with amber turn signals split by a fuel door in the rear panel, instead of behind the license plate. The license plate mount itself moved from the rear panel down into a molded section of the bumper.

1978 also marked the first year for the T-Top option. Interestingly, the brochure shows the option, but the available order guide from October of 1977 doesn’t. The Rally Sport also re-emerged as a separate trim level rather than an RPO package.

There were some mechanical changes, as well. The 305 received the four-speed manual as the standard transmission, and all but the Z28 had taller rear axle ratios to help fuel economy. Lower control arms received heftier bracing for improved chassis stiffness, and redesigned rear spring shackles improved stability.

The color palette shrunk again to nine choices, with nearly as many vinyl top colors to choose from. Upholstery color choices grew to six. Production numbers again surpassed anything previously seen for the Camaro, with an astounding 272,631 total, including 36,982 six-cylinders and 235,649 V-8s.

1979

1979 brought another year of growth for the Camaro and the all-time sales record for the model. The biggest revision was the trim name shift from the Type LT to the Berlinetta, which included custom interior, bright upper and lower grille, bright windshield and rear window moldings, a dual pin stripe, body color sport mirrors, argent appliqué on rear panel, specific trim and either polycast wheels or color-keyed aluminum wheels. The Berlinetta also received Amberlite insulation blankets in the doors, rear quarters, roof/sail panels, behind the rear seat, under the package tray and under the carpeting. Dual horns and the full gauge package were also standard equipment.

Inside, all Camaros got new brushed aluminum-style instrument panel trim, and the optional forced air rear defroster gave way to a heated backlight.

Color options expanded to 11 in 1979, along with seven vinyl top choices. Six upholstery colors were available. It was the best-ever year for the Camaro with 282,571 produced, including 21,913 six-cylinders and 260,658 V-8s. Despite the economy, rampant interest rates and rising fuel costs, the Z28 alone represented 84,877 units sold.

1980

The penultimate year for the second-generation Camaro represented a lot of change for the car, some good, some not so much. For the first time ever, the base Camaro wouldn’t rely on the inline six that had powered Chevrolet vehicles since 1962. In its stead were two V-6s. California got an even-fire 231-cubic inch V-6 with internal balancing that would eventually go on to power the lion’s share of GM products for the next 20 years. The other 49 states got an odd-fire 229-cubic inch six for 1980.

Also available—and universally despised—was a 49-state L39 267-cubic inch V-8 good for 120 hp and 215 lb-ft. of torque.

The Z28 got ever-more menacing three-bar, tri-color graphics in 1980, and even slightly more horsepower, too, at 190hp, provided you didn’t live in California. Z28s sold there were limited to a 305 V-8 and a TH350. It also got the nifty Air Induction hood for the first time, with a solenoid-fired flapper that snapped open at wide-open throttle, perhaps one of the coolest gimmicks to come out of the 1980 model year.

Polycast wheels finally bowed out for this model year, replaced by polished wheel covers for the Berlinetta.

The disco era may have finally reached its conclusion, signified by the deletion of the vinyl top option for 1980. Color choice exploded to 14 selections, while interior colors were limited to five. Production dropped significantly in 1980, down to 152,005 units. The available V-6 was a smash, selling 51,104 units—the best ever showing for a six cylinder. V-8s totaled 100,901 units.

1981

In its final year, the bulk of the Camaro lineup was a carryover from the 1980 model year, but there are still changes to talk about.

The biggest revision was the standard Computer Command Control emissions system, which took up some valuable real estate in that year’s sales brochure. It was an early ECU that not only monitors fuel mixture, throttle position and 02 emissions, but transmission performance as well, since the computer controlled the new lockup torque converter. It’s also notable for the birth of the Check Engine Light for the Camaro.

For 1981, the Rally Sport fell out of the lineup. Like all cars, Camaros in 1981 featured a 17-digit VIN. Power brakes were a standard feature for the first time, as was a space saver spare. Halogen headlamps became optional, and there were 13 colors available in the final year, with six interior color choices. While a shadow of the 1979 zenith, sales were still pretty strong for 1981, with 126,139 Camaros produced. V-6 models continued to perform well at 52,004 units, while V-8 models dropped to 74,135, including 43,272 Z28s.

Before You Inspect

There are few vehicles with as deep a set of historical and reference resources as the Second Generation Camaro. The biggest resource—and one that we’ve used here for production figures and year-to-year changes—is NastyZ28.com, which has long been the primary resource for 1970 to 1981 Camaro enthusiasts. The American Camaro Association runs the Camaro Nationals which takes place this July in Morgantown, Pennsylvania.

VINs in these cars changed three times over the span of Second Gen Camaro production, so be aware that the information encoded in those VINs will change depending upon the year. There’s a good VIN decoder at Chevy-Camaro.com, and aftermarket supplier Classic Industries has a version, as well. Double R Restorations has an outstanding series of videos covering every aspect of Second Generation Camaro purchasing, but start with the video on common rust areas. This is the dividing line between a Camaro that can reasonably be put back together, and one that’s too far gone to serve as anything but a parts car.

We won’t go into great detail here because it’s all laid out in the video, from rust around the windshield and backlight to floors, trunks, quarters and doglegs.

Your prospective Camaro—like all cars from the era—may or may not have a build sheet tucked up under the rear seat, over the glovebox, over the fuel tank, in the springs of the front seat, under the carpet by the transmission tunnel or elsewhere. The Service Parts Identification label that has been so helpful in determining option codes wasn’t fully integrated until 1984, so that’s unfortunately not an option on these cars.

Cowl tags were part of every Camaro built between 1970 and 1981, so you’ll find valuable information there. What information is contained in the trim tag varies depending on the year, but thankfully Chevy-Camaro.com has an excellent pull-down menu by year which will help you learn what your target Camaro left the factory with.

The GM Heritage Center managed to get its Historic Information Kits back online recently, and we found every order guide for every Camaro from 1970 to 1981 listed. There’s invaluable information there about what options, colors, powertrains and equipment your Camaro may have come with.

Before You Buy

Like all cars from the 1970s and 1980s, second-generation Camaros were prone to rust. As Russ from Double R Restorations notes, in a lot of instances, you really can’t tell the extent of the rust on things like window channels until you’ve taken the glass out and gone past the point of no return. Areas like toe boards hold rust that you can’t see underneath because of body bracing. Frame rails can also be destroyed.

The good news is that there really isn’t a body part that you can’t find for these cars from a supplier like Classic Industries, Year One, Rick’s Camaros, Classic Muscle,  National Parts Depot, Camaro Parts Central, and a nearly inexhaustible list of smaller parts suppliers.

Mechanically these cars are straightforward, and they remain plentiful, with a few exceptions. For less desirable engines like the 267-cubic inch V-8 and the odd-fire 229-cubic inch V-6 are going to be hard to source. Many of the 350-cu.in. V-8 heads that came out of this era are commonly referred to as the least desirable in Chevrolet’s history, but swapping them out for something better is relatively easy. Transmissions and rear ends are plentiful, no matter which your Camaro happens to have.

Which one to buy? Aside from the stronger powertrains and muscle car-era ties of the early models, it’s largely a matter of personal preference. Some buyers are going to be after an 1970 RS/SS, and some are going to want the full disco package in a 1980 Z28 with T-Tops. They’re all equally susceptible to rust, and all have a fairly prolific aftermarket.

What to Pay

Given the long lifespan of this generation and the variety of spec, there’s quite a spread in values. “Number 2 values vary widely for these, from just $11,200 for a 1980 base with the lowest output V-8 to $84,800 for a 1970 SS 396/375hp L78,” says senior auction editor Andrew Newton. As always, check out Hagerty’s Valuation Tools to ensure you get the latest values for your specific Camaro.

If you simply like the shape of the Second Generation Camaro, choosing a six-cylinder car, or something like a clean Berlinetta will save you enough money to send a kid to stage college for a few years. The pandemic boom had a dramatic effect on all Camaro prices, and prices are still up significantly, but prices have softened a little recently. That said, certain trends remain: “For both the early and the later cars—the latter of which tend to be cheaper—it’s the high-spec performance models that have seen the most appreciation by far,” says Newton. “For example, while 1981 Z28s are up 80% over the past four years, 1981 base and Berlinetta models are up just 24%.”

Quoted values for these cars—regardless of year or condition—is up 32 percent in the last three years, according to the Hagerty Valuation Team.

Gen X unsurprisingly quotes 38 percent of 1970 to 1981 Camaros, while making up 32 percent of the overall collector car market. These were incredibly popular cars when Gen X was growing up (and continued to be so when they became the used cars that populated their high school parking lots), and they have the liquid cash to buy one. Millennials have a strong affinity for these cars, too, making up 20 percent of quotes—about consistent with their share of the market. Gen Z quotes 11 percent while being seven percent of the overall market. Boomers are still a strong ownership bloc, but not as much as you might think. They quote 30 percent of all 1970 to 1981 Camaros in Hagerty’s database, while making up 35 percent of the market.

Buy the best Second Generation Camaro you can afford, and if you can verify that any rust areas have been addressed, all the better. And as with any classic purchase, have the car looked over by a qualified professional.

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The post Your Handy 1970–81 Chevrolet Camaro Buyer’s Guide appeared first on Hagerty Media.

The luxury mid-size SUV is big business in the US, accounting for 1 million units per year according to Stellantis. It’s a crowded field, but Jeep has seen success in the segment with the stalwart Grand Cherokee (244,597 sales in 2023) and the newer Wagoneer (29,150 sales in 2023).

One thing Jeep hasn’t seen the need to do is offer an all-electric option, but Jeep’s parent company Stellantis has been aggressively pursuing electrification with models like the Dodge Charger Daytona and the Ram REV. It was only a matter of time before the off-road marque followed, and today, at a launch party in Manhattan, Jeep revealed its first all-electric vehicle, the Wagoneer S.

The Wagoneer S is late to the five-seat-luxury-EV-SUV game, with the Tesla Model Y, Genesis GV60, and Mercedes-Benz EQE already occupying the space. How would Jeep differentiate from the competition?

Well, for one, the Wagoneer S is a handsome thing, and most definitely looks like a Jeep. Its puffed-out trapezoidal wheel arches and squared visage read more aggressive than the typical space-egg EV. “When you look at a lot of electric cars, they kind of have this jelly bean, fishy kind of look, which I can’t stand. So we gave the vehicle some character,” said chief design officer Ralph Gilles on the styling. Chrome is noticeably absent, in its place are satin-painted accent trim and natural stainless steel. The design team, and Stellantis as a whole, is looking to find alternatives to the caustic chroming process.

Aside from its general Jeep-ness, the exterior of the S has two defining details that set it apart from the brand’s gas-powered cars. The grille isn’t a grille at all, as the electric Wagoneer doesn’t need the cooling. Gilles’ team took the iconic seven-slot Jeep grille and morphed it into a cast-lit feature that would look at home on a Zaha Hadid building. The other cool feature is the large, almost WRC-like wing integrated into the rear hatch. Gilles referred to it as the R-wing, and the engineering team says it reduces rear air wake and helps the S achieve a 0.29 coefficient of drag.

Like the regular Wagoneer, the interior looks and feels pretty darn nice. As with the exterior, the designers strayed from traditional luxury materials. Wood and leather are replaced with ceramic-coated aluminum and “synthetic non-leather” (vinyl). Some of the interior designers may have been iPad kids, as Jeep boasts a “tech-integrated interior with 45 inches of usable screen space – best-in-class among EVs.” Heated and ventilated front and rear seats and a 19-speaker, 1,200-watt McIntosh audio system round out the interior niceties.

Jeep prides itself on performance, whether it’s on or off-road, so all the exterior and interior show is for nothing if the Wagoneer S has no go.

Luckily the S has plenty of go. With 600 horsepower and 617 lb.-ft. of torque delivered from front and rear electronic drive modules (250kW), the EV Jeep can hustle from 0-60 mph in 3.4 seconds. To put that in context, the Hellcat-powered Grand Cherokee Trackhawk will hit 60 a tenth slower. For off-roaders, the Wagoneer S has a traction management system that features five distinct driving modes: Auto, Sport, Eco, Snow, and Sand. I’d guess that most Wagoneer owners will not take advantage of this feature, but Jeep teased a Trailhawk Wagoneer S concept at the reveal (pictures not available at press time), so hardcore off-roaders won’t be left in the cold.

The Wagoneer S is based on Stellantis’ STLA Large EV platform that also underpins the upcoming Charger Daytona. The S is equipped with a 400-volt, 100-kilowatt-hour battery good for a claimed range of 300 miles. With a DC fast charger, the pack can go from 20 to 80 percent in 23 minutes.

If the specs and features of this luxury EV SUV sound expensive, you would be right. The fully loaded 2024 Wagoneer S Launch Edition has an MSRP of $71,995 including destination. Although to lessen the sting a little, the Launch Edition includes either a free 48-watt Level 2 home charger, or $600 worth of charging credits through Stellantis’ Free2Move Charge EV charger network. Stellantis promises more affordable, decontented trims in the future.

If you want one, ordering for the Wagoneer S is open today at time of press. If you don’t, at least there will be a good-looking EV SUV on the road.

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I often think about the bare minimum number of tools required to do a job. Not the ideal tools. Maybe it comes from watching Saturday morning TV shows, where everything took 10 minutes and fit together flawlessly. Watching those projects take shape encouraged me to pick up tools and try my own. But what do you need to just get started? 

If we waited until we had a full toolbox to dive in, none of us would ever get anything done. We’d just be sitting around staring at tools. Instead, let’s take a look at the tools that compose the minimum kit required to safely and successfully tackle a project on a daily driver—or at least allow you to do most of a job and then rent or borrow any specialty tools needed for to complete specific tasks. These don’t need to be fancy tools; in fact, this might be a list of items that are best purchased at garage sales, flea markets, or secondhand stores.

Jack and Stands

Sure, there are a lot of projects that do not require lifting a vehicle, but sooner or later you’ll need to do it. I’ve done oil changes by putting the front wheels on a curb to get enough clearance to roll under and access the drain plug and oil filter, but that practice doesn’t work in all situations. A jack and stands do. These are the right tools for every job that requires lifting a vehicle. That’s why they are something to get early in your wrenching journey.

Screwdrivers

Applied properly, screwdrivers have thousands of uses. We would never tell you to use them improperly, of course, but in a pinch a screwdriver can be used for all sorts of stuff that might very well render them one-time-only tools that, for better or for worse, will get the job done. Screwdrivers also can last a very long time if well taken care of, so adding these to your toolkit early will make for a solid base that rarely needs replacing, which leaves you with funds to buy more specialty tools to grow your kit—or you might just get through a handful of jobs without buying anymore tools at all. That’s a great feeling.

Socket Set

There is a reason every “mechanics toolset” sold in parts stores or home centers has sockets and ratchets as its main component. Ratchets and sockets are a highly efficient method of removing hardware without damaging it. A basic kit is enough to get started, and you can easily add bigger or longer pieces as needed.

Hammer