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

Peaceful.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Cadillac’s “Standard of the World” slogan—first adopted in 1908 after the marque won the prestigious Dewar Trophy for automotive engineering—was a lot to live up to. But the V-16-powered 452A models were certainly worthy of the moniker. This particular 452A All-Weather Phantom, owned by Leigh Brent, was judged worthy of Best in Show at this year’s Greenwich Concours D’Elegance.

Cadillac dropped a 452-cubic-inch V-16 bombshell at the New York auto show in 1930. Well-heeled buyers increasingly expected their engines to offer strong acceleration while being smooth and quiet, and luxury manufacturers turned to more cylinders to increase power and reduce vibrations. Rival Packard had enjoyed a considerable head start in the prewar cylinder-count arms race with its V-12-powered Twin Six in 1916. But Cadillac’s 452A flagship leapfrogged Packard and was the first production car equipped with a V-16.

Engine output was an impressive-for-the-time 165 horsepower and 320 lb-ft of torque. But almost as important was the engine’s character. An English road tester reported “an engine so smooth and quiet as to make it seem incredible that the car is actually being propelled by exploding gases.”

Unfortunately, the Cadillac V-16 was a victim of bad timing. Only months before its debut, the stock market crashed hard, sending the economy into a tailspin. As such, the car’s high price ranging from $5350 to $9200 (Model As could be had for between $435 and $650) insured that few were ever sold. However, the rarity and prestige of the 452A has made it a perennial collector favorite and a frequent Concours winner.

Brent’s 1931 452A is the latest to take top prize at a major Concours. This 452A is just one of four All-Weather Phaetons known to survive and is among the final cars built by Fleetwood in Pennsylvania. The All-Weather Phaeton (different from a standard Phaeton because it features roll-up side glass rather than side curtains) was one of approximately 70 body styles and configurations available through in-house coachbuilders Fleetwood and Fisher. This example is also equipped with a rear division, separating the chauffeur from the passengers.

Although the Cadillac is an older restoration—done by Pruitt Automotive in 1986—it has been refreshed over the years and was recently treated to some paintwork. The fresh paint paid off as the Cadillac presented beautifully on the lawn of Roger Sherman Baldwin Park and wowed the crowd and judges.

“I was stunned to get a class award, let alone the overall win,” exclaimed Brent after accepting his first Best in Show trophy with the Cadillac. “I couldn’t be more thrilled.”

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Best in Show for the Greenwich Concours de Sport is usually reserved for a vintage racer that was campaigned by a famous driver in a famous race. However, the criteria for the Concours de Sport extends to all cars that epitomize automotive style, performance, and innovation. So, perhaps it’s not surprising that the wildly customized “El Capitola” owned by Tim McMann clinched this year’s top honors.

“El Capitola” started life as a 1957 Chevrolet 210, but it didn’t stay stock for long. Original owner Don Fletcher took his 210 to Sam Barris to be thoroughly customized. At the time, Barris was tiring of the customs industry. He had already moved away from his brother George’s shop in Los Angeles to pursue a quieter family life in northern California, but he still took on some work for Barris Kustoms out of his home shop in Carmichael, California near Sacramento. “El Capitola” was the last car that Sam Barris customized before becoming an insurance investigator and the fire commissioner for Carmichael.

“I think he used every trick he ever learned on this car,” remarked owner Tim McMann. Indeed, Barris did not hold back on his final car, as it scarcely resembles the ’57 Chevy it started out as. For starters, the top was chopped three inches in the front and five inches in the rear, the b-pillar was removed to convert the car to a hardtop, and the badges, emblems, and door handles were deleted. Many body parts from the likes of DeSoto, Lincoln, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, and Studebaker were grafted on to the Chevy in addition to one-off pieces like the taillights and fender skirts. The magenta parts of the body sit proud of the rest of the sheet metal. In an era before plastic body filler, all of the work was done with lead—630 pounds of it according to McMann.

Unsurprisingly, the interior was treated to the same lavish attention to detail as the exterior. Legendary custom upholsterer Eddie Martinez went all-out with rolled Naugahyde faux leather and gold frieze fabric. The instrument panel was chromed, and the original seats were swapped out with four individual swiveling buckets. The color-matched, free-standing TV in the rear is a feature way ahead if its time.

“El Capitola” took two years to finish, but once completed, it was featured in magazines like Car Craft and Customs illustrated. Original owner Don Fletcher sold it in 1961, and the car swapped hands multiple times before McMann took stewardship in 2019.

“My whole deal is to buy customs from the ’50s or earlier, and bring them back to the exact build the first time they were built,” explained McMann. “It had a lot of things on it that weren’t original. For example, it had a 350 engine, and it came with the original 265 in a crate. So, I put the 265 back in.”

Ultimately, the judges rewarded McMan’s dedication to originality. “It’s unbelievable that a custom should even be a finalist, much less win Best of Show. I’m over the moon!” We’re just as excited to see a custom win.

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More than 200 people gathered at Reno’s National Automobile Museum this past April for Music & Motion, an event that raised funds to benefit the Parkinson Support Center of Northern Nevada. The Parkinson Support Center of Northern Nevada aids the more than 5000 people in the High Sierra region living with Parkinson’s disease. Music & Motion was presented by Drive Toward a Cure, a nonprofit that has raised more than $1 million since 2016 to support research and patient care for those suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

Vanessa Williams, the multi-award-winning singer/actress/producer, moderated a discussion with notable luminaries including Dr. Deanna Brown Thomas, the daughter of “The Godfather of Soul” James Brown; Rasheda Ali Walsh, the daughter of “the Greatest,” Heavyweight Champion Muhammad Ali; along with professional off-road athlete Shelby Hall, a Reno native and granddaughter of Rod Hall, the most decorated off-road racer and Hall of Fame inductee. Both Ali and Hall struggled publicly with Parkinson’s disease.

The open discussion and forum included personal memories from each of the panelist’s family members. Automotive-centric anecdotes featured Mr. Ali’s Rolls-Royce Corniche convertible, in which he would gather all his children for rides through Los Angeles, to James Brown’s 1941 Lincoln and various Cadillac convertibles. Shelby Hall recalled how she, together with her then near-80-year-old grandfather, competed and completed the NORRA Mexican 1000 in 2016, an adventure rally with competitors from racing icons to current stars. The event was the last in which Hall was able to drive his beloved Bronco, despite having to be lifted into the race-prepared truck due to his own debilitation from Parkinson’s.

Among the automotive highlights of the evening was the rare Jaguar C-type driven by the legendary Phil Hill, America’s first Formula One champion. Hill also battled Parkinson’s for a number of years and died from its complications in 2008 at the age of 81. The foundation’s association with Hill dates to the early beginnings of Drive Toward a Cure and was the inspiration for the organization first teaming Cars and Camaraderie to raise awareness for Parkinson’s.

All proceeds from the evening’s event and silent auction will go directly to the Parkinson Support Center of Northern Nevada. Since its inception in 2021, the center has embarked on a financial journey to raise $500,000 over the next five years to create a facility that will continue to bring together the Parkinson’s community in northern Nevada with expanded support services, educational programming, and continued advocacy. For more information, to volunteer or join the local Reno area Parkinson’s community, view www.pscnn.org

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Thomas West and the crew at Renegade Racing made a valiant effort to win the Stick Shift/Banger class at LS Fest West, qualifying at the top of the field while rowing through a T-56 six-speed manual. Their racing plans were derailed, however, when a rogue rod decided it was done with racing and caused some serious carnage in their Honda S2000’s 427 LS V-8. Only slightly deterred, the team decided to press on and see if they could get the car ready for Saturday’s race.

LS engines have been swapped into an array of cars, trucks, boats, and even aircraft. They are certainly doing well carrying the mantle of the original small-block Chevy. Despite its stellar reputation for compact, lightweight performance, you still might be surprised to see an LS under the hood of an S2000, a car renowned for its spirited, high-revving four-cylinder and balanced chassis. However, if you plan to hit the dragstrip, then a twin-turbo 427-cubic-inch LS engine makes sense.

During a quarter-mile pass on Saturday, the engine’s aftermarket block cracked and the wayward #8 rod broke, battering the fabricated aluminum oil pan and sending shrapnel through the engine. It managed to take out the timing chain, allowing the remainder of the rods to send pistons into the open valves, causing further havoc. Rather than pack up for the weekend, the Renegade Racing crew pulled the shattered engine and put out an APB for a replacement bottom end. They found a 408 short block locally and spent Saturday night and into the early morning on Sunday tearing the old engine down and buttoning up the new 408 with the same twin-turbocharged induction as their shattered 427.

We got to see some of the carnage first-hand, and the team was still in good spirits as connecting rod shrapnel was cleaned up and the long wrenching session loomed. We can’t say for sure if the team’s attitude remained jovial, as we had other plans (sleep), but when we returned early on Sunday, the car was up and running with its new engine and ready to take on the competition.

Although the all-nighter got the car ready for Sunday’s Stick Shift/Banger class racing, West got a bad launch and the engine bogged down, allowing his opponent to earn the win. Speaking with West on Sunday, he was proud of his team’s accomplishment, noting that despite the massive setback they got the car to the line and lost the race “fair and square.” It sure beats giving up a forfeit.

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Holley’s LS Fest West is open to any vehicle powered by a Gen III, Gen IV, or Gen V GM small-block V-8. That covers a pretty broad array: For starters, all of the aluminum-block V-8s like the LS1, LS2, LS3, LS4, LS6, and LS7 are welcome. It also includes the iron- and aluminum-block truck engines, aftermarket engines using the same architectures, and the current, direct-injected counterparts like the LT1, LT2, and LT4. While you’d expect such an event to include Corvettes, Firebirds, GTOs, and Camaros, the popularity of the compact pushrod V-8 makes it the go-to swap for drifters and drag racers alike. We saw Volvo, BMW, Porsche, and Nissan cars with LS swaps, not to mention some seriously fast Fox-body Mustangs.

One of the most popular events at LS Fest is always the Grand Champion competition, a street car shootout that combines track driving and drag strip passes. It brought out 200 competitors to vie for the title in three classes: Truck, Vintage, and Late Model. All vehicles must use DOT-approved tires and record times on an autocross, the dragstrip, and a tight 3-S challenge course that timed cars through a horseshoe-shaped track that ended in a braking box. With two of the three events involving road handling and braking, the cars were certainly biased toward the track rather than the strip. Many of the entrants are Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational regulars, and while a couple of the entrants will be familiar to Hagerty readers, many of them were not familiar with a drag strip.

Considering these vehicles tended to be set up more for stopping and turning than outright acceleration, we didn’t expect hard launches. Still, many of these cars and trucks pack serious power and the drivers got the hang of the Christmas tree in no time. We wouldn’t be surprised if many of them are plotting new LS-powered dragstrip projects to add to their stable. Here are just some of our favorites.

Rick Lammi took the Vintage class win in his amethyst 1977 Nissan 280Z. Its LS3 is topped by an LSA supercharger that helps it put down 640hp to the wheels through a Ford 8.8-inch independent suspension.

David Carrol won the Truck classic in his 1973 K5 Blazer. The soft-top SUV was stripped down and ditched its four-wheel-drive and solid from axle in favor of No Limit Engineering front suspension. It’s powered by a twin-turbo powered by a Gen IV 5.3-liter.

After meeting him at SEMA, we featured Garrett Randall’s 1970 Corvette and got a closer look at the flared Stingray.

Cameron Bishop’s radical C10 was another Grand Champion we first spotted at SEMA. He competed here last year as well.

If you missed LS Fest West, Holley has two more this year so there’s still time to stake your claim for Grand Champion glory.

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We tell everyone who will listen, and even some who don’t, that Bonneville Speed Week is among the greatest events in the country. The racing is phenomenal. The camaraderie is second to none. Even when competition is delayed due to weather, seeing the hot rods that make the pilgrimage to the salt each year makes the trip worthwhile.

During last year’s rain-delayed Speed Week, we spotted Ben Smith’s duo of matching hot rods. The Model T roadster and Model A sedan looked unique in that they were understated yet eye-catching. Their construction appeared totally no-nonsense, which led us to ask Smith about how he came to own such a well-matched pair of prewar Fords.

Smith had wanted a hot rod of some sort for ages, but he never had a place to keep one. It wasn’t until he got a three-bay shop behind his home in Lynwood, Washington, that he could finally take on the project he’d been planning for years. His background in building off-road trucks and oval-track race cars gave him the foundation he needed to bring his vision to life.

His first step was to trade for a fiberglass Model T body. He then put his metal fabrication skills to work by building the chassis from scratch. The rear suspension uses trailing arms and a Panhard rod to locate a Ford 9-inch axle pirated from a Bronco. The coil springs mount to a tube that closely follows the curves of the back of the cab. It ties into the roll hoop which is supported by tubes that stretch to the frame rails.

Smith wanted to enjoy the T with others, and that meant making it roomy enough for him and a copilot. Noting that he’d rather sit in the car than on it, he split the body down the middle and widened it by six inches. The body was seamlessly fiberglassed back together over some wood reinforcements.

When it came time to find a powerplant for the T, Smith found a few used Chevy small-blocks, but none of them panned out. The engine he ended up with is one of three built for a boat. Dyno testing on all three examples showed that this one was a bit down on power, so he purchased at a discount what amounted to the runt of the litter. He swapped the cam, bolted on a Turbo 350, and has been enjoying it ever since. With so little mass to haul around, it’s more than enough power to get into trouble.

The T was built to be driven, so Smith wasn’t concerned with impressing show judges or anyone else. The result of form following function is still very pleasing, although Smith describes it as “nothing too fancy.” Dive a bit deeper and you’ll notice a couple of concessions to utility; for example, if the body got in the way of anything that would make maintenance difficult, Smith added an access panel. The simple and functional fuse/switch panel is mounted in plain sight and easy to reach. That’s a driver’s version of hot rod engineering.

To keep the budget in check, Smith opted for new parts that merely look old, rather than scouring swap meets and paying big for correct vintage parts. “I kind of just threw stuff together that I could afford that was easy to get. I’d rather drive than hunt.” Consequently, a lot of the car’s parts came from the Speedway Motors catalog. Some of the new parts he purchased were discounted—scratch and dent examples. They saved money but required some extra elbow grease to look presentable.

Building the Model T took Smith about a year. “I just wanted something affordable and easy,” he said. The car was the first test for his hot rod vision panning out in real life. Smith enjoyed the T-bucket for a year or two, but eventually, he got the itch to build another hot rod. He already had some finned Buick brake drums … and it would be a shame to let them go to waste.

Thus began Smith’s Model A. The real start of the project began with an already-chopped and channeled coupe body that needed quite a bit of work. First, however, the top was a bit crooked. Smith remedied that with some careful bodywork. He also shaped the shallow-curved roof panel on an English wheel, doing the work himself—no small feat for an amateur bodyman. Like the T roadster, his A coupe was born of Smith’s love of traditional hot rods. “I just like clean and simple,” Smith told us, “If it doesn’t need to be there it shouldn’t be there.”

Naturally, Smith’s “clean and simple” Model A does have some aesthetic touches that any hot-rodder would appreciate. Note the shortened ’32 Ford grille shell, which is a classic addition to any A coupe hot rod. Smith dressed up his interpretation with the elliptical grille from a ‘50s screen door. Another nice touch is the steering: The Pitman arm and steering box are mounted inside the cab, while the drag link exits from a scoop mounted low in the cowl.

These days, Smith has slowed down on building oval track cars and off-road trucks. However, he still does build oval track engines. The A is the beneficiary of one seriously stout small-block Chevy that isn’t too far off from what you’d find slinging dirt and getting sideways on a fairgrounds track on a Saturday night. The 370-cubic-inch short block is topped with cast iron World Products heads, a Weiand intake, and a Carter AFB carb. Like the T, it sends power to a Turbo 350 transmission and then to a Ford 9-inch rear axle. Rather than a junkyard Bronco, this rear axle is from Quick Performance.

The roadster’s body is finished in a hot rod flat black, with the remaining pieces sprayed in gloss black. Smith wanted something just a bit different for the coupe, and after waffling on the decision for months, he decided on a custom mix that’s 3:1 black/white. He finished it all up just a week before heading out to Bonneville for Speed Week 2023. Since then, on most clear days he has driven one or both of the cars. A few times he’s even driven them in the rain.

Either of these builds would look great on its own, but they look especially great together. You can find more images of the A and T on Smith’s Instagram. But come on, wouldn’t you rather just come out to Speed Week and witness them on the salt for yourself?

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In 1994, the same year that Ayrton Senna left this mortal coil, the Channel Tunnel connected the United Kingdom to France, and Dale Earnhardt won his seventh and final NASCAR Cup championship, the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky, opened its doors. The Corvette had just celebrated its 40th anniversary. That spring, the plant in Bowling Green had delivered 25 special convertibles to Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the inaugural running of NASCAR’s Brickyard 400. Around 23,000 copies of the 1994 model year Corvette, the third-to-last model year for the long-running C4 generation, would leave Bowling Green for garages around the world.

Today the C8, midengine Corvette is in its fifth model year of production. More than one team is campaigning the successor to the C8.R GTE, the Z06.R GT3, in the 2024 IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship, and the National Corvette Museum is preparing to celebrate its 30th anniversary in late August of 2024. Earlier this year, I interviewed Sharon Brawner, president and CEO of the museum from 2021 to 2024, to talk about the big milestone and to hear her thoughts on where America’s Sports Car is going next.

First, we had to discuss another, less happy anniversary for the museum: The sinkhole disaster on February 12, 2014.

“There are folks who still always ask about [the sinkhole], or [the sinkhole is] how they know about the National Corvette Museum,” said Brawner. “It’s kind of a double-edged sword. It’s one thing that [the sinkhole] put this museum and Bowling Green on an international stage. On one hand, that’s a benefit. On the other, it’s obviously a negative, too. Tragedy, unfortunately, does seek attention.”

According to Brawner, the 1980s-1990s technology used in the initial geological survey determined that all would be well for building the museum. Hindsight, of course, is 20/20, and if today’s tech had picked up on the limestone formations under the museum’s Skydome—which would collapse, swallowing several one-of-a-kind Corvettes 20 years after the museum’s opening—plans would have been made to build elsewhere.

“The museum tried to do everything that it could at the time to allow people to learn more about this museum and our collection and what we do here, even in the face of a tragedy,” said Brawner. “The [staff] did a tremendous job not letting it define us, but at the same time, taking advantage of it.”

When she took the reins in 2021, Brawner’s mission was to make clear that while the sinkhole disaster is a part of the museum’s 30-year tale, it’s not all that the museum is. To emphasize this stance, she organized a limited-engagement exhibition, named “Ground to Sky: The Sinkhole Reimagined,” which will be open through the summer, starting on June 14, 2024. This new exhibit covers the last decade since February 12, 2014, with an emphasis on what the museum, and the model that it celebrates, have accomplished in the last 10 years.

“If you know anything about Corvette history, then you certainly know the name Zora Arkus-Duntov,” said Brawner. “Zora started dreaming of a mid-engine Corvette back in the ’50s; this is not a new idea. It took many decades to find the right time and the right engineering prowess to pull off a very competitive, high-performance Corvette with a mid-engine [placement]. It’s not really all that surprising to all of us following [the car’s] history; it was really just a matter of time. And I think that when GM did it, they did it very well.”

Another evolution of the Corvette is in showrooms now: the hybrid E-Ray. Though this new Vette’s hybrid system is tailored more for performance than for fuel conservation, the fact that it’s a hybrid at all is more than a sign of the times, especially in light of General Motors’ push to convert its portfolio to battery power. Is it only a matter of time until the Corvette goes fully electric? And if so, when?

“I’m not privy to anything more than the general public is as far as how [the Corvette] will continue to evolve,” said Brawner. “I think that, from a historical perspective, how the car continues to develop in its engineering and design prowess is exciting for us as we make sure that we’re marking these historical moments, that [the museum] will allow our guests to understand what it means when these things happen with this car.”

The 30th anniversary celebration of the National Corvette Museum will have plenty to offer fans of America’s Sports Car, starting with the Corvette Caravan. Brawner says the museum is expecting 8000 Corvette fans from around the world to make the pilgrimage to southwestern Kentucky; if its predictions are accurate, the crowd will be the largest the museum has ever seen. Entertainment will feature a few country artists to be announced at a later time, while all sorts of celebrities from the Corvette world are expected to be in attendance. The city of Bowling Green will be a part of the 30th anniversary extravaganza as well, according to Brawner, with related events taking place away from the museum.

“This is a very important time for folks,” said Brawner. “They take off and make this their big summer vacation. We need to make sure that we’re really rising to the occasion to give them a variety of exciting events and activities to take advantage of. I can remember when the museum opened. I remember the thousands of Corvettes all up and down I-65, and what it meant to the people who love this car. There are many museums in this country that never see 30 years. This is a proud moment for this museum to boast that it’s been here for 30 years and going strong.”

We would be remiss to not mention another historical milestone for the National Corvette Museum: Though she has since moved on from her role as president and CEO of the museum, Sharon Brawner is the first woman to hold that position, having originally come over from the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, where she spent nearly two decades before her appointment to the highest role at the National Corvette Museum. She may be a native of Kentucky, Brawner never thought she’d leave Nashville for Bowling Green, but COVID-19 changed her path.

“COVID changed a lot of things for a lot of folks, and I felt like it was time for me to take a break,” said Brawner. “I didn’t have a position when I left my tenure at the Country Music Hall of Fame; I just needed a break. I needed to move away from being in charge of so many things and lots of responsibilities. I needed to recharge. I actually left my position with no idea of what I was going to do.”

For six months, she spent time with her family. She celebrated the birth of her granddaughter in May of 2020 and, upon the passing of her father in 2019, moved her mother in with her and her husband. While she was bonding with her family and thinking about what would come next, the National Corvette Museum’s search team came calling. The opportunity was not one to pass up for Brawner, who had interviewed for several other positions, including the big one. After a lengthy interview process, Brawner became the museum’s fourth president and CEO in September 2021.

“I am very proud of [being the museum’s first woman CEO],” said Brawner. “I’ve had several steps in my career where I had been the first woman to do something, and I enjoy that. It’s not something that I have on my list of things I have to accomplish. I was the first woman to run an arena football team. I was the first woman to run a Triple-A baseball team. And I was the first woman to run this museum. Not many women run museums, period.”

Though some were skeptical about Brawner’s appointment, with some cynicism thrown in about her being just another big diversity hire, she says those concerns fell by the wayside due to her not only being a museum professional but also being a dyed-in-the-wool Corvette fan; she owns one and has grown up around America’s Sports Car. She has visited the museum frequently over the decades, starting with Opening Day back in 1994, when she attended with her father.

“One of the most interesting things about this museum is that we just continue to keep growing,” Brawner said. “We opened NCM Motorsports Park 10 years ago. Fifteen years ago, we opened our own insurance agency for collector cars. And the museum is 30 years old. What I can tell you is that this organization is not through growing. We continue to talk about future campus plans for this place. We’ve been fortunate and thoughtful enough to acquire land around the museum so that we can have future growth, whether it’s during my time as president and CEO or if it’s the next one.”

If you’re one of the thousands of fans headed to Bowling Green this summer in your beloved Corvette, make sure to tip your crossed-flags baseball cap to Brawner, who helped organize the party for America’s Sports Car—and the museum that holds its legacy.

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The Detroit Autorama may be known for the Don Ridler Memorial Award, the Nobel Prize of indoor hot-rod shows, but to define the event by its highest award misses the point. The hundreds of builders, owners, and owner-builders who travel to the Motor City each spring are gathering to celebrate what they love and to share it with the public. No hot rod is built to be hidden.

If you haven’t checked out our story on the 2024 Ridler winner, click here. To see the finalists, chosen the day before and nicknamed The Great Eight, click here. To read about the diversity of the vehicles attending, click here.

And if you’re still hungry for more, read on! We might have been walking around the show all weekend, but each of these nine builds stopped us in our tracks, and we couldn’t wait to share them with you.

Buzz Saw 2.0

This chop-top, pinked-out van isn’t the first one that Ken McCarl has built. But it’s definitely better than the one he built when he was 23, says the Ontario native. “It was my last big build I wanted to do—nothing spared.” A mechanic by trade, and the owner of an auto repair shop, he relished the challenge of doing his own bodywork: “It’s almost like my happy place.”

The toughest part of the build? “The windshield,” McCarl says, not missing a beat. “That’s number 13.” The glass just kept breaking when cut by traditional methods; water jetting, a new-school method, did the trick. “I refer to that as my $3000 windshield.”

Chrysler 1000X

One of the eight Ridler finalists, 1000X caught our eye because of its mix of old and new—which era of Chrysler was it celebrating? Both, read the plaque beside the vehicle, owned by Randy Kohltfarber and built by American Legends: “Our goal was to rebuild the iconic Chrysler 300 with modern-day muscle.” We’ll give you three guesses at what’s under the hood, and two don’t count: A 1000-hp Hellcat V-8.

Uncertain-T

One of the most head-turning builds—it occupied a prime spot near the entrance—at Autorama 2024 is also one of the oldest. Uncertain-T debuted in 1965 to great acclaim but has been lost to the public for the past 50 years. The fiberglass-bodied, Nailhead-powered coupe was rediscovered just this year and awaits a restoration by Galpin Motors’ Beau Boeckmann and Dave Shuten.

’39 Ford COE

A heavy truck mechanic by trade, Tim Humpert of Frankenmuth, Michigan, built this head-turning cab-over from a 1939 Ford COE that spent its life at an airport in Wichita, Kansas. All the work, except the paint, is his own, done over 10 years of nights and weekends. The fenders he pulled from a ’31 Ford and stretched to fit. He used styrofoam to model the dead-straight sides of the bed. One of our favorite details is the bed liner: Not the typical hardwood drenched in glossy lacquer, but no-nonsense diamond-tread stainless steel.

“I wanted something unique, and something to drive,” Humpert says. This is his first build … and his first Detroit Autorama. Hats off to you, Tim!

Imperial Evolution

If you recognize this heavily modified 1959 Imperial Crown Custom, you’ll know that it was originally a four-door, and you also probably know that it has racked up the miles in Hot Rod magazine’s grueling Power Tour—twice. In 2018, it received a makeover, ditching its champagne and orange for a pearly sage green over a rich brown. Billet wheels wrapped in ultra-thin goldline tires complete its show-car vibe. Want to read more? Check out our feature on owner Murray Pfaff and his Imperial Speedster.

Deuce of Hearts

If you were uncertain that period hot rods had a home at Autorama, The Deuce of Hearts will convince you otherwise. Built in 1958 by George Choma, this ’32 Ford Coupe hails from New England. Owner Rich Hallam has been vigilant to preserve the patina of the Coupe, and the slight imperfections of the chrome bear witness to the rich, long history of hot-rodding—and the enduring glamour of Choma’s build.

Oma’s SS

Several cars were unveiled at Autorama, but few struck the personal note that this 1962 Impala SS did for Detroit sports reporter Mickey York. This is the second time York has unveiled this car, which belonged to his grandmother, at Autorama: Leading up to the 2018 event, the Impala underwent a three-year restoration. But in 2021, the reborn car was totaled in an accident. “I couldn’t let the car go,” said York, who tracked down the car, which his grandmother owned from new, in 2009. True to his word, York refused to “let this horrific crash be the end of its story”: Here is Oma’s SS, reborn for the second time, wearing her favorite color scheme of white over red.

The Frankenboss

If your brain is shorting out, as you try to date this Mustang, then you’ve got a good eye; The Frankenboss is an amalgamation not only of different eras of Mustang, but of Detroit muscle. The Duncan Brothers envisioned a restomodded 1970 Mustang, but they decided to execute the idea backwards, starting with a 2012 Boss 302 Laguna Seca and grafting on a mix of 1969 and 1970 panels (each extensively modified). Then, they thought, why not look outside Ford?

Why not, indeed? The hood is made of parts from four different cars: The underside is 2012 Mustang, the top and peak are 1969 Mustang, and the center—purists, steel yourselves—is from a 1968–70 GTO. Because Ram Air scoops and that devilish widow’s peak at the nose, that’s why.

“My Type”

Your author is firm in the belief that wider is better. A widebody E-Type? That’s up there with Greenwood Corvettes. Based on a 1967 E-Type, this Jag has a Chevrolet powerplant, in fact: a Chevy V-8 topped with two four-barrel carburetors, a package that will be replaced by a Jaguar V-12. The rest of the build reads like a bucket list of racy add-ons: Dive planes, hood scoops, side exhaust, big wing, black wheels.

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One could be excused for assuming that the Detroit Autorama, home to the prestigious Ridler Award, is primarily focused on American cars. The show was established in the ’60s, years before imported automobiles comprised large fractions of the new-car market in the United States. The hobby and the industry surrounding customs and hot rods, the stars of Autorama, started in the 1950s, based on used-up prewar cars like Model Ts and Model As. More than a half-century later, custom cars are still typically based on vintage and older-model American cars. Also, the show is in Detroit.

If my memory serves me well, Detroit Autorama has only presented the Ridler to one vehicle that comes close to being foreign-made: Ferrambo, a 1960 Rambler station wagon finished in Rosso Corso red, with a mid-engine Ferrari 360 drivetrain and suspension. It won the Ridler in 2008.

The Detroit Autorama, though, is still reflective of the automotive community of Detroit (and the United States) at large, from rat rods in the basement of the former Cobo Hall to the million-dollar “checkbook customs” that are most competitive for the Ridler Award. Autorama entrants include plenty of folks who daily drive, collect, or customize cars built outside the borders of the good ol’ US of A. Contrary to the notion that foreign cars are not welcome, Detroit Autorama actually has a number of award categories for non-domestic brands.

While waiting for the judges to announce the selection of Ridler finalists, also known as The Great Eight, I was able to find a pretty wide variety of imported cars, ranging from humble VW Beetles (made considerably less humble) to more exotic machinery like a McLaren and several M-series BMWs.

When it comes to custom cars, I’m a bit of a purist about brand-correct engines. Don’t get me started on replacing the inline Jaguar “XK” six-cylinder engine, perhaps the only reliable major component on a vintage Jaguar (I owned a Series III XJ6), with a small-block Chevy (SBC). Ford made some fine small-block engines in Cleveland and Windsor. Those engines even won in TransAm against Camaros powered by SBCs, so there is no need to put another LS V-8 in a non-GM car. I’ll make an exception for this drag-racing Volvo 240 wagon, wearing V8LVO plates, that has run the quarter mile in less than six seconds. Credit must be given where it is due: The Volvo B21 engine is legendarily stout, but I don’t think it can run in the fives.

I do, however, appreciate clever and thoughtful engine swaps like Ferrambo or the V-10, Viper-powered Karmann Ghia at Autorama in 2013. I was happy to see that all but one of the Beetles at this year’s Autorama were powered by horizontally opposed air-cooled engines mounted in the back of the car.

Speaking of air-cooled engines mounted in the back of the car, right next to Kevin Byrd’s 1990 BMW M3 there was a Manx SR2, Bruce Meyer’s design for a sports roadster to complement his Manx dune buggy. While it was made in the United States, the roadster was powered by a VW Beetle engine, so I’m including it. The Manx SR2 has flip-up, scissor-style doors that many folks call “Lambo doors”; but the SR2 was introduced in 1970, a few years before Lamborghini launched the Countach, the first Lamborghini with Lambo doors.

My favorite foreign car at this year’s show was a near-complete rethinking of the E-Type Jaguar called “My Type,” built by Mike Clarahan in his home garage with traditional metal hand-shaping methods, with some design help from Murray Pfaff of Pfaff Designs. Clarahan sculpted clay and foam molded onto a basketcase E, made cardboard templates from the final shape, and used those templates to cut plywood panels for a wooden buck over which he could shape aluminum and steel panels. Only the roof and rear deck remain from the original ’67 donor car. I like how the result is obviously a widebody E-Type—that also nods to other important Jaguars like the D-Type, XKSS, and the XJ13, including riveted body panels. My only quibble is with the current powerplant, a Chevy V-8 with dual quads; but Clarahan plans on replacing that with a more brand-appropriate Jaguar V12.

Enjoy the gallery.

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Ferrari’s 250 GTO needs little introduction, even among those not intimate with the collector car world. With a mere 36 built, gorgeous lines, and a stellar racing pedigree from what was one of the brightest among many bright eras for one of the world’s most famous brands, the 250 GTO long ago transcended the hobby to become an object d’art.

Fortunately, this particular bit of art is often shared with the world and put to regular use. Yesterday, spectators across the The Golf Club concours fairway at the Ritz-Carlton on Amelia Island in Florida perked up when they heard the bark of a 3.0-liter Colombo V-12. The 1962 250 GTO, Chassis 4153GT, was headed to the award ceremony, having secured Best in Show in the Concours de Sport at the 2024 Amelia Concours d’Elegance.

“It’s so exciting to win this award at Amelia,” said owner David MacNeil, founder of WeatherTech. “This 250 GTO is such a fantastic car, and we’re glad to be able to share it here today.”

Finished in the same colors—silver with French tricolore stripe—that it wore in 1963 for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where it finished fourth overall, Chassis 4153GT owes its livery to its original owner and racing driver, Frenchman Pierre Dumay.

After Dumay’s laudable finish at Le Mans, Chassis 4153GT was actively campaigned by two owners through 1966, with one last race in-period coming in 1968. It attained several class wins and overall podiums, and most impressive was its overall win in the 1964 Tour de France. After a lengthy respite, 4153GT began showing up at vintage races in 1992 and has been actively used on track and in rallies ever since.

Rumored to have sold for up to $80M in 2018, though reported as a $70M sale then, 4153GT is nonetheless the most expensive disclosed sale of a 250 GTO. That this chassis would be at the top of an extremely exclusive list should come as no surprise—Ferrari historian Marcel Massini told Fox News after the 2018 sale that 4153GT is “one of the top three or four GTOs in the world.”

After purchasing the car, MacNeil ran it in the Colorado Grand rally before sending it to noted Ferrari shop Motion Products for an extensive restoration that took nearly two years. It has been on the concours circuit since, attending numerous events including Villa d’Este and Pebble Beach before arriving at Amelia.

Much as this GTO improves the look of the beautifully manicured lawns on which it has rested, MacNeil is eager to get it back on the open road. “We might take it to one more show, and then it’s time to drive the heck out of it,” said an enthusiastic MacNeil, when asked about his plans for 4153GT. “This is an absolutely amazing car to drive. It lives up to its hype. It’s got a great power-to-weight ratio, the handling is superb, and of course there’s that V-12 sound.”

“This car would be a pleasure to drive in a 24-hour race,” MacNeil added. “As a matter of fact, when this car got done with Le Mans in 1963, they drove it to Paris, parked it in front of a bar, and celebrated. Try that in a modern GT3 car.” With that, MacNeil has some celebrating to do himself.

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Every year since 1964, hot-rod builders travel to Michigan to celebrate their craft at the Detroit Autorama. The three-day event is home to the Don Memorial Ridler Award, “the Nobel Prize of hot-rodding.” Any Autorama participant is eligible, as long as the vehicle is operable and has never appeared at any other show. The winner, announced on Sunday, is chosen from eight finalists, announced the day before and known as The Great Eight. You can read about the 2024 finalists here.

The Chevrolet Corvette was first introduced at the 1953 General Motors Motorama show at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City. The following year, a fastback Corvette concept called the Corvair, a name Chevy would later recycle for its ill-fated compact car, became one of the stars of the Motorama. Chevrolet, however, never put a fastback version of the first-generation Corvette into production. The winner of the 2024 Don Ridler Memorial Award, “the Nobel Prize of hot-rodding,” was inspired by that never-realized concept.

Dave and Tracey Maxwell, of Saltsburg, Pennsylvania, describe “TwelveAir” as being “loosely” based on that Motorama Corvair. Loosely is an appropriate characterization: The original concept had a fiberglass body on a ladder frame and was powered by an inline “Blue Flame” six-cylinder engine, driving through a two-speed Powerglide automatic transmission. TwelveAir has a bespoke, hand-formed aluminum unibody and is powered by a 9.2-liter V-12 engine, based on GM’s LS V-8 architecture plus an aluminum block and heads, which drives the wheels through an eight-speed automatic transaxle sourced from a C7 Corvette.

The car was built by Kindig It Design, owned by Dave Kindig, in Salt Lake City, Utah. Kindig has had a hand in designing prior finalists (aka The Great Eight) for the Ridler, but TwelveAir is his first Ridler winner. While Kindig sees the award as the culmination of 25 years of work, he won’t be resting on his laurels. At the ceremony, held during the Detroit Autorama at Huntington Place, his team members already were asking, “What’s in the shop next?”

When asked what winning the award meant to him, the owner of the car, Dave Maxwell, who runs a construction company and also owns car and boat dealerships, said: “Oh my, it’s over the top. I mean … I’m so happy for the builder and the guys who built the car. I let them do their thing. I gave them some ideas that I’d like to see, and just let them go and they hit everything right on! It’s the guys. It’s all about the guys.”

Maxwell says TwelveAir is going to be a driver. “Dave Kindig knows, like with the truck he built me, and my wife’s Volkswagens, and stuff like that… they all think I’m crazy, but after we’re done showing it then it becomes a driver. We’ll change the wheels from show wheels. The disc brakes are [polished, rather than chromed] stainless steel, so we’re good.”

When asked how much he has invested in TwelveAir, Maxwell chuckled and said, “Quite a bit.”

It’s not unusual for a Ridler build to cost seven figures. TwelveAir took four and a half years to build, so it also represents a significant investment in time.

One of TwelveAir’s notable design features is an almost Zagato-like bubble roof, with a concave character line running from the backlight into the top of the windshield. Putting a crease in a glass windshield like that must also have cost quite a bit, but it is the ambition and execution of those kinds of features that make up a Ridler winner.

Tracey Maxwell said, “What does this mean to me? For him [gesturing to her husband]… I am just so happy for him. He deserves it, the team deserves it. We couldn’t have been here without them.”

TwelveAir

Paint: AzkoNobel sprayed by Kindig
Engine: Race Cast Engineering, all alloy 9.2-liter naturally aspirated V-12
Transmission: GM 8L90E eight-speed automatic
Exhaust: Handbuilt stainless steel with three into two, two into one headers and custom 4-inch exhaust
Body: Hand-formed unibody made of 3003T0 and 6061 aluminum
Suspension: Indycar-inspired single lateral coilover cantilever pushrod
Interior: Sienna leather done by JS Custom Interiors; 3D printed dash, console, and door inserts.
Electronics: Haltec Nexux VCU with CANBus
Wheels: Kindig-designed 8×20 front, 12×21 rear
Brakes: Wilwood Aero6 calipers front, Aero4 rear; custom brake hats; hand-polished, slotted and drilled stainless-steel rotors

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There’s nothing quite like a concept car—the promise it holds, the way it can capture the imagination. The seeds of enthusiasm and inspiration it can spread to all corners of the automotive landscape. Even more dramatic is when such a visionary project amounts to more than a pure flight of fancy; a running, driving show car that looks near-ready for production only heightens the thrilling sensation that the future is right around the corner.

Chrysler built a legendary run of concept cars in the first half of the 1950s, perhaps none more dazzling, promising, and seemingly production-ready than the 1954 Dodge Firearrow IV roadster concept. Chrysler big-wigs ultimately did not green-light the car for the masses—a missed opportunity to take on the Corvette and Thunderbird that Hagerty senior auction editor Andrew Newton considers one of the greatest automotive “what-ifs” of the 1950s. A one-off sold to a buyer in Venezeula, this phenomenal show car survived. Now, 70 years later, it’s crossing the block with Broad Arrow at this weekend’s auction at The Amelia in Florida.

The Firearrow IV was the final so-named two-seater concept, following the first, Firearrow I, which debuted at the Turin show in November of 1953. (That first Firearrow was a static display car.) Based on the standard production Dodge Royal 119-inch-wheelbase chassis, these cars were coach-built by Italy’s Carozzeria Ghia, whose ties with Chrysler and “Forward Look” designer Virgil Exner began in 1951 with the Chrysler K-310 concept. Exner’s influence on Chrysler styling in the 1950s and beyond was far-reaching, and such “Idea Cars” were essential for testing public reaction to new design language as well as specific features. Spectacular, iconic ’50s designs ranging from the Chrysler 300 to the De Soto Adventurer and the ’57 Imperial owe much to Exner’s “Forward Look,” a gutsy effort to inject some life into Chrysler’s stalling postwar momentum.

Facing declining sales and a reputation for stodginess in the late 1940s, Chrysler’s big bet with the “Forward Look’s” was to establish the automaker as a design leader. It was a risky tack given that the company was still a bit gun-shy following the flop of the design-intensive Chrysler Airflow in the 1930s. The concept cars of the early 1950s proved immensely popular, however, and part of their appeal was that—unlike many of Ford and GM’s exercises at the time—they were mostly drivable.

Firearrow IV was the most production-ready of the Firearrow series, incorporating functional elements like a manually foldable convertible top, roll-up side windows, and exterior door handles. More fanciful were the quad exhaust tips that poke through the rear fenders, as well as the eye-popping black-and-white diamond-pattern interior scheme. There was even a 16-jewel, Swiss-movement “Dodgematic” clock positioned in the steering wheel. The hardware was all state-of-the-art, incorporating the top shelf of performance technology Chrysler had to offer: 150 horsepower from a “Red Ram” 241-cubic-inch Hemi V-8 with a four-barrel carburetor, a then-new PowerFlite two-speed automatic transmission, Safeguard hydraulic brakes, Oriflow shocks, and Safety Rim wire wheels.

Though there is plenty of chrome to elevate the sense of glamour, the Firearrow IV’s fundamental beauty is its smooth shape and clarity of design. The four-seater’s prominent front fenders rise above the curved hood and create a line that extends the full length of the car, terminating in subtle rear fins. The square-ish, grid-pattern grille evolved to be wider and more trapezoidal in shape in Chrysler’s later production cars, but the effect here is sophisticated when framed in a ring of chrome between four recessed headlights. In the Firearrow IV, European taste and craftsmanship meets American exuberance.

Though Firearrow IV was never produced en masse, the general idea of it did reach limited production. Businessman Eugene Casaroll purchased the rights to the design from Chrysler and contracted with Ghia to build the Dual-Ghia. Between 1956 and 1958, Ghia made 117 of them at a hefty price of $7646 (about $88,000 today). As writer Richard Dredge noted, “the V-8-powered Ghia soon became the luxury car of choice for the wealthiest film stars, with Frank Sinatra and Ronald Reagan each buying one of these drop-tops.”

What came of the Firearrow IV show car is a tale all its own. Following its U.S. press tour, the car was apparently sold to a dealer in Venezuela and on to a private owner in late 1954. A decade later it found itself on a used car lot in Caracas, after which it appeared for sale in the pages of the December 1964 issue of Motor Trend. It vanished for a bit after that, resurfacing in the 1980s at a hacienda about 90 miles outside of Caracas. The images below show it in that era finished in silver with a tan convertible top, along with years of dust and from being stored—complete—in a barn. Once rediscovered, Firearrow IV received a comprehensive restoration in the early ’90s that brought back its original Regimental Red paint scheme and diamond-patterned interior. From there it bounced around between several noted collectors, got another round of extensive mechanical restoration, and won the Chairman’s Award in Memory of David L. George II at the St. Michaels Concours d’Elegance in September of 2021.

Broad Arrow estimates that Firearrow IV will sell for $1.5–$2M. For context, Hagerty senior auction editor Andrew Newton points out: “Back in 2007, Barrett-Jackson sold Firearrow IV as a package with Firearrow II for $1.1M. Firearrow III sold in Monterey in 2011 for $852,500, and Firearrow II sold again in Monterey in 2021 for $1,050,000.”

This is a one-of-a-kind car, with the flash and panache of a chromed 1950s concept but the utility and drivability of a real car from the era. For a passionate fan of Italian coachbuilding, post-war American optimism and automotive leadership, or Chrysler design in particular, the Firearrow IV is an utter dream machine. Seven decades after it first appeared, it promises to inspire considerable admiration when it drives up on the stage at The Amelia this weekend.

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Twin brothers James and John Kryta, 54, and of Romeo, Michigan, are professional car enthusiasts. They own over 40 collector cars, and their livelihood is derived from a popular restoration support business. Their extracurricular activity of choice, oftentimes, is to invest endless hours polishing their rides for the show circuit. Their latest concoction, for the 2024 Detroit Autorama is a prototype 32-valve Oldsmobile V-8 engine that they rebuilt with extremely rare vintage parts and dropped into a yellow 1970 4-4-2. Oldsmobile called this engine the W-43, but the Kryta brothers call it “The Killer.”

Even though they’re identical twins, according to James they do have a few differences. “Yes, we shared a womb and a room. But during our teen years, when we both became hands-on car enthusiasts, our father wisely informed us we’d never earn much of a living with grease under our fingernails. So, I obtained an aircraft powertrain mechanic’s degree at the Pittsburgh Institute of Aeronautics, and John studied architecture and engineering at the University of Detroit.

“My father’s advice was dead nuts. When I was 16, I bought my first car, a ‘71 Olds 4-4-2 W-30, for $2200. A few years later, my second car purchased after I had begun working cost more than ten times that amount.”

Following graduation, James was employed by aviation services company DynAir at various U.S. locations. “One day, while inspecting an extensively damaged aircraft wing,” he recalls, “I noticed it was packed full of fluid lines. When my boss offered me the chance to learn how to fabricate those lines, I wasted no time saying ‘Yes, sir!’”

The knowledge he subsequently gained moved James to create the restoration business Inline Tube in 1995. Brother John joined the enterprise a year later. What began in a two-car garage grew into four buildings staffed with 50 employees shipping a thousand packages per day. Inline Tube currently offers the restoration hobby’s finest brake and fuel lines, hoses, cables, fittings, fasteners, and attachment clips galore.

Much of the sparkle that Detroit Autoama attendees witness is attributable to Inline Tube’s products and the cars the Kryta brothers frequently enter. It’s not unusual to see John’s Pontiac GTO competing against James’ Oldsmobile in the hard-fought Restored class. This year, the year of The Killer, is an exception.

With John’s current project in the paint shop, it was James’ job to bring home this year’s bacon. His Olds had a humble beginning: It was parked outside for years in Indiana, the engine was gone, and it took five years to refurbish. That said, its most remarkable attribute is what now lies beneath the twin-scooped hood.

“Twenty years ago, while shopping RacingJunk.com,” John explains, “I stumbled across a listing for some prototype Oldsmobile engine equipment. While I’d never heard of the 455-cubic-inch, 32-valve W-43 V-8, I was intrigued to say the least. The asking price for this gear was $10,000; naysayers called it a boat anchor and insisted it would never run. Nonetheless, we grabbed that prize for $5000 and what we dubbed ‘The Killer V-8′ will be showcased in James’ 1970 Olds 4-4-2 coupe at this year’s Detroit Autorama.”

The plot thickens. “In the early 1970s,” John says, “shortly after the W-43 lost all hope of entering production, several Olds engineers and PR personnel flew out to California to tout their project for Petersen Publishing Company editors at Car Craft, Hot Rod, and Motor Trend magazines. At that time, this wasn’t a complete running engine but rather a hollow shell suitable for photography and a collection of internal parts highlighting the W-43’s attributes.” (Read our technical breakdown of the Oldsmobile W-43 V-8 here.)

“The trip to California was to gain publicity, after the engineering project had been terminated by GM’s upper management. Given that, the Olds folks asked the writers to chuck these engine parts in a dumpster after their stories were completed. Lucky for us, that request was ignored. These priceless W-43 components went home with someone from Petersen in 1971, only to resurface decades later.

“Cajoling the vintage parts into a running engine was no small feat. The first problem was a parts shortage. One cylinder head was missing, so we had to reverse engineer it and a few other components. Extensive machining was required. All told, 20 people got involved, including one ex-Oldsmobile engineer who requested anonymity. Scott Tiemann, the CEO of Supercar Specialties in Portland, Michigan, quite capably handled final assembly.”

So, what kind of power does this 32-valve V-8 produce? “We were prudent during testing to avoid blowing up our irreplaceable parts. Imposing a modest redline, we measured 560 hp at 6000 rpm and 540 lb-ft of torque at 3600 rpm,” James Kryta notes. “But eliminating the significant restrictions by adding multiple carbs and efficient exhaust headers would easily have improved those figures.”

To inspect the W-43 engine and James’ yellow 1970 4-4-2, we visited a clandestine detailing shop located 50 miles north of GM’s long-gone Lansing assembly plant where this Olds was built. The facility’s proud owner began the tour with an inspection of the car’s sparkling underside. At the rear, there’s an interesting final drive consisting of an aluminum W-27 center section creatively welded to steel axle housings. The driveshaft has twin paint stripes replicating marks that would have been applied by the factory during its spin-balancing operation. Like W-30 4-4-2s of the day, the transmission is a Muncie aluminum-cased four-speed stick. I was amazed at how many undercar parts left the factory without a hint of paint or rust protection, but James insisted this was standard practice back in the day.

This 4-4-2’s scooped hood combines a fiberglass outer element married to a stamped-steel liner ramming cold air to a 750-cfm Rochester Quadrajet. The broad silver-and-blue valve covers pierced by spark plugs will surely attract drooling admirers at Autorama, along with the bright red fender liners. The W-43 emissions sticker, created by James, is another fastidious touch. When asked how or from where he found a perfect vintage battery, he reported, “I made those filler plugs with my 3D printer. In addition, I attend lots of shows to buy up new-old-stock parts for our cars.”

My hour-long inspection revealed that this factory experimental Olds 4-4-2 W-43 is perfect down to the tiniest detail. I will be on hand at Detroit’s Huntington Place, formerly Cobo Hall, to applaud what I suspect will be its victory.

***

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As the 65-year-old British car glided, powerless, to a halt on a leafy side street in New England, all my codriver Tom said was, “I didn’t expect it to happen this soon.” We had covered just 18 miles.

An hour earlier, we had left the Larz Anderson Auto Museum in Brookline, Massachusetts. We were on our way to tick off 13 checkpoints in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine—or as many as we could reach on our first day of driving.

But it was barely 9:30 am on Day 1. We had just filled the eight-gallon gas tank of my 1958 Riley One-Point-Five, anticipating a long day of driving. I had pulled out of the gas station, and the car just died. I had coasted into a handy suburban side street, pulled to the curb, popped the hood release, and opened the trunk.

Out came the toolkit—wedged into place with a fleece Hello Kitty blanket. Tom, whose role was riding mechanic as well as codriver, went to work. The battery had charge, the under-hood button turned over the engine, but there were no dash lights at all. So, no ignition.

Hmmmmm.

Tom wriggled under the steering wheel and looked behind the wooden dash. Eureka! “Small flat-blade screwdriver,” he yelled. I handed it to him, and we were back in business 30 seconds later. After 65 years, the wires had just fallen off the back of the ignition switch. Screwed back into their contacts, the car fired right up, and we were back on the road.

First disaster averted—and we didn’t even have to break out the crucial King Dick wrenches (Whitworth, naturally). We only had 1100 miles left to cover. In three days.

Ubiquitous Lemons

Sooner or later, every car nut runs into a Lemons event or sees the photos. Maybe it’s the 24 Hours of LeMons endurance race, aka “crap-can racing,” for cars that cost $500 or less. Two years ago, I stumbled across their Lemons Rally series. Each rally is a three-day weekend event for weird-car drivers to cover hundreds of miles a day through a series of local sites and checkpoints.

As I familiarized myself with the points system, an idea took shape. The Lemons folks deduct points for Japanese cars (reliable) and give points to British and Italian cars (unreliable). The older the car is, the more points it earns.

I had a 65-year-old Riley One-Point-Five I’d bought in college, in 1980, out of a parking lot at the late, lamented Palo Alto All British Car Meet. It lived in California for two decades, served as my daily driver in San Francisco in the 1980s, then came east to join me in the early 2000s. Embarrassingly, it hadn’t done even 1000 miles since then.

What’s a Riley One-Point-Five, you ask? It’s a small sporting sedan from the long-defunct Riley marque, one of the sprawling stable of British Motor Corporation brands (along with MG, Morris, Austin-Healey, and others). Developed in the mid-’50s, the One-Point-Five blended underpinnings from the Morris Minor with a powerful 62-horsepower twin-carb MGA 1489cc engine. The spiffy sedan body retained an upright grille, traditional leather seats, even a wooden dash. When they were new, One-Point-Fives ran the Monte Carlo Rally; today, they still compete in U.K. vintage races.

Hidden Assets

My car was a bit of a mongrel when I got it. Over the years, its replacement MGB 1789-cc engine (with half again as much power, at 98 hp) gained a Datsun 280ZX five-speed gearbox for longer-legged cruising. It has MG Midget front disc brakes and a stronger Datsun 210 rear end, geared for up to 75 mph on highways—in a car less than 13 feet long, which is most often hailed by the public as “cuuute!”

If I could find a team and enter with a British car from the 1950s, we would get hundreds of points just by showing up. That sounded promising. Tom lives in New Hampshire, I live in New York. Our Massachusetts friend Scott would round out the team of Tempting Fate Tours the next day in his grubby but mechanically solid 1969 MGB roadster. (We met Scott, aka TheStylusGuy, through our various Isuzus … but that’s a different story.)

Driving onto the dewy lawn, we scanned the competitors. There was a RHD Mazda Bongo minivan, a JDM import whose occupants loaned tools and gave obscure Japanese candies to anyone who wanted them. A giant, lifted, diesel Ram “bro truck” was unexpected, but so was a surface-rusted ’59 Edsel (“the Dreadsel”). The Big Farmer team of veteran Lemons Ralliers flew in from around the country: They had bought a hugely rusty 1984 Volvo 240 wagon—sight unseen—out of a field, got it running in one day, and entered it. Inevitably, there was a Blues Brothers ex-cop car. Our favorite British compatriot may have been the 1988 Ford “LTD Queen Victoria,” with a Union flag on the roof (made with painter’s tape); it blared “Rule Britannia” on entering every checkpoint.

The Riley wasn’t the oldest car; a gleaming black ’56 Ford sedan, mildly hot-rodded, took that honor. But its New Jersey owners trailered it away at the end, whereas we drove home. Sniff.

Find Checkpoint, Shoot, Post, Repeat

To prove a team had reached a checkpoint, someone had to photograph the car and/or driver at the requisite building, bridge, sign, or store—then post the pic to Instagram with the proper hashtags. Tom and I each got good at jumping out, snapping the pic, and posting it as we roared off to the next destination. Simple and effective.

To be honest, after the first five, the checkpoints all started to blur together. We crossed from Massachusetts into New Hampshire, then into Maine proper, complete with signs saying, “Brake for Moose, It Could Save Your Life.” Okay, then. The amount of Insta posts grew, and after 100 miles or so, we started to relax. At every gas stop, we followed the mantra of those who drive British cars: “Refill oil, check petrol.” Castrol, in bright green cans, was our friend.

We landed at the Cole Land Transportation Museum in Bangor, Maine, just at sunset. (Note to outsiders: It’s pronounced “banger.”) After a tour, we headed for the hotel just as an exhausted Scott arrived after six-plus hours of 4000-rpm driving in a 54-year-old open-top car without overdrive. We shared a quick dinner and a few microbrews, and fell into our beds.

Day 2 was a long and twisting loop that took us from Stephen King’s house to the easternmost point of the United States (Lubec, Maine), past Big Jim the Fisherman to the Million Dollar View Scenic Outlook, and a host of others. We didn’t hit them all—especially those billed as “Ill-Advised” and “REALLY Ill-Advised” checkpoints—but we did enough to feel respectable. Props to Bangor’s Sea Dog Brewing Company for accommodating not only every single weird vehicle but also the raucous crowd speaking fluent Car-Nerd Esoterica.

On Day 3, we started earlier, at 7 a.m.—add oil, check gas—and hit the list harder, knocking off 14 separate checkpoints. Among them were Maine’s State Prison Showroom (Thomaston), the Fat Boy Diner (Brunswick), the Way Way Store (Saco), the Maine Classic Car Museum (Arundel), and Warren’s Lobster House (Kittery). My personal favorite was a fabulous Mid-Century Modern Ford dealership from 1963 in Portland (now a mini-storage site).

At the end of the list, we headed back into Massachusetts to the Paper House (Rockport) and our final destination: the Cape Ann Lanes and Laneside Brewery in Gloucester for the closing party and ceremony. The reunion was raucous, relieved, and involved beer, burgers, bowling, bad language, and lots of heckling. It also included awards.

That’s where we learned our evil plan had actually worked. Jeff Stobbs, the majordomo and organizer along with Eric Rood, put it like this: “Our next one is Organizer’s Choice. They bring a car that shouldn’t perform well in a rally whatsoever. It’s generally too small, it’s generally British, because I like British cars—and they also convinced their friend to like little British cars, so for Organizer’s Choice, it’s Tempting Fate Tours in the 1958 Riley!”

We’d like to thank the Academy … and especially all the little people out there whose cars now sport a fine film of oil from the back of the Riley. Which ran fine, with regular infusions of Castrol.

Fun, Fun, Fun

Tom made it home to New Hampshire in the Riley in an hour or so; Scott took three hours to cover the 130 miles to his home in western Massachusetts, in pouring rain; I was the last to collapse into bed, because I had another two hours to go after that (but in a modern car, so hey).

All next day we texted nonstop about the event, what we’d seen, the people we’d met (all friendly, mostly bonkers), and what fun it had all been.

To our shock, we now seem to be planning for this year’s rally. Our little gang may have a few new tricks up its greasy British-car sleeves. (Stay tuned on that front …) All the checkpoint photos are on the Tempting Fate Tours Instagram, and if you want to see the video version of Fall Fail-iage, watch for new episodes of Tempting Fate Tours on YouTube.

Meanwhile, make a point to drive to your local cars and caffeine event. Or organize a handful of old-car friends and plan a drive (we suggest two hours, you take it from there) on interesting local roads. You’ll find yourself stopping to take photos and BS about the driving along the way. Then you can check out this year’s Lemons Rally schedule.

The point of having old cars is to drive them—and we all know too many people who don’t do it. Not everyone has to do 1100 miles in a 65-year-old car, but with suitable maintenance and a dash of the best British luck … you could.

TL/DR: Drive the damn car! If we did it, you can too.

***

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The 2024 Grand National Roadster Show paid homage to the wild and creative world of Pro Street, with nearly an entire building dedicated to that style of hot rod.

If you aren’t already familiar with them, Pro Street cars bring the loud, big-tire look of Pro Stock drag racing to the street with massive wheel tubs, wide, tall rubber, and rowdy engines that are often supercharged. Born in the ’70s and reaching its zenith in the ’80s, Pro Street included both street-driven muscle cars that looked like they had just left the dragstrip and fairground-cruising show cars that were detailed and polished to a nearly absurd degree.

The arms race of these show-oriented Pro Street cars was apparent in the dozens of builds on display, a gathering that included some of the most famous examples of the breed.

Pro Street royalty Rick Dobbertin had two of his most famous builds featured prominently. His nitrous-burning, twin-turbocharged, supercharged Chevy II is an engineering and creative marvel in its own right. Built in 1982, the Chevy made a huge impact in the hot-rodding world. Twin draw-through carburetors, one per turbocharger, feed the Roots blower by way of a dummy injector hat. Those throttle butterflies are a ruse.

Four years later, in 1986, Dobbertin’s Pontiac J2000 blew every other Pro Street car out of the water. Often described as the pinnacle of Pro Street, the turbocharged and supercharged car features a tilting body over a tube chassis, and its rear tires are so wide that there was no room left for a real suspension. (Dobbertin mounted a set of valve springs atop the rear axle in case anyone went looking for one.) Wholly impractical, this J2000 is more art than machine—and people love it. The Pontiac drew a crowd all weekend, with many fans of the car remembering how it wowed them when Dobbertin unveiled it almost 40 years ago.

Another famous Pro Street build at the 2024 Grand National Roadster Show was the 1987 Chevy Celebrity Eurosport of Mark Grims. The formerly FWD two-door is now decidedly RWD, with a triple-supercharged big-block V-8 stuffed partially under the hood.

If you grew up attending car shows anywhere in America in the ’80s or were a fervent reader of car magazines of that era, these cars will be a major blast from the past. They don’t appeal only on grounds of nostalgia, either: Kids of all ages were ogling the intricate mechanicals and highly polished finishes of these Pro Street machines all weekend.

Today it seems that the most popular type of street-legal drag car is the kind built for drag-and-drive events, but there’s always a place for an over-the-top Pro Street build. Choose your favorite from the gallery below!

***

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Tiny McPherson College in central Kansas, with its 850 students and 27-acre campus, may never go to the Rose Bowl or get a team into the NCAA Final Four. But it has achieved milestones that no other institution of higher learning can boast: It has put a car on the lawn at Pebble Beach, and it has taken a class award there. For the eager young minds enrolled in the school’s Automotive Restoration Technology program, there is no better trophy to stick in the case. Or, indeed, no better line to put on a résumé.

Among the cars entered in the Postwar Luxury class at the 72nd Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance this past August was an obsidian-black 1953 Mercedes 300S Cabriolet. It represented the culmination of a 10-year plan by McPherson’s staff and students to enter a student-restored car into the world’s most prestigious concours. The plan was audacious in its conception and unique among plans in that, except for the unplanned class award, it went exactly according to the plan.

“Back in 2013, we did a strategic planning retreat and set a goal of being at Pebble Beach in 10 years,” said Amanda Gutierrez, McPherson provost and vice president, of the auto restoration program. It enrolls about 150 students in a four-year undergraduate degree program that instructs pupils on everything from chrome plating to torquing connecting rods to automotive history, valuation, business accounting, and project management. Alumni go on to jobs in top restoration shops, in museum curation, at auction houses, and as managers of private collections. (Hagerty editor Kyle Smith is a McPherson graduate.)

The next step was to find the right car, one to “challenge the students but not break them,” said Gutierrez. That meant no French art deco bolides with electronic preselector gearboxes and hide-away sliding roofs, but a car elegant and distinguished enough to qualify for Pebble as well as eligible for one of the event’s classes. That narrowed the list of potential candidates. One of the program’s longtime advisors, Massachusetts-based restorer and Pebble Beach regular Paul Russell, suggested the relatively straightforward Mercedes 300S as a good candidate.

“It was Mercedes’ first clean-slate design after the war and their statement that they were back,” said Brian Martin, McPherson’s director of automotive restoration projects. The imposing 300S sold new for $14,000 in 1953 and, like most other cars eligible for Pebble Beach, is now mostly the province of wealthy collectors. “We were attempting to do Pebble Beach on a ramen budget, but we couldn’t wait for someone to donate a car,” Martin said.

A three-year search culminated in a 35,000-mile candidate that was complete and came with spare parts and a spare engine, but it needed a thorough overhaul. The sellers, Richard and Mary Hopeman of Pennsylvania, were attracted to the idea of a student project and offered a good price, and a donor stepped in to cover the purchase as well as provide seed money for the project.

The car appeared in unrestored condition at a McPherson event at Pebble Beach in 2016. “It presented much better than it was,” quipped Matt Kroeker, a 2023 McPherson grad from Longmont, Colorado. He was a freshman in high school when the project started and completely unaware that a 70-year-old Mercedes would come to dominate his young life and launch his career. He heard about McPherson from a Fox News item, and when he arrived at the school in 2019, the car was in bare metal and bits were scattered all over the school’s workshops.

As is the case with the restoration of any special, limited-production car, there were problems. It took three years to find a replacement windshield. There was trim that didn’t fit, U-joints that unexpectedly failed, electric windows that wouldn’t wind, and sheet metal perforated by rust and damaged in long-ago accidents. The school deemed it important to pay the students for their work, so it was treated as an extra-curricular internship rather than as classwork.

Once the restoration was completed, there was the monumental task of getting the car accepted to Pebble Beach. The selection committee is notoriously finicky as it winnows down hundreds of applications to a field of around 220 cars. Only six spots were allocated to the Postwar Luxury class. “We were told there was no preferential treatment,” said student Jeremy Porter, who is due to graduate in 2024. “We were on pins and needles like everyone else waiting for the word. We kinda bet the house on it.”

The bet paid off, and the Mercedes was driven by students onto the lawn at dawn last August 20 among a fleet of peers ranging from priceless Figoni-bodied Delahayes to Murphy-bodied Duesenbergs to short-wheelbase Ferrari 250 Berlinettas. There were two other Mercedes 300s in McPherson’s class, as well as a one-of-two 1953 Ghia-bodied Cadillac and a one-off 1955 Chrysler Imperial convertible built for the then-president of Chrysler. When the judges in their straw hats and blue blazers came to poke and prod the Benz, students showed them the car as an unusually large crowd looked on, at least some of it composed of 120 parents as proud as any you would find at a big-time college football game.

At Pebble Beach, all cars are awarded 100 points and the judges deduct from that for mechanical issues, restoration errors, or preparation oversights. The sweat and effort of all the students were good enough to win the Mercedes a second-in-class, which did not make it eligible for Best of Show—only class winners have a shot at that—but is nonetheless a high honor for which many aspiring Pebble Beach entrants have liquidated much greater fortunes without success.

Nobody at Pebble beat the McPherson team on enthusiasm and spirit, which thankfully still counts for something even in an event as fueled by money as the Concours d’Elegance. Speaking of which, the school, which launched its automotive tech program in 1976 but ramped it up considerably with the help of Jay Leno in 1997, recently announced that it has raised a startling $1.5 billion in endowments. Ideas being floated are a second campus and an engineering program.

The Mercedes will be a gift that keeps on giving for those who worked on it. Some 200 students contributed to the restoration over seven years, 40 or so at any one time. The car was challenging enough, even with help from school advisors and the Mercedes-Benz Classic Center, and the students learned skills that will serve them well after graduation. Indeed, several said they were being recruited by shops even before they had graduated.

***

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The 2023 National Hot Rod Association season was a good one for Pro Stock racer Matt Hartford—he won three events, including the prestigious U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis—and he’s looking forward to the 2024 NHRA season, which starts March 7-10 with the Gatornationals at Gainesville Raceway in Florida.

But first, there’s money to be won.

Hartford is one of dozens of drag racers who will be competing at the first-ever Skag Power Equipment PRO Superstar Shootout at Bradenton Motorsports Park, south of Tampa. It’s a big-money invitational sanctioned not by the NHRA, but by PRO, the Professional Racers Organization, which represents most of the professional racers and teams in big-league drag racing.

The PRO Shootout will be the richest event in drag racing history, one reason it’s attracting racers like Hartford. “Obviously, we are looking forward to a race where the payout is almost as much as winning an NHRA season championship,” he said. The Pro Stock winner will pocket $125,000, and the winners of the Top Fuel and Funny Car competition will get $250,000 each. Total payout is a sobering $1.3 million.

Money aside, “Everybody wants to win the first one no matter what the series is, but it would be something you look back on in 20 years and say, ‘That was pretty cool,’” said Hartford.

The event will begin with one qualifying session on Thursday night, February 8, followed by three sessions on Friday. Then, the eight qualified drivers in Top Fuel and Funny Car and the 16 qualified drivers in Pro Stock will draw chips to set the pairings for Saturday eliminations.

With Super Bowl LVIII airing on Sunday, February 11, race organizers Wes Buck, founder and editorial director of Drag Illustrated, and Alan Johnson, president of PRO and crew chief for Top Fuel champion Doug Kalitta, wanted to make sure the PRO Shootout didn’t go up against the biggest sporting event in America.

When Buck and Johnson announced the PRO Shootout six months ago, they said the purse would be $1.3 million, but no major sponsors had been signed. Fortunately for them, that’s changed, but you have to give them credit for guts.

“This is an inaugural event so there are bound to be some hiccups, but we felt we had to lead with conviction and put our money where our mouth is,” Buck said. “We knew we had to call our shot on day one, and here we are, $1.3 million later.”

Compared to some other pro motorsports, prize money in drag racing often hasn’t kept pace, Buck said. “We’re talking about changing the economy in drag racing. Our sport has the expense associated with running these cars, specifically Top Fuel and Funny Car, and the math has never made sense, but it’s trending in the wrong direction.

“A lot of these racers don’t expect their race operations to make tons of money, but it needs to be self-sustaining. And in the environment that exists currently, there really isn’t a pathway for drag racers to win enough money and even break even. So it causes a lot of these race teams to be 100 percent beholden to sponsors, with no security—it’s a tough environment to operate in.”

If this sounds as though Buck is criticizing the NHRA, he really isn’t. In fact, he says he’s done all he can not to represent the PRO Shootout as a shot across the bow of the NHRA. “There’s a lot of us versus them, NHRA versus PRO, and that’s never been our agenda. We certainly understand that people are competitive, and it’s easy to get your feathers ruffled, but we really feel that this is complementary to a great time in the sport of drag racing, and I think it’s going to send everybody off into the season with excitement and momentum and enthusiasm for our sport and what we do.

“We’re running well in advance of the NHRA season opener because we didn’t want any decisions to have to be made by fans or vendors—I think we’ve done as good of a job as we can to work with the NHRA and have this event be something inclusive.”

Besides Top Fuel, Funny Car and Pro Stock, the PRO Shootout will also run three Sportsman classes—Stock Eliminator, Super Stock Eliminator and Top Sportsman Eliminator. Pay-per-view streaming will be provided by FloRacing.com.

“We’re about to have ourselves a hell of a drag race,” Buck said.

For more information, log onto Superstarshootout.com.

***

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Sick Week 2024 kicks off on January 28 at Orlando Speed World. This year, instead of ushering in the new year with Florida sun and burnt rubber, I’m holed up in my Michigan home surrounded by snow. Rather than shed a tear (it would likely freeze), let’s go back to 2023 and relive the event through my camera. If you’re anywhere near this year’s southern soiree, I suggest you go. Now, if you will excuse me, I’m going to search last-minute flights to Orlando. —CN

Throw the Baja 1000 and the NHRA season in a blender, and you get Sick Week. During a five-day rally, drag racers in everything from decommissioned Crown Vics to hot-rod Firebirds cover over 1000 miles of public roads, visiting four different drag strips and making multiple runs to net the quickest time. The top cars here lay down quarter-miles in the realm of an NHRA Pro Stocker—under 7 seconds, at speeds exceeding 200 mph. Yet the real goal for the hundreds who compete is simply to finish.

“It’s super grueling,” says Hagerty contributor Tony Angelo, who participated in the 2023 event in a 10-second Firebird. “There’s limited sleep, and tons of parts break. But when you finish, it’s the greatest feeling of accomplishment ever.”

I caught the Sick Week bug last winter during its stop in Bradenton, Florida.

How Sick Week Works: Road to Strip to Road

Aside from burnouts, the most common sight during Sick Week is pant legs wriggling under cars, usually accompanied by shouted profanities. Roadside repairs are the rule, not the exception.

Teams are capped at two people, and the use of a support vehicle is strictly prohibited. Some racers tow spare parts, drag slicks, and other road-trip necessities in a single-axle trailer behind their ride. No trailer queens here.

Each morning, the group departs from a hotel for a nearby strip. At the racetrack, racers might swap tires, tune carburetors, or even change supercharger blower pulleys to prep their street-legal cars for the drag strip. Once each driver makes a pass (or multiple passes if they want to improve on their time), they pack up, convert the car back to street mode, and point their hood scoops toward the next town.

What You’ll See at Sick Week: Beasts of All Kinds

A common complaint about drag racing (and just about every professional racing series nowadays) is that the cars are too much alike. That’s not a problem at Sick Week, where you can see everything from a Volvo wagon to late-model trucks alongside the standard muscle car fare. They compete in more than a dozen classes. Many of the vehicles are seriously quick—a stock Porsche 911 Turbo S would run mid-pack—but all are welcome. A 1997 Jeep Wrangler competing in the stick-shift class ran a 19-second time.

How Sick Week Started … and How It’s Going

Sick Week is in only its third year, but the 350 entry spots sold out in all of two minutes. Sick Week’s founder, Tom Bailey—a celebrity in the drag-and-drive niche—is a four-time champion of Hot Rod’s Drag Week. His street-legal 4000-hp 1969 Camaro, capable of 5-second passes, unofficially holds the title as “the fastest street car in America.”

It was at Drag Week in 2021 that Bailey and a group of friends began discussing what they would do differently if they had their own event.

“At the top of our hit list was good track prep,” says Bailey. “Put us on great tracks where people can run their best times.” Bailey, a Michigan native, had spent his summers testing in Florida and discovered several quality strips within a day’s drive of one another. “I thought: ‘Why hasn’t anyone done this?’”

Bailey and his posse rushed to assemble the first Sick Week in 2022. It was an instant hit. “I remember arriving late to a track one day and seeing the cars lined up for miles,” says Bailey. “It was packed on a Thursday morning in February.”

What’s Sick Week Like? Hurry up and wait

“It’s hard to go fast. It’s even harder to make every stop,” says Angelo, the Firebird driver. This is a sentiment shared by all, as getting the drag car to the track is half the battle—Florida traffic is enough to force the coolant out of any radiator. You can only relax once you’re in the staging lanes. While they wait for their pass, some weary competitors sleep in the seat, on the ground, or on a hood.

You Don’t Have to Race: Join the Sick Ward

Of course, the real draw, at the end of the day, is the raw power of drag racing. Sick Week brings in so many spectators that Bailey created the “Sick Ward” for people who just wanted to cruise with the group and enjoy the camaraderie rather than race. Members of the Ward, as well as local drag nuts, pack the stands at every Florida and Georgia stop—pretty amazing for a weekday event.

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After nine annual events, Luftgekühlt (Luft)—that’s Porsche speak for air-cooled engines—has become a major auto show in California. But it excludes a lot of Porsche owners, because the air-cooled era ended 26 years ago, with the Porsche 993 model.

So what about an event that includes all Porsches? It’s about to happen, and it’s called AirWater.

“Luft has been around for a decade and focuses on air-cooled Porsches up to 1998, and the history of the legends and the cars they drove, both on the street and on the track,” said Patrick Long, former factory Porsche racer and two-time class winner at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. “It’s grown into a pretty big event with people from 22 countries and 48 states in attendance.” Luft is centered around a tightly curated list of historically significant or interesting cars, both race and street.

Long, one of the creators of Luft, was looking to grow the concept. “We quickly noted that there was a desire from attendees to expand this to some of the newer water-cooled cars, as well as the entirety of the model line. What we found is that there is an audience out there who might be newer to the brand than the existing Porschefiles. We’re looking to really expand this format and this show into its own living, breathing machine, and we have what we think is a perfect venue to create a festival atmosphere.”

Last year, after Luftgekühlt 9 took place near San Francisco, Long and his crew tried out the idea. They “soft launched” AirWater and the turnout was more than promising. In attendance was everything from the latest 911 GT3 RS to the current IMSA Porsche Penske 963 race car, as well as vintage 356s, survivor 914s, transaxle 944s, overland Cayennes, and much more.

Now, the AirWater show will become a standalone event. It will be held in Costa Mesa, California, on April 27. Luft 10 will be held later in the year; the date and venue haven’t been announced. It will continue to cater to select air-cooled Porsches as it always has.

Long says that AirWater, as the name suggests, is open to any Porsche, from brand-new models to the Porsche-built diesel tractors that were produced from 1956 to 1963. “It’s really a Porsche supershow,” Long says. While Luft changes its venue every year, AirWater will have a permanent home in Costa Mesa.

It’s a popular area for Porsche lovers. “The southern California demographic needs no introduction to the brand—Porsche is a religion around here. We’re excited to expand with our creative and production team that has been together for a decade, and introduce our second act,” Long says.

“To make an analogy, imagine that Luft is a Friday night club where some big stars come and play music acoustically in a vintage atmosphere. Now we’re looking to expand that into an outdoor festival where there’s a little bit for everybody.” Long believes AirWater “can grow into the largest single-brand automotive show anywhere.”

There’s one way AirWater is like the more exclusive Luft: Expect surprises. “We’re just getting started,” Long says. “We have a lot of exciting tricks up our sleeve.”

Tickets go on sale today at air-water.com.

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The 2024 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance is still eight months away, but competition for entry into the prestigious automobile showcase has already begun. The 73rd Concours, scheduled for August 18, 2024, is accepting applications through January 5.

Five featured categories will celebrate an expanded range of cars, from early pioneers to 1990s supercars.

Links to the online entry form have been sent to regular participants. Others with a car that they believe to be worthy of inclusion in the California concours can send a brief description and images to entries@pebblebeachconcours.net.

The five featured categories include:

Packard 125th Anniversary

Synonymous with American luxury for nearly six decades (1899–1958), Packard automobiles have won Best of Show at Pebble Beach four times—most recently in 2013, when Joseph and Margie Cassini III’s 1934 Packard 1108 Twelve Dietrich Convertible Victoria was crowned. To celebrate the 125th anniversary of Packard’s founding, Pebble is offering a special class for early Packard automobiles, ranging from the very earliest single-cylinder horseless carriages to the era of the massive Dominant Six in 1915. In addition, there will be a curated display of models in the 1930 Packard Speedster Series, which was essentially a line-up of factory hot rods based on a custom-built shortened chassis and equipped with a whole host of performance options. The Speedsters were available in five unique body styles, including the iconic boattail design.

Maserati

Italy’s Maserati brothers—Alfieri (1887–1932), Bindo (1883–1980), Carlo (1881–1910), Ettore (1894–1990), and Ernesto (1898–1975)—were all involved with automobiles from the beginning of the 20th century. After founding Maserati S.p.A. in 1914, the brothers produced their first racing car in 1926, and one of the first, driven by Alfieri, won that year’s Targa Florio. In 1948, long after the Maserati’s competition models became legendary and now under the management of the Orsi family, the automaker began building non-racing sports cars, and Maserati’s venerable GT series cars emerged.

Frua Coachwork

Pietro Frua was not just part of the golden age of creativity in Italian design and coachbuilding, his work all but defined it for many. From the rounded lines of the early 1950s to the sleek squared-off shapes of the ’60s, Frua was a master of all. His designs were sometimes a little off-putting, but they were still tasteful and inherently beautiful. Frua began his career with Farina and then built his own design studio, which, after many successful projects, he eventually sold to Ghia. Along the way, he bodied many marques, but his creations built for Maserati, which featured smooth, low-slung bodywork, are among his most celebrated.

Wedge-Shaped Concept Cars & Prototypes

A few 1950s prototypes hinted at the idea, but wedge-shaped designs really stepped into the public’s consciousness with concept cars in the three decades that followed. The trend began with the Ghia Gilda Streamline S and blossomed with the Alfa Romeo Carabo, Ferrari Modulo 512, and Lancia Stratos HF. These dramatically different cars weren’t just styling pipe dreams, either; their lines went on to influence a whole host of production models like the Lamborghini Miura and Countach, DeLorean DMC-12, Lotus Esprit, Fiat X1/9, Lancia Stratos, and Vector W2. Traces of the wedge design also appear in the Tesla Cybertruck of today.

1990s BPR & FIA GT Race Cars

The BPR Series—named for founders Jürgen Barth, Patrick Peter, and Stéphane Ratel—brought iconic supercars to the track in the mid-1990s, just as legendary sports cars like the Jaguar E-type, Ferrari 250 GT, and Shelby Cobra had gone from road to racecourse with few changes in the 1950s and ’60s. The McLaren F1, Ferrari F40, Bugatti EB110, Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR, and Porsche 911 GT1 all took part in the series, as did exotics like the Lotus Elise GT1 and Dodge Viper. These titans of performance and style competed on tracks worldwide—from Europe to Zhuhai, China, and California’s Laguna Seca. The BPR Series began in 1994 and became the FIA GT Series in 1997.

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On a crisp November morning, a conga line of men in short-sleeved Mopar shirts shuffled inside the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center near Chicago. Perhaps in their excitement to behold the mass of American horsepower on display at the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals (MCACN), the Mopar men forgot their jackets.

Now in its 14th year, MCACN offers a handpicked selection of top-tier, well, muscle cars and Corvettes. That’s to say nothing of the generous quantity of hot rods, drag racers, and restomods also on display at this enormous show.

Your author is admittedly not much of a car show guy. And I’m better versed in the JDM and drifting spheres than the golden-era muscle world. On its surface, the appeal of MCACN seemed, at first blush, elusive. The cars were tightly packed together. Velvet ropes and signboards with superlative declarations obstructed views. The overhead lights were harsh. None if that is optimal for photography.

Walking around and occasionally keying in on a few select cars of interest—that seemed the thing to do. Executing on that plan brought back to mind the many hours of Mecum auction coverage I watched as a kid. It all came back to me.

“Oh dang, there’s an AAR ‘Cuda,” I thought to myself. And another one. And another one. And another one. The tributes to the Trans Am Barracuda’s campaigned by Dan Gurney’s All American Racers are rare and valuable. Plymouth only built 2724 them, and our price guide has one in excellent condition—like the ones at the show—valued at $153,000.

The smorgasbord of high-end muscle didn’t stop at Mopars. For the Chevy guys and gals, there were plenty of Chevelles, Camaros, and of course, Corvettes. I lost count of how many perfect C2 Vettes were in attendance, many of which had a 427 badge on the stinger.  For the Ford lovers, particularly Mustang fans, there were seemingly endless lines of Mach 1s, Bosses, and Saleen Fox-bodies.

If you’re not a champion of factory-restored or original cars, there were plenty of custom creations on the convention floor at MCACN. Do you remember the Barris “T” Buggy? Well, the memorable ride by the King of Kustoms was also on display. You could take home a model of the Buggy for $15 dollars … or the car itself for an undisclosed amount.

As I took in the embarrassment of muscle-car riches, I noticed that younger people like myself are far outnumbered by an older, grayer crowd. Which makes sense: The collector car market is largely driven by nostalgia, and majority of the cars on display were from the 1960s and 1970s. But in a lucky stroke for the hobby, MCACN seems to be aware of the phenomenon; it showcased categories like “Future Generation Invitational” to draw in fresh blood.

Case in point: “I’ve been taking him here since he was this tall,” Jonathan Herrick said, first gesturing to his waist, then to his son Nathan. “Now he has a car in the show.” The 19-year-old beamed as he stood by his first car, a very clean, all-black 1999 Corvette.

The future looks bright for the continued interest in American muscle, both new and old. It’s only a matter of time before Nathan and I are shuffling into the convention center in branded, short-sleeve shirts, too excited to remember our jackets.

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Ready the cannons, ’cause this is an explosive send-off. Last weekend, Ford debuted the final iteration of its vaunted GT supercar in public for the first time. The 800-horsepower Ford GT Mk IV was a blur of red, white, and blue as it scorched around Sonoma Raceway in California’s wine county.

Billed as the “ultimate and final track-only Ford GT,” the Mk IV adds power and downforce to the Blue Oval’s mid-engine supercar formula.

For this ultimate expression of the production GT, Ford again turned to long-time partner Multimatic. The Canadian manufacturing and engineering firm provided assembly for the third-generation Ford GT, launched for the 2017 model year. In 2019, the company’s performance arm, Multimatic Motorsports, developed the Ford GT Mk II for customer track use. Just 45 examples were built.

Last December, Ford announced that production of GT road cars was coming to a halt, making the 2023 model year the supercar’s final one. To commemorate the run, Ford revealed plans for a juiced-up “long-tail” sequel to the Mark II track-only car, this time dubbed the Mark IV in reference to the final iteration of the original Ford GT40 that conquered Le Mans back in 1967. Appropriately, Ford planned to build 67 examples.

Nearly a year later, Ford yanked the silk off the GT Mk IV at Velocity Invitational, a historic motorsports gathering that attracts the finest vintage race cars to Sonoma, California. Multimatic’s ace driver, Scott Maxwell, was on hand to exhibit the Mk IV’s impressive pace on the 12-turn, 2.5-mile road course.

In addition to racing professionally for Multimatic since 1992, Maxwell served as lead development driver on the third-generation Ford GT road car, the Le Mans-winning race car, and Multimatic’s GT Mk II. “This is a much more aggressive car,” he said, motioning toward the Mk IV parked on Sonoma Raceway’s pit lane.

Maxwell has driven the low-slung supercar on most of North America’s premier tracks, from Laguna Seca to Road Atlanta. “Anybody can hop in a Mark II and drive it fast or slow and be comfortable. It’s the easiest supercar I’ve ever driven in my life. The Mark IV is more raw. It likes to go quicker because that’s when the downforce kicks in.”

 

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According to the Multimatic Motorsports team, the new GT posts lap times that rival those of the LMP2 prototype race car. Compared to the Mk II, this follow-up is approximately 400 pounds lighter and has about 40 percent more downforce. Even the car’s tub was reworked to accommodate a different roll cage.

All told, the new machine’s body and ground effects generate 2400 pounds of plant. “The aerodynamics are pretty spectacular,” said Sean Mason, motorsports manager of Multimatic’s Special Vehicle Operations department. “We could get more downforce, but we don’t want to overload the tire.” In addition to aiding stick, the new carbon-fiber bodywork gives the car a refreshing appearance.

“There’s not a hell of a lot left from the Mark II,” said Mason. “The tail lights are the same,” he added wryly.

Likely, competitors will see much of those old lamps, because this thing is fast. The twin-turbocharged 3.8-liter V-6 engine behind the driver can produce north of 800 horsepower on pump gas. The Mark IV also features Multimatic’s Adaptive Spool Valve (ASV) suspension. As the car drives around the track, the adaptive suspension’s spool valves constantly adjust the dampening based on inputs from the driver and the track surface.

Buyers aren’t expected to tame this beast entirely by themselves. Ford Performance will host driving days for customers and their new playthings, and Multimatic, including Maxwell, will be in attendance to support.

To answer the question we’re all wondering: Cost is a cool $1.7M. Though, like many limited halo machines of this nature, all 67 are sold as of this writing. That’s more than triple the cost of the standard-issue road car, which commanded a price of around $500,000.

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If you hadn’t been to the annual SEMA show in a while, you might have thought there were fewer off-road builds than in years past, but that’s only because so much of the off-road content was in the recently added West Hall at the Las Vegas Convention Center. If you didn’t know the new space existed, you’d have missed out on a whole lot of cool products and scores of impressive builds. Since we’ve already shown many of our favorite cars that featured at SEMA, it’s time to highlight some of the amazing truck, 4×4, and overland builds from the massive show.

This 1968 Jeep Wagoneer, built by CAL Auto Creations, rides on a 4×4 Roadster Shop chassis with independent front suspension and a four-link rear. It is similar to one you can buy for a classic Bronco, but it has been custom fit for this application. Power comes from a Chevrolet LT4 V-8 crate engine that is mounted to a Bowler 4L80E four-speed auto. Its body is a unique mix of Jeep sheet metal and custom trim, with an early “rhino” grille that wasn’t offered on the rare Super Wagoneer package this restomod emulates. The trim is custom, in the same vein as a Super Wagoneer, but is made from the unique aluminum pattern used in a 1958 Plymouth Fury.

Inside the Wagoneer, you could be fooled into thinking everything is just restored, as it all looks very similar to a factory Wagoneer, but it’s much more upscale. The Vintage Air controls on the driver’s side blend in seamlessly, and the dash vents, which absolutely look like they belong, take the place of ashtrays. A Dakota Digital dash keeps analog gauges with the exception of small digital displays for warning lights, a trip odometer, and other menus.

The one vehicle that had us most wanting to hit the road for an off-highway excursion was this 1962 Jeep FC 170 built by Roy Wallace. The classic lines of the FC, along with its unique packaging, manage to look great with the simple, modern flatbed and cargo box. There’s a lot of capability in a compact package, and we’d love to see this thing on the trail.

AEV showed off its Sierra Grande concept. The single-cab truck wears custom fender flares over enlarged wheel openings to fit 40-inch rubber on a factory 2500 ZR2 Bison suspension. AEV president Dave Harriton says there’s typically very little demand for single-cab trucks, but AEV builds a few of its Ram-based Prospector trucks every year as a halo vehicle. Don’t expect AEV to offer a flatbed conversion Sierra Grande any time soon, but nearly all of the parts are off-the-shelf, except for the fender flares, and those could be production-ready soon.

It’s not a truck or 4×4, but we have to mention this beautifully rugged two-wheeler. Nathan Reginato built this 1979 Honda Goldwing for long-distance adventure. The fairing is gone, and the stripped-down bike wears waxed canvas luggage from Overland Vehicle Systems. The same material was also used in trim throughout the bike.

ROKBUGY is a VW Bug with some fantastic fabrication work. It sits on a modified Jeep Wrangler Unlimited chassis, and the four-wheel-steer behemoth Beetle is powered by a GM LS V-8. For its SEMA debut, this V-dub was wearing 58-inch Mickey Thompson tires. It had a great spot in the show and drew tons of traffic. We’d have a hard time imagining a trail or obstacle that could stop this beast.

The James Baroud booth was filled with this Jeep Gladiator that sprouted its massive basecamp shelter that was the size of a studio apartment. There’s a rooftop tent penthouse and a privacy shelter for a shower or camp bathroom.

Earthroamer showed off two massive off-road RVs, one based on a Ford Super Duty, and another on a Chevy Silverado medium-duty chassis. Both offered amazing accommodations, with on-board kitchens and bathrooms with a shower.

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The 2023 SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) show delivered exactly what we expected: sensory overload. One of the aftermarket industry’s biggest shows, it’s always guaranteed to provide something for every automotive taste, no matter what kind of style you prefer. Here are 10 of our favorite customized cars, and one survivor for good measure. Of course, there were many other great rides present, so we’ll bring you more later as we expand our view to trucks and 4x4s.

Horizon Motorsports, the father/son team of Russell and Cavan Cameron, took two years to build this tube-chassis 1973 Trans Am into a head-turning time attack machine that was one of the most talked-about builds at SEMA. The elder Cameron, a former Indycar fabricator, began collecting Reynard Racing parts when the company went bankrupt in 2002, and he put plenty of them into the suspension and drivetrain. The racy machine s powered by a 400-cubic-inch LS V-8 built by Late Model Engines to rev to 9000rpm. Think of it as a destroked LS7 with racing cylinder heads and intake valves the sizes of coasters. Its engine is set back more than 20 inches, putting the entire block behind the original firewall. All you see under the hood is Indycar suspension. The six-speed, paddleshift X-trac transmission is mounted at the back of the car, right next to a pair of Garrett G35-900 turbos that provide boost to the already-powerful V-8. After an air-to-water charge cooler, the boosted air is sent up through the cabin and into the intake via rear-facing throttle bodies. Though capable of 2000 hp, Cavan projects the output will be turned down to a more manageable 1200–1300 hp for most track events, but the recently completed project will be tested and given a proper shake down before any racing happens. The project has been a way for Cavan, an engineering student, to have a practical background for all of his future education as well as to absorb some of his father’s mechanical know-how. We can’t wait to see it in action!

Jordan Henke owner of JH Restorations in Windsor, Ontario, got creative with this sleek and detailed creation. Dubbed “Merkur RS4Ti,” it’s an amalgamation of a vintage Ford Sierra and a modern 2.3-liter EcoBoost four-cylinder that provides about 450 hp. The Sierra RS Cosworth was a road race champion and this modern take, with its custom bodywork and fascia, tastefully updates the rare and rowdy compact.

“Tusk,” the latest build from Ringbrothers, is a 1969 Charger powered by a 1000-hp Hellephant crate engine. The supercharged Gen III 426 Hemi is harnessed by a Bowler T-56 Magnum transmission. As with every Ringrothers build, there are several modifications to the body, some obvious, some subtle. The grille, done in carbon fiber and billet, looks every bit like that of a Charger, although it’s more refined. The most obvious modifications come on the car’s flank, where the doors’ twin inset simulated vents were removed for a more elegant and clean look. Instead, actual vents were installed on the fenders. These functional vents help get some of the heat out of the engine bay.

EBC Brakes hosted the Petrolheadonism 1973 Corolla KE25. The compact coupe looked stunning in black pearl and wearing three-spoke, three-piece 6AD Forged wheels. It’s powered by a wonderfully detailed Toyota 4A-GE four-cylinder.

The “Illicit” Camaro, built by Jesus Lopez and the crew at Lopez Performance, debuted in the Aeromotive booth and highlighted the company’s many brands, including Taylor Cable and JBA Performance Exhaust. The bronze metallic paint highlights the subtle body mods, while a supercharged LS V-8 provides ample power. Inside, stunning upholstery by Gabe’s Street Rod Custom Interiors (owned by Jesus’ father, Gabriel Lopez Sr.) is just as exquisite as the bodywork.

“Bleu Bayou,” a gorgeous 1969 Mustang built by Goolsby Customs, debuted in the BASF booth, which is appropriate, as its paint was immaculate. We heard an onlooker describe the color as “amethyst” and that seems apt, as the blue base appears to have a pearl with hints of violet in the right light. Underneath the flawless body is a Roadster Shop chassis that helps put the supercharged Coyote V-8’s 650-plus horsepower to the pavement.

This stunning red 1968 Mustang, “Rampant,” built by East Bay Muscle Cars, took home the Glasurit People’s Choice Award, and the flawless paint and bodywork certainly deserved it. We also love the interior, with its contrasting white upholstery. The Mustang rides on a Roadster Shop Fast Track chassis with independent rear suspension, and it has a number of interesting custom touches, like the sculpted inserts on the fascia and intricate taillight lenses.

Anthony Collard is a designer at Ford and has designed some late-model performance Mustang variants, but that didn’t stop him from choosing a Mopar pony car for his track toy. His 1968 Barracuda is a fantastic blend of attainable performance, modern suspension, and classic lines that grabbed our attention. The rear suspension uses pushrods and bellcranks to work on the cabin-mounted coilovers, keeping them within easy reach for adjustment. The powerplant is an 11.5:1 318 small-block with ported heads, beautiful tri-Y fender well headers, and an Edelbrock Performer RPM intake. It is easy to work on while still providing more than enough power to keep things interesting when the lightweight fastback hits the track.

Detroit Speed and Engineering built this 1969 Pontiac GTO for Kevin Hart and unveiled it at the company’s booth in Central Hall. The car, named “Droppa” after Hart’s rapper alter ego, Chocolate Droppa, is powered by a 755-hp Chevrolet Performance LT5 crate engine mated to a Bowler T-56 six-speed transmission. The velvety chocolate color is Mercedes Mystic Brown. Inside is a caramel and nougat gold and cream interior that is ready for spirited driving thanks to some well-bolstered bucket seats.

It’s not that often you see a DeLorean on the street, but hopefully, that’s going to change, as the DeLorean GTO, a more powerful restomod of the instantly recognizable stainless steel gullwing is now available. This new take on the DeLorean uses a supercharged version of the original 2.8-liter V-6 that is good for 350 horsepower, thanks to not only the Magnuson supercharger but to ported heads and new cams. Ride and handling are improved with an active suspension that uses revised geometry. Drivers can take advantage of the new capability with powerful Wilwood brakes and grippy Michelin Pilot Sport 5 tires. Despite the host of modern improvements, the looks of the car remain, which is just the way we like it.

Here’s one bonus car. Krebs Industries, makers of vehicle lifts, imported this Chevy Opala from Brazil and showed it off in its booth. The inline-six-powered coupes, based on the Opel Rekord C, were the muscle cars of the Brazilian market. This 1977 model is a survivor and isn’t perfect, but the fact that it’s such a rare sight made it one of the more memorable cars at SEMA 2023.

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Translation software often goofs when asked to turn Japanese into English. For instance, a label warning that a product is not safe for kids becomes “Do Not Eat Children.” Some things just don’t compute across the Pacific divide. Just thinking about how to concisely explain Japanese Kaido racers makes my brain hurt.

“People’s usual reaction is just to think it’s crazy,” says Keith Measures, “Just completely crazy. But it goes deeper than that.”

This past July, Measures and his friend Reid Olliffe, known simply by Rudeboy, hosted their second annual Summer Touring event for kaido racers in Vancouver, Canada. I’ll attempt a basic definition in a moment, but as a primer, I suggest drinking in the joyous madness of these ultra-low, ultra-wide, ultra-impractically-modified machines in the images below. Soak up the fat wheels, stretched tires, and exhaust pipes sized like Paul Bunyan’s chopsticks. The front splitter on Measures’ own Nissan looks like it was made to flip giant pancakes.

Piece of advice: Whatever you do, don’t call this style “bosozuku,” or at least not in front such a crew gathered here. Bosozuku is a foreigner’s catch-all for wildly styled machinery from Japan, but it’s not accurate. (The actual bosozuku were the frequently violent motorcycle gangs that rose to prominence in the 1970s. Think Japan’s version of the Hell’s Angels, and likewise with motorcycle culture on this side of the Pacific, some of that outlaw style trickled down into motorcycle and car modification.) In Japan, “bosozuku” still carries a whiff of hitting old ladies with nunchucks. Frowned-upon behavior.

Kaido Racers often flout the law with their extreme modifications, but they’re largely regarded as harmless in the way the leather-jacketed Sons Of Dentistry ride big Harleys on the weekends without raising alarm. “Kaido” is an older Japanese term for road or street, so a Kaido Racer is literally a street racer, although not in the Fast & Furious sense. The origins come from young Japanese enthusiasts modifying their street cars to resemble the touring car racing they were watching at Fuji Speedway and the like.

As an automotive subculture, Kaido Racers can claim a half-century of evolution and history. Visit Yokohama’s Daikoku parking area on a Sunday morning and you might see some older owners, still infatuated with the passions of their youth, proud of the enormous sums poured into their builds. The closest North American relative is perhaps low-rider or Kustom culture.

Here on the west coast of Canada and America, that enthusiasm skews young. The crowd here at the staging area for the Summer Cruise in Vancouver are mostly 20- or 30-somethings—young men and a few young women in Toyotas, Nissans, and Hondas. All of their cars are slammed to the ground on wide, small-diameter wheels.

(There’s also rolling golf green car made of plywood, but more on that later.)

For the most part, kaido racer style takes its inspiration from the Super Silhouette racers of the late 1970s and early 1980s. If you’re a student of the Nissan Skyline, you might recognize the gargantuan box flares of a Super Silhouette R31 Skyline in its signature red and black Tomica livery (Hot Wheels made a scale-sized tribute a few years ago). Some of this angular aero made its way onto the hero car of Seibu Keisatsu, a hard-boiled TV police show that was Japan’s answer to Miami Vice.

There were all kinds of other racing cars in this period, most of them with the same flared bodies and relatively small-diameter wheels. Kids started cutting up their street cars and getting together for late-night cruises, and a series of meets and magazines formed around the culture. There were different flavors, from the wide Grachan cars (for Grand Champion, like the racing machines) to the the narrow-bodied and brightly colored Fukoka styled cars with their hoods jutting forward like the brow of a giant space robot.

Kaido racer enthusiasts take their passion seriously. There is a right way to build a car and a wrong way. Every detail matters, and to an outsider, what makes a great kaido racer build correct can seem obscure or even arbitrary.

For Rudeman and Measures and their merry band of co-miscreants, uncovering Japan’s fifty-odd years of kaido racer culture is part archaeology, part art history. Their research pool? Rare magazines. A handful of experts. A growing pan-Pacific network of enthusiasts who love the obscure stuff. Gathered here today are kaido racer clubs who have driven from as far away as Los Angeles—even a guy who flew in from London. (England, not Ontario.)

Along with the seriousness, there’s an atmosphere of madcap fun to the scene. Between the couple of dozen cars here are thousands of dollars of rare wheels imported from Japan (replicas = heresy), and the high dollar rolling stock contrasts with hand-formed sheetmetal fixes, rust-rotted arches, and suspension modifications. They ruin both ride and handling, yes, neither of which are the point.

“I mean, this car is a joke,” says Measures, “But those wheels are five grand!”

The aforementioned golf car, apparently hiding a Geo Metro chassis underneath, zips off down the road for a pre-cruise shakedown run. Unsecured golf balls roll off the back and go bouncing all over the street.

It is a careful chorus of strict rules, terminology, and heritage, nevertheless inflected with wacky Japanese game show mayhem. The interior of Measures’ Nissan looks like he skinned the Abominable Snowman from the 1964 Rudolf The Red Nosed Reindeer TV special. A bunch of dudes in muscle shirts pose for photos with their pink roofless Tercel; they call themselves the “Team Sexy Cowboys.” There’s a smattering of JDM vans. Tents are scattered across the lawn like a music festival. Keith gets stung by a wasp’s nest in the bumper of the Nissan. Two guys doing a rudimentary alignment discover that the two tape measures they’re using differ by over half an inch.

Everyone is having the time of their lives, apart from the now-drenched-in-brake-cleaner wasps. Building actual racing machines is far more scientific stuff, if not an art whose measurement is shaving off seconds off around a race track. Even drifting displays less humor.

The kaido racers head off down the highway into the setting sun, bouncing on their impossibly low suspensions, scraping wheels on fenders, blasting tunes, and turning the usual parade of local grey-silver-white crossover traffic into a rolling disco. Many of them are skilled photographers, capturing these fleeting moments for social media.

The fact that this is happening in British Columbia is ironic, to say the least. The province’s road rules are notoriously strict. None of these machines would pass even a cursory roadside vehicle inspection. But even when one of the crew is pulled over for driving a little over the limit, the cop just shakes his head and lets everyone go.

It’s as if the kaido racers have been blessed by a meneki-neko—one of those waving-good-luck cats you find in sushi restaurants. Many of the cars have at least a lucky black Marchal headlight brand cat aboard.

Whether you’re an Alfa-Romeo purist, a Mopar Hemi fan, a vintage BMW propellor-head, or the kind of person who thinks the only good math is V-8-plus-carburetor, there’s something universal in this brand of car enthusiasm. Having fun with your friends on hot tarmac in the summer sun. Long nights, and maybe a little of the good kind of trouble. You just feel it, nothing lost in translation.

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For most of the year, Bowling Green, Kentucky hosts the thousands of Corvette fans who make the pilgrimage to the National Corvette Museum. Some visit the museum specifically to take delivery of their new Corvette, fresh from the nearby General Motors Bowling Green Assembly plant. And of course, there are those who satiate a need for speed at NCM Motorsports Park. Come September, however, car enthusiasts in Bowling Green turn their focus to a different track: Beech Bend. There, over three weekends throughout the month, hometown performance purveyor Holley Performance hosts three high-horsepower gatherings down in the Bluegrass State: MoParty, LS Fest, and Ford Fest.

I had a hankering to let my proverbial mullet down and surround myself with all sorts of Hemis, 440s, Viper V-10s, and Slant-Sixes, all dressed in the wildest colors imaginable. Thus, I made plans to attend the 2023 Holley MoParty. It was an absolute riot.

A celebration of all things Mopar, the MoParty returned for its fourth annual celebration on September 15–17. As we’ve all come to expect, the event attracted every sort of Pentastar-branded excitement down at the Barren River for three days of fun and firepower from the halls of Auburn Hills.

“At Holley, we’re all about getting out and having fun with your vehicles,” said Blane Burnett, senior events manager for Holley Performance. “To that end, these events [like the MoParty] allow us to set that exact experience up for people. We started working on Gen III Hemi swap systems, and just like we did when we came out with LS Fest—we had just started with our LS-centric product catalog—it’s really helpful to align yourself with that market and celebrate what they’re doing.”

It was my third trip to Beech Bend, though my first for the MoParty. I made sure to bring something appropriate for the occasion—a 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat Redeye Widebody Black Ghost Last Call Edition on loan from Stellantis.

One of 300 such examples to ever be built as part of the last big, seven-car Last Call Edition hurrah for both the current Challenger and Charger before electrification and hybridization take over, the Black Ghost Hellcat Redeye pays tribute to a 1970 Challenger R/T SE bought in 1969 by Detroit police officer and U.S. Army paratrooper Godfrey Qualls. As the legend goes, Qualls would take his triple-black Challenger with its gator-skin vinyl roof and white rear stripe to race all comers in Detroit, only to vanish from the scene for weeks to months at a time, like a ghost, haunting the competition until its stealthy return.

“We’re doing pretty much everything that we do with LS Fest for the Mopar contingent,” said Burnett. “We do have some things that are different flavors, which cater to the Mopar community, whether it’s serious or in jest. We have a mullet contest, which is just a fun way for everybody to let their hair down. If we keep serving the community well and give them a good time and a good experience, the show’s gonna continue growing.”

Amid its siblings in the “Brotherhood of Muscle,” such as the monster Charger King Daytona family sedan or the absolutely hellish Challenger Demon 170 in attendance, this 2023 Black Ghost Challenger homage flew a little more under the radar. However, its 807-horsepower, 707-lb-ft of torque, supercharged Hemi V-8 did plenty of talking from the stoplight to the highway and the quarter-mile. It was the perfect machine for rolling into the MoParty, and I experienced as much as I could before roaring back out to my Old Dominion home in southwestern Virginia.

While at MoParty, it felt wrong to leave the car by itself in spectator parking near the end of Beech Bend’s quarter-mile. I reached out to the event’s PR reps and Holley to humbly ask if the 2023 Black Ghost Edition would be a welcome guest at the big red Holley tent in Beech Bend’s midway.

On the day of our arrival at the track, we got our response: Yes!

In between visits to the Jeep 4×4 Experience—where Jeep fans can see their favorite rugged Mopars flex on the short course—the show ‘n’ shine, the quarter-mile, and the autocross on the other side of the drag strip’s timing tower, I looked over at the Black Ghost to see if anyone else knew what this nearly all-black Challenger was about. One older onlooker grabbed one of the hood pin posts to determine if it was real. Most looked at the big V-8 with the supercharger bolted on top of it, maybe even noticed the Last Call Edition plaque on the radiator support, peered into the rolled-up windows to see the interior, and, perhaps, caught a glimpse of the gator-skin roof graphic in the September sun and the big white rear stripe. All in all, it made me happy to see this special machine get its day in the limelight at the MoParty.

“We’re out here to have a good time [at the MoParty],” said Burnett. “We set the tone with the good mood, the good vibe, good playlist, and awesome stuff to do on the track. You couldn’t spend [your weekend] better than by coming out here and hanging out with us.”

The event was such a success, from our perspective, that we asked Burnett if MoParty will ultimately expand to other locations and markets the way LS Fest has.

“We’re not sure yet [if there will be a MoParty West or MoParty Texas],” said Burnett. “We’ve got a lot of room to grow this one before we need to think about that. LS engines are huge; that made us a little bit more able to [have more LS Fests]. We did the first LS Fest West in 2017. That took us about seven years to grow outside of Bowling Green.”

The Black Ghost did attract a couple of Mopar fans my way, even outside the Holley tent. Once was the day before heading out to Bowling Green, when a Challenger Hellcat Widebody owner saw me pull into the local Speedway gas station. He pulled alongside in the parking spaces up front to ask about the white stripe on the Challenger, as well as take a few photos so he could have a stripe of his own one day.

Later, a young man at a rest stop in Tennessee noticed the Black Ghost, and I noticed him noticing the car. He was enamored by the brutality of this Last Call Edition’s aesthetic—gator-skin roof graphic, bulging twin air intakes, and all. He told me his mom owned a Dodge Durango R/T with the 392 Hemi, which was moving their family down the highway.

Like my time at the MoParty, my time with the Black Ghost was too short. Both the event and the car left an impression on me that will last for years to come. Ghosts linger like that, no?

Flip through Cameron’s full photo gallery from MoParty 2023 here:

***

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From gatherings of historic race cars to the Hemi-centric Roadkill Nights, the track at M1 Concourse in Pontiac, Michigan hosts a wide variety of automotive events. A recent one, held on a cloudy October day, was a bit out of the ordinary. Roughly eighty 1973–1978 GMC Motorhomes arranged themselves in formation on the facility’s skidpad.

They weren’t lost. In fact, they were home; each and every one of these GMCs rolled off an assembly line in that very spot roughly fifty years ago.

Long before M1 Concourse broke ground on its motorsports-centric playground in 2014, the plot of land at the corner of Woodward Avenue and South Boulevard played a key role in General Motors’ truck history. Rapid Trucks built a factory here in 1906, three years before GM bought the company, merged it with another manufacturer (Reliance), and rebranded the married pair under a less-than-creative nameplate: GMC.

After an even bigger manufacturing complex opened just down the road in 1928, the original Rapid plant—now known as old Plant 1—focused on machining and component manufacturing. GMC expanded its footprint in subsequent years, buying neighboring buildings and incorporating them as Plants 3, 4, and 5. While GMC would occasionally build some vehicles on these grounds (namely the original G10 Handi-Van that followed the Corvair 95), there was a much more interesting project waiting in the wings.

The mid-‘60s was a time of sweeping change for the Coach wing of GMC Truck & Coach. After losing a near-exclusive supply deal with Greyhound and being forced by the U.S. Justice Department to provide its unique two-stroke diesels and angle-drive transmissions to rival brands, designers, engineers, and management alike scrambled to brainstorm new ways the division might regain a competitive edge. Jet-age ideas, like luxurious gas turbine low-floor buses with Eames-esque bucket seats, or multi-modal buses that could connect to a Sikorsky Skycrane helicopter, were all apparently on the table, even if only briefly, at one point or another.

One of the more grounded proposals: a “mini bus,” for ferrying suburbanites in less densely-populated areas to larger buses running on higher-frequency routes. The mini bus vehicle concept quickly morphed into a call for a space-efficient multi-purpose commercial vehicle platform. Then, given the booming recreational vehicle market at the time, the decision was made to launch it first as a motorhome.

The resulting GMC Motorhome, which debuted in late 1972 for the 1973 model year, was unlike any other RV on the market, or any other GMC product at the time. A reason for that, perhaps, is the result of its being developed with an independent spirit that was fairly rare within GM.

“Traditionally, our advanced design group would think up features that could or should be in a vehicle, and turn it over to the production group to make it reality once we were done,” recalled former Truck & Coach engineer Claude White. “That changed with Motorhome—instead, we were told we would shepherd it all the way to production. And since it wasn’t a high-volume, high-budget project, we had the flexibility and freedom to design this exactly the way we thought a motorhome should be.”

The finished product lived up to the words on the original sales brochure’s cover: “It doesn’t look like a box or ride like a truck.”

The Motorhome’s exterior design stood in stark contrast to the lanky, upright corrugated boxes-on-wheels cranked out by Winnebago and its ilk at the time. GM’s truck studio penned a sleek, smooth-sided vehicle with a tapered nose, wrap-around windshield glass, and plenty of tumble home, lending it a shoulder that carried through all 23- or 26 feet of the vehicle, depending on which length you ordered.

Things were equally interesting underneath the molded-composite skin. The Motorhome’s low profile came courtesy of a unique, low-slung chassis, which was made possible by adopting the 455-cu-in V-8 and front-wheel drive transaxle (collectively dubbed the Unitized Power Package) from the Oldsmobile Toronado.  Conventional “dualie” rear wheels were eschewed for an air-sprung tandem bogie arrangement, maximizing available interior space while improving ride quality and allowing for the coach to be self-leveled at campsites.

With these innovations and GM’s industry clout, it seemed a safe bet that GMC was about to turn the RV industry on its ear once production kicked off in good old Plant 3 in Pontiac. Time, in the end, was not on the Motorhome’s side. Shortly after GMC filled order books for the entire first year of production, the oil embargo struck, kneecapping the RV industry as a whole. Worse, GM’s interior supplier struggled to keep up with production, leading to a backlog of orders.

By 1975, GM had brought interior upfitting in-house, improving volumes. Meanwhile, the introduction of the Transmode—a blank shell for bodybuilders to convert into ambulances, shuttle buses, and covert urban assault vehicles—allowed the Motorhome to reach new customer bases. Still, it didn’t take long for another major stumbling block to arise.

Oldsmobile had already discontinued its 455 engine in late 1977, forcing GMC to move to the smaller 403 in 1978. Then, plans for vastly downsized 1979 Toronado rendered the Unitized Power Package—the heart of GMC’s chassis design—obsolete. GMC toyed with ideas to find an alternate powerplant or redesign the Motorhome entirely, but it ultimately decided such development costs outweighed the potential return. Production ceased in late 1978, and the plants previously used to build GM’s RV-of-the-future were retooled to crank out more Rally and Vandura full-size G-vans. All told, just shy of 13,000 Motorhomes were built in Pontiac, and roughly 9000 examples are accounted for today.

So why has the GMC Motorhome endured, despite its brief and checkered chapter in the annals of RV history? Many owners present at M1 echoed the very same selling points GMC touted five decades prior:

“It’s the perfect size.”

“It drives so well.”

“It rides like no other motorhome.”

For Marv Miller of Indiana, who’s owned his 1977 example for 15 years and helped encourage several other RVers to join the GMC fold, the attraction is simple: “I was working in the RV industry when these were new. There was almost nothing else like them then, and that’s still the case now.”

If nothing else, it’s impressive to see just how well these homes-away-from-homes have aged. While some original details (namely those original paisley interior fabrics and deep-pile carpets) feel dated, the Motorhome’s overarching design does not come off as something created over a half-century ago.

Without a doubt, the Motorhome’s posthumous success is equally due to a tight-knit and supportive owner’s community. Not only have groups like GMC Motorhomes International compiled a rich trove of historical materials and technical information, but members are enthusiastic about helping keep other coaches out on the road. Whether a GMC is treasured in original form, highly restomodded, or is kept running as a scraggly, well-worn machine, there’s no gatekeeping to be found in this club. Every fellow GMCer gets a hearty welcome.

Will the GMC Motorhome’s legacy continue for another fifty years, despite their age and ever-increasing scarcity of specialized parts? That’s hard to say. But where we stand already far surpasses what GMC engineer Karl Gross could have imagined when helping create this vehicle in the first place.

“Someone asked me, ‘what did you think when you designed this motorhome; did you think they’d be around in 50 years?’” Gross told the owners assembled at M1. “I was fresh out of engineering college, on my first job assignment; I never once thought about that,  but it’s such a pleasure to see all these still on the road a half-century later.”

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Each year, the Hot Wheels Legends Tour hosts events worldwide, bringing in cars and trucks of every year, make, and model. At each of the events, one vehicle moves forward and gets one step closer to being immortalized in 1:64 scale and becoming the next Hot Wheels Legend. Previous winners have included homebuilt restomods meant for the track, as well as wild one-off creations that embody the creative spirit of Hot Wheels.

At its latest event, held at Hot Wheels headquarters in El Segundo, California, one vehicle rose to the top. This 1962 Corvair Rampside pickup, built by  Wayne Dick and LT Industries of Alberta, Canada, has ditched its air-cooled flat-six powerplant in favor of a mid-mounted LS3 V-8. Its rear-mounted 4L65E transmission and rear axle were pulled from a C5 Corvette, as was the front suspension, giving “Rampy” a major upgrade in power and handling.

We happened to be among the judges for this leg of the Hot Wheels Legends Tour, which also included three Hot Wheels designers. While there were a handful of cars that several of the judges brought forth, all could agree that this radically reimagined pickup embodied the Authenticity, Creativity, and Garage Spirit required to be a Hot Wheels Legend.

It’s easy to imagine how this 460-hp pickup will look scaled down, with an engine clearly visible in the bed and its interior’s many details—like its octagonal steering wheel—rendered in plastic behind the windshield. That’s part of why many of the judges loved it so much. Hot Wheels has never built a Corvair pickup, so this would be a truly unique casting if it gets selected. Of course, we’re a bit biased, as we helped give Rampy the nod, but there will be other fantastic vehicles vying for the spot. To keep up on the race to become the next Hot Wheels Legend, watch the semifinal, streaming on November 2, and take a look at the gallery below to see some of our favorites from the show.

Another Hot Wheels Legends contender, at least for us, was this 1966 Impala owned by Jess Juarez from Canoga Park, California. The car’s paint speaks for itself and absolutely dazzled in the El Segundo sun. Its many body modifications included a five-inch chop, Cadillac Eldorado taillights, and suicide doors. Juarez took over the build from his father, who passed away, and has nearly completed the car, with just the interior left to go.

Peter Menotti loved Disney’s Autopia cars as a kid, so when he had the chance to buy an original fiberglass shell, he didn’t hesitate. Disney never wanted the cars to actually drive, so they were sold without an engine or chassis. An OHV Briggs and Stratton, combined with a home-built chain drive and gear reduction system, and a chassis derived from scale drawings of the original, allow the car to easily maintain Autopia speed—and then some!

Check out the rest of the fun-filled photo gallery below:

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Holley’s Intergalactic Ford Fest brought in Blue Oval fans from all over North America to Beech Bend Park in Bowling Green, Kentucky, for autocross, off-road, drift, and drag-racing fun. Any vehicle was allowed, as long as it was powered by a Ford engine. That meant that there were Mustangs and F150s of all generations in attendance, with drag-race Fox-bodies and drift-ready S550s galore.

We spoke to several of the 2023 attendees who had some of our favorite engine swaps and assembled this list for those who couldn’t be there. Let us know if one of these six Ford-powered vehicles inspires you to do a swap of your own.

Godzilla, King of the Mustangs

Texas Speed & Performance brought out an SN95 Mustang to show off the shop’s latest foray into Ford performance: the 7.3-liter Godzilla crate V-8. The monster tunnel ram makes the engine tall, but the V-8 isn’t really that big.

Its 4.22-inch bores just about max out the real estate on the block’s 4.5-inch bore spacing. Those big bores and intake help the CNC-ported heads produce around 660 hp at the flywheel. Texas Speed was making some shakedown runs with the car and Luke Haley, product manager at Texas Speed, told us that the Mustang just made a 6.84-second pass in the 1/8-mile @ 104 mph, proving the pushrod V-8 is putting in some solid work.

Broncigator

At LS Fest in 2022 Michael Hunt and Lee Clayton, the guys at TredWear, had just completed a body swap with a 1977 Trans Am and a C5 Corvette Z06. This time they accomplished the same feat using a 1979 Bronco body placed over the running gear and interior of a 2003 Navigator.

They chose a Navigator of that particular vintage because 2003 was the last year that Ford offered the 5.4-liter four-valve engine after the second-gen Navigator adopted independent rear suspension. A factory joint on the frame was carefully opened up by removing the welds, and 15 inches of length were removed to hit 104 inches, the same as that of the discarded Bronco chassis.

The retro livery is what the TredWear crew imagined Ford might have campaigned if the Blue Oval had tried its luck in the East African Safari, with James Garner behind the wheel. We like the artificially aged red, yellow, and orange graphics, which were also carried into the interior. Hunt told us that the 5.4-liter and four-wheel independent suspension transformed the Bronco, and we imagine it would: The Navigator’s 5.4-liter has a lot less weight to haul with two fewer doors and an entire row of seats missing.

Boss Fox

Every good-looking Fox-body Mustang within a 300-mile radius was at Ford Fest, or so it seemed. We couldn’t count the restomodded 5.0-liter hatchbacks and notchbacks in attendance at the show and also on the drag strip, but this one may have been our favorite.

This 1992 Mustang was Josh Miller’s first car. He spent the last eight years giving it a full-bore restoration and pulling out all the stops. The vivid red paint is from DeBeer, and the Gen 1 Coyote engine is topped by a Boss 302 intake that’s also wearing DeBeer paint. There’s a Tremec TKO behind the Coyote, which runs on Holley Terminator Max ECU. We kept coming back to this thing to see it glow. It’s just so red.

Godzilla vs. Trans Am

Mike Bozzelli dropped a 7.3-liter Godzilla into his 1969 Pontiac Trans Am clone and trailered it all the way from Toronto. He joked that he was trying to balance out all of the GM-swapped Fords, but his decision to engine-swap this Pontiac came down to his excitement about a big, new pushrod V-8 from Ford. Holley’s new intake manifold helped the swap thanks to its compact size; it saved about two inches in height compared to the factory intake. It did take some fine adjustments to get the engine to sit exactly where it needed to go. “She fits in there pretty good, I can’t complain,” Bozzelli said, adding, “It looks right at home.” We’ve got to agree.

Questionable decisions

Jared Pink from Gainsville, Georgia, runs the Questionable Garage YouTube channel where he makes doubtful automotive choices so you don’t have to. His latest questionable decision was to compete at LS Fest, MoParty, and Ford Fest … with the same car. That’s three separate engines in less than a month. At this year’s LS Fest, Pink ran an LS3 in his Duster. In two and a half days he installed a Gen III Hemi and got it back on the road. Nine days later the Duster was powered by this Ford Coyote V-8 and tearing up the autocross at Beech Bend with its third V-8 powerplant in as many weeks.

The pushrod V-8s had enough power to cause axle wrap, leading to unpredictable power delivery. As if he wasn’t busy enough, while the Coyote swap took place, Pink also installed a four-link rear suspension. When we asked him how the engines differ, he said: “I’m learning, because it has such a high-rpm powerband, that my gearing doesn’t work well.” He found that he wanted a gear in between first and second on his TKX transmission when he was hitting the autocross.

“It’s the wrong choice, it’s way too big,” Pink said of the Coyote V-8. He’s going to go back to the appropriate Mopar powertrain, the 426 Gen III Hemi stroker that he scored when buying what he thought was a 6.1-liter Hemi from a junkyard. “That was a junkyard lottery find,” Pink admits, “It blows the tires off. That’s the long-term engine.” He also loves the way the 426 Gen III sounds.

His conclusions: The Hemi is the proper choice for the Mopar, the Coyote was fun and revved nicely, while also shedding more than 100 pounds off the nose compared to the iron-block Hemi, but he also appreciated the LS3. “It was so easy to install,” Pink said of the LS3, “when it comes to engine swaps, that’s the winner.”

Turbo Oddball

It’s not too often you find a second-generation Ford Courier, and it’s even less common to see one sporting a turbocharged 2.3-liter engine. Jon Hagan, from Owensborough, Kentucky, put his turbo-swapped Courier to the test and smoked the tires in the burnout contest. We asked how the project came to be and Hagan, whose first car was a Mustang SVO, made it sound like the logical thing to do. “I had a bunch of 2.3-liter turbo stuff around … it somehow made its way in there.”

He plumbed up a VS Racing turbo himself, building just about all of the fabricated parts in the engine bay except for the valve cover and the intercooler. He even tunes the truck himself. It puts out about 500 hp, which was enough to break the drivetrain until he upgraded to a larger bell housing that uses parts designed to stand up behind a 5.0 liter.

Let us know in the comments: Which engine swap is your favorite?

***

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The weather couldn’t have been better this past Saturday in Detroit, Michigan. Temperatures were in the mid-70s, with a light breeze and wispy clouds. Perfect weather to stroll the grounds of the Detroit Art Institute and enjoy some of the finest automobiles made in the last 120 or so years. From the prewar French beauty that captured Best of Show to a video-game-famous Viper to modern-day McLarens, the 2023 Detroit Concours had something for everyone.

If you weren’t able to be there with us, know that we missed you. Hopefully these photos whet your appetite for next year!

The People’s Choice award for the 2023 Detroit Concours went to this adorable BMW Isetta. Despite the logo on the hood, the design for the vintage microcar (sometimes called a “bubble car”) is actually credited to a company that built refrigerators.

The award for loudest car—okay, we made that up—went to this Viper race car. If you ever played Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec you’ll recognize this V-10 monster as the million-credit Viper from the video game. This car’s resume extends to real-world racing, too: It won its class in 2000 at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the crown jewel of endurance racing.

When this Allard J2 crossed the award stage, Wayne Carini stood up to snag a cell-phone shot of the lovely British roadster. He wasn’t the only one who thought it was photo-worthy.

If you have a keen ear for engines, you might have noticed that this DeLorean sounds a lot like a Ford. You’d be correct: An enterprising GM engineer yanked out the pokey, 130-hp Peugeot-Renault-Volvo (PRV) V-6 and, in its place, put a Ford EcoBoost powerplant mated to a Porsche manual transmission. The car makes well over twice that horsepower figure now. Not only did it win the Star Car class at the Detroit Concours—the DMC-12 put a big smile on the face of Kat DeLorean.

Think old cars are boring? They didn’t get much blingier in the 1920s than an Auburn. This roofless model, a Detroit Concours class winner, is called a Speedster and is famous for the teardrop shape of its rear, which recalls a boat’s prow. In car lingo, it’s known as a—you guessed—boat tail.

Perhaps your favorite cars were made a bit more recently? With McLaren and Lamborghini and Porsche all celebrating big anniversaries in 2023, there was plenty of late-model power to ogle.

We’ll wrap up with perhaps the weirdest-looking car on display last Saturday: the 1948 TASCO prototype, a concept car based on a Mercury and designed by Gorgon Buehrig, the same visionary designer who brought us the revolutionary Cord 810.

Swipe through the galleries below, past the TASCO, for even more photos from the 2023 Detroit Concours. If, by the end of the slideshows, you haven’t found anything your style, let us know—we’ll go bite a tire.

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When the silver Delahaye owned by Ted and Mary Stahl purred across the stage of the 2023 Detroit Concours d’Elegance, it was hard to imagine a more delightful day. Only the wispiest of clouds appeared in the September sky above the Detroit Institute of Arts, serving for the second time as the backdrop for a prestigious celebration of automotive excellence. Around 100 years ago, Joseph Figoni founded the firm that would become, three years later, Figoni et Falaschi, the original makers of the curvaceous bodywork adorning the one-of-five 1939 Cabriolet crowned Best of Show this year.

Last year’s big winner was also a Delahaye, the “Grand Luxe” 135M Roadster Cabriolet.

To be eligible for Detroit Concours d’Elegance’s highest honor, a vehicle has to be named best in its class. The Stahls’ Delahaye competed in the European Pre-War group against a 1924 Rolls-Royce Twenty and a 1925 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost. The French beauty, a 135MS “Speciale” four-seat cabriolet bodied by Figoni et Falaschi, beat out two other finalists—a 1928 Auburn 8-115 Speedster and a 1963 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder—to capture the blue-green trophy for Best of Show.

Behind the wheel of the Delahaye was Seamus Hnat, lead mechanic of the Stahls’ collection, which is based in Chesterfield, Michigan, about 35 miles northeast of the Motor City. Dressed in appropriate vintage clothing, he and Terri Coppens, the general manager of the Stahl Automotive Foundation, formed a lovely picture with the Delahaye. After the official pictures were taken, the fur-clad Coppens broke the 1930s spell to pull out her phone, fingers tapping away excitedly to tell the Stahls, who weren’t able to attend, that their car was champion.

As anyone who frequents top-flight concours events knows, it takes more than a well-restored car to win a competition like the Detroit Concours d’Elegance. A car must be an exceptional, exhaustively documented example of a historically significant model—and the Stahls’ Delahaye certainly qualifies.

Together with Delage, the Delahaye brand represents a high point of art deco design in the automotive world. As a 135MS, the Detroit Concours winner is the sportiest variant of Delahaye’s sportiest car. The Stahls’ car, chassis number 60173, is believed to be the only four-passenger roadster 135MS roadster bodied by Figoni et Falaschi that survives today—and only five were made to begin with, between 1935 and 1954.

It is powered by an overhead-valve, inline-six-cylinder engine topped with three carburetors and making 160 hp. While other cars of the 1930s posted higher horsepower figures, the Delahaye’s technological boast was its transmission: a Cotal pre-selector four-speed gearbox. If you aren’t well versed in the finer engineering details of double clutching (also called double declutching), it helps to think of the Cotal as we might think of a sequential gearbox today—technology more common in race cars than in street-legal vehicles.

The Delahaye boasts more than a trick transmission, though. Coachbuilders Figoni et Falaschi, who also created bodies for Bugattis, went to great pains to develop the sleekest possible system for hiding the folding top underneath the rear panel of a car. The company eventually won a patent for its “disappearing top” design, in which the top tucks beneath the trunk lid, which opens “backward” to accept it.

The story of chassis 60173 begins, unexpectedly, at a humble flower stall in Paris, France. Luciene Suzanne Vreurick, from Reims, was working the stall per usual when a fashion designer approached her with an offer to model for his brand. From modeling she went to singing, adopting the name of Le Mome Moineau (“the kid sparrow”). One day, when in New York, she met and married a hugely successful architect and engineer from Puerto Rico. His name was Felix Benetiz Rexach, and he and Luciene would marry three years later. She found that the high life suited her well and, in addition to a yacht and a plane, she commissioned this Delahaye 135MS Roadster. After “Madame Rexach” sold the Delahaye to another equally fabulous socialite, it was featured in a 1950 film (Le Château de Verre, or The Glass House).

The Figoni et Falaschi-bodied 1939 Delahaye 135MS Cabriolet, as it stood in front of the DIA in 2023, wears a 2012 restoration by Auto Classique Touriane that reversed a prior two-tone repaint to the original silver-over-navy-blue scheme in which Madame Rexach originally ordered it.

Could the flower seller from Reims have imagined that her Delahaye would cross the ocean and, 84 years later, be honored by as automotive royalty in America’s Motor City? Perhaps not, but we’d like to think of Le Mome Moineau smiling at the thought.

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The inaugural Grand National Truck Show kicked off last weekend in Pomona, California and it brought a wide variety of pickups and SUVs to the city’s Fairplex. We’ve already shown you eight of the contenders for the first-ever America’s Most Beautiful Truck award (that happened to be Fords, including the amazing winner). So, in the interest of universal balance, here are eight Chevys that were among the top 18, as well as a huge gallery of some of our favorite C10s, K10s, Apaches, 3100s, and other GMC and Chevy pickups that cruised into the show.

1953 Chevy 3100 “Silver Ghost”

Tim Hampel’s 1953 Chevy 3100 is practically understated compared with many of the wild paint jobs we saw at the show. The flawless silver finish earned it the nickname “Silver Ghost” and under the hood, the 6-71-supercharged and fuel-injected big-block Chevy V-8 makes more than enough power to make this pickup a formidable sleeper.

Luxurious and LS-powered ’57 Chevy

Jay Greenwell’s 1957 Chevy takes a similar, subtle approach. Its LS powerplant and luxurious interior transformed the utilitarian truck into a powerful grand tourer. Dorsett Speed Shop is responsible for the build.

Supercharged 1956 Chevy Cameo

There’s nothing understated about Lorraine and Pat Graham’s 1956 Chevy Cameo. The vibrant red, sprayed by David Lopez, was glowing under the show lights. Pat Graham had his hands on several aspects of the build, including the chassis that uses a Moser 9-inch rear axle with a Watts link. The powerplant is a Whipple-supercharged LS3.

Big-block 1970 Chevy El Camino

One of our favorite engines among the America’s Most Beautiful Truck contenders, the 572 big-block in Scott Cooper’s 1970 El Camino is topped by Hilborn EFI and is backed by a Tremec T-56 transmission. The interior is just as impressive, with rich brown leather from Gabe’s Custom Upholstery that took home the award for Best Interior.

Kiwi-owned 1971 Chevy C10

Coming all the way from New Zealand, Todd Collins was hoping to take the AMBT trophy to the Southern Hemisphere. His 1971 C10 (wearing a 1969 grille) is powered by a Chevy LSA V-8 and has an impressive chassis with a Porterbuilt rear suspension and a Heights IFS. The bed included a sizable cooler, making this a great choice for a tailgate party.

Dazzling 1984 Chevy S10 Blazer

From bumper-to-bumper, Guillermo Villagrana’s 1984 S10 Blazer was a work of art. We spent quite a lot of time taking in all of the intricate customizations. There wasn’t a square inch that wasn’t polished, painted, pinstriped, upholstered, or engraved. We had been marveling at the lines of the Blazer without the rear portion of its roof and the airbrushed murals for several minutes before we realized that the cut lines of the doors had been moved up. There are just so many modifications and so much detail that it’s hard to even take it all in.

Slammed Chevy C1500

A former Truckin‘ magazine cover truck, Brian Hill’s C1500 wears GMC Yukon headlights and a fully custom interior. It’s so low that its wheel wells are nearly flush with the bed rails.

Bondurant-bred 1989 C1500

Ron Bondurant is the original owner of this 1989 C1500. The crew at Chassis by Aaron Iha, along with some help from students at Covina Trade Tech Academy, transformed the truck into a gleaming hot rod with a subtle chop and a whole new chassis, complete with an independent rear and inboard brakes. It’s powered by a 454 big-block Chevy V-8.

Of course, the show was more than just the top contenders. There were plenty of vehicles inside to drool over, and Saturday saw hundreds of trucks show up for the Truck-In located in the lot outside. We were happy to see a tremendous turnout of 1960-1966 Chevy and GMC trucks and SUVs, so here are some of our to Chevy trucks from the 2023 Grand National Truck Show, sorted by generation to help you find your favorite:

Advance Design and Task Force

1960-1966

1967-1972

Squarebody

GMT400

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The first-ever Grand National Truck Show kicked off festivities at the Pomona Fairplex in California with hundreds of trucks, vans, and SUVs of every make and model. In addition to vans and SUVs, the show welcomed any vehicle that was built after 1900 and had a bed. That included ’60s utilities like El Caminos and Rancheros but also ’30s roadster pickups. While this was a first-year show that brought out a fraction of the cars that regularly show up to the Grand National Roadster Show, held at the same venue, there were still more than 400 attendees.

Despite the aforementioned restrictions on body styles, the huge range of years allowed for a wide variety of vehicles on display. Here are just some of our favorite Fords in attendance.

For the first time ever, 18 invitees competed for the title of America’s Most Beautiful Truck. The build dates of the competitors ranged from the 1930s to the 2000s, and the styles of the vehicles were just as varied. When the judging was complete, the winner was Greg and Penni Tidwell’s 1940 Ford, built by South City Hot Rods in Hayward, California.

The truck’s subtle modifications and flawless attention to detail made it tough to beat. It rides on a Scott’s Hot Rods chassis and is powered by a triple-carbed 383 Chevy small-block.

Several of the 17 other competitors were also Blue Oval–made, including a pair of unibody F100s, a 1961 owned by Kent Matranga, and a 1962 owned by Mark and Diane Bell. The deep red 1961 is powered by a Ford Coyote V-8, while the orange 1962 uses LS3 power.

There were also a pair of 1932 Ford roadster pickups among the 18 competitors. Gary and Deborah DeVine’s “War Paint” was built by Denny Lesky at Ionia Hot Rod Shop and Dave Shuten at Galpin Speed Shop.

John Sutherland’s 1932 Ford roadster pickup is powered by a Ford Coyote V-8 fed by a pair of Nelson Racing Engines mirror-image turbos that are tucked away inside the headlight housings.

Brent Hunsaker’s “Stranger” is one of the most well-known minitrucks in the country. The interior, inspired by that of an Edsel, is a great way to make the controversial grille design into a beautiful, functional center stack.

Darin Gilchriese brought this ’56 F-100, which wore deep green paint to show off the model’s instantly recognizable curves.

The final Ford entry was Jerry Logan’s 1934 Ford. It deservedly won Best Engine for its twin-supercharged Y-block Ford V-8 that featured six throttle butterflies, three per side.

This was just a taste of the Fords in attendance, we’ll share more in galleries that are still to come.

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This weekend, the Motor City will host the second annual Detroit Concours, a celebration of Detroit and the automotive culture that defines it. As part of Hagerty’s family of events, we are especially proud to celebrate the men and women of the local automobile industry as our event “honorees.” Detroit is the city that put the world on wheels, and it was the people of the auto industry—the line workers, designers, engineers, and many, many others—who drove its growth and innovation. Throughout the event, you’ll see their personal cars, photos, and stories.

“From assembly lines to design studios, machine shops, and boardrooms, America’s automotive industry was powered by the people of Detroit. Many are unsung heroes, creating the cars we see in museums, on concours lawns and racing at tracks around the world, and we thought it was time to highlight their collective contributions,” said Matt Orendac, Hagerty’s Vice Chairman, Concours Group. “That’s why this year we’ve taken a traditional honoree program and scaled it up with Powered by Detroit as our way of recognizing this collective passion and contribution.”

Back in August, Hagerty invited automotive industry employees to participate in Powered by Detroit by submitting photos of themselves with their collectible automobiles. The photos will form custom artwork and be unveiled at the September event.

This year, our two-day celebration kicks off Friday with our signature “Cars & Community” event, which is fun for the whole family. It features the cars of metro Detroit enthusiasts, our popular Future Drivers Club youth activities, and a selection of cars from last weekend’s perennial fan-favorite: Radwood Detroit, which showcases the automobiles and lifestyles of the ’80s and ’90s.

Friday’s Cars & Community event will provide a festival of fun for the whole family. The day will feature Motor City Car Club Displays, a collection of locally owned show vehicles curated from the Midwest, the Future Drivers Club for kids of all ages, a Radwood-era showcase, and more. Tickets for Friday’s event can be purchased here. Children 15 and under will be admitted for free.

Saturday’s Concours d’Elegance will host 150 historically significant vehicles.

Highlights from a few of the 18 Featured classes include:

’57 Heaven

• ’57 Ford Thunderbird
• ’57 Buick Special
• ’57 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz

Mopar Magic

• 1967 Plymouth GTX
• 1969 Dodge Dart
• 1972 Dodge Challenger

Ferraris from the ’60s and ’70s

• 1972 Ferrari 365 GTC/4
• 1970 Ferrari Dino 246 GT
• 1967 Ferrari 330 GTC

A special class, consisting of manufacturer-owned heritage vehicles, will also be shown. Additionally, all Ford, GM, and Stellantis employees and retirees will receive discounted event tickets.

An awards ceremony and free Hagerty Ride & Drives will be available to public ticketholders all day. Tickets for Saturday’s event can be purchased here. Children 15 and under will be admitted for free. Early Entry and Club Detroit ticketholders may enter at 9 a.m.

Ed Welburn will be the Detroit Concours d’Elegance’s Chief Judge. With decades of hands-on experience designing cars and leading teams at the highest level during his tenure as vice president of GM Design North America, Welburn’s keen eye for detail will elevate standards for judging at the Detroit Concours to match other world-class concours events.

For more information on this year’s event or to purchase tickets, visit DetroitConcours.com.

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The Goodwood Revival took place last weekend, and as ever, the cars were sublime, the racing superb, the period dress perfect, and the highlights videos a treat. This week we’re looking into the best from the event, including this action from the Fordwater Trophy.

Few road cars are more closely associated with racing than the Porsche 911, and this year’s Fordwater Trophy at the Goodwood Revival saw a whole fleet of them vying for the same patch of asphalt—and, occasionally, for some of Goodwood’s carefully trimmed grass runoff.

Thirty cars formed the Fordwater grid, including a few 901s—ones that sneaked out through the factory gates in the ’60s before Peugeot politely coughed and reminded Porsche that the French firm had a trademark on model names with a zero in the middle.

Not all 30 returned, however: An early retiree was renowned Porsche builder and rallyist Richard Tuthill, who met the barriers early on. Oliver Webb took an early lead before Tuthill’s incident, with a spectacular pass around the outside at Woodcote, and took off again once the safety car peeled in.

That lead would come to an end as the pit stops for driver changes began, with early stopper Matthew Holme climbing out and former touring car champ Andrew Jordan stepping in. Jordan set a pace that nobody else could match and took a fairly unchallenged victory.

One highlight was watching former F1 pilot Mark Webber fold himself into his 911’s cozy cockpit and then go on a charge. He brought his car home in an impressive fifth place, avoiding some of the chaos going on elsewhere—something almost inevitable with more than two dozen near-identical cars going ’round.

It wasn’t just the racing that was notable at this year’s Fordwater though; this was also the first race in the Revival’s history where all cars were powered by synthetic fuels—possibly pointing to a future for the entire event, as the world and transportation wean themselves off fossil fuels.

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The Goodwood Revival took place this past weekend, and as ever, the cars were sublime, the racing superb, the period dress perfect, and the highlights videos a treat. In our final video highlight from the weekend’s action, we give you the St. Mary’s Trophy.

It doesn’t matter who is driving or which cars are competing: the St. Mary’s Trophy is consistently a highlight of the Goodwood Revival weekend. Although the era changes, mixing up the grid depending on whether 1950s or 1960s saloon cars are competing, the racing is among the best you’ll find anywhere.

Perhaps that’s no surprise, since the touring cars we see in the St. Mary’s are the ancestors of today’s British Touring Car Championship, and there are usually more than a few BTCC stars on the grid. This year, though, it was the endurance racing champion Romain Dumas and owner-driver Fred Shepherd who took wins in both races over the weekend, in Shepherd’s spectacular 1959 Ford Thunderbird.

Muscle car dominance is becoming a bit of a theme in the St. Mary’s Trophy. While they were often a part of saloon-car racing back in the day—Jack Sears and his Ford Galaxie, Roy Pierpoint and his winning Mustang in 1965—their contemporary pace was always tempered by their weight and handling relative to the Cortinas and Minis that often prevailed.

In the modern era though, it seems like those preparing the cars have made them handle just well enough (and shortened their lengthy braking distances enough) that the big Fords now regularly win at Goodwood. Of course, driving talent helps too; Dumas and Shepherd, with a race each in the car, know exactly how to make the Thunderbird fly.

Dumas simply took off in race one with a lights-to-flag victory, chased a short distance behind by Rob Huff in a Jaguar Mk1, and it was left to those behind to provide most of the close racing—multiple Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen in an Austin A90, 2009 F1 champion Jenson Button in an Alfa Romeo Giulietta Ti, and, in an Austin A40, multiple NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson, who became a thorn in side of Button, his Le Mans teammate.

Race two looked like it would be one for the Jaguars, with Chris Ward taking an early lead, but he later developed a brake problem and wavd Shepherd past. Whatever the issue was, it didn’t last long: Ward quickly got back on the pace—until his gearbox also gave up the ghost out of the chicane on the final lap, leaving the door open for another Thunderbird victory.

Ward, thankfully, managed to coast across the line in second, with Thomas Butterfield securing the third podium step in another Mk1 Jaguar. Matt Manderson’s Austin A40 and an always sideways Richard Meaden in the Giulietta came home in fourth and fifth.

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The Goodwood Revival took place this past weekend, and as ever, the cars were sublime, the racing superb, the period dress perfect, and the highlights videos a treat. This week we’re looking into the best from the event, including this action from the Barry Sheene Memorial Trophy.

Barry Sheene has been gone now for 20 years, but the annual motorcycle race that bears his name is still going strong at the Goodwood Revival. It delivers just as much excitement as did the man himself during his Grand Prix career.

The event at Goodwood is a two-parter, and the weekend’s action saw two different rider pairings on two different motorcycles take victory. Steve Plater and Glen English crossed the line first in Saturday’s race on their Matchless G50 from 1962, while the second-place finisher in that race, a 1961 Norton Manx 30M ridden by Michaels Rutter and Russell, won the second—securing them the overall win ahead of Plater and English.

The Memorial Trophy starts off with a dash across the grid to the bikes, which is always a spectacle in itself—particularly as some riders have a different interpretation of the flag drop than others. It was TT legend John McGuinness who got the holeshot in the first race, while Michael Dunlop got off to a good start on his MV Agusta, too. Sadly, Dunlop’s bike expired mid-race, while the McGuinness bike also fell by the wayside.

Race two’s running start was a little more composed than the first, but the same faces came to the front in no time, with the Plater/English and Rutter/Russell bikes tussling during the first stint. After the rider changes, though, it was Davey Thomas on the Norton Manx he was sharing with George Thomas who came through the field, taking second place on the last lap from another Norton Manx, ridden by Ian Bain and Steve Brogan.

The Rutter/Russell bike was well out in front though, and the motorcycle racing managed to avoid some of the rain showers that made a couple of the car races a little more chaotic, so tumbles were minimal. Sheene, we’re sure, would be pleased.

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Duncan Pittaway has found a way into a very exclusive British club: make a whole lot of noise with a very rare American cat. His 1963 Cheetah, just one of perhaps 10 of the slinky Chevy-powered race cars built by California racer Bill Thomas to take on the Shelby Cobra, was a head-turning and ear-shattering highlight at this year’s Goodwood Revival.

The invitation-only Revival, hosted by Charles Gordon-Lennox, the 11th Duke of Richmond, at his country estate in southern England, is generally the exclusive playground of the ultra-rich who can afford the vintage racing Ferraris, Bugattis, Jaguars, and Cobras that are the stars of the grid. But Pittaway, a land surveyor from Bristol in western England, who is already a minor YouTube celebrity because of his 1910 Fiat S76, a gargantuan chain-driven hulk propelled by a flame-spitting 28-liter airship engine and nicknamed the “Beast of Turin,” has discovered that if you can’t afford the best, then go for the weirdest. Invites from the Duke will follow.

Cheetahs are certainly a weird and wild footnote of 1960s racing Americana. Anaheim, California, Corvette racer Bill Thomas created the tube-framed racing machine with backing from Chevrolet as a street and racing answer to the Ford-powered Shelby Cobra. However, in 1964 the FIA sports car homologation rules were changed from 100 cars to 1000 and GM, also facing congressional scrutiny over vehicle safety following the 1964 publishing of Ralph Nader’s Unsafe at Any Speed, lost interest and yanked the cord on the program. The Cheetah was left high and dry. “They never really had time to develop it,” said Pittaway, “so we’re doing it now. Last year it was trying to kill me, but we’ve made some progress.”

Pittaway spent years cobbling together the car from the crashed and neglected remains of chassis No. 1, which he discovered in a lockup in Arizona about a decade ago. Sorting out the complex fuel-injection system on the 440-hp small-block took 18 months alone. “There are more O-rings and fittings than you can imagine,” he said.

This particular Cheetah, the only survivor of two that had alloy bodywork (the rest were shod in fiberglass), was basically a prototype used to earn the car its FIA certification papers, said Pittaway, then it crashed in testing at Daytona. Entirely new rear bodywork had to be fabricated, while the front had to be carefully hammered back into shape.

The Cheetah is all tire and muscular bulge, looking less like a bounding cat than a mollusk in hot pants. Its signature shape came from mounting the Chevy 327 almost in the middle of the car, such that the Muncie four-speed connects directly to the differential via a U-joint and without a propshaft. Wedged in behind the wheel, Pittaway sits between the rear tires, his baking legs next to the engine and literally under the exhaust, while the 30-gallon fuel-tank wraps around the cockpit from the rear. Three separate filler caps on the body allow multiple crewmen to dump in fuel at once.

The practical result, said Pittaway, is a less-than-ideal 57 percent rear weight bias, which he and his crew chief, loyal friend and former McLaren fabricator Jon Payne, have struggled to overcome. “All the adjustments you do to correct understeer and oversteer seem to be the opposite of what you’d expect,” said Pittaway. “It’s got a front suspension that is copied from a Lotus 23, and a rear suspension off a cement mixer.”

The car’s other big handicap is that Chevrolet in 1963 didn’t offer production disc brakes, so the Cheetah thus has antiquated drums at all four corners. “We are doing 158 mph through the speed trap on the Lavant Straight [at Goodwood], and then there’s the 90-degree right hander at Woodcote,” he said. Besides being heavier and offering a generally longer and softer brake pedal, drum brakes don’t have the cooling capability of discs. Once all that metal gets hot, it is hard to cool down in racing conditions.

“I am definitely shading the brakes,” said Pittaway. “I want to find the limit safely, without going over.” Pittaway met the late Bob Bondurant, one of the Cheetah’s original development drivers, years ago. “He thought it was hysterically funny that we were trying to restore it for racing,” Pittaway recalled. Bondurant’s advice: “You need to pass as many cars on the straight as you can, then try not to be re-passed by everyone in the corners.”

The Cheetah was invited to the Revival weekend’s headliner event, the Royal Automobile Club Tourist Trophy race on Sunday, a one-hour enduro for closed-cockpit GT cars with a mandatory driver change. Often one of the fastest and wooliest races of the weekend, it commemorates the TTs held at the former RAF Spitfire base between 1958 and 1964 and is usually an epic battle between lightweight Jaguar E-Types and Shelby Cobras. Having been to Goodwood many times, this would be Pittaway’s first go in the big race. “We’ve had ten weeks to develop our car,” he said. “Most of our competitors have had ten years.”

Hoping for a finish “somewhere in the top 20,” he formed up near the back of the grid of this year’s running just as rain clouds loomed. About 30 minutes into the race, a deluge hit just as Pittaway, running well behind the leaders, handed off to his co-driver, 81-year-old former motorcycle and saloon car racer Stuart Graham. Graham did a couple of tentative laps in the pelting rain, which sent a couple of Cobras and a spectacular 1965 Bizzarrini 5300GT aquaplaning into the walls, then retired the Cheetah to fight another day.

When we went by the Cheetah’s paddock, Pittaway was nowhere to be found, but a clearly disappointed Payne said he respected the decision. “I guess you don’t get to be 81 in this game without making some smart decisions somewhere.”

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Every year, the Goodwood Revival vintage racing extravaganza in southern England picks a nostalgic theme for its main display area by the entrance. Last year it was flying saucers à la 1950s B-movie sci-fi flicks. For this year’s 25th anniversary event, it was The Greatest Show on Earth, the traveling circus as it was back in its postwar heyday when Ringling Bros., Barnum & Bailey, and other operations large and small crisscrossed America and Europe to delight packed tents with death-defying stunts, clownery, and prancing animals.

The Goodwood visitor was thus greeted by a large circus ring in which performers did their acts throughout the weekend, plus a bevy of restored circus trailers and trucks because, let’s face it, Goodwood is all about the vehicles. The other marquee highlight this year was a celebration of 75 years of Lotus, as well as tributes to racing icons Carroll Shelby and 84-year-old Jackie Stewart, who drove a few laps in his 1973 Tyrell-Cosworth 006 F1 car. It was at Goodwood in 1964 that Stewart got his first break in racing, testing a Tyrell F3 car at a faster pace than Bruce McLaren, impressing Ken Tyrell enough to offer him a spot on the fledgling team.

A parade of some of Lotus founder Colin Chapman’s earliest as well as his greatest creations took to the track each day to, well, add lightness to a rollicking weekend beset first by unsually sweltering heat, then by pelting rain. Let out first onto the track were the fastest, including a series of Lotus F1 cars that brought glory to the brand during its 1970s golden years. They included a couple of 1973 Lotus-Cosworth 72s once driven by Ronnie Petersen and Jacky Ickx (who was also in attendance), a brace of famously black-and-gold John Player Special beauties, including the 1976 Lotus-Cosworth 77 and Mario Andretti’s World Championship–winning Lotus 79. The highly inventive double-chassis (but never raced) Lotus 88B from 1981 also ground-sucked its way onto the circuit, followed by the 1982 Lotus-Cosworth 91, which was the last Lotus F1 car produced during Chapman’s lifetime.

Lotus was always innovating, and in that vein, gliding onto the track with the whistle of a vacuum cleaner was the gold-and-black 1971 Lotus 56B, which attempted to bring Pratt & Whitney turbine power to Formula 1 after earlier attempts to win with turbines at the Indianapolis 500. Graham Hill’s green-and-yellow Lotus 49 recalled the great grand prix Lotuses of the 1960s. The many smaller sports racers, single seaters, and road cars from the House of Chapman were represented by the Elevens, 16s, 18s, 22s, 27s, Elites, Elans, and Europas that conga-lined around Goodwood’s 2.38-mile circuit of former dispersal roads for RAF Spitfires and Hurricanes that flew from here during the war.

Finally, the “oldest” Lotus—actually, an exact recreation—trundled out. The Lotus Mk.1 was a jacked-up trials car based on a 1920s Austin Seven that Chapman built in his girlfriend Hazel’s parent’s garage while studying engineering at the University of London in 1948. The original car has been lost, but Classic Team Lotus, which is run by Colin Chapman’s son, Clive, executed an exact copy down to its battered trials patina.

More than 50 cars representing the long and storied career of Carroll Shelby also circulated on the track during intermissions in the racing, starting with his first race car, a wire-wheeled MG TC that Shelby raced in Oklahoma in 1952. Other notable highlights from Shelby’s years behind the wheel included a Ferrari 750 Monza that he shared with Phil Hill at the 1955 Sebring 12 Hours, an Aston Martin DBR2 and DBR4 representing his years driving Astons, and the Balchowsky-Buick special “Ol’ Yeller II” that Shelby ran in a number of sports car races in the U.S. in 1960.

Cobras, King Cobras, and Ford GT40s, including the ’66 Le Mans winner, were there. Notably absent was a Dodge Omni GLH or Shelby Dakota pickup, but the Goodwood Revival, ahem, tends to stick to cars produced during its years as an active racing circuit from 1948 to 1968.

In keeping with tradition, the 15 individual races that the Revival stages each year have charmingly British names, like the Fordwater Trophy and the Rudge-Whitworth Cup. The Lavant Cup is typically a one-make race. Last year it was all MGBs; this year it was Ferrari V-12s from 1960 to ’66, and people took to calling it the Billion-Dollar Cup owing to the approximate (though almost certainly overestimated) combined value of the 18 entries.

There were no fewer than 12 Ferrari 250 GT SWBs in the race, along with a 250 GTO, a 330 GTO, and a 250 LM supplied by Miles Collier of the Collier Foundation in Florida. And lest you think that it was just a parade by nervous zillionaires, there was plenty of carnage, including a sideswiping of the wall by the 250 LM driven by racing veteran Rob Hall.

The weekend’s most dramatic moment also occurred during the Lavant Cup, when the 250 GTO blew its rear differential to smithereens, sending a chunk of shrapnel rocketing through the fuel tank. A massive fireball erupted, out of which the Ferrari, driven by a hapless Karun Chandhok, emerged spinning with a locked-up rear axle. (You can watch that footage and read more about it here.)

The GTO slid into the grass and Chandhok had the door open before it even stopped moving, leaping from the car to avoid being barbecued alive. However, by then the fire was already mostly out and the car was barely damaged, proving that if you’re going to blow a hole in the gas tank of your $50 million-ish Ferrari, blow a big one so all the fuel dumps at once.

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The Goodwood Revival took place this past weekend, and as ever, the cars were sublime, the racing superb, the period dress perfect, and the highlights videos a treat. This week we’re looking into the best from the event, beginning with action from the Lavant Cup.

This year’s Lavant Cup at the Goodwood Revival was one of those races that makes you want to hide behind the sofa, but also can’t tear your eyes away from. The sight of a full grid of Ferrari 250 models – GTOs, LMs, SWBs – all brushing doorhandles, is as terrifying as it is compelling.

Racing them then must be all that and more, and there were certainly a few spills during the race to have spectators pulling the kind of expression you do when you’ve just been given an unexpectedly large bill to repair your car.

Most spectacular of these was from former Formula 1 driver and now F1 pundit Karun Chandhok. Chandhok is a regular at the Revival but would probably like to avoid a repeat of his moment in a Ferrari 250 GTO, when the car’s differential grenaded and sent shrapnel through the fuel tank, locking the rear wheels, putting the car into a spin, and briefly engulfing the whole thing in flames. Chandhok managed to get the GTO under control and then quickly pull off the circuit and leap out of the car. No more flames emerged, and Chandhok was thankfully fine – if seeming slightly shaken by the experience.

At the front, though, it was Rob Hall who set the pace in a stunning red 250 LM, with Italian Emanuele Pirro in a 1961 SWB and then Alexander Ames in the iconic ‘breadvan’ SWB; they finished in second and third.

Hall himself had a lucky escape, his LM breaking away on the final of the Fordwater right-handers before the left at St. Mary’s, pitching him into a large spin. Somehow, through either good fortune or better judgement, Hall managed to gather it all up just before the barrier, skimming the LM’s rear end against the wall before getting underway again with the kind of pace to quickly re-take the lead.

Most cars finished in the same shape they started, however, and all emitted an incredible noise from their Colombo V12s – just one reason Ferrari 250s make up an essential part of the racing at the Revival each year.

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Michael Wallhead is an inveterate re-inventor. He put himself through university by breaking cars, so when it came to building his project MGB, he was always going to repurpose existing parts in eccentric ways.

“I like recycling things, reusing things,” he says. “For me, it’s not about throwing money at something, it’s about throwing time and using what you’ve got available. I had a lot of random parts and it was just a case of going to the workbench and finding what fits like or looks like it might work.”

Wallhead’s 1979 MGB is a mighty mash-up, with a three-liter Jaguar V-6 at its heart. Getting the engine to work in the B’s body involved a Range Rover prop shaft, the rear axle from a Reliant Scimitar, throttle bodies from a Triumph motorcycle, and brakes from a Nissan Silvia. The exhaust system exits behind the nearside front wheel into a hand-made side pipe.

The car is not just a mechanical masterpiece; it’s the most aesthetically unusual and individual MGB you’ll ever see. Wallhead’s father had several Bs when Michael was growing up, which inspired his choice.

“It’s one of those cars that you don’t really see modified. But you see a lot of Datsuns, which are similar sort of shape,” he says. “So I just started cutting and hopefully didn’t make a mess of it!” He added wide arches and lowered the car’s stance, but it’s the details that make Wallhead’s wonderful car stand out.

Open the bonnet and you’ll see ornate flowers painted on the rocker covers and on assorted plates. Wallhead created them using lace curtains and temporary tattoos as templates. He even used a Dremel tool to engrave more floral finery onto the rear lights.

He gutted the interior and installed the most minimalist, personal touches. He took apart a set of racing seats, left their frames exposed, and then trimmed them in denim from old jeans. “When you work on old cars you tend to tear through a lot of jeans,” he jokes. The glove box, meanwhile, he fashioned from an old number plate.

“For all my builds, I always look to find ways to reuse parts; everything has a second or a third life and I try not to throw things away that can be reused.”

The build has taken Wallhead eight years so far and, though he won the 2023 Hot Wheels Legends Tour UK at RADwood, he’s not done yet.

“I don’t think it will ever actually be finished,” he confesses.

Wallhead’s brilliant build, known as the MG B-east, will head to the Hot Wheels Legends Tour Semi-Final in November. If it makes it through to the Global Finale, his car could soon be immortalized as a 1:64-scale stunner.

“I’m so humbled to have been chosen as the UK winner from a stellar lineup with no two cars the same,” he adds. “Growing up, I played with Hot Wheels, and you always had your favorites—the one that went fastest or the one that looked the coolest—and those memories inspired me when it came to designing the B-east.”

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This week marks a unique opportunity for car fans in the Washington, D.C. area to see one of the recent inductees to the National Register of Historic Vehicles and also to experience Cars at the Capital Festival Day. The Hagerty Drivers Foundation is once again erecting its mobile museum on the National Mall—this time, to display a 1952 Porsche America Roadster, a model that Porsche produced specifically for stateside racers. The Type 540 did much to spur on the sports-car scene in postwar America, and this particular example has a fascinating story.

The red Porsche will be on display from September 6 to 11, replacing the 1937 Cord 812 Convertible Phaeton Sedan owned by Amelia Earhart, which was showcased on the Mall from August 31 to September 5.

Putting gorgeous cars on display is certainly a feast for the eyes, but these are more than just pretty pieces of metal. Each of the cars on the National Register of Historic Vehicles has a unique tie to some part of our national and automotive history. Cars at the Capital is designed to unearth these important stories in a way that goes beyond word of mouth or even photographs.

To that end, the 1952 Porsche America Type 540 will be encased in a glass structure right on the National Mall where everyone can see it, in the center of the numerous museums and galleries of The Smithsonian Institute.

This particular Porsche was the 34th vehicle to be inducted into the Register. It is one of sixteen aluminum-bodied cars made specifically for U.S. racers, the result of the efforts of importer Max Hoffman and of famed racer and dealer John von Neumann. Sports car racing in the U.S. was in its infancy in the early 1950s; Hoffman and von Neumann saw what could be and worked with Porsche directly to bring that vision to life.

This car was painstakingly restored by the late Cam Ingram and the Road Scholars restoration shop before taking third in class at the prestigious Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. Now the Porsche will be out for all to see and it will also documented for perpetuity in the Library of Congress. That seems like a pretty sweet pairing to us.

Want to join the fun? Mark your calendars for Saturday, September 9. That day, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., around the glass enclosure on the Mall, HDF will host Cars at the Capital Festival Day, a free event designed to engage anyone interested in the cultural significance of the automobile and how it has shaped our modern society.

Festivities for the young and the young at heart will include a tire changing station, an activity book focused on cars in the National Historic Vehicle Register, and a free play table with a track and cars. In addition, food trucks will be located on the gravel walkway closest to the USDA Building. It’s all happening, rain or shine. See you there!

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I meant well when I showed up at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca on Saturday morning for the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion. I really did. I had multiple talks with my editor, Grace Houghton, about the stories that I would write based on my day at the race track, the first time I’d ever attended this famous vintage racing event in Monterey, California. We had a plan—well thought-out, tactical, and ripe for execution. It was going to be great.

Then I was there, at Laguna Seca, and a 1969 Ferrari 312P came shrieking past. The sound of its 3.0-liter V-12 completely melted my brain.

There is nothing quite like vintage racing. Among the annual gatherings the world over, the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion (“Rolex Reunion,” for short) is in the upper echelon. Every type of race car, from old prewar metal to high-tech machines barely a decade old, storms the 11 turns of Laguna Seca with a ferocity that will make you weak in the knees. It’s one of the few chances to see your motorsports heroes—any and all of them—run flat-out. If you have even an ounce of interest in racing, cars, or history, you absolutely will not be able to peel yourself away from the track.

At the Rolex Reunion, cars are separated into classes based on time period and racing series. Vehicles run throughout the weekend, but Saturday is entirely racing—out laps, rolling starts, and then 10 laps of fury for each group.

I showed up midway through the first group, eager to find my photo vest and to tail Hagerty’s senior editor and camera wizard Brandan Gillogly around like a happy, dumb puppy. The first group we saw run flag to flag was the 1961–71 FIA Manufacturers Championship—basically anything that would have run at Le Mans, Daytona, and a host of other locales around the globe during one of racing’s most innovative periods.

Alongside that V-12-powered Ferrari, there were V-8 machines like the Ford GT40 and Lola T70 as well as all sorts of flat-six-powered Porsche 911s, and even a straight-six-powered BMW 3.0 CSL. The noises—my god, the noises—were as diverse as the cars, each a snapshot into the mindsets of a brand as it sought to build a  name for itself on the track. The experience was magical, a haze of noise and color and scent that left me temporarily without recollection of where, or when, I was.

We were transported to several different time periods before lunch. Following the ’60s racers, open-wheel and single-seat Grand Prix cars from as far back as 1927–1955 took the track. Watching the drivers steer these machines—many of which rode on tires that could pass as mountain-bike rubber—with their whole bodies was mesmerizing. Their pace wasn’t anything to sniff at, either: I watched a fearless pilot drift a 1928 Bugatti Type 37A around the Andretti Hairpin, wringing the blue machine for everything it had.

As the open-wheelers exited the track, I turned to Brandan, mumbling something about walking the pits to see machinery up close and scope out an interview or two. Then a 1987 Protofab Corvette driven by famous Corvette ace Ron Fellows snarled past, its soundtrack all V-6 and spooling turbo. Brandan and I both dropped our cameras from our eyes, mouths and eyes wide open. “What was that?!”

Fellows absolutely pulverized the field, which consisted of cars from IMSA’s GTO and Trans Am class from 1981 to ’91. The other cars in the mix—Motorcraft-liveried Fox-body Mustangs, Pontiac Firebird Trans Ams, a Buick Somerset, even a Merkur XR4Ti—were just as riveting.

I dashed from my perch at turn two to dump a memory card in the media center. As I ran back to my spot, worried I would miss something on-track, I suddenly realized I couldn’t remember the last time I had drunk any water. In the California desert, especially in full August sun, dehydration is not your friend. I chugged a bottle of water, then booked it back to the track.

I found a new vantage point to watch the 1972–81 FIA and IMSA class, which held all manner of machines, from a handful of Porsche 935s to Lola open-canopy prototypes to a Datsun 240Z. Watching the drivers manage the immense speed deltas between types of machinery was intense; thankfully, nobody wadded a car. Somewhere on the track, however, the 1979 Porsche 935 of Bruce Canepa met something with enough force to chew up the front right corner of the car. Of course, Canepa charged on anyway, the damage merely a bit of added war paint. I fist-pumped as he hammered by in the closing laps.

If the previous class was all about differing powertrain philosophies, the Can-Am class that followed was an exercise in the dark art of downforce. These wedge-shaped monsters get grippier with speed. Between their bodywork and the big-block V-8s powering many of the cars, they posted some of the day’s highest corner speeds.

If I’d had any doubts about how sincere the folks running these cars were about their passion for motorsports, seeing Zak Brown—yes, that guy, the Team Principle for McLaren’s Formula 1 team—pound a papaya orange 1970 McLaren M8D through turn four erased the thought entirely. The guy was movin’ around Laguna.

We paused to eat lunch for all of maybe 15 minutes before my FOMO dragged me back trackside. I’d been told not to miss the class that ran just after they sang the National Anthem at 1:30. Whoever gave me that mandate—your name is just one of a thousand things that I forgot that day, my apologies—I owe you a beer. Or fifty.

The Historic Trans-Am class, consisting of cars from 1966 to ’72, is without a doubt the best race of the day. Picture all of the classic American muscle cars we know and love engaged in a 10-lap, bare-knuckle brawl. “You might see more overtakes in these 10 laps than you have in the last 10 sessions combined,” crooned the announcer as a field of 32 (!) cars rumbled past on the out lap.

To watch them, Brandan and I scurried out to the Corkscrew, Laguna’s most famous corner combination (8 and 8A), a drop of 59 feet over 450 feet of track. “Green flag is out, listen to these machines thunder past!” came the call over the loudspeaker.

Parnelli Jones. Dan Gurney. Peter Gregg. Chevrolet Camaro. Ford Mustang. The Gray Ghost. AMC Javelin. Penske. Shelby. If a name looms large in the pantheon of 1960s American motorsports history, it was accounted for in this field. I’d only ever read about these cars before, maybe perused a handful of YouTube videos to watch some of the action. Photos, videos, and words do the machines little justice compared to the sight of the real things backing through the on-camber turn nine, just after the Corkscrew.

You feel the noise in your chest whenever more than two of cars charge past. Imagine trying to mediate a fistfight between a silverback gorilla and a white rhino; that’s probably about what each driver was experiencing as their cars’ roaring V-8s did their best to peel the rubber from the rear wheels. Having to call it quits after just 10 laps was an immense bummer—I would have watched them run for hours.

Then again, I’m not sure. The combination of August sun, completely uncorked excitement, too little water (I might miss a hero car!), and sleep deprivation caught up to me. Dizzy and nauseous, I hailed a ride back to my hotel. Once back, the little food I had eaten that day promptly left the way it came.

A bit wilty, I began to thumb through the thousands of pictures on my camera, suddenly realizing that my carefully laid plans for the day had been vaporized before I could finish the morning’s breakfast burrito. But then again, even my lofty expectations had fallen short of the real thing. I chuckled at my own naivety and began scheming a way to do it all again next year.

Well, maybe not all of it.

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For the second year running, Monterey Car Week festivities at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca concluded with a still-disorienting, backwards run of the most recognizable part of the iconic track in north Monterey County. The Corkscrew Hillclimb ran on Sunday morning, the day after the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion wrapped up, and included more than 50 vehicles for 2023. If you’re quick, you can just make it from Dawn Patrol at the Concours d’Elegance to the hillclimb without missing any on-track action.

Like its inaugural year, the Corkscrew Hillclimb attracted some race cars that had extended their Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion stays as well other brand-new entries, including street cars and one dedicated off-roader, a pre-runner driven by Brian Antle.

The wrong-way run up the illustrious Corkscrew of Laguna Seca begins on the front straight, heading toward turn 11. It seems that turns 11, 10, and 9 are no more difficult to negotiate clockwise than they are counterclockwise, but things get tricky at the Corkscrew. The steep uphill section loads a vehicle’s suspension and, as the surface flattens, unloads it, causing the vehicle to become really light just when it needs to turn right and take the checkered flag. This difficult sequence of weight transfer led to some cars pulling a tire off the ground—and a couple of hair-raising moments as grip became scarce.

Notable performances include a blistering time from a Drako GTE, a 1200-hp EV that beat the production-car hillclimb record set by a Lucid Air last year with an impressive time of 37.0 seconds.

Christine Sloss set the time to beat at the early session in this beautiful Ferrari SF90. Once the track warmed up, the battle was between Patrick Long, in a Porsche 911 Turbo from Gunther Werks, and Chris Locke, whose Lotus Formula 1 car was able to take the win for the second consecutive year.

The third-annual Corkscrew Hillclimb and Community Day is already on the books for next year, set for August 18. Tickets for adults are $35 for the day, with kids 15 and under free with a paying adult. Expect another wide variety of vehicles, and look for Locke to be challenged—he’ll surely be going for a three-peat at Laguna Seca.

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The Rolex Motorsports Reunion, held each year during Monterey Car Week, always brings out rare and beautiful race cars and presents them on one of motorsports most recognizable tracks, Laguna Seca. For 2023, the event highlighted Corvette’s momentous impact on the racing world by displaying more than 20 historic Corvette racers and development cars. A few of them even fired up and took to the tarmac to give spectators a taste of racing days gone by.

Corvette has a long and illustrious racing pedigree that stretches back to the 1950s, shortly after the beautiful two-seater debuted. While America’s Sports Car got off to an inauspicious start due to its ho-hum Blue Flame Six powerplant, the legendary Chevy small-block V-8 debuted in 1955 and more than made up for it. The earliest Corvette featured at the display was a 1956 Corvette SR1, one of just two remaining of the six built. These SR1 cars were fitted with heavy-duty drum brakes, Halibrand magnesium wheels, and the famed “Duntov” cam to really transform the V-8.

Shown in the lead image at the top of the page all displayed together, four development cars were on hand that foreshadowed the C8 Corvette‘s transition to a mid-engine layout and all four of them hit the track for parade laps. The open-wheel 1960 CERV I looks like a contemporary Indy car, while the 1964 CERV II covered its wheels yet kept the sporting aspirations with its speedster roofline. Both the 1973 Aerovette and the 1990 CERV III, on the other hand, look like concept cars that could have headed to production.

Thanks to Corvette engineer and hot rod guru Zora Arkus-Duntov, the small-block would be the spearhead of Chevrolet racing for years, although we can’t ignore the Chevy big-block. Several important Corvette racers were on display that made a case for large displacement engines. Tom McIntyre brought out his 1963 Corvette Z06, formerly owned by the legendary Mickey Thompson. This was one of two Corvettes prepped for Daytona Speed Week 1963 to be fitted with the Mark II 427 engine known as the “Mystery Motor” as it was shrouded in secrecy. The engine, likely still warm from the foundry, was essentially a rough draft of what would become the Mark IV big-block that we all know as the 396, 427, and 454 V-8s of the muscle car era. While its original engine was gone when he purchased the car, McIntyre was able to buy a Mystery Motor from Smokey Yunick’s estate and get the car back under 427 power.

This curvy, big-block-powered 1968 Corvette was prepped to race at the 1973 24 Hours of Le Mans and found a spot on the grid as part of Ferrari’s North American Racing Team (NART). It placed a respectable 7th in class and 15th overall, but went on to win its class at Sebring later that year.

We can’t mention curvy big-block ‘Vettes without showing off these two C3s and their outrageously flared fiberglass. It doesn’t get any more ’70s than these two. The red Greenwood Corvette is a race veteran and still has a surprising amount of its original equipment. The NACA-ducted IMSA Supervette, also from Greenwood, features a tube chassis to go along with its drastically restyled fiberglass body.

Both big- and small-block-powered C2s were on display, including the successful 1963 Grand Sport Chassis 004 and the Roger Penske Chevrolet 1966 L88 Corvette. The Grand Sport won its class in Nassau in 1963, while the L88 had back-to-back class wins at the 1966 Daytona 24 Hours and Sebring 12 Hours.

We can’t talk about endurance-race-winning Corvettes without mentioning the dominating late-model Corvette race cars like the C5R and C8.R. Three examples were on display, including a C8.R that looked like it came straight off the track.

The Corvette display at the Rolex Motorsports Reunion was the best gathering of Corvette racing history in one place that we can remember seeing. If you didn’t get a chance to see it in person, we recommend visiting the Petersen Automotive Museum where some of these cars were headed after Monterey.

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Monterey Car Week provides opportunities to see some of the most exclusive and expensive cars on the planet. The ones parked on golf courses at shows like The Quail or the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elégance are next-level stuff, no question. But ask people who have been going to Car Week for years and they are quick to point out that the local cars, or the ones that actually drive hundreds of miles to attend Car Week, are often just as interesting (if not even more so) than the ones at the fancy car shows.

Here are a few favorites seen parked around Monterey. Since there were no car cards handy, I’m taking my best-educated guess at model years:

1966 or 1967 International Harvester Pickup

What is it? The C-series International Harvester Pickup dates back to 1961, and lasted until 1970, so this example came roughly midway through the model run. The C-series was produced in various sizes and capacities, including one of the first crew-cabs, which International called the Travelette.

Why do I love it? Trucks like this simply don’t exist outside of California. The Tow-Mater style patina was irresistible. While most of the paint was burned off, there was just a light coating of surface rust, almost like a suntan, in its place. There didn’t seem to be any structural rust at all. Whether you’re hauling surfboards, dirt bikes, cantaloupes, or anything else, it’d be difficult to go wrong with this handsome old truck.

1970 Datsun 240Z

What is it? First year examples of the classic Z-car are easily spotted by the pair of small vents below the rear window. This is the car that put Japanese sports cars on the map in the U.S. and everywhere else.

Why do I love it?  As 240Zs move upward in price, it’s getting more unusual to see them used, enjoyed, and street parked. This one was sitting in downtown Monterey, looking like something you’d see in the background of your favorite episode of “The Rockford Files.” The paint on this one appeared to be original, and the slotted mag wheels were probably added by the original selling dealer to add a little more profit to the Z-car’s ultra-reasonable $3,500 original MSRP.

1952 Hudson Hornet

What is it? Hudson built some of the most interesting cars of the early 1950s. Their step-down chassis gave them a lower center of gravity than competing American cars, they handled better, and thus dominated NASCAR.

Why do I love it? This example appears to be a vintage California custom—the roof has been mildly chopped and it’s riding on what looks like a set of early 1970s vintage Pontiac Rallye II wheels. The two-tone paint looked like it last had a shine during the Nixon administration, and I wouldn’t change a thing.

1971 Alfa Romeo 1750 GTV

What is it? The 105-Series Alfa Romeo coupe debuted in 1966 as the Giugiaro-designed Giulia with a unique step-nose design and 1600 cubic centimeters of displacement. This facelifted car dispensed with the step-nose, and added quad round headlights and a new 1750-cc engine.

Why do I love it? These Alfa GTVs are so achingly handsome, they handle beautifully, and sound great. This one looked really special in its super-shiny Yellow Ochre paint, which is a dead-ringer for one of my favorite Porsche colors, Bahama Yellow. It was probably one of the handsomest Alfas I saw all weekend.

1975 Cadillac Eldorado

What is it? The mid-’70s Eldosaurus was probably one of the most audacious Cadillacs of the pre-downsizing era. Weighing in at an SUV-like 5,106 lbs., it took an 8.2 liter/500 cubic inch V8 to motivate it. In true Malaise Era fashion, said engine produced only 190 hp. Oh, and it was front-wheel-drive.

Why do I love it? Two words—steer horns.

2001 BMW Z3 3.0 Coupe

What is it? The original Z3 was a lovely little roadster. Like other open BMWs of the time, it suffered from its share of cowl-shake. The addition of a breadvan-like fixed roof to the Z3 solved the structural rigidity issue, and added a bit of practicality to the mix.

Why do I love it? These are super quirky cars, and perhaps second only to the BMW 2002 in terms of having a genuine cult following. They’re affectionately referred to as “clown shoes.” BMW sold very few of them in comparison to the roadsters, so they’ve always been rare sights, and this one, parked on the grass at PCA’s Werks Reunion, looked absolutely gorgeous in spite of its indicated 200,000 plus miles.

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I love everything about Monterey Car Week: the events, the auctions, the parties, the hoopla. I can’t wait to come back!

I despise everything about Monterey Car Week: the events, the auctions, the parties, the hoopla. I’m never ever going back!

I know I’m far from the only one who has these decidedly mixed feelings at times.

Let’s put things in perspective.

Here’s the deal: Car Week attracts the most important people in the industry, the poseurs, and everyone in between. As Sundance does for the film industry, Geneva does for watches, and Art Basel does for, well, art, Monterey is the week for cars of all kinds, years, colors, shapes, and sizes. Thanks to Concours d’Lemons, the failures and afterthoughts of the car world are celebrated; everywhere else, it’s the automotive winners who rule the roost.

There are a lot of car things happening on the Monterey peninsula in August. Many more than any one human can attend, even if you have a flying car. And yes, there was a flying car in Monterey, and it seemed like it was everywhere that you could go without paying to get in, which is a very effective guerilla marketing strategy. But even the flying car guys, which I’m going to rate an 11 out of 10 on the exclusive factor, did not make it to every event, every party, every auction, every happening. Everyone’s FOMO meter was maxed out.

After attending for many years, my personal Fear of Missing Out is now more refined. I say this not to recognize any Zen-Master level of achievement—rather, it’s more comparable to the “what, me, worry?” attitude of the philosopher Alfred E. Neuman of Mad magazine. I absolutely know that at any given time from Wednesday through Saturday, there are a minimum of three competing events that I would like to attend, four if my life revolved around Porsches.

First, the auctions. This year, there were five auction companies and all of them did well. Yes, 2023 was far off 2022’s chart-topping auction sales, but just to be clear, even though sell-through rates dropped and some big cars didn’t sell, the sky is not falling. No one should be living in fear about the near-term or long-term collector car market. I would be happy to give you five excellent, below-market buys for every five cars reported as record prices, but let’s save that for another article.

I attended all five auctions, and I like to talk to both the sellers and the buyers. The mood, in my opinion, was one of cautious optimism. The quality of cars at the auctions was high—I only found a handful of bummers in the bunch. (Just to note, there are always those cars with more than a few needs, and sometimes they are well-hidden.) I talked to dozens of people, and there wasn’t a buyer in the bunch who was looking for anything but a ready-to-go car, one with zero major needs. This is a continuation of the same trend over the past ten years—the best bring the best while the “yeah, but” cars go back to their previous garage. On the seller side, many of the dealers I spoke with said higher interest rates were holding bids back, but my sense is that the market is taking a breather before people decide to buy or sell. This time, both the higher end and the middle of the market are feeling a bit of the blahs.

Regardless of up or down, we are still car people, and Car Week is more than just auctions. The events? Totally off the charts. The manufacturers who were here spent freely to make a big-time splash with their cars. Mercedes-Benz, Rolls-Royce, Lexus, Porsche, you name it (even the Meyers Manx folks), were here and the fountains (of Champagne, chocolate, and shrimp) flowed. Monterey has become the place to market your wares, especially if their price carries a lot of zeros. And why not? Everyone is already there.

The street scene? Again, if you can drive it, why not show it? Happily, along the streets and winding highways I found further evidence that the under-20 set is all in for cars. No kidding—I saw well over 200 teens and twenty-somethings with actual, physical cameras strapped around their necks. The other 2,000 had cellphones out, snapping away at all the kit driving by. You can be sure that the number of photos taken across all of Monterey’s events is in the millions. And why not? Normal traffic for Car Week is a gaggle of Bugattis heading one way and a parade of Ferraris heading the other. And that doesn’t even begin to cover a little place called Laguna Seca.

The car shows: from Exotics on Broadway to the Pebble Beach Concours and everything in between, this is a true life-list destination. If you haven’t been here, you should come. It’s more than a cliché to say there is something for everyone, but, it’s the actual truth. Forget the hype about beautiful people who don’t have time for you and me. You can talk cars with everyone at almost any of the shows because this is the place that brings it all together.

And, yes, I’ll be back next year, perhaps with even more sunscreen, comfortable shoes, and a willingness to put up with the unbelievable traffic.

Because, even though I might say it differently in my out-loud voice, Pebble Beach in August is the greatest place to be if your love of cars is what gets, and keeps, your blood flowing.

***

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The post Only in Monterey: Musings from a Car Week veteran appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Mention Porsche to anyone, and their first thought almost certainly involves some sort of 911. The swooping sports car has anchored Porsche’s lineup (and its lore) for 60 years, and well over a million units have hit the road since its inception in 1963, covering every nook and cranny of the market. There is no Porsche without the 911.

This much was plainly evident at the ninth annual Porsche Werks Reunion Monterey, held at the Monterey Pines Golf Club near the airport. The show’s main grounds hosted 911s of all shapes and sizes, from early first-gen (1963–72) cars to svelte G-body (1973–89) cars to modern 992s (2019–now), and every rare or eccentric model in between.

But the event also featured scores of other cars proudly bearing the Porsche crest on their hoods, hind ends, or fenders. Below is a round-up of eight particularly charming Porsches that are not the 911, all of which showed up for Werks Reunion Monterey. Some of these are specific cars, while others are a collection of a specific model. Similarly, some are bone-stock, nearly preservation-grade rides, while others caught my eye due to their tasteful—or downright ambitious—modifications. There was only one rule here: A 911 was a no-no!

1986 Porsche 944 Turbo

Produced from 1982 to 1991, the Porsche 944 was an example of making lemonade from lemons. It was based on the 924, a strange and somewhat maligned collaboration between Porsche and Volkswagen to produce a front-engined sports car. The 944 was an evolution of the 924, better in every way, and more than 163,000 were produced over its lifespan, which made it, at the time, Porsche’s most successful sports car to date.

In 1986, Porsche opted to turbocharge the 944’s 2.5-liter inline four-cylinder, creating the 944 Turbo. The car pictured here is an ’86, owned by Erik Wayne Lunn of Pleasanton, California. As Lunn tells it, when he acquired the car back in 2018, it wasn’t what he was originally looking for. “I kind of fell into the Porsche world,” he explained. “I was trying to buy a Lotus Seven at the time, but a deal fell apart. A friend of mine said, ‘Have you considered a Porsche?'” He had, but only briefly.

Then, this car came across his desk. It was in fair shape but had its share of mechanical issues. Lunn set about refreshing and modifying the car to fit his vision—he called it modifying for “sports purpose.” The car now boasts a built engine producing somewhere around 280 horsepower—a fair bump from the 217-hp rating these things carried from the factory. It has plenty of suspension work as well, including a rear torsion bar delete, Koni adjustable shocks at all four corners, new strut braces front and rear, a Club Sport steering wheel, and 18-inch forged wheels. “[I did] everything you can do to sharpen these, and now it’s an absolutely delightful car to throw around.”

1971 Porsche 914/6 Tribute

Porsche and Volkswagen have had their fair share of joint projects over the years, perhaps none as recognizable as the 914 sports car. Upon the 914’s 1970 debut, it featured two engines: A 1.7-liter air-cooled flat-four from Volkswagen making 80 hp, or a 2.0-liter air-cooled flat-six making 110 hp, cribbed from the contemporary Porsche 911 T. Slow sales of the pricer Porsche-powered 914, dubbed the 914/6, led to the six-pot model being discontinued in 1972.

This car, owned by Bruce and Carmie Brincka of Folsom, California, began life as a 1.7-liter 914/4. “Growing up, I sat in the back seat of my dad’s 911, so I loved that [flat-six] sound” Brincka explained. “My sister bought a 914 when I was young, and I ended up loving both cars for different reasons. But I always gravitated toward the looks of the 914.”

This is Bruce’s third 914, but the first one to feature that flat-six sound he loved. In place of the little four-pot, the blazing orange 914 now boasts a 3.2-liter flat-six from a 1988 911 Carrera. It’s paired with a 915 manual gearbox from 1986. “A friend of mine actually built this car,” he explained. “It was on the East Coast for a while, but I had the chance to buy it back.”

Additional modifications include flared fenders at all four corners, Maxilite Fuchs wheels, front brakes from a Porsche Boxster, and new shocks front and rear. Inside, a smattering of houndstooth fabric accents the seats and door panels. There are practical mods, too, like the center console that Bruce fabricated for day-to-day comfort. “My wife told me, ‘I’m tired of holding the drinks!'” That awesome roadway carpet up front? “That’s there so my grandkids have a place to play when we go to car shows.” Who says fun and family-friendly can’t exist in a two-door, mid-engined sports car?

1958 Porsche 356A T2 Speedster

In 1956, Porsche unveiled the 356A, a comprehensively revamped version of the 356 that is widely regarded as Porsche’s first mass-market automobile. Max Hoffman, the famed businessman and car importer from New York City, bent Porsche’s ear and suggested that it make a no-frills, open-top version of the 356A called the “Speedster” for the American market. The Speedsters were well received, but most of them were sold, used hard as race cars, and then discarded.

Luckily, the car seen here, owned by Steve Raucher of California, escaped that fate. It’s a 1958 model, the last year of the Speedster run. Raucher’s research showed that this example was produced about 150 Speedsters before the final unit rolled off the line.

It may not have been used and discarded, but this 356A Speedster has still seen its fair share of drama. Raucher’s late father, a highly-regarded West Coast 356 authority, purchased the car in 1974, after it had spent its early days in Honolulu, Hawaii, and then in Colorado. About two months after his father purchased it, it was stolen in the Los Angeles area by a circle of thieves notorious for targeting Porsche 356s. The car, originally painted Tangerine Orange, was repainted to the navy seen here, and the original bumpers were removed. The thieves flared the fenders as well (Raucher has since repaired them) to further obscure the car.

The elder Raucher ended up taking out an ad in a local collector car magazine asking for help finding the car. Eventually, he was contacted by one Bruce Canepa—yes, the guy who founded the custom and refurbishing shop famous for its work on all sorts of Porsches—who said he may have spotted the car in the Santa Cruz mountains. Sure enough, with the help of Raucher’s father, the Santa Cruz police organized a sting on the small shop where Canepa had spotted the car, busting up the ring of thieves in the process.

The car returned to Steve’s father’s possession, albeit now decidedly unoriginal. Rather than lament the Porsche’s somewhat beleaguered state, Raucher embraced it, going full “outlaw.” The car now boasts disc brakes and an air-cooled flat-four from a ’66 912. “It’s a mixture of original and reproduction modified,” explained Raucher. There’s a fiberglass headrest cover over the soft top, but it looks right at home. “I wanted the car to look a little racier, so I had this piece custom-made. In period, a lot of the cars that raced looked this way.”

Raucher is planning to strip the paint and return the car to its original color scheme soon, but in the meantime, we’re happy to appreciate it for how it looks now.

Overlanding-ready Porsche Cayennes

This one isn’t a specific car, but rather, a growing trend within the Porsche community that has been spearheaded by a somewhat controversial model. Hindsight is 20/20, but the Cayenne is widely regarded as the reason Porsche can still build the 911—and the 718 Boxster and Cayman twins, and scores of other neat sports cars—today. And it’s not like the Cayenne wasn’t a seriously capable machine from the get-go.

The Cayenne S, specifically, seems to be the popular one to utilize for an overlanding build. It boasted a two-speed transfer case, a locking center differential, and an optional rear locker.

Porsche Palm Springs built the blue and white example seen in the first picture of this gallery. Christian Cirillo, a technician at the dealership, explained how this 2008 Cayenne S went from an on-road cruiser to an off-road monster. “[The Cayenne] was in typical second-hand condition when we got our hands on it,” he explained. “A little rough around the edges, in need of some work.”

Cirillo and his team fitted the Cayenne with Bilstein coilovers, Eurowise upper control arms to give the suspension more articulation, and the 33-inch Mickey Thompson tires that you see here. “It rides a lot better [with the modifications],” said Cirillo. “It’s night and day, this thing at high speed just soaks up the bumps.”

His team didn’t just call it good with a shock and tire package, though. They also fitted the Porsche with a roof-top tent and a hitch-mounted bike rack—upon which a Porsche E-bike sits—as well as a front bumper with four additional Hella lights.

The other Cayennes in this gallery were either elsewhere on the show field, or just tucked away in the parking area. As overlanding continues to gain traction, expect these sorts of builds to follow suit.

1957 Porsche 356A Carrera GT

In the early 1950s, a talented young engineer named Ernst Fuhrmann created a highly advanced engine that would kickstart Porsche’s dominance in the world of motorsports. The “Fuhrmann Four-Cam” engine was a 1.5-liter, air-cooled flat-four with four overhead camshafts driven by bevel-gear shafts that turned off a central crank. The skunkworks engine went on to propel the 550 Spyder to remarkable victories in everything from hill climbs to Le Mans.

In 1954, the engine made its way into a run of Porsche 356s, which took on the “Carrera” moniker, named after the grueling Carrera Panamericana race. Those 356 Carreras are some of the most sought-after cars in Porsche’s history.

This car, now owned by Gregg Blue of Maui, Hawaii, was put into storage in Brooklyn, New York, in 1969, where it remained until 2016. It’s one of the few known completely original Carreras left in existence—original paint, original Fuhrmann Four-Cam engine, and original interior.

That hasn’t stopped Blue from enjoying the car immensely—he’s put over 23,000 miles on it in the last five years, driving road rallies and to and from shows all over the country. (Peep those front license plates, stacked one atop the other!)

Despite its similarity to Steve Raucher’s 356A, this one made the list because how can you not tip your cap to someone enjoying such a special machine so voraciously?

1987 Porsche 928 S4

By the mid-1970s, slumping sales of the 911 coupled with the oil crisis of the 1970s had Porsche executives toying with the idea of a replacement car that combined certain elements of a luxury grand tourer with traits of a sports car. The resulting car, the 928, heralded a number of firsts for the brand. Namely, it was the first V-8-powered model from Porsche.

This car, owned by Jeff Mohler and his daughter, of San Jose, California, was purchased in 2015 for $1000 as a parts car. The Porsche had already undergone extensive restoration work by the previous owner, but Mohler and his daughter took things a step further, rebuilding some of the mechanicals and commissioning a full repaint in 2017. The car is now a daily driver, going out on weekend adventures as well as taking part in NASA HPDE track days at the hands of Mohler’s daughter.

In fact, she’s so smitten by the car, that she ended up buying her own 1985 928 when she turned 16. Additionally, she eventually enrolled at the Universal Technical Institute to further her automotive technician dreams, even being accepted into a highly competitive Porsche Technology Apprenticeship Program (PTAP). In that program, she gained experience disassembling and reassembling every Porsche model, including a test mule for the 918 Spyder. Mohler credits her for much of the work that has led to this black 928 S4 appearing in the condition it does today.

1986–88 Porsche 959

Considered to be the most technologically advanced car of its time, the Porsche 959 was an absolute stunner—in person and on track. The 959 began life as a Group B rally car, replete with a high-tech all-wheel-drive system that featured dynamic torque vectoring and adaptive suspension. The race car debuted in 1983 at the Frankfurt motor show, while the road-going version, created to satisfy the FIA’s homologation rules at the time, debuted two years later at the same event. Numerous issues ultimately delayed delivery of the road-going versions for more than a year, and the first ones didn’t reach customers until 1987.

The sequential, twin-turbocharged 2.8-liter flat-six engine was a derivative of the four-cam, 24-valve powerplant used in Porsche’s vaunted 956 and 962 race cars. It produced 444 hp and 369 lb-ft of torque, which, when coupled with the remarkably aerodynamic bodywork, allowed street 959s to reach speeds of 197 mph. Some variants could achieve an eye-watering 211 mph.

Porsche built just 337 959s, including 37 prototypes and pre-production models. The 959s are some of the most sought-after Porsches in existence today, largely because of what they did to push the brand forward in terms of performance and technology.

2004–2006 Porsche Carrera GT

It’s not a stretch to say that the Porsche Carrera GT was the spiritual successor to the 959. It was ambitious, advanced, and it caused plenty of ripples in the industry when it debuted. The Carrera GT featured a 603-hp, 5.7-liter V-10 engine that was originally developed in the early 1990s for a Formula 1 team, but was later shelved. The carbon-fiber monocoque chassis was extremely futuristic at the time, and the car employed all sorts of exotic materials and engineering, including inboard-mounted pushrod suspension.

Anytime you get to see one of these beasts in public is a special day. Porsche had originally planned to build 1500 units, but a change to U.S. airbag regulations cut that run short. In August 2005, Porsche announced that it would not continue production through the end of 2006 as originally planned. When production drew to an end in May 2006, just 1270 of the planned 1500 had been sold. Just 644 made their way to the U.S.

The combination of rarity, the gorgeous purple paint job, and the remarkable white interior landed this one a rightful spot on the list.

The post 8 stars of the Porsche Werks Reunion Monterey … without 911 badges appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Some cars just delight you as soon as they come into view. At the 2023 Hagerty Festival of the Unexceptional, which celebrates mundane motoring, Andy Boorman’s Saab 96 spread delight far and wide.

All 96s are a treat for the eyes; the Swedish car’s unusual teardrop shape is impossible to mistake for any other car. And they’re arguably at their best as early V-4s like Boorman’s example. In fact, as we’ll get onto, his is one of the earliest V-4s around.

But one reason for the delight was that trailing behind this 1966 Saab was The Pod—a compact camper whose roofline features surprisingly similar contours to that of its tow car. And despite originating from the mid-twenty-teens, it has enough of a classic look to seem right at home behind the Swedish classic. It has us wondering what other car/camper combinations might look perfect together …

Let’s start with the car, though, as Boorman explains its status as a V-4-engined model from 1966.

“People think the V-4s started in 1967, but Saab made 200 of them in 1966, and this is the only one in the UK. In the summer of 1966, Saab took 200 two-stroke [models], removed their engines, and replaced them with V-4s—and these are the cars that were launched to the press.”

The car does have the longer front that denotes the V-4 models, as well as the grille design that arrived at the same time, but Boorman notes how there are clues under the bonnet as to the car’s halfway-house status—such as the hammer-assisted recess to provide clearance for the alternator.

The in-period switch from the 96’s original two-stroke to the Ford-sourced 1.5-liter V-4 four-stroke brought with it all the improvements you’d expect, such as more power and torque, cleaner and quieter running, and easier maintenance for the average driver. However, as Boorman admits, “Nothing really beats the handling of the two-stroke, as it’s so much lighter. But I’d have the V-4 all day long; it’s more reliable and you can go where you want with it.

Boorman has owned the V-4 for around 27 years. He restored it, including three attempts to get the car painted—finally opting to do it himself—and uses it as often as possible. As the attached camper suggests, it’s not simply babied over local journeys, either. “We did the Isle of Wight last year… albeit not with the caravan attached… and we’ve just done the North Coast 500.”

That’s all the more impressive when you consider there are seven other Saabs vying for Boorman’s driving attention, too, including second- and third-generation Sonnets and a Saab 9000 Aero. “The 9000 Aero is the car that does everything. You can use it as a wedding car, it’s a racing car, you can go down to the tip in it… mine is making about 350 bhp [345 hp].”

The 96 isn’t making quite that, though apparently even with The Pod attached it gets along quite nicely with its 64 horses. With the caravan weighing in at only 300 kilos [661 pounds] or thereabouts, there’s not really a lot to drag. “But without the caravan attached,” he says, “it really whips along.” And 96s are practical, too, though Boorman probably wouldn’t fill his car with nine people, as happened once with his dad’s car back in the late 1960s …

Even without the caravan, and even without the unique aspect of being such an early V-4 car, this Saab 96 was what you might call one of the more exceptional stand-outs at the Festival of the Unexceptional. But we’ll forgive it that many times over, because in a show where almost every car raises a smile, the 96 created bigger grins than most.

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Via Hagerty UK

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Every August, Louisville, Kentucky sends off summer with the National Street Rod Association Street Rod Nationals. What began with around 600 street rods in Peoria, Illinois, all the way back in 1970 has become a gathering of about 10,000 vehicles, dating from the start of the automobile all the way to 30 years before the present day. The custom builds spend four days on the grounds of the Kentucky Exposition Center, a place the Nationals have called home since the 1990s, across the highway from the UPS Worldport and the Muhammad Ali International Airport.

Alongside attractions like the NSRA Autocross, which we covered last year, and the Nitro Knockout, where drag cars let their nitro-breathing V-8s pop off for a few moments, Street Rod Nationals also hosts live music, seminars on making the most of your street rod, and, of course, thousands of vehicles parked on the expansive grounds of the Kentucky Expo Center. However, there is one attraction that every NSRA member looks forward to every year: The street-rod giveaway, held at the expo center’s Freedom Hall each year since Nationals decided to call Louisville its permanent Old Kentucky home.

“In the original [giveaway], we had a club that wanted to do it, and they were going to do it as a raffle,” said Jerry Kennedy, a retired NSRA special events director who comes out to help with the Nationals giveaway every year. “[After the first giveaway], the NSRA said, ‘The raffle thing isn’t gonna work for one if it doesn’t work for ’em all. Who’s gonna be responsible for this after it’s done?’ That’s when [the NSRA] decided to do [the giveaway]; 1982 was the first year we gave a car away.”

According to Kennedy, the builder chosen by NSRA comes up with the giveaway vehicle based on what they’re best at building. For most of the giveaways, the vehicle was a 1948-or-earlier machine. Then, at the event’s 50th anniversary in 2019, both a classic street rod and 1971 Chevrolet Nova SS were given away.

In 2023, for the first time in Nationals history, a street-fighting truck was the giveaway vehicle. The NSRA tapped Harrison’s Rod & Custom of Greenville, Tennessee, to build the giveaway vehicle for the 54th Street Rod Nationals. Since the shop specialized in 1973 through 1987 “Square Body” Chevrolet and GMC trucks, the giveaway vehicle would be a 1977 Chevy C10 regular cab.

“A couple of years ago, a friend of mine … was talking about ways we can do something a little different to get a different market,” said Bryan Harrison, owner of Harrison’s Rod & Custom. “Truck guys don’t always think of coming [to the Nationals]. They think it’s just a street rod show. I’m known for doing a lot of trucks. It’s how it started, and here we are.”

According to Harrison, the giveaway truck is “98 percent all brand-new.” The build started as just a cab with a clean title sourced by the shop via social media from a local Chevy fan. With the help of various vendors also specializing in ’73 to ’87 GM pickups, Harrison’s crew got the raw mock-up of the truck ready in five to six months. They spent the next year getting the ’77 Chevy ready for its Nationals visit, right up to an hour before heading out to Louisville.

“The biggest challenge in building the giveaway truck is that there are so many companies that want to send parts they want to donate; they want to be known for being on that truck,” said Harrison. “It’s very easy to get caught up in so much free stuff coming in that you end up overdoing things.

“At the end of the day, [the winner is] getting a free truck regardless of what it is. You don’t need to slack on it. It’s not an issue of backing off of quality or anything like that. But there comes a time when you need to say, ‘This is a giveaway truck. We’re not trying to win a national award here. We’re trying to give somebody a really good, driveable, quality truck. We don’t want to overdo it.’”

Under the ’62 Corvette Fawn Gold and Adobe Beige paint, complemented by a deep brown distressed leather interior, the ’77 Chevy truck turns up the heat on the street via a GM Performance V-8. The 502-cubic-inch mill pumps 502 horsepower through a Tremec five-speed manual to a Ford 9-inch rear. The 20-inch chrome American Racing wheels (18s up front) are wrapped in Diamond Back Classic Tires. The whole package looked wonderful heading out from its display area inside the expo center’s front lobby towards the rear entrance of Freedom Hall. Onlookers strained to get a glimpse of the truck, each hoping they’d be the one to bring it home.

After the pre-giveaway entertainment that Saturday afternoon, Kennedy drew three numbers one at a time, calling each number out in the hopes the matching ticketholder would reveal their presence. After each number was put aside, the audience cheered, knowing they all still had a shot at the truck. Kennedy and Harrison found the new owner upon the fourth number drawn: one Rocky Earney, whose own truck at the Nationals had a few issues along the way to Louisville. No doubt he’s happy to have this Square Body Chevy.

“[The giveaway has] touched a lot of people,” said Kennedy. “It’s always one that says, ‘I never thought this could happen to me.’ But it can. That’s always been NSRA’s goal, that it would, hopefully, go to somebody who could really use it and appreciate it and keep it.”

***

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Here’s an Automotive Journalist Hard Truth: You get jaded in this line of work. Not by choice, and not all at once, but it does happen. Talk to anyone who covers this world in some capacity, and I promise you there is a car they used to go nuts over that barely elicits an, “Oh, that’s cool,” now. One day, the car you used to obsess over rolls past, and you don’t even attempt to take your phone out.

I palmed my iPhone Wednesday afternoon as I stepped onto the tarmac at the Monterey airport. Force of habit, but also a test run, spurred on by uncertainty over how many times the device would escape its fabric prison to help freeze a moment in time over the next six days. Optimistically, I hoped that Monterey Car Week would prove to be an antidote for an enthusiasm that had been somewhat tempered by the rolling pin of life. Truthfully, I wasn’t so sure.

Once I got home and had a bit of time to decompress, I checked my photo roll from Wednesday to Sunday evening: 1246 photos, 58 videos. On my DSLR camera, the cards read north of 5100.

At the risk of stating the obvious: There is absolutely nothing like Monterey Car Week. For roughly seven days, the winding roads and towns nestled into the misty coastline of Monterey, California explode with a crop of cars so rich and so diverse that you feel like you got dropped into a David Attenborough documentary blended with Pixar’s Cars franchise. Everything, and everyone, everywhere you look, bleeds passion for the automobile in a truly heartening way.

Things crystallized for me before the first morning’s breakfast reached my gut. I was a guest of Cadillac this week, and our first full day there involved a cruise up and down the Pacific Coast Highway in the brand’s svelte debut EV, the Lyriq. As we rolled away from the hotel and towards historic Highway 1, I began to notice the cars lining the streets. They weren’t exotic metal, but rather, ordinary cars, helmed by perfectly ordinary people.

Trucks with folding chairs and coolers in the bed. Camrys with the trunks open, inhabitants folded into only semi-comfortable looking poses. Some had cameras, sure, but many more were simply there to gawk at whatever came rolling around the bend, hoping to catch a glimpse of something that got their heart pumping.

And they had no shortage of choices to get excited over. During our 100-ish-mile tour, we were passed by everything from vintage Camaros to a McLaren F1 GTR Longtail (!!!) to a Bugatti Chiron to a handful of the historic vehicles that would take their rightful places later that week in the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, Car Week’s marquee event.

Everyone at the wheel of a significant car—and you can set your own parameters for that qualification—was full of smiles, ready to wave to those posted up and watching. The egalitarian nature of the cruise sat in my brain like a happy marine layer; sure, that Ferrari 250 GT SWB might be worth several million dollars, but no price tag can buy it a pass around the ratty Miata two cars ahead. Might as well sit back and enjoy the processional. A smile and a friendly wave don’t carry a transactional value—they’re just acknowledgments of the common bond between those who scraped to buy one car they enjoy and those whose collections fill entire warehouses.

The next day, I had the chance to attend the Porsche Werks Reunion, a marque-specific show held on Friday at the Monterey Pines golf course. The free-to-attend event (there’s a fee for parking inside the event, but plenty of folks found nearby lots to walk in from) is unmitigated Stuttgart, celebrating the brand’s rich history, passionate owners, and rabid fans.

We enthusiasts are remarkably tribal, a reality that both fuels and stymies enthusiasm for the automobile. You’d think the parking lot of a Porsche event would hold, well, Porsches. And it did—several hundred, by my unscientific estimation. But it also held Lamborghinis, Ferraris, drift-ready Nssain 240 SXs, lifted Toyota Land Cruisers, heavy-duty pickups, and bone-stock 2022 Nissan Altimas. It felt like an armistice had been called between the factions; everyone just wanted to see cool cars.

There was no armistice at the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion, however. Seeing aces like Ron Fellows slicing through the fields of unforgettable race cars blew me away. So much so, in fact, that I’m writing a separate story on it. Stay tuned.

Of course, Monterey Car Week is centered around Sunday’s Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. This year, the swanky show featured 200 cars spread across 27 classes, each celebrating an automotive milestone or highlighting some of the hobby’s grandest eras. The night before, I dialed up Eddy Eckart’s story from last year’s event, which read as a lovely ode to the diversity of the hobby. I was hopeful that the following day would bear similar fruit for a first-timer like me.

I didn’t have to wait long to find my answer. Running on precious few hours of rest, I headed to the bucket-list golf course well before the sun rose to experience Dawn Patrol, one of the Concours’ grandest traditions. I watched as icon after icon rumbled past and headed out to take its place on the lawn.

Buzz and daylight grew in unison as the festivities got underway. Flush with a hearty breakfast and an unmentionable amount of coffee, I headed out to walk this year’s crop. Hand up, I’m not all that familiar with prewar cars, which are often considered the hallmark era for the event. But as I wandered among the preservation-class Packards and the gleaming chrome of the Figoni coachbuilt exotics, it was hard not to get caught up by their exquisite craftsmanship.

I wasn’t the only young enthusiast taken by these beasts, either. Scores of young folks that I would have expected to find swarming the 1994 Lamborghini Diablo SE30 Coupé were also taken by machinery that predated them by several decades. Phones were out everywhere I turned, busy snapping pictures. More impressively, plenty of folks were stopping to ask owners and handlers more details about the cars before them, curiosity trumping generational divides.

As the day drew to a close and confetti cannons emptied over the fenders of the 1937 Mercedes-Benz 540K Special Roadster that ultimately took home the coveted Best of Show award, I finally stopped to catch my breath. The cars filtered off the lawn and a single-file line of heroes headed back to waiting transport trucks. I flipped through my phone, trying to re-sear the stunning machines into my psyche. Some of the cars will stick with me forever, others will undoubtedly be relegated to the program that snuck into my suitcase before making the flights home. So it goes.

Strip away the dizzying auction results and the unspoken exclusivity that surrounds so much of this week. When you evaluate what’s left, you’ll see that dollar signs aren’t the metric to use. Rather, check your camera rolls. Hiding among the throngs of photos and videos, the conversations and the moments of exclamation, you might just rediscover that child-like exuberance that first led you to pick up a wrench, a magazine, or a set of keys.

I know I sure did.

***

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Even the night before the Kilbroney Vintage Show, I knew I was in for a treat. Weary from a sleepless nine-hour flight and a 75-mile drive, I rolled through the village of Rostrevor, where the show is held, and found classic car folks already gathering. A beautiful burgundy Wolseley 18/85 sat parked outside the Rostrevor Inn. A two-tone Opel Kadett Rallye 2-liter roared past, then a Toyota Starlet Turbo. Fatigue instantly melted into childlike enthusiasm.

Kilbroney is Northern Ireland’s largest classic-car show, and a can’t-miss event for locals, but I’d never heard of it until a few months prior to making it part of a much-needed vacation.

In part, that’s because Kilbroney isn’t anything like the Goodwood Festival of Speed or Villa d’Este Concours. A handful of exotics attend, but Kilbroney is a volunteer-run, proletarian, “run what ya brung” event where the proceeds go to charity. It’s also held in a public place, Kilbroney Park, nestled between Carlingford Lough and the Mourne Mountains.

What makes Kilbroney truly special, however, is its variety. The attendees are a cross-section of two once-separate car markets, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, each with different tastes and regulations. With more than 1300 cars on hand, the sheer number of brands, vehicles, and niche models is dizzying.

More importantly, the show also illustrates how cars bring people together in a place once notorious for division. Though a few newer cars end up at the show through club stands, Kilbroney’s cutoff for entry is 25 years. As it happens, this year is also the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement and referendum, which has brought lasting peace and transformed Northern Ireland as a tourist destination.

Thankfully, I had some ideal guides, both for the event and for the history of cars in both Irelands. Fiat adventurer Jim Magill, a Carrickfergus native, who has attended for 24 years, put me on to the show and also introduced me to some of the locals. They included Chris Gunning, who brought his Fiat Panda and has attended for years with his uncles Mike and Ken Smith; and Alex Farmer, who attended with his father in a Saab 99 Turbo.

Different Irelands, different cars

Except for Opel (sold in the Republic but not in Northern Ireland) and Vauxhall (vice versa), today’s Irish car markets are almost identical, but in the 20th century, things were different. Although Fords were popular everywhere, Northern Ireland’s car market was, like the rest of the U.K., dominated by British brands. That’s reflected in Kilbroney’s huge variety of British Leyland and Rootes models. Meanwhile, Magill says, “the Republic was a much more level playing field.”

In the 1970s, Fiat topped the Republic’s sales charts and had a higher market share in Ireland than anywhere but Italy. Renault’s Irish share was similarly its best outside of France. That same decade saw the arrival and rapid adoption of Japanese cars: Toyota sold its first car in Ireland in 1973, and by 1981 one in three cars sold in the Republic were Japanese.

Some of these cars were also built in the Republic. Ford opened a factory in Cork in 1917 to first produce tractors and later cars, but the real action began after World War II. “The first Volkswagens to be built outside of Germany were assembled in Dublin in 1950,” says Magill. “I say ‘assembled’ since they were CKD [complete knock-down] kits, but that really kicked off local production.” Toyota, Fiat, Ford, Renault, Mazda, and even some British brands were built locally to circumvent stiff import tariffs.

“Joining the European Common Market did away with those tariffs,” says Alex Farmer. Although car production remained robust until the early 1980s, he adds, the dismantling of the tariffs ended the business case for the Republic’s car factories, though it also made car parts and other things much cheaper. “The last car built in Ireland was a Mazda 323 in 1984.” As Farmer told me this, another showgoer, a woman in her 60s, interjected: “I loved my 323 and I still drive a CX-5.”

Of course, there were also cars built in Northern Ireland. Keen-eyed sports car fans would have found a lone Irish Clan Crusader on the show field, but no show in Ireland would be complete without the Belfast-built DeLorean, and several attended. “I have an emotional connection to them because my father worked on the assembly line,” says Magill, “And let’s face it, they’re the world’s most famous car from Ireland.”

How the Kilbroney Vintage Show happens

In 1985, just a year after that last Mazda rolled off the line, Newry Lions Club members John Fox, Jerome Mullan, Drew Warde, and Sean Brannigan put together a car show to mark the centennial of the automobile. Back then, most classic car events were rallies and runs, explains Paula Braham, liaison for the organizing committee. “At the time it filled a distinct vacuum in the vintage car calendar as a static show.”

The show is run entirely by volunteers, Braham says, and the Newry, Mourne & Down District Council supports the show by allowing the park’s use. In terms of natural beauty, Kilbroney cedes nothing to Lake Como or Goodwood House. The proceeds go to charity, and in 2022 more than £25,000 (about $32,000) was raised.

The individual charities that benefit send volunteers on the day to marshall, and while that sounds like it could be chaotic, in practice it looked like a well-oiled machine. The show is large enough to have an enormous swap meet and a small traveling amusement park. Like many U.K. festivals, there are also heavy truck and tractor sections.

Braham says no date has yet been set for 2024, but the show usually happens on the third Saturday in June. “One unpredictable factor is our lovely Irish weather, which has caused last-minute postponements in the past.” Indeed, it did rain for a short bit on the day of, but it didn’t dampen anyone’s enthusiasm.

Cars and camaraderie

At first Kilbroney was very much a “vintage” show full of pre-1960 cars but, Magill says, “There’s been a generational shift, which you can see in shows all over the world, and cars from the 1970s to the 1990s have taken over,” leading to even more variety. Even so, the show featured several vintage rarities, including a 1901 Boyer, a 1927 Erskine, and a 1935 Triumph Gloria.

Since Kilbroney is dominated by mass-market models, many attendees have warm memories to share of cars they grew up with, and there’s little “that’s not really a classic” snobbery. Gunning attributes that to the same generational shift mentioned by Magill, but also the success of another U.K. event. “Shows like the Festival of the Unexceptional have done an excellent job of highlighting ‘ordinary’ cars that haven’t been given the attention they deserve,” he says, making those cars a more welcome part of other shows.

The effect has been magnified through social media sharing of “cars you don’t see anymore.” Indeed, it was seeing shots from the 2022 Kilbroney show (the first after a two-year Covid interruption) online that sealed my interest.

Gunning’s 1992 Panda, a 999-cc “Fire” model and not the now-sought-after 4×4, is as basic as they come. “Part of the Panda’s charm is that it’s practical utilitarianism at its best, with no extra frills or unnecessary parts. It has no power steering, no ABS, and the only electrical things are the instruments and lights.” Even so, it drew plenty of admirers, as did his uncle Mike’s 1985 Renault Fuego Turbo, parked nearby.

In this case, I was the person saying “I had one just like that,” only mine was a U.S.-spec car and not nearly as nice as his. In talking with Mike about the car, it turned out that we knew some of the same people in the U.K. and U.S. Renault clubs, proving that it really is a small world. Small, but growing.

Attendance has steadily risen over the years, but there was more cross-border participation after 1998, Magill says. “Nowadays it’s common for people to live and work on opposite sides of the border, but that was in its infancy then.” Indeed, as an outsider, the only thing notable about the “border” is having to change between euros and sterling, a far cry from the police checkpoints that were removed in the 1990s. For those who may have dated conceptions about this place, it’s also important to note what else was missing.

Notably absent from an event that specifically recalls the cars and times of the 20th century is any indication of historic political differences, including Union Jacks and Tricolors. “Ireland is addicted to flags and tat, but sectarianism has never really been reflected in the car scene,” says Magill. “Cars have always been extremely cross-community in Northern Ireland. There was never a ‘Catholic Ford Club’ or a ‘Protestant Ford Club.’ It was always just the ‘Ford Club.’”

“I’m paraphrasing Ellen Degeneres,” Magill says, “but we think everyone should be treated equally and judged only by the cars they drive.”

***

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The car-based events that comprise California’s annual Monterey Car Week kick into high gear on Thursday. That’s when more than 150 classic cars participating in the Pebble Beach Tour d’Elegance presented by Rolex head out on 17-Mile Drive. The Tour is an optional activity for the cars that are entered in Sunday’s Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance; the machines that run in the Tour earn a few extra points added to their tally that could make a difference in the overall score.

What, exactly, is the “score” at a car show? The answer is an unsatisfying “It depends.” At the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, where a Best of Show award is one of the most coveted prizes in the vintage-car world, there are two sets of accolades. One, called the Special Awards, is more subjective, based on technology or design innovation, while the other class awards are more rigorous. The Best of Show winner is selected from the class-winner awards.

The classes vary from year to year; in 2023, one class was for British luxury cars built after World War II called “Postwar British Luxury.” Australian David Wilke entered his 1956 Bentley, an elegant machine with a convertible body that was handbuilt by a British firm called Park Ward. The Bentley is Wilke’s only vintage car, as he prefers to collect watches. The car, however, is special because it was purchased and cherished by Wilke’s father, who passed away in 1992. Wilke recently had the Bentley restored and the car’s run on the Tour was its first major outing.

The Tour is a roughly 50-mile trip along the California coastline that provides the car owners with a chance to prove to judges that their cars are roadworthy. The class judges at Pebble are uncommonly steeped in the details of the cars they’re charged with evaluating. They focus on originality and authenticity.

At 9:00 a.m. on Thursday morning, the cars start their short journey. We rode with Wilke as he turned the first corner and passed the Rolex signpost, which fittingly has a clock at the apex. The Rolex post is a fixture of the week; it stands at many of the car shows and the historic races held concurrently at nearby WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. The Pebble Beach Best of Show winner receives a special Rolex watch—a cherished prize that is similar to the one awarded to the winners of the 24 Hours of Daytona race. Rare and historically significant Rolex watches, such as those won at events or by celebrities, have recently fetched astronomical sums. A Rolex Daytona worn by Paul Newman recently was auctioned off for $17.8 million.

Wilke’s Bentley was every bit a magic carpet ride. The inline-six-cylinder engine motivates the car so quietly and smoothly that you wonder if it’s even running. The suspension is creamy and compliant, hiding even the smallest road imperfections. If there were a dictionary entry for “Elegant Cruising,” the Bentley would be the pictured machine. Wedged in the snug rear seat, we toured the coastline like a robber baron—a wonderful way to enjoy the sights of Highway 1 rather than our usual focus on carving up the curves.

After 25 miles of cruising south on Highway 1, the silky Bentley sputtered and then, as it is known in the British vernacular, “failed to proceed.” Wilke deftly slid his spotless car onto a dirt cutoff. We guessed at the culprit—fuel delivery—and had a look under the hood. The mechanicals of these vintage machines are relatively simple, but we feared soiling the recently detailed engine bay, so we skipped attempting a fix. Instead, we called Hagerty roadside assistance.

In the meantime, Wilke’s personal mechanic, who was on hand to monitor the freshly restored Bentley, pulled up next to us. He loosened a fitting that connected the fuel line to a carburetor and ran the electronic fuel pump based on the hypothesis that there was a blockage or air bubble in the fuel line. After reconnecting the line, the car ran perfectly.

We wafted back up the coast and on Sunday, Wilke’s heirloom Bentley took second place. He later said, “I could never have imagined driving up to the podium to accept a prize and it was one of the most amazing experiences I’ve ever had.” And also, an amazing finish for a Pebble first-timer.

***

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One Sunday a year, the 18th green of Pebble Beach Golf Links turns into a parking lot. Not just any parking lot, though—a gathering of the world’s finest automotive restorers who have spent countless hours fretting over every minute detail of their vintage cars. Mixed into the Postwar Luxury class this year was an interesting addition: A black 1953 Mercedes-Benz 300S Cabriolet. Not an unusual sight, in the context … unless you knew how it got there.

At 4 a.m. that morning, among the crowd of restorers and owners with decades of experience, stood a group of nervous teens and 20-somethings surrounded by even more nervous adults. Though dawn had not arrived, all were sharply dressed and bright-eyed: It was time to put their sleek German cabriolet into the march of priceless metal primed to roll onto the lawn for the annual Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. The young restorers were likely a glimmer in their parent’s eyes when most of the other restorers on the green were running their own restoration shops. Sure, there are plenty of first-time participants every year at Pebble Beach, but rarely, if ever, does anyone qualify for the 72-year-old event with their first restoration.

Okay, that might be a little misleading. The 300S is not owned by the cadre of youth, and the car’s restoration was overseen by McPherson College. It is a humble private college, with fewer than 1000 students, located in the center of Kansas farm country. On the edge of the campus sits Templeton Hall, which houses the college’s Automotive Restoration program. Inside this brick and stucco building, the next generation of automotive restorers are learning and honing their craft. The Mercedes project has been the program’s guiding light for 10 years, setting the course for its future and, possibly, for the future of restoration industry as a whole.

“Many car collectors dream of just competing at Pebble Beach their entire lives,” said the president of McPherson College, Michael Schneider. “This is 10 years in the making, with students, alumni, and faculty pouring their heart and soul into this restoration project of the Mercedes-Benz to make this vision a reality. This accomplishment puts our students on par with the professionals of automotive restoration.”

To put students on the path to that kind of experience is one thing; competing at Pebble Beach is another. There was some tense hand-wringing among the students and faculty on Sunday as the concours judges made their rounds. Each entrant holds a buzzer, which vibrates to summon a car to the awards stand to accept an award, either for its class or for the entire competition. To the shock and awe of the students, professors, and alumni present last Sunday, the buzzer in hand of project lead Brian Martin lit up mid-afternoon. Word spread that McPherson’s Benz would be crossing the awards stage: It was one of three cars selected from the Postwar Luxury class. Anticipation built.

The nervous students piled into the car to ride across the stage. In one sense, they had already won: Matt Kroeker, one of the students who participated in the presentation to the judges, was elated just to be competing at Pebble Beach. Anything else, he felt, was just icing on the cake.

The car rumbled to a stop on the ramp. The P.A. system barked across the green: Second in class, to the McPherson Benz.

Thousands of applicants apply to participate in the Pebble Beach Concours. Dozens are selected, and even fewer are called out by the judges as top in their respective groupings. There is no consolation prize for Pebble Beach, and the level of restoration has never been higher than in 2023. To see McPherson’s Mercedes 300S Cabriolet not only on the 18th green but winning an award proves that the next generation of restorers not only exists but is incredibly talented, primed to step off the graduation stage into shops and facilities doing top-tier work. Congratulations to everyone involved in the project.

If you would like to help support McPherson College and its automotive restoration projects you can visit mcpherson.edu/autorestoration.

***

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For the cost of the gas in the tank, plus $8 for a couple of searing-hot tacos, I enjoyed one of America’s greatest car shows this past weekend. Unlike most car shows, this one moves. It’s the Woodward Dream Cruise, an automotive Super Bowl for the everyman of Detroit. Every kind of car you can imagine—from old VW Buses to Ford Country Squires, slammed rat rods, and exotic supercars—cruise the city’s famous four-lane boulevard on this momentous Saturday each August. Onlookers can post up in a folding chair on the side of the road or, in the spirit of the day, travel down Woodward and share pavement with the cruisers. Riding a Goldwing? Driving a Geo? Doesn’t matter. At Dream Cruise there is one guiding star: run whatcha brung.

In truth, the phenomenon of cool cars cruising Woodward Avenue plays out all summer in Detroit and along the artery to the surrounding metro area. But only on the third Saturday of the month does it reach such a fever pitch, with traffic lights blinking yellow and pop-up tents dotting the side of the road. Engines seem to rev with the breeze. The rich smell of fuel and oil floods the nostrils.

The event, which shares a weekend with the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance each year, stands in stark contrast to those moneyed happenings on the Monterey Peninsula. Having attended both events over a decade of writing about cars, I am considerably more comfortable at the Dream Cruise: I try to avoid putting on a jacket and tie unless someone is getting married, Bar/Bat Mitzvah’d, or buried. On Woodward I toss my camera over my shoulder and kneel on the grass in the median. It’s fun to walk from intersection to intersection, running across the lanes, when there is a rare break in traffic, to get a closer look at some parked car. Conversation flows among onlookers, easy chatter about the cars we saw, the ones we like, the ones we own.

I’m not alone in my affection for the Dream Cruise. Talk show legend, car collecting titan, stand-up comedian, and Hagerty columnist Jay Leno certainly can afford to fund a caviar-encrusted soirée or fifty in Monterey, but he was in Detroit on Saturday. Standing alongside Dodge CEO Tim Kuniskis, inside restaurant and popular car hangout Vinsetta Garage, Leno promoted a partnership between his brand of car cleaning products and Dodge’s Direct Connection parts brand. Kuniskis had a trick up his sleeve, however, surprising Leno by yanking the silk off of the comedian’s own Demon 170—the first customer order delivered.

Leno stuck around to answer some questions, but he was eager to hit Woodward.

“I like Pebble Beach, but it’s $5000 a day,” Leno said. “[The Dream Cruise] is more egalitarian. People are eating hamburgers and hot dogs, driving Ramblers or whatever else. And it’s free! Where do you find a car show that’s free anymore? Everywhere you look—the Corvette guys have their place, over there the Dodge guys have their place, it’s great.”

In a train of other cars, we followed the Demon 170 in a bright blue Charger Super Bee. The Super Bee is based on the Scat Pack and one of Dodge’s “Last Call” models—a final run of special-edition Chargers and Challengers meant to send off the long-lived muscle cars before Dodge changes tack to electrified performance. What better way to bid farewell to America’s favorite muscle sedan than to share its 485-horsepower, 475 lb-ft, 6.4-liter Hemi with adoring Detroiters?

For 2023, the Last Call Super Bee comes from the factory with a hockey bag of performance extras: Carved into the hood are twin heat extractors, a functional scoop, and a pair of old-school pins. Adaptive dampers are also standard, capable of shifting weight balance to the rear to maximize the car’s traction when it engages Drag Mode. Other standard hardware includes four-piston front brakes wrapped around 20×9.5-inch wheels and 275-section Nexen drag radials. All told, with a couple of interior option packages, the window sticker reads just shy of $64,000. Few car companies can sell a car on a platform this dated, charge this much, and nonetheless thrill their customers to no end. One gets the sense Dodge is as bummed as we are for the era to be over, so the cars might as well rip a smoky burnout while shuffling off their mortal coils.

Judging by just how many Chargers and Challengers we saw cruising Woodward, we’ll be seeing these cars on the road for years to come. Dodge has long been a source of wonderful color schemes, and our electric B5 Blue Charger floated through intersections among a sea of Plum Crazy purple, Sublime neon-green, and Go Mango orange.

Hearing them is a guarantee, too. Nothing delights yet terrifies small children like the bark of a big Hemi revving at a red light, then idling with menace, as if agitated at the inconvenience. And putting your foot into the throttle never gets old—this Scat Pack motor feels and sounds like it wants to devour everything in the hood scoop’s path. You become rubber; everything else is mere road.

The ride is comfortable. The car will turn, when it pleases the court, albeit with palpable weight transfer. Your sense of the front end is decent at best, and on curvier roads it’s never entirely obvious when and how the chassis will settle. None of that is enough to dissuade you from chasing the rev limiter of whatever gear shows on the instrument cluster. The transmission will happily hold gears if you select manual mode via the shift paddles, which were pleasantly cool and metallic to the touch on that particular, surprisingly chill August morning. Seats are a touch firm and feel rather flat, but they are impressively wide and offer plenty of lateral movement. An Abraham Lincoln impersonator wouldn’t crush his hat with all the room under the roof.

Big, comfy, thunderous muscle sedans like this—should they endure—may never provide these same sensations. Leno spoke for many Mopar fans when he quoted Mark Twain: “I’m in favor of progress; it’s change I don’t like.”

He jokes, yet Leno insists that we shouldn’t fear the future: “EVs can keep cars like [the Demon 170] alive. They allow for the pressure to come off them,” he said.

Down the road, too, there must still be great performance cars to which we can look forward.

“When we [Americans] put our mind to something, we can do it quick. I remember not being able to go outside in L.A. in the 1970s, not being able to see the mountains,” Leno said. “Now, I can see the mountains.”

Up and down Woodward Avenue, and from the Chesapeake to Monterey Bay, it’s last call for the Dodge Charger. It will be missed but, we hope, not mourned.

***

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For 364 days out of the year, the 18th fairway at the Pebble Beach Golf Links in Monterey, California, represents one final, daunting test to cap off what is, for most guests, their dream round of golf.

But today, the fairway held a different type of tension for the owners and handlers of 200 stunning automobiles. As the California sun kept Monterey’s misty marine layer far out to sea, one car—a 1937 Mercedes-Benz 540K Special Roadster—stood above the rest, taking home one of the greatest honors in the world of concours: The Pebble Beach Concours Best of Show.

The voluptuous Benz, which hailed from the European Classic Touring Class—one of an array of 27 classes represented here this year—is owned by Jim Patterson from Louisville, Kentucky. It’s one of just three 540K Long-Tail Special Roadsters remaining in the world today. The Sindelfingen-bodied beauty was originally delivered to then-23-year-old King Mohammed Zahir Shah of Afghanistan in 1937, before being stored in the Afghan Embassy in Paris for the duration of World War II.

When Patterson acquired the car in 2022, it was a deep maroon color. During an extensive restoration at the hands of RM Auto Restorations, the car was repainted in the gorgeous black seen here. It’s the second consecutive Best-of-Show winner to come from the restoration shop.

Confetti and streamers covered the car and surrounding area as Patterson turned to address this prestigious honor.

“[Winning Best of Show] is the ultimate thrill for a car collector,” explained Patterson in between blowing kisses towards the Pebble Beach Lodge to those cheering his success. “The competition was extremely difficult, and this was an extremely tight choice, I’m told.”

Patterson’s Benz bested three other remarkable finalists, including a 1930 Mercedes-Benz SS Special Roadster, an unrestored 1932 Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 Corto Figoni Cabriolet, and a 1939 Delahaye 165 Figoni et Falaschi Cabriolet.

The win moves Mercedes-Benz into the lead for most Best-of-Show victories for a single marque, edging the Germans ahead of Bugatti, another brand heavily represented on the fairway this year.

Patterson, however, was focused on a different number:

“Being from Kentucky, we are in the horse racing world,” he explained, a glint in his eye. “Very few horses ever win the Triple Crown. This is our third win.”

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During the height of the muscle-car era, American automakers used Woodward Avenue as a makeshift drag strip. The multi-lane road—an eight-lane boulevard in some stretches—runs more than 24 miles from downtown Detroit to Pontiac. Often under the cover of night, Big Three engineers raced high-horsepower ringers stoplight-to-stoplight in order to test new performance parts. One of their more formidable feats of engineering, a 1967 Plymouth Belvedere GTX known as The Silver Bullet, was good for a 10-second quarter mile on Woodward’s asphalt.

It’s fitting then, that in 2016, Mopar was back to racing on the streets of Woodward, but legally. The event, called Roadkill Nights, was a promotional collaboration between YouTube sensation Roadkill Garage and Dodge. Spectators were treated to head-to-head racing on a shut down, eighth-mile stretch of the famous Michigan boulevard as well as ride-alongs in a new Hellcat or Viper. It was a hit, and 30,000 people attended.

But this year, for the eighth running of the event (the first Roadkill Nights wasn’t held on Woodward), there was an elephant in the room: The Hellcat Challenger and Charger, the impetuses of the Roadkill collab, are going out of production at the end of 2023.

“It’s the end of one generation and it’s the ushering in of a new generation,” said Tim Kuniskis, currently chief executive of the Dodge brand and a longtime champion of SRT products. The “new generation” was on display in the form of the Charger Daytona SRT electric muscle-car concept.

It was, we must say, not the main attraction for the hoards of drag-racing fans who attended—some 42,000 this year. The event had to move from M1 Concourse to downtown Pontiac in order to accommodate everyone. Lines for the Hellcat drift demo were about as long as ones for a new ride at Disney.

Clearly, even if the Hellcats are being put out of production, they’re far from out of the picture. Performance vendors were displaying wares for the venerable 6.2-liter supercharged V-8s, Dodge was still giving people sideways ride-alongs in the soon-to-be-discontinued cars, and Mopars and other makes of all sorts were hitting the makeshift drag strip.

The drag racing, like other years, is the main draw. More than 120 racers from around the country flocked to Pontiac for a chance at cash prizes totaling $30,000 and for bragging rights as the fastest street car on Woodward.

Granted, most of the competitors—from GTOs to GT-Rs—took a liberal interpretation of the term “street car.” Sure, they were plated and registered, but the roll cages, racing seats, bead-lock wheels, and bumper-dump exhausts hinted at something more serious than the average street-strip ride.

Morning rains delayed the proceedings, but by late afternoon, the makeshift drag strip was jet-dried and prepped with around 200 gallons of VHT, a sticky substance used to give drag strips more bite, and the cars started making passes.

Just like an illegal street race, the rules to win were pretty simple: The car to reach the end of the strip first would advance to the next round of the tournament. There was no Christmas tree or timing equipment. Drivers had to anticipate a hand drop, à la American Graffiti or The Fast and Furious. Like sanctioned drag racing, however, there were classes. Cars will split into two categories: Big Tire (over 275mm width) and Small Tire (275mm width and under). Each class winner earned $5000, with the fastest Mopars in both classes taking home another $5000 each.

Despite the extra traction, the eighth-mile track was still an imperfect Michigan road, which made for close, exciting racing. Some competitors found it was all too easy to flub the launch or lose control mid-run and wind up in the opposing lane. According to Moe Zakaria, pilot of a turbocharged Fox-body and Street Outlaws racer, it came down to the tires, which had to be DOT approved. “Street tires made it tough to hook up. This car will do wheelies on the street with slicks.”

At the end of the day, Mikael Borggren, a veteran of drag-and-drive events like Hot Rod Drag Week, took the overall win in the Small Tire class with his LS-swapped, turbocharged 1987 Volvo wagon. For Big Tire, Jim Kline in big-block, nitrous-fed 1966 Pontiac Acadian, squeaked out the win in a close race against a twin-turbo Tri-Five.

The future of production muscle cars from Dodge or otherwise is at this moment clouded. In addition to the Hellcats, the sixth-generation Chevrolet Camaro will also be leaving production this year. But the enthusiasm on display in Pontiac this week indicates that Roadkill Nights and the legend of Woodward Avenue is alive and well.

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Yep, Monterey Car Week is expensive. From $400 rooms at Motel 6 to $1000 tickets for The Quail, it’s a tough event to navigate on anything remotely resembling a budget. Nothing, however, is more expensive than the very reason people make the pilgrimage to Monterey each August—the cars.

We see many of the most valuable cars sold all year at these auctions. It’s where records are often set, and serves as one big heat check for the very top end of the collector-car market. We will see more than 130 cars worth seven figures crossing the block in Monterey this year, but here are the handful that could cross into eight-figure territory.

1962 Ferrari 250 GT SWB

Gooding & Company, Lot 40

The successor to Ferrari’s 250 Tour de France (TdF) and the precursor to the 250 GTO, the 250 Short Wheelbase (SWB) competed at the peak of Ferrari’s dominance in international sports car racing. And in true GT fashion, it could be driven to the track, win, and then driven back home again. Barely 160 were built. They’re all special.

What this car, chassis 3507GT, lacks in race history it makes up for in originality. Sold new in Italy, it has only ever had four owners, has never been offered for public sale, and is almost entirely original.

Sparkling, show-winning restorations are great, but something is only original once, and a 60-plus-year-old Ferrari with mellowed original finishes and fasteners is arguably better. That’s why this car has a $9M–$11M estimate, which is just over the SWB’s condition #1 (Concours, or best-in-the-world) value in the Hagerty Price Guide.

1957 Jaguar XKSS

RM Sotheby’s, Lot 351

The term “race car for the road” gets tossed around way too often, both by automakers trying to sell you something and by auto writers running out of metaphors. But in the case of the Jaguar XKSS, the term really applies.

When Jaguar pulled back from factory racing in 1956, sales of its Le Mans-winning D-Type racing car ground to a halt. Unsold, expensive-to-build cars and parts littered the factory. What to do? Slap on some bumpers and a windshield then sell it for the street, of course! Jaguar had enough stock for 25 examples of its road-going D-Type, called the XKSS, but the infamous fire at Jaguar’s Browns Lane facility meant that just 16 were completed (Jaguar since finished those nine missing chassis numbers and sold them as XKSS “Continuations”). Most XKSSs sold to North America.

This car, chassis 707, was ordered new by an American racer who lost his life in another car prior to delivery, so #707 was sold to another owner in San Francisco instead. He kept it until 1973, after which it passed through several UK collectors, one of whom was able to snag the registration plate “JAG 1” for it. Just 25,535 miles show on the Smiths odometer. With the exception of the rear bulkhead, the chassis, suspension, and monocoque are all original, and the bonnet has been replaced.

Although it was born of the practical need to offload excess inventory, the XKSS has since become the most sought-after Jaguar production car. They tend to reside in long-term collector ownership and don’t trade hands publicly very often. In fact, the last real XKSS we saw at auction was in 2017, when chassis #716 failed to sell at an $11.9M high bid. More than six years later, this one has an estimate of $12M–$14M in Monterey.

2001 Ferrari 500 Maranello Prodrive

RM Sotheby’s, Lot 261

In the early 2000s, Ferrari was too busy steamrolling everybody in Formula 1 to care much about sports car racing, so many of the 550 “Maranello” race cars that took to the circuits back then weren’t actually prepared in Italy. The most successful of them came from British outfit Prodrive, which already had experience running title-winning teams in rallying and touring car racing.

In turning Ferrari’s V-12 coupe into a winner, Prodrive trimmed over 1000 pounds in weight, grew the engine, and reworked the suspension and body. All normal stuff in the course of building a race car, but Prodrive’s preparation and management were superb, and the car was a winner. The 2003 season was its high point, with the 550 GTS winning its class at Le Mans as well as securing multiple wins in the American Le Mans Series and the FIA GT championship.

Prodrive built ten 550 race cars in period, and this is the third. It won five races, took 14 podiums, and recorded 10 pole positions out of 34 starts. A second-place finish in the 2003 American Le Mans Series and third in the 2005 Le Mans Endurance Series are highlights on its resume, but it also ran at Le Mans five times in a row. According to RM Sotheby’s, that makes it “the single most-raced 12-cylinder Ferrari in the world’s most famous endurance motor race.” The 2004 race was its strongest finish, with rally master Colin McRae driving it to third in class.

The last 550 Prodrive to sell publicly, which arguably has an even better race history, sold for $4.29M in an online auction three years ago. But this one could bring twice as much in 2023, with a presale estimate of $8.0–$9.5M. At that level, it would only take a few extra bids to push it into eight figures.

1960 Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spider

RM Sotheby’s, Lot 354

It was originally aimed at wealthy West Coast American buyers and today it’s mostly known for its eye-popping beauty and Ferris Bueller hijinks, but Ferrari’s 250 California Spider also took to the race track at top-level international events.

Cal Spiders come in several flavors—long wheelbase (LWB) or short wheelbase (SWB) with open headlights or closed headlights. This one is an SWB (more desirable) with open headlights (less desirable), but more important than its configuration is its history, which includes an exhibition on the Ferrari stand at the 1960 Turin Motor Show and a third in class at the Targa Florio in 1962. Represented as the second of the 56 SWB California Spiders built, it sold new with Blu Medio paint over red leather and was restored from 2013–16. RM Sotheby’s estimates it will bring from $9.5M to $11.5M.

1933 Bugatti Type 55 Roadster

Gooding & Company, Lot 139

Nearly a fifth of this year’s Monterey consignments were built before World War II. Among these prewar prizes are Duesenbergs, Hispano-Suizas, Isotta Fraschinis, a Mercer Raceabout, and, of course, Bugattis. The most expensive of them is this Type 55.

Really an amalgamation of grand-prix car parts wrapped in Jean Bugatti’s lovely cutdown-door roadster body, Type 55 roadster production was extremely limited. Just 16 of the 38 total Type 55s built got roadster bodies from new. This one, chassis #55231, is represented as the first of three Type 55 Roadsters completed in 1933.

It sold new in Algeria and was put to use doing what Bugattis of the era did best—driving quickly. In 1935 it won the Bouzaréa Hill Climb near Algiers. It underwent refurbishment during the 1950s, but after its engine failed in 1960, it headed back to France. Ralph Lauren bought it in 1986, had it restored in England, and added it to his collection before selling it in 2003. At Pebble Beach, it could sell for $8.0M–$10M.

1964 Ferrari 250 LM

RM Sotheby’s, Lot 341

With Ferrari’s much-publicized win at this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, its first since 1965, it’s no big surprise that cars from the Scuderia’s glory days are coming out of the woodwork. Among them is the 250 LM, which was the last car wearing a Ferrari badge to win the 24-hour French classic.

Prior to 2023, the last 250 LM to come up for auction was in 2015 (chassis 6105, sold for $17.6M). This year, though, we’ve seen two of these mid-engined marvels at public sale. One of them sold in Paris just last month for $17.2M. That car had no competition history whatsoever, but the one on offer in Monterey does.

Represented as the 22nd of the 32 copies built, it was campaigned by British driver George Drummond, who racked up wins at Brands Hatch, Snetterton, and Silverstone. Drummond then enlisted Innes Ireland and Mike Hailwood to drive with him at Le Mans in 1966, but gearbox trouble took them out after 90 laps.

The car also raced in Austria and Africa before selling in 1968 to another Brit whose 250 LM had wrecked badly at the Targa Florio. He swapped in the engine and gearbox from the wrecked LM into this car, painted it dark blue with a white stripe, and entered it at Le Mans. On the 99th lap, gearbox trouble struck again and took the car out of the race. It has since passed through collections in the U.S. and Japan and has been restored twice, the most recent of which took place at the Ferrari factory from 2018 to 2021. It has an $18M–$20M estimate for Monterey.

1967 Ferrari 412 P

Bonhams, Lot 67P

If it sells, the Ferrari 412 P consigned by Bonhams could be the most expensive auction car of 2023.

Built at the height of the Ford vs. Ferrari slugfest in the mid-1960s, the 412 P was essentially a customer version of Ferrari’s latest factory prototypes—the 330 P3 and P4. This one’s best major result was a third-place finish in its debut race at Spa in 1967 with Lucien Bianchi and Richard Attwood on driving duty. At Le Mans, Attwood and Piers Courage ran just outside the top 10 until retiring with oil pump failure. Then, its seventh-place finish at Brands Hatch yielded valuable points to help Ferrari push to the top of that year’s World Sportscar Championship. A string of non-championship races in Europe and Africa followed, then its sold to a wealthy West Coast American who was either crazy enough or cool enough to modify it for street use. He then sold it to another American for 10 grand. $10,000!

But that price is of no relevance whatsoever in 2023. What in the ’70s may have just been a finnicky, old, obsolete race car is now eight-figure royalty for a few reasons. First, just look at it. Then, there’s the rarity: Just four 412 Ps were built, and total production of the 412 P/330 P3/330 P4 family numbers less than a dozen. And even though a later 312 PB from 1972 brought €12,042,500 at auction this year, earlier P-series cars just don’t pop up for sale. One of the P4s cut up for Can-Am racing in period was a no-sale at a €7,250,000 high bid way back in 2009. To find an actual public sale we have to turn the clock back even further, to 2000, when Christie’s got $5.6M for a P3 in Pebble Beach. Even those numbers, though, aren’t all that informative in today’s market and there are more recent comps to look at. This 412 P’s contemporary—a more common, slower, and not quite as beautiful 250 LM with no race history—just sold for $17M. It’s not a stretch to assume that the 412 P will bring significantly more.

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Monterey Car Week always brings out the world’s most beautiful, significant, and valuable cars on the planet, and many of them are for sale. My favorite part, though, is the sheer variety of metal (and fiberglass, and wood) everyone gets to see. At the shows, the auctions, or even just on the street there are always vehicles we’ve never seen before, things that make even seasoned car spotters go, “What is that?!”

Along with all the big-money headline-makers, each Monterey auction has at least a few quirky, unusual, or downright odd vehicles on offer. Here are eight that we’ll be keeping an eye on in 2023.

1991 Isdera Imperator 108i

Broad Arrow, Lot 132

Supercar history is full of famous badges: Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, to name a few. But there have also been plenty of also-rans in the exotic car game. Vector, Venturi, or Cizeta come to mind. So does Isdera, which built this imposing Imperator—a Mercedes-powered monster with a mansion’s worth of glass (look at that windshield!).

German engineering school dropout Eberhard Schulz started Isdera (Ingenieurbüro fur Styling, DEsign und Racing) in 1982 after a stint at Porsche and designing a streamlined, gullwing-doored concept car with a Mercedes engine for a company called b&b GmbH. Intended as a spiritual successor to the 300SL and called the CW311, the concept impressed the folks at Mercedes. However, they didn’t want to build it, so Schulz went off on his own to develop it under the Isdera name.

Looking equal parts starship and sports car, the production model (called the Imperator 108i) wrapped a fiberglass body over a tubular spaceframe and 5.0-liter M117 V-8, though later versions received a hotter AMG-tuned 6.0-liter unit. Imperators were built to order, and those orders didn’t exactly pour in. From 1984 to 1993, Isdera reportedly completed just 30 units.

According to Broad Arrow, this one is believed to have been sold in England to Kiwi racer and fascinating fellow Mike Thackwell, specified in the Porsche shade of Guards Red. The last 108i to sell publicly was a silver 1991 car that brought €690,000 in Monaco two years ago, and Broad Arrow expects a similar $800,000–$1,000,000 for this one.

1959 Frisky Convertible Special

RM Sotheby’s, Lot 202

Feeling frisky? This English three-wheeled, motorcycle-engine-powered microcar started life as a coupe called the Frisky Family Three, which was a family car in the same way that North Korea is a Democratic People’s Republic. But at least with its three wheels and reverse gear it could be bought and driven on a motorcycle license.

Frisky went out of business in 1961 as microcars started falling out of favor. The company never sold the Family Three as a convertible (that would have made it even less of a family car), but someone converted this one to a soft top and expects $30,000–$40,000 for their troubles.

1933 Rolls-Royce 20-/25 Van

Mecum, Lot S117

When your Drizly order arrives, do expect to see the Spirit of Ecstasy pulling up the driveway? Me neither, but that’s sort of the idea with this delivery van. Built on the versatile Rolls-Royce 20/25 chassis, this is reportedly one of just two such delivery vans built by coachbuilder Vincent of Reading for a distillery called Justerini & Brooks.

Never heard of Justerini & Brooks? Me neither, but the royals have. The fine wine and spirits merchant, founded in the eighteenth century, has supplied booze to every British monarch since George III in 1761. And it will take a regal budget to swing the J&B Rolls-Royce, because it carries a $425,000–$475,000 estimate. Cheers!

1977 Datsun 280Z ZZZAP Edition

Mecum, Lot S88

What’s odd about a Datsun 280Z? Not much. But this one isn’t like your cousin’s Z. It’s a “ZZZAP Edition,” and it’s not just a case of more Zs, more better. It’s a rare, fascinating marketing gimmick from the early days of video games.

While the car itself is nothing more than a “Special Décor Package,” aka a very ’70s combo of bright colors and graphics, the actual marketing tie-in was that Nissan/Datsun promoted the car with an arcade racing video game called 280 ZZZAP, in which the player drives a Z-car through a tricky road course at night. This was in 1977, 20 years before the first Gran Turismo. The cars themselves are a seriously rare sight, but we have seen this one before. Mecum sold it two years ago for $42,900, and they are estimating $50,000–$75,000 for it this time around.

1969 Mercedes-Benz 300 SEL 2+2 Coupe by Pininfarina

Bonhams, Lot 93

This one-off Mercedes goes to show what a ton of money, a lot of determination, and unusual tastes can get you.

The story goes that a Dutch businessman was quite smitten with the 1968 300 SEL 6.3, Mercedes’ brilliant high-performance V-8 sedan. He wrote to Mercedes, asking if it was planning to do a convertible version. “No,” Mercedes said. The company wouldn’t sell him a rolling chassis to do his own, either. How about a coupe version, he asked. “Also no,” the manufacturer answered.

Rather than getting soured on Benzes and going somewhere else, the businessman bought a standard 300 SEL 6.3 and reached out to Sergio Pininfarina in Italy to do a 2+2 coupe body for it. Among the client’s special requests was that he wanted to sit up high, “like in a Rolls-Royce.” Also, would Pininfarina keep the use of glass to a minimum? “We don’t like to sit in an aquarium.”

The result is this coachbuilt gray SEL coupe, which, according to the story, pleased the determined Dutch fellow. But he ran into that all-too-common car guy problem—his wife didn’t like it. So, in 1972 he put it up for sale, and it took until 1973 to find a buyer. Maybe it will have better luck in Monterey.

Is it a special and unique car? Yes. Is it Pininfarina’s best work? Absolutely not, and it’s very easy to look at this Mercedes and see big similarities to the 1975–86 Rolls-Royce Camargue, another car on Pininfarina’s not-so-greatest hits list. But whereas an average Camargue is worth less than 50 grand, the Pininfarina-bodied Benz has a presale estimate of $400K–$600K.

1987 Citroën BX 4TC

RM Sotheby’s, Lot 220

Ask one of those AI art programs to design a car from the 1980s, and it would probably resemble this Citroën BX 4TC. Even the name sounds like a fax machine. The BX 4TC is mainly known for two things: its strange looks, and for being at the back of the pack during the Group B rallying era (1982-86).

While the big Group B teams like Audi and Peugeot enjoyed big-buck budgets, Citroën was more spendthrift, made more compromises, and arrived late to the party with its World Rally competitor. The BX 4TC looked the part, but its basic platform came from the mass-produced, family-friendly BX sedan. Nose-heavy (and just plain heavy in race car form compared to its competition) and underpowered for the WRC’s special stages, it managed one sixth place finish before Citroën threw in the towel and cut its rally program.

Apparently the company was so embarrassed that it dismantled the majority of the 20 original rally cars and even bought back as many of the BX 4TC road cars as it could get its hands on to destroy them. Thankfully, plenty of owners held onto theirs—while the BX 4TC might not have found rally success, it’s nonetheless a cool bit of ’80s French motorsport kit. This one has been regularly enjoyed and serviced over its 53,192 km (33,052 miles).

It may have been a moment that Citroën would like to forget, but the BX 4TC’s Group B lineage makes it a legitimate collector car these days. One of the original rally cars sold for almost half a million dollars in 2021, and BX 4TC road cars have sold in the $50K-$100K range in recent years. This one has a presale estimate of $100K-$150K.

1992 Lancia Hyena Zagato

RM Sotheby’s, Lot 219

Always distinctive, sometimes ugly, never boring. That’s not Zagato’s official slogan, but it could be, because the 104-year-old Italian coachbuilder’s creations are often as polarizing as they are unique. Take this Hyena, for instance. Is it pretty? Not at all, but I can’t stop looking at it.

Reportedly born out of the Dutch Lancia importer’s desire for a lightweight two-door Zagato coupe, it has the unmistakable signature Zagato double-bubble roof and odd proportions. Plans for 500 cars proved a bit optimistic; just two dozen were sold between 1992 and 1994.

Despite being called the Hyena, what’s under those goofy aluminum panels is nothing to giggle at. The Hyena body sits on top of a rally-bred Delta HF Integrale Evoluzione, so it’s fast and nimble. The Zagato-fication treatment also shaved 400 pounds off the standard car. The price is no laughing matter, either. RM Sotheby’s estimates $300,000–$400,000 for it.

1986 Aston Martin V8 Zagato

Gooding & Company, Lot 108

Pretty much everything about the looks of that Lancia Hyena is also applicable to this Aston. Avant-garde or ugly depending on who you ask, the Aston Martin V8 Zagato was available from 1986 to 1990, and although it’s just one of the many collaborations between those two famous firms, it’s definitely the weirdest. It’s an Aston Martin as rendered with an Etch A Sketch rather than pencils.

Despite the love-it-or-hate-it looks and an initial sales price of over $150,000 (in the mid-1980s), Aston sold 52 coupes and 37 convertibles with the Zagato skin, mostly in right-hand drive.

This left-hand driver sold new to Hiroshi Itsuki, a very famous singer in Japan, and has just 40,000 km (25,000 miles) on the odometer. When these rare ’80s oddballs do pop up for sale, they bring prices well into the six figures and are typically right in the range of this car’s $300K–$400K estimate.

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As we approach the Monterey Car Week auctions for 2023, we find ourselves in a similar situation to 2022. Last year, the market was beginning to cool, but despite this, we saw record sales (the final tally was nearly $473M). Fast forward to now, and the market has continued to cool in 11 of the past 13 months, but total sales at the Monterey auctions may reach another $400M year: we expect between $392M and $457M in total sales for 2023. At the low end, that would be third best behind 2022 and 2015. At the high end of that range, only 2022 would be greater.

How is that possible?

Monterey auctions attract the best cars. Typically, every other year, the annual global-auction high sale happens on the peninsula. Simultaneously, the top-selling car at auction every other year tends to be a Ferrari. We’re likely to see both of those patterns renewed at the Monterey auctions this year.

We’ll see nearly 133 $1M+ vehicles offered at the Monterey auctions in 2023, down from 149 in 2022. We expect to see slightly more cars than last year’s record 1025 listings—a few late entrants are still trickling in.

The top five lots all have the potential to be eight-figure cars, which is notable because we’ve only seen four cars sell above that level all year. Based on estimates or likely value, the top five in ascending order are:

1. A 1962 Ferrari 250 GT SWB Berlinetta offered by Gooding & Company with an estimate of $9M to $11M.
2. A 1960 Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spider offered by RM Sotheby’s with an estimate of $9.5M to $11.5M.
3. A 1957 Jaguar XKSS offered by RM Sotheby’s with an estimate of $12M to $14M.
4. A 1964 Ferrari 250 LM offered by RM Sotheby’s with an estimate of $18M to $20M.
5. A 1967 Ferrari 412P offered by Bonhams without estimate.

How do we know the 412P is more valuable than the 250 LM? The former is rare: only four were constructed and two survive, while 32 examples of the 250 LM were built. We also rarely see one at auction. It was way back in 2000 when one last sold—for $5.6M—at Pebble Beach, too.

Beyond those top five, we’ll have our eyes on cars with ties to Le Mans. It was a big year for the storied race, which celebrated its 100th anniversary and resulted in a Ferrari victory for the first time since 1965. As a consequence, there’s been a recent uptick of interest in cars with Le Mans history. 12 vehicles that have run the race will be consigned to the auctions, and reflect the innovation and variety across some of racing’s great eras. The dozen range from a front-wheel drive 1928 Alvis at Bonhams to a 2001 Ferrari 550 by Prodrive at RM Sotheby’s.

More broadly, nearly 200 vehicles listed at the Monterey auctions this year have previously sold at auction in the past ten years. The average time between these auction sales is just over 3.5 years—we may start to see what happens when pandemic purchases are unwound at scale. Also, assuming the vehicles sell at their low estimate, the average return would be 14 percent, a two-point drop from last year. That suggests that this year’s estimates are more realistic.

The ratio of no-reserve lots is up to 39 percent this year from 33 percent in 2022. Despite the auctions boasting more no-reserve lots with more realistic estimates, with the cooling market, we still expect the sell-through rate to dip slightly, from 78.0 percent to 77.7.

The demographics of owners with vehicles consigned to the auctions show Monterey is unlike the rest of the market. In the past few years, 61 percent of sellers at auctions were born before 1965 (boomers and older). However, this year, their share of consigned vehicles is 80 percent for the Monterey auctions.

With the Monterey auctions typically representing 20 percent of the total sales for live auctions each year, and with the first half of 2023 in the rearview mirror, we can compare how this year’s market is performing against past years. Reflecting the cooling market, total sales at live and online auctions will likely be slightly less than 2022’s record-setting pace.

In the meantime, we look forward to seeing all these exceptional cars cross the block in a few weeks. We’ll be covering the action in a live blog on Insider, so please follow along for our latest insights.

*Hagerty has a joint venture with Broad Arrow Group. You can read more about it here.

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Dodge Viper owners love retired auto executive Bob Lutz. And for good reason. Without Lutz, their cherished V-10 sports car would not exist. Last Saturday, The Motor City Viper Owners Club (MCVO) turned a yearly Viper gathering—usually held at Lutz’s southeast Michigan home—into a Motown celebration of the man who never forgets that the car business runs on passion. (For a primer on Lutz, check out our interview from last year.)

MCVO member Jon Block conceived a car show that included not just the Viper but all of the cars that Lutz willed into existence during his five-decade career. Some 300 people, a mixture of colleagues, employees, and folks like me who were lucky enough to have spent time with Bob, attended the invite-only event held in a pair of aircraft hangars at Willow Run Airport in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Block and seven volunteers assembled 400 cars and a stage where speakers could share their favorite Lutz stories. “I wanted to honor Bob,” Block said, “and do something he could see and appreciate.” Everyone in attendance shared that sentiment.

I met Lutz several times in the early 2000s during quick hand-shake moments at press events (I was a tech editor at Car and Driver.) Around 2010, I had an idea to turn the Detroit City Airport into a motorsports complex and called Lutz, who had recently retired from GM. I wanted his opinions and perhaps connections. Looking back, I’m a bit embarrassed by my quixotic quest, for its naïveté. I thought I might have the chops to pull it off, but I didn’t. Surprisingly, Lutz remembered me from GM media events and didn’t dismiss my idea, instead inviting me to lunch at his Swiss-style home in nearby Saline, Michigan.

There were a couple of other auto executives in attendance. Lutz wore an apron, cooked, and served us on a deck that overlooked the driveway. We talked cars, the business, my idea, and laughed a lot. I returned whenever I could. A couple of years later, when I took the helm of Road & Track, I asked Bob to answer reader questions via a monthly column.

By then, I’d gotten a much fuller picture of Lutz. Since he served as a Marine aviator, flew a helicopter to work, was often in the press, and openly smoked cigars, his outward image was of a macho and autocratic executive. Maybe there was kernel of those traits, but I also found him to be insightful, open minded, generous, humble, and above all passionate about cars. Of course, he had strong opinions, and he joked that he was sometimes wrong but never in doubt. We called his column “Go Lutz Yourself” and he hand-wrote his submissions, which rarely needed a word changed. Lutz is a gifted writer.

Judging by Saturday’s crowd, my admiration for Lutz is widely shared. BMW sent over a fleet of cars and four employees including Franciscus van Meel, the CEO of BMW M. Perhaps you were not aware that during Lutz’s three-year stint at BMW he started the motorsports division, established the numeric models 3, 5, and 7, and even had a significant hand in the famous tagline “The Ultimate Driving Machine.” BMW has not forgotten Lutz’s contributions. Don Runkle, who was once GM’s VP of engineering, suggested that he gave Lutz the idea for the Viper when he said the Corvette needed a competitor to revive flagging sales. Designers and engineers spoke of how Lutz championed their ideas, cut red tape, and helped them do their best work. There were tears of gratitude. The event raised some $22,000 for the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation.

I called Lutz on Monday to ask if I could share the experience. He said that the event was not the cringe-worthy affair he feared and asked that I explain how it was not his idea. Lutz didn’t ask to be honored, but there was a palpable feeling that folks hugely appreciated the opportunity to do so. Lutz deserves his special legacy. We love you, Bob.

There is even more to celebrate this week. Our Redline Rebuild crew finished a multi-year project to resurrect a historic dirt-track racer. The film (below) includes a time-lapse engine rebuild and is capped by footage of host Davin Reckow sliding the finished object on a northern Michigan dirt track. Heaven. Cammisa explained the opposing views on the Acura NSX and Henry Catchpole celebrated the machine that I think everyone needs to drive at least once: the Mazda Miata.

Hagerty’s Steven Cole Smith was once a cop—for real!—and he shared his first police chase. I challenge you to find a better written and photographed piece than this one on Porsche and Pontiac. Finally, the Land Cruiser is coming back!

We regularly post new material, all produced by the best in the business, so check back often. If you’d like to support us, please sign up for the Hagerty Drivers Club. In the meantime, join me in celebrating this period of positivity.

P.S.: Your feedback is very welcome. Comment below!

Please share this newsletter with your car-obsessed friends and encourage them to sign up for the free weekly email. The easy-to-complete form is here. And if you’d like to support the efforts of Hagerty Media, please considering joining the Hagerty Drivers Club.

The post Never Stop Driving #60: Sometimes wrong, never in doubt appeared first on Hagerty Media.

We’ve got two tickets to (automotive) paradise!

On August 16, at the Monterey Jet Center in Monterey, California, join fellow car connoisseurs and airplane aficionados for a party like no other. All ticket holders will enjoy an up-close look at some of the world’s most impressive airplanes and automobiles, gourmet culinary stations, an open bar with signature cocktails and non-alcoholic options, interactive entertainment, a live DJ, and dancing. This shindig will be the talk of Monterey Car Week.

The best part? We’re giving away two tickets.

Participants may enter the Sweepstakes by following both @motorluxofficial and @hagerty on Instagram and tagging two or more friends in the comments section; OR by sending an email to social@hagerty.com with “MOTORLUX® Sweepstakes” in the subject line, along with your name (first & last) and email address. Entries received outside of the Promotion Period will be void. Members may submit only one Eligible Entry during the entire promotion period.

The Promotion will begin on July 28, 2023, at 12:01 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (“EST”) and will end on August 4, 2023, at 11:59 p.m. EST (the “Promotion Period”). Entries received outside of this time will be void.

Read below for eligibility and further details.

ELIGIBILITY

The Promotion (“Promotion”) is open to the Public, limited to US Citizens, who are 18 years of age or older at the time of qualification. By entering this promotion, participants agree to abide by all terms of these Official Rules. Participants will be automatically disqualified for any failure to conform to these Official Rules. This promotion is subject to all applicable local, state, and federal laws and regulations and is void wherever prohibited or restricted by law. Employees of Hagerty and their immediate families, and any affiliates or partners of Hagerty are not eligible to win.

ODDS OF WINNING

Odds of winning a Prize are dependent upon participation in this Promotion and the number of Eligible Entries received.

DRAWINGS AND PRIZES

There will be one (1) winner randomly drawn from all entries received during the Promotion Period who will win two (2) MOTORLUX Passes with a maximum value of One Thousand Fifty Dollars ($1050 USD).

Prize winner will be contacted within five (5) business days via email after the Sweepstakes Promotion Period ends. Winner has five (5) business days to respond to Hagerty and provide evidence of eligibility and accept the prize. Should the winner selected fail to provide evidence of eligibility and/or communicate acceptance of the Prize, a new winner will be selected and provided the same timeframe for response, and so on, until winner meets eligibility requirements and accepts the Prize. Prizes will be delivered via postal mail.

PROMOTION RESULTS

Information about Sweepstakes winners is available by contacting Hagerty.

REQUIREMENTS

By participating in this Promotion, Participants agree to be bound by these Official Rules. In order to be declared a winner and claim a prize, the selected participant must be eligible according to these Official Rules, respond to the Sponsor or its representatives without delay once contacted. Participant will respond to accept the Prize within five (5) business days.

There is one (1) Promotion Period (“Promotion Period”) within the overall Sweepstakes. Participant must comply with the foregoing and comply with the time periods (if any) required by the Sponsor in relation to the above. If a selected participant does not comply with these Official Rules, he/she will be disqualified and will forfeit the Prize and the Sponsor can, at its sole and absolute discretion, select another participant in accordance with these Official Rules.

GENERAL TERMS AND CONDITIONS

Award is provided “as is” with no warranty or guarantee, either expressed or implied, by Sponsor. No prize substitutions or cash alternatives are available; except Sponsor reserves the right to substitute an award of equal or greater value, should the award be unavailable. By accepting the aforementioned award, the recipient consents to the use of the recipient’s name, voice, portrait, picture, statement, or likeness for advertising and publicity purposes without additional compensation, except where prohibited by law. Sponsor reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to cancel or suspend this Promotion should causes beyond Sponsor’s control corrupt the administration, security, or proper play of the Promotion. Decisions of Sponsor are final and binding in all matters, except as stated otherwise herein.

TAXES

Sponsors of Promotion Games of Chance offering and awarding prizes valued at $600 or more should be aware that they are responsible to obtain a signed, legible copy of an IRS form W-9 from every winner that they issue a prize to. This means that any eligible entrant who has been verified as a prize Winner you issue a prize of $600 or more to, will need to fill out a W-9 form for you to keep on record, regardless of the number of times in the course of a tax year the same person wins a prize. In addition, if one person wins multiple lower-valued prizes within the same year, which when added together total $600 or more, they too will be required to complete a form W-9. It is not necessary to send the actual or copy of the W-9 to the IRS; however, the information contained thereon will be used by the Sponsor to complete an informational report for the IRS, such as a 1099-MISC form for each appropriate Winner.

PUBLICITY RELEASE

Upon submission, entrants grant to Hagerty a royalty-free license to use, retain, and publish their first name and last initial and submission (and any portion thereof) in print and any other media (including social media) for any reason (including, but not limited to advertising, promotions, development, or education-related purposes) so long as the videos are credited to the name of the entrant.

PRIVACY

Hagerty will not distribute, disclose, or sell any personal information provided in connection with the program to third parties, aside from any personal information as may be required by law.

LIMITATIONS OF LIABILITY

Hagerty is not responsible for: (1) any incorrect or inaccurate information, whether caused by participants, or by any of the equipment associated with or utilized in the promotion; (2) mechanical failures of any kind, including, but not limited to malfunctions, interruptions, or faulty equipment; (3) unauthorized human intervention in any part of the promotion; and (4) any error that may occur in the administration of the promotion, the processing of entries, the announcement of the prizes, or in any promotion-related materials. Participating members agree not to institute any claim against, and to release and hold harmless, Hagerty and its owners, officers, directors, employees, agents, or representatives from any and all liability whatsoever for any injuries, losses, costs, taxes, expenses, emotional distress, or damages of any kind, direct or indirect, arising from or in connection with participation in the Promotion or the acceptance, use, or misuse of any award and/or the participation in, or the travel to and from and attendance at any award-related activity. Participants also waive all rights to claim punitive, incidental, or consequential damages, or any other damages, including attorneys’ fees and costs.

DISPUTES

Except where prohibited, participant agrees that: (1) any and all disputes, claims, and causes of action arising out of or in connection with this Promotion, or any prize awarded, will be resolved individually, without resort to any form

of class action, and exclusively by the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan or the appropriate Michigan State Court; (2) any and all claims, judgments, and awards will be limited to actual out-of-pocket costs incurred, including costs associated with entering this Promotion (if any), but in no event does this include legal fees; and (3) under no circumstances will participant be permitted to obtain awards for, and participant hereby waives all rights to claim, indirect, punitive, incidental, and consequential damages and any other damages, other than for actual out-of-pocket expenses, and any and all rights to have damages multiplied or otherwise increased. All issues and questions concerning the construction, validity, interpretation, and enforceability of these Official Rules and Regulations, or the rights and obligations of the participant and Sponsor in connection with the Promotion, will be governed by, and construed in accordance with, the laws of the State of Michigan, without giving effect to any choice of law or conflict of law rules (whether of the State of Michigan or any other jurisdiction), which would cause the application of the laws of any jurisdiction other than the State of Michigan.

TRADEMARKS

Any trademarks used in this promotion are the property of the respective trademark owners and are used for identification purposes only.

SPONSOR AND PRIZE PROVIDER

Hagerty Media Properties, LLC (“Hagerty”), 121 Drivers Edge, Traverse City, MI 49684.

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Bay Harbor, Michigan, looks built for a postcard. From the clear blue waters of its namesake harbor to the tidy main drag to the world-class golf course draped along the Lake Michigan shoreline, it is a little slice of summer heaven. For one weekend in late June, that main drag, the harbor, and the surrounding lawn become an automotive enthusiast’s field of dreams.

2023’s Bay Harbor Classic Car & Boat Festival featured something for every car nut: Prewar icons, British roadsters, American muscle cars, and modern supercars like the mid-engine Corvette Z06. Between the carbon fiber, polished chrome, lacquered wood, and the sun, I wouldn’t be surprised if you could have seen the twinkling from space.

While automotive eye candy was available everywhere you turned, one car had a presence like no other: A 1933 Duesenberg Model J “Sweep Panel” Dual-Cowl Phaeton owned by Bob Grooters, one of the show’s organizers. The striking two-tone red and black paint, paired with pristine whitewall tires and loads of sparkling metalwork, set off the monolithic lines of this art deco star.

No matter how many images you pore over on Google, no combination of pixels can convey the majesty of a Duesenberg in real life. There’s a certain scale to the car in person that gets lost in even the most artful photos. When I stood next to the driver’s seat and looked down the front of the car, I was shocked by how far away that angular hood ornament sat.

The brash grandeur of dinner plate-sized headlights and an engine cover that could double as a canoe somehow balance perfectly with subtle flourishes like the contoured metalwork atop the grille and the brushed aluminum of the instrument panel cover. The sumptuous cabin felt like the perfect perch for the industry magnates who bought these cars new. Witness a car like this, and the seven-figure price tags Duesenbergs routinely command at auction suddenly make sense.

The ’33 Model J wasn’t even the only Duesenberg at the show; there were two others. There was also a 1935 Duesenberg SJN, a special Model J car that combined the supercharged Lycoming straight-eight engine from the SJ with the lower, wider Rollston bodywork of the JN. This white-over-black example is one of just four Rollston-bodied cars, and it’s the only one with the factory-supercharged Lycoming straight-eight. The other Duesy was a 1934 Model J four-door Arlington sedan by Derham in stunning black and red.

The rest of the Bay Harbour show boasted stunners from every era. A Jaguar owners club showed out in force, bringing everything from E-Types to XJs. A British car club brought out an original Mini as well as a few Austin-Healeys and Triumphs. There was a whole row of C8 Corvettes, the star of which was a white Z06 70th Anniversary model.

At one point, an Amphicar even puttered right through the harbor and up the boat ramp onto the main street. That harbor housed plenty of classic wooden boats, the star of which was a massive cruiser that goes by the name Pilgrim. On the lawn of a restaurant that abuts the harbor sat a collection of soap-box derby cars with sleek bodywork and wafer-thin wheels, celebrating a bygone era of mechanical ingenuity.

Up the main drag were a few German stars like a Porsche 356 Coupe and a BMW Z3 M Coupe, more affectionately known as a “Clownshoe.” A Ram SRT-10 pickup sat across the way, its hood wide open to show off the Viper-sourced V-10. If you fancied more modern exotics, a few Ferraris and McLarens were just a stone’s throw away around the corner.

If you find yourself in Northern Michigan in late June of next year, be on the lookout for the Bay Harbor Classic Car & Boat Festival. The show is free to spectators and a delightful way to spend a summer Saturday, whether or not you have a car on the lawn.

***

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The post There’s nothing like seeing a Duesenberg in person appeared first on Hagerty Media.

After nine days of rallying from St. Augustine, Florida, to Colorado Springs, Colorado, The Great Race has announced it’s 2023 winners—and it’s a team that knows what the top of the podium feels like. The father-son duo of Howard and Doug Sharp drove their 1916 Hudson artfully for over 2000 miles to a final score that put them in first place, just 7 seconds ahead of their closest competition.

The Great Race left St Augustine on June 24 and participants followed very specific, but also mildly cryptic directions, that pitted drivers and navigators against the challenge of driving pre-1972 cars thousands of miles consistently and without breakdowns or other issues. Held since the 1980s, the Great Race is occasionally a war of attrition, but this year’s event had nearly all of the regular contenders for the grand championship in close contention up until the last two days of rallying. These days are called “championship days” and often involve more complicated maneuvers for drivers and navigators to negotiate, and they also limit the teams’ ability to dismiss a bad score like during the earlier days of the rally.

The Sharps have become a near dynasty of The Great Race in their red 1916 Hudson. They’ve driven other cars in the past, but they seem to circle back to the Hudson and its dependable and powerful inline-six engine. The two also forgo any real protection from the elements, which is a challenge not all participants are willing to tolerate.

Reports from a few drivers indicate this year’s route was tough for both driver and navigator before mixing in the problems of weather and vehicle temperament. That could explain the tight race that found previous Grand Champions Olivia and Genna Gentry just out of reach of the top step of the podium and unable to repeat their 2021 victory. Car troubles found last year’s winners, Josh Hull and Trevor Stahl, at the most inopportune time and forced them to limp to the finish line on the final day after being unable to finish the course on day eight.

The challenges were big this year, and that’s part of why the Sharps will be taking home a $50,000 check for their efforts. While we weren’t there at each step, we’re comfortable in saying they earned it, considering how close the competition was this year. If you think you have what it takes to compete with these masters of driving and navigation, be sure to sign up on the waiting list for the 2024 Great Race.

The post Father and son win The Great Race after 9 days of rallying appeared first on Hagerty Media.

The radical but short-lived Tucker 48 sedan remains one of the most spectacular automotive brand failures of all time. Loyalty for the marque still persists among a band of followers who remain convinced that Preston Tucker was victimized by the Detroit “Big Three,” unmercifully harassed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and unfairly targeted in a cruel vendetta authored by Homer Ferguson, better known as “The Senator from Detroit.”

Last weekend at the Antique Automobile Club of America (AACA) Museum in Hershey, Pennsylvania, a loyal group of 250 Tucker fans gathered for a two-day celebration to honor company founder Preston Thomas Tucker and “keep the legend alive.” There were nine Tucker automobiles on hand, and four of them paraded around the museum, to the delight of the assembled crowd. Sleek, stylish, and ahead of their time, the Tuckers beg the question: Why were they not successful?

If you somehow missed the 1988 Francis Coppola film, Tucker, The Man and His Dream, here’s a quick recap of the Tucker saga:

Flamboyant entrepreneur Preston Tucker, of Ypsilanti, Michigan, debuted his plans for a radical postwar car in the December 1946 issue of Science Illustrated magazine. With its rocket-ship-inspired styling by George Lawson and Alex Tremulis, a rear-mounted flat-six engine (that could be removed in minutes for servicing), Torsiolastic independent suspension, aircraft-style doors, pop-out windshield, swiveling center headlight, standard seat belts, and padded “safety chamber,” there was nothing like it on the road. Orders poured in for the “Car of Tomorrow.” Tucker’s suggested $2450 price tag undercut Cadillac’s popular Model 62 sedan by about $500—a big difference in 1948.

But Tucker’s then-radical sedan never reached true production. After he was smeared in headlines and maligned by nefarious radio commentator Drew Pearson, Tucker and his company were investigated by the SEC (which seized all the factory records), indicted for investment irregularities, and charged with stock and mail fraud. After a sensational trial, Preston Tucker and his associates were acquitted of all charges, but the company’s reputation suffered and funds were almost wholly depleted after the legal fees. When the Tucker plant closed in mid-1948, just thirty-seven pilot models had been completed. Fourteen additional Tuckers were completed, for a total of 51. Some 47 of those cars have survived.

Myths abound about the Tucker venture, but this much is true: Preston Tucker was fundamentally naïve about business; his effort was seriously underfunded, his showy style and unusual business practices annoyed the powers that be; the hastily built initial cars were not sufficiently developed; and he was very unlucky. Despite the Tucker’s monumental business failure, Tucker owners and club members remain passionately loyal to his memory, and Tucker cars presently sell for seven-figure sums.

At the recent “Tuckerama,” John Tucker, Preston’s grandson, and his sons, Shaun and Mike, spoke about the nine individual cars on show. They were each assembled by hand, so there are countless differences and running changes. Based on detailed questions asked in the event’s seminars, there’s no such thing as too much minutia for Tuckerphiles. The audience listened raptly. Attorney Steve Lehto, author of Preston Tucker and His Battle to Build the Car of Tomorrow, reviewed Tucker’s many legal problems. “It was a shame,” one spectator exclaimed. “Tucker was treated so unfairly.”

Mark Lieberman, whose company, Nostalgic Motors, offers restoration, parts, and service for Tucker survivors, held court on a variety of Tucker issues. The Tucker was principally designed by Alex Tremulis, who penned the prewar Chrysler Thunderbolt and the two-wheeled Gyronaut X-1. Tremulis was represented by his nephew, Steve, and Steve’s lovely daughter, Allie, who both fondly remembered their Uncle Alex. Preston Tucker and Alex Tremulis were recognized with Hall of Honor awards.

A few years ago, the late David Cammack, who operated a Tucker museum in Arlington, Virginia, donated three Tucker cars and a treasure trove of the original Tucker company’s files and blueprints to the AACA Museum. During the Tuckerama weekend, the new David S. Cammack Research Center was opened on the museum’s second floor. When Preston Tucker was on trial, skeptics claimed he never seriously intended to build a car; he was just trying to extort money. But there were 51 completed cars, and a cursory look at hundreds of blueprints here, as well as copious correspondence with suppliers, underscores that Tucker was serious, and it helps explain why his trials ended with acquittals in every instance.

The cars on hand spanned the full gamut of Tucker history. Pat Swigart, who owns the Swigart Museum in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania (founded in 1920!), brought the “Tin Goose,” the original Tucker prototype. It’s been listed on the National Historic Vehicle Register. The AACA Museum trotted out one of two sedans that were fitted with the “Tuckermatic” automatic transmission. And Howard Kroplick’s Model 48, number 1044, took a second in class in 2018 at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. Filmmaker George Lucas won that year with a very original example, number 1009. Both Lucas and Francis Coppola still own Tucker cars.

Looking back, Preston Tucker battled valiantly to build his dream car, insisting that streamlined styling and safety features like seat belts were essential and predicting that every manufacturer would follow his lead someday. But Steve Lehto insists that Tucker’s legacy is more than just the car. “Tucker dared to compete in the highest levels of American business,” he wrote, “and he came tantalizingly close to succeeding.”

“Most people become a loyalist to a specific car because of its physical attributes or their past experience with it,” adds Mark Lieberman. “Tucker fans are attracted to the story, the history, the people, and the car itself. There is a lot to love, even if you’ve never seen one in person.”

The Tucker faithful can’t rewrite history, but they point to the cars’ advanced styling and engineering, their astounding value today, and the eternal appeal of the “David vs. Goliath” story as evidence that Preston Tucker remains their automotive hero for the ages.

***

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The post Tucker faithful celebrate 75 years of a revolutionary car appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Reversing away from the start line, I could feel the tension rise.

This wasn’t how it was meant to happen. I’d been totally in the moment, poised but feeling the pressure, as I waited for the green light’s permission to make my first attempt at climbing the legendary Shelsley Walsh hill. A twisting thousand-yard track in Worcestershire, about 140 miles northwest of London, it is the oldest motorsport venue in the world, and I was there to tackle the second annual Hagerty Hill Climb in my late grandfather’s MGA roadster. Notably steep, with an average gradient of around 11 percent (at its steepest 16 percent), accomplishing a fast getaway would be key to a good run.

My presence made public over the commentator’s loudspeaker, I was guided into position at the inclined start by a marshal. But just as soon as the wooden chock to prevent us from rolling backwards was secured behind the roadster’s rear wheel, I was instructed to maneuver a retreat. Safety is taken seriously at Shelsley Walsh, and rightly so, which is why they couldn’t let me go. Driving an open car, I discovered, calls for a closed full-face crash helmet, and the one I was wearing wasn’t right. Rather than retire, the solution was to raise the MGA’s leather soft top, a procedure which becomes unfathomably difficult when the circumstances demand it to be completed in haste. I was glad to have a co-pilot, my dad Steve, there to help.

I was flustered (let’s be real: a sweaty mess) but relieved that we’d not been forced to withdraw, and the marshals again called us forward. Reacquainted with the start line, I knew the only thing that mattered now was the thrill of having a go at what lay ahead. That’s when I noticed the blood. Claret red to match the A’s Chariot Red, it poured down my forefinger and into my palm, some unfelt casualty of the kerfuffle. “Dad, I’m bleeding,” I squawked, by now near hysterical. “GO!” he cried out in response.

I am not proficient in the art of the wheel spin, so our off contained no cloud of burnt rubber. No problem; I was content that I’d already made enough of a spectacle of myself in front of the crowd.

By design, hill-climbing is a form of motorsport in which drivers compete against the clock on an uphill course. Considered an heirloom upon which novice hill-climbers like myself can cut their teeth, Shelsley Walsh has remained unchanged since it opened in 1905—aside from the addition of tarmac in 1930. The outright record at Shelsley, which was set in the 700-hp Gould GR59, is 22.37 seconds. With neither the means nor the desire to chase such supersonic speeds, I signed up to Hagerty UK’s non-competitive ‘run what you brung’ weekender to find out if my grandfather’s beloved 80-hp sports car would make it up there at its own pace. Neither cutthroat nor a sedate Sunday drive, the event succeeded in putting my nerve—and the stamina of the machine that I’ve been entrusted with—to the test.

My grandfather, whom I called Dodo, was a very formal man, and the MGA was where he let the wind ruffle his slick, side-parted hair. Built in 1960 for American export, Frisky spent her first three decades cruising the boulevards of California; it’s a period of her history I know nothing about. In 1990, she was re-imported to the UK, converted to right-hand drive, rebuilt, and rallied to victory in the Monte Carlo Challenge. Fresh from her triumph, Dodo bought her as a retirement present for himself.

At 92 years old, just months before he died, he still flew along the racing line on quiet country roads; he never lost the thrill of putting his foot down. Somewhere in between terrified and enjoying the ride, I was too distracted to pay attention to the nuances of his skill, but they must have imprinted on me somehow. I’ve already driven Frisky to some of the most extreme locations accessible to traffic in the UK, including an emotional ascent up the infamous Hardknott Pass, a single-track road in England’s Lake District with gradients of up to 33 percent, steep switchbacks, and unguarded drops. This run up Shelsley Walsh seemed a good next step.

Lulled into a false sense of assurance on the opening straight, I steered FSK 302 (affectionately known as Frisky) with conviction through the course’s first two curves. This isn’t so bad, I thought, but our sprightly 30-ish-mph rate of travel wasn’t long-lived. Narrow and lined with stone walls, barriers, and hedges, Shelsley’s topography also features an unforgiving camber, which in a low-slung roadster with a long nose gives greater magnitude to its challenge. Leaning forward, white knuckled, I steered Frisky steadily into and out of the track’s near-90-degree left- and right-hand bends—without drawing breath. The achievement felt phenomenal.

On the final dash to the finish, Frisky was noticeably relieved as I slipped her from second into third, then fourth, settling her comfortably into a lower range of rpm. At the summit, instinctively, I checked my grandfather’s watch. It doesn’t work, but I like to wear it, and I was curious to know how rapidly we’d made our ascent. I looked to his photograph, which I’ve taped to the inside of the windscreen, and wondered how he’d appraise the performance. Before I made any journey in a car, Dodo always left me with these parting words: “Drive safely, sweetheart.” I’d managed just that on the hill.

To satisfy participant curiosity, organizers timed each vehicle’s runs. Lasting a steady-going 67.01 seconds, this maiden voyage set the tone for a dignified two days of climbing. Sharing the high by taking turns behind the wheel of Frisky with my father and my fiancé, James, the MGA coped commendably, only tiring in her efforts when the gearbox found the going a little too tough. “With the prolonged extra load, the oil in the gearbox was getting too hot and not lubricating the third-gear synchromesh hub adequately,” Dad explained. “This had a knock-on effect dropping back into second.” On duty during the initial instance of this niggling issue, James, struggling to persuade the MGA into gear, slowed to a temporary halt—excruciatingly close to the finish.

The message communicated—incorrectly—over the track’s PA system was that the MGA was likely suffering a blown head gasket. One hundred meters back down the slope, Dad felt useless as he listened for further news. “That ten minutes waiting to see if the car drove back under its own steam felt like an eternity,” he said. “But she did, and she did us proud.”

Until it’s over, mechanical drama does nothing for a driver’s ego, but James handled the immediate stress of it well, and he didn’t let the hiccup deter him from returning to the seat. The reward for taking part as a team was that the duel was fought against the hill rather than each other. Tamed by the respect we all have for Dodo’s car, we took a calculated risk and maintained a healthy level of sporting form. But, for the record, I’d like it known that I beat Dad on day one by 0.71 second.

Back in the paddock, parked up alongside everything from an Austin-Healey to an Alvis Beetleback, it was a typically English celebration of fabulous cars and the people who drive them—spectators supped Pimm’s while drivers drank tea—and it was there I made the acquaintance of Jonathan Evans and his 15-year-old daughter, Bella. “We’re definitely outnumbered,” confided Bella, lady to lady, against a racket of rally cars, including an Audi Sport Quattro and MG Metro 6R4, warming up their engines. “I think more of us need to come and see it, and try it for themselves. I came because I wanted to get a bit of a buzz.”

A passenger in her dad’s red Robin Hood 2B, an open two-seater with considerably more oomph than my own, (it made the run up the hill in 43.51 seconds), Bella’s love of automobiles is in the genes. “I thought it would be a nice father-and-daughter bonding day,” said Jonathan, who runs a classic car business in South Wales. “She’s always encouraging me to go faster,” he beamed.

“I do love going fast, but the main thing was just to get up the hill,” added Bella, before Jonathan picked up the conversation: “I was nervous. It’s our first hill climb, and it’s surprising how steep it is. You don’t realize until you’re on it, but we just put our helmets on and give it what for.” That is, I interrupted, until they encountered a stranded MGA on the home stretch; Jonathan and Bella had been in the same batch of cars as me and Frisky. “I just wanted to get out and help,” reassured Jonathan, as I offered my apologies. “We weren’t disappointed, we’re just here to enjoy ourselves and take in the great atmosphere.” Such a considerate response epitomized Hagerty’s event.

Before we said goodbye on a promise to keep in touch, Bella waxed lyrical about her impending graduation from plus one to pilot. “I can’t wait to get my license. Dad’ll always tell me what to do, but when he’s passenger, I’ll be in charge.”

Her declaration is to be admired. My own dad is my champion, but that doesn’t make me immune from getting defensive when he feels compelled to provide an instructive commentary about the way I drive, particularly when we’re out in the MGA. Constructive criticism, that’s what he likes to call it. And there have certainly been occasions when it is called for, including at the Hagerty Hill Climb. I listen to him because it’s important to learn. When I took over custodianship of the MGA six years ago, I had no idea the car would become a part of the fabric of my life. But it quickly summoned a sense of adventure that was revelatory, and without my father’s guidance I would have struggled to indulge it.

Experiences like the Hagerty Hill Climb allow me to discover new ways to find fulfilment behind her wheel. Bella, if you’re reading this, I can’t wait to see you again at the top of Shelsley Walsh. Let’s show them what we, the next generation of drivers, are capable of.

More from the Hill: Hagerty Hill Climb first-timers share their experience of Shelsley Walsh

Adam Rycarte, 27
“I’m a bit of an advocate of the idea that if something worries you, you should do it, so that it stops worrying you. I don’t think there are many things that compare to being sat in a car on a start line ready to go; it’s nerve-wracking but so exciting at the same time.

Being at Shelsey Walsh for the first time and taking an MGB and a classic Mini up the hill was a lot of fun, but the anxiety was a big thing; there’s the worry that you’re going to make a mistake, but approach it with a little apprehension and you’ll keep things in check. I don’t think I looked at the speedo once. I was focused on not hitting anything or anyone.

I did my first run up the hill in the MGB with a passenger and it was actually quite reassuring having someone next to me, but I think that comes down to the individual; some people feel more comfortable in a car when they’re on their own and in their own zone. Mainly, I didn’t want to make a fool of myself.

I didn’t do any research ahead of coming here, but there are a lot of knowledgeable people about that have been doing it for a very long time. You’ve got to take on all the tips that you’re given, but you’ve also got to feel it and enjoy it for yourself. With classic cars, it’s not just about reading the dials that are in front of you, it’s about the sounds and the smells, too.

There’s always room for improvement. There are things that I was probably doing wrong, taking too long to change gears, for example, but just to be part of it and to say that I’ve actually done it has been such a great experience. If hill-climbing is something you’ve thought about trying, then you’ve got to do it.”

Max Richardson, 23
“I used to come here with my uncle as a kid, so I’ve seen a lot of stuff go up the hill, but today it’s been my turn to drive. I didn’t study the course, because I didn’t want to go into it too hot. It’s not a wide track. I was surprised how tight it is, and although I knew there was a big left and a big right, if you think you know every inch then you’d probably end up crashing. Expecting perfection from the first run is dangerous; I took mine nice and slow, absorbed the experience and just enjoyed the scenery.

I’m feeling very lucky, because none of the cars I’ve driven are mine—they belong to friends. The racing Jaguar XK 120 that was built by Guy Broad [a marque specialist] does wheel spins at any opportunity; it’s not happy unless you’re trying to attack the track with it. Managing the throttle as well as the five-speed dog-leg gearbox takes some getting used to, and the seat is also quite low, so you can’t really see where the fenders are. It’s a challenge and I could have had 10 more goes and wouldn’t have got it right, whereas the other two cars I’ve driven—a very pretty XK 120 that’s more of a rogue for a road rally and the Honda NSX Type-R that’s the original UK press car— I feel as though I’ve done what I could in them.

I’m not sure what my expectations were, but I did think everyone would be really serious. I think it’s a clever event, because it’s not timed, which has meant no one gets annoyed and no one is frantically race-prepping their car or lining up the moment they are able to. It’s been nice and chill.

If you’re a nervous person and haven’t done a hill climb before, pick a car you feel confident in, because you don’t want to be somewhere you don’t know, in a car you don’t know. If you know anyone who has been to Shelsley, ask them for tips, but equally there’s loads of people here, like the marshals, who are happy to help. I came to have fun, scratch the itch, and kill some tires. I’ll definitely do hill-climbing again.”

Follow Charlotte’s Adventures with Frisky at www.instagram.com/charlottevowden/

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Via Hagerty UK

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It’s an unusual place for a cricket pitch, to say the least. The Honourable Artillery Company’s lawn in London is surrounded by glass towers and terraced homes that are certainly within striking distance of a well-struck “six.”

It’s not the sound of leather on willow that bounces off the buildings today, however, but the aural delights of internal-combustion engines. The annual London Concours is taking over the field. There are 80 cars of all ages on show, some tunefully firing up their engines to entertain the crowds or to impress the judges during the three-day event in the city’s heart.

Among the highlights are a Make Green Great Again display with a suitably hued selection of new and old from Rolls-Royce, Aston Martin, Bentley, and more; a French corner with Alpines and Citroëns; a celebration of Lamborghini’s 60th anniversary; and a collection of Land Rovers commemorating the marque’s 75th year.

Given that the venue is home to the occasional off-spin pitch, however, it was the oddballs to which we were drawn. A ripple of applause, please, for this gallery of googlies that pushed the boundaries.

1921 Leyat Hélica

French aviator Marcel Leyat seemingly lopped off the wings from one of his aircraft to create the Hélica. Since the big prop provided thrust, there was no need for a clutch, transmission, or drive axle, which made the Hélica reliable—if rather risky for pedestrians and cyclists. Some 30 were made, and only two survive today.

1962 Crayford Mini Mojito

This beautiful beach car is actually newly built by recently revived coachbuilder Crayford. Using yacht-standard teak for the flooring and rear deck, the sun-seeking runabout can be specified with an original Mini motor or an electric powertrain.

1971 Monteverdi 375 High Speed Fissore

If it weren’t for a falling out with Enzo Ferrari, there would be no Lamborghini, and the same is true of lesser-known sports car maker Monteverdi. Peter Monteverdi was Ferrari’s official importer for Switzerland—until he had a disagreement with Il Commendatore, who had demanded Monteverdi pay for 100 cars up front. Monteverdi commissioned his own Lamborghini rival, sourcing bodywork from Fissore and power from a 7.2-liter Chrysler V-8. Just 80 cars were built before his money ran out.

1973 Peugeot 504 Break Riviera

Pininfarina showcased a Peugeot 504 shooting brake at the Geneva Motor Show in 1972, but what happened to it afterwards is unknown. One fan was so enamored with the design that he employed HC Classics to recreate the car on the chassis of a 1973 Series 1 504 cabriolet. Aren’t we all glad he did?

1995 Autech Gavia Zagato

Autech is Nissan’s skunkworks, and one of the wildest projects is this collaboration with Zagato. Based on the Nissan Leopard, its aerodynamic aluminum panels were hand-beaten by artisans in Italy. Under the hood is a three-liter turbocharged V-6 from the 300ZX. Just 16 were made.

1999 Bentley Continental Sedanca Coupe

This British bruiser is a rare beast. Bentley made only 73 examples of the T-topped Continental Sedanca coupe, with Mulliner assembling a further six. A pair of glass roof panels could be removed and stored in the trunk, disrupting the car’s lines but opening the cockpit to the elements.

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The 27th Greenwich Concours d’Elegance is in the books, and this year the awards were for two classes: the Concours d’Elegance and the Concours de Sport. The Concours d’Elegance award is intended to recognize traditionally classic automobiles, while the Concours de Sport award celebrates cars from and associated with motorsports.

For 2023, the Concours d’Elegance award goes to the 1937 Alfa Romeo 8C 2900 B, owned by Lawrence Auriana. The 8C 2900 B was the last and the most spectacular of the prewar Alfas. Its glittering debut came at the 1938 Paris Salon; just 32 were made from 1937 through 1939. This particular 2900 B was originally bodied as an open-wheel race car and later rebodied by Pinin Farina. It took third place at the 1938 Mille Miglia and placed first at the 1938 Stelvio Hill Climb.

Among the United States’ most lauded concours, the 2900 B is a favorite. On the lawn at Pebble Beach, 8C 2900 Bs have taken the prestigious concours’ Best of Show laurels four times since 1988. In 2000, a 1938 8C 2900 B won Best of Show at the Amelia Concours. In 2017, Amelia’s Best of Show Concours de Sport went to an 8C 2900 B Touring Spider. Alfa’s 2900 B is all but unbeatable on the concours lawn, as Greenwich’s 2023 Concours d’Elegance award underscores once more. The 2900 B is practically a guaranteed winner . . . unless there’s another prewar Alfa on the field!

This year’s Concours de Sport award went to the 1965 Ford GT40 Mk I, chassis P/1030, displayed by Benjamin Levy. The Ford GT originated in the early 1960s when the Ford Motor Company sought to update its old-fashioned image with the baby boomers who were beginning to exert influence in the car market. Led by Lee Iacocca, Ford decided to use the growing sport of auto racing to establish a more exciting performance image. After Enzo Ferrari quashed Ford’s efforts to purchase his company at the eleventh hour, Henry Ford II gave the order for Ford to build a car that would win the torturous Le Mans 24-hour endurance race. That car was the GT40.

Chassis P/1030 left the factory equipped with Borrani wire wheels, a 289-cubic-inch V-8, and a standard ZF five-speed manual transmission. It was initially sent to the Shell Oil Company for its advertising campaign. After that, it was sold to Ken Luscombe-Whyte and repainted red. In February 1968, it was sold to Rodney Lyons of the Epping Oil Company. In July 1968, it was featured on the cover of Car magazine. The car was loaned to Ford and photographed for a double-page ad featured in numerous magazines in the period. Later the car was used for development of the 2005/2006 Ford GT.

Saturday’s Concours de Sport consisted of 15 judged classes. A range of hands-on activities—ride and drives, racing simulators, Hagerty Future Drivers Club, and more—entertained enthusiasts and families. Sunday’s Concours d’Elegance classes included Pre- and Postwar Alfa Romeo, Steam Cars, Postwar American, Italian, German and English Cars, Supercars, as well as the Cars of Wayne Carini, this year’s Grand Marshal. The Connecticut native, TV host, restorer, and collector-car dealer served in the honorary role while a slate of expert judges, including a group of 20 youth judges, focused on design, style, and elegance while selecting this year’s winners.

“The Northeast has a rich automotive history and the concours is proud to celebrate its place in global car culture,” said McKeel Hagerty, CEO of Hagerty. “The Alfa Romeo 8C 2900 selected as Best of Show embodies the spirit of the world’s best collections; its excellence, elegance, and history are worthy of acclaim. Saturday’s Concours de Sport winner, a 1965 Ford GT40 Mk I, is equally deserving of praise, an exceptional example of an iconic car.”

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Rooted in the Amelia Concours d’Elegance tradition of naming two Best of Show winners, one from the world of motorsports and another chosen for its pure elegance, Saturday’s Greenwich Concours de Sport is curated to complement Sunday’s traditional Concours d’Elegance with a celebration of cars from and inspired by the world of motorsports. This exciting new event introduces vehicles to the show-field lawns, including standouts from the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, which are rarely celebrated on the grand stage of world-class concours.

Innovative Concours de Sport car classes include Radwood Street Cars Built for the Track, a celebration of homologation specials from the 1980s and 1990s. Porsche fans will enjoy the wild builds and sleek customizations of Porsche Outlaws. Rarely seen Japanese domestic sports cars are represented in the JDM Performance class and will be joined by a fabulous collection of Japanese motorcycles, including some of the fastest street bikes ever made. All eight generations of the Corvette will be represented in Corvette: America’s Sports Car, and we will recognize Carroll Shelby’s 100th birthday with the Carroll Shelby Centenary class.

Tomorrow’s Concours de Sport is also a celebration of the local community, with three classes of vehicles specifically chosen from local collectors. Cars of Greenwich Avenue highlights eight of the most exciting vehicles from Greenwich, Connecticut, and surrounding towns. Curated in partnership with the leadership team of Greenwich Cars & Coffee, this class is a tribute to the beautiful seacoast town and the wonderful people who call it home. In addition, Racing Legends features cars that have raced at the historic Lime Rock Park in Lakeville, Connecticut. Finally, Cars of Garage + Social is a featured class of vehicles selected from the collections of Bedford Hills, New York, Hagerty Garage + Social members.

Families will delight in the newly renamed Future Drivers Club featuring fun and educational activities for younger enthusiasts. Students between the ages of 8 and 14 will have the opportunity to participate in Hagerty Youth Judging. The young judges are guided through the show field as a group to pre-selected Concours de Sport vehicles and are provided with the opportunity to interact with owners and learn details, history, and fun facts about each of these entries.

We are grateful for your support of the inaugural Greenwich Concours de Sport and hope that you enjoy the event.

The 2023 Greenwich Concours d’Elegance will take place on June 2–4, 2023. Download the event program to learn more about Sunday’s featured classes, Saturday’s Concours de Sport, our judges, sponsors, nonprofit partners, 2022 winners, and more! 

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If you’re looking for a made-to-measure suit and the accessories to go with it, then there’s only one place: London’s Savile Row. Tailors to the rich and royal have plied their trade on this West End street since the 18th century. Ramble through the Row and you’ll find the finest names in fashion, displaying their wares behind the plate glass of storied establishments.

On this day, however, Savile Row is taken over by the finest in automotive design. The annual two-day Concours is an eclectic mix of vehicles: EV-converted classics, F1 cars, prewar icons, and even a double-decker bus. Each is paired with one of the tailors, making this a uniquely stylish event. Given this focus on fabrics we turned our attention to interior design, picking out five of the finest below.

BRM V-16

The BRM Type 15 was, famously, Britain’s first Formula 1 car. Because of that heritage, most people would be drawn—quite rightly—to its amazing 1.5-liter supercharged V-16 engine. However, it’s the cramped cockpit of this 2023 recreation that we found fascinating.

The somewhat psychedelic pattern on the leather bucket seat, courtesy of tailor Ozwald Boateng, is hard to miss, but just take a look at the dashboard and the drum-style tachometer: It’s almost like a laboratory instrument. Appropriate, since the BRM was one giant experiment.

Porsche 356C

You’d need to be a male model to pull off a houndstooth suit, but in a classic Porsche, the pattern looks simply perfect.

As it happens, this 356’s owner David Gandy is a runway veteran. When he was having the car restored, there was only one choice.

“It’s German houndstooth, which was originally used. I always try to integrations the history of the cars in my restorations,” he tells Hagerty. “[Porsche] used fabric in the center of the seats, unlike English classic cars so that you wouldn’t slip around.”

Callum Vanquish

Scottish designer Ian Callum was never totally satisfied with how the Aston Martin Vanquish turned out. The first job when he set up his own design consultancy? Fixing it.

The resulting Callum Vanquish 25 is a brutally handsome beast. This example takes the classic green-over-tan color scheme to a new level with painstakingly applied metallic paintwork on the outside and, on the inside, a hide so bright that you’d need sunglasses.

Everrati GT40

This GT40 by Everrati and Superformance might be a bit of an imposter, but the recreation is a beautifully crafted alternative to Ford’s original. Powered by volts instead of a V-8, this GT40 is still built to be a driver’s car, as the polished metal shifter suggests. We’re looking forward to finding out if it drives as well as it looks.

Bentley GTC by Jack Barclay, Mulliner, and Huntsman

Huntsman’s home has been Savile Row since 1849. (The tailor even served as the inspiration for the Kingsman movie franchise.) After over 170 years of bespoke tailoring for humans, the shop has turned its hand to cars in a collaboration with Jack Barclay, Bentley’s oldest dealership.

Huntsman’s charcoal four-point star features throughout, and its H motif is embossed in the headrests of both a Bentley GTC and a Bentayga. Just five examples of each vehicle will be built, tailored to each customer’s taste, of course.

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It’s nearly June, which means its almost time for the beloved Greenwich Concours d’Elegance. The show has been held annually since 1996 in Greenwich, Connecticut, located just 30 miles from the heart of New York City and overlooking the Long Island Sound. This year, it’s happening June 2-4.

Full disclosure: Hagerty has been an active sponsor and participant in the Greenwich Concours for many years. The deep tradition of the Concours combined with Hagerty’s mission to save driving for future generations created an ideal opportunity for the purchase of the event in 2019. “Outstanding events like the Greenwich Concours d’Elegance get people excited about cars, and that’s what it’s all about. That’s how we’re going to save driving and car culture for future generations,” said Hagerty CEO and Concours Chair McKeel Hagerty.

Saturday features the new Concours d’Sport, with cars from, and inspired by, the world of motorsports, followed by Sunday’s traditional Concours d’Elegance, highlighting post-war American, Italian and English automobiles and more.

Connecticut native Wayne Carini, the acclaimed restorer and Hagerty Drivers Club columnist, will be Grand Marshal, and the show will include a special class of cars from his private collection, including many seen on his TV series, Chasing Classic Cars.

There are six featured classes for Saturday’s Concours d’Sport: Racing Legends, RADwood street cars built for the track (homologation specials), Cars of Greenwich Avenue, Supercar Celebration, British Racing Green (English modern), and On Fire (rods and customs).

For Sunday’s Concours d’Elegance, featured classes include prewar Alfa Romeo, Class of ’63, East Coast Coachbuilder’s Classics, Greenwich Beach Cruisers and two motorcycle classes: Exotic Italian and Best of Britain. Organizers are planning for 150 cars each day, with a total of 15 judged classes on Saturday, 18 on Sunday. There’s also a special afterglow party Saturday night on the waterfront.

For additional information on the show and how to attend, visit Greenwichconcours.com.

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At Hagerty, we’re committed to saving driving. We believe that one way to achieve that goal is to get people having fun in their cars. A great avenue for that is to attend a Track Night in America or Time Trial National Tour event sponsored by the Sports Car Club of America.

Making it even easier, Hagerty Drivers Club members receive $25 off every Track Night in America or Time Trial National Tour event when registering online. Use your discount for just three events and you’ll have covered the cost of your HDC membership!

Anyone can participate in these events—you don’t need a sports car and you don’t need to have any experience. All you need is an up-to-date helmet and a mechanically sound street car, which makes Track Nights one of the fastest ways to get on a racetrack. Track Nights are laid back, affordable, and amazing opportunities to experience racetracks in a no-pressure environment.

Never driven on a track before? That’s great! Because Track Night offers the Hawk Performance Novice Experience, where you’ll learn driving etiquette to ensure you (and everyone else) get the most out of your time at the track. With Track Nights at more than 30 racetracks across the United States, it’s easy to find an event near you.

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After attending a few LS Fests it’s hard to be surprised to see one of the world’s most ubiquitous V-8s mounted into an obscure car or other conveyance. However, we were still impressed with the ingenuity and craftsmanship in many of the cars on display at LS Fest West 2023. Here are some of our favorite swaps from the event.

Steve Groenink’s 1973 Celica sat in a field for almost 30 years before he got his hands on it 13 years ago. It was reborn as a Pro Pouring build with a Lexus 1UZ swap, a pair of turbos, and a T-56 Magnum six-speed manual transmission. After winding up in a ditch with that build, Groenink rebuilt the car into the drag-and-drive competitor you see today. It’s powered by a 388-cubic-inch V-8 with LS3 heads, a Concept Performance LSR aluminum block, and aluminum rods. That fiendish build is mated to a two-speed Powerglide automatic transmission. A single Precision XPR 98mm turbo feeds it loads of boost to the tune of 1,163 hp—as measured by the LS Fest dyno. Groenink got eliminated just before making the drag race finals at LS Fest West 2023 but still managed to run a 7.93 E.T. at 189 mph when Las Vegas Motor Speedway’s density altitude was more than 6000 feet.

We’re not sure it really counts as a swap considering a kit car doesn’t come with any engine at all, but Chris Hein’s Factory Five coupe is very impressive nonetheless. After building the car on a budget, Hein rebuilt the car to compete in drag-and-drive events like Drag Week, Sick Week, and Rocky Mountain Race Week. A set of mirror-image Garrett turbos feed a stock 6.2-liter LSA long-block and help it produce more than 1000 hp. Hein shifts the car himself using a G-Force T-56 Magnum with a Tick Performance billet front plate and McLeod clutch. The car has run in the 8s and can rack up highway miles comfortably thanks to its air-conditioned cab.

Adam Rocconi, who goes by @WS6SIX6 on Instagram, bought this Trans Am for $900 when he was 17 years old. It originally boasted a tuned port 305, but now the car is now powered by an LQ9 from a 2004 Escalade that runs Holley Terminator X EFI. Of course, now the 6.0-liter V-8 has new heads and cam as well as an intake with eight throttle bodies from Redux Racing, so it’s making a lot more than its original 345 hp rating. The individual throttle bodies took some tinkering to sync up, although the snappy throttle response seems well worth the effort. Inside, the car’s original Recaro seats were reupholstered and looked amazing with the metallic brown exterior.

Of course, there were hundreds of LS swaps on display and we couldn’t see them all, let alone get the details on all of them, so here are some additional standout swaps that we managed to snap pictures of. Which one is your favorite? Let us know in the comments below.

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Last weekend’s LS Fest West 2023 brought out more than 1000 vehicles—and even more spectators—to Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where this homage to the General Motors V-8 encouraged participants not only to show off their engines, but put them to the test. Vehicle owners had plenty of opportunities to do so, with a burnout contest, two autocross tracks, a 3S (Speed, Steer, Stop) shootout, a drifting competition, several classes of drag racing, dyno testing, and short-course off-road racing.

We’ve previously heaped praise on GM’s LS-series V-8s and their direct-injected LT successors, and Holley loves them too. The aftermarket company is one of the biggest proponents of LS swaps and is a major purveyor of LS accessories and performance parts. So, why are all of these enthusiasts and racers LS-swapping their cars? The answer is—and has always been—because LS engines are lightweight, compact, abundant, reliable, and affordable. Holley and other aftermarket manufacturers have made swaps easier with engine mounts, oil pans, and accessory drives that fit dozens of chassis, as well as speed parts to make far more power than these engines ever did from the factory.  That makes it relatively easy to find an engine from a wrecked pickup or SUV and get it into the drift, drag, or daily ride of your choice. Here are some of our favorite LS-swapped cars in action.

Participants could line up and run their LS-powered car or truck on this portable chassis dyno, and the results covered the spectrum, from 300-hp daily drivers to drag cars that produced more than 1000 hp. This turbocharged 1973 Celica, owned and raced by Steve Groenink, put down 1163 hp.

We’ve shown LS Fest East drifting before, but LS Fest West brought out so many competitors that a qualifying session was required in order to whittle down the field to a 32-car bracket. As the sun set on Saturday’s final competition, Ben Hobson took the event win in his LS-swapped Nissan.

Participants could drag race in both quarter-mile and eighth-mile competitions. Plenty of daily-driven cars posted times in the 11- and 12-second range, but several track-prepped cars were much quicker, with Steve Groenink’s Celica, shown on the dyno above, recording 7.93 E.T. at 189 mph.

Beyond its four-wide strip making it a drag-racing landmark, Las Vegas is also a well-known off-road racing hotspot. The nation’s two most prestigious off-road races are centered in Sin City, as the Mint 400 is just down the highway and the Best in the Desert series runs from Vegas to Reno. It only made sense for LS Fest West to feature some of the most entertaining off-road racers in action, and the one-on-one sprints over jumps and whoops delighted the crowd.

If you feel like you’ve missed out on celebrating all that is LS, make your plans now for LS Fest Texas and LS Fest East. There’s still time to get your LS-equipped project car up and running, so get those wrenches turning!

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There are three things you need to know about Michigan’s Upper Peninsula before we begin:

3

The frenzied pace of metro Detroit feels like another world. Life slows down up there, and the locals make their own entertainment.

2

There’s snow. A lot of it. Six months of winter equates to about 25 feet of the stuff, so the locals, they make their own entertainment.

1 …

… lap to go.

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A high-speed procession of snowmobiles stormed past a fluttering white flag. Out front, a pair of Polaris sleds led the pack. Ross Erdman on the purple machine held a narrow lead over Joey Burch, who was catching a face-full of snow from the leader’s wake.

Undaunted, Burch charged toward Erdman as the duo rounded the first set of turns on the one-mile snow-covered oval. Pouring onto the oval’s backstretch, Burch caught a strip of ice. His snow-track studs met the shiny stuff and shot the second-place rider forward. He was now side-by-side with Erdman, and the two were practically rubbing shoulders as they careened down the dimly lit straight at over 100 miles per hour.

In turn three, Burch passed Erdman on the inside, pitching his sled sideways to slow his charge. Burch’s momentum carried him into the turn’s outer snow bank, which opened the door for Erdman to pull even on the outside.

Burch, now off-line, was deep in the fluff. He kept on the throttle, though, and launched his sled airborne, showing the bottom of his skis to the thousands of fans who lined the track. Despite the dramatics, Burch was still dead even with Erdman just a few hundred yards from the finish line.

Welcome to the Indy 500 of snowmobile racing. Who wanted it more?

The two crashed into one another as Burch steered left. More contact. This time Erdman turned into Burch, clocking his rival so hard that he went up on one ski. Neither rider slowed, neither gave an inch, and the two remained locked together as they skittered across the line, a photo finish for the ages.

After more than nine hours, the I-500 snowmobile race was decided by .0001 seconds. Burch was declared victorious. (His win came 17 years after his father suffered a heart attack while competing in the race.) Fans who braved frigid temps and persistent snowstorms were rewarded with a thrilling climax to the 500-lap contest—the closest finish in the race’s 54-year history.

“It all started with a handful of guys sitting at a restaurant,” says I-500 chairman Ric Federau. According to its snow-covered lore, the idea for a long-distance snowmobile race in Sault Ste. Marie was first synthesized in 1968 when a group of dining friends spotted a new Camaro Indy 500 Pace Car across the street in a dealership lot. The car sparked a debate whether a snowmobile could make it 500 miles. Back then, the sleds were more go-kart, or riding lawnmower, than race vehicle. Completing a 500-mile enduro would be quite the feat.

The discussion made it out of the restaurant. First order of business: Find a proper location to hold their “Indy 500 for snowmobiles.” Across town, less than a mile from the Canadian border, sat an old World War II ammunition bunker. The storage facility, like the town’s Raco Army Airfield, was a remnant of WWII-era military fortification. The property was owned by the city and had gone unused for years. Even better, the plot of land was a swamp, and all of the Soo’s water drained into the low field—the perfect canvas for an oval ice track.

The group employed an engineer to design a mile-long circuit, and the U.S. Army Corps and the National Guard were brought in to destroy two of the three concrete ammunition bunkers on the property. (The third still exists today.) Repurposed motel cabins were brought onsite for race control, and an old section of the Soo Locks was fashioned into a metal crossover bridge.

Work continued throughout 1968, and by the winter of ’69 the track was ready. Snowmobile racers converged for time trials that January.

On February 8, 1969, 47 snow machines lined up for the first annual I-500. According to historian John Kenn, the Mackinaw Bridge (the bridge between Michigan’s two peninsulas) lowered its fair from $3.50 to $1.50 to support the race. Thousands of fans flocked to watch the novel contest fire off at 10 a.m.

After more than 13 hours, Dan Planck crossed the finish line first on his Ski Doo, and the original question posed by the dining friends had been answered: A snowmobile can make it 500 miles.

Since that first race in 1969, the I-500 has grown into a week-long party with numerous ancillary events. The population of the Soo temporarily spikes, delivering a boost in tourism dollars during a time that otherwise would be slower than sap. Michigan’s former governor, Rick Snyder, recently proclaimed the race as “Michigan’s premier winter sporting event.”

“The I-500 has weathered every kind of bad economic situation that the state has endured,” says Federau. No doubt the race’s persevering strength is bolstered by its volunteer workforce. “There’s not another professional race in the world that is totally operated by volunteers,” he says.

Although the community mindset hasn’t changed since the race’s early days, other components, like the track, the machines, and the riders have evolved quite a bit. Purpose-built race sleds replace the hopped-up stock machines that populated the grid back in the day. The Ski Doos, Artic Cats, and Polaris sleds are much faster. Heavier, too. Riders have to be in tip top shape, and the pace is so grueling that multiple racers swap stints behind the handlebars. “They’re doing 125 mph, alongside 38 other riders, with nothing but Kevlar on their back, split seconds apart in a cloud of spray,” says Federau.

To keep up with the breakneck pace, the I-500’s officiating has grown from a guy in the back of his pickup bed with a stopwatch to a full-fledge crew. Timing and scoring officials are hired through NASCAR and are flown up from Atlanta. “The day after our race, the guys who do our timing are on a jet to the Daytona 500 with all the transponders,” Federau says.

Team infrastructure, too, has swelled. Each individual race team now has about a dozen crew members. Some of the race engineers and crew chiefs stare at computer screens the whole race and don’t even leave their heated trailers in the infield.

Just like the Indy 500, pit stops are routine. In additional to fueling during the stops, teams may swap riders, swap skis, and perform engine or clutch maintenance. A good stop is about 22 seconds, and most of the time they take place during the plow breaks that occur every 100 laps.

The lapse in action is necessary for track conditions. Unlike the early days, which featured a snow-covered course, the one-mile oval is now primarily ice, which avoids the friction of snow and makes for a faster lap. Nearly 2 million gallons of water are dumped from tanker trailers to build out the course.

Melting isn’t an issue (unless the town is met with an unseasonably warm winter), but the track crew is presented with a different problem: The snowmobiles’ aggressive metal studs wreak havoc. In the same way that race car drivers search for grip on a paved course, riders are looking for patches of ice to sink their studs. The sharp bits grind away at the surface, throwing loose ice dust all over the course. Plow trucks are essential.

With a race that can last more than nine hours in often sub-freezing temperatures, the 100-lap breaks are also a good time for fans to catch a breath. But not everyone is there to watch. Some spectators are simply attending a party that happens to have a snowmobile race in the background. Drinking is optional. Bundling is a must. Knee-length puffy jackets, animal fur, and wool-lined everything are trackside couture. Listen closely and you’ll hear the swishing of nylon and polyester layers in symphony with the muffled claps of gloved hands.

In addition to warm clothing, most partiers have a heated home base. This could be a motorhome, an enclosed trailer, or even a school bus. Spectators park their rigs in a lot above the track. The lucky ones are backed up to the track’s front stretch perimeter for optimal spectating.

One long-time fan transformed a Better Made Potato Chip trailer into a rolling kitchen with a big-screen TV and dining benches. Smells of sweet smoke and beef rolled out of the trailer, which was outfitted with carpeting sourced from the local casino and a commercial flat-top grill.

Fans walk in and out of the temporary abodes. Some watch on snowbanks, others stand around campfires, others take shots of brown party liquor from carved ice luges. It’s a scene. Ten thousand people in snow pants, yet the only ones in a hurry are out on the track.

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The Petersen Automotive Museum’s latest exhibit We Are Porsche looks back at 75 years of the Stuttgart automaker and highlights the brand’s biggest market: America. Forty vehicles show the breadth of the brand, from early 356 models and svelte ’50s racers to modern supercars and track machines.

The exhibit, assembled in collaboration with Porsche Cars North America (PCNA), takes up a good portion of the California museum’s second floor and sprawls into the lobby. You’ll find some modern racers, a wild safari 911, and a whimsical art piece from Mr. Brainwash that places a real, full-scale 1973 Carrera RS 2.7 into Matchbox toy packaging.

The exhibit illustrates the wide reach of Porsche and how its cars have influenced racing, pop culture, and art, with vignettes centered around influential Porsche drivers, owners, and collectors including Hurley Haywood, Slash, Renée Brinkerhoff, and Steve McQueen.

“As a Porsche lover, I’m particularly excited that the Petersen gets to play such a significant role in celebrating the 75th anniversary of these incredible machines,” said Terry L. Karges, executive director of the Petersen Automotive Museum. “Porsche’s history on and off the track speaks for itself, and we are honored to help them commemorate this milestone.”

“Porsche is an iconic brand that took off in America, thriving in California’s car culture,” said Kjell Gruner, president and CEO of PCNA. “From there, the love for the brand spread around the world. We are delighted to celebrate our 75th anniversary at the Petersen Automotive Museum—the center of car culture in Los Angeles—with such a unique exhibition.”

With more than 40 Porsche vehicles located throughout the museum, mostly on the second floor, there is plenty to take in, including rare one-offs and some customs that weren’t seen at the last major Porsche exhibit at the museum in 2018.

Three that stand out are the four-door 911 built by Tom Barnes and Dick Troutman, Chris Banning’s chopped Mulholland racer that inspired the film King of the Mountain, and the EV-swapped 935 K3V by Bisimoto Engineering.

Of course, you can’t have a Porsche exhibit without race cars, and plenty are on hand to represent the breadth of the company’s competition history.

As usual, the Petersen Automotive Museum has done an excellent job curating a fascinating cross-section of vehicles to tell an important story. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, we highly recommend a visit. Tickets are available here, and the exhibit is expected to run through April 2024.

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It’s called R’s Day, and photographer Larry Chen was there. The event last took place in April 2022 at the Streets of Willow, part of the Willow Springs racetrack complex in the high desert north of Los Angeles. This gathering started in 2016 at Laguna Seca in northern California, hosting about 30 hot Nissans—the emphasis was on Skyline GT-Rs but any Nissan chassis was invited.

Everything from lead-gray stockers to glittering custom builds drew rabid fans of this video game icon come to life. For a day, instead of lapping a virtual GT-R on a digitized track, owners and spectators saw real rubber cooked on real asphalt over a tight and technical road course that doesn’t easily forgive (and rewards stupidity with a dousing of rocks and dust).

If you missed it, watch the R’s Day Facebook page for the announcement of the 2023 date. Until then, enjoy R’s Day through the lens of Larry Chen. To learn more about Larry, watch his Hagerty video series.

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This article first appeared in Hagerty Drivers Club magazine. Click here to subscribe and join the club.

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The English poet Tennyson once said that in spring, a young man’s fancy turns to love. For car lovers, however, springtime thoughts turn to the beginning of the concours d’elegance season. We’ll cut old Tennyson some slack since cars didn’t exist in his day, but at least we’ve got our priorities straight.

Hagerty is proud to count many of the country’s premier concours—The Amelia, Greenwich, and Detroit—in its portfolio of events. Not as proud, we venture to guess, as those owners who found themselves accepting the best of show awards at these fetes of automotive greatness this past year. The 2023 concours season kicked off at The Amelia last March, but we thought we’d sip a bit more Champagne to toast the 2022 winners and to get a feeling for the unique atmosphere of each of these shows.

The Amelia

March 2-5, 2023

The concours season began the first week in March at the Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island, and the Golf Club of Amelia Island. This year, records fell, Voisin won big, and a Le Mans-winning, underdog Ferrari took home some hardware. For 2022, the Best in Show trophy went to a 1934 Duesenberg Model J convertible coupe owned by Harry Yeaggy of Cincinnati, Ohio.

With the goal of competing against the world’s most elegant, luxurious, and powerful automobiles, the Duesenberg Model J was equipped with a 420-cubic-inch straight-eight engine featuring dual overhead cams and four valves per cylinder. The engine produced 265 horsepower. Though other cars might have featured bigger engines, none of them could exceed the power of the Duesenberg. In its day, the Model J was the most expensive American automobile on the market—and the fastest, capable of reaching 115 mph.

This LaGrande convertible coupe was one of the last Duesenbergs produced. It was originally owned by Marjorie Merriweather Post, the daughter and sole heiress of the founder of General Mills; she was a socialite, philanthropist, and collector of fine art. She was also the world’s wealthiest woman at the time. This Model J dutifully served as Post’s car at her summer house on Long Island until 1962. Yeaggy had the J restored to its original specifications. “I’ve won here twice before, but this one was unexpected,” said Yeaggy. “There’s always a lot of competition and Duesenbergs have won here the past two years, so it takes a really special car to win.”

Celebrating motorsports is also a tradition at The Amelia, and both 2022 was no exception. Race cars from the 60th anniversary of the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 70th anniversary of Sebring were joined by rare examples from the NASCAR and Gurney Eagle show groups. Bill Elliott’s 1987 #9 Ford Thunderbird joined the Gurney Eagle in which Dan Gurney himself won the 1967 Belgian Grand Prix. Legendary racing-team owner Chip Ganassi was the event’s honoree.

The 2022 Concours de Sport trophy went to the 2017 Cadillac DPi-V.R that was displayed by the Jackson Collection of Ellicott City, Maryland. The Wayne Taylor Racing chassis features a race-prepared, naturally aspirated Cadillac V-8 engine; it has a displacement of 5.5 liters and makes a series-limited 600 horsepower. This car was the overall winner of the 2018 Petit Le Mans; lead driver Jordan Taylor teamed up with Renger van der Zande and Ryan Hunter-Reay. An overall win at the 2019 Rolex 24 at Daytona followed, with lead driver and two-time Formula 1 world champion Fernando Alonso partnered with van der Zande, Taylor, and Kamui Kobayashi.

Greenwich Concours d’Elegance

June 2-4, 2023

There is a certain rhythm to the concours season. If it’s March, it must be The Amelia; if it’s August, it must be Pebble; and if it’s early June, it must be Greenwich. Set on the grounds of Roger Sherman Baldwin Park overlooking Greenwich Harbor where sailboats gently bob, Greenwich is a quintessentially East Coast event. For 2022, the Best in Show trophy went to a 1948 Packard convertible Victoria, bodied by Italian coachbuilder Vignale and displayed by the Marano Collection of Garwood, New Jersey.

Packard survived the Great Depression, but as an independent manufacturer, it lacked the financial resources of its competitors. To add some European cachet to its lineup, in 1938, Packard ordered seven cars, including this stunning convertible Victoria with coachwork by Alfredo Vignale of Turin, Italy.

Since Turin was heavily bombed during World War II, Vignale had to hide the car. Work was finally completed in 1948. The aluminum body is mounted on a 1939 Packard One-Twenty chassis and is powered by a 120-hp, 282-cubic-inch straight-eight engine. The car was exhibited at prominent auto salons in Packard’s effort to gain influence in the postwar European market, but all was in vain. After a disastrous merger with Studebaker, by 1958, Packard ceased to exist.

Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance

August 20, 2023

Referred to simply as “Pebble” by those who know, this event is widely acknowledged as the ne plus ultra of all concours. Held in late August at the legendary Pebble Beach Golf Links overlooking the Pacific, Pebble will celebrate its 72nd anniversary in 2023. Only the finest automobiles are invited, and competition is fierce for the Best of Show trophy. In 2022, the trophy went to the 1932 Duesenberg J Figoni Sports Torpedo shown by Lee R. Anderson Sr.

Those who know also know that Dawn Patrol, when all the cars take the show field before sunrise, is possibly more exciting than the show itself. Begun in the early 1990s, today Dawn Patrol is sponsored by Hagerty, with each car personally welcomed by McKeel Hagerty, the company’s CEO. In addition to coffee and doughnuts, limited-edition hats are handed out to the first lucky spectators to arrive. Hats from previous shows are among the most coveted items of Pebble memorabilia—not exactly the Best of Show trophy, but certainly a close second.

Detroit Concours d’Elegance

September 23, 2023

With its lineage tracing through the Concours d’Elegance of America back to the legendary Meadow Brook Concours d’Elegance, the 2022 Detroit Concours marked the first time ever that a concours was held in Motown. “Our goal was to create a world-class automotive event in the heart of Detroit, one that is worthy of the Motor City, and that is exactly what we did,” noted McKeel Hagerty. With the Detroit Institute of Arts serving as an elegant backdrop, the Detroit Concours brought the world of concours to a whole new audience.

The 2022 Detroit Concours d’Elegance Best in Show trophy went to a 1937 Delahaye 135 M roadster cabriolet with coachwork by Parisian atelier Henri Chapron. Owned by Tom McGough of Shoreview, Minnesota, the car is the only surviving “Grand Luxe” Delahaye of the seven that were built. See our deep dive on this fascinating and historically important car.

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Dear Gumshoe,

We need your help. Top brass in Detroit wants answers. Deep-cover agents captured a number of unidentified detail images from the The Amelia car show last weekend. They just barely escaped—though some were, regrettably, sunburned.

In an effort to determine the identities of the vehicles below, we’ve enlisted your expertise. Your bravery, knowledge, and diligence will ensure the continued enthusiasm of the car hobby. As far as rolled eyes and confused looks from friends, spouses, and other civilians in their milquetoast CR-Vs and Escapes, we have our best people working on it. Don’t let it distract you from the task at hand.

Here’s how it’ll work. Below we’ve posted a list of 15 images. Your job is to cite the make and model, in the comments, that matches the corresponding entry and number. Could you Google search to check your work? Sure, but that wouldn’t be very much fun, so try to instead use the gooey, wrinkled thing between your ears instead of the rectangle thing in your pocket. Early next week, we’ll reveal the answers in a comment at the bottom of this article.

Good luck, Gumshoe. Absolutely nothing is riding on this. Just bragging rights. How many can you correctly identify?

-Operative Weiner, O.A.T. (Office of Automotive Trivia)

P.S. – Don’t get too fixated on the pithy nicknames. They’re mostly red herrings. (Mostly.)

1. Canio’s Quads

2. Arch Enemy

3. Night Vision

4. Seeing Double

5. Hip to be Square

6. True Stripes

7. Cool It

8. Heavy Breathing

9. Notre Dame de Intercooler

10. Spot Check

11. Catnip

12. Marchal Marchal Marchal

13. Crank It

14. Machine Learning

15. Old Bean

ANSWERS BELOW!

1. BMW Z3M Coupe
2. Morgan AeroMax (boattail version of Aero 8, which is an acceptable answer here)
3. Jaguar Mk. II
4. Alfa Romeo Spyder
5. Mercedes-Benz E500
6. Plymouth Duster
7. Porsche 959
8. Lamborghini Miura
9. Ford GT
10. Bugatti EB110
11. Puma GT
12. Alpine A110
13. Cord 812
14. Auto Union 1000 SP
15. McLaren F1

The post Secret Mission: Can you ID these 15 cars? appeared first on Hagerty Media.

“They say I’ve helped a lot of people,” said former NHRA Top Fuel racer Darrell Gwynn. “I say a lot of people have helped me.”

With that closing comment, Gwynn got the evening’s only unanimous standing ovation at the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America. Paralyzed in a crash in England in 1990 when his dragster literally broke in half, Gwynn has worked tirelessly to raise money for paralysis research, and to donate customized wheelchairs to paralysis victims.

Gywnn was being inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America Tuesday night, to a standing-room-only crowd that included a startling number of motorsports luminaries. Unlike most specialized halls of fame, the Motorsports Hall of Fame—founded in Novi, Michigan in 1986 and now based in Daytona Beach, Florida—recognizes most all forms of motorsports, from desert racing to air racing to boat racing, as well as more widely-recognized forms of racing.

For that reason, the annual event, which has grown dramatically over the years, attracts the widest range of motorsports personalities and executives of any single gathering.

The Hall of Fame is situated within a 20,000 square-foot museum outside of Daytona International Speedway’s fourth turn. Its annual induction ceremony is wisely held immediately after The Amelia and the season opener for the IndyCar series in St. Petersburg, and shortly before the NHRA season opener in Gainesville and the Twelve Hours of Sebring IMSA race, and during Bike Week in Daytona (as the rumble of countless Harley-Davidsons outside could attest).

Besides Gwynn, inducted for his too-brief-but-stellar NHRA career, inductees included former NASCAR crew chief and team owner Ray Evernham, motorcycle endurance racer Dick Burleson, and motorsports trauma surgeons Drs. Steve Olvey and Terry Trammel.

Those inducted posthumously were airplane racer Art Chester, Corvette designer and engineer Zora Arkus-Zuntov, land speed record holder Ab Jenkins. The Hall of Fame also featured historic inductees Henry Banks, a midget and IndyCar racer, and NASCAR champion Fonty Flock.

Among the previous inductees in attendance: Donnie Allison, Derek Bell, Peter Brock, Chris Carr, Tom D’Eath, Larry Dixon Jr., Walker Evans, Elliott Forbes-Robinson, Dario Franchitti, Chip Ganassi; NHRA legend Don Garlits, 91, who inducted Gwynn; Chip Hanauer, Hurley Haywood, David Hobbs, Tommy Kendall, Jim McGee, Hershel McGriff, Fran Muncey, Scott Parker, Don Prudhomme, Brian Redman, Freddie Spencer, Jay Springsteen, Judy Stropus, Linda Vaughn, and Rusty Wallace.

They were joined by former IMSA head Scott Atherton, Indianapolis Motor Speedway head Doug Boles, tuner Reeves Callaway, GM Motorsports head Jim Campbell, World of Outlaws head Brian Carter, SCCA head Michael Cobb, NHRA head Glen Cromwell, IMSA head John Doonan, former GM Racing head Herb Fishel, NASCAR and IMSA Chairman Jim France, NASCAR President Mike Helton, Daytona International Speedway head Frank Kelleher, tuner Ken Lingenfelter, Bass Pro Shops founder Johnny Morris, SCORE owner Roger Norman, Global GM Chairman Mark Reuss, IROC founder Jay Signore, Amelia Concours founder Bill Warner and Fantasy of Flight founder Kermit Weeks.

See what we mean? Motorsports’ brightest stars were out in Daytona.

For more information on the Motorsports Hall of Fame, visit mshf.com.

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“Look out! Here comes the porta potty again!” someone shouted.

“Excuse me,” yelled the blue-hatted potty driver. “Coming through!”

He did. And then he was gone. And then he was back, then gone again, this time with six feet of toilet paper fluttering from the urinal.

If it’s a motorized porta potty, this must be Concours d’Lemons, a home for cars that time, and everybody else, forgot. It, along with RADwood, a less extreme show series for cars of the 1980s and ’90s, are situated on the first green of the formerly pristine Ritz-Carlton golf course at Amelia Island, just north of Jacksonville, Florida. On a couple of other greens are the 150 cars that make up the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance, an event that has occurred each spring since 1996.

This year, on the Saturday before the real Concours is held on Sunday, a couple of greens were dedicated to everyman cars. Seriously, some of the Lemons cars were so nice it was hard to tell where Lemons ended and RADwood began, except for helpful signs. The porta potty—well, we have a pretty good idea where it belonged, though it did appear properly washed and waxed. It kept driving up to the valet parking area, no doubt confounding any number of serious-minded concierges.

Back to Lemons. “Would you like a gin and tonic? We’re drinking today,” said Patricia Schwarze of DeLeon Springs, Florida. Likely the pitcher of gin and tonic possibly influenced the Lemons Concours judges, who wear gold sashes, one of them reading “We accept bribes.” Her car was a button-cute 1965 Citroen, a tiny car that was designed to battle the Volkswagen Beetle. “It is cute,” Patricia agrees, “but I’m not sure the rear looks like it was designed by the same people who designed the front.”

Speaking of Beetles, Michael Shores of Fernandina Beach, Florida—everybody’s from Florida, and Fernandina Beach is just up the road—was showing his 1984 VW pickup, but it isn’t the one sold in the U.S. This one was built in Brazil and wasn’t imported to the States. “Look at the engine,” Shores says. “It’s just a Beetle engine, but stuck up front.” It is, which leaves a lot of room behind the grille.

Over there is a green 1976 Lancia Beta, an Italian that never quite caught on in the U.S. The car and its owner, Neil Claason of Jacksonville, are positioned behind a sign that designates the class: “Needlessly complex Italian.” Claason was planning to bring his 1991 Alfa Romeo, but, well, you know, the Lancia started. “Needlessly complex Italians,” he says.

Arguably the hit of the Lemons Concours was Gil Pepitone’s gold 1976 AMC Pacer. Pepitone, of Winter Springs, said he has done a lot of work on his car, which sort of goes without saying, it being an AMC Pacer.

Moving to the RADwood side, there’s David Wallens’ 1984 Porsche 911 Carrera. It has a BMX bike on top, a 1984 model that Wallens rode and treasures almost as much as his 911. “It’s all 1984,” he says, down to the specific IMSA sticker on the side window, and the vintage radar detector stuck to the windshield, which would do him absolutely no good on the drive home to Ormond Beach. The license plate is from 1984 in New York, where Wallens grew up, and the plastic license plate frame is from a long-defunct local Porsche dealership there, where Wallens rode his bike—possibly the one on the roof—one night to steal. He is hopeful the statute of limitations has passed.

Almost invisible—just as they were when they were among the most popular vehicles in America—is Jacksonville residents Graham and Ashley O’Conner’s white, two-door 1986 Honda Accord. These were once everywhere, and hardly anybody thought to save one. The O’Conners are the second owners, and the car is in lovely shape, given the fact it has 137,000 miles on it.

We are suddently interrupted by the porta-potty, traversing into RADwood territory. No problem here. This is a tolerant and inclusive bunch.