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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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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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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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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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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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.

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

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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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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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The post Yes, It’s Possible to Change Laws That Keep You from Driving Your Classic appeared first on Hagerty Media.

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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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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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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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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Welcome back to the Hagerty Bull Market List, our annual deep dive into the collector vehicles climbing the value ranks. This year, 2024, marks the seventh installment of our expert insights. Click to read past Bull Market Lists from 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023.

You could be forgiven for thinking we’ve had it easy the past few years. The Bull Market List is our annual selection of vehicles likely to appreciate the most over the next 12 months, and amid the pandemic-fueled spending spree of 2021 and 2022, that was basically shooting fish in a barrel.

Things look a little different this year. Adhering to the most fundamental of investing principles—what goes up must come down—the collector car market as a whole softened in 2023. The Hagerty Market Rating, our monthly measure of the heat of the market, dropped to its lowest point in two years primarily due to inflation and declines in prices achieved at auctions.

Did that make us hesitate in our selections for 2024? Not at all. Even in a slowing market, there are vehicles poised for big gains. To identify them, we looked beyond top-line sales figures and dug into our trove of pricing and demographic data (for a detailed explanation of our methodology, click here). This year, we have everything from a 1940s woody to a 1990s rally truck originally sold only in Japan.

In any event, the point of the Bull Market List has never been to celebrate cars becoming more expensive or to position cars as investments. Rather, our goal is to make collector car ownership a bit more attainable and maybe a bit less intimidating by pointing out that with due diligence and a smidge of luck, you can get your money back and then some. So long as fun is your main goal, a classic car will never let you down.

Meet the Bulls: 2024 Lineup

• 1989 Lamborghini Countach 25th Anniversary
• 1946–1950 Chrysler Town & Country
• 2008–2013 BMW M3
• 1997–1999 Mitsubishi Pajero Evolution
• 2011–2016 Ferrari FF
• 2000–2005 Jaguar XKR
• 1965–1970 Chevrolet Impala SS
• 1981–1986 Jeep CJ-8 Scrambler
• 1964–1966 Ford Thunderbird
• 1997–2002 Plymouth Prowler

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1989 Lamborghini Countach 25th Anniversary

Rarely are sequels as good as the originals, but when Lamborghini replaced its groundbreaking and gobsmacking Miura with the even more outrageous Countach in 1974, the world bowed down to the sign of the bull. Although the car is a product of the 1970s, we tend to think of it as a child of the frizz-haired, neon-jumpsuited 1980s, thanks in no small part to cameo rolls in such period screen icons as The Cannonball Run and Miami Vice. And no version of the several Countach iterations represents that decade better than the final opus, the 1989-model-year 25th Anniversary, so labeled to celebrate the 1963 founding of Automobili Lamborghini.

Thanks to Chrysler’s purchase of the ailing automaker in 1987, much-needed cash flowed into Sant’Agata, and the Anniversary would prove to be, in many ways, the best Countach as well as the most produced, with around 650 examples cranked out in a relatively short period. The car’s long battle with U.S. safety and emissions laws was finally resolved with DOT-certified bumper grafts and EPA-blessed Bosch K-Jetronic fuel injection for the four-cam, 48-valve, 5.2-liter, 7000-rpm V-12 (Euro versions still had carbs). The rated 455 horses was the highest the Countach ever achieved.

Composite body strakes meant to update the Countach’s styling—as though updates were needed—were developed by a young Horacio Pagani, who went on to start his own eponymous hypercar company. Power seats and a stronger air conditioner controlled by a digital panel were Anniversary touches that Chrysler undoubtedly thought necessary for a car stickering at $225,000. Despite the luxury flourishes, however, the Countach’s incandescent machismo was barely dimmed, and the lack of ABS or anti-spinout systems means it takes a certain fearlessness to hustle one anywhere near its limits. Feet squeezed into the tiny offset pedal box and hands gripping the small wheel and tall shifter face heavy resistance on all fronts. The visibility out is only slightly better than a gopher hole.

But driven with the proper measure of courage and skill, the Countach is a wailing wonder of sound and fury—at least until something breaks. Lamborghini’s greatest sex wedge has a well-earned rep for bleeding owners white, and with so many Anniversary Countaches having been driven hard and put away bent, it’s easy to fall into a bottomless pit of four- and five-figure repair bills. Owner Antonio Marsillo, a former New York City police detective who started a successful business offering VIP protection services (past clients include Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney, Bon Jovi, and Jim Carrey), searched for four years, rejecting as many as 20 cars before finding this 4000-mile unmolested gem in 2013.

That was back when used Anniversaries were at the bottom of their steep depreciation curves. And right before the film The Wolf of Wall Street graphically sacrificed one on the altar of cinematic art, sending Anniversary prices rebounding. They have only continued to build steam. Marsillo parks his in a one-car garage on a lift underneath his other 1980s hero car, a Ferrari Testarossa that once belonged to Billy Joel. He has spent far more time detailing the Lamborghini’s exhaust and undercarriage with a toothbrush than he has driving it, and it is subsequently the best preserved Countach we have ever experienced, barking to life on the button and showing no evident signs of its 35 years. Simply bawdily bellissima! —Aaron Robinson

1989 Lamborghini Countach 25th Anniversary

Highs: A genuine icon with a 7000-rpm V-12; those crazy doors; your chance to meet dozens of strangers every time you stop.

Lows: A workout to drive; has put lots of children of mechanics through college; your chance to meet dozens of strangers every time you stop.

*Price Range: #1 – $770,000  #2 – $612,500 #3 – $435,000 #4 – $345,000

*Hagerty analysts evaluate vehicle condition on a 1-to-4 rating scale to help determine its approximate value range. All factors, including aesthetics and mechanical condition, are considered. Most collector vehicles are in #3 (Good) condition. Read more about our rating system here.

HAGERTY AUTO INTELLIGENCE SAYS:

Not long ago, ‘serious’ collectors considered the later Countach, with its scoops and cladding, to be a bastardization of an iconic design. But the children of the 1980s and ’90s think otherwise. Although 1970s examples are still worth the most, the final-year Silver Anniversary edition is gaining ground.

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1946–50 Chrysler Town & Country

The war was over and the troops were flooding back desperate to buy cars. Chrysler Corporation, which had been cranking out tanks, trucks, engines, and munitions, turned to face the future, and the future was wood. Or, at least, Chrysler president David Wallace thought so. It helped that Wallace was also president of Pekin Wood Products, a Chrysler subsidiary in West Helena, Arkansas, that had spent the war making shipping crates for aircraft engines. Pekin had supplied the ash and Honduran mahogany for the very first Chrysler Town & Country, a spectacular 1941 woody wagon so named because its chrome-rococo face said “Hello” while its cavernous barrel-back rear said “Howdy.”

However, when Chrysler belatedly went back to building cars late in 1945, delayed because of strikes and raw materials shortages, the Town & Country wagon was gone. In its place, the company offered a few gussied-up versions of the 1942 New Yorker, including a Town & Country sedan, a T&C convertible, and one of the industry’s first two-door pillarless hardtops, which was basically a T&C convertible with a roof bolted on.

At nearly $3000, the pricey Town & Country was an odd mashup of 1940s streamlining and rectilinear right angles. And though it was never built in huge numbers—fewer than 15,000 between ’46 and ’50—it was immediately embraced by East Coast patricians and West Coast Hollywood types as a rolling status symbol. Who else but the rich could afford a car that evoked the Stickley-style and art deco furniture of the finest houses while, according to the owner’s manual, needing to be revarnished every six months to preserve its exterior?

Initially the T&C’s ash framing was structural, comprising the doors and trunklid and held together via complex joinery that no doubt taxed Chrysler’s Jefferson Avenue body assembly shop as much as it has restorers in the years since. However, the weight of the car’s cost and build complexity (at a time when anyone would buy anything new at any price) bore down, and by 1949, the ash was merely decorative, bonded to a conventional steel body shell and accented by fake vinyl mahogany.

David Kraus didn’t set out to buy a Town & Country, exactly—he set out to buy a convertible. Any convertible would do, and this ’47 T&C was priced right at $200. Did we mention that this was back in 1965? Kraus, now a retired aviation lawyer from northern New Jersey, spent a few years and another $800 painting the car, redoing the top, and restoring the interior, and he has been happily motoring in it ever since. Still original are the 324-cubic-inch flathead straight-eight and Fluid Drive four-speed, a kind of semi-automatic that takes much longer to explain than it does to learn how to use it. You sit up high in the T&C and roll in velvety if not speedy comfort, the engine seeming to operate only between a low idle and a high idle. For years, the winners of the Miss Arkansas pageant rode in the back of T&Cs in parades, and that is perhaps the best use of any Town & Country. —Aaron Robinson

1947 Chrysler Town & Country

Highs: Everyone loves a woody; A piece of art deco furniture you can drive; America’s favorite parade car or fun for six on a night out at the drive-in.

Lows: Built before Eisenhower’s interstates and geared like it; the wood is difficult to restore and maintain; restorations are financial sinkholes.

Price Range: #1 – $144,000  #2 – $81,400 #3 – $52,500 #4 – $28,400

HAGERTY AUTO INTELLIGENCE SAYS:

There’s a theory that young enthusiasts only want newer cars. Our data show that’s dead wrong. The best older classics, like the T&C, will endure. But find a good one, as restoring a 70-year-old wood-bodied car can be costly.

***

2008–13 BMW M3

If you want a visceral sense of the je ne sais quoi, the undefinable feeling that makes collectors go gaga over so-called modern classics, drive a 2007–2013 M3. No need to go very far or very fast. After the 4.0-liter V-8 has warmed up—you’ll know because the electronic redline on the tachometer automatically raises from about 6000 rpm to 8400 rpm—give the gas pedal a tap. Just a tap. In about the time it takes your thought to travel from your brainstem to the fast-twitch muscle fibers in your foot, the car lunges forward. A modern M3, which is powered by a turbocharged six-cylinder with some 100 more horsepower, may well be quicker, but it feels nowhere near as immediate or responsive.

It’s tempting to describe this experience as analog, yet this M3—or E92 in BMW chassis-code parlance—was a technological tour de force, from its carbon-fiber roof to its adjustable rear differential and optional dual-clutch automatic. The engine was the first (and, so far, the last) V-8 offered in an M3, but it weighs less than the inline-six in its predecessor thanks to extensive use of aluminum. Each cylinder has its own throttle controlled by a separate electric motor—the 21st-century version of a rack of Weber carburetors. It all conspires to make this era M3 feel exotic, even if it looks for the most part like a workaday 3-Series. (Design chief Chris Bangle’s avant-garde “flame surfacing” was wisely kept to a minimum on this bread-and-butter model.)

Despite the E92’s sterling performance credentials, it depreciated swiftly. By 2018, excellent examples were going for less than $40,000, according to the Hagerty Price Guide—chump change considering the window stickers commonly exceeded $70K with options. Like many tech-forward German performance cars of the early 2000s, the M3 became cheap to buy in large part because it is expensive to own. In addition to swilling premium (an EPA-rated 14 mpg in city), the engine’s electronic throttle actuators are known to fail—there are two, one for each cylinder bank. Also, the bearings that protect its fast-spinning connecting rods can wear prematurely.

Yet there are multiple signs that this generation M3 is leaving “used performance car” territory for the rich green pastures of “modern classics.” Interest in the car, as measured by the number of people who call Hagerty about insurance on them, is increasing. These M3 seekers are disproportionately Gen Xers or younger—a cohort that has driven huge increases on other modern performance cars in recent years. Those include the 2000–2006 BMW E46 M3, now valued at a cool $54,300 in our price guide, as well as early 2000s (996- and 997-generation) Porsche 911s, which trade for similar money or higher.

Values for M3 sedans and coupes in excellent condition have already made their way above $40,000. Those equipped with manual transmissions tend to net a premium, as do limited-build Lime Rock Park Editions like the one we borrowed from Hagerty member Darren Berger, as they combine several desirable performance options. If you want to hear more of the V-8 and can stand added weight, convertibles (technically called E93s) sell for slightly less. Yet the most important feature to look for when buying an M3, in light of the noted mechanical complexity, is a comprehensive service history. —David Zenlea

2013 BMW M3

Highs: Engine nearly befitting of an exotic; peak BMW chassis balance.

Lows: Conservative styling; poorly maintained examples can cost an arm and a leg to fix.

Price Range: #1 – $65,800  #2 – $51,600 #3 – $40,600 #4 – $29,200

HAGERTY AUTO INTELLIGENCE SAYS:

Interest from young enthusiasts is a factor for all Bull Market cars but is absolutely the factor favoring this M3. The ‘kids’ are not only shopping for the car but are also consistently willing to pay more for it than older folks. Meanwhile, the aftermarket has come up with fixes for many of the mechanical/durability issues.

***

1997–99 Mitsubishi Pajero Evolution

And now for something completely different: a Japan-only off-road rally special built around a commonplace SUV and styled to look like the Bat Truck. People who aren’t ready for a deep dive into the nerdy world of Japanese Domestic Market specials can stop here; for the rest, konnichiwa!

It has been a long time since Mitsubishi dominated anything, but the three-diamond brand once ruled the brazen and dangerous 6000-mile-long Paris-Dakar Rally, with a string of wins in the 1990s and 2000s using modified versions of its Toyota Land Cruiser fighter, the Pajero SUV (Montero in the U.S., Shogun in the U.K.). As with a lot of interesting cars, the Pajero Evolution was born in a smoky backroom of a motorsports sanctioning body. In the mid-1990s and with the Dakar at its peak in popularity, the organizers created a production-based class requiring manufacturers to build a minimum number of homologation cars that had to be road-legal and salable to the public. Mitsubishi was down to party, producing about 2500 of the Pajero Evolutions, which shared basic sheetmetal with the second-generation (1991–1999) body-on-frame two-door Pajero/Montero. (Side note: America never saw two-door versions of the gen-2s, or indeed the gen-3s, owing to the so-called chicken tax, a 25 percent U.S. duty on imported two-door trucks.)

Underneath, there’s lots of special geekery for JDM geeks to geek out on, including a 276-hp version of Mitsu’s iron-block 3.5-liter V-6 running four-cam cylinder heads, the company’s MIVEC variable valve-timing-and-lift system, and gasoline direct-injection. Further, the stock Pajero’s torsion-beam front suspension and solid-axle rear were replaced with double wishbones in front and multilinks in back, with Torsen lockers at both ends. Special Recaro buckets, skid plating, more butch front fenders, and body cladding complete the Evo’s persona.

If you’ve ever driven a U.S.-spec gen-2 Montero—your author has owned two—then you know that these ships of the desert are sturdy but not exactly frisky. However, shorn of almost a foot of wheelbase compared with the four-door and blessed with nearly a third more horsepower, the Pajero Evolution achieves genuine sportiness. Quicker steering paired with a carlike chassis awakens the handling, while the power can be managed through a manual-shift function of the automatic that is unique to the Evo (a true manual was also available, but they are very rare).

Thanks in part to a long association between Mitsubishi’s Ralliart operation and martial arts superstar Jackie Chan, Pajero Evos have always been collectible in Japan. And now that the 25-year rolling import exemption is up to 1999, they are dribbling into the U.S., though they are still impossible to legally register in some states (we’re looking at you, California). Of course, coddled rally specials such as the Pajero Evo are less about what they can do—few Evos have likely ever tasted dirt—than about the conversations they spark. If you fancy driving a rolling billboard advertising your arcane knowledge of Japanese automotive esoterica, then your Bat Truck has arrived. —Aaron Robinson

1997 Mitsubishi Pajero Evolution

Highs: There’s no kind of cool like JDM cool; handles far better than your typical SUV; a rolling piece of (obscure) motorsports history that can also carry a sheepdog.

Lows: Lots of money that will buy respect from only a select few; aging Japanese cars tend to have slim parts availability in general; likely has quite a few bits of unobtainium.

Price Range: #1 – $70,000  #2 – $50,000 #3 – $35,000 #4 – $17,900

HAGERTY AUTO INTELLIGENCE SAYS:

Japanese Domestic Market cars were once unobtainable for all but the most determined enthusiasts due to the logistics of importing them. In recent years, though, as more millennials look to make their video game dreams reality, a cottage industry has cropped up to bring JDM cars stateside.

***

2011–16 Ferrari FF

Several philosophers and at least one Doobie Brothers album have observed that vices, if repeated enough, have a way of becoming acceptable habits. That’s one way—just a bit cynical, we’ll admit—to explain why we’re bullish on the Ferrari FF.

When the car debuted a little over a decade ago, the notion of an Italian exotic with all-wheel-drive, four seats, and no clutch pedal still seemed a bit transgressive. Since then, nearly every premium automaker—including Bentley, Lamborghini, Rolls-Royce, and even Ferrari itself—has developed a fully fledged SUV. This lithe and low-slung shooting brake is, by comparison, a purist’s delight.

The simple truth is that more and more car buyers expect some utility, even in their passion purchases. This became particularly evident during the pandemic, when collectors zealously snapped up vehicles capable of going on longer drives with more passengers. Everything from vintage SUVs to restomods (classic cars with modernized powertrains and brakes) shot up in value as a result. There are also long-term demographic trends at play. Collectors who are Gen Xers or younger now make up the majority of the market and are more likely to have kids at home, jobs to commute to, and stuff to haul. They want their classic cars to be, you know, cars—capable of ferrying people and things from place to place without fuss.

These are overwhelmingly the folks buying FFs. More than 80 percent of those who call Hagerty about insurance on one are Gen Xers or younger, and they tend to drive many more miles than we see for other Ferraris. The owner of the FF you see here, Daniel Giannone, readily admits he wanted an enthusiast car in which he could take his young children on Sunday drives.

Yet there’s one more thing about the FF that needs to be taken into consideration: It’s a Ferrari. There’s a mystique that comes with the Prancing Horse that usually translates to appreciation, both for the vintage Enzo-era cars and, increasingly, for more recent efforts. In the past few years, we’ve seen run-ups and record sales for everything from F50s and Enzos to 612 Scagliettis. The FF, despite its practicality, maintains that invaluable Ferrari-ness. Its naturally aspirated V-12 puts out 651 horsepower—more than an Enzo’s—and makes all the right noises. The seven-speed dual-clutch automatic works seamlessly, with none of the herky-jerky annoyances of Ferrari’s earlier sequential gearboxes. The all-wheel-drive system, which powers the front wheels via a novel two-speed transmission, kicks in when needed but otherwise doesn’t intrude on the experience. Not everyone loves the Pininfarina styling—particularly the jack-o’-lantern smile of the grille—but the basic proportions are just right.

FFs are nearly new, so they are still depreciating and presently can be had in excellent condition for less than $150,000, a bargain considering they stickered around $300,000. You’ll want one that’s been fastidiously maintained—we are, after all, talking about an Italian exotic with 12 cylinders and two transmissions. But a properly cared for FF should provide years of practical fun and, if the Doobie Brothers are correct, long-term appreciation. —David Zenlea

2014 Ferrari FF

Highs: Grocery-getter practicality with the heart of a supercar.

Lows: There are prettier Ferraris; AWD service is pricey.

Price Range: #1 – $177,000  #2 – $143,000 #3 – $125,000 #4 – $106,400

HAGERTY AUTO INTELLIGENCE SAYS:

Two of the most striking changes in the classic car market in the past decade have been an influx of younger buyers and a shift in preference toward ‘usable’ vehicles. The FF, with its youthful demographics and practicality, checks both boxes. The fact that it’s a Ferrari (a relatively rare one at that) certainly doesn’t hurt.

***

2000–05 Jaguar XKR

The Ford Motor Company purchased Jaguar in 1989 and began brushing the cobwebs out of the British carmaker’s assembly hall at Browns Lane. Dearborn emissaries laid plans for long-overdue updates to the XJ sedan and XJS two-door. Although markers of country club status, the Jags were known in the wider culture as being reliably unreliable, a situation made increasingly untenable by the arrival of Lexus and its world-beating quality.

So the next generation of Jaguar’s two-door, the brand’s image leader, had nowhere to go but up. Design chief Geoff Lawson penned a low, lovely, and sleek grand tourer whose oval snout evoked the E-Type even as the overall design was pointed squarely toward the 21st century. Take that, upstart luxury brands from the Far East! Instantly identifiable as a Jaguar by even casual observers, the 1997 XK8, named for the postwar XK 120/140/150 line, was exactly the car Jaguar desperately needed, and not a moment too soon: The XJS had been on the market, largely unchanged, for more than two decades.

The XK8 team had to make do with a heavily modified XJS platform, but Ford had funded a bespoke engine for Jaguar rather than repurposing the DOHC V-8 being developed for Lincoln and Ford. Displacing 4.0 liters, the same as the Lexus V-8, Jaguar’s DOHC aluminum AJ-V8 replaced Jaguar’s inline-six and sent 290 horsepower and 284 lb-ft of torque through a five-speed ZF automatic transmission.

Compelling, but Jaguar had more plans for its first-ever V-8 engine, attaching an Eaton supercharger to supplant the previous optional V-12. The resulting XKR debuted for the 2000 model year with a mesh grille insert, 370 horsepower, and a swagger not seen out of Coventry in decades. With both the XJR sedan and the XKR, Jaguar was finally able to compete with the high-performance models from Mercedes, BMW, and even Aston Martin.

Automotive critics were thrilled for Jaguar as it came out swinging against the German and Japanese brands. “Just look at Jaguar’s XKR. It’s sex on wheels!” enthused Car and Driver. “A lot sexier than the naturally aspirated XK8 upon which it’s based… provocative, confident, not at all trashy, with an upper-class British accent.” At about $80,000 for the coupe and $85,000 for the convertible, the XKR was not cheap, but it still undercut the V-12 Mercedes-Benz SL600 roadster by tens of thousands.

Looks aside, the XKR twins were rapid and refined steeds, the AJ-V8 delivering gobs of low-end torque and smoothly powerful acceleration with a muffled supercharger whine. Car and Driver clocked the run to 60 mph in 5.2 seconds. The XKR’s Computer Active Technology Suspension (CATS, get it?) provided the composure and comfort Jaguar is famous for along with reasonably sporty handling. Our photo car, owned by Bob Levy of Westport, Connecticut, is a 2006 model, meaning it benefits from the larger, 4.2-liter AJ-V8 mated to a six-speed gearbox that Jaguar introduced in 2002.

Today, good examples of the XKR can be had for the low $20,000s—not bad for styling that has aged well and for one of the world’s great V-8s. Driving an XKR reminds us of hope and promise, an era when Ford’s billions combined with British resolve to reinvigorate one of the greats. —Joe DeMatio

2006 Jaguar XKR

Highs: Silky-smooth supercharged V-8; sensuous good looks, particularly the rare coupe; as cheap as a used Camry.

Lows: Cramped cabin; back seats for groceries only; many were used hard; maintenance records are essential; no manual gearbox.

Price Range: #1 – $38,900  #2 – $26,700 #3 – $16,100 #4 – $8300

HAGERTY AUTO INTELLIGENCE SAYS:

The most important data points here are pretty simple: power and price. Enthusiasts of all ages love performance, and there aren’t many cars that offer more of it for less money. Cost of maintenance and repair must always be a consideration with Jaguars, but the XKR—relatively speaking—has proven reliable.

***

1965–70 Chevrolet Impala SS

If there is nothing more American than baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet, then it’s quite possible that there is no car that is more Chevrolet-y than the Impala. Named after a type of African antelope, the name first appeared in 1956 on a General Motors Motorama show car, a handsome, four-passenger sport coupe with Corvette-inspired design cues. In 1958, the Impala was introduced as the top-of-the-line model for the bowtie brand. Over the next six decades and 10 generations, Impala was Chevy’s full-size offering, until the market’s insatiable appetite for crossovers and SUVs brought an end (or a pause, perhaps?) to the nameplate in 2020.

The scene looked much different in 1961, when Chevy debuted the SS (Super Sport) option as the Impala’s performance package. With either the 348-cubic-inch V-8 or the legendary 409 serving duty under the hood, the Impala SS was a performance powerhouse. The fourth-generation, all-new Impala was introduced in 1965; that year, the model’s annual sales hit an all-time industry record of more than 1 million cars. (For context, total sales across all GM divisions in 2022 was 2.27 million). The Impala was rebodied in 1967, and from ’67 to ’69, the top engine was the 427. The 1969 LS1 427 V-8 on base Impalas made 335 horsepower (measured by the old, inflated SAE gross-output yardstick); on SS models, the L36 V-8 made 390 ponies, while the ultra-rare L72—of which only 546 were sold—made 425 horsepower.

The example on these pages is a ’69 Impala SS L36 paired with a four-speed manual. The car is owned by Hal Oaks, who bought it new in 1969. “I had a ’65 Chevy Super Sport with a 283 that couldn’t get out of its own way,” Oaks remembers. “I was 19, I had a full-time job, and I decided I wanted something new. I was a Chevy guy, so I went to the Chevy dealer looking for an L79 Nova. The only one the dealer had was Nassau blue, and I really didn’t like that color. I went back the next day, and I was still undecided. The salesman said, ‘I got one more car to show you. We ordered it for someone who decided they didn’t want it.’ That was the black car that I still have today.”

Behind the wheel, you can roll at 35 mph in fourth gear with no problem thanks to the drag-race gearing and buckets of torque cranked out by the 427. The engine sounds great as it exhales through the tubular headers and 2.5-inch pipes and mufflers that Oaks installed. As with most of the cars of that era, there is no pleasure to be found in operating the vague gear shifter. The steering is similarly ambiguous, which is fine, since the grip-free bench seats that were standard for ’69 discourage anything except straight-line driving.

Over the course of the 55 years that Oaks has owned the Impala, it has become a part of the family. “I drove it to my wedding, and I drove both of my daughters to their weddings in it, too,” he reflects. “Through the ups and downs of life, raising a family and building a house and buying houses, somehow I managed to hang on to it. I’ll never sell it.” —Kirk Seaman

1969 Chevrolet Impala SS

Highs: Perhaps the most American of American cars; parts aplenty; cruise night or the drags—it does both.

Lows: Needs a big garage; ‘60s fuel appetite; likes straights more than curves.

Price Range: #1 – $44,500  #2 – $30,100 #3 – $22,200 #4 – $14,600

HAGERTY AUTO INTELLIGENCE SAYS:

Young enthusiasts love American muscle as much as their parents do but generally don’t have the cash for the most famous models. That leads them to alternatives, including this Impala.

***

1981–86 Jeep CJ-8 Scrambler

The love child of the sturdy Jeep CJ-7 and a pickup truck, the CJ-8 was a long-wheelbase version of the CJ-7 that combined the go-anywhere-ability of the CJ (“civilian jeep”) with the utility of a cargo bed. Produced by American Motors from 1981 to 1986, fewer than 30,000 CJ-8s sold, appealing to a small sliver of the market that appreciated the virtues of four-wheel drive paired with open-air motoring and a 1500-pound payload.

Often called the Scrambler (the name of a popular trim package), there wasn’t a lot of scrambling going on here, what with the anemic 82-hp, 2.5-liter Iron Duke four-cylinder sourced from General Motors under the hood. In 1984, AMC upgraded that base four-cylinder to its own 2.5-liter four, good for 105 horsepower. The legendary 4.2-liter inline six-cylinder was offered as an option, making 115 horsepower but, more important, cranking out 210 lb-ft of torque at 1800 rpm. Transmission choices were either a four-speed manual or a three-speed automatic; in 1985, a five-speed manual was available.

Early adopters of the Scrambler included Ronald Reagan, who received his as a gift from wife Nancy and used it to maintain their ranch outside Santa Barbara, California. About the same time the Gipper was using his CJ-8 to clear the brush on his ranch’s horse trails, our owner, Andrew Del Negro, fell in love with one as a sophomore in high school. “The passion came from my first Jeep experience when my parents moved me from Connecticut to Tennessee. I didn’t know anybody at the new school,” he recalls. “The first friend I made there had a ’76 CJ-5, and he and I took that thing everywhere.”

Del Negro’s own Jeep journey began with a ’77 CJ-5. “It had a 304 with headers and glass-pack mufflers,” he enthuses. “It was loud, it was badass.” Since then, Del Negro estimates he has owned between 30 and 40 Jeeps. “Between CJs, Cherokees, Grand Cherokees, Commanders, I’ve had everything. When I got married, my wife and I had pictures of every Jeep that I had owned to that point as the centerpieces on our guest tables.”

His current passion is this 1983 Scrambler that he bought in 2021. “This Scrambler was my dream vehicle. I wanted this specific color scheme and one that wasn’t perfect but original and in nice shape.” He found this rust-free example in California and set out to make it his own. “I’d always wanted a 360 V-8, so I had one installed and added fuel injection, then put on a set of Western turbine wheels.” Today, Del Negro cruises town and uses it to take the kids to soccer; he taught the oldest of his four children to drive a stick on his YJ Jeep, so they’re ready to drive the Scrambler with its four-speed manual. “They’re all dying to get into the Scrambler and drive it. They all love the Jeep.” —Kirk Seaman

1983 Jeep CJ-8 Scrambler

Highs: Irresistible Tonka-Toy looks; utility with invincibility; rare and collectible 4x4s are hot.

Lows: Anemic base engines; not waterproof; creaky body structure.

Price Range: #1 – $52,600  #2 – $41,400 #3 – $31,700 #4 – $16,100

HAGERTY AUTO INTELLIGENCE SAYS:

Off-roaders have been some of the hottest vehicles on the market in recent years. The Scrambler, given its distinctive configuration and rarity relative to regular Jeeps, has room to continue growing.

***

1964–66 Ford Thunderbird

Thunderbird, you are go for liftoff. Climb into the cockpit and you might imagine yourself at the controls of an Apollo moon module or a starfighter straight from sci fi. Thunderbirds have had a strong tie to the jet age from the beginning. The first Baby Birds, the four-seat Square Birds, and the early ’60s Bullet Birds all had large, round booster taillights and wings that made them look like they could take flight. But those ’Birds were heavily influenced by an earlier fins-and-chrome aesthetic. This 1966 Thunderbird, a so-called Flair Bird, is planted firmly in the straight-edge 1960s, and it is far out.

The ride is soft and comfortable in these cars, if not for a bit of leaning and floating over curves and bumps (Flair Birds are not quite as dialed in as their Grand Prix and Riviera contemporaries). The 1964 model’s standard 390-cubic-inch V-8, with its 300 horsepower and 427 lb-ft of torque, doesn’t exactly blast off as the traffic light goes green. In fact, it’ll take a full 11 seconds to get to a cruising speed of 60 mph. So, it’s not really a rocket, despite the aeronautical exterior styling.

However, by the time Ford unveiled its 1966 Thunderbird, the fourth generation had hit its stride, making notable improvements where it counts. The base 390 engine added 15 more horsepower. Also available in ’66 was an optional 428 V-8, the powerplant under the hood of the car seen in these pages. With that engine, you get from a stoplight to 60 mph in just 9 seconds. Perhaps you’re not Chuck Yeager behind the wheel, but putting some speed on, nonetheless.

But this is the Flair Bird, so what you notice most when approaching the car is its style. A large Thunderbird greets you first, spread across the front grille. It’s a wow factor—much more so than the daintier Thunderbird lettering and smaller nose logos of the prior two years’ design. Our photo car is owned by Ron Campbell of Barkhamsted, Connecticut. It is a final-year convertible with lots of bells and whistles, including a dealer-optioned tonneau cover and an eight-track player, along with AC and power everything. Inside, the Thunderbird is a midcentury design study. There’s a gorgeous linear speedo readout nestled in the dash and little podlike gauges to inform the driver that all systems are optimal as you fly down the highway. The tilt-away steering wheel and sequential taillights are groovy, too. The long, sculpted fairings of the tonneau that marry the front seats into the back deck of this car, not unlike in a ’60s Indy racer, make it seem like you’re going that much faster.

Trends say younger classic buyers (born sometime after Neil Armstrong landed on the moon) are interested in Flair Birds. They do have a hipper, more mod vibe than the earlier Thunderbirds. This generation wants something different from Dad’s old ’55 T-bird. Fond memories of watching Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis soaring one off a Grand Canyon cliff in the climactic final scene of Thelma & Louise can’t hurt. Or maybe it’s just that everyone dreams of being an early astronaut for a moment. This mid-’60s Thunderbird just might be the closest you’ll ever get, Major Tom. —Todd Kraemer

1964 Ford Thunderbird

Highs: Style for days in a number of configurations (coupe, convertible, sports roadster, town sedan, and landau); a comfortable ride; disc brakes!

Lows: Wallowing, softly sprung suspension; not a lot of get-up-and-go from a standing start.

Price Range: #1 – $56,400  #2 – $41,300 #3 – $27,400 #4 – $17,300

HAGERTY AUTO INTELLIGENCE SAYS:

Thunderbirds from this era have long lived in the shadow of two contemporary icons from Ford Motor Company—the Mustang and the Lincoln Continental. But as those cars have climbed out of reach, younger collectors have rediscovered the charm of midcentury luxury.

***

1997–02 Plymouth Prowler

In the auto industry, if you want to sell fun cars, first you’ve got to sell a bunch of not-fun cars to support your endeavors. A prime example of this reality is the Plymouth Prowler, one of the strangest fun cars ever to make it to the showroom floor. A four-wheeled love letter to the hot-rod scene, it was funded by the financial success of a trio of sedans from the Chrysler, Dodge, and Eagle brands. In the early 1990s, these shapely sedans (code-name: LH) helped the beleaguered Chrysler Corporation win back customers who had turned away from the automaker’s aging K-car lineup.

The only problem was that Chrysler’s fourth brand, Plymouth, was never given a version of the LH, and with sales stagnating, Chrysler execs wanted to give Plymouth a little love. They had learned from the 1989 Viper concept that a single auto-show debut could generate lots of media ink and showroom traffic, so company leaders cast about for another hit. A cadre of designers at Chrysler’s California styling studio had the idea for a hot-rod concept car, and the decision was made to bestow the razzmatazz on staid Plymouth.

“No mainstream car company had ever done anything this bizarre,” recalled Kevin Verduyn, one of the Prowler’s principal designers, in a 2018 Hagerty interview. The Prowler concept was the hit of the 1993 Detroit auto show, tangible evidence that Chrysler might be the smallest of the Big Three but also the bravest, the cheekiest, the most creative, and the automaker that knew how to do more with less.

Even more amazing: Chrysler execs, led by president Bob Lutz and design chief Tom Gale, greenlighted the car for production. And yet the Prowler wasn’t just for kicks, as the project allowed Chrysler to delve into the emerging use of structural bonding adhesives as well as aluminum for castings, extrusions, body panels, and suspension parts. So, although the Prowler was clearly inspired by hot rods that used the 1932–34 Ford as their lodestar, it was, at least in terms of body structure, the most technically sophisticated automobile yet conceived by the Pentastar.

The situation under the production Prowler’s tapered hood was not nearly as advanced, since there was room only for the LH’s 214-hp, 3.5-liter SOHC V-6. The sole transmission was a lackluster four-speed automatic that dominated the Chrysler lineup. But under the direction of Gale, who at the time was himself building a hot rod based on a 1933 Ford, the designers got the look right, with the Bigs and the Littles (rear to front wheels), the cascading slit grille, the exposed front-suspension members, and the high-back styling. In an era of retro designs, it stretched the imagination.

Perhaps surprisingly, members of Gen X (born between 1965 and 1980) are now trickling into the Prowler, slowly supplanting the boomers who were the initial target when the car was conceived. Our low-mileage 1997 photo car, generously lent to us by Chris Santomero of West Harrison, New York, was in factory-fresh condition. Sure, we would rather have had a V-8, as the V-6 has not exactly grown on us over time. But the Prowler’s open-air charms, its unapologetic stance, its very existence, are all entirely worth celebrating. —Joe DeMatio

1997 Plymouth Prowler

Highs: Sophisticated structural engineering; still highly affordable; optional trailer is bizarrely cool.

Lows: No V-8; no manual; interior is a little pedestrian; not especially rare, with 11,702 built 1997–2002.

Price Range: #1 – $45,500  #2 – $34,800 #3 – $29,200 #4 – $15,700

HAGERTY AUTO INTELLIGENCE SAYS:

So-called restomods (old cars with modern guts) are big business these days—customizers regularly charge six figures to fit a fuel-injected engine, disc brakes, etc., into an old rig. It’s only a matter of time before enthusiasts discover the Prowler, which is essentially a factory-built restomod offered at a bargain price.

Editor’s Note: As always, the 10 cars that make up the 2024 Bull Market List are those we believe are poised for growth. To arrive at these predictions, the Hagerty Automotive Intelligence team uses some of the most exhaustive data in the industry—price guide research, owner demographics, private sales, public auctions both online and in person, and import/export numbers. Our goal is to help you benefit from up-to-date research in order to make an informed purchase now and a profitable sale later.

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At a time when engine swaps were reserved for hot rodders and outlaws, Carroll Shelby bolted a V-8 into a little British car and created a ’60s icon. A lot of us know the basics of the Cobra’s story but rather than rehash the same few talking points, we picked five cars that tell the brief, fascinating history of the Shelby Cobra.

The original

The idea for the Cobra was not that crazy: Take the lithe, simple AC Ace and tuck a V-8 under the hood. Choosing which engine came down to Shelby’s business sense and Chevrolet’s lack of interest in supporting the project. The final choice—a Ford—was likely an easier fit considering the distributor location, but Shelby and his team were problem solvers who could have easily found a work-around, had they preferred the Chevy mill.

While many think Shelby made only two versions of the Cobra—those powered by a 289-cubic-inch V-8 and those by a 427-cubic-inch V-8—the reality is more nuanced. The first cars were fitted with 260-cubic-inch Ford V-8s backed by Borg Warner four-speed manual transmissions. Starting with chassis code CSX2000 in 1962, the first 75 cars got the smaller-displacement V-8. Each of the remaining 51 early-production cars got a larger, 289 cubic-inch engine.

The driver’s choice

The slight increase in engine displacement was a great choice, and it created what Cobra aficionados say is the best car if you really want to drive. Look no further than The Barn Find Hunter himself, Tom Cotter, who has racked up hundreds of thousands of miles in his 289-powered car.

The 289 was also a force to be reckoned with on the racetrack. They were routinely hassling Ferraris and taking lunch money from Corvettes. On track the cars had a balance—if you can call an overpowered British roadster balanced at all—that allowed drivers to shine. Sadly, those racers were shining from sweat due to their car’s lack of a roof. That problem brought in Peter Brock and his team, who together created …

The specialist

Brock and his team were less worried about sunburns on drivers’ necks than the aerodynamic disadvantages of the roofless design. Even as the Ford 390 V-8s were finding their way into Mark II Cobras, the aerodynamic drag of the car’s body was limiting the Cobra’s performance in a straight line. The result of the project was the Daytona Coupe, which added a roof and Kamm-back rear to create the first enclosed Cobra in 1964.

The Daytona name came from one of the tracks where this new roofed car won. Daytona Coupes also won at Le Mans, Sebring, Monza, and set endurance speed records, proving the combination of aero and power created a formidable race car. The shape of the Daytona coupe even solved the high-speed stability issues of the roadster. Aerodynamics, however, were not Carroll Shelby’s thing. He liked horsepower, and he returned to the roadster shape to create …

The icon

Say “427” in the right crowd, and everyone collectively says “Cobra.” It’s a Shelby fan’s version of Marco Polo. The Mark III was the product of Ford, AC, and Shelby working together to create a car that fit the design brief from Shelby and debuted in 1965. Much of the hardware on the earlier cars was turned up to 11 in order to fit the 427 side-oiler big-block Ford, an engine that had impressed Shelby in racing versions of the Ford Galaxie.

Spotting a 427 Cobra is easy compared to the earlier cars: The radiator opening is larger, as are the fender flares, which were enlarged to fit new wheels and tires. Underneath, the tubing comprising the frame increased in diameter, from 3 inches to 4. The traverse leaf springs in the suspension disappeared in favor of coil springs at all four corners. There were two versions of the 427 available: The standard ones that sported 425 hp and the competition cars that put out a ground-pounding 485 hp. That wasn’t enough power for Shelby, though, and his lust for more created the final form of the Cobra.

The absurd

It’s difficult to take something that is already over the top and make it wilder, but Shelby used a competition Cobra to do exactly that, usability be damned. The list of what makes a car streetable is short to a guy like Shelby: mufflers, chrome bumpers, and a windshield. Oh, and two Paxton superchargers, a subtle little upgrade. The rumor mill says 800 hp was churning under the hood of the “Super Snake,” and that the cars were nearly undriveable, even when fitted with an automatic transmission. Only two were created. Only one, chassis CSX3015, lives today; the other was driven over a cliff and into the Pacific Ocean.

Is that the entire history of this unique American sports car? Not hardly, but this list should give you an idea of why the Cobra became and has stayed an icon of the car world—possibly the most duplicated or copied car of all time and a dream for many enthusiasts. The Cobra stands as a car that could only have been born when it was. Something like it will likely never happen again—no matter how run-of-the-mill an engine swap has become.

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My friend Tim Suddard is the publisher of Classic Motorsports magazine. He wrote a column a couple of years ago that thoroughly teed me off.

I confronted Tim, told him his column really made me mad.

“Which column?” he asked.

“The one with the title, ‘You are never going to get to all of your projects.’”

“What was wrong with it?” he said.

“It was right.”

The piece hit close to home. I have projects I’ll never get to if I live to be 90, and I don’t like to be reminded of that. Of course, the number of us who are still restoring cars at that age is rare, especially with my knees, so even that wouldn’t be a solution.

My history with projects is pretty grim, I must admit. The worst thing a car enthusiast can do is acquire acreage. We acquired over five acres, heavily wooded. Suddenly, when I’d spot a project car that was cheap enough—they were all cheap, believe me, there are no Shelby Cobras in my motley collection—I had a place to put it.

I had places to hide stuff, too. My wife would say, “Why do we have two Scouts?” Rather than try to explain that I just happen to like International Harvester products, I could say, “You’re right! Too many Scouts!” and I’d just move one behind a different tree. Problem solved. Out of sight, out of [her] mind.

Blame it on chronic and lifelong anthropomorphism: the tendency to ascribe human attributes to an inanimate object. It’s been the subject of much research, across a variety of disciplines, but one point from a scholar at the University of Michigan nailed it for me. “Everyone knows someone with a beat-up old car that they just can’t bear to get rid of, even as the car becomes unreliable and begins to act with a mind of its own,” said Norbert Schwarz, a professor of marketing and psychology at Michigan’s Ross School of Business.

Not only do I know guys like that, I’m one of them, and I feel as though I’ve let my cars down.

I acquired my first project when I was still in journalism school and working afternoons and evenings full time six or seven days a week. It was a 1957 Mercury, colored white and salmon. I drove by it every day where it sat at a small dealership. I’d driven it, and I loved the smell of the car, the clear plastic seat covers.

The price kept dropping to the point where it reached my modest budget, so I bought it. Mind you, I lived in a small townhouse and had two parking spaces already filled with Pontiac Trans Am and a Jeep J10 pickup, so even parking was a problem.

I quickly figured out that in my minimal spare time, I preferred riding my dirt bike (a suicidal Suzuki TM400, maybe the most unrideable motocross bike ever built) to working on the Mercury, but still I harbored grand plans for it.

Living, then and now, seems to get in the way of working on projects.

So I started out washing and waxing the Mercury. I ended up washing and waxing the Mercury.

I practically gave it away to a guy I worked with at 3M when I suddenly got a (low-paying) job in journalism in Louisiana. I also sold the J10, which I regret to this day. It was red with white spoked wheels a Buick-built V-8 with nickel-plated valves (I never tired of telling people that detail) and big Land Ruler raised-white-letter tires. I don’t know if they still make Land Rulers, but they never let me down in the mud. A few years ago I bought another J10. It awaits my attention.

Once in Louisiana, working for $225 a week, I ended up having to sell the 1977 Smokey and the Bandit TA/6.6 Trans Am, way too cheap. Loved that car. But I had already established my personal auto marketing strategy: Buy high and sell low, and I seldom deviate from that approach.

Project two was a Datsun 240Z, lacking a rear window and left front headlight and nacelle. It had an ignition switch that required you to hold the key in the “on” position with your right hand, steer with your left hand, and shift with … I don’t remember how I shifted. I got it home, which was a third-floor apartment. I tried to work on the Z in the parking lot, and even installed a custom-cut piece of thin Plexiglas in the rear window that looked pretty good. Now I had a newly lightweight custom Datsun! More to come.

But more never came. I was still working six or seven days a week, but the biggest problem was trying to work in that parking lot. I vowed that until I had a decent garage, no more projects. In violation of my non-recuperation policy, I actually sold the Z for a profit. Meanwhile, someone stole the Suzuki TM400, very likely saving my life.

I didn’t have deep regrets about those outcomes—that came a little later in life when I bought a place that should have been a project car mecca. Land! Three garages! A workshop with a hoist wired for 220v! Perfect! Or it should have been.

Life happened, as fast-forwarding to today demonstrates. It now breaks down to a two-car garage, mostly filled with tools and a couple of John Deere mowers and various crap. I have a one-car garage where the motorcycles live. And I have a 24×24 shop that is a perfect place to store and work on cars, but I always seem to have something to do on weekends. I like going to races and my job sometimes takes me to interesting places, such as the Mecum auction I recently attended. Others seem to balance a real life with working on their cars and trucks. I apparently cannot.

So, the International Harvester Scouts will probably go. The two 240Zs will probably go. The Pontiac Fiero race car is a goner, as is the Volkswagen Scirocco race car. The Pontiac Grand Am that belonged to my parents will probably end up in the crusher, because no one wants a Grand Am with the 2.5-liter Iron Duke engine. A shame: It just has 32,000 miles. There’s more, lots more, but you get the idea.

It’s all a shame, and I’ll miss my stuff, though driving by the multiple cars and trucks, waiting and rusting patiently (except the plastic Fiero), that line my long dirt driveway is depressing.

Still, I feel compelled to explain that I’m not one of those hoarders you see on cable TV. I don’t name the cars or ask how they are doing each day. But I was a person of last resort for some of these cars and trucks, and the idea that they deserved more sympathy is tough to shake.

Sympathetic. Maybe that’s the right word?

Best I can do now is place the vehicles into the hands of people who will do something good with them.

Meanwhile, Suddard just posted a photo on Facebook showing how well his Bugeye Sprite restoration is going. Talk about rubbing salt into the wound.

I owe him an apology. Column still pisses me off, though.

***

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Not everyone with a vintage car is willing to treat it like any other vehicle. Fewer still are willing to put 200,000 miles on a 1969 Camaro.

When we saw this photo on social media, we knew there had to be a story behind it. We asked the Camaro’s owner, Dominick Saad, to fill us in. Here’s the story of one family’s beloved and well-used ride, mostly in Dom’s own words.

Dom’s father bought the Camaro in 1989 for just $1500. It sat around, for the most part, until Dom approached his 16th birthday. His dad gave him the car, and the two worked on it together, “along with help from some of his friends who knew more than we did,” Dom says.

The car was originally equipped with a 307-cubic-inch V-8 and a Turbo 350 three-speed automatic transmission. The Saads and their friends removed the original powertrain to be rebuilt and sent off the body for paint. The Cortez Silver car was resprayed in its original color, this time with black stripes. Dom got his license in 2011 and used the refreshed Camaro as his daily driver.

“Not even a year later, in 2012, I was on the highway with a buddy heading to grab some food, and we crested a hill and found traffic at a complete stop. I slammed the brakes and was almost stopped when a heavy-duty crane truck lost control next to me and swerved into me from the side, pushing me into the car in front of me, and pushing him into the truck and boat in front of him.”

The collision wasn’t Dom’s fault. However, the at-fault driver fled the scene, causing a bit of drama and dragging out the process of getting the Camaro sorted. Since the damage was entirely cosmetic—the alignment didn’t even suffer—Dom had a few months to drive the car before it was treated to repaint number two.

“I decided to make the best out of a bad situation and started having some of my buddies at school sign the car, much like you would a cast on a broken arm,” Dom says.

Teachers at his school signed it. So did strangers at gas stations and grocery stores. Dom began to leave a Sharpie on the car’s hood when he parked it in public; to his delight, he’d come back to new signatures every time. Today, the signature-filled door and fender are hanging in his garage.

Once all the accident paperwork was sorted, the Camaro finally went in for bodywork. After three months at the body shop the car returned, this time with a color change: Fathom Blue with white stripes. Dom quickly realized the work hadn’t been done well. The paint chipped and bubbled. A large section of filler on the quarter panel began to delaminate.

“At first I was livid,” Dom says. “I was of the typical, ‘can’t have a single scratch, needs to shine always’ mentality back then.” However, as the car began to show more and more flaws, his stress about maintaining a perfect car melted away. A new philosophy emerged: “Why worry about all this that I can’t do anything about? Just drive the damn thing and have a blast!”

That was ten years ago, and Dom has been racking up the miles on his Camaro ever since.

Dom also changed his attitude towards how he modified his Camaro.

“As a teenager, I thought modifying everything was the cool thing to do, so I began changing things, adding chrome and aftermarket parts,” he says. However, he learned that those custom parts aren’t necessarily carried by every mom-and-pop auto parts store, so a busted component could lead to a major hassle. What every store does carry, on the other hand, are factory replacement parts, especially for first-gen Chevy small-block engines.

A few years ago, Dom did a semi-restoration of the Camaro using factory-correct parts, including a wiring harness, factory gauges and woodgrain dash, rebuilt brakes, and new bearings and axles in the rear end.

“Though I still wish the car did look a bit better, I’ve found it much more enjoyable to just drive and enjoy it versus worrying about looks.” —Dominick Saad

After the 700-R4 transmission left him stranded 450 miles from home one day, he went a bit overboard. “I wanted to make sure that never happened again, so I basically built a drag [racing] transmission to go in a less-than-300-hp car!”

“Not only was I starting to really like the look of it more, but I also liked the reliability a lot as well. I realized there was plenty of performance to be had even with factory-correct parts,” he said.

The Camaro is currently powered by a 350-cubic-inch small-block engine, along with the aforementioned 700-R4 four-speed automatic and the factory 10-bolt rear axle with 2.73:1 gears, perfect for highway cruising. The 350 is dressed in period-correct “day two” Z/28 parts. The intake and valve covers, both aluminum, are GM-factory. The Camaro’s even running points ignition.

Dom still has the Camaro’s original engine. He plans on getting the 307 back into the car with a good set of camel-hump heads plus all the Z/28 goodies currently on the 350.

“Of course, the car will never be badged a Z/28, as it isn’t one and isn’t trying to be one. I’m just taking advantage of the Z/28 parts being higher-performance yet still ‘factory correct,’” said Dom. Since he wants a cruise-happy car, he’s building the drivetrain for reliability and efficiency, not massive power. When he reinstalls the 307 engine, he’s hoping for around 300 hp.

“Back when the 350 in [the Camaro] now was newer, I would cruise around 25 mpg on the highway at 80 [mph] at just under 2000 rpm.” He tweaked and tuned a custom-built Holley double-pumper carburetor over the course of about three months to get those results, but the effort was worth it.

“Driving has always been a form of therapy for me, so if anything was going on that was making me mad or sad or whatever, it could pretty easily be cured with an aimless drive somewhere.”

The car also served well as an adventure vehicle, especially in the mines, lakes, and ghost towns of Dom’s native state of Nevada. “The car has probably seen more Nevada back roads than many trucks have!”

“I think in the summer of 2016, there was not a single weekend where we didn’t take the car on some sort of day trip somewhere,” Dom said.

They didn’t stop at day trips, either. The Camaro has been to Vancouver in Canada’s British Columbia, Washington State, Oregon, Idaho, California, Arizona, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, South Dakota, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.

The Camaro is no longer the commuter it once was. Dom now lives in Idaho and owns several other vehicles, including a company truck that he drives for work. Still, he makes sure the Camaro gets weekly exercise, all year long. Dom refuses to garage any of his vehicles: “I always figured you can’t take ’em with you when you go, so enjoy ’em while you can!”

He has a few secrets to keeping his car alive over 12 winters. The first is being lucky enough to drive in areas of the U.S. where roads aren’t treated with salt. He also has a strict regimen of undercoating the car each fall.

It may not be his commuter, but the Camaro remains Dom’s go-to road-tripper. When we spoke to Dom, he had just returned from a 4800-mile, 11-day trip from Idaho to Arkansas, up via the northern route and back via the southern one. The car performed beautifully as usual—and it’s nowhere near retirement.

“We will be doing a very similar trip again next year, and eventually I would like to have driven the car in all provinces in Canada, and all the U.S. states with the exception of Hawaii. It’s also a huge goal of mine to drive it up to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada, and get it up into the Arctic Circle!”

It doesn’t take a whole lot of horsepower and perfect paint to enjoy a car. In Dom’s case, it might just take an extra or two set of ignition points.

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I spend far less time on Bring a Trailer than perhaps you’d think. There are reasons for this. The primary one is that one of Rob Siegel’s Tips For Sane Living is “don’t crave things you can never have.”

So the carnival of vintage Ferraris, insanely-low-mileage Porsches, and oh-my-god-I-thought-this-car-was-an-urban-myth vehicles rarely make me lift my head out of whatever well-worn road-trip veteran I happen to be wrenching on, or whatever affordable needy classic I happen to be chasing.

The secondary reason is that nearly all of my meager income comes from automotive writing. While I marvel at the success of BaT’s business model that crowdsources free expertise under the guise of social media, I feel very little desire to contribute. It’s like bar and restaurant owners expecting musicians to play for exposure instead of money. If I want to bathe myself in social media, I can do it on Facebook and serve my own agenda, not BaT’s.

However, if someone sends me a link to an auction that they want my opinion on, or one that includes my “thehackmechanic” BaT handle in a comment that automatically generates an email, I’ll have a peek. For the most part, if the link is some best-of-the-best car that causes a hedge-fund manager and a real estate agent in Beverly Hills to bid against one another, I move on because I really don’t care.

But in late January, three people invoked my name in comments on an interesting basket case 1969 BMW 2002 on BaT. So, like Beetlejuice, I was summoned.

The auction was titled “No Reserve: One-Owner 1969 BMW 2002 Project.” The photos showed a long-neglected, heavily patina-laden Chamonix (white) 2002 that was wearing the mummy-like dust of lengthy storage but was sitting on wheel dollies in a well-lit warehouse surrounded by other nice-looking classics. It was sort of an odd juxtaposition.

The fact that this car was on Bring a Trailer at all drew quite a number of positive “BaT getting back to its roots” comments, and I suppose that there’s something to be said for that. After all, the majority of cars up on BaT are buffed and polished eye-candy—cars where the buyer brings a trailer to keep the dirt off his or her new purchase, not because the car is a long-dead project.

At first glance, the body of the 2002 appeared shabby but solid, meaning that there weren’t plainly visible, fist-sized holes in the corners of the front fenders as is often the case on abandoned-in-place 2002s. However, as you clicked through the photos, you came to ones that showed the hood and trunk lid both so badly rusted that the BMW emblem was literally falling off. The description said the car was being sold on behalf of its original owner, a gentleman who had parked the car in his garage in 1979 due to a bad clutch slave cylinder. At some point, the garage’s roof reportedly began leaking, which is what reportedly caused the car’s odd top-down rust. Very sad, especially considering how easy it is to replace a slave cylinder.

The seller used the term “barn find.” In my opinion, the whole “barn find” thing is largely a load of BS. I understand that the mystique is that it connotes that the car is a fully original time capsule, but there’s nothing about dust, mold, mildew, spider webs, and rodent droppings that make a car pure and unmolested. Roll the car out of the barn, begin itemizing its issues, and the aura of originality usually gets blown away by the stiff wind of real-world needs with real-world costs. From a purely practical standpoint, a recently running car with perhaps a few ill-chosen modifications will be much easier to revive than something that’s been sitting since the Soviets invaded Afghanistan and when people thought John Travolta was a great dancer.

Further, this was not a completely intact car. The radiator and other parts were sitting in the trunk. The passenger seat and rear seat had been removed, though they were included. The console was missing.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a two-part series on how to sell a car (part 1 and part 2). While not everyone has to do exactly what I do, it’s generally to the seller’s benefit to provide a thorough description of a car and give it some appropriate level of preparation. I joked that the latter doesn’t need to be much more than running it through a car wash and throwing out the Dunkin’ Donuts cups, but it’s true. It seemed odd to me that someone would go to the effort to drag a car like this out of the garage where it had been sitting for 44 years (and from the presence of the wheel dollies, “drag” must’ve been the operative verb), transport it to what the seller referred to as “our private auto museum,” and photograph it without bothering to clean the dust and grime off the windows, vacuum up the schmutz under the hood, and remove a Styrofoam coffee cup and an umbrella from the back floor.

Further, as the photos show, there was a good deal of stuff in the car and trunk. The car would’ve been better represented had the seller taken it all out for the photos. Then the rugs could’ve either been peeled back to show the condition of the floors, or the seats could’ve been put in, giving the car the image of being intact and complete. To do neither under the auspices of it being a “barn find” seemed a cop-out. The seller seemed to regard this as a point of pride, as he wrote, “I made sure not to disrupt the car from the way it was when we pulled it out of that garage.” I’m sorry—it’s not a crime scene or Native American burial site. I could relate to one commenter, who took the seller to task: “Don’t they have Windex in Virginia? Or shop vacs? It seems by not lifting much of a finger you’re kinda maybe giving the auction a little bit of a different kind of a finger.”

One of the things I say over and over about selling vintage cars is that by meticulously documenting a car’s condition, you remove questions about what the car might be and instead reveal what it actually is. This removes risk to the buyer, and therefore likely increases the number of bids. While there were 211 photographs, many were redundant shots of the outside of the car. Photos of the shock towers were provided, and there were a few shots of the rocker panels, but the only undercarriage pics were what could be photographed from floor level. While it’s non-trivial getting detailed undercarriage photos of a dead car, if you have a “private museum,” don’t you also have a lift? Or at least a floor jack?

In addition to inadequate undercarriage photographs, the seller stated, “I have not tried to turn the engine over by hand.” Several commenters asked for a definitive answer regarding whether the engine was seized, and the seller simply repeated his stance. This mystifies me. Especially with the radiator out of the car, it’s 10 seconds worth of work to put a 30mm socket on the crankshaft nut and try to turn the engine. If the seller didn’t have one, he could’ve tried to rotate it by grabbing the fan. If that didn’t work, he could’ve simply said so.

Now, I’ve been tough on the seller here. Let me back off. As I said in my piece, it’s a lot of work selling a car, and this one wasn’t even his. In fairness, there’s zero question that the seller did the owner a huge favor by getting the car out of what was presumably a cramped, decrepit garage and putting it in a well-lit space where it could be walked around and photographed. Considering that the car needed to be on wheel dollies, this alone was likely a substantial task. You may remember that I recently represented a 2002tii for a woman whose husband-owner had passed away. Bringing that car up to the condition where it was the best version of itself, describing and photographing it, and managing the sale was months of work. So, I totally get why the seller might have drawn the line where he did. But an hour or two more work may have made a non-trivial difference in the car’s sale price.

I’m very careful commenting on BaT auctions, as I once had a guy literally chew me out in public because he said I affected the value of his auction by commenting that the orange aftermarket color scheme of his interior wasn’t my personal taste (for the record, I only made the comment after the auction had closed, and it was hideous), but because three people had asked for my input on the basket-case 2002, I felt like I needed to comment. Other folks who know more than I do about the differences between early model year 2002s had already weighed in on the fact that the car was a largely original “first-series ’69” that carried with it some seldom-seen braking system components. To me, that was less of an issue than the car’s condition. I chose my words carefully:

“I’m pretty reticent about injecting my opinion here on BaT, as I have my own view of things, and they usually don’t involve spending a lot of money to turn X into Y. I wouldn’t touch any car without either crawling under it and examining the undercarriage myself or seeing a complete set of photos, especially one like this that already shows rust-through on the normally solid surfaces of the hood and the trunk lid, but I’m not going to be “that person” on BaT who asks for more photos but has no intention of bidding. I guess all I’ll add is that, even if it’s just revived and not restored, a car like this is going to need everything. If the undercarriage is in fact solid, and you want a ratty runner, and you can do all the mechanical work yourself, it could be a fun project. If, on the other hand, you want something where the end product is pretty and shiny … well, you can fill in the end of that sentence yourself.”

Actually, I have to admit that I was considering bidding on the car myself. After all, it did look pretty solid, bids were low even at the end, and it was close enough (it was in Virginia) for me to drag it home. But without further disclosure on the areas that I mentioned above, there was more risk in it than I was willing to take. Zero regrets.

It’s funny how small things can sway a decision. The rear half-shafts on most 2002 have CV joints at both ends. As long as the boots don’t tear, they’re incredibly long-lived. However, the photos for this car showed that this had one CV joint and one universal, and the CV boot had dissolved. While it’s not a big deal to swap half-axles, my knee-jerk reaction was, “To make the car drivable, I’d have to deal with this, too?” Moreover, it would be one of many decisions on originality—whether to just throw a used set of dual-CV half-axles in or pay to have these rebuilt. To me, it was the visible tip of the iceberg on the car needing everything.

But over and above the specifics of the BaT auction, I wanted to knock something around with respect to the value of a car like this, and what its future might be.

BMW 2002s are a huge part of my life. I’ve owned 40 of them. I currently own three. I know them well. Their value, particularly the 1968–73 round taillight cars in excellent condition, is quite strong. The Hagerty Valuation Tool lists values for a roundie 2002 as ranging from about $17K in fair condition to about $90K in concours condition. That sounds a bit high, but it’s more or less in line with the snapshot of as-sold values on BaT. The fuel-injected 2002tii is worth even more, and the rare Turbo more still. Hagerty doesn’t list values for cars in rough condition, and not many of them make it to BaT, so it’s more difficult to get a reliable metric on a car like this.

But, not to make too fine a point of it, a ’69 BMW 2002 is not a ’69 Porsche 911. A small-bumpered long-hood 911 in similar condition would probably be worth eight to ten times the $3800 that this car sold for. Folks would likely be falling over each other to laud the car’s originality, crow about what an easy restoration it would be, and bid on it. And the hypothetical 911 that pops out at the end, whether it’s a resurrected ratty runner, or a rolling repaint, or a full-blown restoration, would obviously be worth way more. This 2002 simply doesn’t have that kind of upside. Even considering that the worst rust on it is on the two easiest-to-replace body panels (the hood and the trunk lid), the car’s poor condition looks like it extends to just about everything. I’m a big believer in, as I said above about the widow’s 2002tii I helped sell, making a car the best version of what it already is. Taking a sow’s ear and trying to turn it into a silk purse becomes incredibly expensive. Unless you restore cars for a living, you’re generally better off buying a different car rather than trying to do so.

Further, despite the comments from 2002 purists on there being only a small number of first-series ’69s left and how cool it would be if this one was kept original and brought back to its former glory, my feeling is that the market doesn’t yet fully value such fine details on these cars. It certainly values a round taillight 2002, particularly a 2002tii, not being a complete Frankencar and having the right seats, dashboard, and instrument cluster as opposed to ones that time-traveled in from the later big-bumpered square taillight cars. But things like braking system details, I don’t know. Forcing all those details to be correct, as opposed to using more readily available parts from later 2002s, is likely to be an expensive layer on top of what would already be an expensive revival. If the car’s new owner wants to “correctly” “restore” it (I put both words in quotes because I hate both of them), that’s his call.

But if the buyer isn’t looking for perfection, if he does much of the work himself, if the frame rails and floors are free of rust-through, if the engine turns and is revivable with a fresh head gasket and a valve job, if the interior isn’t a gag-worthy water-damaged mouse-infested hazmat zone, and if he doesn’t get wrapped around the axle (or, in this case, the half-axle) of correctness, I think he’ll do handsprings over what he picked up. If I see the car in May at The Vintage (the annual low-stress BMW event in Asheville, North Carolina), hastily patched up and running, and making it there by the skin of its teeth, I’ll buy the new owner an evening’s worth of beers. If he just threw in a set of later half-axles, I’ll make that two evening’s worth of beers.

***

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.

The post The basket case BMW 2002 on BaT appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Dear Thief,

Welcome to my Porsche 914. I imagine that at this point (having found the door unlocked) your intention is to steal my car. Don’t be encouraged by this; the tumblers sheared off in 1978. I would have locked it up if I could, so don’t think you’re too clever or that I’m too lazy. However, now that you’re in the car, there are a few things you’re going to need to know. First, the battery is disconnected, so slide-hammering my ignition switch is not your first step. I leave the battery disconnected, not to foil hoodlums such as yourself, but because there is a mysterious current drain from the 40-year-old German wiring harness that I can’t locate and/or fix. So, connect the battery first. Good luck finding the engine cover release. Or the engine, for that matter.

Now, you can skip your slide hammer. The ignition switch’s tumblers are so worn that any flat-bladed screwdriver or pair of scissors will do. Don’t tell anyone.

Once you’ve figured that out and try to start the car, you’ll run into some trouble. The car is most likely in reverse gear, given that the parking brake cable froze up sometime during the Carter administration. Since there is not a clutch safety switch on the starting circuit, make sure to press the clutch down before you try to crank the engine. (I don’t want you running into my other car in the driveway.) This is doubly necessary because my starter is too weak to crank the clutch-transmission input shaft assembly with any success.

With the clutch pedal depressed, the engine should turn over fast enough to get things going. But first, you’ll need to press the gas pedal to the floor exactly four times. Not three. Not five. Four. The dual Webers don’t have chokes and you’ll be squirting fuel down the barrels with the accelerator pumps for the necessary priming regime. If you don’t do it right, the car won’t start before the battery gives up the ghost. Consider yourself forewarned.

If you’ve followed along so far, the engine should fire right up. Don’t be fooled—it will die in eight seconds when the priming fuel runs out. Repeat the gas pedal priming procedure, but only pump two times. Deviate from this routine at your own peril.

Now you have the engine running. Make sure the green oil light in the dash goes out. If it does not, you only have about 100 yards to drive before the engine locks up, so be attentive. If all goes well with the oil pressure, you may now attend to the gear shift lever. Some explanation follows.

This is a Porsche 914. It has a mid-engine layout. The transmission is in the far back of the car, and the shift linkage’s main component is a football-field-long steel rod formed loosely in the shape of your lower intestine. Manipulating the gear shift lever will deliver vague suggestions to this rod, which, in turn, will tickle small parts deep within the dark bowels of the transaxle case. It is akin to hitting a bag of gears with a stick, hopefully finding one that works.

If you are successful in finding first gear (there is a shift pattern printed on the knob; they say German engineers don’t have a sense of humor), congratulations. You may launch the vehicle into motion.

Do not become emboldened by your progress, as you will quickly need to shift to another gear. Ouija boards are more communicative than the shift knob you will be trusting to aid your efforts. Depress the clutch as you would in any car, and pull the knob from its secure location out of first gear. Now you will become adrift in the zone known to early Porsche owners as “Neverland” and your quest will be to find second gear. Prepare yourself for a ten-second-or-so adventure. Do not go straight forward with the shift knob, as you will only find Reverse waiting there to mock you with a shriek of high-speed gear teeth machining themselves into round cylinders. Should you hear this noise, retreat immediately to the only easy spot to find in this transmission: neutral. This is a safe place, no real damage can occur here, but alas, no forward motion will happen either. From this harbor of peace, you can re-attempt to find second, but you may just want to go for any “port in a storm”, given that the traffic behind you is now cheering you on in your quest with vigorous horn-honks of support and encouragement. Most 914 owners at this point pull over to the side of the road and feign answering a cell phone call to a) avoid further humiliation; b) allow traffic to pass; and c) gather the courage for another first gear start. You may choose to do likewise.

If you press onward without taking a break, you may re-enter first. This is how the car mocks you for your lack of skill, but sometimes it is the only path forward. Once you are ready to again try for second, I can offer some advice. One trick that works is to declutch the transmission, pull the lever from the first-gear position, enter into the aforementioned neutral zone, and then rapidly wig-wag the shift knob side-to-side along a lateral axis. If you move the knob quickly enough, the transmission will be out-smarted and cannot anticipate your next move. It is at this time that you should re-attempt to enter second, and most likely you will do so. Surprise is your best weapon against this transmission.

The move to third should be straightforward, as it’s the only easily-accessible gear in the set. You should now be out of my neighborhood and on the main four-lane road. Third gear will be good for 45 mph, so I would advise you just staying there. Trying to get to fourth gear will only frustrate you and your nearby drivers (see: first-to-second shift).

You don’t need to check for gasoline in the car. It will be full, even though the fuel gauge reads zero. The odometer reads “0”, not because it was reset when I filled the tank, but because it is just broken. Ignore it. If it is night, and it most likely will be, you will need to turn on the lights. I’ll leave it to you to find the switch since I’ve helped a lot so far. Suffice to say that once you get them active, you will find that the seven inch sealed beams from 1971 will only illuminate sufficient roadway for travel below 45 mph. Since you are still in third , this shouldn’t be a problem. Oh, and the lights only work on high beam, so ignore the flashing lights and vulgar gestures from opposing traffic.

By now you’ve certainly noticed the smell. That is the aroma of Mobil 1 oil being boiled off of long sections of horizontal exhaust pipes, which were cleverly encased by the factory with a second shroud of oil-holding chambers. They filled with oil during my last drive and you are now operating a small thermal refinery that is making light short-chained vaporous hydrocarbons from what was once $8-a-quart oil. They are being conveniently routed to the cabin through carefully formed channels in the heating system, plus the rust holes in the floor provided by Mother Nature herself over the past few decades.

You’ll feel less dizzy if you open a window. But mind that driver’s window does not work, so you’ll have to lean over and roll down the passenger window half-way. I say half-way in a manner that will become apparent once you try to get the window to go all the way down, which it will refuse to do. Instead, simply open the driver’s door slightly and drive along, as I do. Once the oil vapors are exhumed from the cabin, you should start to feel a little better. There is a rag behind the driver’s seat that you can use to wipe the oil film off of the inside of the windshield.

Knowing which road you’re probably on by now, you will be hitting stop lights. Try as hard as you can to not bring the 914 to a stop. The brake system is ideal for this situation, being known more as “scrubbers” than “brakes”. Since you can’t effectively stop the car, use this to your advantage and don’t try. Remember: You certainly don’t want to have to go back into first.

If you have made it within sight of to the highway entrance, don’t get any ideas. The front right wheel is severely bent and the vibration at velocities above 50 mph will crack the windshield and cause the doors to open by themselves. So stay on the surface streets, stoplights notwithstanding.

It may be at this point that you consider abandoning the car to avoid further calamity. There is an Exxon station right before the freeway entrance. The last guy who stole my 914 used this very spot and it was rather convenient for all concerned parties. I suggest you ditch the car there and scope out a nice, reliable Camry to heist.

Norman Garrett was the Concept Engineer for the original Miata back in his days at Mazda’s Southern California Design Studio. He currently teaches automotive engineering classes at UNC-C’s Motorsports Engineering Department in Charlotte, North Carolina and curates his small collection of dysfunctional automobiles and motorcycles.

The post A few things to know before stealing my 914 appeared first on Hagerty Media.

There was always something disconcerting to me about the movie Vanishing Point. Sure, like everyone else, I was shocked by the ending—but I always felt the film never made an effort to explain Kowalski’s decisions, particularly with regards to the last one he makes. At best it’s obscure; at worst, it’s confusing.

Well, consider me confused no more. I saw a copy of the European release, with extra footage that had been edited out of the U.S. version, and it makes much more sense now! In fact, it’s hard not to think of Vanishing Point as essentially incomplete with those scenes. The lack of them effectively hamstrings the entire film. Which is saying a lot, as it’s already considered a cult classic in its compromised state.

On a practical note, the missing footage includes several shots of the sensor wires the police had setup on the roads to track the Challenger. (I always wondered how they were updating that big police map.) More importantly, there is a crucial scene involving an ominous hitchhiker, who acts as a conduit to Mr. Black himself: Death. Thanatos’ cameo is by none other than Charlotte Rampling. With her mysterious eyes & demeanor, clad in a dark robe with elegant trim, she gives an eerie edge to the encounter.

It’s not obvious if this scene happens in “real life” or merely in Kowalski’s speed-pill-ravaged mind. It was shot at night, in a thick fog, and we don’t see much of the terrain other than a spooky tree Charlotte is standing under. Kowalski comes to a halt and tells her he’s going to San Francisco; she regards Kowalski wordlessly for a moment, then gathers her things. She gets in and the Challenger pulls away, red taillights vanishing into the darkness.

Kowalski’s first line is “Have you been waiting a long time?”

An awkward conversation follows before Charlotte lights up a joint. Kowalski brings the Challenger to a halt. Things ease up a bit, and she asks Kowalski, “What are you?” before asserting, “You’re a Scorpio. What’s your name?”

“Kowalski,” she smiles as she repeats his name twice.

He asks Charlotte what her name is. She turns cold, stares away, and says, “I’ll tell you later.”

“Why are you going to San Francisco?” she asks.

“It’s home.”

“Home. You make it sound like a good place.” Again she regards him silently. Then we have the crucial dialogue that shakes Kowalski to his core, as she finally answers his initial question.

“I like you, Kowalski. I like you. I’ve been waiting for you for a long time. Oh, how I’ve waited for you.”

“Yeah? Since when? Where?”

“Oh, everywhere. Everywhere and since forever. Patiently. Patiently, that’s the only way to wait for somebody.”

They lock eyes for a while, as Kowalski processes this. All the crashes and near misses of his past, all the times he has cheated death, must flash through his mind.

Eventually Charlotte smiles & turns away, at which point a stunned Kowalski reaches out and willfully embraces Death for the first time.

Is she Death itself, or is she only channeling Death, after she tokes up? In various cultures, people often took drugs or fasted to reach an enlightened state, so they could commune with their gods or spirits. So it could be either. Kowalski and Rampling are both high, and in their own cozy little world, communing inside the parked Dodge R/T. “Mmm, feels nice in here,” she says, just before their soul to soul chat.

Now, throughout the whole movie, Kowalski is cast as a cool, nerves-of-steel kind of guy, who resists all sorts of temptations: free pot, and free sex from an utterly gorgeous and utterly naked Gilda Texter, whom we see riding a motorcycle around in the sand outside a hippy shack. Who can forget that memorable scene? Probably burned into every young man’s mind the first time they saw this movie. I know it’s still burned in mine. And Kowalski’s savior in that part of the film is a biker named “Angel.” Surely no coincidence?

So now we see Kowalski, stunned. Why? It’s obviously an important moment in the film.

Cut to the morning, and Kowalski wakes up alone in the car. Did this whole episode only occur in his imagination?

Let’s diverge for a moment, and consider something else: a mysterious black car, as I believe it ties into Charlotte Rampling’s visitation.

In film, rarely is anything done by accident. Props are set, everything is scripted, and if we see anything on screen, it is most definitely intended to be there, by the director. So why, at the beginning of the film, do we see a full-screen freeze frame with a mysterious black car in clear focus, the white Challenger R/T merely a blur in the background, as they pass each other? And then the camera pans to follow the black car away, not the Challenger, once film rolls again. The Challenger is one of the main characters in the whole movie: why would the director ignore it and pan along with a minor background vehicle? The answer is: it’s not a minor background vehicle.

So what is the director trying to tell us here?

Well, without the extra footage of Kowalski’s encounter with Rampling/Death, it doesn’t make much sense at all. But after viewing the cut scene, it takes on supernatural overtones.

“I’ll tell you later.” Is Death now driving the black car, whisking away Kowalski’s spirit?

At the beginning of the film, but later in the story, Kowalski veers off the road to avoid police ( After a dramatic skid & turnaround at the bulldozers ) and stops at a pile of wrecked cars in the desert. The setting sun casts shadows of the remains across his body; he pauses, puts his hand on the roof of a derelict, and stares down at the pile of rusted metal.

Then he smiles, as some thought enters his mind. he appears to make a decision, then gets back into the Challenger and drives away. We find out what happens next at the end of the film.

What’s going on in this key scene? It’s so early in the film that we have no context for it yet. Only upon subsequent viewing can we guess at what is being portrayed.

Consider Kowalski’s various flashbacks during the movie: Everything in his life is a wreck. His career, his relationships, his racing history. So when he pauses with his hand on that derelict at the beginning of the film, looking down at the wreckage, he realizes it, smiles, and decides to embrace the ultimate wreck. His destiny. His death. And indeed, Charlotte Rampling. (Who was brilliantly cast as the Reverend Mother in the latest Dune movie, by the way.)

When Vanishing Point was made, Rampling was an icon of the swinging Sixties, renowned for her cool demeanor, sultry looks, and mysterious gaze. She went on to do many art films, and eventually married Jean-Michel Jarre. I’m not surprised they were drawn to each other; his music matches her muse perfectly. She was gorgeous, yet had a deeper, darker aura, well suited for playing a foreboding role like Death incarnate.

Hell, I’d crash a car into a bulldozer for Charlotte Rampling circa 1971, but let’s get back to our story. At the very end, as the Challenger speeds towards the road block a second time, we see the glow on Kowalski’s face, cast by the setting sun blazing through the bulldozer blades. He has seen the light: his relief, joy, and serenity (surely enhanced by his non-stop amphetamine intake?) is visible, and he lays down the rubber road to freedom. Freedom from the wreckage of his life.

“Home. You make it sound like a good place.”

Does he actually think he can make it through the bulldozers? Is he so high he believes the sun is a reachable goal? Is he the manic laughter in Pink Floyd’s “On the Run”, joyfully speeding towards oblivion and destruction? Is his spirit already gone, taken by Death passing in the mysterious black car? Can he finally find peace, by accepting his destiny? Is he overjoyed he gets to spend eternity with Charlotte Rampling?

Many questions and ways to interpret the story. Which is true of any good art.

And as Neil Young sings, “Every junkie’s like a setting sun.”

So the black car was intentionally given a prominent role. Is it the very same car we see him drive into the garage, before he picks up the Challenger? Difficult to determine 100 percent, but the front end looks the same to me. And the license plate seems rather unique: I can’t make out those characters at all. Is it some more mystical symbolism?

If it is the same car, it’s an interesting loop the director put into the storyline.

In any event, no Vanishing Point (or Challenger) fan should miss a chance to see the Euro director’s cut of the film. Like most good filmmaking, it explains a few things while raising more questions. And isn’t that ambiguity part of why this old B-movie continues to captivate viewers 50 years later?

The post <em> Vanishing Point:</em> Death, destiny, a missing scene, and a mysterious black car appeared first on Hagerty Media.

A year ago, we looked at some vehicles that had ambitious goals and yet fell short in one way or another. We argued that those four vehicles deserved another chance. Now, let’s focus on pickups that also meet those criteria. Here are eight pickups that offered up cargo hauling with some blend of comfort, fuel economy, or off-road prowess, but which nevertheless fell by the wayside as the tried-and-true crew-cab pickup swallowed the market. Is there room in today’s market for any of these to stage a comeback?

Chevrolet Avalanche (2001–13)

When the Avalanche debuted, it offered a novel solution for those who needed both passenger- and cargo-carrying capacity. Chevrolet’s solution was the Mid-Gate, which enabled the partition between the cab and bed to fold down and the backlite to stow, allowing for the rear seats to give way to an 8-foot cargo bed. Admittedly it had its drawbacks; dropping the Mid-Gate opened the passenger cabin to the elements unless the multi-piece tonneau was left in place. On the other hand, with the tonneau off, it was the closest we’ve come to duplicating the K5 Blazer’s removable top.

The Avalanche also offered another benefit. Because it was built on the Suburban’s chassis, every Avalanche came with a coil-spring rear suspension. The Avalanche beat the Ram 1500 to the punch by about eight years and was the first full-size 4×4 pickup on the market to offer such a suspension setup. It was also the first 2WD pickup with coil springs from GM since they left production in Chevy and GMC pickups in 1972.

A new Avalanche, again built on the Suburban chassis, would benefit from an independent rear suspension and the low bed floor that would come with it. We’d wager that most drivers would sacrifice the payload capacity that can come with leaf springs for the improved ride quality of a multi-link suspension, just like they did before.

Avalanche critics have lambasted the unique truck-utility-vehicle as being essentially a Suburban with extra rattles. True, the lack of a rear roof section and the open midgate would both remove rigidity from the body and add a source of noise, but we think that GM’s pickups and utility vehicles have firmed up a lot since the second-generation Avalanche debuted in 2007.

Subaru Brat (1978–87)/Baja (2003–06)

As we mentioned in our April Fools’ headline story, we think the time is ripe for Subaru to relaunch the Brat and Baja. As much as we’d love to see a WRX-based two-door Brat, we know that the market for such vehicles would be minuscule. Instead, a sedan utility based on the Outback Wilderness could pick up where the Baja left off. Or, to better counter the upcoming Hyundai Santa Cruz, perhaps a slightly larger version based on the Ascent? Subaru already has a reputation for building scrappy all-wheel-drive wagons and snorting turbo rally cars, it’s a shame that they don’t have a spirited, turbocharged entry in what looks to be a competitive market in the near future.

Ram Dakota (1987–2001)/Rampage (1982–84)

We keep hearing that a new Ram mid-size pickup is just around the corner and then canceled, and then we hear it’s back on again. All we know is that Dodge gave us a convertible first-gen Dakota, an R/T second-gen with a 5.9-liter V-8, and the automaker currently has a propensity for shoving large V-8s into just about everything, so there we would definitely expect a version targeted at enthusiasts. We’re practically salivating over the thought of a baby TRX that competes with Colorado’s fantastic ZR2 while packing 395 hp worth of Hemi V-8.

Alternatively, Ram could resurrect its truly compact pickup, the Rampage, without much effort at all. Simply bring the Ram 700, which is currently sold in Mexico, to customers north of the border. This unibody ute is a rebadged Fiat Strada and is available in crew cab and regular cab variants. The regular cab looks a bit like a Rampage if you squint. A lot. Like a whole lot.

OK, it looks nothing like the Rampage. But it would still be a fitting successor, although it would need a new powertrain. The Mexican-market version is powered by a 1.3-liter gasoline engine that manages a meager 98 horsepower. Fiat’s 1.3-liter MultiAir3 Turbo engine, found in the Jeep Renegade 4xe, produces 188 horsepower and can be fitted electric motor for a total of 238 horsepower—enough to turn this mini ute into a pickup pocket rocket.

Ford Lightning (1993–95, 1999–2004)

As Ford plans for its electric future, the F-150 is clearly slated to play a big role. There’s no doubt that the bulk of electric pickups will be crew-cab models meant to take over the role that many pickups fill: all-around hauler of people and stuff. That model will likely get loads of power and a sizable range. There will also likely be a fleet model made for businesses. Perhaps a regular cab short-bed that we’re used to seeing for local auto parts deliveries.

With a sporty trim level and a potent electric motor or two, we’re sure that it wouldn’t be too difficult for Ford to bring back the Lightning using parts-bin goodies. In our dream scenario, whatever necessary batteries don’t fit under the floorboards will be packaged just behind the cab at the forward end of the bed, centralizing mass for far better weight distribution than your average pickup while leaving space under the hood for a frunk.

GMC Syclone (1991–92)

This one’s simple: Take the above recipe and apply it to GMC’s mid-size Canyon. Done! Of course, GM sounds like it’s bringing an all-electric Silverado to the market before a mid-size EV truck, although we certainly wouldn’t mind some full-size competition to our would-be Lightning, either.

The original Syclone set the performance world on its ear when it debuted. Featuring all-wheel drive and a 280-hp turbocharged 4.3-liter V-6, it was like a Buick Grand National with a bed. The Syclone was even available in a blacked-out, monochrome look. Special Vehicle Engineering has built limited numbers of the Syclone you see above using a supercharged 3.6-liter V-6 good for 455 horsepower. That’s a rather fitting successor until GMC sees fit to give us the goods straight from the factory, which doesn’t seem likely.

Ram R/T (2009–17)

The Viper V-10 is out of production, so there’s no way we’re gonna get a return of the Ram SRT-10. However, Ram’s more affordable sport truck used a 5.7-liter Hemi and a transmission with a slightly looser torque converter for some serious launches. A modern variant could be built using the potent, 470-hp 6.4-liter that’s found in the Wrangler Rubicon 392, but there’s also the Hellcat, of course.

In our humble opinion, Ram’s previous-generation regular-cab was among the best-looking two-door pickups ever built. Unfortunately, it seems that Ram is too busy selling crew cabs to be bothered by single cabs, although our quick rendering shows that the current generation might not look too shabby in that configuration.

Ford Bronco pickup (1966–71)

Ford is taking on the Jeep Wrangler head-on by building several compelling trims, with serious off-road hardware, in both two- and four-door variants. However, what’s missing is a half-cab pickup like the original. We’re sure that the aftermarket will offer up a solution to convert a four-door Bronco into a two-door pickup or a two-door Bronco into a “Sports Utility” like back in the day, but it would be nice to see Ford also take on Jeep’s Gladiator with a crew-cab off-road pickup of its own.

The extended wheelbase of these new-fangled off-roaders makes them better suited to carrying plenty of gear into more remote camping spots, compared to a more trail-friendly two-door. Thanks to the Bronco’s factory 35-inch tires, the Wrangler-fighting Ford does get a bit of help in breakover angle compared to the average pickup truck. There are certainly some tight trails where the added wheelbase of our dream Bronco would be a hindrance, but plenty of Gladiator owners have shown that they can tackle some rugged terrain.

Ford Ranchero (1957–79)/Ford Courier (1972–82)

A reborn Ranchero or Courier would bring a compact pickup back to Ford’s lineup to slot under the mid-sized Ranger. You may be thinking, “that’s exactly what the upcoming Maverick is for”, which is correct. Maybe we should stop caring about Ford butchering its heritage names after the Mustang Mach E, but here we are, like Abe Simpson shaking his fist at cumulonimbi.

We admit that Courier isn’t the most exciting name for a compact pickup, but as it’s a crossover-based ute, Ranchero would have fit nicely, no? Seriously, we’re still pretty excited that we’re getting the Maverick. At least one of these pickups is going to be available soon and we always celebrate a new tailgate.

Now it’s time to hear from you. Which pickups do you think deserve an encore? Now is your time to shine, El Camino fans.

The post 8 trucks that deserve another shot appeared first on Hagerty Media.

The legend of the Chevrolet Blazer is well established, and known to many enthusiasts: Ford introduces Bronco in ‘65 as a 1966 model year, in a fit of equine-themed offerings starting with the Mustang. Dearborn enjoys wild success for four model years while Chevrolet/GMC sits on its hands and waits for the commotion to blow over before introducing its own sport-utility vehicle, the K5 Blazer and Jimmy.

On the 50th anniversary year of the original K5 Blazer, an all-new Blazer hits the showroom. It’s a shadow of its former (cool) K5 self, but its arrival is a good opportunity to set the record straight about the development of the K5 Blazer and what was going on in those long four model years before GM finally introduced a two-door SUV of its own.

These photos, courtesy of the GM Media Archive, show that GM was contemplating a completely different direction for the Blazer—one that could have packed on a few sales in those years when the company simply had no competitive product to take on the Bronco. But how much of a difference would it have made?

The crowded field

Let’s backtrack to the years before August 1965, when Ford officially launched the Bronco. The idea was that the Bronco was a literal “stablemate” to the Mustang, conceived by the major players who greenlit the pony car: Donald Frey (supervising product manager) and Lee Iacocca (vice president of all Ford cars and trucks).

The brief for the vehicle that Ford developed wasn’t really new, especially with the International Harvester and Jeep already in the market. It was new for Ford, though, and it featured several advantages over existing competitors. The big difference was a standard inline-six-cylinder engine, when many vehicles in this class had four-cylinders as either the base or only available engine. Add in the availability of a 289-cubic inch V-8 and the Bronco left the gate with a major powertrain advantage.

Still, the Bronco trotted into a saturated field of what were considered off-road vehicles. The 400-pound gorilla was the Jeep CJ5, which wasn’t new, but had an all-new Buick Dauntless V-6 that countered the gripes that the Hurricane four-cylinder didn’t have the gusto to work as an on-road vehicle. International Harvester had its own updated contender with the all-new Scout 800 for 1965. It didn’t look all that revised but had a host of creature-comfort improvements including bucket seats, better heat, more complete instrumentation and an available 232-cu in inline six. IH would offer its own 266-cu-in V-8 to counter Ford in 1967.

If you were an ambitious off-road vehicle shopper, Ford, Jeep, and IH were just the start. By 1965, the FJ40 Land Cruiser was the best-selling Toyota in the United States. Nissan made a few inroads with its own second-generation Patrol. British Land Rovers had been selling in the United States since the 1950s, and with the introduction of the Series IIa in 1961, it came with a much more reliable 12-volt, negative-ground electrical system.

GM’s pre-Blazer prototype

GM was paying close attention to what these competitors offered. “We knew there was something happening here,” said Harry Bentley Bradley in a terrific, wide-ranging interview about Chevrolet truck design in the May 2003 issue of Classic Trucks.

Bradley and the Chevrolet Truck Studio quickly clay modeled its own Bronco/CJ/Scout/FJ/Patrol/Land Rover competitor, which is the Blazer you see in these photos.

Bradley notes that this Blazer concept shared nothing (presumably other than a powertrain) with any other Chevy product, and it’s abundantly clear that it shares nothing with the C10 pickup, in particular. The concept rides on a wheelbase much closer to the 97 inches between the wheels of the Bronco. It’s also much narrower than the C10, again to fit a similar footprint as the Jeep CJ and the rest of the competitive field..

Bradley suggests that this pre-K5 Blazer, which could’ve hit the streets and trails as quickly as 1968, was a lot further along than these studio mockups suggest. “It was fully engineered, completely tooled, and it was gorgeous!” he told Jim Ault in 2003. “I mean, brochures were done. The tooling was finished. Pre-production prototypes were tested. It was like this far away from being at the Chevrolet showrooms in 1968.”

In the Classic Trucks interview, there’s no mistaking Bradley’s frustration that those long-standing designer and engineer foils—the accountants—killed the project. “We thought that little thing was just glorious. It was a really beautiful, truck-like piece and then suddenly it was cancelled. I was so disgusted when they scrapped it that I did [a] rendering just as a slam against corporate decision-making.”

In Bradley’s eyes, the decision to pass on the design was a huge missed opportunity for GM. “Then all of a sudden the sales on Broncos, Scouts and the Jeepster [Commando] went up like gangbusters.”

Keeping it all in perspective

“Gangbusters” is a huge stretch, though, if you take a look at the actual sales numbers. Despite being a sport-utility icon and a benchmark in Ford design, the numbers for the Bronco were not great. In the ‘64 ½ and ‘65 model years, Ford blew out 686,000 Mustangs. For 1966, Ford sold just 23,776 Broncos in all three body configurations, according to data provided from Tom Commero at Hemmings Motor News. A year later, that number dropped to 14,130. In the years later, Bronco sales would always hover around 20,000 units a year.

That’s almost exactly as successful as the International Harvester Scout 800. In 1965, I-H sold 20,216 Scout 800s (with a few remaining Scout 80s in the mix). Same story at Jeep: Between 1965 and 1969, the American icon only broke the 20,000 unit mark twice. Land Rover, Toyota and Nissan wouldn’t sell that many Series IIas, FJs, and Patrols combined.

If you’re a GM executive looking at Ford selling as many Broncos as I-H sold Scout 800s, that has to look like an act you do not want to follow.

It’s not unheard for GM to sell a vehicle on a completely separate platform in 1965; just take a look at the Corvair. But doing so requires volume. Chevrolet sold more than 237,000 Corvairs in 1965. Harry Bentley Bradley commented: “GM management suddenly said ‘Look [laughs] there’s not nearly enough buyers out there to support International, Jeep, and now Ford. If Chevy comes out, nobody’s going to buy it.’”

And they were 100 percent on the money. That market was completely and demonstrably saturated.

Blazer flavor

When it finally introduced a K5 Blazer in 1969, Chevy hit on a formula that made sense: A shortened version of an existing vehicle that wouldn’t cost a lot in development; one that could double as a daily driver for a lot more Americans than a Bronco ever could. The first generation K5 Blazer wasn’t an instant success, selling just a few thousand units the first year, but by its last year in 1972, it sold twice as many units as the Bronco did in its best year ever. In 1973 and 1974, the second-generation K5 sold more than 175,000 units.

Ford would find itself in the same position between 1973 and 1977 as GM was when the Bronco launched, watching from the sidelines without a competitive product. Only this time, those sales represented real numbers. Ford finally introduced a full-size Bronco in 1978. In its second of a two-year production run, Ford quintupled the best sales year of the 1966 to 1977 Bronco.

Ford never looked back. The full-size SUV was here to stay.

The post The old-school Chevrolet Blazer that never was appeared first on Hagerty Media.