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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Put yourself in the shoes of a product planner at Ford during the 1980s. It must have been a great gig by the time 1985 came around, when this particular Lincoln Continental was in production. After all, your company’s stock price has tripled since the beginning of the decade. People wanted to buy these fresh-faced Fords over their competition, and your role at the company can take some credit for it.

Every year since 1981 had been a smashing success, and it was only a matter of time before everyone knew it. The 1981 Ford Escort “World Car” was a gamble that paid off with over 400,000 units sold in 1985 alone. The 1982 Continental was a brilliant blend of cost-engineered downsizing and flagship Fox Body engineering, with sales five times higher than the outgoing Versailles. (An admittedly low bar, but still a noteworthy accomplishment.)

The 1983 Thunderbird was a bellwether for the revolution of aerodynamic design and European-ish road manners, while the 1983 Ranger sold over a quarter million units in its freshman year. This was definitely a good time to work in Dearborn.

The hits kept coming. In 1984, something on par with the Ranger’s success happened for the Lincoln brand. The Continental Mark VII didn’t necessarily set the world on fire, but it provided a new baseline for how a personal luxury coupe should look and perform. To compare the Mark VII to a 4.1-liter Cadillac Eldorado is disingenuous. It’s an insult to mention one and the same breath as a K-car based Chrysler LeBaron. It was closer to a Mercedes SEC (C126) than anything from America.

Continuing that Ford truck analogy for Lincoln in the 1980s, if the composite-headlight Mark VII was a fresh-faced Ranger, then the wildly popular Town Car was akin to the iconic F-150.

That puts the 1984-87 Continental and its retro Rococo styling in a difficult spot, as its 1984 redesign wasn’t terribly different than the now-dated, neoclassic 1982 model. It threaded a difficult needle, getting lost in all the hype and fame given to other Fords of the era.

This is where I mention Project Valentino, as it has parts from a yellow-ish beige 1984 Continental donor car. The 1984-87 body style never did it for me, but it certainly possessed items that I needed for a restomod. The later Fox Contis are odd mix of give and take from my jaded viewpoint, likely best explained in a list of attributes. So here are the items Lincoln added to the redesigned 1984 Continental:

• Four corner, computer controlled air suspension
• Rear anti-roll bar
• EEC-IV engine computer
• Power front vent windows
• Power trunk pull-down
• A front end almost as ramp-like as the rear
• Bumpers that look suspiciously similar to the Mark VII
• Multi-function overhead console
• New door trim with (optional) real wood veneers
• Power recliners and (optional) seat heaters
• Rear seat heat ducts
• Push button electronic climate control

To aid the transition, here’s what they “took” from the 1983 model:

• Aluminum hood
• Engine temperature gauge
• External, backlit thermometer
• Spring-loaded chrome fender trim (to give the bumpers a wraparound look, but emerge unscathed in a frontal or rearward impact)
• Aircraft style, adjustable reading lights for rear passengers
• Bespoke cast iron front wishbone suspension

Those front wishbones were then donated to the European-influenced, turbocharged 1984 Mustang SVO. Knowing that fact brings some irony to the following Motorweek Retro Review: While it’s about the 1985 Continental, the video starts with the Mustang Vignale show car based on said SVO.

Was this brilliant work of foreshadowing actually an editing choice on the part of Motorweek’s Social Media team? Do they love 1982-83 Continental engineering as much as yours truly, or is this all just coincidence?

All joking aside, Motorweek host John Davis pushes hard on advancements “that few foreign cars can offer.” That might be a stretch to some, but he proved the point by discussing the innovative air suspension and spent an inordinate amount of time on the unique ABS brakes for 1985. The latter included everything from detailed explanations to brilliant B-roll footage of ABS in action.(Some literature suggests anti-lock brakes were a mid-year upgrade to 1985 Continentals and Mark VIIs, and only if they were not equipped with the BMW-Steyr turbodiesel engine. I suspect this Motorweek video was filmed closer to 1986, when the Corvette also received ABS as standard equipment.)

But the 1985 Conti’s hardware was never tuned for blatant high performance, so explaining all the interior gadgets that owners can show off to friends with flagship BMW and Mercedes products (with more austere interiors) was a smart play. Motorweek also noted the clumsy AOD transmission performance, and called the styling “neo-nauseous.”

Considering this is the era of the ballyhooed Ford Taurus, such a phrase is a journalistic sick burn worthy of a TikTok throw down. And Motorweek likely got away with it by Ford’s judgmental eyes, as the deck lid emblem on this particular 1985 Continental Givenchy designer series suggests it came from a Lincoln-Mercury dealership. (Continentals in Ford’s press fleet wouldn’t have an emblem on the driver’s side of the trunk.)

Watching this Motorweek Retro Review reminded me how the air-sprung 1984-87 Continentals had the potential to be so much more. It was a wasted opportunity for Lincoln, as 1985 could have been the year to add a legit “touring suspension” to the Continental. It could have blown away other efforts to add performance to the American luxury sedan, thanks to the magic of being based on Ford’s Fox Platform.

Witness the 1984 Continental Valentino in the photo above. It was a safety car when the radical Mark VII PPG Pace Car was made for the paint-company-sponsored IndyCar race series. Someone had the bright idea to make a souped up Continental with color-matched BBS wheels for the sake of safety. If only someone at Ford did this for the sake of mass production!

Indeed, there were a firmer set of air springs, shocks, sway bars, and wider alloy wheels for better handling just lying around in the Mark VII LSC parts bin. Not to mention a faster steering ratio for the superior road feel available on the Thunderbird Turbo Coupe. And don’t forget the high output 5.0 engine with tubular exhaust headers, dual exhausts, and dual intake snorkels already in production for the Mustang GT and Mark VII LSC. That provided a respectable 165 horsepower: Ten more ponies than a 380SE Benz and only eight less than the spritely BMW 733i. The motor’s extra punch could be multiplied by Ford’s selection of quicker axle ratios for that Fox body rear axle, not to mention a readily available “Trac-Lok” limited slip differential for aggressive corner carving.

Imagine you are that product planner from the beginning of the story, and the calculus it took to not make a high performance Continental the year after its lukewarm redesign. Sure, there’d be some validation testing and corporate hoops to overcome, but all the parts were just lying there at your disposal.

I coulda built a contenda I tells ya!

I couda scared Mercedes and BMW owners if Ford had the nerve to let me!

Considering the gravity of the risks taken elsewhere at Ford in the late Malaise Era, making a Hot Rod Continental feels like another no-brainer. It’s a shame that missed opportunities are just that, and that we can’t always get what we want. But now you know another reason why Project Valentino came to fruition, as wrongs must be addressed: Better late than never!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, what will all this goodness run you? Unsurprisingly, it won’t come cheap. Pricing starts at a heady $1.5M, though each vehicle is configured for a specific client, so the final price tag could ring in a bit lower or much higher, depending on what the buyer wants. At least it’s not a lump sum payment, however; Scarbo Vintage says each build will take about 10 months to complete. A deposit of $500,000 is due upon completion of your order, with another $500K due when the rolling chassis is fitted with the suspension and drivetrain components. The remaining balance is due when a client takes possession of their SV Rover.

Be sure to check out the walkaround video below, where Scarbo reveals all sorts of interesting tidbits about what went into building such an audacious machine.

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Las Vegas is one of those places that changes you, and that’s by design. The gambling connection is obvious, but the decadent displays of hospitality are everywhere from hotels with world-class amenities to cultural ambassador-worthy restaurants, and entertainment that never fails to inspire. The same applies to the cars living in Las Vegas, at least for two owned by the legendary magical duo known as Siegfried & Roy.

As you’ll soon see, these two Vanden Plas Princess limousines are properly Vegas because of their nose jobs. While the blue Princess from 1967 sports a custom grille with a Rolls-Royce style emblem and “Spirit of Ecstasy” hood ornament, the white 1965 Princess apparently lost the emblem over time. No matter their current state, the Rolls-Royce upbadge (as it were) makes sense for sensibilities in the City of Sin. It doesn’t hurt that the Roller-style look works well on any car crafted by a coachbuilder, especially one with the English credentials of Vanden Plas.

The original grille is certainly acceptable for places with less to prove than Vegas, with a more finessed grille texture and an understated, body-colored shell. It even has a bit of Bentley flare, as the shell has a fluted face. But the Princess’ body contours are more like that of an SUV: The greenhouse lacks taper, instead choosing to move straight back from the base of the A-pillar to the beginning of the trunk. The look is more utilitarian, and this practical design even won over The Beatles as they were ergonomically whisked away from their fans.

The Vanden Plas Princess’ practical sheet metal made it perfect for the magic duo of Siegfried & Roy, either as a prop in their show or a flashy commuter vehicle for the entertainers who embodied the magic of Las Vegas. Because these two vehicles performed different tasks, their design was altered accordingly. The white 1965 Vanden Plas is likely the more appealing example to most enthusiasts.

Siegfried & Roy’s “street car” was reportedly restored in the 1980s in Germany, and the exterior presents well enough to be a show piece in any light. The Rolls-Royce grille conversion will convince most Las Vegas tourists of an elevated lineage for the star performers. Still, the whitewall tires exhibit a yellowing that is likely a sign of extended storage periods.

But this was likely indoor storage, as the interior appears to be in excellent condition, complete with a vintage color TV that could be the same age as the vehicle’s restoration. A wet bar lies between the rear seats and a sliding glass partition from the driver’s cabin, while rich wood and pale leather feel classically British. Take a closer look under the hood and you’ll see a Rolls-Royce grille emblem affixed to the valve cover of the Austin D-series engine. A curious location for that emblem, but the engine is reported to be a non-runner at this time.

Siegfried & Roy’s blue 1967 “Show Car” bears the telltale signs of being a prop for the duo’s Vegas show. While the paint looks acceptable on stage (in the photo closer to the top of this article) it’s clear that the light of day is less kind to this particular Vanden Plas Princess. There’s a significant gash in the coachwork, and the paint looks dulled by oxidation. Look closer at the rear quarter panel and it’s clear the Vanden Plas Princess was modified so a wild animal could fit in its cargo hold.

It appears a body shop made incisions at each side of the vehicle, pulled up on the trunk area to increase its internal volume, and then built filler panels to “blend” in the work. The rear window aperture also seems to be shortened, presumably to ensure wildlife can’t exit from a location unmonitored by Siegfried & Roy’s staff. While the conversion isn’t likely to raise any eyebrows at the expertly lighted performance of Siegfried & Roy, daylight proves that show props can live a hard life.

Siegfried once noted this vehicle was owned by actress Greta Garbo, but that cannot be verified. If true, the mind can only wonder what Garbo thought of the modifications done to the inside of her former limousine. Aside from the driver’s seat, the rest of the compartment has been modified for transporting an aggressive feline onto a Las Vegas stage. The pictures speak for themselves, especially the scratches where the front passenger seat once resided. But the reupholstering of the driver seat and door cards in a brown naugahyde material point to a need for durability with a dash of elegance. Too bad that elegance is only an illusion, aimed at audience members seated yards away from this Princess.

And does an illusion truly work if it sounds like an Austin D-series engine at idle? Apparently, this Vanden Plas Princess made a silent introduction on stage, as it was likely converted to an EV for the transition from Garbo-worthy transportation to Las Vegas show prop. The massive lead-acid batteries are only overshadowed by the size of the front mounted powertrain, while the dirt and corrosion present adds credibility to the claim this vehicle is also in non-running condition. Perhaps someone who has revived depreciated golf carts will find this under-hood experience familiar. Or maybe anyone who rings up the still-in-business Quick Charge Corporation can be brought up to speed with a mere visit to their website.

But buying and restoring either the white “street car” or the blue EV “show car” from the estate of Siegfried & Roy has merit, especially in America where names like Austin and Vanden Plas are overshadowed by the clout of a Rolls-Royce. I can imagine a conversation with visitors to a British car show, where they make a Rolls-Royce remark and the new owner uses it as an opportunity to mention the heritage of both Vanden Plas and the magic of Siegfried & Roy.

These cars embody the uniqueness that is American car culture, with coachwork and body modifications as “apple pie” as slot machines and lounge shows at one of the most famous cities on the planet. This is something you cannot replicate with the successor to the Princess limousine, based on the wholly conventional Austin Princess compact family sedan. Once Austin changed gears, Vanden Plas had to reinvent modern cars in the only way they knew how: chrome, curves, wood, leather, and coachbuilding.

It’s a change not unlike the Siegfried & Roy entertainment experience. The duo made famous for blowing away audiences with wild felines in magic acts started their career on a cruise ship, one that wasn’t terribly thrilled with their decision to let a live cheetah on board. Their dedication to their craft took them from Germany to Las Vegas, and both Vanden Plan Princess limousines are a testament to their legacy. But times have changed, and the passing of both Siegfried (2021) and Roy (2020) denotes a change in guard that leaves these two limos twisting in the wind, waiting for new owners at the Hagerty Marketplace.

This pair absolutely needs new benefactors, those who can embrace their previous owner’s heritage but let their spirit soar once more on the road. The white 1965 Vanden Plas appears to be an easier restoration and is currently at a $4000 high bid on Hagerty Marketplace. The blue 1967 Vanden Plas needs specialist attention and an owner who can appreciate its EV bones and show prop engineering. It’s currently going for a $2500 bid on Hagerty Marketplace, and shares the same high bidder as it’s 1965 brother. Could they meet the same benefactor when the auction ends?

We can only hope both EV and gasoline Vanden Plas sell to that same high bidder, and that these two limousines will one day impress participants in American car culture as they did when working for two legendary entertainers.

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“I believe it’s important for us to make things our customers can dream of,” said BMW Group global design chief Adrian van Hooydonk last weekend on the shores of Italy’s Lake Como. The occasion was the ritzy Concorso d’Eleganza, a magical little car show on the grounds of the historic Villa d’Este Hotel, and the dream car he was referencing is the BMW Concept Skytop, a gorgeous champagne-colored confection built on the platform of the existing M8 convertible.

Dreams can become realities, particularly when money is no object. BMW, a major presence at the Concorso since it was resurrected in 1999, started introducing design concepts here about a decade ago. In 2022, the 3.0 CSL that debuted at Villa d’Este was so well received by the well-heeled attendees, BMW hand-built 50 of them—to commemorate 50 years of its M division—and had no trouble finding buyers at 750,000 euros (about $800,000) apiece. Van Hooydonk and other BMW officials made it clear that a similar path could be followed for the Concept Skytop.

If BMW, encouraged by informal polling of affluent collectors, indeed decided to pull a few 8-series ragtops from the regular production line at its Dingolfing, Germany, plant and give them the Skytop treatment in a dedicated workshop, deliveries could likely commence in 2025 for about $500,000. “Some people came up to me last night [after the car’s debut],” remarked Van Hooydonk. “They said they definitely want one, and from a technical point of view, it’s very, very feasible.”

He further explained that it’s much easier for BMW to accomplish a very limited production run of a car like the Concept Skytop, something that requires only a few dozen buyers, than to scale up a few thousand examples of a special edition that must be run through the company’s global sales and distribution network. And if the Concept Skytop doesn’t make a lot of money for BMW? He shrugs.

“If you look around here [at the Concorso], you see a lot of fantastic cars,” he said. “And if you dig deeper into their history, often they didn’t sell a lot of them, they were incredibly hard to make, and commercially, they were not very often a success.”

The car is unlikely to be offered officially in the United States, as BMW would be required to submit five examples, or ten percent of likely production, for crash testing. But a keen buyer could potentially import it here under show-and-display regulations, a loophole which, BMW tacitly admits, several buyers of the 3.0 CSL have taken advantage of. 

Although the Skytop is adorned with the slimmest slashes of state-of-the-art LED headlights and taillamps, they are, Van Hooydonk stresses, entirely road-legal and not just styling flourishes. The Skytop’s shark-nose front end nods strongly to BMW tradition, and van Hooydonk cites both the 503 from the 1950s and the Z8, which incredibly is a quarter-century old, as inspirations for his design team. (Consider that the Z8 was itself inspired by the 507 of the late 1950s….making the Skytop a tribute to a tribute, in a fashion.)

In the spirit of the Concorso d’Eleganza, which celebrates the beauty, elegance, and handcraftsmanship of the automotive past, the Concept Skytop is a design and desirability exercise rather than an expression of high performance. Not that anyone will scoff at the twin-turbo 617-hp 4.4-liter V-8 borrowed from the M8 Competition model. BMW artisans wrapped nearly every interior surface with rich, reddish-brown leather, then continued the hides over the roll bar, which contains a power-operated window, and the removable roof panels. As the roll bar structure meets the trunk lid, the leather color continues into the paint, gradually fading away toward the rear of the car. A stunning detail.

Van Hooydonk clearly relishes the opportunity to use the Concorso to introduce cars that might someday appear at similar events. “You feel like this [event] is sort of an island,” he mused during a roundtable discussion with U.S. media. “It’s like it’s not connected to the real world, but for two or three days, it’s okay. Then we go back to solving the world’s problems.” 

Spoken like a man who is one of the principal executives at a carmaker that is, like all carmakers, struggling to plan products for five, ten, and twenty years in the future at a time of technological upheaval and great uncertainly in the global marketplace. “I think, for the brand and also for our customers,” Van Hooydonk continues, “it’s nice if there are some things floating around where they go, ‘I can’t afford it, but it’s nice that the company is doing it.’ So it’s something for [BMW fans] to dream of.”

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I consider myself fortunate to have grown up on a dairy farm, surrounded by ample tools, a vast pile of scrap steel, and old tractor parts ripe for exploration. It was there that I honed my fabricating skills from a young age. By the time I turned 24, I had successfully constructed my first hot rod from scratch.

Shortly after I achieved that milestone, however, I encountered unexpected medical complications that rendered me unable to work or even walk for two years. Confined to my chair, I spent what felt like an eternity immersed in dreams of crafting another hot rod.

[Welcome to Homegrown—a limited series about homebuilt cars and the ingenuity of their visionary creators. Do you know a car and builder that might fit the bill? Send us an email to tips@hagerty.com with the subject line HOMEGROWN. Read about more Homegrown creations here. —Ed.]

Shortly after my recovery, I embraced a role as a line service technician towing and fueling aircraft at a nearby airport. Right next door to us was a vintage aircraft restoration shop called Aerometal International, and often I would watch from our ramp as they pulled their DC3s and other vintage birds out of the hangar—millions of button-head rivets protruding from polished aluminum panels, all of it twinkling in the sunshine. I loved to hear the radials fire up, and I savored the scent of burnt avgas.

I had always been an enthusiast of World War II aircraft and military vehicles, but now I had a front-row seat, and such close exposure to those lovely old machines ignited a real passion. Over time I watched as they meticulously disassembled various planes down to the frames, then reconstructed them almost like new. Although I aspired to work with those technicians, I doubted whether my skills were up to par.

One day, the owner of Aerometal noticed the hot rod I had built and we got to talking. When he offered me a job, I seized the opportunity. I began my journey there by towing aircraft and handling facility chores, then later tried my hand at sheet metal. I swiftly adapted to the craft and soon developed a vision of my next hot rod build.

I wanted to create a piece of art—something that could serve as a tribute to WWII aviation as well as the iconic Jeep. No simple task. I had a design in my head of exactly what I wanted to create and wouldn’t allow myself to cut any corners. If it required thousands of hand-shot rivets in polished aluminum panels, so be it. It didn’t matter how difficult it would be; I allowed myself zero flexibility. So began my journey building the Warbird Jeep under my new side business, Bomb’n Beauties.

I completely hand-built this machine, from the frame to the steering yokes. Although I saw it as a piece of art, the Warbird Jeep is a fully functional vehicle. I wanted more than looks; I wanted this piece to strike all of the senses.

I started by putting an old unusable Jeep body on a rotisserie. I wasn’t going to use the body, but I knew I’d be able to spin it around and pull all the measurements and angles off the Jeep and put them to paper. Knowing full well it would be difficult squeezing in a V-8, I wanted my build to match the original dimensions as best I could. I also used it as an opportunity to run tape lines everywhere I thought I might like to see stringers and rivet lines.

After deciding how the body would be built, I had a better understanding of how it would interact with my frame. I built the frame out of thick-wall rectangular tubing. I knew an aluminum-bodied car would be extremely light, so I needed to add some weight. This also made my frame more than capable of handling the V-8 I had in mind. 

I slightly modified a 1960 Ford F-100 front axle to fit my front end, with radius bars and a transverse leaf setup. I wanted a front axle that could handle the larger Jeep tires at high speeds. I used a 12-bolt Chevy axle in the rear, with a four-link suspension and coilovers.

Choosing the 350-cid crate V-8 with an automatic transmission was a decision I’d put a lot of thought into. I had considered using some kind of aircraft powerplant but ultimately decided against it. Aircraft engines require a lot of care and maintenance. They also require a mechanic with aviation expertise. Instead, I decided on something that would always operate and require less regular attention. 

Building the body was the most difficult and time-consuming part, as I wanted it to be just like that of an aircraft. That meant riveting it all together rather than welding. I utilized stringers, just like in aircraft, for structure.

Anyone who has ever attempted to shoot rivets will understand the agony I endured. Every rivet location was hand-drawn, drilled, deburred, and shot. I used standard aviation AD rivets, and they’re incredibly difficult to shoot without having an unrecoverable accident. Each time I did have an accident on a panel, I started over. I didn’t want any imperfections on this piece. By the end, I had installed more than 4500 rivets into the body. The only panel that utilized a CAD-drawn image and laser-cut was the instrument panel. Everything else was built by hand.

With everything on the exterior following an aviation appearance, I wanted the interior to feel like a cockpit. The passenger side mirrors the driver’s side, with full gauges and a functional yoke. All of the center gauges are functional vintage aviation instruments running on vacuum. Even the mag switch works as vehicle battery power. The shifter is crafted to look and feel like a throttle quadrant. A breaker panel replaces conventional fuses, while white-wire looms, neatly tied every few inches, starkly contrast the Pratt & Whitney color-matched paint adorning the drivetrain. I also hand-built the bomber seats with cushions that appear as if the operator left his parachute behind when he got out of the vehicle.

There are too many hidden features on this Jeep to list. I wanted it to keep surprising the viewer the more they looked. Subtle details are everywhere: navigation lights; recognition lights; .50-caliber gun barrels that function as turn signals; fuel tanks that are hand-made bombs hiding under a lightning hole-filled panel in the rear; stainless steel plumbing; standard aviation AN fittings . . . It’s difficult to capture all the details through photos.

I could not have completed this project without the support of my incredible wife. I personally had more than 3500 man hours in this creation over a span of three and a half years, all while maintaining a full-time job. My wife handled the house and kids, which, in my opinion, was probably more difficult than building the Warbird Jeep. I was also quite fortunate to be surrounded by a handful of incredibly skilled friends at work. I was able to tap into each friend’s personalized skill sets for help with paint, polish, wiring, sewing, and so on, so I could stay focused on design and fabrication. Their contribution was around five hundred hours, for which I am eternally grateful.

It’s an amazing feeling to see a dream come to reality. I look forward to creating more automotive masterpieces that captivate the imaginations of car and aviation enthusiasts.

***

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Out of all the world’s automobile brands, British boutique manufacturer Morgan might be the last anyone would associate with cutting-edge design. Fundamentally, the company’s cars have looked more or less the same for nearly a century. So I’m sure I wasn’t the only one caught off-guard when, last November, the firm announced it was partnering with the famed Italian design house Pininfarina for a future vehicle project. That partnership birthed the Morgan Midsummer barchetta (which Hagerty covered here).

As a former vehicle designer, I was intrigued by what could result from such an unlikely duo, so I must admit that I found the new Morgan Midsummer somewhat underwhelming at first glance.

However, it didn’t take long for me to realize that my mild disappointment had little to do with the car itself but rather stemmed from my unrealistic expectations about it.

This is a relatively simple and pure sports car built by a niche manufacturer steeped in tradition. The Midsummer is the kind of “fun” project that would have had me jumping in excitement back in my car designer days: few requirements to satisfy, only a handful of people to please, and none of the bureaucracy that comes with a regular automaker’s various layers of management. Sign me up!

But make no mistake: designing for a manufacturer whose annual production tally would be a rounding error on Toyota’s balance sheet is fun, but it comes with its own unique set of challenges.

What you gain in creative freedom with a vehicle like this you lose in resources. Morgan makes between 800 and 850 cars per year, largely by hand. This puts clear and very stringent limits not only on what the company can do in terms of technology and facilities but also on how much it can spend to get there. And, with an annual turnover of around 35 Million, Morgan likely spent less on the Midsummer project than GM does maintaining the Tech Center’s coffee machines.

Once I approached the Morgan Midsummer in this light, I finally started to appreciate the subtle brilliance in Pininfarina’s work here.

The first significant limitation that Pininfarina’s designers had to deal with is evident at first glance: the Midsummer isn’t a brand-new car, but rather a comprehensively remodeled Plus Six.

I must now confess that, although I’ve always liked a good ol’ classic Morgan roadster, the latest crop of models based on the “CX” platform has so far left me cold. Yes, the classic look is still there. But the proportions always seem to be ever so slightly off, and some detailing, particularly the front valance and the air outlets behind the front wheels, look downright jarring.

The Midsummer, though, is on a completely different level.

Cynically, one might consider it little more than a rehash of the Plus Six. But thanks to Pininfarina’s deft tweaks to the vehicle’s proportions, sculpture, and detailing, the Midsummer has gained the kind of grace and panache the rest of Morgan’s range could only dream of.

Let’s start with the proportions. The youngest stylists in Pininfarina’s studio may not remember who Harley Earl was, but they sure know how to apply his old mantra, “longer, lower, wider,” to the best possible effect.

First, designers eliminated the windscreen, creating an unbroken horizontal beltline that emphasizes the car’s length and transforms its proportions compared to the Plus Six. Second, they lengthened the Midsummer’s rear overhang, balancing out the long front end and allowing the tail to taper much more gracefully than that of the Plus Six.

Once it fixed the vehicle’s proportions, Pininfarina gave the Midsummer a lovely new set of fenders. Compared to those of the Plus Six, the Midsummer’s fenders have a sharper, more contemporary surface treatment and extend deeper at the front to neatly integrate with the redesigned, full-width front valance.

Then there’s the detailing, in which Pininfarina evidently took inspiration from yacht design. After all, most owners will likely use their Midsummer to drive to and from the posh marina of a suitably exclusive coastal town, so leaning on that aesthetic makes perfect sense.

The chrome trim on the lower portion of the Midsummer’s body is clearly part of this “nautical” theme, but that’s not its sole purpose. In fact, giving the lower part of a car’s body a different finish is a classic designer’s trick. It visually elongates a car by slimming down the painted surface on the bodyside. At the same time, the exposed marine-grade wood that contours the cabin further underscores the design’s marine theme while paying homage to Morgan’s long tradition of using this material in its vehicles.

Last but definitely not least, the Morgan Midsummer has a killer stance. Its chunky wheels sit flush with the arches, and there’s so little space between the low-profile tires and the fenders that the rubber almost kisses the body—just as in a designer’s sketch. 

Moreover, I really dig the minimalist design of its 19-inch rims, which makes them look even larger and nicely complements the car’s overall design. After all, the Midsummer is far too elegant a conveyance to show off its brake rotors and calipers, and these rims’ visual weight contributes to making what ultimately is a tiny car look more substantial.

In conclusion, the Morgan Midsummer is the best-looking thing to come out of Malvern in a long time.

If there’s one thing I would have done differently, it’s the doors, which have been carried over unchanged from the Plus Six. I would have doubled down on the yachting theme and deleted them for a cleaner look. The average age of Morgan’s customers may not be the lowest in the business, but the Midsummer seems to sit low enough for most people to step over its sides without embarrassing themselves or pulling a muscle.

Nonetheless, the Midsummer is perhaps the first Morgan I’d like to own. That will never happen, of course, given that the planned run of 50 cars is reportedly sold out already, at around $250,000 a pop. But if I were in Morgan CEO Massimo Fumarola’s shoes, I’d waste no time letting Pininfarina work its magic on the rest of the marque’s catalog.

***

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

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Simplicity, at least in vehicles, is becoming something of a luxury. As new cars and trucks get seemingly more complex by the moment, it’s no surprise that enthusiasts are turning toward more basic designs to get their kicks. Enter the Expedition Motor Company (EMC) and its latest project, the 1993 Sahara Wolf.

EMC restores early Mercedes-Benz Geländewagens, specifically (though not exclusively) 250GD models. Company founder Alex Levin has a particular passion for this soft-topped, diesel-powered iteration of the G-Wagen, and formed the company in 2017 to give new life to the old rigs.

Born to be a military vehicle but quickly winning favor with users from all walks of life, early G-Wagens were released to the public as incredibly capable but bare-bones utility vehicles. Luxuries like air conditioning and automatic transmissions could be added for those willing to fork out for the extra coin. The U.S. market was still delicate territory for Mercedes-Benz in the ’80s, and since they wanted to burnish their budding reputation for luxury, the durable but spartan Benz truck didn’t make it to American shores. Time, however, and the 25-year import rule, heal all wounds, and the first-generation G-Wagens are now available for import and enjoyment.

EMC’s work on these 30+ year-old vehicles lands somewhere between restoration to original specification and full-beans restomod. You won’t find any LS swaps or exorbitant horsepower under the hood. Instead, there’s attention to detail that highlights the G-Wagen bits that give the truck its personality, and modern amenities that enable some of the most durable and go-anywhere vehicles of the past to be comfortable enough to use as daily driver.

The character of the “Wolf,” the nickname the 250GD received from its time in military service, remains fully present. EMC opted to leave the factory OM602 2.5-liter five-cylinder diesel engine and five-speed manual transmission intact, and while the exterior sports minor modifications, the truck’s essential look is unchanged.

Updates subtly increase the Wolf’s capability and more noticeably up its livability. The main differences are the EMC-designed suspension, a custom front bumper, three-inch LED Pod Lights for better vision when wheeling at night, a Warn Winch, and a snorkel. There is also the addition of a Harman Kardon Infinity sound system, sound proofing, WirelessApple CarPlay and a full array of creature comforts including a refinished interior, air conditioning, heat, and also heated seats front and rear.

The Sahara Wolf presents as a balance of utility and comfort that is tough to create—more than 2100 hours went into this build, and it shows. Such a blend of preservation and modification isn’t cheap: The price tag for this 1993 250GD $180,450. Then again, simplicity is in short supply these days.

***

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The first full-throttle acceleration—once the oil is warm in the engine and the gearbox has lost its initial stiffness—that’s when you really feel how light the McLaren F1 is. Up to that point, you could be forgiven for questioning the 2500-pound weight. The steering is heavy, there is roll and dive and squat and the squeaking brakes don’t quite stop it on a dime. It isn’t a flighty, darty car with the reactions of a gnat that’s just sipped some espresso. 

But when you crack the titanium pedal on the right, tugging the cable to open wide the dozen individual throttle bodies behind you, then you feel how little mass there really is. Six hundred and twenty-seven of BMW M’s finest horsepowers propel you up the road with the instant insistence of a little Hot Wheels model launched by a catapult.

It’s not just the sudden pressure on your back you remember; the experience is elevated to an almost spiritual level by the accompanying sound. As you’re hurled forward, a ferocious, guttural bark fills your ears and seems to reverberate through your bones to their very marrow. Add in the tip-of-the-arrow feeling engendered by the forward-set central seat and it is a driving experience never to be forgotten.

It’s an experience that hasn’t dimmed with time, either. Despite the McLaren F1 being 30 years old, despite the changes in the motoring landscape, the F1 still feels top-tier in so many aspects. That engine still stacks up. The car’s weight seems all but unachievable these days. The performance figures have been surpassed by others, but not by many, and at 240 mph the F1 remains the fastest naturally aspirated production road car.

If Gordon Murray had decided to leave it at that, to push his drawing board into a corner of his office and just focus on collecting T-shirts, his legacy, his place in motoring history would still have been assured. Had he just stuck to things like the T.25 city car and the TVR project, leaving the higher echelons of performance alone, the same would have been true. But he’s chosen to go back. Now we have the GMA (Gordon Murray Automotive) T.50, a clear successor to the legendary F1.

Seeing the two cars parked next to each other, I’m not sure how to feel. Elated, obviously, and the first thing to do is give my arm a good pinch, just to make sure I’m not dreaming. Getting these two together has been a long time in the planning and it seems slightly surreal that everything has finally fallen into place in stunning Spain.

There is a part of me that is also nervous about the T.50. On the one hand, I’m concerned that it might not be able to reach the highs of the F1. It only has 34 hp more than the F1, not to mention quite a bit less torque: 353 lb-ft up against the McLaren’s 479 lb-ft. The T.50 is, amazingly, lighter. But will 12.5 percent be noticeable? And while modernization of some things will no doubt bring improvements, we all know that modern cars are generally a little less analog, a bit more detached than those that went before. What if this falls a tad flat after the F1?

Then there is the alternative, which is almost equally troubling. You know the point in Cars 3, the bit near the start of the film where Lightning McQueen is suddenly made to look old by the new-age Jackson Storm? Everyone feels sad for McQueen at that point. I don’t want to feel like that about the F1.

In terms of aesthetics, however, I don’t think the F1 needs to worry. The T.50 is curvaceous, with a more flowing, delicate body. The spine that runs from the roof down over the engine is slimmer and the sides are more sculpted—both things Murray wanted to change from the F1. But overall there is still something beguiling about the simpler, more compact McLaren.

Up close, it’s another story. Take the lights, for example, which are a story in microcosm that represents so much of the F1/T.50 tale. There was no money to develop bespoke lights for the McLaren, so the company had to just choose from a catalog. The distinctive, but rather large lamps at the rear could also be found gracing the backside of a Bova coach. Murray describes the headlights as having the performance of glowworms in a jar. 

By contrast, for the T.50, GMA went to British engineering company Wipac and simply said “we have to be better than anyone else.” So, Wipac benchmarked all the current supercars, found the McLaren 720S had the best headlight spread and throw, then designed something that GMA claims is 15 percent better. Regardless of performance, the light units certainly look fabulous—particularly the lenses that look like clumps of globular frogspawn.

This engineering artistry runs throughout the car, seen and unseen. GMA examined every part over the last few years to see if it could be lighter or more attractive, or preferably both. There are some gorgeous details on the F1, but you can sense and see the vastly greater budget that was given over to the T.50. Nowhere is this more evident than when you get inside—an act that is made a fraction less awkward by the removal of the two beams that divide the cockpit of the F1. The switchgear, door handles, haptics, and stunning central tachometer all reek of quality with a simple, technical style.

The starting procedure for a T.50 isn’t the work of a moment. You need to make sure the car is awake with a press of the key. Then you give the small Start/Stop button under the little red cover behind the gear lever a single push to bring the screens to life. Wait for them to cycle through for a few seconds… and then give the button another quick push. This will rouse things behind you, but although there is a decent amount of noise it’s still only the preamble of the starter/generator unit. It’s loud enough to fool anyone in the vicinity unused to the procedure into thinking that the engine has started. Which means they will then jump out of their skin 3.5 seconds later when the V-12 actually flares up with a yelp like a startled race car. I jumped the first time and, much to others’ hilarity, I was still jumping at the end of three days around a T.50.

Like the S70/2 engine in the F1, the T.50’s new, bespoke 3.9-liter V-12 from Cosworth is definitely the lead character in the cast of components in the car. For a start, it is loud. Even at idle and low speed the noise is noticeably greater than in the F1, to the extent that you might question a long journey. However, with its four throttle bodies and modern mapping it is beautifully tractable from low revs, with no histrionics when asked to putter around, so you’d have no qualms about a trip to town. The default GT throttle map also helps temper the initial response of the accelerator pedal, which makes life a little calmer.

Nonetheless, you are immediately aware that this is an engine with almost no inertia. It gains and loses revs with such alacrity that it’s initially hard to contemplate a world in which you’ll ever have enough sensitivity in your right foot to administer the correct blip on a downshift. It’s like graduating from the ability to have a casual kick-around on Friday to suddenly needing the touch of Messi.

Thankfully, there is a rev-match mode that will do the blips for you. While that might seem anathema in an analog car, trust me, it is very welcome while you get acclimatized. Same goes for beautifully judged electronic stability control; you will see the familiar warning light flashing on the left-hand screen as you begin to push harder on the exit of slower corners, but the interventions are so subtle that you just have a feeling of security rather than any sense of frustration. It all lets you build confidence and get your bearings.

The steering is weighty compared to most cars, but the T.50 demands much less muscle than the F1. Any extra effort builds as you head toward full lock, as expected, so that you have a good sense of the grip from the turning tires. Like the F1, there is still a certain softness to the front end with a bit of roll, but once you’re used to the way it loads up you can really lean into it and get confidence from the multi-layered messages it relays.

In short, the T.50 is a car that provides huge amounts of entertainment at moderate speeds. Like the F1, it is an occasion just to be in it. And if you only ever used two-thirds of the available revs, you would still feel like you had access to something amazing.

However, where things really depart from the F1 is when you start to push that bit further. In the McLaren you tread carefully as you drive it harder. The weight transfers with that V-12 behind you become ever more apparent as you push harder and you need to really take care if you find yourself turning while also braking or accelerating. Momentum will build and it might take some space to gather up. I love the challenge and feel of the F1 at speed, the squirm of the tall-sidewall rubber and the almost gravel-spec-rally-car softness of the suspension. It is intimidating and thrilling in equal measure but it’s not a car you play with. Unlike the T.50.

Once you’re dialed in, the GMA machine is one you can grab by the scruff of the neck and drive with commitment and confidence. Where the F1 feels light under acceleration, the T.50 feels light everywhere. Turn off the rev match, set the throttle map to Sport (making it totally linear in its response), dispense with the ESC and you have a car that revels in being taken that step further. The engine weighs a mere 392 pounds (194 less than the F1) and sits so low that you no longer have any issues with weight transfer, so it feels stable where the F1 needs care. Light up the rear tires and, thanks to a simple Salisbury limited-slip differential, it’s predictable, letting you really use the throttle to help you steer.

Then there is the engine: a spine-tingling, screaming symphony that responds as sharply as an electric motor. To be in control of something so wild feels extraordinary. And you really are in control, because three pedals and an H-pattern shifter means you have to think and understand the engine in a way that a paddle shift setup lets you bypass. The gearshift is not smooth and slick, it is tight and positive, but it needs to be like that so that you don’t have to think when everything is happening quickly. 

Ahead of the drive, I wondered if I’d notice the aero from that remarkable fan at the rear. In practice, you only do in that the braking feels wonderfully stable. To be honest I’m glad that it isn’t some aero grip fest in the corners. I’d much rather it was fun, and it is. The T.50 doesn’t just impress, it induces grins from ear to ear that last for hours, even days hence.

So, after driving the two cars back to back, did the T.50 make the F1 seem somehow obsolete? No. While Gordon Murray’s fingerprints are clearly on both cars and there are many similarities, they also have quite different characters. 

For starters, how do you choose between two soundtracks that are so different yet equally spine-tingling? To drive, the F1 feels meatier but also like a supercar you could use as a grand tourer. The T.50 is leaner, more lithe, but also louder and more like a super sports car. Yes, while the F1 was instantly iconic (and still is) simply by virtue of its numbers, but the T.50 really needs to be experienced in order to reveal its utter brilliance. I feel very, very lucky to have done just that.

***

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I pressed down the clutch pedal again and pushed the gear-lever into first. This was it. My heart was thumping away so fiercely I could hear it in my throat. Ten yards away lay the the main road. It was as dark as doomsday. I released the clutch very slowly. At the same time, I pressed down just a fraction of an inch on the accelerator with my right toe, and stealthily, oh most wonderfully, the little car began to lean forward and steal into motion. I pressed a shade harder on the accelerator. We crept out of the filling-station on to the dark deserted road.

–Danny The Champion of the World

Of all the fantastical and marvelous stories told by children’s author Roald Dahl, none ever stuck in my head the way Danny the Champion of the World did. Narrated by the titular Danny, an intrepid nine-year-old, the story is filled with characters that illustrate the coming of age moment in a child’s life when you discover that adults are far from infallible. It’s a story of wonderment, capriciousness, and some arguably morally justifiable poaching. And it is a story about cars.

Produced from 1923 until 1939, the diminutive Austin 7 revolutionized the British automotive industry. The size of impact was inverse to the size of the car. It had a track just forty inches wide and was scarcely nine feet long. The engine displaced 747.5cc – any time you’re counting half-ccs, things are pretty tiny – and produced about 10 hp. All in all, it was about half the size of a Ford Model T.

“Oh, I don’t like to trailer it,” Dave says, “I just drive it everywhere.”

Having owned an Austin 7 in his youth, he found this car in Bradford-on-Avon in 1997, thanks to a tip from the registrar of the British Austin Seven owner’s club. An incomplete restoration, the car was crated up and shipped to Montreal, then via train across to the west coast, where Dave finished the restoration himself. The crate it came in was in such good condition, he built a garden shed out of it. This is a very English thing to do.

Sitting side-by-side in the tiny Austin can best be described as what the British call “cheek-by-jowl.” The Walkers call their car Chummy, as you need to be on good terms with whoever you’re riding along with. And yet, there’s seating for four, and the controls for this near-century-old machine are quite conventional. The only quirk is the separation of rear brake (foot pedal operated) and front brake (hand operated lever).

To put this car further in context: the Austin 7 is arguably the ancestor of the original Mini. The small size is not the point – it’s the democratization of mobility. When the first Sevens were made, most British cars were either large vehicles for the wealthy, or toy-like cyclecars. The owner of an Austin Seven, original purchase price £150 sterling, could comfortably drive their family around the winding country roads of England’s green and pleasant land.

Thousands of them did, and the Austin Seven effectively killed off all the other microcars, just as the Mini killed off the post-war “bubble cars” decades later. Sevens were simple in construction, frugal in operation, and easy to keep on the road.

Working together, we released the valve springs and drew out the valves. We unscrewed the cylinder-head nuts and lifted off the head itself. Then we began scraping the carbon from the inside of the head and from the tops of the pistons.

The writing in Danny concerns itself mostly with the quirky characters and madcap methods of poaching pheasants. But the book carries a clear thread of the joy and delight in taking something mechanical apart and putting it back together again. Danny’s father, William, waxes ecstatic about the magic of it. “Just imagine being able to take a thousand pieces of metal… and if you fit them all together in a certain way… and then if you feed them a little oil and petrol… and if you press a little switch… suddenly those bits of metal will come to life.”

As a child, reading these words and dreaming of the ability to drive off on midnight rescue missions, how could you ever fail to fall in love with engines and cars? Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory held no greater wonders than the ability to understand the turning of pistons and the meshing of gears and the glorious, wondrous feeling of being behind the wheel.

The Walkers’ Seven is an impeccable example of the breed, with a trophy cabinet to match. But it is no mere show car, still regularly out and about on the roads, trundling along cheerily and brightening everyone’s day. No pedestrian fails to smile as we pass. A couple of parents at a child’s birthday party hurry over with questions when we stop for pictures.

Because to see an Austin Seven out and about on the roads is to immediately recognize that motoring is a type of magic. We forget that magic, behind the wheel of some modern machine, late for work and less concerned about the experience than why the darn smartphone won’t connect properly. But the magic is still there, if you take the time to look, the way a child would.

***

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I’m intrigued by oddball automobiles, cars that are a departure from the ordinary. Machines that are of special interest because they differ from their automotive siblings in significant—though sometimes subtle—ways. The ’66 Chevrolet Impala pictured here is just such a car.

Because this Impala is equipped with Chevrolet’s L72 425-horsepower, 427-cubic-inch big-block engine, it would be a rare and desirable machine even if it was just one of the run of 1856 L72 full-size cars that Chevrolet produced for the U.S. market. But what makes it extremely rare and absolutely fascinating, at least to a fan of unique vehicles, is that it’s one of fewer than than 39 Chevrolets built in Canada with the brand’s top-of-the-line, big-block engine. I say “fewer than” because while a total of 39 L72-equipped ’66 B-body GM cars were built in Canada, several of them were Pontiacs!

Now this Canadian-built Chevy wouldn’t be of special interest if it was identical to a similarly-equipped car built stateside. But it’s not. According to Leigh Scott, a Chevy B-body restoration expert and retired General Motors executive, the car is unique in various ways. And over the course of four years that Scott has spent restoring it to showroom-new condition, he documented some of the little things that make it an obstinately different Canadian.

The foreign-born Impala belongs to Jim Adams of Edmonton, Alberta. Adams is a collector of big-block Chevrolets, primarily the rare and powerful L72 models. In addition to the car pictured here, he owns five more, but none is as unique as this car because they were built in the U.S. He told me that the Impala’s original owner ordered the car from a Chevy dealer in Canada, and then drove to the GM Canada factory in Oshawa, Ontario, to pick it up.

A few years later, that first owner died in a motorcycle accident. His Impala apparently sat for a while until another Canadian named Bob Ransom bought it from the estate. At the time, the car had clocked 46,000 miles. At some point, it was repainted silver. Unlike most U.S. L72 Chevrolets, it was not an Impala Super Sport but rather an Impala with SS trim, the top-of-the-line offering in Canada. The Impala Super Sport wasn’t specifically offered north of the border, although the distinction is more a matter of semantics than content.

Ransom eventually decided to sell the car and listed it in Autotrader. Adams saw the listing and called on it, only to learn that a U.S. buyer had already committed. He appealed to Ransom’s patriotism, telling him the car ought to remain in Canada. That worked, and Adams was soon the owner of the rare Impala. It sat in storage for another eight years before Leigh Scott was commissioned to restore it.

Scott is a perfectionist. After completely disassembling the car, he discovered that many components were marked “Made in Canada.” Some of those parts differed from those he had seen on the U.S.-built Impalas he had restored, and many of those parts were in distressed condition. The easy way out would be to replace those with reproductions or new parts that are widely available for U.S.-built Impalas, but that would render the car inauthentic. To both ensure that the car would be restored to showroom condition and to keep it purely Canadian, Scott decided that he would repair and restore those Canadian components.

The L72 427 engine was seized after having been in storage for so many years, but all castings and internal parts were found to be identical to U.S.-spec parts. The engine had originally come straight from GM’s Tonawanda, New York, plant where both Canadian and U.S. engines were built. Thus, only a conventional—but exacting—rebuild was required.

Some of the external engine components, on the other hand, were found to be exclusively Canadian. For example, the ignition coil was in an unpainted aluminum can and was labeled “Delco, Made in Canada.” U.S. spec coils are in steel cans and painted black. Thus, Scott retained the original-equipment coil and polished its aluminum can until it shined like new.

Other components were nearly identical to U.S. parts but were likewise marked “Made in Canada.” Many of these were disassembled, glass beaded, then replated and reassembled to make them as good as new.

Every nut, bolt and washer was removed and catalogued. Scott was surprised to see that no lock washers were used in the Canadian build. Thus the Impala was reassembled without lock washers. The bolts and nuts were not identical to those found on U.S. cars, so when it became apparent that some were missing, Scott asked a Canadian friend to visit a junkyard and retrieve some fasteners from another GM car that had been built at the Oshawa plant.

Although the Impala had been painted silver, it had to be restored to its original Aztec Bronze. And it was Aztec Bronze all over. The firewall of a U.S.-built car would have been sprayed with black paint, but the firewall of this Impala had been painted in body color. Scott surmises that GM Canada did that so they wouldn’t have to set up a different paint system for the firewall.

As he disassembled the car, he saw that the trim plate had been sloppily masked and hit with overspray when the firewall was painted. A photograph of the trim plate was taken before disassembly to record the size and position of the tape lines, so Scott was able to duplicate the original overspray on the restored trim plate when the car was repainted.

That’s called attention to detail, but that’s what Scott is known for. And because he’s restored more than a dozen full-size Chevrolets with big-block powertrains, he knows every inch of those cars, so he was able to discern ways in which the Canadian car differed and preserve those details.

Scott’s restoration process has been documented in a previous Hagerty feature, and suffice it to say that it’s very complete.  The bare body is stripped of everything in a tank of alkaline stripper, then it’s electrocoated with primer. Every piece of the automobile, including the smallest fastener, is made new before reassembly.

“Of all the cars I’ve restored, this was the most challenging,” said Scott. “I could have put U.S. parts on it, but it wouldn’t be original. The owner appreciates that I’ve gone through all this trouble to preserve the car’s Canadian identity.”

***

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The Malaise Era ushered in modern technologies, luxuries, and efficiencies into the American automotive landscape, and the sixth-generation Buick Riviera might perhaps be the best example of the period. It had all the style of a traditional personal luxury coupe, but with a fully independent suspension, space-saving front-wheel drive, and a bevy of technological upgrades set the tone for future luxury cars. The sales brochure for the all-new 1979 model even went so far as to suggest that

“Like an iceberg, most of its content lies beneath the surface.”

That statement has passed the test of time, as the GM E-platform underneath the 1979-1985 Riviera managed to position a new direction under a traditionally styled body. It even traces its radical roots back to the stunning 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado, most notably with its longitudinal-mounted engine powering the front wheels. The Riviera offered something for everyone seeking a premium automobile, and this particular 1985 model with less than 24,000 miles on the odometer is a perfect time capsule of a car that embodied its era.

This Red Firemist colored Riviera, currently listed on Hagerty Marketplace, looks showroom fresh and was clearly loved by its three previous owners. One of them was likely a member of the Antique Automobile Club of America (AACA): Back in 2019, that owner entered this Riviera in Class 27p (Production Vehicles; 1984-1985) and won first prize. There’s even an AACA emblem on the grille as proof of provenance.

The interior looks close to perfect, with nary a sign of wear on the driver’s seat leather. Notable features include an upgraded three-spoke sports steering wheel, standard Concert Sound audio system, and Buick’s lever-free “touch” HVAC control panel.

Power is delivered by the standard 5.0-liter Oldsmobile V-8, and not the optional 5.7-liter Oldsmobile Diesel or turbocharged 3.8-liter Buick V-6. This motor is likely the best of the bunch for the luxurious Riviera, with smooth V-8 performance and a durable design. Perhaps our own Andrew Newton summed up this performance best in a review of the Riviera’s platform-mate, the Cadillac Eldorado, as he suggested these vehicles have a “complete lack of sporting pretensions, take-it-easy attitude, mild cost of ownership, and opulence per dollar [that] is seriously charming.”

This low-mile Riviera may be original, but newer whitewall tires suggest it can and should be enjoyed for shows and pleasure cruises. This isn’t a shrink-wrapped museum piece, and the touched up paint work on the front end proves the point. Flaws are minor and wholly forgivable, including an inoperative engine bay light and sun visors that do not “stay in the upright position without stays.”

A full complement of paperwork comes with this Riviera, including repair manuals, sales literature, owner’s manuals, and awards from the Buick Club of America. This car is a fantastic example of the sixth generation Riviera. And with a high bid of $4,750 at the time of writing, it’s clearly an underappreciated classic car. That 1979 sales brochure was right—the Riviera clearly offers much more than its vintage sheetmetal may suggest.

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Stellantis’ introduction of a new Dodge Charger has some lovers of Mopar muscle frowning. Most car folk like the sleek new Charger shape shown by the international automotive conglomerate, and most agree that the technology beneath that shape is impressive, but many are mourning the loss of an engine that reigned as king of brute power for 70 years, the Hemi. The storied engine saw three generations over a period of more than 70 years—each version providing the kind of high-torque performance that shreds tires and sets hearts racing—and is no longer an option that Dodge buyers can check off. What, some may ask, is a Charger without a Hemi?

While it will soon be impossible to purchase a brand-new Hemi-powered Dodge Charger, you can still build your own. If you act quickly, you can still buy a 2023 four-door Charger with the Generation III Hemi that was introduced in 2003, but that’s not the car that comes to mind when I think of a Hemi Charger. Maybe it’s just me—I’m older than dirt and my automotive fantasies are rooted largely in the past—but when I hear the phrase “Hemi Charger,” the picture in my mind is a ’68–70 version with two doors, that distinctive coke bottle shape, and a gorgeous swept-back roof line. In brief, the car that looks like it’s approaching 200 mph when it’s standing still.

While it is no longer cheap to buy a used Hemi Charger of ’68–70 vintage—Hagerty values an Excellent condition 1970 Charger R/T with a Hemi at $194,000—Mopar enthusiasts who are willing to think outside the box of originality have multiple alternatives, ranging from cutting edge and expensive to garage-bound and more cost-effective. The most pricey is purchasing a carbon-bodied 1970 Charger built for you on a Roadster Shop chassis and a Dodge unibody. Or you can eschew the woven panels and buy just the rolling chassis, but you’ll still be deep into six figures. Those on a budget have options, too: For around 60 big ones, if you do most of the work yourself, you can build a nice, high-powered clone of a classic Hemi Charger. Naturally, the more work you outsource, the more that bill will rise. Of course, yours will be a clone rather than the genuine item, but you won’t have to fret as much when driving it to a car show, and you get to let your creativity run wild.

A complete step-by-step guide to designing and building a vintage Hemi Charger would require book-length treatment. In this article, I’ll try to point you in the right direction: I’ll explain what I’ve learned in researching this topic and give you the names of some aftermarket companies that can provide the hardware you’ll need. Many of those companies will also provide a lot of help as you work your way toward the project’s completion. Some have even published instructions on how to use their products in building the car. 

The Carbon-Fiber Super Chargers

Let’s start with the most expensive option. Direct Connection, the parts supplier for Dodge automobiles, offers a 1970 Charger “rolling chassis” with a carbon-fiber body produced by Finale Speed, an Oklahoma-based maker of high-end automotive restoration parts. What you get is the unpainted carbon fiber body, a perimeter chassis, front and rear suspension, a race-car-worthy rear axle, a carbon-fiber floor, and high-tech disc brakes. No interior upholstery or engine is included. The perimeter frame, which Finale Speed sources from Roadster Shop, can be fitted with engine mounts for either the classic Generation II engine or the late-model Gen III. Just the rolling chassis will set you back $199,000. A complete car, fully outfitted and ready to cruise, starts at $449,000. 

A Starting Point

That rolling chassis would be a nice foundation for a classic Charger build, and those of you with really fat wallets might want to open them up, but for most of us, such a proposition is far too expensive. If you find yourself in that majority, you can buy just a perimeter frame complete with suspension and rear axle and start your build from there. Roadster Shop sells a perimeter frame, as do other suppliers, including Schwartz Performance. There are some advantages to starting with a perimeter frame, but by the time you’ve fully outfitted that frame with running gear, you’ll have spent almost half your budget, and you will still need a lot of pieces, including the ’68–70 Charger unibody and all the body panels.

To shed light on the process, I called Rick Ehrenberg, former Tech Editor of the now defunct Mopar Action magazine and a supplier of Mopar parts, information, and restoration service. Over the years, I’ve come to depend on Ehrenberg as an extremely knowledgeable Mopar expert. 

“Is a perimeter frame a good place to start if you want to build a ’68–70 Hemi Charger on a modest budget?” I asked. 

“You’re going to spend a lot going the perimeter frame route,” Ehrenberg said, “and the finished product might not be as good a performance car as you can cobble together if you start with the original Chrysler-built unibody and build it right.”

Ehrenberg explained that the Hemi-powered Chargers of ’68–70 were built on reinforced versions of the standard unibody. The point where the rear leaf-spring hangers were attached was bolstered and a torque box was welded over that. Up front, the area where the front suspension subframe meets the unibody was similarly reinforced, and the area of the floor where the pinion snubber hits the floor was bolstered. 

Those old B-body Chrysler products had torsion-bar front suspension rather than the coil springs that the aftermarket companies install on their Charger clones, and the Hemi cars were fitted with bigger diameter torsion bars and stouter leaf springs in the rear. The cars were somewhat noisy because the torsion bars were anchored right under the front seats and some vibration was transmitted, but the stock Hemi Charger suspension system provided darn good chassis control, and, according to Ehrenberg, a Charger with a correctly bolstered unibody, upgraded suspension and a Dana 60 or Ford 9-inch rear axle can handle massive horsepower. Good guidance for those of us on tighter budgets, then.

Body Beautiful

Whatever route you take to recreating your Charger dreams—short of coming up with that $199K for the rolling chassis—you have to find a vintage unibody. A complete 1970 Charger in fair condition and powered by the 230-horsepower 318 cubic-inch V-8 is valued at $21,900 in the Hagerty Price Guide. That’s a bit pricey, and if you start with a complete car, in addition to upgrading the unibody structure, you are going to have to replace almost all of the running gear and suspension. Finding that car might prove very difficult as well, since many have been turned into Hemi Charger clones.

Alternatively, you can start with less than a full car. I’ve seen bare bones ’68–70 cars, less fenders and doors, in fair condition for $3000 and less. However, door skins and fenders for these cars can cost a fair amount themselves, so if you can find a car with no running gear but with a body that is fairly intact, you can save dollars. Don’t be too cheap, though: Front fenders for these cars are hard to find and reproductions are not currently available, so a car that comes with the fenders is worth a premium.

The car (or part of a car) you start with doesn’t have to be pretty, and if you can find one for less than $10K, it won’t be. Before you start, you should have the car blasted to remove loose rust, old paint, and all the dirt and detritus of more than 50 years. Dustless blasting services can do the job right in your driveway, or if you don’t want to enrage the neighbors, you can haul the car to the supplier’s location. 

Upgrade That Unibody

It’s extremely doubtful that you will find a unibody in decent shape that came from a Hemi Charger, but the unibody of a base car can be upgraded to match or exceed the strength and rigidity of the factory-built Hemi car. You’ll want to get in touch with USCT Motorsports, a North Carolina company that restores classic Mopars and sells the parts you need to prep the unibody yourself. 

USCT’s chassis-stiffening kits enable you to duplicate the way the factory strengthened the standard unibodies to handle Hemi horsepower, and USCT can even take you beyond that with additional reinforcement. It can also provide the front K-member unique to the Hemi cars. USCT’s Level 2 chassis-strengthening kit includes frame connectors, torque boxes, inner fender braces, and a core support stiffener: In brief, all the pieces you need to render a unibody solid enough for a mega-horsepower Hemi. USCT will also provide directions that illustrate how the various pieces are installed and welded in place. Some trimming and fitting will be necessary to get everything to fit perfectly on a road-worn unibody, but do the work and it will be worthy of a Hemi. The Level 2 kit sells for $1116.94.

The standard Charger unibody will allow a substantially large rear tire. If you want to go larger yet, order the Level 3 kit, which includes a brace to relocate the rear spring and a mini tub that will add up to 4 inches per side for tire clearance. The Level 3 kit is priced at $1814.54. 

You will also need various other restoration parts, depending on how complete your car is. A great source for Mopar body and trim parts is Auto Metal Direct, an aftermarket company that manufactures and sells restoration sheetmetal. What they don’t make they source from other suppliers. For a classic Charger build, they can supply the floor, doors, floor supports, inner fenders, wheel housings, quarter panels, hood, shock towers, and more. The parts aren’t cheap: for example, a ’70 Charger quarter panel sells for $549.99. But according to Ehrenberg, they’re of excellent quality.

Once your body unit is complete, you can shop for other components. You’ll need a heavy-duty rear axle. A new Dana 60–type housing complete with differential and axles will run you around $3000. This is a near duplicate of what the ’68–70 Hemi Chargers were equipped with. A 9-inch Ford diff and housing is just as stout. I’ve seen those for less than $2000. Either can be mounted on your unibody with heavy-duty leaf springs and dampers, much like those of the original car.

If your partial car came with front suspension, you can use the control arms, but you’ll want to renew all the bushings and links and install the heavy-duty torsion bars that came with the Hemi-powered cars along with a set of premium adjustable dampers. A variety of suspension parts for the vintage Charger, including torsion bars, adjustable shock absorbers, control arms, and bushings, is available through Bergman Autocraft and other suppliers.

Providing the Ponies

Of course, you will have to buy an engine and a transmission. If I had my way, I’d go for a classic Gen II Hemi of ’64 to ’71 vintage, which would be true to the car and project the right imagery. But that’s an expensive proposition nowadays. Not too long ago, Chrysler sold a crate version of the Gen II 426 for about $10K—no more. I shopped the motor of my fantasies online and found Ray Barton, who builds Gen II Hemis for numerous racers and enthusiasts. His engines are superb and are priced accordingly. A 540-cubic-inch engine that produces 700 horsepower on pump gas sells for $32,000, ready to run. 

“How about a clone of the original 425-horse 426?” I asked. “That’s close to the same price,” Barton said.

If you have the bucks and the desire, go for it. If not, you will probably want to settle for a Gen III Hemi. It’s still a Hemi, and it will be easy to live with—nice idle, easy starting, and all those other modern conveniences. Ehrenberg recently put a Gen III crate motor in his “Green Brick” vintage Plymouth Valiant and says he wouldn’t trade it for a Gen II engine; it’s that nice.

A perusal of the Direct Connection listings reveals that the supercharged, 6.2-liter Hellephant—a 1025-horsepower beast of a Gen III Hemi—is offered at $27,675. That’s almost as pricey as that Gen II engine. (There’s also a 1500-horsepower version for a mere $59,990.) But most of us would be very happy—and healthier—with far fewer ponies in the stable. Direct Connection’s 392 cubic-inch (6.4-liter) naturally aspirated Hemi produces a stout 485 horsepower and 475 lb-ft torque, and it’s priced at $9600. That’s enough power to make me smile.

If you decide to go with the Gen III powerplant, you can get an adjustable motor mount kit from USCT Motorsports. They can also provide a notch kit for the K member that allows you to use the standard Gen III oil pan. 

You have to be able to change gears, too. Passon Performance of Pennsylvania sells fully rebuilt four-speed transmissions of the near bulletproof variety used by the vintage Hemi Chargers. Their gearbox sells for $2695, and there’s a $50.00 crate charge added. A new high-performance clutch, flywheel, and bell housing will likely set you back another $1500.

All the other components, like brakes, tubing, wiring, electrical parts, radiator, wheels, and tires will continue to jack up the total. And of course, you want your new Charger to turn heads, so a great paint job will be necessary. Some of the classic car owners I’ve interviewed for Hagerty have built a temporary plastic-sheet spray booth outside their garage and painted their own cars. But it’s an iffy proposition if you haven’t painted a car before. If you pay for a paint job, figure on spending about $8K to get it done right. 

If you watch your nickels and dimes, in the end you’ll have a classic Hemi Charger clone that will likely be worth close to as much as you’ve poured into it. In the world of enthusiast automobiles, that’s a good balance to strike.

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The post A Beginner’s Guide to Building Your Own Hemi Charger appeared first on Hagerty Media.

The Packard Motor Car Company had an impressive run as a standalone company, then as part of the Studebaker-Packard Corporation (1954), making high-end vehicles in one of the best times in American history. But we aren’t here to discuss those distant memories, nor are we discussing the controversial V-12 sedan made by Roy Gullickson in the 1990s. What’s before us is a custom-bodied convertible with a 1949 Packard title, named the Packard Bayliff Lebaron.

There’s a lot to unpack in that name, as Packard stopped making cars after 1958. LeBaron is a prewar coachbuilder that made famous bodies for luxury cars before it was folded into Chrysler, after which its name morphed into a trim level for mid-century Imperials and premium vehicles in the 1980s. Bayliff is the funeral- and custom-car maker that made what you see above. Its tribute to two long-forgotten names is currently available on Hagerty Marketplace with a high bid of $35,000.

Again, Bayliff didn’t make only this Packard; it is a famous name in coachbuilding circles. Perhaps the Bayliff LeBaron was a final tribute to the company’s coach-building heritage, as it created this vehicle sometime in the early 2000s. There was precedent for such a project, as Bayliff made a similar vehicle before it sold the Packard name to Gullickson for $50,000 in 1992 for his failed attempt to relaunch the iconic brand. (How Bayliff managed to make this Packard Bayliff LeBaron without raising the ire of Gullickson remains to be seen.)

Meet the bright red “1934” Packard Bayliff Victoria (via Undiscovered Classics). This less streamlined design of this fiberglass tribute car was intended to look 15 years older than the burgundy LeBaron we are profiling today. The deeply contoured doors are the best example of the Victoria’s heritage, looking more like something from the early 1930s and less like the sleek, straight lines of the Bayliff LeBaron.

The Bayliff Victoria also appears to use fewer parts from recognizable donor cars, and it was likely made a full decade before the Bayliff LeBaron. Details are minimal and photos are vague, so this assumption is based on the audio system installed at the time of manufacture: The Bayliff Victoria’s radio looks like a 1990s vintage Kenwood CD player or similar. (The Bayliff LeBaron has a 2000s-era Sony, as seen below.)

Speaking of “recognizable donor cars,” the Bayliff LeBaron used many parts from the 1987–89 Chrysler LeBaron convertible. While the use of the LeBaron name might be coincidence, there’s no doubt this long-forgotten coachbuilder found a good home on this custom Packard.

Parts shared with the Chrysler include the cowl, A-pillars, and support structure for the glass and top mechanism. The Chrysler LeBaron’s cowl also donated key interior elements, including the HVAC system, the dashboard, the center stack for the Sony radio, and a glovebox for the passenger.

To be fair, the overall interior design feels like a worthy tribute to a classic Packard: Details like the banjo steering wheel, Lokar shifter, and upright dashboard almost feel period-correct. Only the “Packard” script pillow on the passenger side, and the “Custom Deluxe” graphics on the door panel, oversell the conversion. Perhaps some modern 3-D printing technology could make neoclassic trim panels, and a chrome-laden RetroSound audio unit could better integrate the designer’s original vision into the package?

Under the Bayliff LeBaron’s long hood is a SOHC Ford Modular V-8 displacing 5.4 liters with 260 horsepower, disguised as a Packard powerplant with an engine cover that cleverly integrates two air filters. While the Lincoln Navigator’s more assertive DOHC mill wasn’t implemented in this build, the Holley EFI Terminator X system likely keeps that motor purring like that of a proper Packard. The rest of the chassis appears to have a truck-like ladder frame with rear leaf springs. This was likely by design, part and parcel of Bayliff’s roots as a funeral coachbuilder.

None of which detracts from the elegance of this design and the delightful audacity of its creator to bring it into existence. The 1949 Packard Bayliff LeBaron is downright stunning on its massive wheelbase, with its flowing fenders and 100-spoke wire wheels. Now that the Chrysler LeBaron convertible’s demise is almost three decades in the past, I reckon the Bayliff LeBaron can stand on its own at any car show in the country. Nobody will know what’s underneath, or where it came from.

Decades later, being a Chrysler under that burgundy paint certainly helps. The fabric top is torn in places, which can be resolved for $400 or less thanks to aftermarket support. Paint chips, fading, and swirl marks are noted in the auction, but they point to an owner who enjoyed the vehicle and didn’t let it rot in perpetual storage, and driving such a stately machine is likely what Bayliff wanted in the first place.

The oldest record of this vehicle’s sale was at Barrett-Jackson in 2005, where it sold for $79,200. It then sold at RM Sotheby’s a decade later for $71,500. Where it will land on Hagerty Marketplace at the auction’s close on Friday remains to be seen, but there’s no doubt that the next owner will be part of the storied history of the famous brand. And they will be responsible for a stunning piece of automotive coachbuilding that capitalized on the best of the word “LeBaron” from multiple decades.

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I hadn’t had my ’57 Corvette long before it helped me accumulate a couple of tickets and a one-month license suspension. It was the kind of car that encouraged exuberance, and as a teenager in a car-crazy era, I couldn’t get enough of it.

Naturally, I used that enforced break from driving to modify my ‘Vette. I started by investing summer-job money in a Duntov cam and a set of solid lifters. Next came a manual gearbox. I couldn’t afford to swap in a four-speed, so I settled for a three-speed and paid a mechanic to install it and its clutch mechanism.

Then, once my license was restored and the ‘Vette was ready, a friend and I picked it up from the shop and test drove it out of town. We headed for a long, straight stretch of divided parkway with no houses or traffic where someone had painted 1/4-mile start and finish lines on the eastbound side. We wanted to try a fun run, so approaching that section on the westbound side, just cruising in third, I decided to punch it without downshifting to see how it pulled from low rpm. I was watching the road, not the speedometer, but we were likely up to 90 or so (in a 35-mph zone) before I backed off and braked for the stop at the next intersection.

When we got there, a pair of angry cops were waiting. “Do you know how fast you were going, kid?” one growled angrily. “No, officer,” I grinned, thinking they had merely heard the engine at high rpm and didn’t really have anything on me. I was not about to confess.

“We clocked you at 80,” he snarled. “Let me see your license.” It turned out they had radar hidden halfway down the road (unusual at the time) and were monitoring it from the corner. “Is that as fast as that car will go?” one officer sarcastically enquired while his partner was writing maybe the best ticket of his career. “Yeah … in first gear,” I snarked.

Before this ‘Vette, I had a well-used ’57 MGA, which was cool for school but slow, unreliable, and a little rusty. I lusted for something cooler and quicker and started threatening to trade it for an older Corvette. I even checked out a couple of not-so-cherry ‘54s and ‘55s.

My folks were not wealthy, but my father, a Nebraska farmer’s son, loved cars and was a skilled driver who had wheels as a kid. He believed his sons should, too. His affinity included Corvettes, and on a business trip to Detroit, he found this nice ‘57—a black base car with a detachable hardtop, a 245-horse twin-four-barrel 283-cubic inch V-8 and a Powerglide two-speed automatic. He talked the seller down to $1500 and brought it home. So, as a car-loving high-school senior, I ended up with the only Corvette around. Truly bad-ass!

Not only did the Corvette encourage my assertive driving habits, it also brought out my creativity, serving as a blank canvas that my teenage car-crazy self couldn’t help but personalize. When the inevitable big ticket that came after my 80-mph test run earned me a second license suspension, this time for three long months, I decided I would use the time off to customize my ‘Vette.

Growing up in the ‘50s and ‘60s, I had always had a thing for customized cars. I lusted over the best ones in magazines and built plastic car models with every cool modification I could manage. Why not apply that (questionable) skill to my own set of wheels? In those days, it was just a used sports car, not yet a coveted collectible.

I started by painting white racing stripes nose-to-tail. Then I removed every other tooth from the grille and blacked out its horizontal bar, leaving half as many teeth floating twice as far apart in the oval opening. I thought that was a good look for a toothy C1 Corvette (and still do). I also pulled off both front and rear license-plate brackets and the rear-fender chrome trim and added twin antennas, custom (’68 Olds wagon) taillamp lenses, and triple (’64 Pontiac Tempest) chrome strips in the coves. I also installed short lake pipes with removable caps, which tended to drag on driveway ramps and break off every week or two.

We didn’t have an abundance of aftermarket alloy wheels way back then, but we did have hubcaps. I tried chrome “moon” discs for a while, then switched to spun aluminum “racing” discs. Tire choices were limited to black- or whitewall bias-ply, and I didn’t have money for new ones anyway. The ho-hum, half-tread set of whitewalls that came on it would have to do.

I two-toned the orangey-red dash and seats, the latter with white upholstery paint, then paid a body shop to Bondo chrome exhaust tips into the rear fenders. Finally, I painted the inside of the trunk white and sweet-talked my visiting artist cousin into painting a cartoon skunk in there because we had christened my newly striped and customized ‘Vette “Li’l Stinkie.”

The doors and dash did look better painted white, but it wasn’t long before the paint on the seats began to crack and look awful, so I bought a set of seat covers to hide them. And the tightly restrained exhausts soon vibrated through the Bondo. Otherwise, I thought it looked pretty good. And it got a new white convertible top, which our family cat walked all over leaving indelible paw prints on it the first night it was home. I love animals but never liked that cat.

Because it still had the numerically low axle ratio that came with the Powerglide automatic, it was incredibly long-legged, good for 65 mph in first, over 100 in second and I don’t know what in third. I pushed it to 100 a couple times where I thought it was safe but had the good sense never to exceed that speed.

I even took it to the local drags one Sunday and won a trophy. It was a bit of a dog off the line, but while the other cars with their numerically high gear ratios were already in fourth halfway down the strip, Li’l Stinkie and I were cruising by in second gear just before the finish. Hilarious!

It also nearly killed me more than once. It suddenly slid sideways on a wet curvy four-lane during Friday rush-hour traffic on my way home from my summer construction job. I caught the slide and avoided getting battered, but that was a scary lesson for a teenager.

Scarier still was a near disaster on the night of my senior prom. After dropping girlfriend Marty home, I stupidly decided to try a late-night run on that makeshift drag strip. Well into second gear, a large dog suddenly appeared in my headlamps trotting down the middle of the road. I jammed on the brakes and swerved to miss it, which sent me into a series of left-right-left tank slappers.

Very fortunately, I knew enough even at 17 to understand that getting off the brakes would help me regain control, so I did and somehow avoided both the dog and the high curbs that likely would have flipped me into the puckerbrush on either side of the road. Whew!!! I was probably wearing the Sears seatbelt I had bought and installed but had no roll bar to keep the car off my head if it went belly up. Another very scary lesson—one I wouldn’t forget.

When it came time for college, my ‘Vette had to go because my dad needed the money. But my customization had badly damaged its value. “Your son pretty much ruined that car,” one dealer told him. Another who specialized in used Corvettes finally bought it for $1,200, as I recall. Years later, I encountered that guy working as a salesman at a different dealership and asked whether he remembered Li’l Stinkie. “Hell, boy,” he said, “I lost my ass on that car!”

Looking back, modifying that future classic was a major collector Corvette sacrilege, but this was an era before phrases like “matching numbers” and “period-correct” had much significance. In the moment, Li’l Stinkie embodied my car-crazy tastes, and I don’t think I’d change a thing.

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Last week, Ferrari gave us yet more proof that whoever coined the phrase “Money can’t buy happiness” has probably never been anywhere near one of its showrooms.

Of course, most, if not all, Ferraris are special cars, almost by definition. Yet Maranello’s latest creation, the 12Cilindri, is perhaps an even more fascinating object than usual.

On the one hand, it’s a genuine technological tour de force. It’s got active aero, independent four-wheel steering, plus a whole host of performance-enhancing electronic systems. But on the other hand, it’s also a delightfully old-fashioned proposition. After all, it’s a big front-engined, rear-wheel-drive grand tourer with a bonnet large enough to have its own zip code, and the only battery in sight is there to start up its massive engine.

And what an engine it is.

A 6.5-liter naturally aspirated V-12 that can rev up to 9500 rpm is simply Ferrari doing what it does best. And with such a glorious, unapologetic tribute to the gods of internal combustion under the hood, it’s no wonder Ferrari elected to give the engine top billing, even if that meant testing its international customers’ mastery of the Italian language.

The new 12Cilindri picks up right where its predecessor, the 812 Superfast introduced in 2017, leaves off. But it also marks a significant and welcome step up in the aesthetic department.

In the recent past, Ferrari’s Centro Stile hasn’t been immune to the odd slip-up, and in my view, the old 812 counted among those. But over the last few years, Flavio Manzoni’s crew in Maranello really seems to have hit its stride.

Beginning with the SF90 in 2019, the Prancing Horse’s styling team has knocked out a sequence of genuinely outstanding designs, from the gorgeous 296 and Roma up to and including the impressive Purosangue. The new 12Cilindri definitely is no less accomplished a design, but to fully comprehend what makes it so captivating, let’s start from the fundamentals.

As I’ve already stressed in previous articles, beauty in car design is, first and foremost, a matter of proportions. But I have to say that, in this case, Ferrari’s designers have had it easy.

Being a wide, low-slung two-seater packing a large engine placed well behind the front axle, the Ferrari 12Cilindri is the automotive equivalent of a supermodel: naturally endowed with attractive proportions. With such a technical package, Ferrari’s stylists already had all the makings of a pretty car before drawing a single line.

Still, even such a big head start won’t count for much if you don’t know what you’re doing, and one has to look no further than the Mercedes-AMG SLR to see what I mean.

Thankfully, the folks at Maranello rose to the challenge and created a perfectly sculpted volume that reminds me of one of my favorite Ferraris, the Monza SP roadster, but with a sharper, more contemporary feel. For example, I love the way the lower bodyside’s surface twists in a well-controlled manner from the front wheel arch to the rear, creating an interplay between light and shadow that visually “lightens up” the car.

I also appreciate that Ferrari’s stylists kept the car’s volume remarkably clean. In car design jargon, a “character line” is a crease on the car’s volume serving no purpose other than aesthetics. There are precious few on the 12Cilindri’s curvaceous body, and the main ones are the two running parallel and “breaking” the door’s surface just above the handle.

However, by deftly tying these lines to graphic elements such as the shutline of the clamshell hood and the front and rear lights, Ferrari’s designers have created a continuous line that “guides” our eyes around the car and puts it all together into a cohesive whole.

But, without a doubt, what stands out the most about the new Ferrari’s design is its rather bold graphics. That’s the term vehicle designers use when referring to everything that “cuts” into the car’s volume, like shutlines, air intakes, the glazing’s contours, and lights.

At the front of the car, Ferrari’s designers made a wise decision by using a clamshell hood instead of having unsightly shutlines cutting through the 12Cilindri’s voluptuous fenders. The trapezoidal headlight units are visually connected by a black trim piece, which certainly isn’t a novel idea but is used to great effect here, paying a tasteful homage to the full-width acrylic panel used on the legendary 365 GTB/4 Daytona.

By contrast, Maranello’s stylists’ approach to the 12Cilindri’s rear-end design is decidedly more radical. The two active spoilers get a black finish to visually merge with the rear window and create an arrow-like graphic on the roof. That won’t be to everyone’s taste, and it does render the 12Cilindri very color-sensitive: Spec yours in black or any other dark shade, and it’ll all become nearly invisible.

Still, if you really don’t like it, Ferrari has you covered.

In a surprising break from usual practice, the company presented the spider variant alongside the coupe. When closed, the retractable roof panel fits seamlessly with a pair of flying buttresses to give the 12Cilindri Spider a similar profile to is hardtop stablemate. The two active rear spoilers and the small decklid between them still get a contrasting black finish, but the effect isn’t nearly as convincing as on the coupe.

Italians are known to take great pride in Ferrari and its successes. And, being a citizen of this small country in the middle of the Mediterranean, I’ll confess that I’m no exception. Moreover, as an enthusiast who has witnessed the near-terminal decline of Italy’s volume car industry over the last few decades, the fact that there’s still a small company in Maranello building some of the world’s finest rides does indeed give me some solace.

Just like nearly everyone else, I’ll never own any Ferrari, let alone a 12Cilindri. But I’m glad it exists, and rest assured that when one of these roars past me in traffic, you’ll find me smiling and gazing longingly at its curves while I think: “We’ve still got it!”

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

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Car history nerds know that 120 years ago this year, Rolls met Royce. But did you know that a Silver Cloud once met … a Corvette?

Welcome to the latest custom-built creation of Wisconsin-based hot-rod shop Ringbrothers, a 1969 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud II. Though it debuted last year at the industry-only SEMA show, brothers Mike and Jim Ring brought it to Jay Leno’s Garage last week, and we couldn’t resist another chance to savor the coolness of this lovingly crafted hot-rod.

This week’s featured car on Jay Leno’s Garage is Leno’s own Spectre, Rolls’ first all-electric car (read our review of the model here), but a ’60s Silver Cloud is probably more in line with what most people imagine when they hear the words “Rolls Royce.” Leno, ever the comedian, tells the story of driving a similar model, loaned to his shop by a friend who bought it for $15K and wanted Jay’s staff to help him fix it up. “I pull up to a light and look over, a guy gives me the finger!” Leno says. It’s all smiles and waves, he says, when he drives his McLaren F1, valued around $20,000,000. But in the Rolls? “I look like a landlord—c’mon, gimme the rent!'”

This 1961 example came to the Ringbrothers shop wearing not white but baby blue. Under its hood was the engine that Rolls built it with, an aluminum-block 6230-cc V-8 topped with two single-barrel SU carburetors and making 230 hp.

At first glance, only Rolls-Royce faithful would spot anything different about this Silver Cloud, because Brothers Jim and Mike Ring kept external modifications to an absolute minimum. The clues are in the size of the wheels—18 inches in diameter rather than 15—and in the bulbs in the taillights and front turn signals, which are LEDs.

All you have to do, of course, is click “play” on this video to realize that something is very, very different about this Rolls. A supercharger whine gives away the secret: A LT4 V-8, the same engine that Chevrolet put in the C7 Z06, sits below the center-hinged hood of this British beauty. It’s backed by a ten-speed automatic transmission and kept in rein by a beefy set of Baer brakes: Six-piston calipers clamping 15-inch rotors, hid behind a set of EVOD Industries wheels whose caps are self-leveling affairs bearing the twin Rs of the Rolls name.

Ringbrothers fit the new powertrain into the car thanks to a chassis swap. They scanned the original frame, then worked with fellow industry veterans Roadster Shop to craft a modern version in steel. The fully independent suspension is similarly modern, thanks to a six-inch RS SV coilover from Fox at each wheel. Ringbrothers shopped freely from the GM catalog to build this 640-hp beast: The sway bars use end links from a C6 Corvette. The exhaust is from a Cadillac ATS-V, chosen (and modified) by the brothers for its dual-mode function: “As you jump on it it doesn’t get a whole lot louder, but it does open a second set of pipes.”

And Leno does jump on it: In the back seat, Jim is shoved backwards by the acceleration. Mike and Leno wear giant grins, and Leno lets out a yeehaw!

Just how fast is this cosmopolitan Brit? To find out, Ringbrothers raced it against a modern Rolls, a 2023 Rolls-Royce Phantom, powered by a twin-turbo V-12 making 563 hp. We won’t spoil the surprise … have a watch below:

Changes to the interior are similarly understated: Instead of a glovebox to the right of the steering wheel, there’s an air conditioning vent. The outlines of the dash are the same, but the wood color is different—the panels are actually aluminum, hydrodipped to look like a lighter, more modern-looking wood. The headliner mimicks the $13,000 Starlight one on modern Rolls-Royces—the customer wanted the ceiling to look like that of his modern Rolls. Why not, you know?

Jay Leno repeatedly praises the build quality of the Ring brothers’ shop, honking the horn to emphasize their attention to detail, and enthusiastically declaring: “So fun having a Rolls-Royce that handles!” As always, we’re re-watching the video, wishing for our own turn behind the wheel. The combination of V-8 roar and supercharger whine, though, is good enough for now.

It’s increasingly fashionable these days to EV-swap a Rolls. If you had a Silver Cloud, what would you do: Leave it stock, swap in batteries for an ultra-silent experience, or start browsing Chevrolet crate engines?

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“War. War never changes.” So runs the tagline of the new Fallout series currently running on Amazon, a live-action reimagining of a video game set in post-apocalyptic America. But don’t worry: you don’t need to know anything about fictional power armor or radiation cures to understand the fascination of the very real machine—the 1960 Plymouth XNR concept—that appears in a brief cameo. Blink and you’ll miss it: It only appears for a fraction of the first ten minutes of the opening scene, but some sharp eyes over at Autoblog caught it. Another footnote in the strange tale of the 1960 Plymouth XNR concept, the vehicle is a real-world war survivor and video game character all by itself.

Those of you who prefer word puzzles to pixelated sprites have no doubt realized that “XNR” is comprised of the consonants in the last name of mid-century design genius Virgil Exner. The car was styled during Exner’s golden era, after he’d left Studebaker for Chrysler, and during his friendship with Carrozzeria Ghia’s Luigi Segre. The latter relationship would result in the Segre-designed Karmann Ghia, a pretty little coupe with no sporting aspirations whatsoever. Exner though? He wanted to go fast.

Exner wanted to put the Chevrolet Corvette and the Ford Thunderbird in Mopar’s crosshairs. The likes of the 1954 Firearrow IV showed his early ambition to bring performance to Chrysler (it never entered production, sadly), but by 1960 there were even more radical ideas afoot.

Inspiration came from the racetrack. First, there was Exner’s personal Studebaker Indy car, a racer he’d owned back in the days when he worked for the company in Indiana. Next, there was his appreciation for the Jaguar D-Type, three-time winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans (1955, ’56, and 57). With straight-six power and a signature asymmetric fin, the D-Type was clearly on Exner’s mind as he drew those first initial sketches in 1958.

The last piece of the puzzle was NASCAR. In 1960 Plymouth entered seven Valiants powered not by thundering V-8s but by 170-cubic-inch inline-sixes in a new compact car NASCAR race, and all seven cars finished ahead of the rest of the field. The success of the slant-six caught Exner’s attention.

Originally called the Asymmetrica, Exner’s concept would be built on a shortened Valiant chassis, with that 2.8-liter inline-six under its hood. Chrysler’s performance division went to work, adding a four-barrel carburetor with a ram-air intake, upgraded camshaft with higher compression, and tuning for the left-hand side-exit exhausts. Power was rated at just under 250 hp at 7000 rpm, with a redline of 7500 rpm, and a peak torque figure of 200 lb-ft. For comparison, the most powerful Corvette engine, in 1960, was a 283-cubic-inch V-8 that made 315 hp. With Exner at the wheel, the Asymmetrica went 142 mph. Some aerodynamic tweaks, and it managed over 150 mph. With a three-speed manual gearbox!

The body was sheet steel, shaped by the craftsmen at Ghia to fit Exner’s drawings. Chrysler later renamed the Asymmetrica the XNR, right around the time the company allowed Ford the rights to the Falcon name. Five years before, Exner had designed the Chrysler Falcon, another they-should-have-built-it stunner.

The completed concept was stunning: Le Mans racer meets The Jetsons. But, like so many of Exner’s forward-looking designs, the XNR would never see series production. Ghia built several examples of a modified, less-radical version, but these also weren’t financially successful. Chrysler sent the XNR back to Italy, as it could not be registered in the United States.

That extradition might have been the end of things, but Ghia turned around and sold the car to an unnamed German national, who then passed it on to noted car collector Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, the Shah of Iran. It was not the only Ghia-built, Exner-designed Mopar owned by the Shah; to this day, you can find the 1956 Chrysler K300 Special sitting in the National Car Museum of Iran in Tehran.

Shah Pahlevi didn’t keep the XNR long, and by 1969, the car was in Kuwait. We know this because anyone reading the May issue of National Geographic magazine would have flipped the page to see a car dealer called Anwar al Mulla driving the XNR around on the street like it was a Dodge Dart or something. Away from the car show circuit, the XNR looked even more outlandishly futuristic.

From here, the concept was sold into Lebanon, right before civil war ignited the country. It was tucked away in an underground garage while the world above it burned.

Nearly one million people left Lebanon during the conflict, especially those who could afford to escape. Many cars were left behind or tucked away in garages. Lebanese-born Karim Ebbe was a teenager when the war began, and he possessed a knack for ferreting out these hidden treasures. By the 1980s, he had teams of scooter-riding scouts to alert him of anything interesting, like a vintage Ferrari under a tarp. One day, those scouts told Ebbe they’d found something really weird.

He recognized the XNR from pictures in a Swiss book, and purchased it on sight. Then followed several nerve-wracking years as the civil war intensified close to its end, forcing him to move the car several times. When peace came, fifteen years later, the XNR badly needed restoration, but it had endured.

Ebbe held on to the car for several more years, until he entrusted Ontario’s well-respected RM Restorations with the task of bringing it back to life. The work required replacing several missing parts, and while there was plenty of documentation to pore through, getting the details right took time. After two full years of restoration, the XNR debuted at the 2011 Amelia Island Concours D’Elegance. Later that same year, it appeared on the lawn at the Pebble Beach concours.

On the 18th green of the famed course, XNR was awarded the Gran Turismo Award, given out each year since 2008 by Polyphony CEO Kazunori Yamauchi as an honorary judge. The prize for the award is digital immortality, as the winner is scanned and put into the Gran Turismo video game as a driveable car. If you have Gran Turismo 6 or 7, the two latest versions, you can buy your own XNR.

Thanks to sometime Hagerty contributor Jamie Kitman, we were able to confirm that the car shown in Fallout is the actual original XNR. (A very faithful reproduction done by Gotham Garage is owned by The Petersen Museum in Los Angeles.) The original is part of the Paul and Linda Gould collection, which also includes historic Alfa-Romeo and Bugatti models.

Exner was forced out at Chrysler in 1962, but the impact of his work still lasts today. As an onscreen embodiment of mid-century hope for the future, the XNR is a perfect piece of car-casting. And there’s something fitting about a show based on a video game featuring a car that’s playable in pretty much the most famous automotive game ever. You have to think Virgil Exner would have liked to see the car he put his name on still around after all these years, still taking part in popular culture, a past idea of an optimistic future.

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Forget what the car books and the Internet tell you. The first production car to hit the magic 200 mph mark didn’t come from Maranello, in the shapely silhouette of the impressive F40. It came from Nebraska, in the slightly more challenging shape of the Pontiac Tojan. And it was three whole years earlier than the annals of automotive history might have you believe. Forty years ago precisely, in fact.  

Ask any petrolhead of a certain age—particularly those who were schoolchildren in the late ’80s—what the first “double century” was, and it’s always Ferrari’s homologation machine that gets the honors. Who can blame them? It’s what Google tells you, and it’s what the press of the time proudly heralded, which of course was then talked about far and wide and with great enthusiasm by those schoolchildren.

Which is all well and good, except for the fact that three years previous to this remarkable Italian achievement, another vehicle, one available from the showroom floor of selected Pontiac dealers, had already clicked past the magical 200 mph mark. And almost without a whisper in the wider press. This car was the Pontiac Tojan, America’s blue-collar precursor to the mighty Ferrari and one that was perhaps a little more affordable to most enthusiasts, at around a tenth of the F40’s $400,000 sticker price.

The Tojan story is an interesting one. Founded by Russ Knudsen in 1978, Knudsen Automotive began building “neoclassic” luxury cars along the lines of Great Gatsby–era pastiche designs like the Excalibur. The models were called the Baroque and were based on a GM G-body chassis and drivetrain to create a car that gave modern dynamics with classical styling. This small coachbuilder was keen to move with the times, however, and as the 1980s rolled around, Knudsen looked to see whether it could create something that suited the excessive aesthetic of the period, built once again on a GM-sourced chassis—and with the full blessing and support of the Detroit giant.

With the F-body Trans Am as his muse, Knudsen, alongside stylist Harry Bradley, penned his ideas for a svelte coupe, to be built from glass-reinforced plastic panels. The result is a hybrid construction that features a fiberglass hood, fenders, quarter panels, bumpers, and tailgate, built around the steel shell and doors of the Trans Am. If you squint a bit, you can very much still see the original car and its door swages peeking through, although the resulting design hangs together pretty well, in my humble opinion. Sketches were snail-mailed between Knudsen and Bradley, with little changes being made each way, until they’d managed to fine-tune the look of the thing. And whether you love or hate the final result, there’s no denying that it is both different and very representative of the design influences of the era.

So, they had a design, they had a proven drivetrain, and in 1984 they were ready to press the button on a prototype. The very first car down the line, however, the car that would be used for all of those early motor show outings and brochure photoshoots, needed to hit a little harder, to make a noise in a sea of exotica, so Knudsen brought in fabled forced-induction guru and precision engine builder Gale Banks to create something truly special.

Banks had made a name turbocharging marine engines as far back as the late 1960s, but he also knew how to transfer that engineering prowess into a street-driveable motor. The solution he and Knudsen settled on? To simply drop Banks’ frankly insane, marine-proven 900-hp twin-turbo small-block V-8 into this first machine.

Still able to make a reliable 800 hp on pump fuel, the Tojan suddenly had what it took to create headlines and rock the supercar establishment. The resulting top speed run of this car allegedly took place on a very long, very straight road in Nebraska, easily clicking over 206 mph on the car’s digital speedo. Totally illegal. Totally unofficial. But there it was. The mythical double ton.

There may be a few of you at this point doubting Mr. Knudsen’s anecdotal evidence of this wild achievement, but when you start to examine what Banks was capable of—namely, creating a 1700 hp 454-cid V-8 that clocked 283 mph at a rainy Bonneville in another F-body Trans Am with minimal body mods—then it all starts to enter the realm of believability. Now, 800 hp is a lot of horsepower, and even with the glacial lag of those dustbin-sized turbos, you can imagine that with a road long enough, and a driver brave enough, it’s all decidedly possible. Sorry, Enzo…

So, what happened to these crazy machines? After the success and press splash of the prototype, Knudsen went on to sell another 135 cars, mainly through Pontiac dealers and distributors, and with wildly varying specs that reflected the more bespoke nature of the machines and the intended clientele. Many options were available, like the aforementioned digital dash, a huge Countach-esque rear wing, Recaro seats, Gotti split-rim wheels, and, within reason, anything the customer wanted. Prices ranged from $36,000 to $62,000—and with TV appearances in shows like Miami Vice, Alien Nation, and even the Jay Leno movie Collision Course, the car began to make a name for itself, and for its creators. 

As is almost always the case with these endeavors, and being the boutique manufacturer that they were, the Tojan was never going to be a volume seller, however. With the exception of one supercharged build, not one customer was brave enough to tick the ‘nuclear’ option of the rather expensive, full-fat Banks motor, despite it being an option available on every car. This makes the 200mph car the only one of its kind ever made.

And what happened to that prototype, you ask? Believe it or not, it was shipped to an enthusiast in Poole, England, back in the mid-1980s, where it stayed up until a few years ago, when I was fortunate enough— perhaps persuasive enough—to add it to my collection. I’m delighted to say that Chassis #001 is still in the very rudest of health, although I can also attest that it probably hasn’t been within a sniff of 200 mph in a very long time. A previous engine rebuild many moons ago means that the choice Banks internals are no longer there, and although the car is still quite capable of picking up its skirts and going… eventually, thanks to all that lag, I’ve never been brave enough to drive it through the insane front end lift it generates at 140mph—where safe and legal to do so, of course. That’s plenty of speed for both a 40-year-old car and 50-year-old driver, anyway, don’t you think? 

In this year of 40th anniversaries, it seemed only right to dust the old girl down for her celebration of four decades since this incredible first, and give her another moment in the sun. Our UK friends can expect to see the Tojan in pride of place at this year’s Radwood show, as well as in a slew of magazine and web features throughout the year. I may not have the official timing slip that the guys at Maranello got in 1987, but I’ve got Mr. Knudsen’s word as a gentleman, and Mr. Banks’ mark as an engineer, that I’ve got the world’s first 200-mph production car in the garage. And in my book, that’s even better. 

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We’ve spent a lot of time with Icon’s hand-built, six-figure restomods over the past several years. Well, we’ve spent a bit of time in quite a few of its builds. From 4x4s and pickup trucks to 1000-hp one-offs and battery-powered cruisers with carefully preserved patina, the SoCal outfit has proved it can cover a wide swath of the premium restomod market. Countless rivals have appeared since Icon’s founding in 2007, but Icon has established itself as a shop with high build quality, rich customizability, and a signature style.

Founder and owner Jonathan Ward took us for a spin in the 500th build to come out of his shop in Chatsworth, California, and we took the opportunity to ask him how things have changed since the early days, when Icon was a Land Cruiser specialty shop.

The Platform

“We had a little soul-searching early on. Are we going to have to go disc/drum? Are we going to have to go with a fiberglass body?” The company wasn’t sure if there was a market for the high-end FJ it envisioned. Would Icon have to cut corners?

A friend Ward described as “far smarter and more successful” warned him not to go down that road. “If you build it, they will come,” he assured Ward. The friend backed up his words and signed on to buy the first truck.

The money from the first 12 FJ40s built by Icon was squirreled away to finance the development of the chassis for the next trucks. “The second I had enough cash,” said Ward, “We sat down with Art Morrison. We re-engineered the suspension, the [frame] rails, and the steering geometry. We got Fox Racing involved. That was probably the biggest evolutionary improvement to our product and to this day the biggest differentiator is our ride quality.” The combination of on-road comfort and rock-crawling flexibility of the link suspension is what makes the Jeep Wrangler so successful. When it has that much unsprung mass, a solid-axle 4×4 never feels like driving a modern car, but the ride quality improvement over leaf springs, like the FJ40 and the early Broncos originally had, is huge.

The Process

“We used to receive our axles from our manufacturer in these coffin-sized wooden crates,” Ward explained. “We would pull all the parts needed for the build, take the axles out [of the crates], and fill that crate for the axle with all the parts for the build.”

For the first few years, they built the FJs and BRs that way, with the build techs “dumpster diving” into the wooden crates for the right part. They soon realized the method wasn’t too efficient. The impetus for the current process came after Ward accepted an invite to tour the Pagani factory in Italy. The hypercar manufacturer uses a carousel design to deliver a tray with the customer’s parts just by the staff member entering the associated client number.

Ward researched the Italian manufacturer of the system and found that while the pricey carousel wouldn’t work for his SoCal operation, he could get many of the benefits at a more affordable entry point. Now the parts, organized by model and order of installation, are stocked onto a cart that includes everything needed for that build to make it through the next step in the build process. “Before we start any physical labor, other than tearing apart the original truck, those parts come out and are palletized on that dedicated bay for that client.” Each step in the build happens the same way. Soon after the inventory system was implemented, a proprietary shop management software tied it all into the configurator on the website. “Now, when a customer presses ‘Go’ on their configuration, the software pre-populates all of the purchase orders for all of the content for that specification, saving hours of hassle.”  

New processes have also changed the labor involved in transforming a worn-out project vehicle into an Icon build. Icon’s employees start by training in one or two build processes with a single model, whether it’s the Land Cruiser–based FJ or the Ford Bronco–based BR. Lately, the push has been to cross-train crew members to become certified in all stages for the vehicle line they work on—and also for all stages in the other vehicle lines. The cross-training makes the staff more flexible and allows builds to progress even when people take time off.

Parts and Partnerships

Icon used to make the exhaust system of every truck by hand. The results fit well, but the bender would crease the tubing and Ward always hoped to get a better finish. “Then we started doing our own in stainless and were just hemorrhaging time and money,” he said. Today, Icon has a relationship with Borla, whose Oxnard facility, where the company builds its short-run and prototype products, is just an hour’s drive away. Icon can now offer customers “rowdy or restrained” options depending on their taste.

As Icon’s brand grew, so did its ability to partner with more manufacturers. While the early builds featured off-the-shelf wheels, now Icon works with a U.S. manufacturer to forge four proprietary designs for Icon and Icon only. Those partnerships extend to other components as well. “We used to use off-the-shelf gauges; now we design our own face and typography to match the original but then partnered with a couple of companies, but mostly Dakota Digital, to take advantage of their technology and repeatability.”

Perhaps the best example is Ward’s expansion of textile options when it comes to selecting upholstery for his clients. Two of Ward’s companies he’s recently started, Campfire Coats and The J Ward Collection, are offshoots of his love for textiles and his journey into becoming a master leathercrafter, respectively. He’s visited tanneries in Europe, and in North and South America, and now has access to a wide variety of leather products. Synthetic material choices are also expanding. Chilewich, a woven fabric most commonly seen as placemats in upscale restaurants but also used in commercial and industrial applications, appealed to Ward: “I just thought it looked cool, and it was made in the States.” Ward has grown Icon’s relationship with Chilewich and they collaborate to create custom weaves. He’s also included luxury outdoor textile suppliers like Maharem and Knoll in the upholstery design palette. The antimicrobial, UV, and double-rub-count ratings for durable outdoor fabrics make them a great choice for the interior of a topless 4×4. “The tech specs for what the Four Seasons is gonna put on their patio furniture make automotive specs laughable,” said Ward. “It’s more expensive, but in our volume and that amount of yardage we’re gonna need for a car, nobody cares because it’s so cool.”

We got to see the interior of one of Icon’s current BR builds. “We’ve recently started partnering with one of the few remaining American rug manufacturers,” Ward said, referring to American Dakota. “They do a lot of American Indian partnerships and scholarship programs. Many of their patterns come from American Indian trade blankets. They make seven sizes of all their production rugs. Fortunately, the template pattern cuts for everything I need for my flooring fits within a combination of those seven.” CAD software allows the carpet sizes to be overlaid onto the existing rugs while ensuring the patterns are maintained.

Ward showed us some of the leather weave on one of the Broncos they’re building. The shop can create custom weaves of up to eight colors and even plan specific designs. It can also use a computer program to try out other variations of those same colors and see if anything else sticks. The weave is heat-laminated to an interface to keep it from stretching or distorting. Alcantara has also made interior color matching much better in recent years. “The range of colors they have is nuts,” Ward exclaimed. “It used to be ‘two light brown, two dark brown.’ We were able to get this Alcantara exactly as we wanted it.”

They noticed in early builds that the piping on the interior stitches would be the first to show wear because it stood proud of the seam. A new French double-stitch machine eliminates the need for piping and creates an elegant, flat seam Icon can sew in-house.

Powertrains

We asked Ward about using late-model GM V-8s in its FJ products. “As much as I hear, ‘Why aren’t you putting a Toyota in a Toyota?’ people in the know in the industry, with the engineering and build experience, know that those CANbus network powertrains, outside of their native network, are a disaster,” he explained. Conversely, GM and Ford make it easy to swap in one of its crate engines. Besides that, there’s precedent. “Chevy V-8s have been put into Land Cruisers since there were Land Cruisers,” said Ward. It’s also worth noting that the Toyota inline-six used on the early Land Cruisers was based on a GM engine design.

Icon isn’t buying crate engines from GM, but the two companies have a relationship that allows Icon to get the right engine for the application. “We can mix it up,” Ward said, explaining that his shop can select the engine, front engine accessory drive, and intake that fits a given chassis and engine bay while providing the proper torque curve for a truck. While the early builds used Gen I Chevy small-blocks, they have been supplanted by all-aluminum Gen III engines. “We’ve benefited from riding on GM’s coattails. We just evolved with them.”

“With Ford engines, we buy direct from Ford and have to buy them five at a time. It’s kind of a bummer for cash flow,” Ward joked. Icon uses the production Mustang GT engine, and it’s nice match for the compact Bronco, revving freely and producing an appropriate exhaust note.

Ford is supposedly working on an emissions-compliant Coyote to compete with GM’s E-Rod engines, a prospect that excites Ward. Even though the majority of the vehicles Icon builds are exempt from most emission regulations, each vehicle gets an evaporation system, catalytic converters, and wideband O2 sensors. Power output is still fantastic, and the vehicle doesn’t fill a garage with fumes. Icon designed its own baffled fuel tank and machined a filler neck to work properly with vapor recovery pumps. “To add a rollover valve and the appropriate plumbing for an evap system, at that point, it’s negligent not to do it,” said Ward.

Transmissions have also evolved at Icon. “In the old days, we ran a New Venture 4500. They’re super heavy, they’re super clunky, with 10-foot throws. We developed adapters in partnership with Advance Adapters to run the brilliant, underused, and underloved Aisin Warner AX15 used by Jeep, Toyota, and Dodge. I love the feel of that trans.” The only one he likes better is the Tremec six-speed, which Icon uses on the rear-wheel-driver Thriftmaster trucks. “I’d run Tremecs in everything, but they’re not transfer-case-adapter friendly.”

The Engineering

From bumpers and center consoles to brackets and widgets, Icon has spent years transferring its fabricated designs into computer drafting software. “We’ve constantly been doing this, but we’ve finally gotten to the point that it’s pretty much all done. It’s all locked down in CAD,”  said Ward. That eliminates a lot of hand-fabrication and allows the small but time-consuming parts to be outsourced to regional sheetmetal shops, often those in the aerospace industry. “They have tools I could never afford with my volume,” Ward said. “The results are 100-percent interchangeable parts with fantastic repeatability that are turned around faster and built more affordably than if they’d been tinkered with by hand.”

Icon’s basic rule is to hand-fabricate the first four versions of a new part, evolving it closer to a production part each time. When the prototype reaches its final production form, they lock the design down into a CAD file. If a customer wants a one-off version of an existing part—a custom center console to house a new radio shape, for example—the CAD file can still serve as a starting point.

The Philosophy

Something that hasn’t changed over the last 500 builds is Icon’s philosophy. “I’ve learned in previous business decisions and career moves to protect the ethics, the DNA, and the core values of the brand at sometimes extreme cost. Turn down the collaboration if it waters down the brand,” said Ward. As Icon evolves, the production changes have to pass a set of core tenets, and they often get settled during companywide meetings. Staff have helped guide build processes and add options to the vehicle lines. It boils down to the products looking the part but more importantly, holding up to the promise made by the classic design. “I want the conveniences, the comforts, and the safety,” Ward said, “but only to the line of being able to respect traditional industrial design ethics of simple, strong, longer life, built to last, and built to be fixable.” Icon’s customers believe the same. They still expect modern amenities to a point, and nothing is keeping them from getting seat heaters, a modern sound system, or navigation. “All in all, they don’t want the martyrdom of vintage,” says Ward, “but they want the essence of retro.” Ditch the carburetor, the drum brakes, and the leaf springs, keep the silhouette, the clean interior, and the classic vibe.

The Future

Icon’s products have improved over the years, but what’s next? We asked Ward if Icon’s forays into EVs will result in a production EV 4×4. “There is a mule in development right now,” he replied. The plan is to study what’s out in the market and go the extra mile to fill in the gaps to make it safer, stronger, faster, more reliable, and easier to service. Ward hopes to get all of the details right so that a demanding consumer can jump in and get the experience that they expect. “We’re gonna test it, beat it up, quantify the engineering with a third party, and then put it onto production.” A prototype should be on the road—and off—by early next year.

The post Now on Its 500th Build, Icon Has Embraced Tech While Preserving Classic Design appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Five-year-old Adrienne Peters anxiously waited for dad to come home. Even at that early age, she knew her dad drew cars at work and that he usually came home at night driving something exciting, quite often a shiny new Corvette. But on this day, he pulled up to the family’s home in a big, black GMC crew-cab truck.

“There was something about the truck that I found captivating,” said Adrienne, recalling the beginning of her affair with aggressive black vehicles. “Something special about that truck that I’ve always loved—the presence, the stance,” she added.

It was another aggressive black vehicle that first introduced me to Ms. Peters. Some years ago, at a gathering of car folk on the expansive lawn behind the home of a GM design boss, a matte black Monte Carlo announced its presence with pounding exhaust notes as it came rumbling across the lawn on fat tires, looking like something out of the Mad Max stable.

I was a bit surprised to see Adrienne exit from behind the wheel, but I probably shouldn’t have been, as over many years in Metro Detroit I’ve come to learn that the Motor City car community is a diverse and interesting subculture. Her Monte Carlo was a fascinating work of automotive exuberance, and I’ll get back to that vehicle down the page, but, as I would later learn, the woman behind the wheel was even more interesting.

As I watched, Carolyn Peters—an acquaintance I had previously interviewed for an article about Detroit designers—called out to the Monte Carlo driver, and her words suggested the younger lady was her daughter. Accompanying Carolyn, a designer of automotive interiors and various other works of art, was her husband Tom Peters, a highly esteemed creator of high performance GM sheetmetal. Both Mr. And Mrs. Peters are car buffs who are regularly found behind the wheel of potent domestic hardware.

For a couple of years following that brief encounter, I hoped to learn more about the younger Ms. Peters and her outrageous Monte Carlo. Just recently, I got her to sit still long enough for a telephone interview and a photo shoot.

“It was a lot of fun growing up in a house with parents who were both serious car people and accomplished artists,” Adrienne Peters told me. “My parents’ passion for design extended to the mid-century ranch I grew up in and the art on the walls. But car culture was an integral part of our lives. There was always a cool car in the driveway. On weekends, you would likely find dad in one of his many Ed “Big Daddy” Roth T-shirts, working on intricate scale models of his favorite vehicles. When my parents had their car-designer friends over, I would listen in on their conversations with absolute fascination. I learned about the various eras of car design, design luminaries of the past, form language and much more—all at a very early age.”

Adrienne’s parents encouraged her to follow her passion whatever it might be, and as a young teen, she wanted to follow in their footsteps and design cars. But as much as she liked that role, she claims to have not inherited their artistic ability. So, she set her sights on owning a custom fabricating business, like the Roadster Shop, where she would create cars with steel and aluminum rather than with pencils and clay. She learned basic mechanical skills as she watched, questioned, and assisted her dad as he worked on his ’69 COPO Camaro clone. At 16, she purchased her first car, a ’99 Camaro SS that she equipped with headers, a free flowing (and loud) exhaust, and a cold-air intake system.

She cruised Metro Detroit’s Woodward Avenue, making friends with teens her age who were into muscle cars. She would turn wrenches for anyone who needed a helping hand and she relished problem solving. How many extensions and swivel sockets would it take to fasten the last bolt on that set of headers? She would find a way to do it, working side by side with other enthusiastic young Michiganders. “That was how I got started,” she said. “Working with different personalities and employing various techniques to solve a problem. Skills that translate to any job situation.”

Soon after graduating from high school, she apprenticed at Kustom Creations, an automotive metal fabricating business in Sterling Heights, Michigan. There she learned to form sheetmetal, weld, and create cars with powerful personality.

A car person to the core, Adrienne has owned a number of interesting rides, including a 1978 Silverado with a ten-inch lift, but she had long craved something even more distinctive. She saw an evil-looking ’71 Monte Carlo in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, and started looking for a clean example that she could transform.

“I brainstormed the design of a Monte Carlo muscle car with my dad, Adrienne said. We talked about what it should look like inside and out. As we talked, he sketched.”

She bought a clean rolling chassis from first-generation Monte Carlo specialist Leo Konik of Konik’s Klassics and moved it into the shop at Kustom Creations. There, she disassembled the car, sand blasted the frame and coated it with POR15.

“I did as much of the work myself as I could,’ she said, “including welding up a mini-tub frame modification.” Adrienne also put her metal working skills to good use by fabricating an aluminum dashboard. Fitted with Black Autometer gauges backlit with red, the instrument panel is a clean, dramatic piece.

A six-point roll cage was installed by Kustom Creations co-owner Don Roberts, an NHRA-certified welder. Adrienne had at one time hoped to race regularly, and even skipped field day at her high school to attend a road racing training course. While in college, she spent some time at Frank Hawley’s drag racing school, but life has continuously gotten in the way of any serious effort in organized racing.

But with a 462 cubic-inch big-block Chevy, Airflow Research cylinder heads, a Competition Cams bump stick, Edelbrock intake manifold, headers and a 950-cfm double-pumper carb, the Monte Carlo offers plenty of thrills on the street. A turbo 400 with modified gear ratios and a set of 3.73 rear cogs make it a delight to drive, as long as you’re into loud spine-crushing power.

While the Monte Carlo has now been Adrienne’s passion for more than a dozen years, It’s always been secondary to her career goals, and she has relentlessly pursued opportunities in the automotive industry. She started by earning a degree in Business Management at Oakland University.

Though a full-time student at Oakland, Adrienne still found time between classes to help build some very special cars at Kustom Creations. And at age 19, she took time off to attend the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) show in Las Vegas. “I walked every foot of the convention center, and learned as much as I could about the industry.”

Shortly after graduation, she was hired by Jack Morton Worldwide, a marketing agency, to work on the Chevrolet Racing account. She quickly earned the confidence of her boss and was soon managing a brand experience program at a wide variety of pro racing series events. That role evolved into facilitating Chevrolet’s relationships with racers and the various series management teams.

Her hard work for Chevrolet Racing and the numerous industry contacts she made along the way made her a known player among GM performance executives, and one day she got a call from Roger McCormick, GM’s director of Accessories and Performance Parts Marketing.

“When he asked if I was interested in interviewing for a position at GM headquarters, my whole world kind of stopped,” said Adrienne. She was soon named marketing manager for Chevrolet Performance, her role eventually expanding to include performance parts product marketing and even a stint with the government supplier, GM Defense.

She has had many mentors over the years whom she credits as her inspiration and career champions. In addition to her parents, Jim Campbell, a GM VP on the performance side, Jamie Meyer, her predecessor in the Performance Marketing Manager role, and Kara Brotebeck, her boss at Chevrolet Performance all played considerable roles in Peters’ growth.

And of course there was Herb Fishel, former Executive Director of GM Racing, who said, “Adrienne Peters is blessed with a sixth sense to see a bigger picture and path for achievement. Originating with and fueled by her passion for the racing/high-performance industry, she meets every opportunity with this enthusiasm, and doesn’t lift until the objective is met.”

After putting in the work building her own car from the ground up, working for an agency, and then managing multiple departments for a manufacturer, Adrienne decided it was time to create her own automotive consulting business. She founded Ardent Strategies last year, and now specializes in helping others in the industry share their stories. “It was never just about cars … What really drives the $52 billion automotive aftermarket industry are the stories, communities and innovators behind it,” she says. At 35 years of age, Adrienne already has the background of a seasoned veteran, but those who know her best will tell you she’s just getting started.

***

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Welcome to Homegrown—a limited series about homebuilt cars and the ingenuity of their visionary creators. Do you know a car and builder that might fit the bill? Send us an email to tips@hagerty.com with the subject line HOMEGROWN. Read about more Homegrown creations here. —Ed.

The beauty of constructing a ride at home is that the builder can master his destiny from the tire patches to the roof. That’s how Hagerty member John Augelli, of Watertown, Connecticut, viewed the CORBENZ he created with his buddy Eric Strachan.

By day these two worked as police officers. In their off hours, they toiled over their homegrown ride, investing four years and $80,000 in the effort.

Augelli explains, “When this project started 25 years ago, Eric and I admired the look and feel of the Benz 280SL ‘pagoda’ but longed for the extra guts of a V-8. Simply swapping the German six for an American eight was unimaginative so we connived a more elaborate approach we christened CORBENZ.”

At age 16, Augelli began working on cars, starting with a rust-eradication effort on a ‘59 Ford Country Squire station wagon. “I needed $100 to fund a trip to the Cape so I pitched the repair job and earned the assignment,” he says. “After purchasing a bodywork reference book, a grinder, plastic filler, and steel wool, I went to work. Fortunately, the wagon was white so that my less-than-perfect finished surfaces looked fine.  My persistence yielded a great time at the Cape.”

Thirty-five years later, Augelli had all the skills needed to collaborate with his buddy, who owned the Mercedes SL. “Our donor car was a 1987 Corvette coupe we bought at a salvage auction,” Augelli says. “Most of the Vette’s bodywork was trashed but the parts we were interested in—powertrain, frame, and chassis—were all salvageable. I focused on the labor while Eric covered out-of-pocket expenses—for upholstery, an engine overhaul, chrome plating, and the outside labor that was required.

“Picking the Corvette for running gear made sense because the C4’s wheelbase and track dimensions were close to the 1969 Mercedes we started with. Once I had whacked the lower part of the SL’s unibody structure, there was no turning back. The Corvette also had an aluminum radiator, plastic leaf springs, and aluminum brake calipers, which suited our needs. Its 5.7-liter V-8 with 240 horsepower was mated to a 700R4 automatic transmission. Our goal was tuning this custom’s personality to mimic my loud and obnoxious charm!

“Several of the tasks we faced were challenging.  One was moving the V-8 engine five inches forward in the Corvette chassis. That in turn required relocating the steering linkage for clearance and adding five inches to the long aluminum beam that ties the rear of the transmission to the front of the differential. In addition, the rear wheelhouse openings had to be moved two inches to clear the 17-inch wheels and tires we added. And the original factory headlamps had to be reworked to clear our much wider engine.

“The first test drives occurred in 2004. Practically everything worked as expected with the major exception being GM’s tuned-port electronically controlled fuel injection. After struggling with it for some time, we stripped that off, replacing it with a new more readily tunable Edelbrock four-barrel carburetor and intake manifold.

“Eric enjoyed driving our creation for several years before deciding he’d rather own the 1966 Ford Mustang GT K-code in my garage. After negotiating a swap, my wife and I drove the CORBENZ for thousands of miles. It never ceases to impress enthusiasts we encounter in traffic or at the gas station.

“Entertainment celebrity Howie Mandel once noticed this sports car in Mystic, Connecticut, inquiring if it was for sale! That Cosmos Red finish never hurts.

“Some critic once asked why I messed up such a valuable classic. My answer to him was, ‘Because I could!’”

***

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

The old candy wrappers, soda can pull-tab, and crumpled Bazooka bubble gum comic stuffed into the dashboard ashtray of Jon Stroud’s Rangoon Red 1965 Mustang convertible would likely earn disapproving frowns from car show judges. As the old saying goes, though, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” In this case, the odd bits of trash help unlock a 50-plus-year treasure chest of memories of the car’s original owners, Stroud’s parents.

“Dad smoked a pipe and cigarettes, loved to drink Pepsi, and chewed a lot of gum in the car,” Stroud recalled for Hagerty. “He could change out his pipe tobacco during one stop light. That was talent.”

The assorted detritus was in the ashtray in 1999, when Stroud trailered the Mustang from his parents’ home in Kokomo, Indiana, to his home near Charleston, South Carolina. Both now 82 years old, Richard and Doll Stroud bought the convertible new in August 1964, and Richard used it as a work commuter in three states until 1978. By then, salt used on Indiana’s roads in winter had fueled undercarriage corrosion.

Richard attempted to start repairing the body in his garage but ultimately realized the job would require a professional’s touch. The car would wait 20 years to get it. Once the work was completed, he called Jon to say that he and Doll were moving to a new home in Kokomo, and to ask Jon if he still wanted the Mustang.

Born three years after the Mustang rolled off the line, and in love with it since he was a young boy, Jon did not hesitate with his answer. His bond with the car was established early. “I came home from the hospital in my mother’s arms, in the front seat, because back then they didn’t have protective child seats,” he said. Once he got it to South Carolina, though, the Mustang would mostly sit for yet another 20 years.

“Between starting a family, building a real estate business, getting that business through a recession, and putting two daughters through college, I could never really afford to do anything more on it,” he said. “We finally started the process of getting it back on the road in 2021, and it’s been on the road about two years now.”

Jon gave the Mustang’s mechanicals some major upgrades, including a 302-cid crate motor and automatic overdrive transmission. The changes suited his use of the iconic convertible, which is more than a weekend toy.

“I drive her at least once a week during the spring, summer, and fall, and I take the Mustang to some of my appointments. I don’t drive it long distances, mostly within 10 or 15 miles. My grin is usually so big, I could eat a banana sideways.”

That sentiment is very much what his father felt about the car 60 years ago.

Love at First Sight

Like millions of Americans in 1964, Richard Stroud fell in love with the Mustang at first sight. He had seen photos and TV coverage of the car from its World’s Fair introduction, as well as the torrent of media coverage that followed the car from there.

In August 1964, he spotted a newspaper ad for Saunders Ford in Raleigh, North Carolina, inviting readers to come see the Mustang. He and his wife drove the 80 or so miles from Greenville in their 1956 Chevy Bel Air convertible and found a festive atmosphere when they arrived.

“There was a parade going down the street, and the red Mustang convertible was sitting out front with other new Fords,” Richard said. “It knocked me out. I thought it was the most beautiful car, and I still think it is.”

Richard spoke to a salesman, a man he recognized from his original hometown, Ayden, NC. Despite plans to just look at cars that day, the young couple bought the Mustang on the spot, just a few weeks shy of their one-year wedding anniversary.

“I didn’t know how we were going to pay for it, but I just really wanted it,” Richard said.

Although the original sales documentation has been lost through numerous moves over the decades, Richard remembered paying $3289 for the car, making $69 monthly payments for two years. At the time, he was earning about $10,000 a year working for DuPont.

The Mustang came equipped with the optional 260-cid V-8 and three-speed Cruise-O-Matic automatic transmission. The car’s trim tag also verifies the color and the April 8th build date at the assembly plant in Dearborn, Michigan. Since Mustangs were selling before even reaching dealerships, it is possible this one remained a dealer demonstrator until the Strouds bought it. 

“It certainly got a lot of attention when it was new,” Richard said. 

Factory Basics: 1965 Mustang 260 V-8

The Strouds’ Mustang was made one month after production started, and in the eyes of Mustang buffs, that makes it a “1964.5.” All first-year Mustangs were officially 1965 models, but this unofficial term distinguishes those built before an August transition that ushered in numerous changes on the assembly lines. (To meet much higher demand than originally anticipated, Ford switched its St. Louis plant to augment Dearborn production in June 1964, and the Metuchen, New Jersey, plant switched to building Mustangs in early 1965).

Mechanically, Ford juggled the engine lineup, with the K-code High-Performance 289 the only engine option to carry over to the second-phase ’65s. A 200-cid inline-six replaced the 170, and a 289 two-barrel replaced the 260 two-barrel as the first-level V-8 upgrade. All engines now used an alternator instead of a generator.

The 260 would be the one thing about the Mustang that disappointed Richard.

“I’d driven a friend’s ’65 with the Hi-Po 289 with a four-speed, and boy, did I ever want one. I got on it and was going 80 before I even realized it,” he said.

The 260-powered convertible would have been lucky to do 0–60 in about 11 seconds. The cast-iron V-8, known as the “Fairlane” engine, was compact and light at about 450 pounds. Its 164-horsepower rating was, as common then, an SAE gross figure. True net output might have been around 120 hp.

In the 1970s, Richard tried a little drag racing with the Mustang, but even installing a better ignition and a new intake with a four-barrel carb failed to give the pony car much more gallop. “The real problem was that Ford used finishing nails for valves … I mean, that engine couldn’t breathe!” he said.

For the record, valve size for the 1963–64 260 V-8 was 1.67 inches for intake and 1.45 for exhaust. To make the Mustang at least look a little racier, Richard painted the hood matte black, mimicking the 1969 Mustang Mach 1.

Frequent Flyers

Richard’s Mustang became a mover in a different sense, accompanying the Strouds as they relocated a few times for job changes. The Mustang made the 80-mile roundtrip from Greenville south to a DuPont facility in Kinston, before the family moved to Snow Hill when Doll took a job with the county. Richard later transferred to Seaford, Delaware, to work in the electronics section of DuPont. 

In 1969, with Jon two years old, the Strouds relocated to Kokomo, where Richard worked for Delco Electronics Corporation, a General Motors subsidiary at the time. He commuted with the Mustang for the next nine years. A second son, Michael, was born that year.

“The boys would of course ride in the back, but the car did not come with seat belts,” Richard said. “So, I installed seat belts in the front and the rear.”

Packing the car for long family trips to visit grandparents in North Carolina required another modification. “The trunk was quite small, so I put a rack on the trunk lid to carry the spare tire,” Richard said. “We went back and forth between Kokomo and North Carolina many times with that configuration.”

By 1978, winter road salt had taken such a heavy toll on the Mustang’s undercarriage and rear quarters that Richard parked it in the garage, with about 125,000 miles on the odometer. As a replacement commuter, he bought a beater 1966 Mustang hardtop with the 200-cid six and three-speed stick.

“My brother and I called the ’66 a ‘Rustang,’ because we could see the road going by through holes in the floor on both sides,” Jon recalled. “I remember my dad losing first and reverse gears and having to put his foot out the door so he could push the car down the driveway backwards. At work, management suggested to Dad that he could lose out on promotions until he drove GM cars. I’m sure that ’66 went straight to the crusher.” 

40-Year Journey Back to Health

Richard’s attempt at fixing up the Mustang in the late ’70s did not last long.

“I was a do-it-yourselfer, so I tried a little sandblasting to get it to where I could paint it, but I just wasn’t making much progress.”

He recalled that the car’s side rails were still good, but the convertible-specific center reinforcement plate was beyond repair. Richard realized he was in over his head. The car would remain off the road until 1998, when he brought it to a man in Kokomo who had restored a few classic Mustangs. 

“He did a fantastic job,” recalled Richard. “He repaired the undercarriage and cut the rear quarter panels all the way up to maybe two inches below the top and welded in new panels. He restored and painted the body beautifully.”

After its transfer to Jon in South Carolina, the Mustang would get another long rest before hitting the road—and this time, with much more gusto. Sadly, Jon’s brother passed away in 2012 at age 42.

Pony Express

Jon had a shop in Charleston swap out the tired 260 for a 302-cid crate motor with electronic fuel injection, and a Ford four-speed automatic overdrive transmission replaced the Cruise-O-Matic. The original engine and transmission went into storage. The 302 makes a stout 250 horsepower, or about twice the net output of the original 260 V-8, and the The transmission makes the Mustang a calmer and more efficient highway cruiser, revving around 1500–1600 rpm at 70 mph. 

“I didn’t go with a super high-performance engine, because I wasn’t interested in burning the tires,” Jon explained.

The same shop refreshed the suspension and brakes and installed a set of American Racing 15×7-inch Torq Thrust D wheels.

The Mustang retained its original dash and steering wheel, with some wear and cracking. Here, too, there are memories embedded in the weathered surfaces. Jon bought correct replacement carpeting and had a pro install it. 

Making New Memories, Rekindling Fond Ones

In its new life in South Carolina, the Mustang has been bridging generations while revving up new memories.

“Two years ago, my dad got to ride in the Mustang for the first time since 1978,” Jon said. “I took him to a car show in Mount Pleasant when he was here for Thanksgiving. Once the word got out that he was the original owner, a crowd gathered. Dad said one of the things he enjoyed the most about that day was that he was an absolute rock star. Everyone wanted to hear him talk about that car.”

At a different car show, Jon noticed another Rangoon Red ’65 Mustang convertible. “It had a 289 and automatic. I checked the VIN and saw it was four numbers ahead of mine. So that car was on the line the same day.”

Every drive brings reminders of the car’s specialness. “At almost every stop light, someone tells me about ‘the one that got away’ or a ‘my uncle’s cousin’s dog’s nanny had one,'” he said.

Home buyers in the Charleston area may recognize the Mustang from seeing it parked in front of Jon’s listings, and he sometimes includes the car in photo shoots.

“I sent my dad a photo of the Mustang parked in front of a beautiful home, and he said, ‘Oh, she’s still a beauty.’ So, I replied, ‘You missed the home behind it!’ Then Dad said, ‘I guess the Mustang just overshadowed the house.’”

For Jon, the Mustang is a 50-plus-year-old dream come true, one that bundles priceless childhood memories.

“When I was a boy in Kokomo, every day we left the house to go to school we’d leave through the garage, so I saw that car every day. After Dad had put it in the garage and tried sand-blasting, pretty soon stuff started piling up on top of it. But every day I’d think to myself, ‘One day, I’m going to drive that car.’ Now, every time I go down to my own garage, I get to look at her and smile. It just makes me happy.”

__

Car: 1965 Ford Mustang convertible

Owner: Jon Stroud

Home: Mount Pleasant, South Carolina

Delivery Date: August, 1964

Miles on Car: ~130,000

Are you the original owner of a classic car, or do you know someone who is? Send us a photo and a bit of background to tips@hagerty.com with ORIGINAL OWNER in the subject line—you might get featured in our next installment!

***

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The post Original Owner: An Early Mustang Convertible Is Still Making Memories for the Same Family appeared first on Hagerty Media.

A corner of the hobby born out of the mid-2000s, restomods just keep getting more popular. It’s easy to understand why. Daniel and Rachel van Doveren, owners of Vigilante 4×4 and JeepHeritage, call them “the perfect blend of vintage charm and contemporary performance.” On a recent visit to Vigilante’s Texas Hill Country shop, we got a chance to test that theory firsthand, comparing one of their recently finished restomods with a meticulously restored, mostly stock example.

Typically built on classics from the 1950s-70s, restomods (usually) combine tasteful vintage looks with modern drivetrains, suspension, and brakes underneath. You get many of the benefits of vintage car ownership (style, interior, driving experience, nostalgia) and fewer of the drawbacks (reliability, performance) all in one best-of-both-worlds package. For some, complete authenticity and “just as it left the factory” is still the only acceptable way of doing things, but the stigma around modifying an old car for usability has greatly diminished, and the restomod movement continues to grow.

But not all restomods are created equal. The designation covers vintage Camaros that have been LS-swapped in a neighborhood garage all the way up to seven-figure, multi-year, show-winning builds. And while restomodding for speed and reliability makes sense in a sports or muscle car, what about an old Jeep?

The folks at Vigilante would argue that although nobody else is doing quite what they do, and certainly not at the same caliber, the appeal of a professionally and tastefully done restomod is just as real in a vintage truck or SUV as it is in anything else. If Icon is the restomod master of Ford Broncos and Singer of “reimagining” 964 Porsches, Vigilante is where you go for a thoroughly reworked, high-end, detail-oriented build of your vintage Jeep. Specifically, the SJ-platform Jeeps, like the original Cherokee, Wagoneer, and Gladiator/J-Series pickups.

Their sister brand JeepHeritage, meanwhile, focuses on the resto-ration rather than the resto-modification of Jeep’s full-size favorites. Although they exclusively performed factory-correct restorations at first, the momentum has completely shifted since starting Vigilante 4×4, and Daniel and Rachel say the vast majority of their work currently is on the restomod side. To get a clue as to why that is, how the restomods drive compared to stock, and why these builds get so expensive (a Vigilante build starts at $295K, for a Jeep), we decided to check out their facility and a couple of their recent builds.

Daniel van Doveren is an absolute Jeep freak, which is to be expected. “I’ve never owned any type of car that isn’t a Jeep,” he says. But he’s not a textbook Jeep freak, either. He grew up in Belgium—not exactly truck-central—but there were enough old Jeeps running around to catch his interest, and he started fixing them up in his teens. Eventually, he started finding Jeeps for sale online in the States, making the trip across the Atlantic, and driving them to port to ship home, and fixing the things that inevitably broke along the way. One of his early builds caught the attention of a European Jeep exec who bought it, and it was during one of his Stateside trips that he met Rachel before a concert in Houston.

They stayed in touch. Then she boldly accepted an invitation to tag along while Daniel drove an old Jeep from Kentucky to Texas. The trip must have gone well because Daniel moved to the U.S., they got married, and then started a business together. After a few years running JeepHeritage and performing top-quality restorations on SJ-platform Jeeps (a rare skill in that particular corner of the collector vehicle hobby), they saw another opportunity.

Not everybody knows how to use or maintain a vintage automobile, which is one of the main appeals of a restomod. They also noticed the growing world of high-end, specialty restomod builders that focus on one or two platforms. They’ll readily admit they found inspiration in what Icon 4×4 has done with first-gen Ford Broncos, “but nobody was doing that with Jeeps,” Daniels says. With that gap in the market in mind, and with countless hours soaking up brand knowledge and fixing Jeeps, they started Vigilante 4×4 in 2021. Since then, customer demand has seen them shift most of their attention and effort to the restomod side of the business. So far, they’ve completed 88 projects and currently do about eight builds per year, but are looking to ramp up to 12. Which is a good idea—their wait list currently sits at three years.

“We don’t really have a typical customer,” says Rachel. “They range from die-hard Jeep people to someone who just happened to see one of the finished builds and fell in love with it.” One Cherokee currently being assembled is on its way to a woman who wants a classic, but also wants a reliable and safe way to drive her kids around. Are there cheaper ways to do the school run? Sure, but if you’re going to spend that kind of money, it’s a way cooler mom-flex than a Cullinan or G-Wagen.

Before starting each build, Vigilante 4×4 speaks with the client about their tastes and potential uses for the vehicle, then guides them through the selection of drivetrain, interior features, etc. Sometimes the donor Jeep comes from the client; other times it comes from Vigilante’s own inventory of Jeeps and parts. Daniel says that, thanks to their reputation in the Jeep community, people call constantly looking to offload unwanted old Jeeps.

Then starts the many-months-long process of transforming a vintage Cherokee or Wagoneer into a six-figure custom. And it is quite the process. Vigilante designed and builds its own beefy custom chassis that fits right to the vintage Jeep bodies but is also strong enough to handle up to 1000 horsepower and integrate with all the modern hardware. Dana 44 front and 60 rear axles turn the wheels, and the leaf springs of old are gone, replaced by Fox shocks and coil springs up front, with a multi-link setup in rear. Keeping it in the Mopar family, Vigilante only uses Chrysler engines under the hood. Most get a Mopar 392-cubic inch Hemi crate engine with 485 hp, which seems like plenty, but the Vigilante chassis will handle a Hellcat Redeye engine, and at least one customer has specified a Viper V-10. Vigilantes can apparently also be serviced at any dealership, just like a new Durango SRT.

The body, meanwhile, gets shipped to Europe for finishing, but otherwise Vigilante is a nearly soup-to-nuts operation, and it’s in the details where the work gets truly impressive. In fixing up Jeeps for most of his life, Daniel knows where the problem areas are, and shares that “there was so much room for improvement in a lot of the original designs.” Some of their solutions are obvious, like the bracketry Vigilante came up with to keep batteries from coming loose while driving.

Others aren’t obvious at all. On an old Cherokee, for example, the original door handles were a bit too close to the body to get fingers comfortably around, so Vigilante designed an extender that pushes them out just enough for easier operation. Original Jeep mirrors tended to rattle, so now they’re machined and fit tighter, with the Vigilante logo subtly stamped into the end of the stalk. Vintage manual window winders can look nice, but cranking them isn’t exactly fun, so Vigilante devised a power window setup that keeps the old winder but raises or lowers the window by flicking it up or down. I wouldn’t have noticed any of these things without having them pointed out, but that’s why they call it attention to detail.

Vigilante also strikes the right balance of offering real improvements while staying true to heritage and having the right look. The steering ratio on the restomods is tighter, so the steering wheel is smaller, but it looks just like a shrunk-down version of the original. The wheels, meanwhile, need to be larger than original to clear the brakes, so they’re scaled-up versions of the originals that look just right in their finish and proportions. No giant, tacky chrome rims here.

Gauges are upgraded but original-looking as well, and the original radio remains in place, but has been rewired to connect to Bluetooth. Shift knobs show the gate pattern of a modern six-speed, but do so in the original Jeep style. The upholstery is of a higher quality than Jeep used, but Vigilante is still careful to get the color and texture right. Many of the improvements and additions that Vigilante makes are also possible thanks to CAD, 3D scanning and 3D printing, which was all far less accessible technology even just a decade ago.

It’s all deeply impressive stuff, and that sky-high price tag is starting to make more sense. But how does this long list of upgrades really compare to Jeeps as they would have rolled out of the factory in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s? To find out, I drove a stock 1980 Cherokee, with very much of-the-period Bordeaux Metallic paint and Golden Hawk graphics, back to back with a 1977 Cherokee four-door that Vigilante has made all-new from the skin down.

The Golden Hawk has gotten JeepHeritage’s Stage Two build, which means “stock platform, impeccable restoration with a couple of upgrades,” including four-wheel disc brakes, tighter steering and a plusher interior, in this instance. It’s nevertheless much as it would have been in 1980, with a 360-cubic inch AMC V-8 and three-speed auto providing motivation. But because it has also had six figures worth of JeepHeritage’s attention, it feels tight as a drum, and clean. There’s no denying you’re sitting in a 40-plus-year-old truck by the look of everything, but conspicuously absent are the squeaks, rattles and funny smells I’m used to experiencing when sitting in a rig of this vintage.

What is familiar is the lazy sound of a Malaise Era V-8 on startup and its gentle waft forward after the also-familiar engagement of an old column-shift automatic. Aside from V-8 burble, there aren’t many other noises coming from the Golden Hawk. It feels like a fresh, well-screwed-together restoration, but it still drives like a Jeep from 1980. Vague steering and a feeling of disconnection from the road, compared to a car, are to be expected. As is the nudge from a crosswind since, after all, the body has the shape (and in this case, color) of a big brick. The AMC 360 was rated at 175 hp when new and it does move the Golden Hawk up and down the Hill Country without running out of steam, but also without real urgency. Nobody gets nostalgic for old brakes, so the big discs are a welcome addition here, taking nothing away from the old school sensations while providing a modern-feeling stopping distance when you need it. This would make a great vintage cruiser for the lake, beach, or slow Sunday drive.

The 1977 Cherokee four-door, meanwhile, is a different animal under similar skin. It has gotten the full Vigilante treatment, which means new chassis, suspension, and 392 Hemi under the old school body. At the twist of an old key, it fires up with a modern growl. After setting off, moving through a few bends and punching it down a few straight bits, perhaps the most surprising thing is how similar it feels to the stock Cherokee. And this is a pleasant surprise. When you hear something has a completely new chassis and drivetrain underneath, part of you expects it to feel like a twenty-first century skateboard dressed in old sheetmetal. Here, though, it just feels like a much tighter, more responsive, and completely dialed in version of the Golden Hawk, on some steroids. If you put on a blindfold and drove it you’d still know you were driving a classic.

That said, the modern power and suspension make everything a lot more exciting. Although there’s no arguing with physics and this is still a tall body-on-frame truck, the steering is far more communicative and precise than the Golden Hawk. So is the ride over bumps and through corners, thanks to twenty-first century suspension. The 392 engine offers plenty of punch and feels fast, but the Cherokee still feels planted and controlled under hard acceleration. It’s not scary, just entertaining. I can’t say the same for one of the Hellcat-powered Vigilantes, but I didn’t drive one of those.

A six-speed manual is a surprisingly popular option for Vigilante 4×4’s customers. Indeed, the majority opt for it. But you don’t need to row your own gears to have fun in this thing. Just like the mostly stock Golden Eagle, this would also be a great way to get around on summer adventures, but each trip would be a lot more entertaining.

Does it feel like a $300K-plus vehicle? After a day, no. Not really. But, after let’s say a week of appreciating all the clever details, the huge list of little improvements and the levels of care that go into each one, I’d probably change my mind.

After seeing Vigilante Jeeps and similar-quality builds up close, it looks like these top-tier, professional restomods can justify their sky-high price tags for a few reasons. First and most obvious is the quality: The fit and finish is superb, everything feels premium and well thought out, and no corner-cutting is visible on a closer inspection. Second is the attention to detail and thoroughness of the improvements over stock, not just in performance and reliability but also in comfort, convenience, usability, and style. Third is striking the right balance between thorough upgrades and staying true to the original vehicle’s heritage, which really isn’t easy to do. Somehow, Vigilante 4×4 manages to do all three.

The post At This Meticulous Texas Shop, There Are Two Ways to Skin a Jeep appeared first on Hagerty Media.

“There I am, living in Essex, in the East of England, with a red T-Bird driving to the local McDonald’s for a Big Mac and vanilla milkshake with the roof down, listening to ’50s music. Everybody was staring. I couldn’t be more American if I tried. I only used the T-Bird one time, and that was it, even though it had been my dream car since I was five years old.

I’m from Detroit, a city driven by Motown music and the car industry, so if you’re going to talk cars I’m your girl from the automobile center of the world. Growing up, we did a lot of road trips as a family in my dad’s old-fashioned Chevy wagon. I was one of five kids and it was a car that you could fit all of us in. We didn’t take trains or buses, back then it would have been too expensive.

We took a lot of trips to California and Florida. My mother would bring fresh fruit and water, and we would sing all the way. It was a way to pass the time, but I think it probably did have a huge influence on me. We were all musical, so everybody knew their note to sing within the structure of a song. If somebody missed a note, the others would cover it. You don’t ever get a blend like you do with a family; it’s a strange, intuitive thing. It’s a really nice memory from my youth, and whenever we get together today, we automatically go into song. It’s hilarious.

At the age of five and a half I saw Elvis on TV and said I’m going to do that. I had an epiphany. When I was 14 [in 1964] I started playing in a band with my sisters [the Pleasure Seekers] and we were on the road right away. We were very popular and got signed, but in 1971 the band changed name and format. It was called Cradle and instead of me being the person up front singing 99 percent of the songs, I was kind of shoved to the back with the bass guitar.

Mickey Most, an important producer from the U.K., saw the band and offered me a solo contract. The contract meant me going to England to record, which I did. I had my first hit in 1973 and bought my first car in 1974. It was a blue 280SL Mercedes. It was a car with history.

Engelbert Humperdinck, who I know quite well, had bought the Mercedes for his wife, but then his wife wanted something different, so he sold it to [producer] Mike Chapman. I bought it from Mike with my ex-husband, Lenny, who was my guitar player. I didn’t realize until after we got it, but a clairvoyant predicted I was going to come to England and buy a blue sports car. I’d seen her out of fun and forgot what she wrote down in this notebook, until I found it again.

I used the 280SL for everything. It was a great little car, a really sought-after design that had a lot of power. It sat real low down but it was comfortable to drive. I’m small so I would sit up high in the seat so I could see. Lenny didn’t learn to drive until about 1975, however. I taught him in the band’s station wagon that we used to move equipment to and from gigs. 

We sold the Mercedes, but it’s not the one that got away. The Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow we bought in 1976 isn’t, either. I picked it up in London and could not stop my nose from going up in the air as I drove it home. I will always remember that, there’s nothing quite like a Rolls-Royce; it’s the perfect car for the U.K. and its non-existent class system! I used it to go to the laundrette with the kids strapped in the back in their baby seats, and if we wanted to have a social night and have a drink, I’d hire a driver so that we could get home safely.

The one that got away, that was the ’57 T-Bird. My love affair with the Thunderbird started when I was five years old. My best friend lived next door, and her father got one when it first came out so it was always on the driveway next to ours. It just had something about it—I can’t explain it any better than that. People will tell you the ’57 T-Bird is a classic and to me, it’s one of the prettiest cars ever made. It’s American design at its best. 

When I got one, it felt fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. Me and my husband, [Rainer], who I have been with for 30 years now, used to go to Florida on vacation, and in 1994 he decided he wanted to go to a car shop while we were there. I said, for Christ’s sake, I’m from Detroit, do you think I really need to go to a car shop when I’m in Miami? But we went anyway and I ended up buying my dream ’57 T-Bird!

I looked at it and went, ‘Oh my god’, and all of a sudden I’m buying it—after complaining about the fact that I didn’t want to go to the car shop! I paid around $15,000, took it back to the hotel where I was staying, parked it out front and then took it back to the dealer. They shipped it to the U.K. for me. I totally trusted the process, but it felt quite something when I was reunited with it in England. The T-Bird was in its original condition, and I loved the fact that it was authentic. Nothing had been upgraded. It had a white interior, whitewall tires, and it handled beautifully. It was definitely cool.

I thought the T-Bird was going to be my forever car, but it just sat in my garage. The one time I took it out was that trip to the local McDonald’s. I put the top down and took it to the drive-in—is there any other way to enjoy a vintage American convertible? But it just didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel like an ‘England’ car, so after about a year, I got rid of it. It just wasn’t what I thought it was going to be, and maybe it proved to me that sometimes you shouldn’t realize your dreams. But at least I got to find out!”

***

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The post The One That Got Away: For Suzi Quatro, the T-Bird Never Felt Right appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Say you just bought a fine-looking, Rally Red 1967 Corvette convertible. Naturally, you take it to a car show. As you’re backing into your assigned spot, a number of people gather around. You shut down the engine, and the bystanders ask you to open the hood of the Vette.

Then it dawns on you why they are anxious to see the engine. The “stinger” hood of your Corvette says the engine beneath it is a big-block 427. Your car’s exhaust note says otherwise. The attendees see the car—and you—as a fraud. And they are correct: Your Corvette’s engine is a slightly hopped-up small-block 327, but a previous owner bolted on that super-cool stinger hood and “off-road” side pipes. The car sure looks like a 427, but it is, in fact, a faux big-block … which is why you got the car for an affordable price.

This was me the first time—and every time after that—I entered my newly acquired ’67 ‘Vette in a collector-car show. I loved the look of that stinger hood but was uncomfortable with the unintended deception. I would jump out, pop the hood, and explain that it had been installed by a previous owner. I wasn’t trying to fool anyone … as if I could. That small-block ran well and sounded good—but it didn’t sound like a muscular big-block. Show-goers would nod, not saying much, and walk away, pleased to have detected and exposed fraud on the show field. Corvette collectors, I soon learned, take authenticity very seriously. As they should.

At that stage of my life, I thought I was done with the old-car hobby. I hadn’t owned an old car since the gorgeous ’67 Cadillac Eldorado I had for a while in the late ‘70s and the beautiful ’70 1/2 Chevy Camaro I had bought new, kept, and driven aggressively until I got married in 1982 and moved to California, with its high home prices (both good stories for other times). I had no more time, money, or energy for old cars and had grown tired of maintaining and working on them.

That ’67 was my second Corvette after the well-used ’57 I drove during my senior year in high school (another good story). As a busy auto writer and part-time racer, I reviewed new Corvettes and enjoyed more than a few adventures road-racing them. I sure didn’t need to own a Corvette, especially an old one.

In 1998, I founded a car show at Michigan State University that evolved the following year into the “Cars on Campus” (COC) invitational concours d’elegance. I attended shows all over Michigan looking for cars to invite to the growing event. After recruiting for most of the summer, I decided that talking to proud collector-car owners and inviting them to show their special cars at our event would be easier if I were an entrant rather than simply a spectator.

I started looking for a good collector car, and I found this relatively low-mileage, fairly good-condition ’67 (alleged) 427 ‘Vette roadster in the “For Sale” lot at a big show at the old Packard Proving Grounds in Shelby Township, Michigan. (The C2 has always been my favorite old Corvette and, for multiple reasons, the five-gill ’67 my favorite C2.)

I got the owner’s contact info and hurried home to discuss the purchase with my wife Jill, a long-time Corvette lover who happened to have a 2000 C5 convertible, wearing Michigan State University green, in our garage at the time. I was hoping she would go with me to take a good look at and drive the ’67, and, if we decided to buy it, agree to split the price and co-own the car. And she did! I can’t recall or locate any record of how much we paid for that car in June 2000, but I think it was something under $30K.

We joined the Michigan chapter of a national Corvette club and drove the ’67 up to one of the club’s events in Traverse City. While there, we enjoyed a rocking George Thorogood & the Destroyers concert at a hotel/casino and each happily pocketed the $20 the casino gave us to gamble. (We figured that driving a newly acquired 33-year-old Corvette there and back would be enough of a thrill.)

The Corvette performed well but showed some rough edges along the way. For starters, it was annoyingly noisy at freeway speeds. Yes, it was delicious, small-block, side-exhaust-V-8 noise, but the volume got old after a while. Water leaked into the cabin between the top and windshield when we encountered rain, and we had to manually pop up the headlamps at night. The brakes were barely there, the manual steering built some muscle, the window cranks were clunky, and the four-speed manual shifter was loose and cranky. At least the vertically mounted aftermarket AM/FM radio I had installed—with great difficulty—to replace the dysfunctional original unit worked fine!

Though she loves Corvettes, Jill quickly lost interest in driving the ’67. I took it to some other shows, including Cars on Campus at Michigan State, where I would park it, then busy myself running the event, thus avoiding the need to explain its faux 427 status. I decided to get its many flaws attended to by fellow journalist and friend Don Sherman. He had just restored his own (real) big-block ’67, a former drag car, and had written an excellent book about it, and he had volunteered to fix everything he could on ours for a reasonable hourly rate. I purchased a set of spiffy, cast-aluminum wheels that looked like the ’67 optional originals, along with replica redline radial tires to greatly improve the car’s look, ride, and handling, and delivered the car to Sherman’s house.

Don proved to be as good a Corvette mechanic as he was a writer. It’s too much detail to recount here, but he provided a running record of everything he did, from fixing the backup light, the pop-up-headlamps, and the door latches to adjusting the parking brake, steering, and shift linkages to installing my new wheels and tires and a new fuel tank (the original leaked), refurbishing the inside door panels, and resealing the engine oil pan to resolve some minor oil leakage.

Sherman also discovered that the car had some repaired crash damage on the driver’s side, and he communicated with the guy we bought it from to research its non-stock engine. It turned out that the car had been built with the base, 300-hp 327, but a previous owner had installed valve covers, an intake manifold, a higher-redline tach, and maybe a camshaft from an optional 350-hp engine, plus an aftermarket reproduction Edelbrock carburetor, to make it look like an L29 350. Happily, Don found that the engine block was original and its insides “fastidiously clean.”

The following May, ace auction announcer, historic car appraiser, and friend Ed Lucas, “after thoroughly examining this restored automobile and subsequently researching the information provided,” estimated our ’67 Corvette’s replacement value between $42,500 and $45,000. “It is obvious from inspecting this vehicle that it has received excellent care and maintenance and is in overall very good condition with low total mileage,” he wrote in his appraisal. “There is little or no evidence of wear or abuse.”

“Overall,” the report concluded, “the engine compartment is very clean, the exterior chrome and paint are in very good condition, and there is no evidence of underside rust… In fact, the undercarriage has been detailed… As a final point, it should be considered that this is a numbers-matching vehicle showing only 38,680 miles on the odometer.”

By then, “Cars on Campus” Concours had grown (with a great deal of work) into a very nice 200-car show on a field next to the president’s house on MSU’s beautiful campus. The event ended after 2002 when the university wanted more money and reduced its support. I was keeping the ’67 in a farmer’s barn (along with my 1991 Buick Reatta ragtop, another good story) a few miles from our home and took it out only occasionally.

One of those occasions each year was the “Rolling Sculpture” car show in downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan, where Sherman (who worked there for Automobile magazine at the time) saved a place for ours next to his beautifully restored big-block ’67 ‘Vette. They were chromatic opposites—ours red with black on its stinger hood, his black with red—and attracted a lot of attention parked there side-by-side.

We finally sold the ’67 in 2006 when we bought an early-build “captured fleet” Pontiac Solstice for a very friendly price. Hardly an appropriate substitution, I know, but I had just written a book on that model, my wife had fallen in love with it, and we were a little tired (again) of the hassle and expense of old-car ownership. Besides being a beautiful, fine-handling, fun-to-drive, and affordable little sports car, the Solstice also came with a full factory warranty.

I have no high-speed, hard-driving, or close-call experiences to relate from my time with that ’67 Corvette. Unlike in my youth, as a highly responsible adult uninterested in taking chances or collecting tickets, I drove it like the valuable collectible it was. I also can’t find or recall how much we sold it for, but (given Lucas’ appraisal), I think it was something over $40K. Not bad for a six-year run with a really cool classic Corvette, even if it was a faux 427.

***

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Perhaps more than any other car company, Porsche faced enormous change in the period from 1960 to ’70. On the road, the seminal 356 gave way to the definitive 911, and Porsche finally went mass-market with the 914. The changes on track were even bigger.

At the beginning of the ’60s, Porsche raced the pocket-sized, class-competitive, four-cylinder 718. By the end of the ’60s, it had the 12-cylinder, all-conquering 917. The years in between saw a rapid succession of newer, better, faster prototype racers. The 908 was one of them, and it wound up being among the most successful and versatile race cars Porsche ever built. Which really is saying something. Among those 908s, this 908/02 Spyder, up for auction next week, has one of the best résumés of any 908.

In 1968, with the FIA changing the displacement for its Group 6 prototype category to an F1-sized 3 liters, Porsche further developed its 907 (a 2.2-liter car) and adapted it to accept a new 3.0-liter unit. They called the new racer, naturally, the 908. Air-cooled and with two-valves per cylinder, its new flat-eight made about 350 hp for most of its career, and although this was less than the output from some of its F1-derived competition like Ferrari and Matra, the Porsche eight was meant from the get-go to last a full endurance race, not just a relatively short Grand Prix. The 908 was also a very light car, typically less than 1500 pounds.

Early 908s were streamlined longtail coupes. They were drop-dead gorgeous but also unstable at speed, terrifying to drive, and prone to numerous teething problems. Regular aerodynamic tweaks with flaps and appendages changed the 908’s appearance drastically in a short time, but the results for it in the 1968 season were mixed, although Porsche did finish second in the World Sportscar Championship.

In 1969, Porsche was forging ahead with the brand-new 917, but nevertheless further developed the 908 into the 908/02, which was not a coupe but an open short-tail spyder. As it did the year before, Porsche continually tweaked the 908’s bodywork for better aerodynamics. One of the most important trips to the Stuttgart wind tunnel resulted in the Flunder (Flounder) body, nicknamed for its flatter, fishier appearance, including the nearly enclosed passenger area. The new shape debuted at the Nürburgring 1000km and won, notching Porsche’s third straight victory at the event. Porsche also won the World Sportscar Championship in 1969, mostly thanks to the 908, although one of the longtail coupes finished just 120 meters behind the winning Gulf Ford GT40 at Le Mans.

A new version, the 908/03, debuted for 1970, with Porsche aiming to use the more nimble 908 on tracks less suited to the powerful 917. The two-car strategy worked, and Porsche won the World Sportscar Championship in both 1970 and 1971. Rule changes for 1972 left the 5.0-liter 917 effectively banned, and the 3-liter category became the fastest class, but Porsche nevertheless sold off its 908s to customers. Remarkably, a privately entered 908 finished third at Le Mans in 1972, and others were competitive into the early 1980s, by then running turbocharged engines. At the Nürburgring 1000km, a Porsche 908 took the checkered flag in three different decades—four straight wins from 1968–71, and again in 1980.

This 908, chassis 908/02.005, started out as a factory 908/02 spyder. It first raced at Sebring in 1969, then was used as a training car for the Targa Florio, which Porsche won. Later in the year, it went to the Martini International Racing team and for the 1970 season got the more enveloping Flunder bodywork. It raced at Sebring, Brands Hatch, Monza, the Targa Florio, and Spa, where it notched a class win.

For Le Mans, its shape was further revised with longtail rear bodywork better suited for Le Mans’ high average speeds. It was also fitted with a transmission oil cooler (an overheated gearbox forced another Flunder to retire from Le Mans the year before). The Martini team fielded a single 917, done up in its famous blue and green psychedelic livery, along with 908/02.005 plus another 908/02. That other 908 crashed in qualifying, though, and 005 started the race way back in 22nd place. Drivers Rudi Lins and Helmut Marko piloted the spyder quickly and consistently, however, and by midnight they were up to sixth place and leading their class. By late the next morning they were a remarkable second place overall. A wheel nut stuck during two consecutive pit stops and cost precious time, but by the end of the 24-hour slog, they crossed the finish in third overall, still first in class, and won the Index of Performance, an award for efficiency. Martini’s other car, the hippy-fied 917, finished in second. Not bad for a team that had only started racing in 1968. The overall win, of course, went to the Porsche-Salzburg team’s 917, marking Porsche’s first overall win at Le Mans. This 908 was a big part of that effort, and it is even shown in a few scenes from Steve McQueen’s 1971 movie Le Mans as well.

908/02.005’s racing career stopped after its Le Mans triumph, and the car went into several Swiss race car collections before being acquired by noted Porsche collector Julio Palmaz, who also owned the Porsche-Salzburg 1970-winning 917. After going to the current owner in the 2010s, 005 has had significant restoration work, including a complete rebuild of the engine, to get it race-ready.

Porsche built barely 30 908s of all types, and they’re coveted both for their historical significance and for being usable vintage racers, so they don’t pop up for sale often. A longtail coupe sold last June for €1,885,620 (about $2M), and another 908/02 factory car with a similar resume but no Le Mans win sold in Monterey two years ago for $4,185,000. A 908/03 also sold at Monterey in 2017 for $3,757,000, and Bonhams sold this very same 908/02.005 10 years ago for £2,185,500 ($3.4M). This time around, it’s the headline car of the all-Porsche Air|Water auction, and has a presale estimate of $4.75M–$5.75M.

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Imagine 10 days filled with temperatures that plummet to near -40 degrees Fahrenheit, white-out conditions that make your Midwestern upbringing seem like child’s play, and up to 650 miles per day of driving on snow- and ice-covered roads that are—at best—mediocre. This is the Alcan 5000 Rally, a 5000-mile time-speed-distance (TSD) competition that my husband, Andy, and I tackled earlier this year in an Ineos Grenadier Trialmaster 4×4.

Formed in 2017, Ineos Automotive is a new automaker manufacturing purpose-built, utilitarian 4x4s, and the Grenadier is its first model. (The second is the Quartermaster pickup, and a smaller SUV, the Fusilier, is on the way.) The U.K.-based company sells the Grenadier globally, and North American units went on sale early this year. The grueling Alcan Rally is exactly the type of challenge the Grenadier is built to conquer.

The 2024 Alcan Rally departed from Kirkland, Washington on February 21 and snaked its way through British Columbia and Alberta to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. Teams then headed westward to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, before hitting Fairbanks, Alaska, an optional jaunt to Coldfoot, then down to Valdez, before finishing in Anchorage.

From prototype to podium, the burgeoning auto manufacturer risked it all for a chance to win—and it succeeded. But the win didn’t come without challenges.

Learning While Doing

Andy and I are seasoned travelers and are prepared for nearly every season. We started competing in TSD rallies in 2018. These types of rallies aren’t sliding-sideways, go-fast competitions, but rather events based on precision. Teams must reference a route book written by the rallymaster to travel at specific speeds, follow exact directions, and arrive at certain points at intended times. The more seconds or minutes they are off a rallymaster’s “perfect zero time,” the more points they earn, and the further down in the ranking they fall. Teams with the closest scores to the rallymaster’s perfect time at the end of the event win.

We successfully completed the 2020 winter Alcan 5000 Rally as privateers with our right-hand-drive diesel 1991 Mitsubishi Pajero. In 2022, we partnered with Subaru of America and piloted their new Outback Wilderness for our first summer Alcan 5000. For 2024, when we partnered with Ineos Automotive, we were the guinea pigs.

Our rally vehicle was a production-model Grenadier Trialmaster, which sells for approximately $90,000, including the roof rack, LED light bar, rock sliders, and rear ladder. This was Andy’s first time driving a Grenadier, especially over thousands of miles of pock-marked ice- and snow-covered roads. However, I had driven the diesel and gas 2B prototypes in France in early 2022. (Ineos Automotive first started building Grenadiers with 1B and 2B prototypes, then progressed with production try-out iterations, named PTOs for short. These included three rounds: PTO1s, PTO2s, and finally the most refined prototypes, the PTO3.) I was the first journalist from the Western Hemisphere to drive left-hand-drive and right-hand-drive diesel and gas 2B prototypes off-road. I later piloted the European production-spec models in Scotland in January the following year. I drove from Inverness to Glasgow, where the trek consisted of the natural environment with no premade off-road courses.

Andy and I did a lot of research on the Grenadier before leaving for the rally, relying on theineosforum.com and on our friend Ben Meddows, who owns an early production-model diesel Grenadier. It turns out our production-model Grenadier had a later software iteration than others. The infotainment center’s Unit menu lacked the ability to change from mph to km/h. We were also told by Ineos the speedometer registered three miles-per-hour too fast.

Though the rally was mainly run in Canada, which uses kilometers, the route book and its incremental odometer readings used miles. No one knew what our Grenadier’s digital display would register once we crossed the border into Canada. Would its front-facing camera automatically read the speed limits in kilometers? We would have to learn and adjust while on the move. Thankfully, the camera kept clear, even during blinding snow and road closures, like those from the Richardson Highway over Thompson Pass, on the way to and from Valdez, Alaska.

Quick Stats

“The Ineos Grenadier Trialmaster has a turbocharged BMW B58 3.0-liter inline-six,” Andy said. “It’s used in a host of vehicles already, so it is a proven entity.” (The diesel powerplant is not offered in the states.) The Grenadier has a 115-inch wheelbase, a body-on-frame ladder chassis, heavy-duty shocks and solid front and rear axles, a 7000-pound towing capacity, and 10.4 inches of ground clearance. The vehicle kept us planted, even when severe cross winds wanted to blow us off ice-laden highways.

“The Grenadier made short work of the deep snow and ruts on the ice racing track at Northwest Territories’ Great Slave Lake,” Andy said. “The course favored vehicles with more ground clearance. We took third place in the Grenadier! The ground clearance allowed us to not worry about potholes, frost heaves, and things in the road. Having adequate ground clearance was a nice advantage.”

The Grenadier features a manually operated two-speed transfer case with 4H and 4L (the latter offers a 2.5:1 gear reduction ratio and is produced by Tremec), electronically actuated front and rear differential lockers with mechanical engagement, as well as a standard center-locking differential.

Our Grenadier also had a front-mounted RED winch, factory-optional rock sliders, rear access ladder, and a Rhino-Rack Pioneer platform roof rack that housed two jerrycans and four Maxtrax vehicle recovery boards.

“The roof rack is very big, very sturdy, and easy to stand on,” Andy said. “I do wish the ladder had some grip tape on it to make it less slippery, especially in the snow. But the ladder feels secure and solid—it never feels wobbly or thin. It is very sturdy.”

We also used Rugged Radios handheld radios for rally communications and carried along Factor 55 vehicle recovery gear.

The Grenadier’s Interior

The Ineos Grenadier sports comfortable Recaro seats. Controls are arranged in a simple center stack and in a ceiling panel studded with oversized buttons. “The buttons are large and easy to press, even if you are wearing gloves,” Andy said, “which allows easier use of some of the functions.” All three Grenadier trim levels—the base model, the Fieldmaster, and the Trialmaster—showcase off-road functions on an innovative ceiling-mounted panel. From deep-water fording and off-road mode to locker engagements and auxiliary lighting controls, it’s a command area focused on getting a Grenadier where it belongs: off the beaten path.

The four-door SUV also features a unique rear-cargo L-track system coupled with D-rings for ratcheting gear in place. Our Grenadier was supplied with eyelets that can move around on the L-track. That gave us lots of opportunities for securing cargo, which is important during a rally competition. D-rings are located throughout the rear cargo area and in both rear door jambs—a welcome surprise that proved instrumental in keeping cargo secured. “I don’t know why more manufacturers don’t use the L-track system. It’s simple to use and works just brilliantly,” Andy said. Not only did this system keep our cargo secure during ice racing, but it also kept it in place when we unexpectedly braked for a pilot truck that told us to stop for an oncoming semi carrying 22-foot-wide construction steel girders on the Dalton Highway.

Crossing into Canada

As we passed through the border, our Grenadier still gave us our speed in miles per hour but visually showed us speed signs in kilometers per hour. Additionally, a speed warning sounded whenever we exceeded specific prescribed speeds in kph—not mph.

I wrote up a mph-to-km/h cheat sheet on my navigation board for Andy to reference at a moment’s notice. Doing the conversions wasn’t a big issue for us; at the time, we owned three right-hand-drive turbodiesel Mitsubishi 4x4s. Those vehicles only have speedometers that read in km/h, so we’re familiar with most of the major speed-limit conversions.

When we talked to Ineos about the issue, the company assured us it should be fixed with a later software update. So, we drove with the Grenadier running the speedometer in miles and referenced the speed warning clicks, my cheat sheet, and our GPS odometer along the way.

Overall Driving Impressions

“The vehicle is built really well,” Andy said. “The build quality seems high, everything seems solid. The doors close with a resounding thunk, and everything has a nice sort of haptic feel to it. All the things that move have this well-made, premium feel. It was also quite comfortable.”

From a driving perspective, the suspension was great on bad roads, potholes, and over massive cracks. “When you’re going 50, 60, and 70 miles an hour, it doesn’t upset the chassis,” he said. “Some solid-axle vehicles offer a rubbery kickback or an uncontrolled feeling. But the Grenadier is planted and performs well at speed.”

The Grenadier Trialmaster trim normally comes with BFGoodrich KO2 all-terrain tires, but we opted for dedicated snow and ice tires, per the rules of the Alcan Rally. “The Michelin X-Ice SNOW tires do really well in the snow,” Andy said. “They don’t appear to have really big lugs or deep grooves, but don’t judge a book by its cover because they really did well, even though they were studless.”

Engine Performance

The BMW six in our Grenadier had plenty of power and good torque. “We never were longing for more,” Andy said. “The engine allowed us to get past people quickly. It also allowed us to cruise comfortably at speeds over 70 miles an hour to make miles. The ZF eight-speed transmission is well suited to that engine, too. It performed admirably.”

Using manual mode allowed Andy to hold the prescribed speed better than in full automatic; in automatic mode, the Grenadier displayed a tendency to speed up or slow down if he held a gear and a specific rpm. Manual mode allowed our team to be more competitive in the TSD sections where holding a consistent speed is important.

Things to Improve

“We had good front and side visibility out of the Grenadier,” Andy mentioned. “The rear visibility is not stellar because of the 70/30 split door plus the glass is smallish. Additionally, there is a rear ladder and a single wiper that is hard to access as it’s stuck behind the spare tire. The windows and wiper are difficult to get clean when iced up.”

Andy and I learned that we could only use our grille lights in off-road mode. And off-road mode turned off automatically when we surpassed approximately 30 or 35 mph, cutting power to those lights. This made it more difficult to see wildlife in low-light conditions. Off-road mode also shuts off certain safety features, like traction control, stability control, and so on, for better off-road performance. However, when we hit the magic speed, those systems would come back, changing the driving dynamics of the SUV. We’d like to see the grille lights be approved by the DOT so that they can be used at any time, not just in off-road mode. We’d also appreciate it if the Grenadier would warn the driver that off-road mode was about to shut off so that they could prepare for the switch.

Noted Quirks

“I felt the ergonomics were a little bit of a mixed bag. The steering wheel worked really well—it feels really great in the hands. All the controls in the steering wheel work very well. Your odometer reset is on the end of the stalk, which is easy,” Andy said.

“However, some of the buttons on the climate control are hard to use. It has a three-dial system, which is easy and intuitive, but the climate control is quirky and takes a while to change from the face to the feet, and the feet to defrost, et cetera. The defroster or ‘demister’ works very well, but it only has one speed, which is very high. So, when you have to defrost or de-ice the windscreen or windows, you have to go full blast all the time. That gets irritating on your eyes, but it does work well. The heater is very hot, but there doesn’t seem to be much other than very hot or very cold.” We hope this system will be better adjusted.

The Grenadier’s infotainment is finicky, has too many menus, and requires a steep learning curve. Operating the transfer case takes some getting used to, as well. “It’s not just a standard pattern where it’s back or back and forth. You don’t pull it back to put it in,” Andy said. “There’s an H pattern to it, so it’s more like a Land Rover. That’s something I needed to get used to. Also, the locker engagement can be a bit tricky and take some getting used to.”

Try It, Test It, Win It

Andy’s tip to anybody who buys a Grenadier is to go out and test it, whether that’s in a field, during the Alcan 5000 glancing at moose, or in your driveway. Learn how the four-wheel drive system works. Learn how off-road mode work mode works. Familiarize yourself with the infotainment, because the system is not cookie-cutter. A lot of the systems on a Grenadier operate differently than a traditional four-wheel-drive vehicle, such as a Wrangler or a Bronco. “Spend the time,” says Andy, “get to know it, and I think you’ll be rewarded.”

The Ineos Grenadier Trialmaster 4×4 is wonderfully utilitarian and a great mix of off-road performance, utility, and style. We scrambled our way to the top of our class, taking the win over 16 other trucks and SUVs in the 2 SOP (Seat of Pants) segment. We also came in 10th overall of 36 total teams. Andy and I also earned Go Farther and Arctic awards for completing all optional extreme endurance routes and for successfully completing the competition. All this from a young-gun automaker and a husband-and-wife rally team willing to go the extra mile, deep into the frozen abyss, to test a vehicle’s capabilities.

***

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The post Ineos Grenadier Wins Class at 2024 Alcan 5000 Rally appeared first on Hagerty Media.

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

Of all the months in the calendar, April is forever aligned with the Ford Mustang. Mustang aficionados may already know April 17 as National Mustang Day, with this year’s date marking the 60^th anniversary of the pony car’s splash debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair.

The connections are stronger yet within my own family. April 22, 2024, marks 36 years to the day that my dad first parked a Rangoon Red ’65 Mustang convertible in his garage. This April, in an incredibly emotional and devastating turn of events, was also the first time I’ve parked it in my own garage.

You probably have some sense of the Mustang’s history, how Ford product planners and designers captured lightning in a bottle. This sporty yet attainable car resonated with young (and young-at-heart) buyers and sparked an absolute sales frenzy. Twelve months after its introduction, Ford had built and sold over 400,000 Mustangs. By March of 1966, that figure eclipsed the million-car mark.

In 1965 alone, Ford built 559,451 Mustangs, with convertibles accounting for roughly 13 percent of that sum. By those numbers alone, my dad’s car isn’t anything particularly special. Data, however, doesn’t capture what this car means to me.

I don’t know when Dad first felt the call of the Mustang. Maybe it was exposure to Ford’s ad blitz that hit when he was just nine years old. Maybe it happened much later, when he helped my uncle wrench on a rather downtrodden example. Or through riding around in a Mustang owned by his good friend Clark. All I know is that he finally heeded the call in April of 1988—a month after my second birthday and only a few months before my younger brother entered the world.

At first glance, Dad’s Mustang looks like a Mustang GT equipped with the high-revving K-code 289 “Hi-Po” V-8, deluxe interior package, and other desirable options. The reality: It’s enough of a Frankenstang to make a Mustang Club of America concours judge erupt with palpitations.

Hagerty’s 1964-1966 Mustang buyers guide notes that, should concours-grade purity not be a personal goal, the early Mustang’s robust aftermarket parts support (and relatively simple design on which to wrench) make retroactively spec’ing a car to taste a fairly straightforward affair. Heck, in late 1965, Ford was itself running ads suggesting Mustang owners head to their local FoMoCo parts counter and retrofit some GT gear.

That’s exactly what our previous owner did, starting with a standard-grade Rangoon Red 289 convertible as the foundation. In went the Pony Interior and the Rally Pac. On went the styled steel wheels, the exhaust trumpets, the fog lamps, and the rocker striping. The mix-and-match didn’t stop with cosmetics, either: the four-speed toploader manual transmission was pulled from a ’66 car, the 8-inch rear axle salvaged from a ’67 Mustang, and the aluminum bell housing cribbed from some Ford product made in the early 1970s.

Dad may not have had all those date codes mapped when he bought the car, but he knew full well that it wasn’t a bonafide GT on his hands. That lack of provenance did not bother him one bit. I suspect that, with a growing family at home, a true numbers-matching K-code car would have been out of his reach. If it wasn’t, the provenance and value of such a thing might have spooked him out of regularly driving the car.

I’m grateful that we ended up with a pick-a-part pony car, because our family sure drove this Mustang.

My brother and I have—quite literally—a lifetime of memories with Dad and his car. Quick summer trips to the Dairy Queen on a hot summer’s night. Saturday afternoon road trips, exploring the winding back roads of northern Oakland County in Michigan as we snaked past inland lakes, apple orchards, abandoned gravel quarries, and Ford’s own proving grounds. My brother and I got our hands dirty helping Dad replace the rear leaf springs and trying, but ultimately failing, to grasp the intricate, dark art of carburetor tuning.

In later years, after patiently teaching both sons how to operate a manual transmission, Dad began regularly passing driving duties to us, the next generation. Initially he’d toss us the keys on our weekend rambles together, and over time, that led to trusting us enough to venture out on our own. He was gracious enough to repeatedly loan me the car, whether it was to incorporate it into my day job as an auto journalist or simply take my now-wife out for a cruise down Woodward Avenue.

The memories of this car are deeply ingrained in me, so much so that when I ordered a red Ford drop-top of my own—a 2022 Bronco—I picked a similar shade of red paint and added a handful of retro touches to visually tie the two cars together. Dad and I were looking forward to staging our two red Ford convertibles together for a quick photo shoot.

As it so often does, life had other plans. He passed unexpectedly last October, leaving an enormous gap in our hearts. And, per his wishes, the Mustang found its first new custodian in four decades—me. Bittersweet to say the very least.

***

These days, I find myself asking questions to which there are no clear answers. Do I really deserve this car? Am I worthy of being the caretaker for our family’s red Mustang? Who can I turn to for advice and for help swinging wrenches, now that my go-to guy isn’t around? What would Dad want me to do with his car, anyway?

The best answer I have for that last question: Just go. Drive it. Enjoy it.

I want to do all of that, but I also want to protect the car from harm. Maintenance comes first, then.

My initial, cursory exploration beneath the car revealed it to be remarkably solid, considering the Mustang spent its entire life in Michigan. Dad cared more about regular service and maintenance than cosmetic perfection, and my intent is to continue this approach. What it deserves is to be a basic driver treated with respect—nothing fancy.

Above all, I feel compelled to introduce the Mustang to the next generation. Much like Dad found himself 36 years ago, I’m now the parent of a car-crazy two-year-old who is incessantly asking “Dada, we go Mustang ride now?” I’m not overly fond of tradition, but this seems like the best kind to carry on.

That might take a bit of work. This car is rapidly approaching 60 years old, last had a substantial overhaul roughly 40 years ago, and wears its fair share of nicks, dents, scratches, and other imperfections. Having essentially sat for at least a year and a half, it’s going to need a little bit of TLC before we start using it even for short jaunts.

Despite knowing this car like the back of my hand, I’ve continued to discover new details or learn new things about our Mustang in the months since Dad’s passing. Scanned copies of National Parts Depot receipts, indicating what work he performed in recent years. A yellow folder holding the original bill of sale from 1988. (Interestingly, his most recent insurance policy continued to cite that original purchase price for its agreed value—a sum Mustang values have far eclipsed in recent years.) A printed email chain from two years ago shows the work Dad put into refurbishing the brake system, including adding a dual-reservoir master cylinder, but a random receipt in another folder indicates that the last time it received new tires was in 2012. New rubber is a necessity at this point.

So that’s the task at hand. If you find yourself in Michigan this summer, staring at a red Mustang convertible that’s a little rough around the edges—to say nothing of its driver—be sure to wave and say hi. And if you’re open to swinging a wrench and helping me tackle a growing to-do list? Well, that’d be great, too.

***

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With the launch of the new 2024 Land Cruiser, Toyota attempted to get back to the roots of its globally beloved offroader. The new Land Cruiser is set to be priced much lower than the previous generation, meaning you might actually see one out on the trails getting muddy. But quietly, Toyota also released a mildly updated version of the 70-Series Land Cruiser from the 1980s. Outside of Japan, it’s only sold to the public only at Australian Toyota dealerships, although you can actually buy one in North America. The one caveat: you have to own a mine.

Well, technically, so long as your 70-Series stays off public roads, you’re in the clear. But it’s at gold and copper mines, and nearly every type of resource extraction site across the globe, that you can spot Land Cruisers working alongside huge dump trucks and excavators. Land Cruisers crawl slowly through the darkness, or down into open pit mines. Some go into the inky black underworld brand new and don’t emerge again until they are bound for the boneyard. They are almost universally 70-Series models, Land Cruisers of the old school, simple in construction and as tough as the business end of a pickaxe.

“It’s an important example of commercial usage of the Land Cruiser,” says Dan Busey of the Land Cruiser Heritage Museum in Salt Lake City, Utah, “My understanding is that they’re the only things tough enough to survive the extremely harsh environment in a mine.”

A few years ago, the museum acquired a 2012 Land Cruiser modified by Miller Technology of North Bay, Ontario. Just over a decade old and with the equivalent of 36,000 miles on the odometer, it looks like it spent that decade on the surface of Mars. It’s rusty, battered, slightly bowed in the middle, and absolutely covered in the dust and dirt of a mine. But despite the tattered seats and bare bones interior, there’s something magnificent about it. This is no shiny Range Rover parked on Rodeo Drive. This is a working truck, tired after its last shift, but still tough as nails.

Miller Technology is just one of a handful of specialist mining equipment manufacturers that prepare Land Cruisers for the rough and tumble of mineral extraction. The Toyotas come directly from Japan, in a very basic cab and chassis form, and are heavily modified for their purpose. They can be set up with cranes or booms for mechanics working on huge mining equipment, are sometimes fitted with armor to protect the roof from falling rocks, can be built to carry as many as eight passengers to and from the rock face, or kitted out with a scissor lift.

Replacing the bumpers with heavy steel units is standard fare for an industry where stuff often ends up hitting other stuff. Perhaps a more technologically interesting upgrade is the sealed wet-clutch brakes, which are encased in housings that prevent dust and debris from scoring the rotors.

Depending on the application, Miller Tech can also swap out the diesel powertrain for a battery pack and electric drive. Standard equipment on these 70-series workhorses is the Toyota 1HZ, a 4.2L inline six that is good for about 130 hp and 210 lb-ft of torque, and has the working lifespan of Stonehenge. Swapping to electric allows for reduced emissions in confined spaces, but is very expensive, essentially doubling the cost. According to Miller Tech, the demand ebbs and flows depending on specific projects and available government grants.

Around the world, this generation of Land Cruiser and the contemporary Hilux pickup have cemented Toyota’s reputation for incredible durability and endurance offroad. Probably the best example is the Harb al-Tūtūya, or Great Toyota War of 1987, in which a bunch of irregular forces in Toyotas threw the well-equipped occupying Libyan forces out of Chad. You find Land Cruisers in the most desolate places in the world, from the sands of the world’s deserts to the emptiness of the Australian Outback.

Patrick Redmond is a geologist, and has worked in and around mining and mineral exploration around the world. He recounts buying a couple of Land Cruisers for cash in a market in Mongolia, the way all mining Toyotas in South America seem to be painted red for unknown reasons, and the first time he drove a long wheelbase one in Australia and nearly hit a kangaroo.

“In the Outback, a Land Cruiser is basically your lifeline,” he says.

But underground is even tougher. Copper mining, for instance, is an acidic process, and the equipment that works in a copper mine is under constant attack on a molecular-level. In this kind of environment, even a Land Cruiser might only last a few years before partially dissolving into scrap. There’s no sentimentality here: these Toyotas are bought, consumed, and then sent to the boneyard. It’s not legal to road-register them as they do not conform to regulations governing crash protection or emissions controls.

But that simplicity makes them tough. With roll-up windows and barely any electronics governing the diesel engine, this generation of Land Cruiser is exactly the kind of machine that gave its nameplate a global reputation. Land Rover owners know that their rigs are up for adventure—but you’d better bring your toolkit and wiring diagram along. A 70-Series Land Cruiser is like a shovel. You can break it, but you really have to work at it.

The life of a mining Land Cruiser is nasty, brutish, and short. The industry average is just five years of service. Looking at the Land Cruiser Heritage Museum’s example, you can see why they don’t last long, at least compared to civilian use. It’s just that nearly everything else mining operations has tried to use just fails under pressure even faster.

Back on the earth’s surface, between the perils of kangaroos and the ruggedness of pretty much any location outside of any city limits, it’s perhaps no surprise that Toyota still sells its 70-Series brand-new down under. An entry-level Land Cruiser workmate-grade starts from under seventy thousand dollary-doos, or just over $40,000 in U.S. currency.

For that kind of money, you have to think that Toyota would sell a few commercial-application Land Cruisers here, rather than buyers have to go through companies like Miller Tech. Sure, the Land Cruiser would have to get the same pass on governmental regulations that it does in Australia, but it’s at least theoretically possible.

On the plus side, the continued use of the 70-Series as a working truck does mean that Toyota still makes parts available. If you have a Land Cruiser of this vintage, you already know that it’s as tough as the axe of Gimli, son of Glóin. A strength forged in steel, capable of delving beneath the earth, only coming out again when the job is done.

***

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The post The Underland Cruiser: Toyota’s 70-Series Land Cruiser Is a Mining Workhorse appeared first on Hagerty Media.

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

Ford built the one-millionth Mustang 11 months after introducing the sporty compact sensation at the World’s Fair in Queens, New York, on April 17, 1964. The Mustang’s broad appeal crossed demographic boundaries, feeding voracious market demand that kept three auto plants humming.

Many drivers dreamed of owning a Mustang, including 16-year-old Bill Whitmire in Dennison, Ohio, a tiny rural town about 95 miles south of Cleveland. The young man became smitten with the Mustang after seeing photos and TV coverage from its World’s Fair introduction. While others fantasized, he planned. At the time, Whitmire was bagging groceries and stocking shelves at the local IGA supermarket, saving all he could to buy a car.

Fitting with Ford’s “Total Performance” mantra in the 1960s, the automaker added the 271-horsepower High-Performance 289-cubic-inch V-8 to the Mustang’s option roster in summer, 1964. That’s when Whitmire decided on his target car: a fastback with that engine, plus the GT package. The High-Performance 289 (“Hi-Po” for short) was indicated by a K as the fifth character in the vehicle identification number, hence the nickname, “K-code.”

That combination would not be available in a Mustang until the following year, which would be good timing for Whitmire. The fastback reached Ford dealers in September 1964 as part of a switchover from the early cars, commonly referred to as “1964.5″ models, to those produced starting in August. (All were titled as 1965s, however.) The GT package seen on the World’s Fair fastback display car arrived in time for the Mustang’s one-year anniversary in April 1965.

“I just loved that fastback design,” Whitmire recalled for Hagerty. “I wanted a four-speed and the most horsepower they had. The Vintage Burgundy color was an easy decision for me, and I chose the Palomino interior.”

Fifty-nine years later, Whitmire still owns his ’65 Mustang GT, which served a daily driver and a weekend drag racer for more than 10 years. “I never intended to keep the car this long. I took really good care of it and kept it preserved because I loved it,” he said.

After long and proper storage, Whitmire had the Mustang repainted in 2002, and he refreshed and upgraded the mechanicals from 2015 to 2023. He and his wife, Kathy, still take his classic Mustang out for plenty of exercise and also enjoy driving a 2022 Mustang GT that they plan to drag-race. Along the way, the ’65 became an important family memory-maker.

Ford Family

Whitmire grew up in a “Ford family” at a time when Big Three and AMC brand loyalties ran deep.

“Dad always owned Fords and worked on his own cars,” he said. “My older brother drag-raced a couple of ’55 and ’56 Fords. I helped when he worked on them.”

Being around fast cars made young Bill want his own. At 14, he began doing odd jobs for neighbors—mowing grass, cleaning out garages, painting, and washing windows. Just before his 16th birthday, he landed a supermarket job and his first steady paycheck.

“I didn’t buy anything I didn’t need, because I knew I wanted to buy a car when I turned 17. I was able to save just a little over a thousand dollars, but my dad was confident enough in me that he took out a loan to help me get the Mustang. I paid him $70 per month for 30 months. That was a lot back then. I still have the loan papers he signed. He also promised my brother and me that if we bought our own cars, he’d put them on his insurance policy.”

Insurance, though, became a sticky issue. A month after adding Bill’s new car, his father’s entire policy was cancelled due to the Mustang’s high-performance engine. A second company that accepted them knowing about the Mustang ultimately cancelled two months later.

“My dad never complained about it to me. We eventually got insurance,” Whitmire said.

The Price of Power

On June 14, 1965, around high school graduation, Whitmire ordered his Mustang from Harry Humphries Ford in New Philadelphia, Ohio, leaving a $100 deposit. He paid another $500 in early July and then the balance of $2495 when he took delivery mid-month, for a $3095 total. He turned 18 that October.

Aside from those three receipts, Whitmire no longer has other sale documentation. So, we did some math. The K-code engine package was pricey at $334, and that was in addition to the mandatory cost of ordering it over a base V-8 model—$2697 in the 1965 fastback’s case. The mandatory four-speed added another $188. (A three-speed automatic was available for ’66 and ’67 K-code Mustangs.) The GT package, if you wanted it, was $165. That totaled $3384, so it seems Whitmire got a discount of about $290.

Despite Ford’s “Total Performance” hoopla, performance options were rarely ordered on first-gen Mustangs. The base V-8 was popular, but buyers scooped up just 7273 K-code Mustangs for 1965 (including “1964.5” cars), then 5469 for 1966. Just 489 were ordered in 1967, when the new optional 390-cubic-inch big-block V-8 delivered more bang for the buck. Out of 1.7 million 1965–67 Mustangs made, fewer than 1 percent were K-codes.

Factory Basics: 1965 Mustang GT 2+2

Ford referred to the Mustang fastback as the 2+2, borrowing a term from Ferrari. The Mustang brochure even boasted, “Europe no longer has a monopoly on this kind of flair and fire.”

The 2+2 added practicality. When lowered, the fold-down rear seatback formed a carpeted luggage area that could extend into the trunk to carry long items, including skis. Functional louvers on the C-pillars opened from the inside to improve flow-through ventilation.

Engine options were the same as for the other body styles, which, starting in September 1964 included a standard 200-cubic-inch six replacing the 170; a 289 two-barrel replacing the 260 V-8; a high-compression A-code 289 four-barrel replacing the low-compression D-code, and the High-Performance 289 continuing. That engine was, of course, the one Carroll Shelby’s operation tweaked for more output in the 289 Cobra and Mustang GT350.

With just over 77,000 produced for 1965, the fastback outpaced the convertible by about 4000 and would continue to do so by an increasingly wide margin through 1973 (including Mach 1 models).

What Made the K-code 289 Tick

The K-code 289 option debuted in the 1963 Fairlane and seemed a natural for the lighter Mustang. It earned the “High Performance” label, starting with 10.5:1 compression versus 10:1 for the A-code 289. The two engines shared small-ish valve sizes (1.78-inch intake and 1.45-inch exhaust), though the K-code’s were operated by a solid-lifter flat-tappet camshaft, versus hydraulic in the A-code. A 600-cfm Autolite 4100 four-barrel carburetor was topped by an open-element air cleaner, and header-type manifolds bolted to a dual-exhaust system.

A beefier nodular-iron crankshaft and stronger connecting rods ensured durability for hard usage, while a dual-point distributor gave reliable spark for the 6000-plus rpm the K-code could deliver. Ford rated output at 271 hp at 6000 rpm and 312 lb-ft of torque at 3400 rpm, a healthy bump over the A-code’s 225 hp at 4800 rpm and 305 lb-ft at 3200 rpm (SAE gross ratings.)

Ordering the K-code 289 also netted the buyer the Special Handling Package, with higher-rate springs, heavy-duty shocks, a thicker front anti-roll bar, quicker manual steering, and 6.95 x 14-inch dual-red-stripe tires.

Pony Express

Testing a 1965 Mustang K-code fastback equipped with the 3.89:1 axle ratio, Motor Trend found the 289 revved easily to 6500 rpm, which was sky-high for an American V-8 at the time. The testers found the car gave its best performance when shifted at 6000 rpm: 0–60 in 7.6 seconds, the quarter-mile in 15.9 seconds at 89 mph, and a 120-mph top speed. Car Life magazine recorded similar times.

Whitmire’s car came with the more highway-friendly 3.50:1 axle ratio, which the auto magazines estimated would have added a few mph to the top speed while sacrificing just a bit on acceleration. A base-model Pontiac GTO could beat a K-code Mustang in a drag race, but the much lighter Mustang (about 3000 pounds) would do better on a twisty road.

The GT package available with the A- and K-code V-8s added the dual-exhaust system with the “trumpet” tailpipe extensions poking through the rear valance panel; Special Handling Package (already included with K-code); front disc brakes; rocker panel stripes; grille-mounted fog lamps, and a five-dial instrument panel replacing the horizontal speedometer. (That panel became standard on 1966 Mustangs.)

Daily Driver, Weekend Racer

Whitmire bought his Mustang as a daily driver, though it hibernated in the winter months while he drove an old pickup. In exchange for cleaning out his next-door neighbor’s garage, she let Whitmire store his Mustang there in winter.

Whitmire had not originally intended to race the Mustang but soon found himself on many weekends heading to Magnolia Dragway, about 25 miles from home. “I had the racing bug. The Mustang eventually ended up with headers and slicks, and I changed to a lower axle ratio and put traction bars on it. I welded those to the inside of the frame rails, but they’re off now. I’d tow the Mustang to the track with my pickup.”

Appropriately enough, Whitmire recalled racing the Mustang in K-Stock. “I also raced at National Trail Raceway in Columbus and Dragway 42 in West Salem. I learned to power-shift, and that four-speed Top Loader would take it. Mine was one of the faster Mustangs at the tracks. I raced it for over 10 years, and I couldn’t guess how many quarter-mile trips it made!”

More Drag Racing

After high school, Whitmire spent 40 years working for a construction manufacturing company, including 25 in management positions. He followed retirement from that with 15 years as service manager for a Harley-Davidson dealer.

With the Mustang retired from racing in the late ’70s, Whitmire built a Thunderbolt clone from a ’64 Fairlane, giving it a 460-cubic-inch Ford big-block he’d pulled from a junkyard Lincoln. He called the car “Backyard Bolt” and raced it until 1989.

He sold the Backyard Bolt and bought a 1987 Thunderbird Top Sportsman car, basically a steel tube chassis with a fiberglass body, and raced in NHRA Comp until 1999. “In 1997, I won the Comp Championship at Norwalk Dragway [now Summit Motorsports Park]. “I was voted ‘Most Improved Driver of the Year.’ That basically meant you were really bad the year before or you got really lucky the year you won.”

Rest And Revival

The Mustang went into careful garage storage, with occasional drives. Whitmire and his second wife, Kathy, later moved into a new development near southwest Cleveland. The 2002 repaint (with no rust repair needed) was still looking fresh in 2015 when he decided to go through the car mechanically, adding some upgrades. The interior remains original.

“My main reason for upgrading the car was the possibility that one of my daughters will end up with it, so I wanted it to be a reliable driver,” he said.

Notably, the original K-code 289 has never been rebuilt. Whitmire cleaned and painted the exhaust manifolds and had a new dual exhaust system installed. The car got new motor and transmission mounts, along with a new alternator, water pump, pulleys, a re-cored radiator, and a five-blade fan. Whitmire had the transmission rebuilt and added a Gear Vendors overdrive. The rebuilt Equa-Lock limited-slip differential retains a 3.50:1 axle ratio.

The original steering box was rebuilt in 2015, gaining aftermarket electric assist in 2020. Brakes and suspension were serviced and refurbished, and the car rolls on new BFGoodrich radials. Finishing touches included a new stereo and speakers, LED headlights that look like the original sealed-beam units, and ceramic coating on the paint and wheels.

While working on his ’65 Mustang, Whitmire ordered a 50th anniversary 2015 Mustang GT (#336 out of 1964 built). He installed a Roush supercharger but later sold the car to the builder of his home development, who had a car collection. The man had first offered to buy the ’65 for $70,000, but Whitmire was a firm ‘No.’

“I just didn’t want to part with it. I kept telling myself, ‘It’s the first new car you bought. Hang onto it.’”

Mustang Memories

Hagerty: Was the Mustang the only car you wanted, or did you consider anything else?

Whitmire: I really didn’t know until they introduced it at the World’s Fair in New York. If you had TV, you at least got to see it.

Hagerty: How did your father feel about you choosing the K-code Mustang when you were 17?

Whitmire: He trusted me to have the high-power engine. He understood that we were all car people in the family.

Hagerty: What was that first summer after high school like with a brand-new Hi-Po Mustang?

Whitmire: With my high-school buddies, it was the hit of the summer. I remember many races and a couple of tickets from squealing my tires when taking off. We didn’t have a Dairy Queen, but we had a root beer stand and an ice cream parlor where the kids hung out. It was a lot of fun.

Hagerty: How did this Mustang become such an important part of your family?

Whitmire: We’ve just had a lot of history and a lot of fun with that car. It’s one reason it won’t be for sale until grandpa passes. I taught both of my daughters to drive stick-shift in the Mustang. They each later got Mustangs of their own. My older daughter still has the ’66 coupe that I bought in bad shape and fixed up. The younger one had a ’74 Mustang II. My two oldest granddaughters, now 25 and 19, also learned to drive stick-shift in my ’65. My grandson is five and a half and loves the Mustang. He calls it his race car.

As an aside, when I married Kathy, she had a 1964.5 Skylight Blue coupe with a white roof that she’d bought in the 1970s. She has since given it to her daughter, but it’s still parked in a garage that we own.

Hagerty: Were there any memorable family trips in your GT?

Whitmire: With my first wife and the two girls, we used to drive it to Florida once a year in March to visit my mother-in-law. It being a fastback, the back seats were low, and my daughters couldn’t see out. I made a platform from 3/8-inch plywood, with fold-down legs. I’d fold down the back seat, lay the platform on the carpet, and the two legs would sit on the floor behind the front seats. We’d throw a couple of big, thick blankets and a pillow or two on the plywood and let the girls ride back there the whole way. I would never do that today!

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Car: 1965 Ford Mustang GT Fastback K-code

Owner: Bill Whitmire

Home: Grafton, Ohio

Delivery Date: July 15, 1965

Miles on Car: ~83,500

Are you the original owner of a classic car, or do you know someone who is? Send us a photo and a bit of background to tips@hagerty.com with ORIGINAL OWNER in the subject line—you might get featured in our next installment!

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Of all the years Fiat chose to launch its new Spider sports car, it had to pick 1966. If the Italian giant had gone either side of this with its pert roadster, it would surely have garnered far more coverage and, perhaps, would be more widely regarded in today’s classic world. Instead, the 124 Spider arrived headlong into the whirlwind surrounding the Alfa Romeo Spider that had broken cover at the Geneva motor show earlier in the year, while Fiat waited until the Turin show toward the end of 1966 for its big reveal.

Both cars came from the Pininfarina studio, and while the Alfa was styled by Battista Pininfarina (the last car designed by him), the Fiat 124 Spider was the work of Dutch-American designer Tom Tjaarda. Undoubtedly pretty and the epitome of what a compact sporting roadster should be, the 124 was based on the same platform as the 124 coupe, but with a shortened wheelbase to keep the proportions spot on.

When you opened the hood, the twin-cam engine was nestled in there snug, and upon launch, the 1438-cc unit made 90 hp. It was initially mated to a torque tube transmission, but in 1969 that was dropped, as it was prone to cracking, and it was replaced by a standard propshaft. Also in 1969, the 1.4-liter engine was upgraded to a 1608-cc twin-cam making 110 hp. It was just as perky as its predecessor, but a small hood bulge was needed to clear its twin carburetors. More engine upgrades followed in 1972, when the 1592cc and 1756cc engines from Fiat’s 132 range were fitted to the Spider, creating a new 1800 model alongside the existing 1600 version.

Also in 1972 came the 124 Abarth Rallye, a homologation special to take the 124 Spider into European competition. It came with a 128-hp 1.8-liter twin-cam motor, coil-spring rear suspension, a roll cage, and lightweight body panels made from aluminum and fiberglass. In full rally-ready trim, the Abarth Rallye could be ordered with as much as 170 hp from the factory, but only 1013 were made to qualify it for competition, and it was regarded as too loud and coarse as a road car. Very few exist in the U.S.

In the 124 Spider’s second decade, a second chapter began. European and other markets were cut off as Fiat concentrated on the U.S., where the car had always enjoyed its best sales. However, American-spec Spiders came with a measly 86 hp from their 1.8-liter engines, and federal crash regulations necessitated a slightly lifted ride height and larger bumpers mid-decade. For 1979, the car was fitted with a carbuereted 2.0-liter engine, still making 86 hp, and was rebadged as the Fiat Spider 2000. Fuel injection was introduced midway through 1980, which upped output to 102 hp.

Fiat also offered a turbocharged version of the 124 Spider in 1981. The conversions were carried out by Legend Industries in New York and it is estimated that about 700 were built, complete with Cromodora alloy wheels and unique badging. The turbo increased power to 125 hp. Meanwhile, European customers could once again order the 124, then called the Spider Europa, with a 105-hp 2.0-liter engine.

In European markets, there was one last throw of the dice for the aging Fiat when the carmaker offered a supercharged version of the 2.0, which bumped output to 135 hp. Only about 500 were built. Fiat had already exited the U.S. market by 1983, but the cars soldiered on under the Pininfarina Azzurra badge. The two-seater finally ended production in 1985, two decades after it debuted. All were made with left-hand drive, but several were converted to right-hand drive for the U.K. market using 124 coupe parts.

What’s a 124 Spider Like to Drive?

When it came to two-seat affordable roadsters in the mid-1960s, buyers were spoiled for choice. At first glance, given the 124’s specs, Fiat didn’t do much to make the Spider stand out from that crowd. However, the 90-hp 1.4-liter engine thrives on revs, so you have to work it quite hard. Driven this way, it sounds good thanks to the induction noise from the carb and the exhaust note, and it has a bit more bass and growl than you’d expect from a small-capacity four-cylinder.

The five-speed manual gearbox has a pleasingly accurate feel, and the ratios are spread evenly to make the most of the engine’s power. Off the mark, an early Spider could cover 0–60mph in 10.9 seconds and top out at 109 mph, but more relevant today is that you can easily keep up with modern traffic. This makes the Fiat a very usable classic, regardless of which engine you choose, though the 1.8s of the late ’70s are fairly gutless.

Whichever engine you prefer, the rear-drive setup of the 124 Spider makes it enjoyable to sift through a series of corners to find the limits of the car. Turn-in is good and there’s plenty of mid-corner grip and steering feel. You’re unlikely to experience any oversteer, unless the tires are worn or the road is greasy, so the 124 Spider is a car anyone can drive with confidence, especially as it is aided by disc brakes all-around. It’s also decent at flowing with the road over bumps and, at the risk of upsetting MG drivers, is smoother and more refined than a B roadster.

With the top up in a car that has been looked after, you shouldn’t find any rain getting in past the seals. There is a fair degree of wind noise, which is true of any of the 124’s rivals, but the top is quick and easy to operate. You also get a decent trunk, and there’s more storage behind the seats on a bench that is optimistically trimmed as if it might accommodate children. It won’t. The rest of the Spider’s cabin is simple and easy to live with, though you will have to remember the heater controls are quirkily placed down by the handbrake lever.

Valuation

Any Fiat 124 Spider in running order but in need of work to the mechanics and cosmetics (#4 “Fair” condition) will cost around $6000. As with most classic cars, it’s wiser to look at increasing your budget to buy one in better condition than it is to spend far more sorting a rough car. A 124 Spider in decent order that you can use and enjoy, without worrying about it going out in the rain (#3 “Good”), will cost around $13,000 for a 2.0-liter model, and around the same for a 1.6- or 1.8-liter car. Meanwhile, a fully sorted, concours-quality 1.4 will eclipse $30,000.

What to Look for in a 124?

There are no particular weak spots with the Fiat 124 Spider, beyond the usual problems any classic roadster from this period can experience. Namely, rust. Cars from dry states have the advantage here, but that’s no guarantee it will be rot-free, and they can also pose other potential problems such as faded paint and cracked trim.

With any 124 Spider, the areas to look for rot present like the greatest hits of classic car rust traps. This means inspecting the wheel arches, fender edges, sills, floorpans, chassis legs, front suspension crossmember, trunk lid, and inner fenders with a wary eye. Stand back and have a good look at the panel gap around the doors. If they have closed up at any point, especially toward the top of the doors, it’s a good indicator the car’s shell is seriously weakened by rust.

The suspension, steering, and brakes are all simple to work on and parts are available, with many shared by other Fiat models of the period. The engine and gearbox are more bespoke to the 124 Spider, and there was an automatic transmission offered after 1979. Unless you really want this, we’d stick with the manuals, where you just need to make sure it doesn’t pop out of gear under acceleration or make any rumbling noises.

Fiat 124 Spider engines tend to leak a little oil as a habit, so don’t fret over a light misting, but do check for more serious drips underneath the car. The oil sump sits low to the ground in the 124 and gets knocked about, which can lead to oil loss. Back on top of the engine, give the cooling system a thorough going over for leaks and splits in hoses, and look to see of the head gasket has leaked due to low coolant level.

Most electrical issues will be caused by a poor ground or elderly components, but a common complaint among 124 Spider owners is dim headlights with the original setup. This can be improved with modern bulbs or even an LED conversion. Rear lights for the early 1.4-liter cars are now hard to find, so be sure they are not damaged.

A visual inspection of the 124 Spider’s top should quickly tell you if it needs to be repaired or replaced. A new one in vinyl is around $500 and is a relatively simple DIY job to fit. With the rest of the 124 Spider’s interior, make sure all of the buttons, dials, badges, and switches are present, as they can be hard to track down, and there are differences between the years that purists will be keen to get right.

Which Is the Right 124 Spider for You?

Fiat built nearly 200,000 copies of the 124 Spider, and one in rude health is a car that will quickly win you over with its crisp engine response and exhaust note, its sharp steering, and its deft handling. The 124 is quick enough to keep pace with modern traffic and also sufficiently comfortable to put up with daily use. If anything, it’s a car that thrives on regular exercise to ward off niggling problems.

The only engine we’d avoid is the 87-hp 1.8-liter lump from 1977–79, as you can have a much perkier 1.6- or 2.0-liter Spider for the same money. To enjoy the 124 Spider in its original form, the 90-hp 1.4 is a real joy to drive and use, but for most potential buyers we reckon the 110-hp 1.6 of the early ’70s is the pick of the bunch, not only because there are plenty around, but because its performance and usability are perfectly in keeping with the Fiat’s zesty nature.

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Detroit Autorama is one of the country’s most prestigious shows for custom cars. Ever since 2002, the builds that win the show’s top trophy, The Don Ridler Memorial Award, are cost-no-object extravagances that run into the seven figures. But not everyone in Huntington Place this year had such budgets, or ambitions. Many of our favorite customs were built—and owned—by part- or full-time craftspeople who often did the work on their off-hours, funding it through day jobs that might or might not have anything to do with the automotive industry. Several were first-time Autorama attendees. The presence of these people and their builds brings a calmness to the show that you’ll miss if you judge it only by the winner of “the Ridler.”

Rodney and Cate Culp are an unlikely pair. Until six years ago, they didn’t know each other existed: He was in Alabama, she in Australia. Their mutual love of Volkswagens, and Instagram, brought the two together right before Christmas of 2017. She came to the states a month later, after a fire decimated Rodney’s shop, leaving him with nothing more than a slab of concrete. Two years later, they married. Together with one other technician, they represent Metalmorphosis Customs, a shop out of Danville, Alabama, that specializes exclusively in air-cooled Volkswagens—built however Rodney and Cate want them to be built.

An unusual business model and an attitude of contentment give the pair room to exercise their “full creative spectrum,” as Cate puts it. “We don’t do any client work anymore,” she says. She wears her long, graying hair streaked with dark purple. (Per her TikTok profile, it’s usually pink.) “We just build cars to sell. We usually do about three or four builds a year: We do one giveaway, and then we sell the other three, and hopefully [we] make enough money to live off.”

This chopped 1967 Beetle, dubbed Audacity, is one of those cars, given away at random to someone who has donated MetalMorphosis Charitable Foundation. Its mission is to minimize the effects of human trafficking by funding education, housing, health, and safety for severely underprivileged children. Audacity is already spoken for: A winner was chosen in November, and the Culps are taking the car on the show circuit before delivering it to the new owner in May. The next two giveaway builds are Lhia, a lilac Karmann Ghia that is scheduled to be completed by the end of this month and will be raffled off on December 20; and Maggie, a ’66 Beetle that will be completed in November of ’26 and won by a lucky donor on December 20 of that year.

Metalmorphosis sells its cars not through some established broker but through social media: TikTok or Instagram, where they have 350,000 and 15,800 followers, respectively, on @cateculp and @metalmorphosiscars. Once, they sold a car within eight minutes, after posting nothing more than paint and interior samples. The success still feels unexpected: “It’s pretty crazy,” says Cate. They’ve already sold their next six builds.

Cate and Rodney work on tight deadlines: Audacity went from stock ’67 to what you see here in 193 days. Rebuilding after his shop burned down has taken time, especially since the insurance payout only covered a new building, and none of the tools: This car was painted in an inflatable booth in their backyard … in the dark. They finished the last step—successfully putting the fenders on the car so that they didn’t scrape the 18- and 20-inch wheels—at 1 in the morning. They had been awake for over 20 hours at that point, but they couldn’t rest: They, and the car, had to be in Houston, for the Houston Autorama, at 4 p.m. the next day. They loaded the car into the truck, got on the road, and arrived in Houston … at 4 p.m.

Cate: “We set up and then stood back and went, oh shit—”

Rodney breaks in, with an Alabama drawl: “We built a really cool car!”

They both laugh.

This Beetle, like any of their air-cooled VW customs, is truly a collaborative effort: Cate designs the car and brings the renders to Rodney.

“She gets a stunned look on her face when I tell her no.”

“I think he’s said no to me twice in six years or something.”

“She was like, can we put 20s and 18s on it? I’m like, ‘Yup, yup, I don’t know how we’re gonna do it yet, but we’re gonna do that.’ I enjoy a challenge.”

Rodney does everything but the interior: that’s Cate, again. Though she never expected to work in the automotive world, upholstery is right up her alley: She spent about a decade in the bridal industry, and started sewing when she was eight. She figures she’s been involved in textiles for 40 or so years.

“I just love anything that has that intricate detail … I don’t miss much, you know, and anything that sort of stands out to me, or catches my eye, probably shouldn’t be there—like, it’s all got to meld together.

“Doing themed weddings and stuff like that, it gives you that mindset of making sure that everything goes together, ‘cause there’s not many people in the world that are harder to satisfy than brides.”

Building and selling their own cars is a new era for Rodney and for Cate. Though he’s been a car guy all his life, and got his first Volkswagen at age 15, he hasn’t always made a living by wrenching: For fifteen years, he was a custodian at an elementary school. When he got the chance to work at an automotive shop, he jumped at it, and continued to do his own projects on the side. When he was suddenly let go—the shop owner was getting jealous of how much work Rodney and Cate were doing at home, he thinks—the couple decided it was time to start their own thing. That was just before Covid shut down the world, and in 2020, with nothing to do, the couple built their first giveaway car—a ’63 ragtop Beetle, the first show-level build either had attempted.

“Him being let go sort of gave him the push,” Cate said, “because I don’t think he understood how talented he is.” Rodney has leaned an elbow against the pillar of the conference center, supporting his head with his hand, gazing at her while she talks, occasionally sipping a Diet Coke. At this comment, he laughs. “He is incredibly talented,” Cate continues, “and he has decades of experience, but he just didn’t have, I guess, someone to believe in him, and he didn’t have the confidence to think that he could do it for himself.”

Cate’s been self-employed most of her life, always in some creative field, so she’s at peace with the ebb and flow of the income. Though Rodney has worked on hundreds of VWs over the past 35 years, the uncertainty of self-employment is new to him. Still, they are content.

“We never did it to be rich,” Rodney says. “We just wanted to be able to do this.” He gestures at the pink Beetle.

Behind the couple, the glitz and glamour of Detroit Autorama multiplies under the lights of the conference center. The roar of the crowd flowing through the doors and throughout the show is steady and deep. The black banners posted next to each of the Great Eight finalists for the Ridler poke their heads above the roofs of the vehicles. Cate and Rodney settle back in their folding chairs, and watch the crowd, smiling.

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Call it a cyclecar or a microcar, the Suminoe Engineering Works Flying Feather was the right car at the right time for war-ravaged Japan of the 1940s. The driving force behind the car was Yutaka Katayama, now known as the father of the Datsun 240Z and the man who brought Nissan to the United States. However, his imaginative design met with a quick demise after only 200 examples were ever produced. The Flying Feather has become a forgotten car that should be held to much loftier status.

“Mr. K” was a Nissan man. Since 1935, he had worked for the auto manufacturer doing advertising and promotional work. After Nissan restarted production following WWII with its prewar Austin 7 DA and DB variants, plans were afoot to dive deeper into the Austin portfolio to bring more up-market sedans to Japan. Nissan was eyeing Austin’s A40 and A50, both larger cars than the ancient Austin 7.

But in 1947, Japan was struggling with ramping up production of even the most basic products. Raw materials, supply chain issues, a collapsed economy, and generally dismal working and living conditions didn’t translate to eager buyers of large English sedans. Katayama knew this, and felt that a bare-bones economy car was the way to kick off not only the rebirth of Nissan but also that of Japan. It was the same rationale that produced Germany’s Beetle and France’s 2CV. Both vehicles would begin production in 1947, the same year in which Katayama began envisioning their Japanese counterpart.

Nissan designer Ryuichi Tomiya was of a like mind with Katayama. Well-known throughout Japan for his various automotive and industrial designs, the future director of the Tomiya Research Institute would go on to design several important cars including the Fuji Cabin three-wheeler. Back in the 1940s, he was not up for rehashing Austins even though Nissan was dead set on going upmarket with the larger Austin A40 sedan.

Tomiya and Katayama hatched a plan to break from Nissan and start their own automobile company, focusing on affordable but sprightly commuter cars. They settled on a design they called the Flying Feather: An extremely simple, lightweight, two-seater with the presence of a peculiar yet sporting coupe. Yes, it would run motorcycle wheels and tires. And, yes, power would come from a puny one-cylinder air-cooled Nissan engine, located in the rear of the car, no less. But since the vehicle would not be much more than two motorcycles stitched together, it would be simple to repair, easy to build, and peppy enough to satisfy those who needed basic transportation.

By 1950 Katayama was able to produce his first prototype, a doorless convertible somewhat like a stylized Jeep on motorcycle wheels. His first problem was getting the prototype out of the second-story shop it was built in, but once Nissan saw the elegant little doorless convertible, executives were impressed, and they agreed to produce the Flying Feather. Nissan was ready to produce its own version of Austin’s A40, and the Flying Feather would broaden the company’s portfolio by providing a smaller, cheaper option.

What appeared to be a solid production plan quickly fell apart after Katayama brought food to workers who were striking at a Nissan assembly plant to protest poor working conditions and constant interruptions for lack of materials. Nissan quickly parted ways with Mr. K—and his Flying Feather.

Undeterred, Katayama and Tomiya struck out on their own. A second, more stylish prototype would be the basis for the production-spec Flying Feather. Bug-eye headlights blended nicely into the hood, or frunk. A tapering body incorporated flares covering the front tires, with the body moving out as it flowed to the rear. The design ended with tall air vents chopped off at an angle. With large wheel openings for those big motorcycle wheels, it presented impressive overall proportions, adding to its diminutive though sporting look.

The refined prototype now had doors, independent front and rear suspension, and an air-cooled 350cc V-twin engine offering 12.5 hp. In this final form, the Flying Feather weighed 935 pounds. It was light as a proverbial feather, with better performance than the first design.

The windows swung up on hinges, rather than rolling up and down, and no radio or heater was offered. There were friction shocks to suppress jounce, and brakes only at the rear. The interior was spartan: The frames of the seats were exposed—from the side, you can see the springs—and covered with a fabric pad that served as upholstery.

After shopping the car around to suppliers, Katayama landed at Suminoe Engineering Works. It produced interiors and small bits to Nissan and agreed to produce the Flying Feather. Adding additional air beneath the wings of Katayama’s project, the Japan Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) agreed to help nurture Japan’s own “people’s car.”

A production version of the Flying Feather—the “smallest, cheapest, and most economical practical car in the world”—was the highlight of the 1954 Tokyo Auto Show. Unfortunately, things quickly fell apart.

The MITI support never materialized. Then, Suminoe lost its contract to supply interiors to Nissan, which bankrupted the supplier and pretty much ended any possibility of producing more Flying Feathers. In the end, only around 200 were made. Very few have survived, and only a handful of restored examples exist today.

Though Katayama’s dream of an affordable car for Japan was gone, he wasn’t done with ambitious projects. He mended fences with Nissan, starting as team manager for Datsun’s two 210 entries in the 1958 Mobilgas trials in Australia. In 1960, Nissan sent him to America to oversee the launch of the Datsun brand. Though strained in these early years, Katayama’s efforts as the first president of Nissan of America laid the foundation for the expansion of the company. The Datsun 510, the 1600 and 2000 sports cars, the successful racing alliance with Peter Brock’s BRE Racing in the late 1960s and 1970s, and the development of the 240Z all happened under the stewardship of Mr. K.

In 2009, at 100 years old, Katayama remained immersed in the machinations of the car industry, offering his take on the impact of the Mazda Miata as the 240Z’s successor. He died at the age of 105, his reputation as a leader in the development of the Japanese and American automotive landscape well established. And while the Flying Feather is but a sidenote of his illustrious career, it really was a milestone in the reemergence of Japan and its burgeoning automotive industry.

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At this point in the saga of the LS engine, and with the rising popularity of “restomod” muscle cars, a 1000-horsepower Camaro is nothing new. But a 1000-hp Camaro built by Ringbrothers, roaring around the streets of L.A. with Jay Leno behind the wheel, and one of the Ring brothers sitting shotgun? We’ll brew an extra coffee just to spend 15 minutes watching that video.

A hugely respected name in the world of custom cars, Ringbrothers is based in Spring Green, Wisconsin, and was started by Mike and Jim Ring in 1989. “We used to restore cars,” says Jim, “and it got boring for us because you’d go to a show, and there’d be seven of them just like what you did.”

Safe to say that this Camaro is not your typical ’69.

Ringbrothers stripped the body panels from a stock 1969 Camaro and got to work on the widebody kit you see here: The shop built a precise image of the car using Computer-Aided Design software, machined all the molds for new body panels, and then laid carbon-fiber by hand into those molds. Together, Jim estimates, the quarter panels, roof, fenders, doors, hood, and trunk lid probably weigh about 150 pounds.

The chassis received a makeover that was almost as thorough. If you pulled the panels off the car, Jim says, you’d recognize the inner structure of a stock Camaro, but everything from the rocker panels down is all hollowed out. The bottom of the car is flat, now, thanks to the installation of twin floor pans. Jim guesstimates that the whole thing weighs 3600 lbs, which might surprise you … if you hadn’t opened the engine or peered into the interior.

A hand-built roll cage runs along the top of the windshield inside the cabin—a remarkable subtle integration. “I’m not banging my head!” Leno says.

Leno is sitting in one of a pair of bucket seats upholstered in orange-tan, pleated leather. The same material swathes the dashboard, the console, the door cards, even part of the door sills and every exposed bit of the fuel tank commanding the trunk. The Camaro in the 1960s could never justify such luxury—nevermind the Ringbrothers-specific steering wheel, covered in crushed carbon fiber. The placement of the Dakota Digital gauges nods to the original design, however, and the cue-ball shifter is another retro touch.

Neither the transmission nor the engine, however, is retro in the least—except in the number of cylinders. An LS3 built by Wegner Motorsports, another Wisconsin shop, the 376-cubic-inch mill is topped with a 2.9-liter Whipple supercharger and backed by a Tremec T-56 six-speed manual. It exhales through a Flowmaster 44 SS exhaust with headers custom-built by Ringbrothers. Six-piston brake calipers by Baer at each corner bring everything to a halt.

The wheel and tire package, as you can glimpse in the video, is appropriately beefy: The HRE wheels measure 19×11 inches at the front, 20×12.5 at the rear, and are wrapped in Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires.

Even with the modern rubber and the engine’s boost turned down to make a much more tame 500 hp, the driveline is a joy. Leno guesses the car weighs just 2800 pounds, a sleight of hand that has much do to with the free-revving nature of the motor and the placement of the weight low in the car’s chassis. As controllable as it is, the car’s lack of driver aids will keep you on your toes: “You are the traction control,” says Leno, who adds that going sideways is all part of the fun to him.

Our favorite part in the video is when Jim tells the story behind the name of the car: The customer who commissioned the Camaro from Ringbrothers is a dear friend of Kevin Hart, the comedian and muscle-car aficionado known for his collection of restomods. In 2022, word got out that Kevin Hart was bringing a 1969 Roadrunner built by Salvaggio Design to SEMA. As usual, Hart had named it according to his usual horror theme: Michael Myers, the central character in the Halloween franchise. Hart’s friend decided to embrace the fact that both had commissioned high-horsepower restomods, and named his Camaro after the only character that Myers can’t kill: Strode, his sister.

Give the video below a watch, and let us know what your favorite part is in the comments below!

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One can argue that Porsche’s modern era kicked off in 1985, with the debut of the 959. What started as a complex, tech-heavy pursuit of Group B rally glory ultimately yielded the most advanced supercar yet seen on the road. And it founded a lineage that later included the 911 GT1, Carrera GT, and 918 Spyder. Less recognized, however, is the link between it—an unprofitable ‘80s moonshot—and the brand’s 21st-century commercial success. Whether Porsche’s ardent air-cooled enthusiasts like it or not, that line traces straight through an unlikely hero car: the Cayenne SUV.

The 959 forever altered the automaker’s approach to cutting-edge technology. Its development armed the company with essential knowledge and expertise that, unbeknownst to the racing engineers working on it, would make sports-car-focused Porsche into one of the world’s most successful makers of luxury utility vehicles. The Cayenne’s success in the early 2000s, by many accounts, built the company we know today.

Rally beginnings

In the 1980s, however, Porsche’s goal for the 959 was to create a dominant Group B rally car, and, via homologation, re-establish the 911’s image after the 928 proved an unpopular successor.

Group B’s wide-open rule set encouraged bleeding-edge tech, which resulted in participants employing ever more complex systems in pursuit of victory. Most memorable in this arena was Audi’s Quattro system, which forged that company’s identity and proficiency with all-wheel drive as the brand expanded worldwide. Porsche sought the same route, choosing to lean heavily on innovation for its halo car rather than tried-and-true performance-enhancing regimes like shedding weight (Ferrari F40) or brute force (Lamborghini Countach).

Quattro let Audi rule the Group B roost after its introduction in 1980. Other competitors weren’t lacking in successful recipes, either—Lancia’s brutally quick Delta S4 used a supercharger paired with a turbocharger to reduce boost lag and pump out up to 1014 horsepower in full-wick competition spec. With these future adversaries in mind, Porsche found that its Type 930 Turbo’s engine simply wasn’t up to the task and returned to the drawing board. In order to hit performance targets reliably, Porsche fitted water-cooled four-valve heads to an air-cooled 2.8-liter flat-six block. And that complexity was just the beginning. 

Porsche had experimented with similar systems for the 956 and 962 endurance cars, but those races prioritized higher engine speeds than ideal for rallying. For the 959, which would need equal parts low-end shove and high-end horsepower, Porsche landed on a solution: twin turbochargers equipped with valving that first engaged the left bank’s blower and then cut in the right side’s around 4000-4500 rpm.

Final homologated ratings of 444 horsepower (SAE) and 369 lb-ft for the road-going 959 only tell part of the story, since 300 of those foot-pounds arrived by 3000 rpm with just the single turbo pushing boost. Competition cars reportedly ratcheted that output up to and beyond 600 horsepower. Effectively harnessing so much grunt on relatively primitive tire compounds required further innovations to Porsche’s existing drivetrains. 

The 911’s up-and-coming G50 transaxle—which would debut in road cars for 1987—provided the 959 with two more gear ratios than with the 930 Turbo’s four-speed. It also permitted fitment of a multi-plate clutch system capable of electronically locking to send power to the front differential. Under normal driving conditions, an ECU estimated the car’s weight transfer by measuring the rate of acceleration based on engine output and gear ratios, then an algorithm determined how much torque the front and rear wheels should receive. (The driver or navigator could also lock all three differentials from the cockpit with the push of a button.)

That weight transfer also depended on the 959’s advanced suspension system. The 959 employed coil springs paired with electronically adjustable shock dampers, as well as hydraulically powered adjustable ride height pistons that allowed for the selection of 4.7, 5.9, or 7.1 inches of ground clearance. The dampers themselves used tiny motors to adjust valving that regulated fluid flow and firmness. 

This drivetrain and suspension combination allowed the 959 to crawl over off-road obstacles with the chassis lifted as high as possible and while using an extremely short 3.50 “Gelande” first gear ratio. (Gelandewagen uses the same German word for “terrain.”) At the opposite end of the spectrum, with the suspension lowered and firmed up, the road-going versions of this rally racer set a new production vehicle world record of 211 miles per hour while achieving up to 0.87 g of lateral grip thanks, in part, to novel Bridgestone run-flat tires.

By the time the 959 approached anything near competition readiness, however, the FIA had already disbanded Group B due to a series of high-profile fatalities. Porsche pivoted, instead taking the new car to the Paris-Dakar Rally—quite possibly the most difficult racing challenge on Earth at the time. At this same event, in 1984, a highly modified 911 variant known as the 953 had proven quite potent. After an abysmal first year in 1985 (all three 959 entries dropped out), another 959 trio achieved a first-second-sixth finishing order in 1986. Porsche’s tech-driven supercar had proven its off-road racing cred and presented to the world a fresh take on how to build a halo vehicle.

Porsche Pivot

After investing so much into the 959’s all-around capabilities, Porsche then began sprinkling those developments into its more pedestrian offerings. The 1989-94 964-generation 911 received a similarly complex four-wheel-drive system on the base Carrera 4, while the 1994-98 993-gen 911 Turbo then mated AWD to a pair of turbos capable of wringing 450 horsepower from a 3.8-liter air-cooled flat-six. 

The ill-fated attempt to replace the 911 with the front-engine 928, along with struggling sales of the entry-level 924/944/968, left Porsche desperate to right its financial ship. The 964-generation 911, more or less a stopgap measure between the older G-body models and the eventual 993 generation, arrived in the midst of a weakened dollar-to-Deutsche Mark exchange rate. As seven years of 964 production crept by—with only 63,762 cars sold—Porsche knew it needed to pivot. As it began taking steps that would lead to folding the family firm into Volkswagen AG’s conglomerate, Porsche also began to evolve its product line.

The 959’s use of water-cooled heads was a departure from the fully air-cooled engines that helped define the marque’s top cars, and they helped pave the way in the late-1990s for fully water-cooled M96 engines that ultimately powered the 986 Boxster and 996-generation 911. Component sharing and serial production during the new water-cooled era began to turn Porsche’s financial tide, but the company still needed more than a range of niche sports cars to remain viable in the 21st century.

Despite knowing that it would send purists into a fit, Porsche moved forward with its solution: creating an SUV. The existing BMW X5 and Mercedes-Benz ML-Class were already capitalizing on a new, growing segment of the American market, and Porsche was clear-eyed about the financial opportunity. Sharing a platform with Volkswagen’s Touareg and Audi Q7 would help spread the considerable development costs over a broader base and enabled Porsche to make this step into the new era, but the brand knew it’d have to spice up its offering with a more sporting identity to set it apart from its platform-mates and other competition.

To successfully imbue its personality and capability on- and off-road into the Cayenne, Porsche applied much of the same tech-heavy strategies it did with the 959. The Cayenne employed a dry-sump oiling system that mitigated oil starvation at odd angles while off-roading, a set of electronically disconnecting front and rear sway bars were available as part of the Advanced Offroad Technology Package, and the Cayenne Turbo model received an air suspension system that allowed for five positions of adjustable ride height. Sound familiar? Porsche’s predilection for, ahem, intensive engineering even resulted in water cooling for the Cayenne’s alternator.

As with the 959, Porsche didn’t forget the influence of racing success on its customers. Also, the Cayenne, which was on its face a non-traditional Porsche product, stood to gain some credibility through success in motorsport. With that, Porsche focused on the 2006 Transsyberia Rally, a 10,000-kilometer-plus event that ran from Berlin to Moscow, then across Russia and Mongolia. 

At the event, Cayennes equipped with minimal modifications—shorter final-drive ratios, intake snorkels, and safety equipment—took first and second place. Those race vehicles even used the Turbo’s adjustable air suspension system rather than steel springs, demonstrating Porsche’s faith in the durability of its solutions.

Not since the 959 did a Porsche model exhibit such a broad performance envelope. And with that win, the brand executed its objective of creating an SUV on its own terms. Period reviewers, who weren’t particularly warm to SUVs as a whole (some of us are still coming around—Ed.), acknowledged as much, though they wished for a greater degree of on-road sporting characteristics and lamented the Cayenne’s weight, which, at over 5000 lbs, was a consequence of its complex engineering. Dan Neil, writing for Car and Driver in its August 2003 issue, put it thusly: “It is the fastest production SUV on the planet, and it has more off-road chops than Sir Edmund Hillary. It’s sure to be a huge status codpiece in South Beach and Beverly Hills. It is the ‘Porsche of SUVs.’ We had hoped for a little more Porsche and a little less SUV.”

While the automotive press may have couched its praise for the Cayenne with caveats, the SUV seemed to suit the public just fine. Porsche sold 20,603 Cayennes in 2002, and 2003’s 39,913 sales equated to more than 52 percent of Porsches produced that year. The company hasn’t looked back—together, the Cayenne and its mini-me Macan sibling are the brand’s sales leaders. Their massive success, many argue, ensures continued investment in low-volume sports cars like the 918, GT4 718s, GT2/GT3 911s, and 911 S/T.

Had Porsche not gone down the Group B rabbit hole, history could have unfolded very differently. When it came time to create its first SUV, the company already possessed the experience, the technological chops, and the ingrained engineering approach to build a multi-purpose, all-wheel drive vehicle that didn’t just genuflect at the “Sport” in Sport Utility Vehicle. The 959 forged a new competency for the brand, and the Cayenne leveraged that success into a profit machine. It may not appear so on the surface, but the 959 and the Cayenne are cut from very similar cloth.

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It’s no secret that the Renault R5 Turbo is one hot collectible, with prices for good condition examples approaching the six-figure mark. If you’ve driven one, you know why: As Sam Smith wrote, “If it were a child, it would be one of those five-year-olds who runs laps of the living room at max q and tries to light your couch on fire.” Sounds fun! But while this broad-hipped and even more broadly deranged little turbocharged Renault is a highly pressurized delight, give a thought to the overlooked car upon which it is based. How much French élan can you get for less than a tenth of the price of an R5 Turbo? A lot, it turns out.

Renault’s R5 is back in headlines these days, thanks to the recently released EV of the same name. Not available this side of the Atlantic, the new car still looks like it would make a decent rental for your next Euro trip: 148 hp, 249 miles of range, priced like a well-equipped Honda Civic. That last characteristic shows that the new battery-powered R5 cleaves to the mission statement of the original, intended to be an inexpensive yet youthful supermini. If the 2CV was the people’s car for peasants who needed to ferry around baskets of eggs, the Renault 5 was what Pierre and Eloise bought when you couldn’t keep them down at le farm.

The original idea was to prove that cheap and chic weren’t mutually exclusive concepts. In the 1960s, Renault was building the 4L, its riposte to Citroën’s 2CV. The 4L was very simple and very successful (over 8 million produced) and was about as attractive as a toaster in a sundress. By 1967, the forward-looking Bernard Hanon, Renault’s head of planning, had convinced CEO Pierre Dreyfuss to add a small car with youth appeal to the R&D budget.

Enter the tragic story of the Renault 5’s designer. Stylist Michel Boué, working in his own spare time, overlaid a Renault 4 with a transparent sheet of paper and sketched out a deceptively simple two-box, three-door hatchback. When the Renault brass saw the thought experiment, they immediately moved to develop it into a full project, leaving Boué’s original idea almost completely intact.

Boué would die of cancer in 1972, far too soon to see how his design would change the face of French motoring.

To a North American eye, the 5 doesn’t look all that revolutionary. It’s a tiny boxy European shoebox built to thread through along narrow, cobblestoned roads of medieval towns, the sort of vehicle you might see everywhere in the backdrop of some 1980s National Geographic special on cathedrals or monasteries or a cheese that’s produced by monks who live in a monastery next to a cathedral.

But the 5 wasn’t a 1980s design; it was a product of the very early 1970s. That’s how forward-thinking it was. The car was revealed in December of 1971 and went on sale in January of the very next year. Its square, cheery looks and airy cabin made it a smash hit. The look of the future, available today for less than 10,000 Francs (about $2000)! As Renault hoped for, the 5 sold strongly among a more youthful buying audience, effectively recreating the 1960s magic of the BMC Mini for a new decade.

Even the pessimism that hit with the first of the global fuel crises one year after the launch of the 5 couldn’t break its stride. If anything, that stride lengthened; Renault quickly developed a slightly detuned model that could achieve over 50 mpg with a cautious driver behind the wheel, the mid-40s with a Parisian one. Though thrifty, the 5 was stylish enough to transcend class, and you could use its wraparound bumpers to force your way into a parallel parking spot like you were driving a motorized sardine. The 5 was the best-selling car in France, and soon the best-selling car in Europe. There was only one more Western market to conquer.

Watching the success of the Volkswagen Golf and the Honda Civic in the U.S. must have been incredibly frustrating for Renault. After all, the manufacturer of the most popular car in Europe should surely have been able to match or even exceed the success of these other foreign makes. But Renault’s tiny dealer network was insufficient to the task, and when the 5 was introduced in 1976, sales numbers stayed low. Clearly, some clever marketing was required.

Perhaps not all that clever. Noting that “Renault 5” meant little to U.S. buyers not familiar with the Renault brand, the company changed the name of the 5 to “Le Car.” It was both a simplification and a state of fact: the 5 was the best-selling car in France from its introduction in 1972 all the way until 1984. It was, quite literally, the default French car of its time. Calling it a generic “car” wasn’t a stretch at all. Sales doubled with the name change in 1977.

Eventually, thanks to some rapid, jet-setting action by a Renault executive named François Dubin, Renault entered into a partnership with AMC. The tie-up would eventually lead to the Renault/AMC Alliance, a sedan usually remembered with some derision that actually met with initial success. Based on the Renault R9, the Alliance exchanged Gallic charm for mass appeal. Since Renault figured it had finally hit on the right car for the U.S. market, the 5 disappeared from U.S. showrooms in 1983, hanging on in Canada until 1985.

This example is one of the last Le Cars sold in North America, if not in fact the last. It’s registered as a 1986 model, a French refugee that gathered dust in a Canadian AMC showroom before being finally registered for the road. Yet even in its rarity, it’s not a collectible as much as a really interesting car.

When you pore over the details, it’s impossible to miss how clever French engineering is when compared to that from the rest of the world. Instead of a door handle, this car has a little flap molded into the sheetmetal. Only a single, non-gas strut supports the rear hatch. The headliner is stamped with the repeating diamond pattern of the Renault badge—not primarily because of branding, but because it provides actual structural support to the slightly flimsy, stamped roof. Everything about this little city car is slightly ethereal, as impossibly airy and light as a properly cooked soufflé.

The driving experience of this delicate little confection only really emerges when you flog the car like the first mate might a Napoleonic-era sailor who just spilled raspberry compote on the captain’s best white pantaloons. But of course that’s how the 5 behaves—it’s French. Allons-y!

This car is nearly forty years old, and its 1.3-liter, four-cylinder engine produces just shy of 60 hp. Even this late in production, the underpinnings are still basically those of the homely 4L, with its wacky torsion-bar independent suspension that results in a slightly longer right wheelbase and roly-poly handling. Nevertheless, the 5 is wonderfully exhilarating to wring to its limits. It’s as titchy as Asterisk from the Goscinny and Uderzo comics, but likewise loves a punchup, zipping through traffic with glee.

It is hardly what you’d call fast, and yet at the same time is quicker than you’d expect. In 1977, Renault entered Le Cars in SCCA Class C Showroom Stock racing as a way to promote the brand, and the little French hatchbacks clocked up 57 podiums in 52 races.

The best comparison here is lunch, or rather déjeuner. A modern compact car is like fast food burger and fries, order up quick and back to the office or job site to get on with things. Travel in a Renault 5 is like a meal with an old friend with whom you don’t always see eye to eye: it takes forever, there’s all kinds of yelling and frantic gesturing, and you come away from the experience feeling refreshed and fulfilled. And also probably late for work. Ah well. C’est la vie.

Yes, you could pay 90 grand for a French murder hatch with hips like a Pixar mom and a fondness for high-speed ditch exploration. But the original city car upon which it is based has a goofy joie de vivre that is beyond price. You don’t need deep pockets to get into one, you merely need patience, and the ability to snap up a decent example when you stumble across it.

To drive one is to experience the essence of what it meant to be a French motorist in a time when each country’s small cars still came with outsize and individual personalities. An acquired taste, perhaps, like doubling the garlic the recipe calls for. But one you’ll never forget.

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The Mini. Famously a very small car. It’s right there in the name, even. But since 1959, a truly astonishing number of people have attempted to make it even smaller, be that by lopping a section from the middle to create the familiar “shorty” Minis, by chopping the roof à la Minisprint, removing almost all the bodywork for an autocross car, or simply by transplanting the Mini’s gizzards into a low-slung kit car like a Cox GTM or a Unipower GT.

Few Mini-based machines come smaller than the TiCi, though. Pronounced “titchy”, it’s a wholly appropriate name for a wonderfully silly vehicle, and rarely has something so small had such big presence; at the 2024 Classic Car & Restoration Show at the NEC, there were people climbing in and out of it all day.

Well, attempting to, anyhow. Owner Paul Wylde, who owns two TiCis, invited me to contort myself into its driver’s seat, and I think I nearly snapped in two. The suggested method is to stand on the seat just ahead of the steering wheel—well, not so much stand as balance yourself in the fetal position, since the roof gets in the way of standing—and then feed your legs beneath the wheel.

Once you’re in, it’s cozy but not cramped, in much the same way a Lotus Elise a challenge to enter but is much better when you’re installed. I’ve gotten into Elises and Caterhams with their roofs in place before, and having gotten into this TiCi I now realize that I had nothing to fear from them. “Designed for a jockey” is a popular refrain for any car with small living quarters. The TiCi feels more like it was designed for a 10-year-old gymnast.

“This car’s a 1972 pre-production prototype,” Wylde explains. “They were made by a furniture designer in Leicestershire, and they built roughly 40 of them.”

That designer is Anthony Hill, who’s been knocking around ideas for Mini-based kits since the early 1960s, specifically around the idea of a ‘square’ car, with the same wheelbase and track width. The TiCi arrived on the scene in 1972, both measurements were just 50 inches, against a wheelbase in the standard Mini of around 80 inches.

As reported by Autocar in January 1972, Hill sought companies to build the car he’d designed, and the body fell to Bourne Plastics, “which was involved with the first 500 Elise bodies,” says Wylde. “But they were also making nose cones for British Rail’s InterCity trains. And as it happens, all these TiCis were yellow – exactly the same yellow as the nose of those trains.” Raymond Mays of ERA was later involved, and there are publicity photos of Stirling Moss with a pair of TiCis buzzing around London as well, which must have been quite a sight.

That color’s still hard to miss, too, not least because Wylde has enhanced it with a couple of yellow covers for the Vauxhall Viva–sourced headlights, and the entire windscreen is also yellow tinted, too—perfectly legally, since enough light passes through. The effect is remarkable, like being inside a 1970s Hot Wheels toy.

The chassis is made from two fiberglass moldings, an outer and an inner, and the roof is a separate and removable panel. Wylde built it from the original molds, and for the doors he had molds made from another TiCi. When finally installed, they’ll hinge forward and upward, not unlike some supercars. With them closed, it’ll doubtless be an even more cozy experience.

Probably quite noisy, too, with the A-series engine sitting just behind your back, beneath the fiberglass. Hill’s design put the entire Mini front subframe at the back, similar to other mid-engined Mini kits, while the front end is a dedicated design (based around Girling motorcycle springs and dampers, according to Autocar) since the unusual size and geometry ruled out a standard Mini front end.

Even aside from its former prototype status and looking as bonkers as it does, this particular one has an interesting history. It was previously owned by British rock group Showaddywaddy, and one of the band’s members co-owned a camera shop and used the TiCi as a promotional vehicle—Wylde points out a couple of mounting points on the roof where a big Kodak camera was bolted.

It was later owned by automotive journalist and serial brightly-coloured-car owner Chris Rees, who unfortunately put it through a wall (one imagines a mid-engined car with a 50-inch wheelbase can be a handful). Wylde eventually bought the car as a bare shell from the family of a TiCi enthusiast and collector, and the process of putting everything together again has resulted in the vehicle you can see here. Quite a big life for such a tiny machine.

The TiCi has to be up there with the Bond Bug as one of the most remarkable shapes produced during the 1970s, and we can’t wait to see Wylde’s car back on the road. Given that even getting into it is an experience, driving it must really be something else.

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On a Friday night in December of 1988, families all across Canada and the U.S. gathered in front of the television to see what scrapes everyone’s favorite gadget-building action star was going to get into this week. MacGyver! He of the feathered mullet, selection of vests, and ever-present Swiss Army Knife, always able to jury-rig a clever solution to any problem, and despite the danger, never using a gun.

This particular week, in an episode called “Collision Course,” MacGyver would find himself taking over driving duties in a race-prepped Pontiac Firebird after shadowy saboteurs hamstring an old friend who was supposed to drive it. But behind the TV make-believe, the backdrop was a real race track with real race cars—and one of them was raced by the real MacGyver.

The track was British Columbia’s Westwood Motorsport Park, the actor who played MacGyver was, of course, Richard Dean Anderson, and the racing machine he competed in was a third-generation Chevrolet Camaro. Specifically, it was a special road-legal, road-registered, factory-supported machine with a bunch of improvements to make it better suited for track use. He raced in the Player’s LTD/GM Motorsport Series, which featured Camaros and Firebirds battling it out in fields that averaged fifty cars, with occasionally as many as seventy.

“The sound alone was worth the price of admission,” says Michael Zbarsky, who owns a special one of these factory-prepped Camaros and remembers watching the series at Westwood as a kid. “Those guys didn’t hold back at all.”

Before diving into the racing, a little thumbnail sketch of 1980s television history is in order. A cultural icon right out of the gate, the MacGyver series regularly drew close to ten million viewers at the height of its popularity—for modern context, that’s about what HBO’s Game of Thrones did in its original run. In contrast with the more shoot-’em-up feel of 1980s action movies and television, MacGyver bordered on the cerebral, with the big hook being what kind of contraption made of household items the star was going to slap together this week. In terms of lasting effects, the show spawned reboots and parodies, and even entered the lexicon: found in the Oxford English Dictionary since 1992, MacGyver is a verb meaning, “to construct, fix, or modify (something) in an improvised or inventive way, typically by making use of whatever items are at hand.” Sounds like the kind of thing the owner of a British car would naturally be good at.

Coincidentally, Zbarsky comes from MG-owning stock, with his father Ralph owning and racing several interesting MGs, including an MGB GT campaigned by Paddy Hopkirk at Sebring and the Targa Florio. Initially, the apple did not fall far from the tree, with the younger Zbarsky campaigning a 1953 MGA racing machine on the west coast. But he never forgot the thunder of small-block Chevy V-8s hurtling in a pack around Westwood.

Long supplanted by housing developments on Eagle Mountain in Coquitlam, Westwood Motorsport Park is a much-missed piece of grassroots motorsport history. It was built in the late 1950s by the Sports Car Club of British Columbia, created through the sale of debentures to members and through the work of volunteers who cleared brush and carved a challenging 1.8 mile course into the landscape. At its inaugural race, it bore the distinction of being Canada’s first purpose-built tarmac racetrack.

Over the years, Westwood saw plenty of stars compete there—names like Rosberg, Villeneuve, Andretti, and McLaren. But it was at heart a place where an ordinary enthusiast could square off against others driving modestly-powered British sportscars, taking part for the sheer delight of speed. Then, a ground-pounding V-8 series showed up. Always looking for a way to promote its brand, GM Canada soon hit on the idea of a one-make series (fine, two-make if you’re a Pontiac purist) that would provide plenty of excitement with cars within financial reach of the fans.

Third-generation Camaros first competed in several places in the US and Canada in showroom stock form in the mid-1980s, but repeated hot laps soon showed some deficiencies in the platform. GM developed the now well-known 1LE package, which solved most of the problems by adding baffles in the fuel tanks, tweaks to the suspension, an engine oil cooler, Corvette-style brakes, and a higher-flow exhaust.

GM Canada went even further, building on the 1LE platform with the A4Q, A4U, and R7U order codes. There are some variations, but the additional options included features like power windows (actually a mild weight savings), racing-specific power-steering, and retuned rear dampers. Perhaps most impressively, each car received a hand-built, blueprinted V-8, complete with tamper markings. Power for this generation of Camaro wasn’t huge—it was factory-rated around 220 hp, probably more in the racing-prepped machines—but the V-8s sounded great and the level playing field made for intense racing. If you’re thinking this sounds like Spec Miata with a mullet, you’re not far off. GM built roughly 100 Player’s LTD-spec cars per year over the seasons, for a total of just under 500.

Terry Craig, who operated Airborne Racing, ordered two racing Camaros and one Firebird through local BC dealer Dueck GM for the 1988 season. Craig’s brother Murray drove the Firebird, and Richard Dean Anderson drove one of the two Camaros that season.

Anderson appears to have fit right in as a racer. In a tv interview, he humbly walks through one of his laps at the race circuit in Calgary (his name appears on the car’s dash as “Rick Anderson” in the in-car footage), joking when he had trouble with the monitor, “Sure, MacGyver can’t get this thing to work.”

The Firebird of the trio ended up playing the hero car in the Collision Course episode, with one of the Camaros (driven by Terry) standing in for long shots of the villain car. GM fans will have a field day noting when the interior shots between the two cars are conflated.

Back in the real world, a fresh R7U car was ordered for the 1989 season, but Anderson ended up sitting out that year. Meanwhile, the two Camaros and the Firebird from the ’88 season found their way into the used car market. The rules of the series dictated that these machines be insurable, street-legal cars, and as a result many of the Player’s race cars were consigned to road use once their competitive days were done.

Zbarsky found himself half-seriously looking for a replacement for his MGA about ten years ago, and stumbled across this example listed locally. Tipped off by some clues, he identified it as one of the fairly rare Player’s cars, and with a little more research—thanks to some help from Craig himself, he was able to determine that it was one of the two cars run during the season when MacGyver was racing. Even with logbooks, it’s hard to determine which of the twin cars it is, so Zbarsky is careful to make an absolute claim. But, with the way racing works, it’s likely that Anderson at least ran this car around a circuit or two for warmup or qualifying laps.

Today, Zbarsky races his Camaro at Mission Raceway Park in British Columbia, and down in Washington State. And as it’s a street-legal car, he’ll often take it out for a spin on the roads around his home on Vancouver Island. He’ll freely admit that at the vintage races, the built 500-600 hp V-8s will run away from him. But it’s still a joy to pilot, and the power level is just right for street cruising.

And, of course, should he ever find himself stranded on the side of the road on one of these drives, then there’s only one hero to turn to for inspiration. It’s the lesson many a gearhead learned long ago: all you need to keep going is a Swiss Army Knife, maybe some duct tape, and a bit of ingenuity.

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Forty years ago, at the Geneva motor show, a vision in Rosso Corsa paint shone like a beacon in the sea, drawing crowds to the stands of the Ferrari importer and Pininfarina.

Adjacent to the Cavallino Rampante emblem was a badge that hadn’t been seen on a Ferrari since the 250 GTO of 1962. The Gran Turismo Omologato was back, and the world fell head over heels in love with Ferrari’s new generation of supercar.

Although it bore a passing resemblance to the 308, the GTO (which would become known as 288 GTO, a reference to its 2.8-litre, V-8 engine) had a longer wheelbase and a tubular-steel chassis, with most of the bodywork molded in fiberglass, and the bulkhead and front bonnet employing a Kevlar fiberglass honeycomb composite, an innovation attributed at the time to Ferrari’s F1 car designer, Harvey Postlethwaite. To this, a whole heap of drama was injected by Pininfarina’s Leonardo Fioravanti. Avanti! the car seemed to shout as your eyes lingered over the curves, the intakes, and those aluminium Speedline wheels.

Beneath that sculptural surface was an engine derived from motorsport, thanks to Lancia’s efforts competing in Group C with its LC2, which had made its debut the year before at the 1000km of Monza. The Ferrari’s 2.8 V-8 was supported by a pair of IHI turbochargers with intercoolers, running a maximum boost pressure of 0.8 bar to help summon 400 bhp—an eye-catching figure in 1984. Later, during a drive to the Austrian Grand Prix in a GTO, the man from Motor Sport had his mind scrambled as the 190mph Ferrari hit 100mph in second gear and 150mph in third.

The car’s purpose was to provide Ferrari with an entry ticket to Group B motor racing. Just 20 a month would be made at the Maranello factory, and 200 were needed to satisfy the FIA’s homologation regulations. Unsurprisingly, there were more than 200 clients knocking at Ferrari’s door. Production ceased in October 1985 and in the end, 271 were made (not including the six Evoluzione models), each and every owner approved by Il Commendatore, Enzo Ferrari.

Except, that’s not quite true, because Ferrari actually built 272 of them, and the story of the last Ferrari 288 GTO is the stuff of legend.

In 1975, aboard his 312T, Andreas Nikolaus Lauda—Niki Lauda to you and me—delivered the goods for Ferrari, securing the drivers’ championship and also helping bag the constructors’ trophy for the Scuderia. In the eyes of the tifosi, those at the factory, and Enzo Ferrari himself, Lauda could do no wrong.

Yet the following year, things did go wrong. Lauda came close to losing his life after crashing during the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, where he was hoisted from the burning wreckage by fellow drivers Arturo Merzario Brett Lunger, Harald Ertl, and Guy Edwards. Without knowing whether Lauda would survive, Enzo Ferrari gave orders for Emerson Fittipaldi to take his seat, a point that Lauda found hard to forgive.

Fast forward to the final race of the season, at Fuji in Japan, and Lauda was, astonishingly, favourite to take the title over a chasing James Hunt. But the rain came down and Lauda, exercising caution, retired his Ferrari from the race. Enzo Ferrari is said to have felt that his driver should have persevered and secured a back-to-back drivers’ championship. The following year, after Enzo tried but failed to make Carlos Reutemann the team’s number one driver, Lauda gifted the Scuderia another F1 title, but his relationship with Enzo was soured. How could the old man have held a grudge when Lauda risked everything and came so close to losing his place on Earth?

Lauda left for Brabham, retired, returned with McLaren, secured a third F1 title, and, at the end of 1985, called it a day for good. Then, perhaps to the surprise of most onlookers, Lauda took on a consultancy role with Ferrari and Fiat and expressed a desire to get his hands on an example of Ferrari’s flagship, the GTO. Which posed a problem, of course, because the folks at Ferrari knew full well that each and every car in the order book was allocated, and the last thing the company wanted to do was perform an awkward U-turn on any of its best clients.

Lauda was respectfully informed that it wouldn’t be possible for him to have a GTO. But he knew all the right people in the corridors of power at Fiat. After expressing his desire to own a GTO to Vittorio Ghidella, the CEO of Fiat, the wheels were set in motion. Despite the fact that production had by this point ended, Ghidella and Ferrari put their heads together and came up with a plan: The expense of building one more GTO would be shared between the two companies, and the presentation of the car would be done on neutral ground.

And so it was that in March 1986, Lauda’s GTO was ready. There was a discreet presentation at an airfield in Reggio Emilia, before Lauda drove—at some haste—back to Salzburg, accompanied by Austrian journalist Herbert Völker. “‘Can you feel the tail trying to swing out?’” asked the champ. ‘Yes I could, and I wish I couldn’t,’” Völker would later write.

By this time, Enzo was 88 years old and would live for just two more years. But you get the sense that, at the moment the old man handed over the keys to the GTO, Lauda knew that this gift, coming from one of the most stubborn, independently minded men he’d ever encountered, was as good an apology as he was ever going to get.

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It is taking no great leap of faith to suggest the Lotus Evora will one day be a classic. The list of models wearing Anthony Colin Bruce Chapman’s initials on the nose that haven’t eventually become classics is short, if it exists at all, and while no Lotus is faultless, the Evora has always been well received.

However, it does feel like a car somewhat overshadowed by the Elise it was always sold alongside, and by the Emira that Lotus currently sells. The Elise became a classic in its own lifetime and the Emira will secure its spot if for no other reason than being the brand’s final combustion-engined car, so just for a moment we’re pointing the spotlight on the Evora instead.

The Evora was designed as the everyday Lotus, pitched somewhere between Porsche’s Cayman and 911 in terms of utility and performance or, if you prefer, as a kind of modern equivalent of the Eclat and Excel.

Unlike the Eclat and Excel, the Evora was mid-engined, but like the older pair it was a 2+2. This meant a Ferrari Mondial—or BMW i8—style arrangement with a pair of nominal seats between the front pair and the engine bulkhead, though only the Ferrari gets credit for finding enough space for anyone taller than a toddler back there.

Ferrari eventually found space to fit a longitudinal V-8 behind its plus-twos, but the Evora was altogether more compact, and drew from Hethel’s deal with Toyota for its engine: a 3.5-liter, 60-degree V-6, the bare bones of which it shared with, among other things, the humble Camry sedan. In naturally aspirated form it made 276 hp, while the eventual addition of a supercharger eventually lifted that to well over 400. The later cars really howl thanks to active exhausts, with earlier naturally aspirated models offering more of a musical growl. Both still feel plenty quick enough today—the slowest Evora still does a sub-5 second sprint to 60 mph, with a top speed over 160 mph.

The Emira has attracted praise for feeling notably higher quality and more upmarket than any Lotus that came before it, but it’s easy to forget that the Evora was similarly praised at launch. Next to an Elise, it may as well have been from a different manufacturer, with actual trim covering every surface and an attractive dashboard design, though it’s not inaccurate to say that Porsche owners probably still wouldn’t have been impressed. Lotus improved the Evora over time, and later cars have notably tighter fit and finish, better materials, and a better feel to their controls both minor and major—though the old Vauxhall Astra column stalks were a permanent fixture.

A word on the exterior styling, too, as the Evora’s shape was perhaps one of its greatest strengths. Penned by longtime Lotus designer Russell Carr, it’s notable for two key qualities: It hides its 2+2 layout very well indeed, and it barely seems to have aged. Not everyone will find it pretty, but for a car that launched in 2009, the Evora barely looked a day older when it eventually went off sale in 2021.

The Evora’s real unique selling proposition, though, is in how it drives. It’s no understatement to say that it behaves like a big Elise, despite coming in around 1000 pounds heavier. Like its smaller sibling, the Evora both rides and handles beautifully, with a slight and unsurprising bias toward comfort and ease of use compared to the Elise. Anyone worried that hydraulic steering assistance might have compromised feedback will be pleased to know it makes almost no difference, and the wheel rim still nudges around in your palms over every change in road texture. Few, if any, have done assisted steering better.

The Evora’s balance was friendlier than that of the Elise, too. It’s a unique and satisfying feeling driving an Evora quickly, and it is one of those cars that only serves to highlight what others are missing. The last your author drove was in a twin test against the then-new Porsche 992, and while the 992 was of course a fine car in its own right, the Evora felt closer to those older, more intimate, and more involving classic 911s. Put differently, with its Japanese mid-mounted V-6, a manual gearbox, and an aluminum structure, it’s basically a more attainable NSX.

And Lotus’s efforts to make the Evora genuinely usable weren’t in vain. The rear seats were of limited use for people but served as an additional place to put luggage (like the Elise, there was a dedicated, if oddly shaped compartment between the engine bay and the back of the car), but the car’s ride, the smooth Toyota engine, and the generally well-appointed interior mean an owner need not dither over taking longer trips, and it’s even relatively frugal over distances, too.

Today, you’ll need somewhere in the region of $45K to get into the least expensive Evoras on the market, while later supercharged 400s and 410s range from $65K to almost $90K. Whether you’re struggling to get hold of an Emira or simply looking for an engaging and special driving experience for the price of a Golf R, the Evora doesn’t feel like a bad way to do it.

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It’s hard to imagine a time when BMW was a struggling carmaker, with a limited range that was out of reach for all but a lucky few. In reality, although BMW was founded in 1916, it didn’t start to thrive until more than 40 years later, with the introduction of the 700 coupe and sedan. Sales from those cars topped up the company’s coffers enough for it to develop the Neue Klasse of the early 1960s, which would set it on the path to greatness.

Along the way, there were a multitude of cars that lost BMW a ton of money, and one of those was the 503. It was developed alongside the 507, of which just 252 examples were built, but despite its rarity, the svelte two-seat roadster has a surprisingly high profile. A bit more plentiful but much less widely known than the 507 is the 503, which BMW launched in 1956 and axed just three years later. Chances are good you’ve never seen one.

When World War II ended, BMW was in trouble. Its two factories at Munich and Eisenach had been destroyed, and the company wasn’t in a position to resume full-scale car production until the end of 1952; even then, its daily capacity was just four vehicles, which is why BMW had to sell luxury cars with high profit margins. The problem was that when BMW launched its six-cylinder 501 and V-8-powered 502 sedans in 1952, they were out of reach for most; a DM 15,000 price tag (about $39,600 today) for the former was equivalent to four years’ salary for the average German. The 502 was almost 20 percent more costly, so even further out of reach. The two models would stay in production, in various guises, until 1962.

In the midst of 501/502 production, U.S. car importer Max Hoffman persuaded BMW to introduce a sports car that would sit between the affordable Triumph TR2/MG TD and the seriously expensive Mercedes 300SL. He nominated Albrecht Goertz to design something that could be sold for around $5000, and if BMW could hit that price point, Hoffman would order 1500 cars each year to sell through his dealer network.

Unfortunately for Hoffman, BMW was unable to reign in development costs, and by the time the 503 made its debut at the 1955 Frankfurt motor show, alongside the 507, the two cars were priced at more than double what Hoffman had wanted. As a result, he pulled the plug on his deal to sell the new car. Since BMW had no dealer network in the U.S., the world’s biggest car market, sales were guaranteed to be slender.

The 503 was never going to be a big seller. As a luxurious, hand-made, aluminum-bodied grand tourer, it would always be out of reach to the masses. But with its exquisite build quality, the 503 deserved better; each one was made to the specific requirements of its buyer, which is why no two cars were exactly the same.

At launch there was a choice of coupe or cabriolet body style, both of which were based on the same substantial steel ladder frame. All 503s were fitted with a 3168-cc V-8 engine, which was an evolution of the 2580-cc unit first seen in the 502. Although V-8s were a staple of the major U.S. carmakers at this point, in Europe just three companies were producing such engines when BMW introduced the 502—the other two were Tatra and Ford France (in its Vedette). Rated at 140 hp at 4800 rpm, the 3300-pound BMW 503 was capable of 115 mph or so; these cars were always more about luxury than speed.

As if the high DM 29,500 (roughly $69K today) price tag wasn’t enough to push the 503 out of reach in standard form, BMW offered an array of extra-cost options for those with seriously deep pockets. All four side windows were activated electrohydraulically, while fog lamps and a brake servo were fitted as standard. However, customers could pay up to DM 38,000 (about $88,500) for a fully loaded 503 with a Becker self-seeking radio, windscreen washers, and posher wheel trims. Shorter gear ratios and individual paint finishes could also be specified.

The sales brochure also listed a semi-automatic transmission as an option, but all 503s were fitted with a four-speed manual gearbox which was positioned under the front seats to optimize weight distribution. To help cut weight, the engine block and heads, intake manifold, oil sump, timing cover, and bellhousing were all cast in aluminum, while fueling was courtesy of a pair of Zenith carburetors. Drum brakes were fitted front and rear (front discs were fitted from 1957), and the steering was a rack-and-pinion set-up.

The car was favorably reviewed by the press, but with no representation in the U.S. market and a massive price tag, BMW was fighting a losing battle with the 503, which was axed in spring 1959 after just 139 cabriolets and 274 coupes had been made. BMW hadn’t even come close to covering its development and production costs, a story that would hold true with the 503’s successor, the 3200 CS.

Of the 503s made, all featured left-hand drive, apart from a trio each of coupes and cabriolets. Racing driver John Surtees bought one of the latter, as well as a 507, and he kept both cars until his death in 2017. In light of their rarity, luxury, and fantastic build quality, today Hagerty values the 503 coupe at $121,000–$295,000 while cabriolets will fetch from $269,000 to $575,000. If you can find one…

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

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

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

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

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

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

Al Castignetti, Nissan Sales and Marketing VP

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Fast out of the box and easy to modify, in the late 1980s, the 5.0 Fox-body Mustang was the king of cheap speed at drag strips and high school parking lots alike. But there was one fast Fox with a more intimidating reputation than any other. Built from 1982 to 1993, the Special Service Package (SSP) was the one Mustang you didn’t want to see in your rearview mirror: the Police Mustang. But while the SSP is the most famous (and collectible) police Ford of the 1980s, it wasn’t the only Fox-body police car.

The first Fox-body patroller was a version of the Ford Fairmont in 1978, and though it was a durable fleet car, its tepid performance limited its appeal as a pursuitmobile. Ford tried again in 1984 with the LTD Special Service Package, yielding much better results. With a throttle-body–injected 5.0 shared with the Mustang, the 1984–85 LTD SSP was the quickest American four-door police car of its day, but the introduction of the Taurus in late 1985 ended its run early.

Both SSPs, but especially LTDs, are rare now, even more so in restored period-correct condition, so when I learned that local restorer Robert King had both SSPs—a 1985 LTD and a 1988 Mustang—in his driveway, I had to check them out.

But old police cars are about much more than the hardware. They’re snapshots of another time and place in even more direct ways than most old cars, and the 1980s were a deeply weird time for police cars, as law enforcement agencies had to scramble to adapt to the huge changes of the Malaise Era. For context about where these cars fit into the policework landscape of the 1980s, I sat down with former Seattle officer Jim Ritter, who founded the Seattle Police Museum in 1997. 

Cop Cars of Hill Street Blues Era

“I started as a police cadet in Bellevue, just east of Seattle, back in 1975 and joined the King County Sheriff’s office in 1980, so I drove many 1970s police cars. Also, King County couldn’t always afford to replace cars frequently, so when I started we had two 1974 AMC Matadors and an Ambassador with 401 V-8s, which the LAPD famously used in the early seventies. They were ugly but fast. My first assigned patrol car was a 440 four-barrel ’76 Plymouth Fury.”

Ritter’s cadet years, of course, were ones of great change for law enforcement’s favorite cars. Big-blocks went first, then came catalytic converters and downsizing. The changes were most dramatic at financially troubled Chrysler, which had a commanding 80 percent share of the police car market in 1978 and a long history of catering to police departments. By 1982, the cars it was building had been transformed.

“First we got the [Dodge] St. Regis with 360 four-barrels, which weren’t as fast as the previous cars but were more comfortable. Then came the [Dodge] Diplomat and [Plymouth] Gran Fury.” As updates of what had been the “small” Dodge Aspen in 1976, the versions in Ritter’s fleet used 155-horsepower four-barrel 318 V-8s. “Unbeknownst to the Feds, some departments disconnected the emissions gear on the big cars because they were just too underpowered.”

Despite their middling power and mushy handling, Mopar’s dominance made the Diplomat and Gran Fury the default police cars of the 1980s. But with budgets tight in a post-gas-crisis time of inflation, many agencies tried out even smaller cars, and all these changes opened the door to new alternatives. Chrysler offered police-spec K-cars from 1982, which cops disdained, Ritter said, and which just couldn’t hold up to the abuse of police work.

Speed, Substance, and Symbolism

Into this environment came the LTD, which offered one real advantage: serious speed. The 1978–82 Fairmont police package (also sold as a much rarer Mercury Zephyr), started out with the 302 V-8, but its output was so tepid that at first its power stats weren’t even listed in the brochure, and it gave way to the even weaker 255-cid V-8 in 1980. The LTD was cut from the same unibody Fox-platform cloth and reused many Fairmont pieces, but things had changed.

The LTD SSP (and its civilian sister, the LTD LX) packed a 165-hp 5.0-liter EFI HO V-8, and while that doesn’t sound like much power now, it was plenty then. Plus, the whole package only weighed about 3300 pounds—about 200 pounds lighter than the Diplomat and 600 less than the larger Chevy Impala or Ford LTD Crown Victoria. There were also big 10-inch brake discs up front, much larger front and rear sway bars, heavy-duty springs, and a Traction-Lok differential.

All this made the LTD the quickest and best-handling four-door police car of its day, but it didn’t find mass acceptance. “Sometimes with a light car you can really chase your tail around because there’s nothing holding it down,” Ritter said. Officers loved its speed and handling, but they had two chief mechanical complaints: poor traction and weak brakes. The big discs looked good on paper, but they were prone to severe brake fade, and some agencies, notably the Santa Monica PD, soon dropped the LTD as a result.

Beyond the brakes, there were two other issues: size and image. “Law enforcement agencies were used to huge big-block cars, and it was hard for officers to adapt to smaller vehicles, especially six-foot-four guys like me. In the older cars, we had a console you could use as a small desk and room for all the gear. With the newer cars, we didn’t have any of that space.”

“Our patrol cars are our offices. We do our reports there, interview victims, and transport prisoners. You’re in that car all day pursuing criminals. It’s our lifeline for responding to and helping people, so we rely on it, and comfort and practicality are paramount.

“Even if we have a prisoner headed to jail, we want as little hassle as possible, for them and us. They’re already pissed off, and now you have to get them in the car. In the old days, three people fit in the back of a Fury, but now that wasn’t the case.” Notably, I couldn’t fit comfortably in the back seat of our feature LTD, and it has no cage. Many officers also worried about emergency egress in an accident in smaller cars with more confining interiors, and about the crash implications of ever-thinner–gage steel in car bodies.

But police cars are also symbols. “Our cars are the most recognizable police thing that the public sees, and they have the same lore as a badge,” Ritter added. “The LTD just didn’t look like a police car. When you pull up to an unruly crowd of people you want that command presence. An intimidating car can also discourage suspects from running, and lengthy high-speed chases were more common then.”

The Seattle PD used their LTDs sparingly from 1984 to 1990, when they were phased out and in some cases sold on to rural departments with even slimmer budgets. Ritter was glad, however, that he never had to try the 1980s’ smallest cop cars. 

“Back then, a lot of chiefs would try to get public attention by purposefully getting small, efficient cars, and I remember the La Conner Police Le Car and a Plymouth Horizon closer to Seattle. You could barely fit in that Horizon with all your gear, the transmission went out all the time, you couldn’t put prisoners in the back seat, and it just looked ridiculous. When cops rolled up in that car they looked like clowns, so already their image and authority were tainted.”

“I Can’t Outrun a Mustang”

Mustang SSPs had no such problems. To this day, the Utah Highway Patrol’s website recounts the story of a chase that abruptly ended when a Mustang joined the pursuit. When asked why he stopped, the suspect responded, “I knew I could outrun those other patrol cars, but I can’t outrun a Mustang.” That story might be apocryphal, but in early 1986 one Utah trooper pursued and stayed with a fleeing motorcyclist at speeds up to 130 mph.

It launched in 1982 with a massive order from the California Highway Patrol (CHP), and Ford made the Mustang SSP available to other agencies a year later. Underneath, the mechanical bits were mostly Mustang GT pieces, but there were upgrades like Kevlar drive belts, brake rotor shields, and a throttle lock under the dash to keep the engine idling at a higher-than-normal rpm, which kept accessories powered when stationary for long periods. For weight savings, most agencies ordered notchback bodies, though this severely limited trunk and backseat space.

At first, the 5.0 made 175 horsepower, then 200 for 1986, and finally 225 from 1989. A four-speed was optional in 1983 and standard on the early CHP cars, but after that agencies could choose a five-speed or an automatic. Most chose the latter since it made it easier for officers to operate radios and equipment.

They were perfect for traffic and pursuit work, Ritter said, but not much else. Also, he added, “Once you catch somebody, you can’t put a prisoner in a Mustang.” However, since neither Chrysler nor GM offered anything like it until Chevy’s B4C Camaro in 1991, the Mustang SSP had a market to itself, hence its long life. It also served as a morale incentive. At many agencies only the most experienced officers got them, Ritter said. “For the state patrol, they were a reward for good performance, and reinforced the elite image of the best officers.”

The Restorer

Robert King has been a Mustang guy since he learned to drive. His first car was a 1979 Mustang, and he grew up with a Pierce County K-9 officer as a neighbor, so he was always fascinated by police cars, particularly after his daily college commute took him past an SSP, he said. “The Mustang you see here radared me several times a day in 1991.”

King bought his first Mustang SSP in 1997 for $2000. Police cars are basic and lead hard lives, but they’re expertly maintained and often disposed of before they become maintenance hassles. “Most Washington agencies would let them go after about 55,000–60,000 miles,” King said. By the mid-1990s, Mustang fans had figured out that SSPs were dirt cheap at auction and a fantastic base for hot rodding. Many were thrashed or wrecked, and most old LTD cruisers were later used up as taxis, a fate common to many police cars.

King’s purpose was different. He loves driving them but views his cars as living history. And restoring a police car is much harder than turning one into a track car. His current LTD and Mustang are his favorites because they’re local, but also because their accuracy reflects the lessons learned from 25 years of restoring multiple Mustang SSPs (and one ’84 LTD prior to acquiring his featured ’85).

No two agencies outfit their cars the same way, and when units are decommissioned, most of the special equipment is removed. “And often thrown away,” added Ritter, as there’s usually no interest or budget to store old stuff except at faraway rural departments that have cheap space and may need to re-use old gear. There often aren’t reference photos or documentation of what was originally fitted, and obtaining specialized bits like the correct radios, radars, light bars, and other gear like the unique-to-Washington Motorola dual-band radios, are serious unobtanium.

The ’88 Mustang was auctioned in 1996 with only 44,000 miles on the clock, for just $2200. “They accidentally let it go too soon,” King said, and took months to approve the sale after they realized the error. Nevertheless, all of its equipment was stripped and an Oregon enthusiast used the car for a decade until King bought it. “It came to me naked, and it took 10 years to find the correct light bar.”

Fortunately, Pierce County had retained its first Mustang, so King had a direct reference for all of its equipment, a definite exception to the rule.

“If you want to restore cars like these, you need to build a trust relationship with the agencies and officers that worked with that car in the past,” King said, even if the car has been out of service a long time. Only that close-knit community of people knows how they were set up, and agencies generally don’t share that information with the public. Also, people are jerks, King added. “Not everybody has great intentions when it comes to building police replicas,” another reason agencies are reticent about sharing information. 

King has come to know many people in the Pierce County Sheriff’s office over the years, because of his interest in the cars but also through volunteer work. Early on, that access helped King restore his car, and later on he provided expertise to them. “It was because of that rapport that I was able to get permission to have all of the decals on my cars remade,” he said, because the companies that produce them won’t do so for random civilians.

There are also legal issues on the road. “Washington has strict laws against putting anything on ‘civilian’ cars that leads to the perception that they’re police cars. You can’t even have red and blue lenses.” When the cars are in transit, all the decals have to be covered over with magnetic strips and the light bar covers replaced with amber units.

Mechanically, the commonality of Fox bodies makes support much easier, but even then, some things are rare. “There’s only one supplier still making weatherstripping for cars like the LTD.”

What are they like on the road? “They’re really stiff. They have huge sway bars so they can both corner really well, though you can tell the LTD is a little bigger and heavier. They have the same steering racks, shocks, and struts, and they’re both quick. The Mustang’s sequential fuel injection gives it more power too, but you can hear the throttle bodies open up on the LTD and it moves. The Mustang has much better brakes though.” King also confirmed the LTD’s infamous brake fade. “Four or five hard stops in a row and you’re done.”

Community Outreach

King’s police cars get attention everywhere they go, and despite the often strained community-police relations of the 2020s, nearly all of it is positive. 

Ironically, cars that were purposefully intimidating when new are often looked upon much more warmly as classics, Ritter said. “The public notices these cars and really likes them, and I’ve tried to convince police leaders all over the country that sharing your history with the public and connecting with them in casual ways is a good thing. It helps demystify the public image of the police.”

The Seattle Police Museum had to close in 2017 after tunnel boring damaged its 19th-century building (Ritter is planning a reopening as a statewide museum), but in the decade prior, Ritter often used the museum’s 35 various police cars for public outreach in Seattle. King’s privately owned cars still serve a similar purpose at car events, and they are also frequent guests at parades and other types of events. 

When the museum’s cars were parked in downtown Seattle, Ritter said, “We would frequently encounter people who didn’t like cops, but with whom we could bond and establish relationships with over the cars. That’s the kind of magic you can’t reproduce without it being organic.”

***

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You’ll be aware by now that the Toyota GR Supra isn’t entirely the Japanese company’s own work. Not in the 1970s “that Celica looks a bit like a Mustang” sense, but in the sense that Toyota and BMW worked closely on development and that the fifth-gen Supra’s platform fundamentals, any tweaks aside, are those of a BMW Z4.

Thus the ongoing and by now slightly stale joke that the Supra is basically a Z4 coupe, though it’s thankfully a joke that is going out of fashion as enthusiasts warm to the car. Amazing what not jumping to initial conclusions can do.

If the Supra were merely a hardtop Z4, it wouldn’t be the first. The Z4 is in its third generation now, but only the first generation ever got a true fixed-roof variant. And it stands a fair chance of becoming a coveted classic in the not-too-distant future; its first-and-last-of-the-line status, the right badge, and truly distinctive styling are helping it to stand out among its contemporaries. Average values that fall well below the MSRP of the modern Supra don’t hurt, either.

The Z4 Coupe debuted at the Frankfurt motor show in 2005, three years after the roadster debuted in Paris. As is so often the case with the products of enormous modern car companies, history is unclear as to whose pen shaped the Coupe: Chris Bangle was head of BMW design at the time and is often credited (or blamed, depending on your view) with creating the “flame surfacing” trend embraced by the Z4; Adrian van Hooydonk (current BMW Group design director) was fairly senior at the time too; Anders Warming (currently design director at Rolls-Royce) is said to have designed the Z4 Roadster, and Thomas Sycha may be the man behind the roofed version.

Whoever it was—or however many it was—they did a cracking job. The Z4 will always be an acquired taste, thanks to the changes implemented in BMW design by Bangle during the period, but even if you’re not keen on the details, the long-hood, short-cab silhouette is perfect sports car stuff, a look adopted by everything from the E-Type to the current Supra. The roof really ties the look of the Z4 together, and it was clearly less of an afterthought than the Z3 Coupé’s breadvan look.

The Coupe’s cabin was unchanged from that of the Roadster (extra luggage space courtesy of the hatchback design aside), and this is probably more controversial than the exterior design these days, as BMW also largely abandoned its driver-focused, cockpit-like feel during the period. Still, there’s an elegant simplicity to it, and unlike the current Z4, you get a proper pair of hooded dials to glance at. It’s airier than the pillbox-like Supra, too.

The Z4 was larger and more sophisticated than the Z3, with a 3 Series–derived multilink rear suspension setup rather than its predecessor’s semi-trailing arms. Less welcome was electric assistance for the steering, and the Z4’s use of run-flat tires didn’t go down too well, either. Driving the car in 2006, Autocar criticized its “lifeless” steering and the tires’ effect on ride composure, but otherwise enjoyed its engine and handling, calling it the “loveable rogue” of the BMW range.

Ah yes, the engine. While a four-cylinder was still available in the Roadster, the Coupe was six-pot only, adding to the modern-day Datsun 240Z/Triumph GT6 vibes. The 255-hp 3.0si was lovely, but the truly covetable Z4 Coupe will always be the Z4 M, with its 330-hp S54 straight-six lifted from the E46 M3.

Not only was the M more powerful than the regular Coupé, but it also reverted to hydraulic assistance for the steering, immediately resulting in an improvement in feedback (if still not in the Porsche Cayman league). It ditched the run-flat tires, and there was a variable-locking limited-slip differential, too. Its stiffer setup didn’t go down well with everyone—some magazines preferred the regular 3.0si—but today’s enthusiast, starved of suitable alternatives, probably won’t mind.

Actually, there is one alternative: today’s Toyota Supra. It has even stronger performance—Autocar timed it to 60 mph in 4.4 seconds, compared to 5.1 for the Z4 M—and its modernity is highlighted in how much less fuel it uses, the magazine also seeing 10-mpg better economy in everything other than track testing.

But then Supras are still hefty money in the first place, with an MSRP of $47,535 for a four-cylinder car. The average value for the hottest hardtop Z4, the M Coupe, is $36,400, as of the first quarter of 2024. That car might even look a little better, too—and you can be absolutely certain, with the BMW badge on the nose, that this one isn’t pretending to be anything else.

***

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It was dark, with little traffic on my way home from a date when I dozed, briefly, at the wheel. I opened my eyes to see the two-lane road sweeping right and the double-yellow centerline flowing left-to-right under my MGA’s dim headlight beams. I jammed on the brakes, steered right and felt the car’s skinny rear tires lose grip as its back end headed left. Whoa!

I quickly steered back left to catch the slide, and the rear end snapped back right. Damn! This, I later learned, was what racers call a “tank slapper” as the car’s tail whipped one way, then the other. Then I realized that I was still hard on the brakes, and backing off that pressure enabled me to regain control. Whew—a near-disastrous lesson in car control at the tender age of 16!

I had just recently acquired my driver’s license yet was hardly inexperienced. My expert-driver father had let me steer his car as a little kid sitting on his lap and had taught and trained me in safe driving most of my life. Then, from ages 14 to 16, I survived two years on a motor scooter as my all-season daily driver, and I learned a life-saving lot about defensive driving, operating in traffic, and dealing with slippery conditions as the scooter’s brake cables often froze and left me essentially brakeless in Cleveland’s nasty winter weather.

At age 15, with no legal license, I had stolen my mom’s ’57 Ford convertible nearly every Friday night, when my folks were away in a bowling league, and I had somehow gotten away with driving that cool car all over the place in all kinds of conditions without incident. I never got caught, and my folks never knew, since they would have punished me severely for that foolishly risky habit. So, when my car-guy dad surprised me with a well-used 1957 MGA roadster for Christmas three weeks before my 16^th birthday, I could not have been more thrilled.

To be honest, my very first car was not actually that MGA. Instead, my dad had bought a goofy Lloyd 600, a tiny 23-hp German microcar, at a local import dealership, and it was to be my Christmas and 16^th birthday present. But very thankfully, I never saw that little POS. The auto gods were smiling down on me the day he picked it up, because it clanked to a smoky halt just a few feet out of the lot. More than a little pissed, he then harassed the dealer into a friendly price on the MGA and stored it at a friend’s house awaiting the big Christmas morning presentation.

But my introduction to that red, wire-wheeled beauty was traumatic. Before hitting the sack on Christmas Eve, I noticed our garage full of white smoke. I rolled up the door to see the MGA with its hood up, my mom standing in shock, and my father frantically searching for the battery. We finally found two separate six-volt batteries behind the seats, but the electrical system was well cooked by the time we got them unhooked. “Merry Christmas,” grimaced my frustrated dad.

Once repaired and functional (I’d love to have seen my 6’ 4” dad’s second angry confrontation with that dealer), that MGA could not have been a much cooler set of high-school wheels. Thanks to years of hard work and Dad’s good job, we were comfortably middle class but far from wealthy. Some of my classmates were, but some had no wheels at all; a couple drove restored Ford Model As (pretty cool), but no one else had a sexy “poor man’s Jaguar” British roadster.

It was a little rusty (which didn’t show much thanks to its red paint); its first-gear’s synchro was history so was hard to engage without grinding a bit; its infamous Lucas electrics went missing in the rain from time to time—which required removing and hand-drying its distributor cap and a few other parts; and its cable-operated door latches were weak. But all that seemed well worth the trouble to a good-student, bad-athlete, car-loving, marginally likeable 16-year-old.

I did almost lose girlfriend Betsy out the passenger door when it flew open while I spun a quick U-turn after picking her up. Good thing she grabbed the windshield pillar to avoid meeting the street! She eventually forgave me, and the MGA, and enjoyed riding in it. Except when I wouldn’t stop to erect its top after it started raining. That was a clumsy, 15–20-minute operation, so I figured we’d get wetter while stopped to put it up than we would just driving in the rain. And the faster I drove, the more the rain swept over the windshield, and our heads.

I also vividly remember some snow-related adventures in that car. On the very first night I had my license, I drove over to Betsy’s house and offered her a ride. After a serious conversation with her dad, he agreed to let her go with me despite a fairly heavy snowfall going on. Thinking back, had she been my daughter, I probably would have said, “No way.”

And even though I was already a fairly experienced driver when I got my license (much more than my dad knew…), he signed me up for driving lessons to get a break on insurance, which was pricey even then for teen drivers. It was snowing hard on the day of my second lesson, and the instructor climbed in and let me take him for a ride. Which I did … way out of town and back, in increasingly heavy snow. I was a ridiculously over-confident driver even then so gave him what must have been a hair-raising ride sliding around sideways on slippery roads. I thought he might be impressed by my car-control skill. But as I recall, he just sat there, probably terrified, and didn’t say anything at all.

That turned out to be my last lesson, so maybe the instructor refused to ride with me again and told his colleagues to avoid me as well. My dad never confirmed whether he got the insurance break after I failed to complete those lessons, but I’m guessing he probably didn’t.

Another snow-related incident started out as grins but ended scary. A friend and I were having fun driving around with both side window panels out and our door pockets full of snowballs. We were pitching them out at passing cars as we drove and managed to hit a few. Then one driver we hit came after us. I led him on a lively chase through snow-covered suburban back roads and alleys, but he hung right with us. When we finally drove into a blocked alley and had to stop, he and a bigger guy jumped out and caught us. They threatened to kick the crap out of us but just yelled, lectured us, and let us go. But not before tossing my car key into a snowbank. We scraped around in the snow for a while, found the key and headed home, one good scare wiser.

I wasn’t a good enough (self-taught) mechanic to mess with the MGA’s mechanicals, but I did (for some reason) take off easily removable parts under its hood and spray paint them different colors. And one important modification was installing aftermarket seatbelts, since the car had come without belts from the factory. My dad had optional ones in his company car, a 1960 Thunderbird, and trained me to habitually use them—a habit that likely saved my life years later in my first new car, a 1966 Triumph TR4A.

Did I have the belt installed, and was I using it, when I so nearly lost control on that dark night? I honestly don’t recall. But I do remember that the MGA’s floorboard was wood, and that belt probably would have ripped right through it in a violent flip, despite the large washers I used to secure its anchors. Further, the MGA’s windshield frame was flimsy, to say the least. So, belted in or not, that was one of many times in my life when the driving survival gods were smiling on me.

That old MGA was truly cool for school if a bit rusty, slow, and unreliable. After a year with it, I was lusting for something more powerful and threatening to trade it for an older Corvette. I even checked out a couple of not-so-cherry ’54 and ’55 Corvettes. Then my dad (bless his car-loving heart), on a business trip to Detroit, found a nice ’57 Corvette for sale by a couple who needed the money and talked them down to (as I recall) just $1500. It was a black base car with a white convertible top, a detachable hardtop, a 245-hp twin-4-barrel 283 V-8, and a two-speed Powerglide automatic. He brought it home, and we sold the MGA.

That Corvette was even cooler, much faster, and potentially more treacherous. I somehow survived my high-school senior year with it, but that’s a story for another time.

***

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There are certain cars that stay with us. Cars from a special time in our lives that haunt us. They’re gone, but the memories live on. Now and then, there is a way to bring back those halcyon days—if you have the right connections. Fran has the right connections.

Back in the day, when Fran got his first real job out of graduate school, he went searching for a special car. Other young people he worked with were buying these boxy BMWs. Everyone was buying them. “It was monkey see, monkey do,” Fran says. “I didn’t want that.” Fran wanted something different.

There was a Pontiac dealership in East Windsor, Connecticut, that suddenly started selling Datsuns. One day Fran saw a Sight Orange 240Z on the lot, fell in love, and bought it. It definitely stood out in the parking lot at Aetna, where he worked. Soon, he began courting a girlfriend in his new Z. Down the road, they got married, and a two-seater just wasn’t practical. There was no place for a car seat, after all. The newlyweds had a small house with a small garage, and the Datsun had to go.

Decades passed, Fran found success in his work and owned fun classics, but eventually, he wanted to have a taste of those bygone days. He needed a 240Z in his life again. Leaning on his connections, Fran called up Dean Cusano, owner of Motorcars Incorporated.

Dean’s shop specializes in Jaguar in E-Types. The work environment is a cross between an operating room and a showroom, where each occupant has been given a name (Fran takes credit for starting that trend).

Fran had learned about Dean years before while on the hunt for a Jag. He was told that Dean Cusano knew every nut, bolt, and quirk of the E-Type. Fran bought a 1968 Series 1.5 coupe from him. After driving it for a while, Fran convinced him to make some modifications. It was a hard sell, but Dean finally relented, and the Jag soon became known as “Enzo,” with a high-performance 4.2-liter race motor and a vanity plate: ENZO SEZ. Then, Fran had him modify another E-Type—“Lenny”—a 1967 roadster in Le Mans spec, again with a high-performance 4.2 race motor. Finally, there was “Charmaine,” a stock ’62 Series 1 roadster. Jaguars are how they became friends. Then Fran came to him with a special request, a bit outside of Dean’s normal area of expertise.

With that inescapable hankering for another Datsun, Fran asked Dean to find him the best 240Z he could. Dean discovered such a car on Bring A Trailer, a 1973 Arizona survivor with 41,000 original miles and not a speck of rust anywhere. They won the auction, and the car was shipped to Connecticut to start its transformation.

Fran and Dean sat down and started talking about the look of the car. Fran wanted to add flares and a wing on the back. He showed Dean numerous images of Zs with crazy stances and flared fenders, but Dean would have nothing to do with it. “Every snot-nosed kid does that sort of thing,” he told Fran. “If you want me to customize your car, I have to do it my way and not with bolt-on imitation crap. I’m going to do something that hasn’t been done before, and I’ll build you a bespoke, custom Z.”

Fran handed him the keys. “Do what you think is right,” he said. “Do it as if it were your car, and call me when it’s done.”

Despite being steeped in Jaguars, Dean had the chops to build a custom ride. In his younger days, he’d built custom cars with his late brother Joe, who was a hot rodder from the ’50s, so the custom design ethos was definitely in Dean Cusano’s DNA. Nothing was going to be bolt-on, and nothing was going to be easy. Dean was going to create the ultimate 240Z GT.

Of course, dropping a Japanese car into the middle of a shop that works on English cars might seem counterintuitive, but Dean had direct knowledge of Datsuns from racing his own 240 back in the day. To him, this was simply a Japanese Jaguar.

He had an idea for it, too, but he never made a single drawing. So, with an open checkbook, a mandate to create a one-of-a-kind Datsun, and the help of Bob Matcheski, an old hot rodder who worked in the shop, they got down to business.

Once they had the Z on jack stands, they started cutting off the sides. After that, they reworked the suspension and set the ride height to where they wanted it. When you lower a car, you lose travel, so instead of shortening the struts, they raised the towers, which would allow the big back tires to have 5 inches of travel. In the front, the car was lowered by utilizing racing coilovers and adjustable lower A-arms.

Next, they started rearranging things and placing them where they wanted them to be. This is how they decided on the width, the stance, where the fenders were going to go, and how the wheel arches were going to be altered. They also used an old hot rod trick and frenched the bumpers to make the body look wider.

An original Z had 14 x 5.5-inch wheels, which would be too small for this build. But Dean also did not want this car to look like it had huge wheels stuffed beneath it, so they agreed on 17 x 11s and spent a lot of time making sure the arch of the tires fit into the arch of the wheel wells. The apertures of the wheel arches have been raised almost 2 inches in the front and 1.25 inches in the rear. Even though the Z is lowered 3.5 inches, with taller tires, it doesn’t look slammed. You don’t notice how radical it is until it’s sitting next to a stock 240Z. The idea was not to make it radical, however. The idea was “factory GT.”

Getting the Z to that idealized aesthetic was really a matter of Dean and Bob throwing ideas back and forth and then applying them to the car. In their skilled hands, it was a process requiring very few redos, and the whole project came together in a completely organic way.

One thing about the original Z that Dean always hated was the door sills. “I couldn’t deal with the bottom of the door breaking that clean line of the rocker panel,” he says. “I had to change that.” The only thing to do was to create a custom door whose sheet metal reached all the way to the bottom of the rocker. In the end, the only panel that remained stock on this Z build was the rear hatch. The roof was altered when it was removed to add the rear crossbar. The hood was extended ¾ of an inch in the front to make it work with the widened front fenders, which then required redoing the headlight buckets. While they were at it, they welded them back without seams for a cleaner line. A lot of modifications and metalwork went into that ¾-inch change, but it was important to make the car look right.

The Z is now 4 inches wider overall, so the fenders were made 2 inches wider but not flared. The rear quarter panels, meanwhile, were tapered in, as on a Lamborghini Miura. The added width in the custom doors allowed them to run cooling channels through them to help take heat off the rear brakes.

Although Dean had the wheel size pegged at 17 x 11, he wanted to keep a semi-stock look with kidney bean wheels. Something like the Ansen Sprints, but much bigger. Try as he might, he couldn’t find anything that fit the bill, so he started talking with a wheel manufacturer in Australia. When they asked him how many wheels he needed, Dean told them four. “Sorry mate, we only do runs of 4000,” came the reply. “But we could make you some samples.” Deal! Dean got blank samples, drilled them for a Ford five-bolt pattern, and widened them to 11 inches. They are now backed by Wilwood brakes.

Under the hood, Dean and Bob went to great pains to conceal as much of the wiring as possible, and all the harnesses and relays were hidden. Of course, the engine itself couldn’t be left alone. The basis was a 2.8-liter block from the Datsun 280Z, to which they added a high-performance cam, Carillo rods and pistons, and triple 40-mm Mikuni carburetors with K&N filters. It is hooked up to a Tremec five-speed transmission, which makes the car an easy-driving cruiser.

Unlike the car’s exterior, however, the interior is stock. “I insisted that it remain stock,” Dean says. “In fact, every piece of the interior is original to the car except the carpeting.”

Dean and Bob built up the car to ensure everything fit properly, then took it all apart before turning the body over to Wayne Rollins of East Coast Motorsports to do the finish bodywork and apply a flawless paint job in Sight Orange.

The Z is now a bit more muscular, a bit more refined. Dean has taken a classic design and added some flair without taking away from the original, and in the process, he and Bob turned a great sports car into a world-class GT.

As a racer, Cusano has driven 240Zs and E-Types, and he knows their handling characteristics. “Those are long, skinny cars that push and lean a lot,” he says. To negate that, Bob adds, “We’ve made the car lower and wider, with a lower center of gravity.”

“It’s more neutral-handling and better balanced,” Dean says. “More like a C4 Corvette than the original.”

Dean and Bob made big changes from the original but never compromised the ride. They had a blast in the process, too, as each man appreciated the other’s talent and input while their ideas came together over 2000 hours of close work. Whatever Dean envisioned, Bob could weld into reality. “I loved every minute of the build. It was a fantastic experience,” Dean says. “Would I do it again? Not a chance.”

The biggest compliment Dean gets with the car comes when people walk by it at a show and don’t notice the difference. Then the people who know Zs see it and have their minds blown.

When he took delivery, Fran’s mind was blown, too. The car was simultaneously a blast from the past and beyond all expectations. He gave the Z a vanity plate with a nod to Yutaka Katayama, the man known as Mr. K, the father of the 240Z.

Many hours and many dollars went into creating a custom machine, which looks like it could have come from the factory. Ask Fran, though, and he’ll tell you that you can’t put a price on memories.

***

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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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Meet the 1963 Thunderbird Italien, a custom-bodied show car. Its recent sale racked up a figure high enough for the record books: $456,000 including fees, over 600 percent higher than the value of a 1963 Thunderbird in #1 (Concours) condition. The unique design is one thing, but the reason for its existence is even more remarkable: The coachbuilding company that made the car also saved it from certain death.

First, a little about the car itself. According to RM Sotheby’s well-researched auction description, the Thunderbird Italien was a one-off byproduct of Henry Ford II’s interest in all things Italian. His fascination reportedly stemmed from a well-known failure to purchase Ferrari in 1963, and a courtship with an Italian socialite who became his wife in 1965. The description also makes the valid connection between the T-bird and Ford’s Total Performance advertising campaign, which initially focused on motorsports but quickly pivoted into the promotion of the advanced design, luxury, and durability of cars like the 1965 Ford Galaxie. Ford’s Total Performance was a great way to give an increasingly diverse market anything it needed in an automobile.

Enter the Thunderbird Italien: a custom-bodied hardtop coupe based on a 1962 Thunderbird convertible, bearing a name that’s a bit more, ahem, continental than the traditional American spelling. The car was made by Dearborn Steel Tubing (DST), the folks behind Ford’s famous Thunderbolt drag racing machines.

But DST had a different goal with this T-bird: It was meant to be a showy beauty that would participate in Ford’s Custom Car Caravan, an in-person marketing campaign to drum up attention to the Ford brand with heavily modified vehicles often sporting the “Kustom” modifications typical of the era. And while the design was penned by the stylists at Ford, DST did the heavy lifting to make the Thunderbird Italien concept a reality.

The fastback roofline of the Thunderbird Italien is made of fiberglass, thanks in part to Vince Gardner, a designer who worked with DST on several vehicles for Ford. A set of 1963 Thunderbird fenders and doors were added to the show car, which established a foundation for unique fender vents and bright side molding design for the Italien. A larger chrome strip above the grille was implemented, and the hood incorporated the Thunderbird emblem. Below was an egg-crate grille, a common choice of texture for everyone from Ferrari to Carozzeria Ghia in this time period. Candy apple red paint finished off the look, a period-correct finish for the era. A material commonplace in Italian automobiles was also present in the cabin: Leather, and extensive amounts of it—the headliner, everything around the beltline, and the entire dashboard.

As with most concepts, the Thunderbird Italien was supposed to be crushed after serving its promotional purpose. But since it was based on a production car, DST had the motivation to give it a new lease on life. And that life story is told in the auction’s details, down to the extensive restoration by Tom Maruska in 2005. What’s fascinating here is the fact that DST actually saved this show car in the first place. Turns out they made a habit out of this practice. But don’t take my word for it:

Apparently DST made a significant chunk of its revenues by turning an OEM’s leftover cars into something more valuable than mere metal scrap. Removing “non-compliant parts and using OEM street legal replacement parts” sounds like a labor-intensive job, but DST openly promoted that they can “take what would be a junk car, and turn it into a profit for an OEM.” They partnered with Ford in 1955 and did everything from custom cars to auto show displays to publicity stunts on the Empire State Building, solving seemingly endless logistical challenges for their neighbors in Dearborn.

Do yourself a favor and check out the behind-the-scenes photos on Dearborn Steel Tubing’s Facebook page right now. (Time might be of the essence, as the company closed its doors back in 2020, and the account may not be up for long.) The number of projects that DTS has engaged (and documented!) is pretty astounding. According to its former CEO Brenda Lewo, DST once employed “130 certified automotive technicians and mechanics” with three facilities situated on 29 acres.

While it’s sad to see a company like Dearborn Steel Tubing go out of business, perhaps the 1963 Thunderbird Italien proves that its legacy of saving/repurposing the “surprise and delight” of a concept is an enduring one. The Thunderbird Italien both survived and thrived, as witnessed by the extensive restoration performed by the fifth of its seven owners after DST saved it. Who knows what other classics DST saved from imminent ruin, after spending so much time and money to bring them to life in the first place.

***

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It was the Memorex mixtapes that got me. After he bought his 1994 Ford Escort LX, Michael Shelangoski made nine tapes of his favorite ‘80s and ‘90s jams to play in it. Seeing them there in 2022, for an instant, made me feel like it was 1998 again. In the spring of ’98, my friend Sarah and I, both art majors at Ohio’s Oberlin College, went on a back road blast to the Cleveland Museum of Art in her ‘94 Escort GT. A mixtape in the deck played Duran Duran, OMD, and the Stray Cats the whole way.

Songs, like cars, can put you back in a specific moment from the past. I still think of Sarah and that car when I hear “Rio” or “Rock This Town.” (We both regularly DJ’d parties in college.) Michael has similar memories: “Senior year high school, my car was a ‘92 Mercury Tracer LTS, which had the twin-cam Mazda motor like the Escort GT. My friends and I spent lots of time cruising around in that Tracer playing Alanis Morissette’s ‘Jagged Little Pill.’”

Cheap and cheerful, Escorts were perfect for cars for new drivers, budgeters, and college kids alike. Introduced in the spring of 1990, the second-gen 1991–96 U.S. Escort didn’t sell quite as well as its 1981–90 predecessor, but it was a nicer car in many ways. Sharing its chassis with the BG-Series Mazda Protegé, it looked and felt far more modern, and it was both more durable and more fun to drive.

Alas, nobody saves “economy cars.” Most were worked hard, put away wet, and discarded by the time of 2008’s Great Recession. 

Despite their relative rarity, even the hotter Escort GT is still not all that valuable. Inspired by the music, cars, and clothes of the Radwood era, Shelangoski bought his magenta-hued LX for just $3000. Anything with more than three doors goes for even less, and even near-mint GTs rarely sell for more than $7000. If you can find a nice one, they’re a supreme bargain for a fun and relatively reliable vehicle that blends Eighties and Nineties aesthetics as adeptly as the Trapper Keeper, with an equally vivid color palette.

To find out how the looks emerged, I tracked down one of the Escort’s original designers, Mark Conforzi. Now retired, Toronto-born Conforzi designed Fords for four decades. In 1986, the Escort was his first U.S. project as an exterior lead after a long stint in Germany. Speaking with Hagerty, Conforzi shared his recollections from the era and, for the first time, confirmed the existence of a wild Easter egg on this now three-decade-old design.

And, as it turns out, he’s also got good taste in contemporary music.

Sierras and Escorts

Conforzi graduated from ArtCenter College of Design in 1978 and, freshly married, immediately traveled overseas with his portfolio in hand. “I think I toured 13 studios in all, from Pininfarina to Ford, and I got a lot of job offers, but I chose Ford of Europe in Cologne. There I got to work on amazing projects like the Sierra and the [European] Escort, and also learned lots of things from very talented people like Ed Golden, Patrick le Quément, Ray Everts, and Trevor Creed.” 

Conforzi’s early time at Cologne was defined by the radically aerodynamic Sierra, but most of his design work was on the European Escort Cabriolet (“I was kind of on my own on that one,” he adds), the circa-1985 Scorpio and 1986’s Mk4 Escort family. “In 1985, [Ford’s U.S. design chief] Jack Telnack asked if I’d like to work in the U.S.” It took a while to sort out the immigration issues, but by 1986 Conforzi was working under Telnack in Dearborn on what would become the 1991 Escort.

In some ways, there’s a direct line from the Sierra and the 1986 Taurus to the ‘91 Escort.

“It was a time of change, and with cars like the Sierra we were getting into softer shapes,” Conforzi said. While British and European response to the Sierra had initially been mixed, the lozenge-shaped Taurus, partly designed by Ray Everts, was a huge hit with Americans. The U.S.-market 1980s Escort was a big seller, but visually conservative and often criticized as less sophisticated, cosmetically and dynamically, than its European cousins.

“Management was very open to change at that time, which was refreshing,” Conforzi said, so he created much softer, more aerodynamic shapes based on the older hard-edged Escort silhouettes. Nearly flush glass made them look even smoother. 

Ford reserved the most extreme treatments for the hot-hatch GT model. “We had a huge wheel program for this car with lots of different designs, and on the colors and materials side of things we were proposing all bold colors. There were also many different spoilers. We even tried a bi-plane design similar to the Sierra XR4i. For the scale of the car, management thought that was a little too much!”

During our conversation, Conforzi dug out an old photo dated January 8, 1987. In it, a bright yellow GT model is seen on Saab-like three-spoke rims. Neither the color—which Conforzi said execs loved at the presentation—nor the wheels made it to showrooms, but otherwise, it’s not far off what got built. (Except for the grille.)

A Totally Tubular Easter Egg

When I first saw Conforzi’s name on a drawing provided by the Ford Heritage Vault, I remembered some sketches he provided for a 1984 story in Car Styling Quarterly about blending illustrations, renderings, and text. Each has a stylized signature with the eight letters of his last name offset at a 50-degree angle. The asymmetrical Escort GT grille has eight inlets at the same angle, so I asked: “Is that an Easter egg? How’d that happen?”

“I had to laugh at this,” Conforzi replied, “But yes, that’s my signature. When I was in Europe, they wanted a signature from all the designers, kind of like it was your character. I came up with this elongated, tubular look for the eight letters inspired by the graphic artist Patrick Nagel. You know him, right?”

(Nagel’s artwork famously graced the album and single covers of Duran Duran’s “Rio” and “Hungry Like the Wolf” in 1982. Yes, I knew him.)

“Translating it to the grille was an unconventional idea, but management was open to it. It has a lot of character, and in its day you could recognize it right away when the car was driving down the road.”

The Nagel connection led to another question. In Conforzi’s photo of the yellow GT presentation, there are mood boards filled with fashion photos and a trio of standees of models wearing very Bananarama-like outfits courtesy of cigarette-adjacent “Virginia Slimwear.” Similarly, his 1984 sketches from Car Styling resemble album art. Every artist looks at the world around them, but how much of a role did fashion, music, and pop culture play in his designs?

“I’ve always been influenced by pop culture, by music, album art, and graphic design, so I definitely borrowed or got influenced by lots of that stuff back then. Being in Europe [in the late 1970s and early 1980s] I also got exposed to lots of bands, Lene Lovich, OMD, I could go on forever.” 

The Laser And The Escort

Mechanically, the 1991 Escort, internally coded as project “CT20,” was a major change in engineering philosophy. 

The original U.S. model had theoretically been a world car tied to the European Mk3, but its design had widely diverged thanks to the many changes made for U.S. customers. For 1991 there were again new Escorts on both sides of the Atlantic, but the U.S. model followed the recipe of the Asia/Australia Ford Laser and the original Mercury Tracer by using Mazda’s 323/Familia/Protegé platform. The looks, however, came from Dearborn.

“The international teams did their interpretation of our design. I can’t remember doing any of that work in our studio, and usually with global programs like that the changes you make are for feasibility or manufacturing, not different looks.” Conforzi said.

Lightly modified, the Laser was sold in Australia and Japan into 1994, and in Indonesia and New Zealand until 1996. The real beneficiaries of all this sharing, however, were American drivers.

Mazda, then 25 percent owned by Ford, knew how to make even slow cars fun to drive. All Escorts, indeed, were sharp handlers. There were two engine options. Ford’s 88-horsepower 1.9-liter CVH four—now with sequential port fuel injection—was standard while GTs, starting in the late summer of 1991, came with Mazda’s 127-horse 1.8-liter BP Twin cam. That 1.8 was the same engine found under the hood of the NA Miata. Buyers could choose from a four-speed automatic or a slick-shifting five-speed manual—the latter being the more engaging option.

Like the earlier Escort, the 1991 models came as hatchbacks (three- or five-door) and a small wagon. The wagon looked a bit like a scaled-down Taurus wagon, particularly from the rear. A sedan option (shared with the Tracer and designed for both cars) arrived for 1992. The three-doors and wagons were vastly more popular than the sedans and five-doors, and the rarest of all these Escorts is the one-year-only 1992 LX-E—a sedan with the GT engine.

Although the yellow paint never made it to the showroom, plenty of other bold colors did, starting the Cayman Green-colored special edition called the Cayman GT. (All apologies to Porsche, surely.) The GT even offered color-keyed directional wheels for several years, plus other bright colors like Ultra Violet, Bimini Blue, Calypso Green, and Iris Metallic—the color on Shelangoski’s LX. If buyers selected the “LX Sport” option, they got an LX dressed much like a GT and in the same colors, but with the Taurus-style grille instead of the “Conforzi” one.

All told, more than 1.7 million examples were sold before the Escort was redesigned into a rounder but less distinctive wrapper for 1997. It continued to use the old Mazda BG-Series platform. 

In the meantime, Conforzi went on to design many more Fords. His work included a role on the retro-themed 2002 Thunderbird project, a car people still frequently ask him about. He’s still an Escort superfan, however, having owned two European Escort Cabriolets and an early-’90s U.S. Escort GT.

A Bargain Rad Ride

Shelangoski’s Escort experiences, like mine, are from a disconcertingly distant era. In addition to his Tracer, he has owned two other Escort LXs, a ‘91 and a ‘92, during and shortly after college. After not really thinking about them for the better part of two decades, it was music, memories, and friends that led him to buy the vivid LX as his first classic car. 

“I went to a Radwood show with a friend in his Chevy Beretta in 2021,” he said. “I immediately felt like ‘these are my people, this is where I belong. I want one of these cars.’” Months later he started looking for an Escort. “My main requirements were that it be a GT, have a manual transmission, and be in a funky color.”

In the end, he settled for two out of three.

Shelangoski bought the car from a family who’d briefly used it to teach their kids to drive; they figured that learning how to drive stick car would give the young ones more options for potential cars. “The dad had picked it up from its original owner in central Washington, who gave up driving at 83. She’d named it ‘Penelope,’ because of the color and Lady Penelope from The Thunderbirds.”

The LX has been easy to live with, even if its CVH engine isn’t the smoothest even by 1990s standards. The original owner maintained the car fastidiously, but after nearly 200,000 miles and two teenagers learning to drive on it, it did need some attention. “Mostly minor things. The dashboard lights and the heater fan weren’t working, and the rearview mirror had fallen off, but nothing that took more than about 48 hours other than replacing the clutch, which was beginning to wear out.” 

Like most old cars, there are common items that break: tie rods, wheel bearings, constant control relay modules, wonky thermostats, and valve seats on later CVH-engine cars. However, Escorts and Tracers of this era are hard-wearing, and most mechanical bits aren’t hard to get.

Interior and trim bits, however, are a different story. “As common as these cars once were,” Shelangoski said, “Things like the switches on the motorized seatbelts are extremely difficult to find, so it pays to be part of an owners group or a club.” There is a Ford Escort Owners Association (FEOA) forum, but these days most cars, parts, and advice are found on Facebook. 

The cars are cheap to buy, but prices are slowly going up. According to John Wiley, Hagerty’s Manager of Valuation Analytics, from 2013-15 the average quote value range was $2900 to $3200. It’s since risen to between $4000 and $6000. I don’t practice Santería, I ain’t got no crystal ball, but that still sounds like a bargain to me.

***

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I must confess that, until recently, if I had to pick an automobile brand as the one least likely to survive the industry’s inexorable pivot toward electrification, it would have been Dodge.

After all, with its reliance on muscle cars powered by hulking V-8 engines, the brand already seemed to live in a bygone era, albeit one still very close to the hearts of many. So it seemed inevitable to me that, sooner rather than later, we would be speaking about Dodge the way we do with the likes of Pontiac and Oldsmobile: in past tense only.

But, understandably, the people in charge at Auburn Hills beg to differ. The new Dodge Charger is out to prove that muscle cars can guzzle electrons or the good ol’ dinosaur juice. That’s no mean feat, and it places a considerable burden on the collective shoulders of Stellantis design chief Ralph Gilles and his team.

That’s because in a world where EVs capable of neck-snapping acceleration are commonplace and Dodge can no longer bank on the raw, primal appeal of its supercharged Hemi V-8, the new Charger’s chances of success will largely depend on its looks. But that’s just as well, because Dodge’s designers knocked this one right out of the park.

Everything has changed under the new Charger’s skin. Yet, Dodge’s designers have chosen to wrap the new technology in the reassuring comfort of nostalgia, drawing heavily on design cues from the beloved 1968–70 models. Of course, this is far from the first time they’ve done so, but never before has the end result been so compelling from all angles.

But let’s break it down, starting from the fundamentals.

Beauty in automobile design is, above all, a matter of proportions, and those who worked on the new Charger clearly got the memo. Dare I say, the new Charger has the proportions its 1968 namesake wishes it had.

Mind you, having grown up watching the Duke boys thrashing Dodge B-bodies on the telly over and over, I love the classic late ’60s Charger as much as everyone else does. Still, to my eye, the old model’s front overhang has always seemed a touch longer than it should have been. And don’t get me started on the size of the wheels and how far inset they were into the fenders!

That’s not the case with the new Charger, though. Its 20-inch wheels neatly fill the arches, and the front overhang has been kept nice and short. On the other hand, the generous length of the rear overhang allows the roofline to gracefully taper into the rear deck as it did on the classic model. So, in typical muscle-car fashion, the cabin’s volume extends rearward on the new Charger to visually “sit” over the rear axle. This helps make the car look purposeful, like a beast ready to pounce.

Once the vehicle’s basic proportions are set, the second ingredient of automobile design is what I like to call the “sculpture,” or the way exterior surfaces are modeled and interplay with one another. And I’m pleased to notice that in this regard, the new Charger is a significant step forward from Dodge’s previous efforts.

To me, the 2008 Challenger and, to a lesser extent, the 2011 Charger have always looked a bit too plump and heavy. They were handsome cars, but they lacked the degree of grace and finesse that separates a good design from an outstanding one.

But while I’ll stop short of declaring the new Charger a masterpiece, the overall execution is on another level compared to its predecessors. The body surfaces are taut, the lines are pin-sharp, and the way the chunky rear pillars merge into the quarter panels appears to have been treated even better than they were on the concept car from two years ago.

Yet perhaps my favorite aspect of the new Charger’s design is what Dodge’s PR calls the “R Wing.” We’ve already seen that feature on the 2022 concept car, but I’m glad it made production. Not only does it make for a gorgeously sculpted bonnet, but through this aerodynamic device, the designers have managed to integrate a key graphic element of the 1968 Charger (its full-width grille) and give it a thoroughly contemporary new function. Well played, Dodge.

Grilles bring us to the third main ingredient of automobile design: graphic elements. This umbrella term includes everything that “cuts” into the vehicle’s main volume, like the windows, the air intakes, the headlights and taillights, right down to and including the shutlines separating the various body panels. Dodge’s designers thankfully chose to keep things clean and functional on this front, and all the better for it.

However, I really wish Dodge went the extra mile and splurged for flush door handles. On the clean, sharp bodysides of the new Charger, those door handle recesses stick out like a sore thumb, especially so on the four-door variant. Curiously, the photo album accompanying Dodge’s press release features the two-door Charger much more prominently than the four-door, even though the latter will invariably take the lion’s share of sales. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the four-door ends up making the two-door redundant altogether, as it looks just as attractive and is going to be way more practical.

So, the case is closed. I was wrong, and the future of Mopar muscle is bright and safe. Or is it?

Dodge had no trouble selling the outgoing Charger and Challenger models until the very end of their run, despite their age, which shows just how much love there still is for the Hemi V-8.

And that’s something no amount of digital gizmos or a few tenths shaved off a quarter mile can replace. Sure, Dodge is hedging its bets by bringing out a twin-turbo straight-six version of the new Charger next year, but whether that will be enough to keep its fans happy—or bring in new ones to replace them—remains to be seen.

Time will tell us if Mopar muscle still has a place in our electric future, but one thing is clear enough: Dodge has just made one hell of a case for it.

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The 1954 Paxton Phoenix was the unfulfilled, steam-powered dream of Robert Paxton McCulloch—the same guy who accomplished the unlikely spiriting of London Bridge out of England into the Arizona desert. Moving a bridge from one continent to another is a tough task, but it proved easier than producing a modern steam-powered automobile. 

Steam-powered cars were once a workable transportation solution, based on solid technology. They predated the first internal-combustion-engine (ICE) cars of Daimler and Benz by nearly a century. In operation, a burner, which can be designed to run very clean, heats water in a boiler, converting it to steam, which in turn drives the pistons of an engine. Droplets of oil added to the steam flow provide lubrication. In most automotive applications, the steam powerplant was a reciprocating engine, not unlike a typical internal-combustion engine, but with steam pressure rather than fossil-fuel combustion driving the pistons down in the bores and turning the crankshaft.

And until electric starters made ICE-powered cars convenient, steam-powered machines were in important ways more consumer-friendly than their gas-fueled brethren, since they could be started without hand cranking. Steam engines, like electric motors, have a power curve more in sync with the task of propelling a vehicle, so no transmission was needed. The principal drawback was the time needed after the burner was ignited to preheat the boiler and generate steam. 

One of the more advanced steam cars was produced by Abner Doble, an inventor who had devised a means of preheating a small quantity of water for quick startup. His 1925 Doble Model E steam car was powered by a four-cylinder compound engine with both low-compression and high-compression pistons. It was ready to drive in minutes after ignition and developed 1000 lb-ft of torque at the rear axle. A perfectionist, Doble built about 40 cars, each somewhat different. He ran out of money before he could mass-produce a final design.

Enter McCulloch, nearly 25 years later. In the late ’40s, following considerable manufacturing and engineering success in automotive-related fields, McCulloch was determined to build a steam car. But it couldn’t be any old steam car. It had to be a luxurious automobile with a stylish shape and an advanced steam powertrain. He called it the Paxton Phoenix.

McCulloch was doing well as America entered the fabulous ‘50s. By 1952, he had accumulated considerable resources, largely as the result of his Paxton Supercharger and McCulloch Chainsaw businesses. Paxton was a standard provider to the auto industry, and his chainsaw enterprise had revolutionized the market just a few years earlier. His wealth allowed him to assemble a steam-car dream team: Abner Doble, the steam-engine expert; Roscoe C. Hoffman, a respected automotive engineer who had developed off-the-grid vehicles; and America’s most renowned designer, Brooks Stevens.

Stevens was the star of the show, having already achieved international recognition for his design work. He also had the advantage of having grown up in an automotive household; his father was an inventor of vehicle components. So the younger Stevens was well schooled in the way things worked and had a natural talent for improving the way they looked. Over his career he focused on automobile design but had dabbled as well in the creation of appliances, furniture, toys, boats, trains, tractors, and motorcycles.

The steam car project was based at Paxton Engineering, a research facility near Los Angeles International Airport that served McCulloch’s growing manufacturing enterprises. Like most good automotive creators, the McCulloch team wanted to start with a rough model, so they bought a Porsche 356 in New York and drove it to Los Angeles, where they fully disassembled it and studied its chassis and suspension design. There, Hoffman created a chassis that combined the Porsche design with aircraft “torque box” construction techniques. The suspension used torsion bars for wheel control, much like the Porsche.

The body was made of fiberglass, an emerging automotive technology at the time. Pioneered by Glasspar in 1949, fiberglass was destined to be the material of choice for the Corvette in 1953, and McCulloch seized on it. In many ways, the material lent itself to limited production. Once a female mold had been developed, bodies could easily be pulled from the mold. No stamping, hammering, or welding needed.

The Paxton Phoenix that emerged from years of design and modeling work was a beautiful car, a uniquely styled machine with headlights set deep in chromed scalloped openings. A belt-line chrome strip ran uninterrupted front to rear. Its hood, with a bulging center that suggested power, sloped down to below headlight level, and a wide shiny bumper underlined its low-slung grille. The rear of the car suggested the form of some of Stevens’ speedboat designs. To complement its stylish body, the Paxton Phoenix was equipped with a fully retractable fiberglass top, which mimicked the shape of the deck lid and covered it when retracted.

The steam engine that was meant to power the car was an advanced version of Doble’s earlier efforts. A six-cylinder compound design combining low-pressure and high-pressure cylinders enabled the steam to be used efficiently. The high-pressure cylinders were at the top of the block casting, with the low-pressure cylinders below. Steam was expanded first in the high-pressure cylinder and compressed, then transferred to the low-pressure cylinders, which turned a three-throw crankshaft by means of connecting rods. The result was very smooth power, and the engine was said to equal the thermal efficiency of an advanced overhead-valve gasoline powerplant, with the smoothness of a 12-cylinder engine.

Of course, to use steam power you have to make steam. In the Paxton that would be done in a boiler mounted at the front of the car. Automatic controls would ensure the steam could always be delivered to the engine at optimum pressure and temperature. By heating water inside tubing, operating temperature could be reached quickly, and very high steam pressure could be generated without fear of a violent pressure burst since the pipes were protected by a stout aluminum boiler jacket. It’s said that the car could be ready to drive within 20 seconds after startup. Adding water regularly, as had been necessary with earlier Doble steam cars, was unacceptable in a modern car, so the team devised a system that allowed the exhausted steam to condense back into water that could be reused.

A working prototype of the steam engine was developed and installed in a ’53 Ford. At approximately the same time, according to Jerry Williamson, who was foreman of the Paxton shop in the early ‘50s and was interviewed by this reporter in 2011, the Porsche drivetrain was installed in the Paxton so the vehicle could be tested while the engine development continued. By all accounts the steam engine performed well, but at some point, a catastrophic failure occurred. With funds running dry and little interest from private investors, the project was shelved. 

McCulloch kept the car in its final form with the Porsche drivetrain serving as its motive power. He is said to have driven it occasionally. When he died in 1977, Brooks Stevens bought the car and displayed it in his personal museum in Wisconsin. Like McCulloch, Stevens never sold the Paxton. He died in 1998 with the car still in his possession.

Enter Myron Vernis, an automobile lover and collector from Akron, Ohio, who fell in love with all things automotive as a toddler in Greece, where he spent many hours watching cars drive by from the balcony of the Vernis family’s apartment. A fan of both 356 Porsches and Brooks Stevens, Vernis flew to Milwaukee the day after he heard that Stevens had passed. He has now owned the Paxton Phoenix for 26 years, equalling McCulloch’s own time of ownership, and he has no plans to relinquish it. Like the Paxton owners who preceded him, he intends to die with the car in his possession. 

Vernis has displayed the car often, including at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, the former Meadowbrook Concours, and a number of other venues. It has spent time in the Petersen Museum in California and is currently part of a Brooks Stevens display in the Studebaker Museum. You can see it there until April 1, 2024.

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Frank Pope could barely contain his joy upon arriving at Celozzi-Ettleson Chevrolet in Elmhurst, Illinois, with his girlfriend, Joanne. He’d driven about five miles from his Melrose Park home to watch his new Targa Blue 1972 Corvette roll off the auto carrier. It was October 15, 1971, a day Pope had been anxiously awaiting since ordering the car eight weeks before. With Joanne by his side, he excitedly pointed to the car.

“Here I am, this 26-year-old guy, with my heart pounding,” Pope recalled for Hagerty. “It was the only one on the trailer with the big-block hood. I said to Joanne, ‘Do you see the difference from the other Corvettes on there?’ She said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘Look at that hood. It’s a big-block.’ But I might as well have been speaking a different language. I told her, ‘I will never sell this car,’ and she gave me a look like she was thinking, ‘This guy must be nuts. He’s never going to ask me to marry him.’ But I did. We got engaged on Valentine’s Day 1972, and we’re still married.”

Pope still has the Corvette, too, now with just 42,000 miles and still getting out for fun. Over the years, he added engine modifications while keeping the exterior and interior mostly stock. The blue Corvette fulfilled a long-time dream for the young man who’d learned his trade in barber college. 

The car also opened a new world of camaraderie with other Vette owners. Pope joined the Northern Rays Corvette Club and attended major Vette meets. Along the way, he befriended Corvette luminaries, including legendary chief engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov and his wife, Elfi; Corvette designer Larry Shinoda; racer John Greenwood; Bloomington Gold founder Dave Burroughs, and master Corvette hunter and restorer Kevin Mackay.

Meeting Shinoda at Bloomington Gold in 1992, Pope invited him to speak at the club’s 20th anniversary dinner. Shinoda drove Pope’s car and signed its firewall, and the autograph remains one of Pope’s favorite memories attached to the Corvette.

The Corvette That Hair Bought 

Pope proudly recalled paying cash for the Corvette one year after opening his men’s hair styling shop in Melrose Park, the town where his family had lived since 1911. He usually parked the Vette in front of the shop, which he felt helped attract customers.

“People still ask me if it’s the same car they remember seeing there,” he said.

Some of them may even remember a kind of haircut they got in the shop, something called “the Pope Shag.”

“Shag haircuts were big in the early ’70s, but I came up with my own version,” he said. “It became popular and was featured in a New York professional men’s hairstyling magazine. I advertised on local radio and did those haircuts for men, women, and children. Those haircuts paid for my Corvette!”

While still a barber, Pope spent nights selling cable TV service. “To promote sales, I got the idea to do a local show about neighborhood events. That’s how I got started doing videos.”

He later left the hair styling business and became an investigator for the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County. “I retired 12 years ago. I was a deputy sheriff, and that helped me out when I’d be flying down the street in the Corvette and get pulled over.”

Pope’s investigative background and friendship with Burroughs brought him an intriguing freelance job in 2013: helping to authenticate Dana Mecum’s 1961 Corvette Gulf Oil racer, the first Corvette racer with corporate sponsorship. The car had been ordered by dealer/racer Don Yenko and driven by him, Dr. Dick Thompson (“The Flying Dentist”) and Ben Moore. It was the SCCA National B-Production champion in 1961 and 1962. Pope’s evidence, including original paperwork from Yenko’s widow, Hope, helped affirm the car’s authenticity. The historic Vette sold at Mecum’s 2013 Monterey auction for $1.4 million. Pope watched the sale from home on TV.

Love at First Sight … at 8 Years Old

Pope’s love of Corvettes started when he was eight. His father gave him a scale model of the ’53, and he saw the real one at the Chicago auto show later that year.

“I told my dad, ‘Someday I’m going to have one of those.’ He said to me, ‘I believe you will.’ My dad was a semi driver, and he drove his own Mack truck cross-country. He taught me to identify cars. When I was 4 years old, I knew every car on the road by sight.”

A dozen years later, Pope fell for the Mako Shark II concept car when he saw it at the auto show. 

“They said that was going to be the next Corvette body style. I bought the scale model and airbrushed that shark-like paint scheme onto it. From the first time I saw the ’68 Corvette, I knew I had to have one.” He waited until he turned 26, when his cost to insure the Corvette dropped by half.

Let’s Make a Deal

Celozzi-Ettleson Chevrolet, which advertised as “Chicagoland’s largest auto dealer,” gave Pope a good deal on his Corvette. The owners, Nick Celozzi and Maury Ettleson, starred in TV commercials in which they promised to beat any price or refund the difference in cash.

Pope’s ’72 Corvette was one of 3913 to get the 454-cubic-inch big block V-8 (option code LS5), out of the 27,004 made. The LS5 added $294.90 over the Corvette coupe’s $5533 base price. (The convertible started at $5296.) 

“The sticker price was over $7200. I got it for $6458 out the door, tax included,” Pope recalled. “It’s got every option from that year—air conditioning, leather seats, tilt wheel, power windows, power brakes and steering, AM/FM stereo, and a rear window defogger, which was a rare option.” (Just 8 percent of 1972 Corvette coupes had the defogger.) 

Factory Basics: 1972 Chevrolet Corvette

Shinoda, lead designer on the 1963 Sting Ray, was head of Chevrolet design Studio 3 when his team followed GM design chief Bill Mitchell’s directive to create a new Corvette with bulging fenders and an upturned tail. They did both the Mako Shark II and the new ’68 body that would go over the 1963–67 chassis.

The ’68 coupe debuted a two-piece lift-off roof and removable rear window. The resulting open-air feel helped make the coupe more popular than the convertible, and it accounted for three quarters of Corvette production in 1972. Standard equipment included a Positraction rear axle, Flo-Thru ventilation, tinted glass, four-wheel disc brakes, carpeting, Rally wheels, and an anti-theft alarm system. A wide-ratio four-speed manual transmission was standard, and buyers could select a close-ratio four-speed or the three-speed Turbo-Hydramatic for no extra cost. Pope chose the automatic.

The ’72 Corvette offered three engine choices, all with leaner carburetor jetting and altered spark timing to reduce emissions, with output consequently reduced compared to 1971. The base L48 350-cubic-inch small-block V-8 touted 200 horsepower under the newly adopted SAE net rating system. Two optional engines included the high-performance LT1 350 with 255 net hp and the LS5 454 with 270 net hp. Those numbers seemed far off the previous SAE gross ratings, but in fact, compression had already been lowered for 1971, when the LS5 had 365-hp gross and 285-hp net ratings. 

The 1972 Corvette was a year of “lasts” for the third-gen Vette, aka C3, including front and rear chrome bumpers (the ’73 got a plastic-covered front bumper); the pop-up door hiding the windshield wipers; the coupe’s pop-out rear window, and the Vette’s fiber-optic console warning light system. 

A well-optioned LS5/automatic coupe like Pope’s weighed about 3700 pounds, according to period road tests. The car was still quick among Detroit’s offerings, with the LS5’s 390 lb-ft of net peak torque a key to its laying down a 14.1-second quarter-mile time at 93 mph in Motor Trend’s hands. That was with the standard 3.08:1 axle ratio, which is how Pope’s Vette came equipped as delivered. It would not stay that way for long.

Day Two (and Three and Four) Mods Wake the Beast

A drag racer at heart, Pope drove a 1966 Impala Super Sport 396 that he also ran at Great Lakes Dragway near Union Grove, Wisconsin—simply “Union Grove” to racers. “A local artist would letter the car ‘Frank the Gearhead Barber’ in Tempera paint. We’d wash it off after racing,” he remembered.

The Corvette’s stock performance disappointed Pope, so he had the dealership change the 3.08 axle ratio for a 3.55. “It was a little better, but I still wasn’t happy,” he said.

Next, Pope had dealership mechanic Art Frerichs swap in different pistons to raise compression from 8.25:1 to around 10.5:1. Due to the stock open-chamber heads, though, the switch only raised compression to 9.5:1. Pope removed the air-injection reactor pump (AIR) emissions control system and changed the stock dual-snorkel air cleaner to Chevy’s open-element version. “I could feel it was getting faster,” he said.

From there, Pope switched the factory cam for a CompCams Magnum and replaced the original Quadrajet carburetor with a Holley. He liked the results.

“I nailed it, and it almost got away from me,” he said. Later, he’d want even more.

Around 2001, Pope gave the LS5 a clean-up bore, balancing, and blueprinting. Cylinder displacement went up a bit, to 460 cubic inches. He had the heads redone with 2.19-inch intake and 1.88-inch exhaust valves, versus stock 2.06-in. / 1.72-in., along with some pocket porting. 

“Now I had real 10:1 compression,” Pope said. 

He changed the intake to an Edelbrock Torker and a Quick Fuel Technology carb. Pope had befriended QFT founder Marvin Benoit, who consulted with Edelbrock engineers to optimize the carburetor for the manifold. Other changes at this point included a CompCams hydraulic roller cam and a 2400-rpm stall speed torque converter.

Pope estimated his LS5 now had closer to 500 net horsepower, and quarter-mile times supported that. At drag strips in Kentucky and Tennessee, Pope ran his best with the car on street tires, headers, and full exhaust: 12.42 seconds at 109 mph. His most recent engine mod came in 2018, when he replaced the carburetor with MSD fuel injection. “It starts right up like a new car. I can feel that it’s faster but haven’t timed it,” he said.

This drag racer wanted better handling, too. On John Greenwood’s advice, Pope replaced the Corvette’s stock nine-leaf rear spring with the seven-leaf spring from the FE7 Gymkhana Suspension option introduced on 1974 Corvettes. “That made a major difference in handling,” he said.

Some added chrome under the hood includes valve covers a friend had given him. Inside the Vette, Pope replaced the steering wheel with a Zora Arkus-Duntov four-spoke wheel. In 1976, when replacing the battery, Pope took advantage of an offer from JCPenney that promised a free replacement if it ever failed to hold a charge, for as long as the customer owned the car. Pope held them to that pledge.

He laughs, “You know how many free batteries I’ve had since 1976?” 

Many years later, when JCPenney eliminated its auto service department, those battery contracts were transferred to Firestone. A clerk there told Pope, “It’s just you and another guy.”

Trick Wheels

There’s just one exterior modification to Pope’s Vette—the wheels. After seeing preview photos of the 1973 Corvette with the new, optional slotted aluminum wheels, Pope wanted those for his car. Chevy, however, withdrew the option (YJ8) after finding a porosity problem. Some sets were reportedly sold through dealers, but Pope couldn’t get them, only the center caps with the Corvette logo. 

The YJ8 option would return in 1976, but Pope had found an attractive alternative in 1974, the American Racing Vector 10-spoke. Greenwood used Vectors for his company’s mid 1970s Sebring GT and Turbo GT custom Corvettes, and Buick essentially copied the Vector design for its 1984–87 Regal T-Type and Grand National wheels. Pope did a workaround to use the Corvette center caps, which must be installed through the back on the Vectors versus the front on the Chevy wheels.

As with all parts he’s removed from the car, Pope has the original wheels in storage.

Corvette Memories

Hagerty: Was the Corvette your daily driver?

FP: It was when I first got it. We had almost no snow in Chicago that year. But after the first year, I’d put it away in winters.

Hagerty: Do you drive it much today?

FP: I drive it in the spring and summer. On Sundays I meet with a group of Corvette guys, all around my age. We meet at a little coffee place at nine in the morning and stay about an hour and a half. Then I go home and take my wife to church in our regular car.

Hagerty: Any memorable drives in the Corvette?

FP: I think the most memorable one was when Larry Shinoda drove it. He really got on it and scared the hell out of me. There have been others, too. I let my son and daughter drive the car in a closed area when they each turned 15. Three years ago, my daughter Jeanna’s boy, Francesco, turned 14 and said, ‘Hey Gramps, you think I could drive your Corvette this year?’ I let him drive it around a cemetery for half an hour. I was impressed. He listened to my instructions. He wasn’t nervous. I made a video from the passenger seat so he could show his friends for bragging rights. When he turned 17 he asked me to let him to drive the car on the street in spring.

Hagerty: Did you ever consider selling the Vette?

FP: Never! I knew I would never sell this car. It’s a trophy to me. I did buy some other Vettes through the years, just for the novelty of having them, including a 1969 427/435 four-speed car. I’d clean them up and sell them.

Hagerty: Do you still get on it?

FP: Sure! Young guys in Mustangs think it’s just some old guy in a stock classic Corvette. I’ve surprised more than a few away from a light, and then they don’t want to come up next to me at the next light.

__

Car: 1972 Chevrolet Corvette LS5

Owner: Frank Pope

Home: Melrose Park, Illinois

Delivery Date: October 15, 1971

Miles on Car: ~42,000

Are you the original owner of a classic car, or do you know someone who is? Send us a photo and a bit of background to tips@hagerty.com with ORIGINAL OWNER in the subject line—you might get featured in our next installment!

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Today, the average price of a home in Brentwood, California, is $2.7 million. Back in 1975, though, a typewriter salesman could afford one. I recall that distinctly, because this one-owner, garage-kept 1950 Cadillac Series 62 sedan was purchased from just such a gentleman, for $350, and he named the price.

After learning about the Caddy, I begged a ride to his Brentwood residence to complete the deal, then drove home and dug into my favorite work—car detailing. The chrome and stainless—lots of it, thanks to GM design honcho Harley Earl’s penchant for brightwork—polished up beautifully, and the 25-year-old lacquer responded nicely to rubbing compound, waxing, and buffing (Turtle Wax all the way!).

The car’s only blemish, besides a cloudy headlight and one door that had been resprayed a slightly incorrect Corinth Blue, was—and I’m not joking—a grease-stained rear seat. Because that’s where the demonstrator typewriters always rode, and over time they left their mark.

Materials in the Fleetwood-designed, two-tone interior were magnificent: wool carpets and upholstery, napped cotton headliner, tasteful chrome dashboard features, an ivory-like steering wheel and levers. After its vacuum tubes warmed up, the Delco radio demonstrated fine reception of classical music, news reports on the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, and even disco (barf!).

Modeling Cadillac’s immediate postwar design language, everything about the car registered as calm, elegant, and “old money.” Even the electrics seemed old-world; using six volts, the illumination was categorically serene, from the headlights to the soft interior and instrument lights. Even the starter for the 331-cubic-inch, 160-hp V-8 was unhurried at best. Befitting its pampered life, the Caddy nonetheless started, ran, and drove wonderfully. Smooth-riding on a yawning 126-inch wheelbase, it truly was the “Standard of the World,” as the Cadillac Motor Car Division advertised.

Besides a noisy muffler, only one service issue arose. When the hidden brake master cylinder went dry, the pedal sailed right to the floor while I was approaching a four-way stop. In a panic, I blasted the horn, swung hard right, and, lacking seatbelts, hoped for the best. (I didn’t think of yanking the emergency brake.) Luckily, no harm came of the crisis.

Although the Cadillac didn’t stick around long, a lesson imparted by that near-miss did: On older vehicles that predate various sensors and warning lights, keep tabs on everything. Because, left to their own devices, these cars will neither warn nor save you. En garde!

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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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The 914 debuted in 1970, and for too much of its existence, the mid-engine Porsche lived a life of ignominy in the eyes of casual car enthusiasts, and even among some Porschephiles. “Not a real Porsche” went the refrain for the car jointly developed with Volkswagen. Priced as such, said the value trends.

Well, the refrain and the trends have changed in the last decade or so, as people have woken up to the fact that, actually, these things are terrific. With their VW-derived 1.7-liter (and later 2.0-liter) four-cylinder engines making roughly 80–90 horsepower, 914s were never blistering performers, but their mid-engine layout and light weight always made them nimble.

Porsche addressed the power issue to some extent with a run of 914s powered by the 125-hp carbureted 2.0-liter flat-six from the 911 T, but the 914/6 makes up just a fraction of the nearly 100,000 914s built through 1976. Still, from the very beginning, Porsche knew what it wanted to do with the 914/6: take it racing.

In 1970 and ’71, the factory built a dozen 914/6 GT race cars to be used as works (or werks) entries for various endurance races and rallies, plus another 47 examples for privateers. The race-prepped cars differed in numerous ways from production 914/6s, of course, including their Type 901/25 engine, which was tweaked with polished intake and exhaust ports, dual ignition, Carrera 6 cams, Weber 46 IDA carbs, and more to deliver significantly more power—around 220 hp at 8000 rpm. The body was widened with steel fender flares, a roll cage was fitted inside, and four large Cibie lights were mounted on the nose. Suspension was courtesy Bilstein rally shocks at all four corners, and vented discs from the 911S provided the stopping power. These purpose-built 914s were quick, too; one of the customer cars won its class and finished sixth overall at Le Mans in 1970.

The 914/6 GT shown here, Project No. 914/58, was the final of the 12 factory cars built, completed in December 1970—just in time for the Monte Carlo Rally the following month. Porsche fielded a trio of 914/6 GTs there, all of them finished in Signal Orange, and all piloted by true hot shoes. In an effort to earn extra points in the rally, competitors were able to begin in far-off locales, and the French duo of driver Gérard Larrousse and co-driver Jean-Claude Perramond strapped into 914/58 in Warsaw, then headed southwest across the continent to the French Riviera.

It proved to be a particularly attritional event, with nearly 90 percent of the 248 competitors failing to finish, including all the factory 914s. This car succumbed to a broken clutch lever, and that was that; no glory for Porsche after three successive Monte victories with 911s.

Vic Elford next made use of 914/58, when he drove it to Sicily in the spring as reconnaissance car for May’s Targa Florio, in which he shared a 908/03 with Larrousse. The trip was not without incident, however, and “Quick Vic” had something of a shunt. In a letter to a Mr. Fiegl in the Experimental Department, Elford wrote: During the Targa Florio pre-practice I had a slight accident with another car. The car involved was an Opel Olympia… [Fellow Porsche racer] Mr. Herbert Muller arrived shortly after the accident and explained to [the Opel’s owner] that the Porsche insurance would cover everything, although it was obviously 50/50 since both cars were in the middle of the road. The Opel had damage to all the body panels on the left side and some mechanical damage to the steering. The damage to the Porsche you are aware of.

Whatever the damage, it was minor, and after two years spent as something of a test mule in the engineering department, the car was then sold to Porsche engineer Walther Näher, with whom it stayed for 30 years. Näher began a restoration on the car in 2002, making liberal use of rare parts and expertise from Porsche to correctly return 914/58 to its “as raced” Monte Carlo spec. As one of its Monte stablemates had long ago been scrapped by the factory, and the other converted in period by racing safety pioneer Herbert Linge into a safety car, Näher’s efforts to preserve his 914/6’s history were admirable.

Jeff Zwart acquired the car in 2010. Anyone whose Instagram algorithm has ever served them classic car content has likely seen Zwart’s photo and video work. The commercial film director, photographer, racer, and Porsche collector showed his Monte Carlo 914/6 GT at events like Rennsport Reunion IV and at the 2015 Amelia Island Concours, where it won best in class.

A spot on the lawn at Pebble Beach last year as part of the Porsche 75th Anniversary class is the final feather in the cap of this otherwise unremarkable race and road car’s rather remarkable journey. “A real Porsche indeed,” goes the new refrain. When it crosses the block this week, it is estimated to sell for $1.2M–$1.5M. And if it sells, what might the value trends say then? Priced accordingly, we suspect.

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Though editor-in-chief Larry Webster is still in the throes of his $25K Ferrari Dino 308 GT4 project, we couldn’t resist sharing this piece of someone (other than Cammisa) enjoying the hell out of one. -EW

On the day I was set to drive this 1975 Ferrari Dino 308 GT4, I was late. There was no hot water at my place, and I needed to discuss the issue with my landlord. That I had never before driven a classic Ferrari should not shock you, given the fact I have a landlord.

It’s a friend’s car. He bought it, in part, thanks to me. At the time it belonged to my boss, who walked past my desk with a “maybe I should sell the Ferrari” kind of vibe. I sent my friend a photo of the Dino, freshly detailed. “If I were you,” I texted him, “I’d come talk to my boss about this car. Other people have mentioned interest.” He was there within a half of an hour.

When the deal was done, my friend offered me two cases of any beer I wanted, no matter where it was in the world. I countered: one case, one drive in the Ferrari. He agreed, and today was that day. The cold shower was, in a way, a fitting primer.

When new, Ferrari positioned the Dino 308 GT4 as a Porsche 911 eliminator, joining the ranks of two other mid-engine Italians—the Maserati Merak and the Lamborghini Urraco. None of them did much to slow 911 sales, but the Dino performed marginally better in showrooms than the Merak and Urraco. Still, for a number of reasons the Dino was relegated to a particular status as the forgettable Ferrari. The one styled by Bertone and not Pininfarina. The one at which passersby shouted, “Nice Lotus!” And, as values long reflected, the Dino was known as the one deemed unfit to wear the Ferrari badge. (308 GT4 owner and Hagerty video host Jason Cammisa disputes these points.)

Despite that reputation, the GT4 has recently gained a devoted following. Its Gandini-penned design has aged nicely, but more importantly, the 308 is respected for its mechanical robustness, chassis balance, and driver-focused experience. If you’re a Ferrari enthusiast on a budget—relatively speaking—the company’s first production mid-engine V-8 sports car is a tempting choice.

Between 2019 and 2023, the best 1975 Ferrari Dino 308 GT4 would command just north of $80,000, on average, according to the Hagerty Price Guide. Several recent auctions over the last year or so pushed that figure to an average of $123,000 in July 2023 and $110,000 in January 2024. Most remaining examples are not in concours-quality condition, of course, but even the #3 (Good) condition cars are up 33 percent, to $63,800 from $48,000 in the last twelve months.

Lore suggests that many Dinos were left on dealership lots for months when new, after which they were repainted red to garner more interest. Some, as the stories go, even had Ferrari badges added in place of the Dino ones. It’s easy to imagine such examples were used hard and put away wet, or left to sit and decay for many years. My friend’s car is painted yellow with a brown interior, and it retains the original and highly sought-after magnesium wheels. On the other side of the ledger, it wears a homebrew, hacked-together Flowmaster exhaust. The steering wheel of this particular example is clocked about 20 degrees to the left when the wheels are pointed straight.

Of course, even being responsible for a cheap Ferrari is enough to make me financially wary. With all of that in mind, my friend handed me the keys, made sure I knew where the fire extinguisher was located, and let me set off.

This is a relatively intimidating car in a number of ways. The seating position—with your legs positioned off to the right and your head craned slightly to the left—makes ergonomic sense once you don’t think about it too much. The clutch is heavy enough to warrant a “you gotta be f***ing kidding me” from a first-time user. Taller drivers can practically kiss the top of the driver’s door without flinching a neck muscle. The interior is both charming and surprisingly unremarkable, with a smattering of leather, metal, and unlabeled plastic switches.

I was nervous. But within five minutes, I fell in love.

From the driver’s seat, a few things struck me first. The transmission was less than agreeable until about 15 minutes in when it was properly warmed. The dogleg five-speed transmission is as much fun to use as it is in need of careful operation; I ground into third more than once with the clutch pedal firmly on the floor. Throttle response is immediate, but there were multiple “sweet spots” in the rev range—damn near all the way to redline—where the carburetors felt like they were really singing. Each downshift at speed from fifth to fourth to third rewards the driver with cracks and pops as wasted fuel from the four sizable Webers ignites in the exhaust system.

The 308 GT4’s 3.0-liter V-8 was rated at 240 horsepower in U.S-spec when new, which feels about right. The torque rating, however, I doubt; despite the claimed 195 lb-ft, there is never a sense that so much force is pushing your head back into the beautiful, leather-piped driver’s seat. The engine needs revs to be taken seriously. To me, this V-8 sounds like the greatest four-cylinder you’ve ever heard, even with the homemade exhaust mangle. A bit like an Alfa Romeo of the same vintage. Devoted fans of guttural eight-cylinder noises will be disappointed. Jazz isn’t for everyone.

James, my photographer for the day, appreciated the sound more than I did. I was driving, and the intake barks from the passenger side.

“How are the brakes?” he asked.

“Absolutely fine,” I said, meaning that in a certain sense. The brake pedal is not the most communicative, but it’s consistent, and the box-fresh but vintage-look Pirelli tires effectively scrub speed when called upon. You sit very far forward in the car, which is strange when you notice how much weight and room for occupants there is behind you. Outward visibility is excellent. The car responds eagerly to inputs, feeling both light and sure-footed as it goes down the road. The unfortunate lack of switchbacks offered in Columbus, Ohio, meant I didn’t get to shimmy the car through complicated sections of road like I would have wanted, but I nevertheless could tell it would be a fine tool in that environment. Even one long, twisty highway on-ramp left my passenger and I giggling for minutes. This car has a unique ability to convince me that I am, indeed, Burt Reynolds.

To wit, in my short couple of hours with the car, good ol’ boys in trucks at stoplights, children on bicycles, and mothers pushing strollers hollered at me. I cannot overstate how cool this felt. I find it hilarious that this was, theoretically, the Ferrari you would drive daily. Sure, it’s not that difficult to drive, but considering this as an alternative to a 911 is like switching out Pedialyte for Long Island iced tea. A ’70s 911 is a sweet, balanced experience. By comparison, the 308 GT4 is an overload—a service provided for the spiritual enrichment of the public as much as it is a self-aggrandizing prize.

This is the point of this car as far as I’m concerned. It elicits joy, which is best shared with other people. A passenger seat session with a driver not afraid to rev it out through a few gears is sure to fill the cabin with glee. So infectious is this fun that, as a driver, you won’t even mind the tension in your shoulders from gripping the helm. Nor will you sweat much about the indicator stock falling off in your hand. How lucky you are to be making such a silly voyage, at all!

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Few cars represent American racing success on the world stage quite like the Ford GT40. Sure, that famous 1-2-3 finish at Le Mans in 1966 cemented the GT40’s place in our collective vehicular memory and kicked off a four-year run of dominance at the French circuit. But during their heyday, in the hands of factory and privateer racers alike, GT40s also scored victories around the globe—from Italy to Rhodesia, Canada to South Africa, Belgium to Brazil.

And while we won’t go so far as to say that the mighty sports racers also made for adequate grocery-getters, in accordance with period homologation rules that required production of at least 50 cars, some GT40s were built for street use. This car, chassis no. P/1069, is one such grocery getter.

Total GT40 production, from Mk I to Mk IV variants, is estimated to be 105 examples. This includes 289- and 427-powered Mk I and Mk II cars, as well as the more radical racing Mk IV, or “J cars,” of which 12 were built. And it includes the seven Mk III cars, which were designed from the start for road use, with extra headlights, softer springs, a detuned V-8, and extended rear bodywork to allow for cargo space, among other changes. The GT40 Mk I and Mk II, therefore, comprise the bulk of production, and that includes 31 Mk Is produced for the street. Few have a history as colored—literally and figuratively—as P/1069, also known as “the Hostage Car.”

Built alongside its racing counterparts at Ford Advanced Vehicles in England, the car was completed in mid-February 1967. Finished in Opalescent Silver Blue, it rode on Borrani wire wheels and was powered by a small-block 289 “Hi-Po” V-8, breathing through four Weber carburetors and mated to a five-speed ZF transaxle. It was one of 20 Mk I GT40s earmarked for Ford’s Promotion and Disposal Program—a press loaner, essentially—and was originally one of six Mk Is slated to go to Shelby American for use among the firm’s field managers. That never happened. In fact, this car wouldn’t reach our shores for decades.

Instead, the car went to Switzerland, as a loaner for the dealership run by Georges Filipinetti, who, in addition running the Scuderia Filipinetti racing outfit (with which he campaigned a GT40 and a Cobra Daytona coupe at Le Mans in 1965) had become the official Swiss distributor for Ford Performance. Filipinetti had P/1069’s color changed to Metallic Borneo Green and displayed it that March at the Geneva Motor Show. Then, it seems, he just kind of kept it for the rest of the year, despite increasing protestations from fellow racing principal John Wyer, who understandably wanted the car for his own promotional purposes. This minor feud earned the car its captive nickname.

Back in England by early 1968, P/1069 got road registered as AHK 940F, the designation it still wears today. The car made the rounds, serving as a tester for various motoring journalists, including Denis Jenkinson, who in Motor reported the car’s ZF five-speed to be at the top of his list of “desirable gearboxes,” but only after proclaiming to a friend who’d asked about parking it in London: “I wouldn’t want to take it to London, let alone park it there.” Jenks, you see, had the car for “motoring with a capital ‘M’ not for parking.” He had the right idea.

It was back on the Geneva show stand in ’69, before British businessman and fine motorcar aficionado Anthony Bamford purchased it and had it color-changed again, this time to yellow. The car changed hands at least five times over the next three years, and was painted yet again, this time dark green. At some point in 1972, it suffered fire damage at the hands of its newest owner, the result of an errantly fitted fuel cap as he drove it home for the first time. The subsequent owner had the car restored, which included another color change, back to yellow.

It finally made its way to the States in 1999, and into the hands of Connecticut collector Barney Hallingby, until he traded P/1069, along with a 289 Cobra, a Ferrari 330 GTS and 275 GTB, plus some cash, for an Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato. Quite the transaction, that.

Back to Europe it went, back through a series of hands, until this street GT40 was given a proper retirement racing in vintage events throughout the 2000s and 2010s, including the Goodwood Revival in 2012 and ’13. Under its current ownership, GT40 P/1069 is once again painted Opalescent Silver Blue. And at the 2024 Amelia Island auctions, it is once again for sale.

Eighteen separate owners over the years is no small feat, but perhaps that is the fate of a street car you don’t want to park. How this one will fare when it hits the auction block in Amelia Island in early March is anyone’s guess, although its full documentation from new, and the colorful history it all encapsulates, is sure to boost its appeal. With so few street-going Mk I GT40s produced, ownership opportunities don’t arise often, although, curiously, Mecum just sold a 1966 Mk I in January for $6,930,000, including fees. If P/1069 sells within its presale estimate of $4M–$5M, you might even call it a bargain.

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Oshe Automotive’s newly built workshop near Silverstone is a long way from Africa, but there are reminders of the continent everywhere, from tribal masks hanging on the walls to stunning jungle-inspired fabrics, rich woods, and hand-painted trim pieces in vehicles it builds. The name itself hails from a god of thunder, and founder David Lane is causing quite a rumble in the world of restomodded vehicles.

Hailing from Johannesburg, Lane spent much of his childhood on the family’s remote game farm near the border with Botswana, where he developed a lifelong passion for Land Rovers.

“We had two Series IIAs on the farm,” he explains. “We also had a CJ2A Willys Jeep with an Essex three-liter V-6, which I learned to drive in. We still have those two Landies and use them extensively. We do a lot of game capture and there’s a little tracker seat on the front of one of them which my boy loves.”

After a successful career in management consultancy, Lane started a restoration shop called Workshop Seventy7, building all manner of vehicles for esoteric customers. In the bays when I visit is an electric-converted Fiat 500, a BMW E9 that’s said to have an M3 powertrain installed, and even an old Ford pickup.

However, Osh is Lane’s true love. “I’ve always loved design. I studied art in school and electro-mechanical engineering. So the two kind of come together. Oshe vehicles need to look distinctive, so the styling has to be a little bit different to what everybody else is doing. It’s difficult with a Land Rover, but we use the phrase “clean and fast” with fast not being an actual velocity as such, it’s just clean and smooth. I try to get rid of the unnecessary stuff.”

That translates into a body that’s less fussy than factory-spec, updated with modern LED lighting front and rear, and with the various rugged accessory mounts and holes done away with for a more elegant look.

Interiors get all-new seats, hand-trimmed to customer desires and evolved for a more modern experience. Lane has really focused on the details, from the font used on the instruments to the installation of a unique art piece on the dash, created by tribal artists from South Africa. Each car will tell a story. As an example, when Lane discovered that the donor car for his first Okovango edition was once owned by a journalist, he sourced old typewriter keys for the P, R, and D indicators of the gear selector. These are embedded in a stunning curved mahogany center console.

The Okovango, an open-topped short-wheelbase 90, is one of four versions, each named after a great African river. There’s the Limpopo four-door pickup and, both on the 110 chassis, the Zambezi and the Sabie.

So far, only the bikini-topped Okovango is complete. Powered by a 3.5-liter Rover V-8 with Holley electronic fuel injection, it produces a not-inconsiderable 212 horsepower. Lane, perhaps with an eye on the origins of the company name, has since opted to offer a more thunderous powerplant.

Future models, including the Limpopo which is in build now, will be powered by a GM LT1 6.2-liter V-8 mated to an eight-speed automatic. “It’s got 450 brake horsepower and 600 newton-meters (443 lb-ft) of torque, which is excessive to be perfectly honest,” Lane confesses. “We may go down to the 5.3, but we chose this engine as it’s just bulletproof. It’s easy to service, repair, and get parts.”

Every Oshe Land Rover starts with an all-new chassis, to which Tractive semi-active adjustable suspension and AP Racing disc brakes are added. You’ll also find luxuries like heated seats, electric sidesteps, and electric handbrake, plus an Audison and Morell audio system.

Lane reckons the production of each model will be 25 cars, building them at the rate of three or four a year. “It’s probably going to be about 25 and that’s purely down to down to time scales. We want to keep the quality control and build them uniquely.”

Despite not having delivered a single customer car yet—and setting a starting price at £225,000 ($282,000), Oshe is getting inquiries from all over the world. “We’re talking to people in the U.S. Of course we have the steering wheels on the wrong side, but we’re having conversations with a company which is well-established in Texas and another in Los Angeles.”

Listen out for the thunder—it could be coming soon.

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Given the global impact of the Volkswagen Golf, which turns 50 this year, it was only appropriate that we solicit the perspective of one of our veteran colleagues across the pond. We’ve adjusted the lexicon to suit American readers, though a few UK-specific references remain for the sake of authenticity. —Ed.

Bernd Pischetsrieder, a former Volkswagen boss, once volunteered in a round-table interview that he had just driven the latest Golf model due for launch in a few months.

“What’s it like?” asked one journalist. Pischetsrieder looked nonplussed.

“It’s like a Golf,” he replied, staggered that anyone could be quite so ignorant.

He had a point. Over 50 years and a total 37 million sales across the world, VW’s Golf has often been the answer to pretty much any and every motoring question. Now in its eighth generation, for the last half-century, Golf has been the quintessential family-sized hatchback: spacious, economical to run, reliable, stylish, and, like the original Mini, brilliantly classless.

It’s been beloved by generations of European families, including our own Royal family, and by quite a few Americans, where it was originally badged as the Rabbit. And in that super-sized land, our medium-sized Golf is seen as a compact car.

Nevertheless, as a Beetle replacement, the Golf was a long time in gestation. From as far back as 1952, under VW’s first managing director, Heinrich Nordhoff, the company had been developing a series of rear-engine Beetle replacements—over 70 of them, many of which were painstakingly developed and then rejected. By 1967, and after a prolonged German sales slump, VW was getting desperate about a replacement for the charismatic but aging car, which had been designed by Ferdinand Porsche under instructions from Adolf Hitler. The company’s finances were in dire straits, sales were tumbling, and all the management had come up with was the weird Type 3 Variant, the anodyne K70, and endless clunky Beetle-replacement prototypes going back to the 1950s.

In the end it took a visit to the Turin motor show by director general Kurt Lotz and Italian importer Gerhard Gumpert. There they each wrote down their favorite models, only to discover that most of them were designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro, and a light appeared at the end of the tunnel. VW project EA337 became the first Golf.

While “Blizzard” and “Caribe” were considered as names for the new hatchback, the Golf name won out. It was previously thought to have two possible derivatives: first, that it followed a VW pattern of calling cars after winds (Passat, a German name for a trade wind; Scirocco, a warm Mediterranean wind from the Sahara), and Golf is close to Gulf Stream (Golfstrom in German); or second, that it was named after a sport, as were cars like the Polo and the Derby.

It turned out, though, to be named after a horse, a Hannover gelding owned by Hans-Joachim Zimmermann, then VW’s head of purchasing. In 1973, VW chairman Horst Münzner came over one weekend and rode Zimmermann’s horse, and both men thought the Golf name was a good one for the new hatchback. Zimmermann revealed all when he donated a picture of Golf the horse to the Stiftung Automuseum Volkswagen: “My horse was the inspiration for the Golf’s name, it stands for top-class, elegance and reliability. May the Golf have a long history of success. My horse got to be 27 years old, and in human terms, that meant it reached the ripe old age of 95. That is a pretty good omen.”

Perhaps equally portentous was the fact that Giugiaro considered his folded-paper Golf design to be the most important car of his distinguished career, and it stands close scrutiny even today.

Not only did Golf become a best seller, accounting for more than 50 percent of VW sales by the end of the 1970s, it gradually morphed into a linchpin of the entire VW Group operation, with all other models spun off the basic kit of parts that underpinned Golf. So, think of Polo as the small Golf, Passat as the big Golf, and so it went on, to include Audis (posh Golfs), Seats (sporty Spanish Golfs), and Škodas (Czech Golfs). And if the GTI was a fast Golf, the Touran was a van Golf, and the Tiguan an SUV Golf.

Last month, VW presented its latest Golf—the last to be powered by combustion—to the world. It’s far from all new and can trace its underpinnings to the 2012 Mk7 model, which is one of the finest mass-production cars ever built.

Trouble is, the Mk7’s replacement, the Mk8 of 2020, would have been fine were it not for the dreadful touchscreen system with its confusing CARIAD software and its wrongheaded slider switches for adjusting radio volume and heating, which weren’t even illuminated at night.

So this new Golf is really 8.2, if you like, with some of its software and switchgear improved and upgraded, but sharing its MEB platform structure pretty much unchanged from the Mk7. As a result, it’s probably just as good to drive but with a load more interfering electronic safety systems.

And will there be a Mk9? Probably. After his predecessor denied that there would be a replacement Golf, new VW boss Thomas Schäfer proved to have a better grasp on the public’s love for the familiar and trusted, and he is determined not to throw away the name, which has been a bestseller ’round the world for the last 50 years.

“The Golf has been at the heart of the Volkswagen brand for half a century now,” Schäfer said at the new car’s launch, “offering affordable mobility for all at the highest technical level. It has constantly adapted itself to customer needs and has thus become a global bestseller… The Golf does not get any better than this.”

As Alan Price sang in the famous 1987 TV commercial for the Mk2 Golf, which starred model Paula Hamilton: “Everyone is going through changes. No one knows what’s going on … ”

Well, we do—a bit. Schäfer’s all-new Golf won’t arrive until 2028, at which point it’ll be a battery-electric vehicle, and given the way VW has twisted and turned on the hook of good intentions for the last decade, that leaves lots of room for maneuvering, especially as the EU won’t actually ban combustion-engined cars until 2035. In other words, watch this space …

But let’s go back to the Golf’s heyday, starting with where it’s built. Though it has been produced around the world, the Golf is most associated with the 70 million square foot plant at Wolfsburg in Germany. Built in 1938, the factory was established on a greenfield site near the village of Fallersleben. At its inauguration it was named KdF-Stadt – Hitler’s original name for the Volkswagen Beetle was KdF-Wagen, for “kraft durch freude,” meaning strength through joy. The site was later named Stadt des Kdf-Wagens bei Fallersleben—City of the Strength Through Joy Car at Fallersleben—and was expanded into a larger city with blocks of flats for workers and a power station that provided electricity and heat to those workers’ homes.

After World War II and the reinstatement of production of the Beetle, it was renamed Wolfsburg, after the nearby Wolfsburg Castle. In 2003, for the launch of the fifth-generation Golf, Volkswagen temporarily renamed the city ‘Golfsburg’ as a fairly rubbish publicity stunt.

So here we are in 1974, and the launch of the first-ever Golf. “Great power, great performance and great fun,” ran the copy lines for the razor-edged little car. It arrived in the UK in October 1974, but the road testers didn’t get their hands on it until the following year.

Motor magazine’s car breakers tested the 1100L model in early 1975, and their judgment was nuanced. They liked the smooth and tractable engine, excellent gearchange, responsive steering, and safe handling, though the photographs seemed to show them hurling the little car through every available corner. What they didn’t like so much was the £1517 price (£11,215 today, or roughly $14K), which made it quite pricey against the Austin Allegro, Alfasud, and Ford Escort. And the performance data was rather underwhelming: an 87.4-mph top speed, 0-to-60 mph in 17.8 seconds, and an average of 28.4 mpg.

It was four months until they got their hands on the more luxurious and powerful 1500LS, which cost £1798 (£13,292, or roughly $16,750). Motor’s verdict was that the seating was too hard, ventilation was poor, and the gearchange felt imprecise, but they still liked it and it performed a lot better, with a 97.8-mph top speed, 0-to-60 mph in 12.6 seconds, and average fuel economy of 27.8 mpg.

The Golf was runner-up to Citroën’s CX in the 1975 Car of the Year award, but the public knew what they wanted, and in its first year of sales the VW was the UK’s 14th best-selling car, with almost 20,000 sales.

I owned an early ’80s Mk I with a 74 hp (75 bhp), 1.6-liter engine and five-speed gearbox. Bought secondhand, it was a lovely little car: nippy, economical, and very cool compared with the competition at the time. I was far from alone; there are pictures of a certain Diana Spencer standing beside a light blue Mk1. Amazingly, the Mk1 model continued to be produced in South Africa until 2009.

In 1976 came the GTI, which is considered to be one of the first-ever hot hatches. The UK didn’t get it until 1977, and only as a special-order, left-hand-drive model. Back to our fast and furious Motor testers, who concluded: “If Volkswagen are as successful in competition as they have been in developing this car, they will prove formidable opponents.”

UK buyers would have to wait until 1979, however, for a full factory right-hand-drive GTI, which basically was the start of the British public’s love affair with fast family hatches; there have been times when GTI models have accounted for more than 10 percent of all UK Golf orders.

The second-generation Golf was introduced in 1983 (1984 in the UK). By this time the GTI version was sporting a 1.8-liter engine, and with the larger body and more practicality, many consider the Mk2 of whatever stripe to be one of the finest Golf models produced.

A complete restyle arrived with the Mk III, which helped it finally garner the European Car of the Year award, in 1992. The 1998 Mk4 marked an attempt to take the car upmarket with a lovely attention to detail in the cabin, but also a big weight increase, lackluster handling, and an eight-valve GTI model that was scarcely worthy of the badge. Largely unloved except by VW executives, the Mk4 was compared unkindly to the sharp handling and looks of the 1998 Ford Focus.

The fifth and sixth generations (2003 and 2008, respectively) moved the game on with independent rear suspension, but again with a weight increase. It was the Mk7 that incorporated VW’s new MQB platform, which pushed the Golf back to the forefront, with more space, a bigger boot, and more rear leg room than before.

And in 50 years, boy, did the Golf grow. The new Golf Mk8 measures 168.7 inches in length, with a curb weight that starts at 2767 pounds. Contrast that with the tiny Mk I, at just 146 inches long and weighing 1764 pounds, but the latest model is also safer, quieter, more comfortable, faster, and more economical, so progress hasn’t all been backward.

Now it’s the beginning of the end for a car that many learned to drive in and which in the last half-century has sold on average 2000 units a day. While the Golf continued to top the sales charts as the world went into Covid lockdown, its fall started in 2022, a troubled year in general for the motor industry. At that point, the Golf’s 15-year run at the top of the European sales charts ended, with VW’s manufacturing and supply issues causing the car to fall to fifth place, with Peugeot’s 208 assuming the top spot.

Not that the Golf will disappear from our roads overnight. With total sales of over 2.3 million in the UK, there have been at least 442 different Golf models over the years, which makes it very difficult to work out exactly how many are still on the road, although one estimate has it at just over a million.

As they said in the first GTI ads, “Everyone must have something in life he can rely on.”

If you are someone who still has a Golf parked outside, you’re part of a once-important but now slowly diminishing herd. But don’t despair, your daily driver has been one of the most influential and significant cars ever built, and if you look after it, it most surely will look after you.

***

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The first time I saw a Range Rover, I was ten years old, peering out of the back seat windows of our 1978 Plymouth Volaré, waiting in line to be dropped off for the first day of school. I still remember how the Plymouth’s oven-hot plastic seats burned my skin, and the smell of the air inside our car—it reeked of floorboard fungi fueled by the perfect conditions of mystery roof leak water and Chrysler Corporation shag carpeting.

Our car smelled like cheese and the FM radio only seemed to work on even calendar days. These new, seemingly alien vehicles—the model was later named the Range Rover Classic by the factory—were adorned with aromatic, soft leather complemented by contrasting piping. The driver and passengers inside had perfect cotillion-like posture while sitting much higher than what appeared to be necessary. These Range Rovers even had something called “CD changers,” which played a multitude of compact discs … from the back of the car.

Now, 30-ish years later, I grab my son from the pick-up line in a Range Rover, a 2008 Supercharged model. However, our truck doesn’t cause any 10-year-olds to crane their necks out of back-seat windows. In the eyes of my son and his generation, it’s just a 15-year-old SUV that does this neat thing where it can raise itself up and down with the press of a button. For me, however, it feels special because it retains many characteristics of the Land Rovers I first admired: green gauges, a symmetrical dashboard, contrasting piping on the soft leather seats, the same general boxy geometry. Would I have preferred to carry on the school pick-up custom in a Classic? Absolutely, but for most auto enthusiasts, the Venn diagram of availability, reliability, and feasibility rarely has Range Rover Classic in the center. So far, my 2008 Supercharged has been a successful attempt to create that intersection.

If you are not most auto enthusiasts, and have money to spare, Florida-based ECD (formerly East Coast Defenders) will help you consolidate that Rover Venn diagram into one tight circle. ECD’s take on the Classic aims to grab the attention of people like myself, who grew up around the first-generation Rovers and wish to relive those early luxury experiences with added reliability and more personal touches.

Land Rover’s original target demographic was well-to-do tradesmen and farmers who had outgrown their extremely utilitarian Series I and II tractor-like trucks. Originally conceptualized as “A Car for All Reasons,” the first Range Rover was revealed in 1970 as a three-door Ford Bronco-inspired truck with seating for five and a towing capacity of just under 4 tons. The new Rover’s comfort and surprising on- and off-road capabilities were quickly appreciated by wealthy, clear-scheduled outdoor hobbyists and enthusiasts seeking to comfortably arrive at their favorite ski resorts and remote hunting lodges.

Word of the truck’s prowess quickly spread overseas, where aristocrats in bygone British colonies snatched up as many as they could to handle the rigors of poor roads and still-developing infrastructure. Many of those new owners would never set foot on a pedal, as the most elite Rover owners preferred to be chauffeured than to drive themselves like the commoners. To satisfy this burgeoning foreign market, independent limousine upfitters and coachbuilders took it upon themselves to elongate the plucky three-door Rovers into a chauffeur-able amalgamation fit for African, Middle Eastern, and Southeast Asian royalty.

One of those coachbuilders was Monteverdi, a small-batch Swiss luxury car brand born from a racing engine repair relationship with Ferrari and Lancia, which saw limited success in the 1960s. In the mid-1970s, Monteverdi found a little niche in the newly established SUV market with its Safari, a rebodied and well-appointed International Harvester Scout. The Safari was of comparable three-door Rover size and came standard with a Chrysler 5.2-liter V-8. It was said to be optionable with the enormous and as-of-that-moment surplus 7.2 big-block, which was a casualty of America’s contemporary Clean Air Act legislation.

When Monteverdi began offering the stretched Rovers alongside the Safari, buyers flocked to their English counterpart, despite the Safari’s clear performance advantages and novelty luxe items, like power windows and softer interior trim.

The success of the elongated Range Rover soon caught the attention of Land Rover— newly independent of British Leyland—whose endorsement of the longer wheelbase refashioning was so strong that the original factory warranty was courteously extended to owners of Monteverdi-modified examples. The two companies became unlikely sales partners in 1978, whereupon five-door, Italian-built Monteverdi Range Rovers could be purchased directly from British Land Rover dealerships.

In 1981, Land Rover began to roll full-size Ranges off its own assembly lines, signaling the beginning of the end of the Monteverdi Rover era (the latter’s expensive Volaré-based Sierra sedan certainly didn’t help). By then, the altruistic Swiss company had already done most of Land Rover’s heavy lifting in the five-door branding and marketing department, creating a sales segment in wealthy automotive markets where the Safari had done well. Securing orders for the future “Classic” was a breeze.

When the boxy, original Range Rovers of the ’80s and ’90s were finally phased out of production, they briefly shared the same assembly line with their successor, the P38 Range Rover. The newer, more square-bodied truck offered an updated drivetrain and more luxe bits but never seemed to recapture the magic of the Classic. Horror stories of electric gremlins and dealer floor models having to be pushed out of the showroom directly into service bays would malign the brand for years, leading many long-time Rover evangelists to abandon their enthusiasm for more reliable options.

Into that void steps ECD Automotive Design, a Kissimmee, Florida–based company that first made a name for itself building bespoke Defender trucks for clients all over the world. After hand-building a large number of stunning, highly individualized vehicles, ECD plotted out its next move. Aptly, it bet that the next generation of Land Rover enthusiasts would be people like me—the backseat dreamers of the early ’90s.

The company’s roots trace back to 2012, when co-founder Tom Humble moved to the U.S. from Britain, taking a job in Florida with Volkswagen and Porsche, where he focused on dealer training. Humble’s parents had preceded him in the Sunshine State, a place the Humble family had enjoyed holidays for years.

The Humble family had a rich history of personal garage tinkering with various English vehicles, and when it was time to make the move across the Atlantic, Tom decided to bring along two previously tinkered family Defenders for the cool factor alone. Original as they came, Humble realized his 1983 model with a four-speed manual wasn’t an ideal fit for busy, sometimes unreasonable Florida traffic, so it was soon relegated to eBay for sale.

“I remember people coming to view it in my little garage, in the apartment complex where I lived, and after it sold, people kept contacting me. Can you find me one? Can you bring one in?” Humble says.

From there, the “I want ones” and the “Do you have any mores” turned into “When you find one, can you do this to it, or can you do that to it?”

Sensing that the surprising attention and demand from one eBay listing could turn into something much bigger, Humble began planning early individual builds in his free time with available parts and the few resources he had located in his new area. There were some build aspects that necessitated outsourcing, but the goal was to finish projects with as little outside help or influence as possible.

As word got out and demand increased, Tom’s brother Elliot was brought into the fold. Elliot was working for a university in England and had become his brother’s parts lifeline; he’d bring original Land Rover bits and pieces in his luggage when he’d visit the family in Florida.

The brothers got busier and busier and the “reading weeks” Elliot used as excuses to get away from university work became more frequent.

It was on one of these trips when the brothers attended a dinner party hosted by Scott Wallace, a friend and fellow British transplant with a background in private equity. Upon their arrival, Tom Humble remembers Wallace and his guest’s reaction to their blacked-out Defender’s commanding presence and driveway demeanor.

“Scott had never seen one in the U.S. before and was kind of taken aback. We spent the rest of the night drinking Coronas and talking about Defenders.”

As the evening progressed and the two talked cars, Wallace subtly proposed what Humble felt was a dare: “If you want to do this properly, quit your job, and get rid of your safety net. If you do, I’ll grow it with you.” In less time than it took for the original Range Rover to be declared a Classic, Wallace and the Humble brothers were verbally in business.

Their first step toward incorporation occurred in an unlikely place. The trio’s preeminent business meeting was an impromptu, hours-long get-together in a mid-Florida Wawa convenience store, where the first order of business was buying out Elliot’s position at Leeds University and making him CTO. Scott would serve as CEO and Tom as CXO—the Client Experience Officer, encompassing sales, customer service, and overall experience.

A U.K.-based node would allow ECD to source and maintain a steady supply of solid vehicles and parts that could be exported to the U.S. to satisfy new orders, a plan which ultimately allowed the company the advantage of sidestepping many issues other businesses had during the pandemic.

By the end of 2013, ECD employed four craftspeople. Wallace’s original dinner party dare had turned serendipitous by 2021, as Land Rover Defenders were the second-most imported vehicle into the United States, bested only by the venerable R32 Nissan GT-R. Today, ECD has 80 employees working side-by-side in a sprawling facility in Kissimmee, and the company is publicly traded via NASDAQ.

A primary company ideal dating back to Tom Humble’s initial builds included no outsourcing. Having in-house upholsterers, electricians, engine builders, and other craftspeople would allow ECD to directly manage the adventurous build timelines and quality-control benchmarks the trio believed would be paramount to their success. This business model allows trucks to be built completely in-house within a 16-day period, with each stage of manufacturing lasting four days. Quality control can be more closely scrutinized, with hand-picked parts and materials approved from within. To bring the customer directly into the manufacturing process, clients can request daily updates and are able to watch their trucks throughout every stage of the build via ECD’s in-shop webcams.

Shifting from their wildly successful Defender builds, Humble and his team moved into the Classic realm with an emphasis on providing their clients with a more refined, confident model that harkens back to the original Range Rover concept. Currently, the Classic makes up a little more than 10 percent of ECD’s build schedule.

“In my mind,” says Humble, “the Classic encapsulates Old World luxury, go-anywhere ability, and with our touch, a new sense of reliability and quality. It is a superb family vehicle, especially the LWB version with the huge amount of space for rear passengers.” It excels in modern school pick-up line comfort and efficiency, in other words.

“I’ve a 2019 Range Rover SV,” he continues. “Once the kids’ seats are in the back they can hardly climb in, whereas when I put the seats in my 1993 LSE they can climb in with backpacks, the dog, and anything else they wish, and still have plenty of room.”

All ECD builds are given unique project names by clients and their families. When I joined Tom Humble and his team in Raleigh, North Carolina, on a pre-SEMA leg of ECD’s outreach event tour, graciously hosted by Carolina Exotic Car Club, I was greeted by “Project Mercer,” a 1995 Range Rover Classic painted in a glossy Epsom Green. This particular truck’s namesake came from its original destination on Mercer Island, in the Seattle area. Noted in a very factory-looking door-jamb nameplate, “Project Mercer” was ECD’s 271st build.

Names aren’t just a reflection on the truck; they also reflect the personality of the owner. As Humble recalls: “We had a client send us his RRC, which he had owned for many years with great memories, which he wanted to rebuild and use again with his family. He told us that it always had a funny smell about it, so he struggled to convince people to use it anymore with him. We shipped the vehicle over to our Florida HQ from California, and once we started tearing it down, we found several dead rats in the air ducts. It was horrendous.

“When we informed the client, he laughed and named the new build Project Stinky. It was rather odd doing a voiceover for one of our new builds and saying in my fake posh English accent ‘This is Project Stinky’.”

As I began to familiarize myself with Project Mercer, my initial walk-around proved highly nostalgic. Those door handles (originally a British Leyland parts bin item first seen on the Allegro, but more courteously remembered as being fitted to the Lotus Esprit), the round, sealed-beam headlights, and my favorite underbite-y square taillights that peer out meekly from each corner; it all felt like a fall afternoon in the middle school pick-up line.

In contrast to untouched, stock Classics, ECD’s truck has a more confident, highway-worthy stance. In both upper and lower suspension positions, the wheels fit perfectly within the unmodified fenders, thanks to compatible axles from its wider Defender cousin, while red Brembo calipers mated with drilled rotors peek through the black, age-appropriate wheels. The addition of functional running boards hides the oversized stainless exhaust needed to allow the supercharged LT4 V-8 to exhale, and they also add a nice mid-wheel line to the truck’s originally optioned long wheelbase. If you’re not familiar with the Classic in its original form, you won’t find too many obvious exterior cues to indicate that this truck is different.

On the inside, many of the original analog Range Rover characteristics that could very easily have been ditched for touchscreen controls are preserved, ceding the sole digital controls to the well-placed iPad-like infotainment system. The original Land Rover analog clock, four-position fan switch, and round temperature/vent control switches remain as a throwback to a time when people pressed spring-loaded buttons and moved tensioned mechanisms.

An upgraded analog dash gauge cluster that could have very easily been mistaken for factory equipment provides only essential information, and the steering wheel remains true to its original form. It is a welcome sight in a world that’s all too keen to go digital. One subtle, electronic Easter egg is an added blind-spot detector, which incorporates small, camouflaged lights into the midsection of the A-pillars.

I am so conditioned to my own truck’s one-touch ignition that at start-up in the ECD Classic, I (embarrassingly) did not hold the key in the starting position long enough for the engine to catch. It was the first note the truck had given me that it wasn’t going to do everything for me—that I needed to pay attention.

The second note came immediately after, when the supercharged LT4 sprang to life, giving a pleasant truck-wide shake that quickly settled to a low but noticeable rumble.

On the road, the truck provided all of the handling feedback I needed to make good decisions. Its wide Defender-based stance gave manageable cues when I was testing cornering limits, with just enough body roll to feel where the truck wanted to go next. When my foot came off the pedal after heavy acceleration, the transmission hovered perfectly in the higher rpms, almost asking, “Are we doing this or not? Because we can absolutely do this.” Braking came naturally and required no distance or pressure adjustments compared with what I was used to in my more modern truck. The Brembos’ responsiveness was a friendly reminder that they were there whenever I needed them.

The Corvette-emblazoned LT4 powerplant gave the same vibe. This isn’t a truck that feels like it should be driven flat out all the time, but if you need to pass that beige Camry lingering on the short highway on-ramp, you’ll have an absolute ball doing so, and the supercharger whine will keep you looking for similar opportunities. When cruising at regular highway speed, the historically smooth feel of a V-8 Land Rover is still present. Along with the creaky leather and tight door closings, the sounds all blend perfectly to create the auricular sentimentality I was hoping for.

The one thing I always take time to appreciate when experiencing a restomod is its sensory aspects. For better or for worse, from vehicle to vehicle they’re all different. Project Mercer was special in the sense (pardon the pun) that it was the first 28-year-old vehicle I had ever driven that smelled like a new car. Not a freshly cleaned car with an obviously chemical new-car scent; it smelled like a genuinely new car.

ECD sources much of its leather from Poltrona Frau in Italy, a company with so many color and texture offerings that, according to Humble, “You can basically pick out the cow.” In Mercer’s case, the leather choice was a simple sandy tone with contrasting chocolate middle seat panels, which coordinated well with the overall original look of the interior. It was soft with precise stitching, which still retained a rich, worn-in creaky sound when shifting in your seat; that’s a hallmark of the Land Rover driving experience.

As trends go, it’s easy to say a style has come back into favor simply because it has been rediscovered by a new generation. That enough time has passed for the originality and attractiveness of that particular thing to come into fashion once again; that it has become a “classic.” With auto-enthusiasm trends, however, it never seems to be that simple.

For a vehicle to be labelled culturally as “classic,” time must pass, details must be debated and scrutinized, and an appreciation should be widely recognized for the contribution that vehicle has made to engineering, nostalgia, and design. One cannot simply do as Land Rover did one morning in 1994, when, as the next-gen P38 Range Rovers rolled down the assembly lines alongside their sharp-angled, round headlight predecessors, the company retroactively declared all pre-P38 Range Rovers to be “Classics.”

Time and progress march on, and the things we once loved are never remanufactured—successfully, anyway—from scratch. For us, automotive enthusiasts of the world, nostalgia is more nuanced. My preference for a 2008 Supercharged instead of the nearly identical 2010, with the latter’s added digital displays, engine power, and trim options, has made me a believer that our willingness to sacrifice modernity for the everyday feelings and visuals of our past is what fuels the next generation’s enthusiasm. We send out deep roots from the cars we grew up with; we want to be the people who drove them, a sentiment with which Tom Humble is familiar.

“Many of our clients who have commissioned our RRC builds have a history with them, a common story being that their parents had one when they were growing up and had fond memories attached. Some have actually been brought to us by the client as that exact surviving vehicle from their childhood.”

For a day, I got to experience a history I had dreamed of as a kid, with perfect driving posture.

And finally, to the person who recently purchased an exact middle-school Brandis-spec 1978 Plymouth Volaré for $7200 via Bring A Trailer, I sincerely hope whatever fulfillment you’re looking for is dry, and fungus-free. And that maybe, just maybe, you are reading this on a Commodore 64.

***

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Perhaps that title is on the dramatic side, because the 2004 Lincoln Mark X concept car is unlikely to lose another battle after it already lost the war. It never became a production car, was never subjected to the rigors production entails, so going up for auction at Mecum Glendale is a relative cakewalk in comparison. The buying pool for 20-year-old concept cars is unlikely to pull the plug on this veteran after purchasing it, and surely the concept of double jeopardy also applies to concept cars?

We shall see where the bidding on the Mark X (pronounced Mark Ten) ends, because owning a vehicle with a bevy of unique parts that never made production will always scare people away. But one lucky winner will enjoy a stunning slice of luxury car history—one that’s also the tale of a tragic hero.

I dug deeper into the Mark X’s connection to the troubled, eleventh-generation Ford Thunderbird for a Hagerty Insider story, so I’ll be brief: The Mark X could have been made alongside the Thunderbird and Lincoln LS at the Wixom Assembly Plant, as part of a last-ditch effort to find more buyers and amortize costs associated with Ford’s struggling DEW98 platform. That wasn’t in the cards, however, as the Mark X was birthed right before Ford announced plans to close multiple plants and lay off tens of thousands of workers.

But the Mark X was precisely what the faltering Lincoln brand needed in a halo car. The retractable hardtop and 1963 Continental–inspired egg-crate grille would bring excitement to the brand in the same way the folding-droptop genre was benefitting the likes of Mercedes, Cadillac, Lexus, BMW, and Infiniti during that time.

But this concept car was more than a Thunderbird with a Continental grille. The chrome strip running across the Mark X’s belt line is a nice throwback to yesteryear’s slab-sided Lincolns. Or. as the press release said, “The Mark X concept is designed to demonstrate the potential of the Lincoln brand by stretching its DNA to a sophisticated roadster.”

While it’s clear Lincoln wasn’t going to change the Thunderbird’s hard points at crucial junctures—things like like the cowl, the doors, and its elongated rear deck—the overall look still screamed Lincoln DNA. It’s a shame the Mark X didn’t come to fruition, both for Lincoln’s loyal followers and the brand’s shrinking market share.

The Mark X’s interior was a concept car dream that looked close to production, as sharing bits with the Thunderbird meant you could do a fair amount of implementation behind the scenes and nobody would be the wiser. But the “lime sorbet” leather interior paired with Corian accents was likely never in the cards, the latter being the preferred finish for high-end kitchens, not cars. (This was before everyone demanded granite countertops in their McMansions).

Having lived in a house that had Corian added in a kitchen renovation, let me suggest that it is a bold interior material choice for an automobile. Corian is heavy and not exactly malleable, two poor traits when a production car faces a head-on collision. But the Mark X is just a concept car, and a Ford press release suggested that designers looked for inspiration from “the fashion, furniture and housing industries.” While the Corian accents likely just served as a little PR buzz for interior designers, the unfinished navigation system suggests this concept didn’t get nearly as far as intended. And certainly not as far as the Lincoln Mark VII Comtech from decades past.

So here’s the 2004 Lincoln Mark X interior in modern times, as it waits for its moment at the Mecum auction. The white Corian finishes made way for black, but that’s the most noticeable change over time. The interior presents itself with no wear, aside from one scratch on the plastic near the “Detroit 2004 Mark X” commemorative plate on the rocker panel.

The exterior photos from the Mecum listing show a concept car that still looks stunning, with an impressive stance and shockingly wide rear tires. There are two changes since we last saw the Mark X in 2004. The first is rather pedantic: Only a Lincoln nerd like yours truly knows that hood ornament came from an Essex Continental, so I wonder out loud what happened to the Mark X’s bespoke emblem. The other is more academic: someone took the chrome body side moulding in the fenders and rear quarter panel and made a matching metal strip for the door.

The bling in the middle of the door looks ready for production, and somewhat helps set the Mark X apart from the Thunderbird donor under the skin. And everything else on this concept Lincoln looks fantastic, so I’m curious if anyone can muster up the nerve to operate the folding hardtop after years of possible neglect. Trying to repair it will likely make working on a 1961–67 Continental convertible look easy. Or not, as the Mark X likely used off-the-shelf mechanisms found on other folding hardtops of the era.

Speaking of what’s on the shelf, this was truly a sad era in Lincoln history: The Mark X was canned, letting the Mark LT truck carry the legacy started by Edsel Ford (Lincoln Continental), continued by William Clay Ford (Mark II) and Lee Iacocca (Mark III) on its burly, F-150–derived shoulders.

There’s nothing wrong with a Lincoln truck, at least in theory. It just needs to look as Lincoln-like as the Mark X did on its Thunderbird underpinnings. A different grille and acres of bling certainly worked (and continues to hold its value) but this vehicle could have been a Navigator with a bed. Perhaps that was never in the cards….

Two years later, the Mark X did make an ironic comeback as the 2006 Lincoln MKX crossover. The name was strikingly similar to the Thunderbird-based concept Mark, and there’s no doubt where its grille came from. (Or perhaps a little doubt, as both Xs used the same 1963 Continental template in that regard.)

Both names were also unique, at least technically. The MKX crossover was never called a Mark Ten, though that’s absolutely what it looks like to traditional Lincoln customers who scan the tailgate’s emblems. Be it a Mark truck in 2004 or an “MK” crossover in 2006, the famous Mark Series evolved past its history as a low-slung Lincoln coupe.

While that’s a shame, the opportunity to grab the last Mark Series coupe ever made (so to speak) is at our fingertips. Concept cars are usually just dreams, but this will be someone’s reality. And wouldn’t it be a wondrous reality if it was feasible/legal to do a VIN swap with a tired, depreciated 2004 Thunderbird, then perform a supercharged V-8 powertrain swap from a Jaguar S-Type R? That’s truly how the Lincoln Mark X can live forever as the Mark Series successor it deserved to become.

***

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What better way for a gearhead to celebrate Valentine’s Day than with tiny trucks that make you say “aww”? We originally published this story in the summer of 2018; it’s back because LUV lasts forever. –EW 

It might be hard to imagine, given the current, cutthroat state of the pickup truck segment, but there was once a time when these task-focused haulers were largely an afterthought to the bean counters in Detroit. Fifty years ago, before King Ranches and Longhorns lined their interiors with enough leather to reach from Lansing to Laredo, trucks were barebones affairs built to get the job done and sold to customers who honestly weren’t expected to use them as daily drivers.

An even more hands-off approach was applied to the burgeoning compact-truck scene, which caught the Big Three completely off-guard at the beginning of the 1970s. General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler had essentially ignored the small pickups being imported by Toyota and Datsun throughout the previous decade, blissfully ignorant of the fact that a growing cohort of buyers was willing to take a chance on a “foreign” brand if it meant an easy-to-drive truck that offered decent practicality and a low purchase price. In fact, it’s safe to say that Datsun (now Nissan) carved out its first important foothold in America by way of its 320/520 series of mini-trucks.

Scrambling to capture a demographic they hadn’t even known existed, Michigan’s best minds had to come up with a compromise, and quickly, until they could marshal the resources required to develop their own homegrown trucks. The result was a series of captive imports rebadged to battle the best that Japan had to offer … with the best that Japan had to offer. Each automaker was able to avoid the egregious 25-percent “Chicken Tax” by importing its rigs in chassis cab configuration for final assembly stateside.

Let’s take a look at the trio of mini-trucks fielded by Detroit for that awkward 10-year stretch that lasted right up until the likes of the Ranger and S10 took over the reins.

Chevrolet LUV

GM’s ace in the hole when it came to dealing with the nascent mini-truck madness was that it owned a sizable chunk of Isuzu. After a few terse phone calls, Chevrolet had its first compact truck ready to go, sent across the Pacific in droves to America where it would receive both the Bowtie and the unusual “LUV” badge, an acronym for Light Utility Vehicle.

The LUV was as basic as you could get when it appeared in 1972, offering a 1.8-liter, 75-horsepower, four-cylinder engine; four-speed manual gearbox; and 88 lb-ft of shrub-pulling torque. With a 102.4-inch wheelbase and 1400 pounds of cargo capacity, Isuzu’s finest was a paragon of pint-sized practicality.

In 1976, the LUV would gain a three-speed automatic and front disc brakes. By the end of the decade it was possible to snag a chassis-cab version of the truck, choose between 6- and 7.5-foot bed lengths, add four-wheel drive, and benefit from an additional five horsepower from an upgraded four-banger. A number of styling changes would also come and go with the Chevrolet, including a switch from quad headlights to a simple pair in 1978.

Chevrolet was strategic in spreading the LUV, making the truck available first in parts of the country where buyers had already demonstrated significant interest in smaller pickups. As a result, the LUV sold in huge numbers, with sales shooting from just over 20,000 in its first year all the way to a peak of more than 100,000 in 1979.

The second-generation truck that appeared in 1981 adopted styling that resonated with fewer buyers, but it wouldn’t matter that sales were cratering because the S10 was right on the horizon—and besides, Chevy had little to complain about having moved 462,000 LUV units since the model was introduced. Not bad for a segment that no one saw coming.

Ford Courier

The Ford Courier was another example of an American institution leaning on a Japanese partner to fill a hole in its product planning. In 1972, Mazda was already selling the B1600 in the United States (and had been offering the more powerful B1800 in Canada since 1970), but it hardly minded when the Blue Oval strong-armed its way into the mini-truck mix by rebadging the B1600 as the Courier. Besides, Mazda had the Rotary Pickup waiting in the wings, so what did it matter if Ford wanted a few thousand piston-driven trucks in the meantime?

Ford took a more aggressive approach to updating the Courier than Chevy did with the LUV, at least when it came to drivetrain choices. Whereas the LUV would stick with its original powerplant throughout its entire production run, the Courier’s initial 1.8-liter four—with 74-hp and 92 lb-ft of torque—was eventually complemented by a roughly 90-hp, 2.3-liter option lifted from the Pinto (for its 1977 redesign), and then replaced entirely by a 2.0-liter mill (in ’79).

Ford also made a three-speed automatic available alongside the truck’s standard four-speed manual right from the start, adding a five-speed option in 1976. Strangely, despite the ostensibly identical Mazda delivering 2250 pounds of cargo capacity, the Courier matched the LUV with an advertised 1400-pound carry rating.

Other changes throughout the decade included the unusual decision to lengthen the cab by three inches in 1976, one year before the second-generation model debuted. Also strange was the availability of third-party four-wheel drive (most notably under the Courier Sasquatch name) in the absence of a Ford-developed system.

If you’re an EV historian, then you’ll also be intrigued by the ultra-rare Jet Industries ElectraVan 750, a battery-powered version of the Courier that offered 60 miles of range on a single charge.

The Courier would survive until 1982, when it was retired in favor of next year’s iconic Ranger.

Dodge D-50 / Plymouth Arrow

Chrysler leaned on its long-standing history with Mitsubishi when it came time to tackle the surging mini-truck threat. Unlike Mazda and Isuzu, however, Mitsubishi was pickup-poor throughout most of the ’70s, leaving the Pentastar on the outside looking in at all of the action being soaked up by Ford and GM.

It wasn’t until 1979 that Dodge would import the Mitsubishi Forte, which had gone into production the year before, relabeling it the “D-50.” Deciding that the best way to make up for lost time was to double its efforts, Chrysler also tagged Plymouth into the pickup game with the Plymouth Arrow, which was identical to the Dodge.

With a wheelbase seven inches longer than that of the LUV, and featuring a choice of engines delivering between 93 (from a 2.0-liter four) and 108 (from 2.6-liter four) horsepower, the Mitsubishi twins were certainly competitive. This was especially true when considering the larger motor’s 139 lb-ft of torque, and the availability of three, four, or five forward gears. Payload remained locked at the seemingly industry-standard 1400 pounds and was delivered by a 6.5-foot bed (with another 100 pounds of bed capacity added the following year).

In 1981, the D-50 would be renamed the Ram 50, and while the Arrow would disappear by 1982, the Dodge version would continue on for an astonishing 13 additional years (finally leaving the American market in 1994). During that time it would gain four-wheel drive, a four-door model (in addition to extended-cab versions), and endure a brief flirtation with diesel power.

Why did the Ram 50 endure? Truth be told, Chrysler was in total chaos in the early ’80s and had no money to throw at a dedicated compact-pickup platform. While Ford fans and Chevy loyalists were enjoying the Ranger and S10 for the 1982 and ’83 model years, Mopar maniacs were instead gifted with the ultra-weird (and short-lived) Dodge Rampage and Plymouth Scamp, L-body front-wheel-drive haulers that had more in common with the Subaru Brat than they did a legitimate truck. These were followed by the unibody Jeep Comanche in the middle of the decade, which was itself joined by the mid-size, and full-frame, Dodge Dakota in 1987, creating a confusing-at-best situation at Mopar dealerships for much of the ’80s.

That confusion seems appropriate considering how long it took the Big Three to figure out there was a mini-truck market in the first place.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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Opel had a problem in the mid-1960: Its cars were terminally dull. Sure, the German company was far from unique in this respect, but unlike many of its rivals, Opel decided to do something about it, and that was to inject some sex appeal into the range.

The first signs of Opel’s ambitions were seen at the 1965 Frankfurt motor show, when the company unveiled an experimental coupe. Called simply ‘GT’, this rakish sportster was nothing more than a humdrum Kadett underneath (albeit with a Rekord engine), but ex-Corvette designer Clare MacKichan did a great job of coming up with the lines for Opel’s first two-seater sports car since 1924.

Despite constant denials, Opel planned all along to create a production version of the GT, but it kept its powder dry for several years, claiming that the GT was nothing more than a show car. However, everyone assumed that the concept would reach production in some form, probably with a fiberglass body shell, so it was no surprise when in 1968 the GT burst onto the scene in steel-bodied form, a year before Ford’s Capri did the same. While the Capri became an instant classic and lasted for three generations over a 17-year production run, the GT was killed off after just five years, and it is now largely forgotten.

Intended to be a sports car for the younger driver, and marketed with the slogan “The first common market sports car,” the Opel GT could be ordered with a 1078-cc engine that pushed out just 67 hp. But few chose this route. Instead, most went for the 1897-cc alternative that provided a marginally more enticing 89 hp. Even with this engine the GT was no ball of fire; it got to 60mph from stationary in a shade under 10 seconds and topped out at 112mph.

Up front there was independent suspension, while retractable lights (which swiveled into position) boosted the car’s sporting credentials. The floorpan, engine, gearbox, brakes, and suspension were all taken from the Kadett or Rekord, and while 1.1-liter editions had smaller brake drums at the back and a lower final-drive ratio, both models had identical bodywork and trim. Standard fare was a four-speed manual transmission, but 1.9-liter GTs could be ordered with a three-speed automatic instead.

As soon as the GT went on sale, it was a hit. Opel had planned to build 60 cars per day, but production quickly doubled, which was easier said than done. Parisian company Chausson produced the body shells, while Brissonneau & Lotz, also based in Paris, was commissioned to take care of body trimming and painting. When the GT proved to be such a hit, Opel had to lend a hand by also finishing cars in its factory in Bochum, Germany.

Part of the reason for the GT’s early success was its availability in the U.S., where it was sold through Buick dealers. Differences on the theme were minor between Federal and European variations; U.S.-spec cars usually lacked anti-roll bars and a heated rear window, for instance. European cars could be specified with a radio, three-speed automatic gearbox, fog lights, and a passenger-side door mirror, but available on both sides of the Atlantic was a ZF limited-slip differential, although not that many buyers paid the extra for one.

Although the GT was billed as a 2+2, the back seat wasn’t a place in which anyone would want to spend a significant amount of time. At a push you could just about squeeze one passenger in sideways, behind the high-backed front seats, and as if that wasn’t enough, there was no trunk lid or tailgate. Instead, any luggage had to be fed into the cargo area via the back seat. It wasn’t as though there was much carrying capacity anyway; the spare wheel took up most of the available space.

When Motor tested the GT in March 1969, writer Paul Frére noted: “The GT is extremely well behaved and should go a long way to change public opinion about the roadworthiness of Opels. With radial tyres, good weight distribution and rather stiff springs, both handling and roadholding are excellent. On faster bends the car is almost completely neutral and cornering speeds quite high. The light and very positive rack-and-pinion steering combine to make up a car which is extremely pleasant and enjoyable to drive.”

Sales ticked over quite nicely at first, but by 1971 demand had started to wane. In an attempt to boost interest, Opel introduced the cheaper GT/J, with simplified instrumentation, trim, and exterior brightwork. It came only in 1.9-liter form, the 1.1-liter engine having been canned by this point, due to a lack of demand. The GT/J helped to boost sales a little, but the days of Opel’s affordable sports car were numbered.

Tougher U.S. impact rules led to the GT’s demise in 1973; it wasn’t worth it for GM to engineer the car to pass, as sales had slowed to a trickle. Of the 103,463 GTs built, by far the rarest was the 1100, with just 3573 examples made. The GT/J was the next rarest, with 10,760 built, while the 1900 GT accounted for the bulk of production, with 89,130 rolling off the production lines.

That wasn’t the end of the GT brand, though, because it was revived in 2007, for an all-new model that would be sold in the U.S. as the Pontiac Solstice and Saturn Sky. GM would revive the GT name once again on a 2016 concept, but now that Opel is part of Stellantis, the arrival of yet another GT seems highly unlikely.

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There are Bronco restomods, and there are Gateway Bronco restomods. That’s a notable difference for enthusiasts of first-generation Ford Broncos who refuse to settle for anything less than the very best in style, comfort, safety, and performance. And the difference maker is Seth Burgett.

Burgett, who started Gateway Bronco in southern Illinois in 2017, grew up with grease on his hands, cars on the brain, and a desire to create something to improve people’s quality of life. It was an honorable goal that kept him focused on the health industry—instead of the auto industry—for years and resulted in the engineer’s invention of a medical robot to navigate wires into the brain and heart. Burgett later invented Yurbuds sports headphones, which quickly grew to account for 40 percent of the market, then decided to sell the company to JBL.

It was then—during a self-imposed year off in 2016 to decide what to do next—when Burgett decided to return to his automotive roots, and it was the women in his family who unknowingly helped steer him towards creating the best restomod Broncos on the road.

The road to Gateway

The son of school teachers, Burgett says he spent every summer of his youth devoted to a building project of some sort, and by age 12 he was running a small-engine repair business out of his parents’ wood shed. That eventually led to ar repair and restoration.

“I had a huge passion,” Burgett says, “for turning something that looked gnarly into something beautiful.”

Burgett often started with barn-find cars and had a particular fondness for Broncos, which decades later led to a fateful spring road trip in a vintage Bronco, with his wife riding shotgun, to attend a 50th anniversary gathering of Broncos. Later that summer his daughter expressed interest in a coast-to-coast Bronco trip, and the two “learned that Bronco inside and out.” It became clear that when it came to driving enjoyment—beyond the coolness of doing it in a classic automobile—first-generation Broncos left something to be desired in overall comfort, safety, and performance. Burgett decided to do something about it, and Gateway Bronco was born soon after.

Burgett says his goal was “to create the world’s greatest vintage Ford Bronco in terms of driving performance, safety, and pure enjoyment.” To make it happen, he invested heavily in market research, engineering, and production, and the innovative results are astonishing. Proof of that: Although they aren’t cheap, a steady stream of Gateway Broncos continue to roll out of the company’s 60,000-square-foot facility in Hamel, Illinois, located 35 miles northeast of St. Louis and not far from old Route 66.

What sets a Gateway Bronco apart?

Much like Ford’s iconic Mustang, which famously boasted “a steed for every need,” Gateway Bronco’s lineup of revitalized Ford Broncos aims to cater to a diverse range of preferences and lifestyles.

The original 1966–77 Bronco was celebrated for its versatility as a Sport Utility Vehicle that could be adapted for various outdoor adventures and inner-city tasks. Buyers of that era could select from Roadster, Wagon, and Sports Utility pickup configurations, with Ford later introducing a Sport model and a Ranger package that added comfort and convenience features.

Decades later, the first-gen Bronco has been resurrected and reimagined by the skilled craftsmen at Gateway Bronco, breathing new life into this American legend.

The Gateway lineup includes three distinct, customizable two-door Broncos: the Fuelie Edition, which uses an original factory chassis and suspension and includes a three-year warranty, starts at $180,000; the Coyote Edition, which uses a more modern four-link suspension front and rear and comes with a five-year warranty, starts at $250,000; and the new LUXE-GT Edition, which has a proprietary frame developed in Australia by Premcar Ltd. and offers a seven-year warranty, starts at $400,000. An all-electric LUXE-GT starts at $565,000.

For those who are looking for something completely different, there’s even a custom four-door Bronco option starting at $325,000.

Each model comes equipped with a new Ford Coyote 5.0-liter engine that provides 460 horsepower and 420 lb-ft of torque, mated to a 10-speed automatic transmission. The LUXE-GT offers 0–60 mph acceleration in 5.3 seconds.

All Gateway Broncos can be tailored to individual preferences with personalized features, colors, and accessories, making them accessible to a wide range of budgets and use. Deciding what you want—using Gateway’s 3-D configurator—is part of the fun.

Gateway starts with new, Ford-licensed reproduction Bronco bodies and uses all-new parts throughout. The seams are welded to reinforce the structure before those seams are coated in sealant and the entire underside is sprayed in polyurethane. The TIG-welding process takes weeks and results in a more rigid body, helping keep the door and tailgate gaps tight and uniform.

For the LUXE-GT, Premcar started with the newest body-on-frame architecture available, and it created proprietary crossmembers to get a narrower chassis to fit the classic Bronco body. The tall, boxed frame rails help increase the chassis stiffness, which is up 70 percent compared to the stock reproduction piece used in the Coyote Edition. The chassis also includes crush structures front and rear to absorb crash damage. Although it was engineered in Australia, the new chassis is assembled at an ISO 9000 facility by Michigan’s RLE International, which previously has lent its engineering expertise to companies like Fisker and Rivian.

The LUXE-GT’s suspension, while looking like a modern chassis at first glance, features unique control arms and geometry. Premcar was also tasked with developing an antilock braking system that integrates with traction control and stability control systems to truly set the LUXE-GT apart from the rest of the high-end restomod 4×4 competition. Even with all-terrain tires, the braking system affords the LUXE-GT an impressive stopping time; Gateway recorded the halt from 60 to 0 mph at 143 feet, putting it in spitting distance of a new Land Rover Defender 90. That kind of performance, along with the ability to keep the vehicle pointed where the driver wants, even under panic braking situations, is an important selling point.

And, since every aspect of the build is handled in-house using Gateway’s assembly line process in which employees focus on specialized roles, the production time from deposit to delivery is only about 12 months.

Gateway is on schedule to deliver 75 Broncos in 2024.

How does it drive?

With all of that attention to detail, Gateway Broncos provide a smooth, comfortable ride. The LUXE-GT, in particular, delivers on Ford’s original promise to make the Bronco a 4×4 sports car, this time with much more modern expectations.

Henry Catchpole, host of The Driver’s Seat, tested Gateway’s “Big Sur Love” LUXE-GT and came away thoroughly impressed with both the Bronco’s look and its performance.

“Wherever you park it, it looks like it’s been art-directed into place, and wherever you drive it, people smile and want to know more,” he says. Catchpole later adds, “It’s quicker than it has any right to be … And the gearbox, provided you leave it in its sportier setting, means you’ve got decent response from the engine. Wow!”

While other companies offer high-quality Broncos, Gateway has set itself apart by providing the exact vehicle that Burgett envisioned before taking the plunge six years ago: a reliable, safe, fun, rugged, luxurious driving machine. In other words, the world’s greatest vintage Ford Bronco.

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Most car enthusiasts love to belittle the practice of badge-engineering, which is when an automaker creates its “own” vehicle by borrowing an existing template from another brand or sub-brand. Badge-engineered vehicles are some of the lowest of the low-hanging fruits in our automotive world, but they also have a fantastic track record of success. Tesla proved that well-heeled buyers don’t mind if a Model Y SUV looks strikingly similar to a Model 3 sedan. Badge engineering can even be the seed that germinates into a halo for an entire brand.

That’s precisely what happened 25 years ago this year, when Cadillac saw the success of a luxury SUV from its cross-town rival Lincoln and General Motors counterpart GMC, and decided it needed to jump on that bandwagon. Before we get into the iconic SUV that forever changed our perceptions of a Cadillac, let’s see how we got here.

Today, GMC’s Denali models are part of a sub-brand with a clear mission: Differentiate with “first-class appointments.” The strategy clearly works, and its success started with a concept vehicle from 1998 that aimed to capitalize on the blossoming luxury SUV segment. GMC’s first Denali truck didn’t look like a typical ’90s SUV: It was restyled with softer, more organic shapes in its front end, finished off with luxurious Kodiak Bronze paint and gold-plated accents. Inside there was a floor-mounted console with a VCR and two telephones, Bose Acoustimass audio, and a roof-mounted console with a flat-screen television. GMC declared that the resplendent Yukon Denali was much like the gold deposits found around Alaska’s Mount Denali, as “fine amenities express the pinnacle of style and luxury in the SUV segment.”

While many of the concept’s bits were purely auto-show theatrics, the exterior styling and decadent interior (complete with Zebrano wood trim, a material worthy of a Cadillac STS!) did make production. GMC had a winner on its hands: Our own Larry Webster, when he reviewed the original Yukon Denali, learned that “eighty percent of regular Yukons were sold with every available option.” In hindsight, there is no doubt that GMC “needed something for the customers to step up to from the regular Yukon.” Boy howdy, did the strategy ever work: Park one of these bulbous bad boys next to a GMT400 truck at a GM dealer and the GMC might as well be a Cadillac in a rental car lot full of Caprices and Cavaliers.

The ’98 Yukon Denali sounded the clarion call to badge-engineering, and the brand wearing GM’s Wreath and Crest saw the writing on the wall: If Cadillac didn’t move quickly to quench the thirst of its dealers, the entire building connected to this metaphorical wall would be engulfed in a five-alarm fire caused by rogue Navigators and young-blooded Yukons.

The Denali was a great template for starting a sensation, and the 1999 Cadillac Escalade did have a few bits that signaled superiority over its GMC twin. The seats were stitched up and padded out like those of a proper DeVille, and that egg-crate grille gave the Escalade’s rounded contours a little more textural contrast. Even the name—Ess-ka-laid—rolled off your tongue with style. This is the stuff that salespeople eat up, and that Cadillac owners evidently could not resist.

Asking Motorweek to share the disdain of automotive enthusiasts for blatant badge-engineering is a bridge too far, as “only minor changes are necessary to bring [the Yukon] up to Cadillac spec.” But the host of the show isn’t alone in refusing to call out such corner-cutting. At the time, the media gave the Lincoln Navigator, which appeared a year before the Escalade, even more slack because, unlike GM, Ford had no interdepartmental divisions fighting for the same slice of gilded utility pie. (Perhaps Ford is just lucky that Mercury never needed a full-size SUV?)

While the GMT400 bones of the original Escalade lacked the third-row seating enabled by Lincoln’s more modern UN93 underpinnings, Motorweek noted that the Cadillac flaunted a superior ride and quicker acceleration. It may be a far cry from the big-block Caddies of yore, but the 1999 Escalade was a proper brand ambassador for the burgeoning luxury-utility market. Perhaps Motorweek said it best when it ended its review by suggesting the 1999 Escalade was “a new kind of Cadillac for a new customer and a new millennium.”

There’s a good chance that Motorweek’s upbeat statements at the end of a review have never been this telling—or this accurate. The Escalade became the de facto Y2K DeVille for America’s upper crust, ensuring that Cadillac had a leg up on every other luxury automaker lacking a strong R&D budget for trucks and SUVs.

The Escalade became the go-to aspirational product for suburban families, posh taxi and airport livery fleets, and earned acceptance from younger generations in urban zip codes. It broadened the already wide appeal of Cadillac, whose brand name has been mentioned in over 11,000 songs over time, from artists of all backgrounds. Donnelly Baxter, Marketing Manager for the Escalade, likely said it best: “Escalade is an iconic nameplate that resonates across ages, cultures, and geographies. It represents Cadillac as a brand and serves as a point of inspiration, providing a halo effect for our entire luxury lineup.”

So let’s get back to 1999, and to this tall Cadillac that hadn’t quite come into focus. The Escalade was unique enough that customers could justify owning a “Cadillac truck” and enjoy the elevated dealership experience, all while embracing the lifestyle of owning a true flagship in our hierarchical society.

When I toured the assembly plant in Arlington, Texas, back in 2003, I recognized both the engineering shortcuts and the underlying appeal of an Escalade. I scoffed at the big Caddy being assembled next to workaday Suburbans and Tahoes, but I couldn’t resist staring at the Escalade’s unique leather and wood dashboards as it moved alongside its Bowtie brethren on the assembly line. Even in such a busy and hectic environment, the chrome-rimmed clock in the console caught my eye. By the time I reached the end of the assembly line, I had no doubt that the vehicle at the end of the assembly line had the same appeal as any Cadillac. The pill was surprisingly easy to swallow for someone as picky as yours truly, since the success of the Escalade suggested that average SUV buyers had no such hang-ups about the company their trucks might kept on the assembly line.

I was even tempted to visit Sewell Cadillac on my way out of Arlington so I could experience the completed product and complete the tour (as it were). Two decades later, the flaws from my 2003 excursion to the Escalade’s birthplace are far less noticeable, as the big Cadillac SUV is now significantly better/different/upgraded from its Chevrolet and GMC cousins.

With a full 25 years in the rearview, it’s clear the 1999 Cadillac Escalade was only the start of something special. The product only got better from there, earning the right to be held in the same regard as the Cadillac DeVilles and range-topping Fleetwoods before it.

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A paperboy in the early 1960s would have been dropping some weighty headlines on his customers’ doorsteps. As a 9-year-old in Macon, Georgia, in 1961, though, Johnny Davis was more focused on a goal: earning enough money from his daily route to buy a car by the time he got his driver’s license.

Johnny remembers being heavily influenced by his 3-year-older brother Tommy’s interest in cars. Still, at that age, he could have no idea that his own auto curiosity would, eight years later, put him in a type of model not yet in the market: the midsize muscle car.

Outgrowing the paper route at age 15, the enterprising young Johnny boosted his earnings to about $1 per hour at a grocery store job. The muscle car scene was hopping by 1967, and Johnny began to follow it more closely. Two years later, with about $3000 saved, he went car shopping with his father, who would need to co-sign for the purchase, due to Johnny’s age.

Coming from a “General Motors family,” Johnny found just what he wanted with the 1969 Oldsmobile 4-4-2. Essentially a muscled-up Cutlass, the 4-4-2 was one of four corporate cousins from the GM fleet. It was sportier in design and character than that year’s Buick GS400 yet not as brash as the GTO, and it had a more upscale interior than the Chevrolet Chevelle SS396. Johnny found the Olds just right.

He took delivery of his dream car in April 1969 and found it worth the wait.

“I remember when I first saw it at the dealership. I thought it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen,” he recalls. (We’ll note that this was a few years before he met the woman he’d marry.) “I got to drive it to school for the last six weeks. It was a memorable time.”

The silver muscle car drew admiring glances at school but also made some people green with envy.

“A lot of people thought my parents bought it for me, but when I wanted something, I always saved my money. When I was a kid, an uncle started a savings account for me with five dollars at a local bank. Aside from what I earned, I always saved any money I got for birthdays or Christmas, which was probably a dollar or two. I knew I wanted to buy a car when I got my license.”

Nearly 55 years, 150,000 miles, and one restoration later, Johnny’s 4-4-2 looks and runs as young as ever, and he still drives the car to local shows and cruises, and just for plain fun. He never tires of the conversations sparked when old friends see him with the Olds.

“They all say, ‘I can’t believe you still have that car!’”

Factory basics: Oldsmobile 4-4-2

The Oldsmobile 4-4-2 entered its sixth season in 1969, having arrived in spring 1964 as the “Police Apprehender Pursuit” option package (code B09) for any F85/Cutlass, except the station wagon. The upgrade combined a tweaked, 310-horsepower version of Oldsmobile’s new 330-cubic-inch Rocket V-8 with a four-speed manual transmission, plus chassis bits from the police parts bin. The package price was $285 for an F85 model or $136 on the upscale Cutlass, which already had a 290-hp 330 four-barrel standard.

Cars so equipped wore cryptic “4-4-2” badges, which looked like a cylinder displacement figure but was not. Olds spelled out the meaning as “four-barrel carburetor, four-speed transmission, and dual exhausts.” (It was spoken as “four-four-two,” not “four-forty-two.”)

Olds went low-key on external styling differences for the 4-4-2, and even lower-key on the marketing. Ads touted the police car connection rather than overtly enticing young buyers with street performance. Pontiac, meanwhile, mashed the pedal down on marketing for its GTO option introduced the previous fall. Olds built just 2999 B09-equipped models for the second half of the 1964 model year, while 32,405 buyers scooped up GTOs over the whole 12 months.

On the street, the Olds 4-4-2 was quick fun, but the GTO outshone it on the strip, especially with its Tri-Power three-carburetor option for the 389-cubic-inch V-8. Things got hotter from there. While the GTO rocketed ahead in sales with the restyled 1965 version, Olds revved up its 4-4-2 with a new 400-cubic-inch engine, rated at 345 hp. A three-speed manual was now standard, and buyers could choose the optional four-speed stick or Jetaway two-speed automatic. (Now Olds said the first “4” in 4-4-2 stood for 400 cubic inches.) Production rose to 25,003, while the GTO tripled that number.

To match the GTO’s offerings, the 4-4-2 had a triple two-barrel carb option for 1965 and 1966, and Olds gave up on defining the meaning of “4-4-2.” Meanwhile, over at Chevrolet, it was just the sound of crickets chirping. The first Chevelle SS396 arrived as a ’65 in a limited edition of just 201 cars (option Z16), and the regular-production SS396 showed up for 1966.

General Motors introduced redesigned A-body midsizers for 1968, with the curvy new look injecting even more excitement into the muscle car versions. The coupes rode on a shorter, 112-inch wheelbase (down from 116) and flaunted semi-fastback profiles with the roof’s C-pillars flowing into the quarter panels. Olds made the 4-4-2 a separate model that year.

The 400-cubic-inch V-8 returned, but now with the longer stroke from the 455-cubic-inch version of the engine (4.25 inches) paired with a smaller 3.87-inch bore. The triple-carb option was dropped, but the standard four-barrel engine offered 350 horsepower, or 325 with the automatic and its milder cam. A W30 performance upgrade came with an official 360-hp gross rating. The 4-4-2 had its best year ever, with 36,642 made.

Car Life tested a 1968 4-4-2 automatic (now the three-speed Turbo-Hydramatic) with the 3.42 axle and got 0–60 mph in 7 seconds and the quarter mile in 15.13 at 92 mph. A four-speed with that axle ratio, driven by a hot shoe, would have easily dropped the figure into the 14s.

The 1969 4-4-2 was a mechanical repeat of the ’68, while the design gained a revised grille and headlight treatment, a dual-bulge hood, and vertical rather than horizontal taillights. Sales dropped to 29,839. Of those, the Sports Coupe (with B-pillar) accounted for 2984. The Holiday hardtop sold 22,560 and the convertible 4295.

Johnny’s 4-4-2

Having turned 17 in January 1969, Johnny went with his dad on the 15th of the month to Willingham Motors in Forsyth, about 25 miles north of Macon, to order his dream car. Educated by Hot Rod magazine, the teen knew how to properly spec his ride. He started with the 4-4-2 Sports Coupe, which was about $70 cheaper and a few pounds lighter than the pillarless Holiday hardtop.

The $3141 base price (plus $97 destination fee) included the 400 V-8, three-speed heavy-duty manual transmission with floor shifter, Strato bucket front seats, full interior carpeting, Deluxe interior decor, Deluxe steering wheel, Wide Oval redline tires, imitation wood grain instrument panel trim, chrome window and drip moldings, and a heavy-duty battery.

Johnny chose platinum for the color and ordered about $765 in performance- and style-focused options on top of that, but no air conditioning for the steamy Georgia summers. For $39.87, he at least got the Soft-Ray tinted windshield and windows.

“If it took away from performance, I didn’t want it,” he remembers.

Going right for the good stuff, Johnny specified a four-speed stick, anti-spin rear axle with 3.42:1 ratio, Super Stock I styled-steel wheels, and power steering (but not power brakes). He dressed up the cabin with the Rocket Rally Pac gauge option and center console. A stereo was too expensive, so he ordered the “Deluxe Pushbutton” AM radio and “Bi-Phonic” rear speaker for $87 combined. (That’s about $750 today—for an AM radio!)

All those goodies pushed the 4-4-2’s price tag to nearly four grand. Johnny got a much-needed $567 discount from the dealer, a friend of his father’s. That brought the cash price down to $3553 with Georgia’s sales tax.

“I had a little over $3000, so I had to borrow $600,” he remembers. That went against the practical young man’s grain, but he really wanted the car.

Daily driver and dating car

In September 1969, Johnny took the 4-4-2 to Georgia Southwestern College (now Georgia Southwestern University) in Americus, where he majored in history. In addition to occasionally making the 75-mile trip home, he would take the 4-4-2 to Daytona Beach, Florida, with some friends every summer. “We still get together with them sometimes,” he says.

A few years later, the 4-4-2 took on a critical mission. “I met my wife, Kathy, in 1973. We dated with the car, so that added to its meaning for me,” Johnny recalls. He adds, though, that they drove her Mustang for the wedding.

The fast Olds remained his daily driver for about another decade and was always parked outside. “The paint faded pretty quickly,” he recalls.

After college, Johnny made a career in the electrical wholesale business, and retired after 42 years.

A long sleep, and then awakening

In 1985, with 140,000 miles on the clock, the 4-4-2 went into Johnny’s one-car garage and under a cover for a 15-year rest. The family cars remained outside. He later built a two-car garage with a plan to take the Olds apart for a restoration and still have room to keep his wife’s car inside.

The restoration and rebuild would span five years. “After the first day of taking the 4-4-2 apart, the garage was already packed,” he says.

His son, Zack, began helping at a young age. “When Zack was 10, I’d go off to work, leaving him with degreaser and a brush,” Johnny says. “I’d come home, and he’d have the transmission cleaned up.”

Johnny credits friend James Powell with helping make the rebuild possible. (Powell also tipped off Hagerty to this story.) “I’m not that mechanical, but he’s been a mechanic all his life. He’d tell me the things I needed to buy. I’d get them, and we’d work on the car once a week, doing one thing at a time—the trans one week, the rear the next, like that. It took about five years to do it all.”

Johnny was particular with his choices. “I sent the bumpers to Michigan to get re-chromed. Trim and other pieces came from all over the country. I used mostly original Oldsmobile parts,” he explains.

With the body off and engine sent out for a rebuild, the frame was powder-coated. Johnny added front disc brakes, which necessitated 15-inch wheels to replace the original 14-inchers. He found the correct wheels in Portland, Oregon. The engine got an aluminum manifold with a Holley four-barrel carb to replace the original Quadrajet.

“I saved everything I took off the car and boxed it up,” he says.

When it came to paint, Johnny wanted silver but was willing to deviate from the original factory shade after seeing a 2003 Mercedes-Benz. “The Mercedes silver paint looked wet, and that’s what I wanted.” Johnny got the paint code and hauled the disassembled 4-4-2 to The Installation Center, Chris Hopkins’ muscle car specialty body shop in Cleveland, Georgia.

“They got everything good and straight. This was one of the best things I did for the car,” he says. “Almost twenty years later, the paint still looks wet.”

Other than having the original AM radio restored and converted to add FM, the interior was left stock. Johnny has driven the car about 10,000 miles since completing the restoration in 2005, and he looks forward to adding more.

4-4-2 Memories

Hagerty: There were a lot of great muscle cars to choose from in 1969. What made you pick the 4-4-2?

JD: Most people I knew had Camaros, Chevelles, and Mustangs. I wanted something less common, though I still looked at the GTO and the Plymouth Road Runner. When I closed the door and trunk on the Road Runner, the car felt like a tin can to me. The 4-4-2 seemed more substantial.

Hagerty: What did your parents think of your car choice?

JD: My father ended up loving the car, too. Six months after I bought it, he and my mom drove it on a trip to Florida.

Hagerty: A 17-year-old high-schooler driving an Olds 4-4-2 … that could have invited trouble for some young drivers. Were you ever in an accident?

JD: No real accidents, but the first month I had it, I drove to school, and a friend put a dent in the Olds emblem on the back—almost on purpose, I think. I was devastated! But I bought a new emblem and took it to a body shop. They pushed out the dent and charged me fifteen bucks. It really was nothing, just that the car was brand new.

Hagerty: What made you want to keep the 4-4-2 all these years?

JD: When you work for something, you appreciate it more. That’s probably the reason I kept it. It always meant something to me.

Hagerty: Have people tried to buy your car?

JD: When I had it sitting all those years, people would ask if I wanted to sell. And since I’ve had it redone, more ask when they see it. Anything can be bought, but the value to me is more than what the car is worth. I tell them, ‘If you buy the car, you have to buy my memories, too, and you probably wouldn’t want to pay the price for those.’

Hagerty: What are some of your best memories with the car?

JD: I enjoyed driving up and down the strip between Shoney’s and McDonald’s, with some occasional light-to-light races. But my favorite times with the car were when I was dating my wife.

__

Car: 1969 Oldsmobile 4-4-2

Owner: Johnny Davis

Home: Macon, Georgia

Delivery Date: April 2, 1969

Miles on Car: ~150,000

Are you the original owner of a classic car, or do you know someone who is? Send us a photo and a bit of background to tips@hagerty.com with ORIGINAL OWNER in the subject line—you might get featured in our next installment!

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This Ford fanatic found, restored and ultimately lost a Shelby Mustang race car. Today, his ride pays homage to that very special machine.

Phil Jacobs is a Ford guy. A one-time dealer tech, he proved outstanding in that role, so Ford brought him into the mother ship to answer service and repair questions for dealer mechanics nationwide. He has a particular fondness for Mustangs and has owned several, including a 2006 Mustang GT that is the current object of his affection.

That Mustang GT stands out in a crowd. Sure, it’s a pretty red car in pristine condition, but that’s not what draws your attention. Rather it’s the car’s dressage, a near-perfect livery of the Shelby Trans-Am Mustang in which Jerry Titus won his class at the 1968 24 Hours of Daytona. Why? The simple answer is that the ’06 Mustang’s graphics are meant to honor Titus, the Trans-Am Mustangs of the late ’60, and, most importantly, a very special Shelby Trans-Am race car that Jacobs will never forget.

Titus was a journalist who had shown promise behind the wheel of several race cars when Carroll Shelby offered him a place on his SCCA National Championship Trans-Am team. I can attest that those kinds of offers seldom come to those of us who wield the pen. But Titus quickly proved his worth, winning the Trans-Am series driver championships in ’66 and ’67 while helping clinch the manufacturer’s championship for Ford in that second season.

Titus’s successful ’67 season made him solidly number one on the ’68 Shelby Terlingua Racing Team, and, along with his co-driver, he began the campaign with a class win at the 24 Hours of Daytona. A big number 1 on the door would later identify his red Mustang as the car to beat. A second Shelby Trans-Am Mustang was prepped for Horst Kweck and various name racers who opted in for a single event or more. Ford provided a third Mustang for the Shelby team, but it was never raced and probably never fully prepped for battle. Instead, it gathered dust in the Shelby garage.

The Shelby team suffered multiple engine failures and a rash of DNFs during the ’68 season. According to Jacobs and other sources, the engine failures were largely the result of Ford’s insistence that the race car engines could only be built at company headquarters in Dearborn. In ’66 and ’67, the Shelby team had developed its own engines. To further complicate things, the ’68 engines were a new design that used tunnel-port heads similar to those used on the big-displacement NASCAR engines, and they initially proved difficult to tune. With the lack of team control over assembly, and problems dialing in the tunnel-port engines, the results were disastrous.

By the end of the season, with no Mustang championship in sight, Titus jumped ship and signed on with the Pontiac Firebird team. He saw some success in ’69, once again winning his class at Daytona but again frequently failing to finish. He was tragically killed in an accident while practicing for the 1970 Road America Trans-Am race.

Jacobs was still a youngster when Ford dominated Trans-Am early on, but he was old enough to relish their success. With a passion for Mustangs, he bought his first, a ’71 Mach 1, shortly before starting as a Ford dealer repair technician in 1977. He put his mechanical skills to work on that Mustang and had it running 12-second elapsed times at the Milan, Michigan dragstrip. But he was a road racer at heart and longed to take to the track in a car like those his heroes drove in the late ’60s.

Meanwhile, the third ’68 Shelby Mustang Trans-Am, the one that had never seen a racetrack, was passed from one owner to another. Shelby first sold it to an independent Trans-Am racer by the name of Bill Pendleton. Before Pendleton could prep the car for competition, he signed on with a race team and sold the unfinished car. In subsequent years, it apparently went from one owner to the next, all planning to complete it but never succeeding. After nearly 20 years of foster care, it went to John Hancock, an Oregon enthusiast.

Hancock knew he had what was likely a historic automobile but was unable to document it to the satisfaction of the Shelby American Automobile Club (SAAC). At the time, the club, which was founded in 1976, had yet to develop a comprehensive registry. Frustrated, Hancock decided to sell it. Jacobs heard of the car through his Ford connections and suspected it was truly one of the Shelby race cars. In one of the great automotive bargains of all time, he purchased the rusting hulk for $1500 in 1987. The price for shipping it from the West Coast to Michigan was a hundred bucks more than the cost of the car.

With the bare bones of a Trans-Am Mustang in his garage, Jacobs went to work learning as much as he could about the Shelby race cars, traveling to swap meets to hunt for parts, calling former Shelby crew members, and more. To say he was thorough would be an understatement.

“I didn’t start working on the car until I had a full picture of exactly what an authentic ’68 Shelby Trans-Am Mustang should be,” said Jacobs.

Several years of research provided that picture, and in 1990, he got to work. Some of the metalwork was completed by a respected restorer of Ford automobiles, but Jacobs did much of it himself. The finished car was exactly what it would have been in ’68 had the Shelby team completed it.

Jacobs was as particular about the powertrain as he was with the sheet metal and was able to obtain a tunnel-port 302 cubic-inch Ford engine that was a duplicate of those that the team struggled with in ’68, but he also built a standard-port engine, an identical copy of the ’67 version that had earned Ford and Titus a championship. That engine generated 442 horsepower and 372 lb-ft of torque, using only the hardware on which the Shelby team had relied. With more modern systems, the engine could have been more potent, but Jacobs is big on authenticity. Despite not having as much power as some vintage racers, he was still able to win four of the 12 vintage races he entered.

It wasn’t only Jacobs’ engine that was a copy of the one that took Titus to championships. The paint scheme and graphics were what Titus used as well. Although the ’68 car was red at Daytona, yellow was the predominant Shelby team color. Jacobs duplicated that yellow paint and made exact copies of all decals and trim.

Although completing the restoration was rewarding, authentication and affirmation were important to Jacobs as well. His extensive research and efforts to fully document the car finally paid off in full when SAAC acknowledged that the Jacobs Mustang was one of the three cars that Ford had provided for the Shelby race team.

Jacobs continued to race the Shelby ‘Stang for 15 years, enjoying every minute of it. In a Trans-Am vintage race in Waterford, Michigan, he held the lead until the last lap when he braked late and ran off the track. Although he lost the overall battle, he got back on track in time to win his class. In a Shelby event at Tulsa, Oklahoma, he beat a big-block ’69 Mustang for the overall win. And in a mixed-field vintage race at Mid-Ohio, he was sparring with an L88 Corvette that would put bus lengths on the little Mustang in the straights, only to be passed in the corners. As Jacobs recalls, the Corvette owner was both distressed and impressed.

In 2005, divorce changed everything. Given Michigan’s divorce laws, the Shelby Trans-Am was community property. Without the funds needed to buy out his ex-wife, Jacobs was forced to sell the Shelby ‘Stang. It went for $125,000, a substantial amount thanks to the extensive provenance that Jacobs had developed and the authenticity of the car’s restoration. Had the Shelby team used the car in competition, it probably would have sold for twice that.

Jacobs missed his very special car but got on with his life and kept on smiling. “I was a mechanic,” he says. “I never had much, but the funds generated from the sale of the car enabled me to buy a house.”

In that house, he put together an elaborate race-themed man cave with many photos of his race car, hundreds of models, and a wealth of Ford racing memorabilia.

Although he was no longer the owner of a Shelby race car, Jacobs had developed a love of road racing, so he rented a spec ’95 Mustang GT race car from a friend and ran several Camaro Mustang Challenge races sanctioned by the National Auto Sport Association. At Indiana’s Putnam Park Road Course, he qualified number one and set a new lap record but was experiencing health issues and couldn’t continue.

Those health issues were revealed to be due to a cardiac problem that required surgery and left Jacobs ineligible for a competition license.

While he could no longer rub sheet metal on the racetrack, he bought the slightly used 2006 Mustang GT and dressed it in Titus livery. Jacobs was, and so remains, a committed Mustang lover.

But old racers rarely hang up their helmets for good. And they don’t have to, thanks to track days where one can enjoy the thrill of hitting the apex and roaring down the straightaway without serious risk. So, these days, Jacobs can be seen at track days throughout the Midwest, driving a beautiful red Mustang GT dressed in the livery of a car and driver long gone.

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Sometime in 1976, after rehabbing a pair of swoopy Thunderbirds, overconfidence overwhelmed my fledgling car skills and good sense, and I fell for this dingy 1951 Pontiac Chieftain Deluxe sedan.

Flamboyant midcentury styling hadn’t yet reached GM’s value division, so despite being billed as “new and beautiful,” in reality, the Chieftain wore milquetoast body forms and a sofa-like broadcloth interior, which in this case smelled like a wet dog.

The owner was quite senior, and a quick calculation suggested she’d been in high school when the Model T debuted, then witnessed World War I, the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, World War II, Beatlemania, and the moon landings. I sure do wish now that I’d asked her about it all. Anyway, she called the weathered Pontiac “Turtleback,” perhaps in reference to its roofline. No matter—her driving days were over, and a windfall $150 in the cookie jar trumped keeping that tired lump in the driveway any longer than she needed to. And it was a lump. Unlike sister division Cadillac, there was no V-8 under the Pontiac’s long hood. Instead lurked a straight-eight Silver Streak flathead displacing 268 cubic inches and producing 116 horsepower.

Of course, that straight-eight motor didn’t run, nor did the brakes work. Lacking useful prefrontal cortexes, a buddy and I thus concocted a “brilliant” scheme to roll the car to the brink of a steep hill near the seller’s house and then lower it into town using his ’64 Olds and a tow cable as a brake. Then we would push it home. All the plan needed was a useful idiot to steer the car. The process was both stupid and frightening, yet we survived.

Once in safe harbor, we set about resuscitating the Chieftain, starting with a brake fluid flush. The 6-volt starter cranked the engine slower than an ancient butter churn, and once running, the Chieftain would barely crawl to useful speed, whereafter the temperature gauge pegged and steam twirled through the grille. Eventually, I pulled the massive iron head to reveal stuck exhaust valves. Way out of my depth, and unable to comprehend a solution, I fussed and fretted, pried and pounded, twisted and twirled the valves until the springs finally closed them.

The old Turtleback ran better after that, and I took immense satisfaction from my ham-fisted tinkering skills to get it there, but the car remained forever on the brink of overheating. More happily, the tube radio worked, and so did the magnificent illuminated Chief Pontiac hood ornament.

Calling this one a draw, I lived, I learned, and then … I walked away. I sold it for $250, give or take, and put the money into my next project.

***

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I saw Leigh Scott’s car before I saw him. It was parked in front of Pasteiner’s Auto Zone, the automotive hobby and book store on Metro Detroit’s Woodward Avenue. A sky blue beauty, the 1966 Impala Super Sport convertible sported a 427 badge riding on the front fender. It was the kind of near-perfect machine that leaves car folk speechless, particularly those of us who came of age in the ‘60s.

Leigh Scott, the car’s owner, is an accomplished restoration expert and dedicated fan of big Chevies with big-blocks under the hood. He wasn’t always in the restoration business; he only took up the trade full-time after retiring from a management position at GM. But Scott’s story precedes his days at GM by many years.

It begins with 14-year-old Scott working long hours outdoors on a street deep in the east side of the Motor City. With knuckles bleeding and limbs sore, he was trying to get his beat-up ’64 Dodge looking decent and its 413-cubic-inch V-8 running more or less well. His street-side workplace was just off Gratiot Avenue, the epicenter of car culture in that part of town.

Old-school east siders, including Scott, would argue that Gratiot—which boasted the shops of pro racers, numerous cruiser hangouts, and the nationally renowned Gratiot Auto Supply—was the busted-knuckle hardcore center of Motor City automotive culture, inhabited by dedicated car folk who looked with a bit of disdain at the privileged young people who cruised Woodward.

Scott patched up the rust holes in the Dodge as best he could and sent it to Earl Scheib for a $29.95 paint job. When he turned 16, he took his driver’s license test in the Dodge at the Michigan Secretary of State office on Seven Mile Road. By then it was jacked up and equipped with loud Thrush mufflers, looking and sounding the part of a street machine. The state employee who tested him asked whose car it was, probably thinking it belonged to an older friend. “It’s mine,” said Scott.

He drove that loud and potent Dodge to school, first at Detroit’s Cass Technical High School, and after he and his single mom moved, to Pontiac Central High School. After graduating in 1973, Scott didn’t have enough money to continue his education, but a relative who worked at a college in Kentucky offered him employment that could help him pay for tuition. In Kentucky, he found his second car, a ’56 Chevy. He drove it back to Detroit, planted a big motor under the hood, bolted on some Cragars, and got into all kinds of trouble on the streets.

At the time, the car-crazy young of Detroit’s east side drag-raced on Conner, where it passes through cemeteries on both sides of the street near Seven Mile Road. Since there are no intersections, quarter-mile runs are possible, if extremely dangerous. One night when Scott was competing on that dark street with slicks on and headers uncapped, he saw the lights of a cop car in his mirror. Already close to losing his license, he took off down Seven Mile, with the squad car in hot pursuit. Turning off into a side street, he shut the engine off and coasted into a driveway. Ten minutes or so later, he fired it up and drove home. His mom met him at the door and said the police had been there looking for him and were coming back.

They didn’t. But weeks later, he encountered a cop while parked in a local Dairy Queen. The officer recognized the car and told Scott he was lucky that he couldn’t arrest him after the fact. Rather than take a chance on another moving violation, he remained in the DQ parking lot until the officer left. Due to the establishment’s parking lot policy, he had to down half a dozen ice cream cones to remain on site.

Like many young men who run a bit wild, Scott eventually calmed down. He kept working on that ’56 until it was pretty and took it to Detroit’s Autorama custom car show, winning second place in his class. He didn’t want to keep driving the showy shoebox on the street, so he bought a ’66 Caprice that had bucket seats and a gauge package along with a 390-horsepower 427 big-block motor. Again, he decided it had the potential to be too nice for daily driving and began a restoration. Big car, big motor, restoration. It was a pattern he would repeat many times over.

When Scott restored that first ’66 Chevy he was working on the assembly line at GM. Soon thereafter, he applied for a floor supervisor position and got it. That made him a salaried employee, and GM paid for his education. He eventually earned a BA in Business at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a degree in International Finance at Wayne State University. That got him promoted to a position as a program planner for GM International. In 2000 he moved to GM Design where he managed programs for specialty vehicles like COPO Camaros. His final assignment was in the Cadillac Design Studio with Kip Wasenko, Tom Peters, and other heroes of GM design.

5r“I was a manager,” Scott said, “so I would just try to get the stylists to show up at work on time and bug them to finalize a design so we could get it released.”

Meanwhile, he kept restoring big Chevies with big-block motors—first for himself, then for customers who had seen his work at shows. Almost all of them were ’66 models. When he retired from GM in 2016, he set up his own shop, Detroit Automotive Restorations, in Southfield, Michigan. He now owns four ’66 Chevys, the Impala Super Sport convertible pictured here, a black Impala Super Sport convertible with the 425-horsepower L72 427, the 390-horsepower 427 Caprice that he restored 40 years ago, and a concours-winning Caprice with bench seat, four-speed, and 396 big-block. That last one is a rarity. But all big-block, big Chevys are uncommon. According to Scott, GM built about 1.5 million full-size Chevys in ’66. Only about 6000 were equipped with the 427-cubic-inch engines. Many of those were later trashed by folks looking for a big-block to swap into their Camaro, Chevelle, or Corvette.

As one might guess based on the photos herein, Scott is a perfectionist. His restoration routine calls for total disassembly. Every nut, bolt, and piece of insulation is removed and repaired or replaced. Rust holes and other damage are erased. The bare bodies are treated to a chemical wash in huge tanks at American Metal Cleaning in Toledo, Ohio. There, the car bodies are dipped in an alkaline solution that strips away everything, including any aluminum parts that might be attached. When the body is clean, Scott loads it into an enclosed trailer and hauls it down to Elkhart, Indiana, where it’s e-coated with primer. This process is an electro-magnetic operation that sucks the primer into every crack and crevice on the body, and it’s now standard industry practice for the steel-bodied cars of major automakers.

Back in Scott’s shop, the body is finished flawlessly and painted before the car is assembled carefully with parts that are either new or look like new. The disassembled engine is sent out for degreasing and machine work, but Scott does the final assembly himself. He knows big-blocks.

I shot Scott’s Impala convertible at his Bloomfield, Michigan, home on a gloomy November Sunday as winter threatened to move in, but the car’s flawless finish shone through the gray. It’s a beauty, outfitted with original equipment and a host of dealer-installed accessories. He’s currently working on yet another ’66 big Chevy with a big-block for himself as well as several for customers.

I wish one of them was for me.

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Bad news, van-lifers, bus-lifers, and all the in-between-lifers among us: Someone just beat all of you for the coolest home on wheels.

Yesterday in Paris, at Bonhams’ Les Grandes Marques du Monde sale, someone scored this 1955 Alfa Romeo T10 Autotutto Romeo Campervan, and with it, the all-natural flower crown for the most unexpected vehicle you’ll share a campground with. Final hammer price: €75,900 ($81,844), including premium.

And just what did those euros get our buyer? Gaze upon the pea-green and off-white two-tone paintwork. Marvel at the slender Alfa Romeo grille seemingly slapped directly overtop the larger, color-matched grille. Did we mention the wicker picnic hamper and the folding camper table?

In the 1950s, Alfa Romeo was busy making a name for itself with more sporting cars such as the Giulietta Sprint and the Giulietta Spider. But it also dabbled in building a small commercial delivery van, dubbed the “Autotutto” (“all-purpose”). Its first iteration, the T10, was launched at the Turin motor show in 1954. Notably, the T10 was Alfa’s first commercial vehicle to offer left-hand drive.

Power came primarily from a de-tuned 1.3-liter twin-cam four-cylinder borrowed from the Giulietta, although a supercharged two-stroke diesel two-cylinder was also offered, including in this very example. Thanks to its front-wheel-drive configuration, as well as four-corner independent suspension with a transverse torsion bar at the rear, the T10s had commendably large and low load areas, perfect for commercial applications.

The van in question is extensively documented, with an official Alfa-issued certificate of origin which shows that this fella left the factory on January 7, 1955. It changed hands in 1963, then became part of an Italian collection for many years, until it was purchased by the seller, who embarked on an extensive restoration of the bodywork and interior to convert it to the campervan you see here. Impressively, the T10 retains its original two-stroke diesel motor.

Inside, there’s a bench that folds out to a double bed, a foldable table, multiple storage cubbies, a sink with fresh and gray water systems, a gas stove, and more. The van was offered for sale with all the necessary paperwork, including a photographic record of the restoration and campervan conversion.

Sure, you can go the more conventional route and try to grab a Volkswagen Type 2 campervan, or drop around six figures to get a modern Mercedes-Benz Sprinter or a heavily upfitted Ford Transit Trail, but the latter two lack the charm of this vintage Alfa and the former feels like a crowd-following move. Even if it ends up leaving you stranded, at least this van will allow you to bed down in style until the flatbed arrives.

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Welcome to Homegrown—a limited series about homebuilt cars and the ingenuity of their visionary creators. Know a car and builder that might fit the bill? Send us an email to tips@hagerty.com with the subject line HOMEGROWN. Read about more Homegrown creations here. —Ed.

Hagerty member Bill Papke of Ada, Michigan, is a master of spending his retirement years wisely: His homegrown Raazer is a creative reimagination of Elon Musk’s Cybertruck. The “Flash” project featured here is Papke’s ambitious rethink of an ’86 Pontiac Fiero he purchased on eBay, wanting to add a sports car to his fleet.

In the interests of full disclosure, Flash is a collaborative effort rather than a one-man-at-home build: while the concept and design are all Papke, the ambitious task of reskinning the Fiero was handled by MTV Concepts in Micco, Florida.

Papke explains, “My automotive passions have always focused on exotic concepts, especially those with wedge shapes and knifelike leading edges. My collection includes both a replica of the Bertone Stratos Zero and one of the rare Vector W8s built by Jerry Wiegert.

“First, I sketched front, rear, top, and side views to explore how Flash could best exploit a fresh design. Then I used 1/24th-scale Fiero models to craft the new exterior. Modeling clay helped visualize what I had in mind. Upon completion of the three-dimensional model, I created CAD [computer-aided design] files which were used with CNC [computer numerical control] tools to shape the full-scale, high-density Styrofoam plug. Molds cast over the plug were used to make the final fiberglass panels.

“I hired Mike Vetter, owner of MTV Concepts in Florida, for the hands-on effort. This firm builds TV and movie vehicles from scratch and high-quality futuristic road cars. MTV’s remarkable Extra Terrestrial Vehicles have been sold to customers in Abu Dhabi, Canada, London, Germany, and the United States. I met Mike when I purchased his Slash sports car which combines a futuristic exterior with a C6 Corvette chassis and a 600-horsepower 6.2-liter LS3 V-8.

“Vetter and crew needed only 10 months to construct the full-sized plug, body-panel molds, and new fiberglass panels. They attached the custom panels to my stripped Fiero, applied Corvette Atomic Orange paint, and reupholstered my original bucket seats. New Vors aluminum wheels are fitted with P235/45R-18 Firestone radials.

“The rebody effort was expedited by keeping the original Fiero interior, glass, roof, inner door panels, and most of the rear hatch assembly. The Fiero’s 2.8-liter V-6 and five-speed transmission remain stock. The radiator had to be mounted much lower to accommodate my knife-edge front-end configuration. The front halogen lighting elements are supported by a concealed bar. The rear LED lights are normally found on pickup truck tailgates. Vetter made the Flash nameplate, which I designed, sparkle on cue in living color.”

Beyond the $4800 spent on the donor Fiero, Papke won’t reveal what Flash cost, but he is totally satisfied with the results.

“So far I’ve only driven my creation 250 or so miles to a few shows and cars and coffee gatherings. It always prompts the same burning question:  ‘What is it?’

“I believe my Flash design with hold up long term thanks to its sound basic proportions, overall simplicity, and elegant curves. I wouldn’t change a thing on this car. In other words, I’m ready to move on to the next Homegrown project.”

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In 1949, when Alan and Richard Jensen had to choose a model name for their hand-built English car, they settled on “Interceptor.” In retrospect, the choice was wise: The name is a great bit of marketing, a moniker that suggests power and speed, attributes coveted by many car buyers. Seventy-five years on, that first automobile, and the versions that followed it, continue to attract a dedicated following of enthusiasts. Many seem to be as much in love with the name as with the automobile itself.

Lars Ganesh, a Jaguar mechanic in Sweden, wanted a car to work on in his spare time—one that didn’t remind him of his time on the job—and he eventually settled on a Jensen Interceptor. “If you then add on maybe the coolest name of a car ever, it’s perfect,” he writes. “Interceptor is a name that you just can’t resist.”

In many ways, the Interceptor delivers on the promise its name suggested, with a big American V-8 engine for power and Italian styling that suggests forward motion and potency. But it took the brand a while to get the car to that point and once there, the company only hung on tenuously.

The Jensen brothers were better known as suppliers than as automakers: They manufactured vehicles for a variety of car companies, including Austin and Volvo. In between building machines for other makers, the brothers dabbled in marketing cars of their own design. These ran the gamut from the woody-like shooting brake of 1935 to a fiberglass sports car of the 1950s. The Interceptor, which premiered as a somewhat stodgy convertible in 1949, bloomed in the late ’60s and early ’70s with the production of more than 6000 pretty machines.

The first-generation Interceptor was built on an Austin A90 chassis that had been reinforced and extended. Only 88 cars were produced, 36 convertibles and 52 coupes. Like earlier Jensen offerings, the cars were powered by an engine cribbed from the parts bin of another manufacturer, in this case, an Austin 4-liter six-cylinder. With 132 horsepower on tap, it was able to propel the 3200-pound car adequately.

But one buyer wanted more. John Stricken, a Canadian rally driver, owned a Chrysler Hemi modified by Briggs Cunningham to deliver 250 horsepower from 331 cubic inches—great numbers for the time. He asked the Jensens to install it in an Interceptor. As accomplished engineers, the Jensens knew their car couldn’t handle that much power, so they got to work modifying the chassis. Today, that very special Interceptor belongs to Joerg Huesken of Dresden, Germany. It’s a nifty machine, but the sheetmetal lacks the design drama that would later come to distinguish the Interceptor.

The drama began in ’66 with the introduction of the second-generation Interceptor. In the confusing manner that characterizes Jensen, the first automobiles of that generation were dubbed Mark I, a nomenclature that ignored the Interceptor that preceded it in the ’50s. The second-gen car was more of a reincarnation of than a direct successor to the first-gen model, which had ceased production in ’57.

With a body by Carrozzeria Touring, this new Interceptor seemed heaven-sent, but not everyone was pleased. For the very English Jensen brothers, the decision to build the Italian-styled cars at Italy’s Vignale coachbuilding shop added insult to injury. The call was made by engineering and production management people whom the Jensen brothers had installed in top positions. The decision didn’t sit well with the brothers, who counted coachbuilding among their major skill sets, and they retired from the company soon thereafter.

The Interceptor’s interior featured an abundance of wood and leather and, in the dashboard, the classic Smiths gauges that have graced the best of England’s automobiles. Under the hood was a Chrysler V-8. The second-gen Interceptor was a great combination of sexy Italian design, refined English luxury, and brute American power. “It’s like a Dodge Coronet that went to college at Oxford,” Jay Leno said after viewing a restored 1974 Interceptor on Jay Leno’s Garage.

Although the second-generation car left the Jensen brothers cold, it warmed the cockles of the hearts of American car buyers who were ready for something different than what Detroit was offering. The fact that the Interceptor came with Chrysler’s potent 383 V-8 under the hood did nothing to dampen their enthusiasm. Of course, U.S. sales of the Interceptor were still minimal compared to the standard domestic offerings, but with the cool name, big engine, and great looks, the Interceptor developed a bit of a cult following in America.

Several versions of the second-generation Interceptor—Mark I, II, and III—were built from 1966 to 1976 for a total of 6408 machines. Each new series was slightly modified and improved, but all shared the same basic shape, and all were equipped with Chrysler V-8s.

The most technically advanced Interceptor was the FF model. Only 320 copies of this very special car were produced from 1966 to 1971. All were right-hand-drive, so they couldn’t be sold in the U.S. where standard Interceptor models were doing well. An extra five inches of length gave the FF a sleek silhouette. A technical triumph, it offered anti-lock brakes and four-wheel drive, the first all-wheel propulsion system offered on a road-going car. Weak front axles were a major drawback—imagine what happens if you lose one front drive wheel under acceleration—but the rarity of the car and its innovations make it a desirable machine. Excellent copies can reportedly bring six figures.

The Mark III Interceptor came on the heels of the Mark II and was introduced for the 1971 model year. The 440-cubic-inch Chrysler engine replaced the 383, which had been seriously detuned by Chrysler to meet domestic emissions standards. Most cars were fitted with a four-barrel carbureted version of the engine that generated 305 horsepower, but a high-performance version with Chrysler’s “Six Pack” induction system (triple two-barrel carburetors) was offered in a special model, dubbed SP.

While the FF was the most technically sophisticated Interceptor, the ’71 Jensen SP was the most powerful. Although it looked exactly like other Interceptors, it wasn’t badged as such; it was merely the Jensen SP. Under the hood was the Mopar Six Pack 440-cubic-inch V-8, pumping out a tire-shredding 385 horsepower. While the SP was probably no quicker than the other cars that were equipped with that engine—Plymouth Road Runner and Dodge Super Bee—the sleek automobile looked faster.

The Mark III Interceptor ended production in 1976 with the company in financial trouble and the available supply of parts exhausted.

In 1983, the Interceptor name was reincarnated once again as the product of a new company called Jensen Cars Limited. It looked exactly like a ’70s Interceptor, and with good reason: It was exactly like a ’70s Interceptor. But a full rebirth was not to be, and only 14 cars were produced.

In 1990, another company had a go and built 36 copies of what were essentially Interceptors from the 1970s. Once again, financial problems threw a wrench in the works. Production ended in ’93.

While never a great financial success, the Interceptor was and is loved by many. It is a delicious combination: a proper English motorcar with a voluptuous Italian body and a stump-pulling American V-8. That mix of the elegant and brutish coupled with an unforgettable name is key to the Interceptor’s devoted fan base. Although not as large in number as the devotees of many other marques, Interceptor fans are very expressive in their love of the brand. And they can be found in every corner of the globe.

One very dedicated Jensen owner is Thomas Hoeller of Düsseldorf, Germany. Hoeller has traveled the world photographing and documenting Interceptors and has restored several. His travels took him to Carrozzeria Touring, the coachbuilder that had built the first copies of the second-generation Interceptor in 1966. He had heard that the design studies for that car had been lost, so he drove to Milan to search for the missing documents. There he found them in blueprint form and left with a copy.

Dino Fritz of Adelaide, South Australia, is another Interceptor devotee, who grew up in the ’70s and developed a passion for automobiles, “particularly the exotic ones,” he said. But the Adelaide of the ’70s didn’t offer much in the way of automotive pulchritude.

“However, one street away,” he said, “there was a home that had a Jensen Interceptor parked in the driveway. Here was an actual exotic car that I could actually see in the flesh, and I vividly remember the curves on the car and that back window.”

In 1989, Fritz had an opportunity to buy an Interceptor that had been totaled by an insurance company. He joined a Jensen car club, where he learned about Lucas electrical gremlins and the great SP model, so he upgraded the electrical, rebuilt the engine to SP spec (385 hp), and modified the interior to resemble that of the last Interceptor, the short-lived Mark IV of the 1980s. He’s now beginning restoration of an Interceptor convertible that he located in the UK.

The car is habit-forming.

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The Lane Motor Museum in Nashville, Tennessee, is making room for new exhibits by selling 10 cars from its famously eclectic collection. Among the prototype race cars and rare, restored classics, this 1988 Citroën Tissier Car Carrier stands out as a bizarre but crafty custom.

The car began as a 1988 Citroën CX before a conversion by Application des Procédés Tissier added a pair of axles and a flat-load bed capable of hauling about 3500 pounds worth of car. The new axles both ride on the same hydro-pneumatic suspension for which Citroën is known. The front-wheel-drive diesel powertrain, like everything else forward of the B-pillar, was left intact, giving the low-profile car hauler a five-speed manual transmission and 121 horses to transport new purchases or old race cars without the hassle of hitching up a trailer.

Although trailering is a skill that’s not too difficult to pick up, it’s still often a chore. Fueling up often requires forethought and logistics. Depending on where you’re hauling, laws can also limit your speed and your lane selection. Even powerful late-model 1-ton diesel pickups with more than 400 hp are relegated to 55 mph and certain lanes in California, for example.

It might take the 2.5-liter turbodiesel a while to reach freeway speed unladen, and even longer with an extra 3000 pounds of race car on board, but this Citroën does seem like it would be a comfortable cruiser once it got there. The previous owners must have thought so at least, as they managed to rack up more than 550,000 kilometers on the chassis (that’s more than 341,000 miles). Thankfully the engine and transmission have been replaced with a pair that has just 50,000 kilometers on the clock.

This car also reminded us of a custom Citroën hauler from a different museum. A Citroën SM was converted to haul a land-speed-racing SM and the duo were displayed at the Mullin Automotive Museum. The former GT car was quite an excellent tow vehicle for the custom gooseneck trailer and, again, the hydro-pneumatic suspension made for a comfortable ride.

Lane Motor Museum is asking $45,000 for this custom creation. If we could drive away from the museum in just one of the 10 vehicles up for sale, it might just have to be this strange hauler, especially if we strapped a race car on first.

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When you’re intrigued by the illogical, strange things can happen. And in the fall of 1980, in steamy Miami, they did.

With a work-related relocation to New York coming up, my company had agreed to pay all moving costs, including airfare. Too easy. Instead, some masochistic penchant compelled me to spend my own money on this abandoned hearse and drive that up there instead.

Spied in a weed-choked lot beside an old clapboard house, the S&S-bodied Cadillac looked like Johnny Cash’s “Man in Black” on wheels. I should have walked on by but couldn’t. Instead, I stopped, stared, and approached the car in a trance. I should have been the predator here. Instead, I was prey.

Inside the home, an elderly lawyer explained that he’d taken the car in payment for services rendered to a local removal service and would happily sell it to me for $350. Why fly 1100 miles in a comfy wide-body jet, chatting up flight attendants and sipping Miller High Life, when driving this haunting relic seemed doable?

The commercial-spec 9.00 x 15-inch tires, each sporting knife punctures in their sidewalls courtesy of neighborhood thugs, explained the hearse’s low stance. Thus, testing the car first required laboriously jacking it up and taking the wheelset to a shop for tubes—unsafe, of course, but cheaper than new treads.

Prior to the move, I made a 190-mile trip to Melbourne, Florida, to run the Space Coast Marathon (without training—more masochism) and slept in the rear space the night before the race. Didn’t go well. After cops booted me from a school parking lot, I found a church lot to continue my slumber, my windup clock ticking forebodingly beside my head, like in some Edgar Allen Poe tale. Later, two muscle cars squealed into the lot and inebriated partiers surrounded the hearse. They shrieked to find someone in a sleeping bag inside, and thankfully departed. (They departed; I was not departed…)

A week after the marathon, my roommate and I headed up Interstate 95. Equipped with a 429-cubic-inch V-8, the 3-ton hearse loved a street fight, and we didn’t lose a race until Richmond. A bigger loss, however, took place on the George Washington Bridge, at night, as we headed into Manhattan, when a rear wheel hub separated from the axle and ended our journey there and then.

We arrived at our high-rise apartment behind a tow truck where, indignantly perched on three wheels, the hearse quickly amassed $135 in parking tickets. With costs rising fast, we got the car to a shop to address the wheel, then sold it to a punk band at a loss. Which was actually a win.

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There’s been no shortage of enigmatic cars over the years, but one of the most intriguing, enchanting, and left-field examples must be the Alfa Romeo Montreal. It looked like nothing else, packed a 2.6-liter V-8 unique to the model, and it looked little changed from the Bertone concept that sired it. In the early 1970s, it really was what dreams were made of.

The Montreal story began in 1967, when Bertone displayed a pair of concept cars at Expo 67, the World’s Fair hosted in Montreal, Quebec, that year. The car was based on the platform of the Alfa Romeo 1600GT Junior and styled by ace designer Marcello Gandini. Alfa Romeo claimed that huge demand from buyers desperate to have their own Montreal resulted in a road-legal version of the concept being developed. In reality, it’s highly likely that Alfa expected to come up with a production car from the outset.

By early 1970, the road-ready Montreal was revealed at the Geneva Salon, and in place of the 1.6-liter four-cylinder engine was a much more appealing, detuned version of the Carlo Chiti-designed 2.0-liter quad-cam, dry-sump V-8, which was usually fitted to the T33 sports racer. The displacement was now 2593 cc, and with Spica mechanical fuel injection it developed an easy 200 hp at 6000 rpm.

This detuning was essential to the V-8’s long-term health; by reducing the peak power point for the engine from 8800 rpm to 6500 rpm, and cutting maximum power in the process from as much as 350 hp to 200 hp, the V-8 wasn’t remotely stressed in its new road-going application. Peak torque was also reduced, to 173 lb-ft at 4750 rpm; the racer’s maximum came at a heady 7000 rpm. Although 200 hp might not sound like much now, it was enough to take the Montreal all the way to 135 mph, having despatched the 0–60 mph sprint along the way in 7.5 seconds. Heady stuff for 1970.

When Autocar tested the Montreal in 1972, its V-8 was found to be supremely flexible. The car could be launched from a standing start in fourth gear, which would then take it all the way to 120mph. The maximum speed was 140 mph in fifth. Autocar noted: “On the road the most impressive thing is the way the noise level does not seem to increase at all with either revs or speed. Much of the time it is impossible to detect which gear is engaged or how hard the engine is revving. This coupled to the amazing flexibility means that initially the driver changes gear too much and it takes a while to get used to the idea that this Alfa can do most things in fourth.”

Considering the Montreal’s exotic engine specification, the suspension left something to be desired. While up front it was independent with coil springs, wishbones, dampers, and an anti-roll bar, at the rear there was a live axle with coil springs and dampers and an A-bracket. It was just as well there was a limited-slip differential, or getting the power down in challenging conditions would have been pretty much impossible. As it was, Autocar wrote: “Although there was never a trace of axle tramp on smooth roads, bumps or broken patches in the surface on corners set the live rear axle pattering about, but never to an alarming or disturbing degree. For a high-performance car without the benefits of independent rear suspension, the Montreal is deserving of high praise, especially in regard to its ride qualities and excellent handling.”

The magazine continued: “For a high-performance car the ride is really quite soft and much less harsh than, for example, that of a BMW 3-litre. There is quite a lot of body roll on corners in consequence, despite anti-roll bars front and rear, and a noticeable excess of front-end dive under heavy braking. Driven with verve and not much finesse on twisty roads, the Montreal will disturb most passengers by the frequent attitude changes. With a sympathetic driver behind the wheel it can be hurried just as fast on a much more even keel. It is the kind of car which grows to fit you, not the sort one takes to immediately.”

Montreal production started in 1971, with the all-steel bodyshells being built by Bertone. Things got off to a reasonable start, with sales the following year peaking at 2377, but it would be all downhill from there. With the fuel crisis hitting in 1973, Montreal production slowed to just 319 units in that year.

Once European sales had been established, in August 1972 U.K. imports began, with the Montreal priced at £5077 ($12,456). That was just £522 ($1280) less than a Ferrari Dino 246 GT, 50 percent more than a Jaguar E-Type V-12, and twice the price of the V-8-powered Triumph Stag. The Alfa was £1100 ($2698) cheaper than the BMW 3.0 CSi, but that was little consolation to potential buyers, who generally stayed away. Matters were not helped by a lukewarm reception from the press.

Despite room for improvement in many areas, not least of all its suspension, the Montreal wasn’t developed at all during its production run, which officially came to an end in 1977, with Alfa Romeo finally removing the car from its price lists. However, Bertone would later claim that it had built the last Montreal body shells a full two years earlier, after 3917 examples had been completed; just 180 of those were right-hand drive. Survivors are rare thanks to low values for decades. While good Montreals are now worth significant money, with so many other classics also vying for your attention, this is one car that’s likely to maintain a low profile for the foreseeable future.

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You’ll run into all sorts of interesting cars in Wendover during Bonneville Speed Week. Naturally, there are race cars of every shape and size on the salt, but nearly as many interesting hot rods show up in town, their drivers there to pay respect to the hallowed racing ground nearby. We spotted this eye-catching Track T at a Speed Week car show and had to wait in line to talk to the car’s caretaker, Benny Bennett, to get the story on the race-inspired ride.

In the early 2000s, members of the Slo Poks Car Club, in Vancouver, Washington, helped fellow member and accomplished drag racer Nick Nicholson gather up the parts necessary to build the car. The concept was to create a street-driving version of the race car that Nicholson would have loved to have campaigned in the late 1950s or early ’60s, given the chance. The late land speed racer Bruce Geisler, a staple of Southern California Timing Association (SCTA) events for decades, was one of many who helped secure the right speed parts and decals to fit the late ’50s vibe.

Eventually, Nicholson retired from racing his other cars, and the roadster, which had been sitting for years, was difficult to climb into, anyway. Bennett told Nicholson that he’d relish the opportunity to be the car’s “caregiver” and ensured him it would stay true to his vision. Bennett, a 24-year member of the Slo Poks himself, took over that role in 2018. “I absolutely loved the car, the way it sits, how it looks,” Bennett explains. He’s not alone, as the roadster constantly had a group clustered around it in Wendover, admiring the details and asking questions. After purchasing the car, Bennett spent several months going through it and making it roadworthy.

Perhaps the roadster’s biggest draw is what’s under the hood. It wouldn’t be strange to see a 255-cube flathead V-8 powering a salt racer of the era, but this vintage flathead goes above and beyond with its induction and its cooling. A crank-driven 4-71 blower is mounted on its side in the nose of the car, where you’d normally expect to find a radiator. Driven 1:1 off the crankshaft, the blower pulls air through two Stromberg carbs on the driver’s side and pushes air and fuel out the passenger side and into a plenum that has two tubes, one feeding each cylinder bank of the V-8. The flathead uses an Isky cam and a set of ported Edelbrock heads to make better use of the boost.

Of course, with no radiator up front, Nicholson had to get crafty with the cooling system. The V-8’s water pumps are turned around to move water to the back of the car, where a trunk-mounted aluminum radiator kicks out the heat. From there, an electric pump pushes water forward to the engine. Even with 14 gallons of coolant in the system and a more modern radiator, the arrangement isn’t perfect, but Bennett has modified it to be more effective than its original iteration, which was what led to the car sitting for so long before his acquisition.

Now that the bugs have been worked out, Bennett can drive the roadster, even in the Arizona heat of Lake Havasu City, where he has relocated since the purchase. In the summer, the car can reach 185 degrees. “It’s pretty warm for a flathead,” Bennett admits. “This one’s been cooked a couple of times.” When he takes the car out, its racy nature naturally has onlookers asking how fast it is, but Bennett isn’t concerned with finding that answer. Rather, he’s more interested in “holding onto a piece of my car brotherhood history.” Besides that, the powerful flathead would probably get itself into overheating trouble if it were asked to go wide-open for miles at a time. “I don’t drive it like I stole it,” Bennett says. That doesn’t mean that it’s not fun, however. “It’s very visceral and straightforward. Lots of feedback.”

Passersby are naturally drawn to the engine, but Nicholson also put some ingenious engineering into the suspension. Both front and rear use torsion bars, pirated from a pair of Mopars. The torsion bars make for compact packaging and would have been cutting edge for the early ’60s racer this car was built to embody. The torsion bar connects to the radius rods, and you can spot it in the photo above; it’s the polished rectangular bar.

Bennett says that the car was an expensive paperweight for a few years, that it puked out all its coolant on the mile-long drive to his home after he bought it, and that even after some tinkering and problem-solving, it can be temperamental. Still, he has no regrets. “I want to tell the story,” Bennett says, and be a good steward while it’s in his possession. “A lot of times, cars like this get sold and the mission is lost. Nick’s goal was for people to look at the car and be able to reminisce on that era of racing,” says Bennett. It has succeeded in that regard. Although he’s had offers to purchase the car, he’s still enjoying being its caretaker, but eventually he hopes to pass it along to someone who shares the passion for preserving this homage to land speed racing’s past. Until then, Bennett will keep bringing the roadster to Speed Week, where he hopes to get out on the racing surface this year, get some salt in his teeth, and enjoy the car as it was meant to be.

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When the Hummer H1 hit the market, it made a huge impression. It drew criticism for its size, garnered a reputation for its off-road prowess, and also spawned a few copycats.

Perhaps seeking something burlier than the edgy sedans and sporty two-doors it had been making for Fiat, Mercedes, and Renault, Italian coachbuilder Coggiola saw the H1 and decided that it needed a sleek makeover. The firm used the capable chassis and powertrain of the original Hummer to build the T-Rex, a curvy, three-row SUV that debuted in 2000 at the Geneva Auto Show to showcase the firm’s prowess in building concept cars. We recently discovered the rare SUV, initially intended to carry a $700,000 price tag, up for sale in Rome.

The H1 underpinnings bring some unique pros and cons to the T-Rex. The four-wheel independent suspension and portal axles give the 4×4 excellent ground clearance, as does the high-mounted powertrain: The SUV sits nearly 16 inches above the ground.

Since the construction of the Hummer’s construction places the transmission practically inside the cab, between the two front occupants, the seating arrangement is a little strange. The T-Rex takes advantage of the setup by adding a third row with stadium seating, allowing an almost ridiculous amount of legroom for the rear-most passengers. Like a Vista Cruiser, a pair of curving windows in the roof form a crescent and add visibility for the passengers.

The interior is far more upscale than that of the average H1, with custom gauges for the driver and laptops provided for passenger entertainment. Look a bit closer, and the HVAC controls—plucked from GM’s bin of truck parts—hint at what’s going on under the sumptuous leather upholstery.

Looking at the T-Rex from the outside, you’d never guess it was an H1 underneath. The front end still carries a seven-slot grille that is most associated with Jeep, and the combination of round and rectangular lighting makes it look like an overgrown WJ Grand Cherokee is eating a Wrangler.

The profile of the T-Rex is equally strange, as the stadium seating adds height and bulk to the rear, but somehow the car also seems to be hunched forward. It’s as if a second-gen Dodge Durango was popped out of the mold and the assembly line slammed to a stop before it had a chance to cool. The T-Rex has a lot of interesting angles, although the wide shots provided in the listing aren’t very flattering.

The 7000-pound beast is still powered by the H1’s 195-hp, 6.5-liter turbodiesel V-8, so performance will be, well, adequate. Think of the Coggiola T-Rex as the SUV for the collector who has everything but doesn’t happen to be in a hurry. As Chili Palmer said, “If you’re important, people will wait.”

***

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It spans 28 feet and flaunts nine doors, six wheels, and 455 cubic inches of front-wheel-drive Oldsmobile V-8 power. The AQC Jetway 707 rests before me like a magnificent, curious creature whose evolutionary traits were arrested in development like an ancient bug in sticky amber.

American Quality Coach’s short-lived effort to create the ultimate airport limousine began in 1968 and ceased in 1970, victim to the expenses of its elaborate design. The Jetway, more than anything else, is genuinely weird. That makes it worth saving.

This battleship grey behemoth, the 12th of just 52 made, sat decomposing for years before recently being rescued by Cleveland Power and Performance, a multifaceted speed shop in Columbia Station, Ohio. The Jetway represents the outfit’s largest and perhaps most complex, involved restoration to date.

Tim Mulcahy keeps busy at Cleveland Power and Performance. In addition to heading up the shop’s online sales and social media presence, while also managing the physical office, on the day of my visit he guides me through the shop’s enormous compound.

“What started as Cleveland Pick-a-Part in 1986 evolved in the early 2000s to focus on salvaged late-model American performance car parts, and we eventually added a full shop turning out custom builds,” Mulcahy explains. He’s leading me past rows of staff, diligently processing orders at their desktops. “A little less than ten years ago, we’d started taking our builds to auctions and shows, so we changed our name to ‘Cleveland Power and Performance’ to more accurately reflect what we do.”

Once past the front office, Cleveland’s interconnected buildings take on the air of a museum’s backroom archives. We meander through warehouses full of neatly catalogued parts carefully pulled from wrecked American performance cars.

In tidy rows rest turn-key modern V-8 drivetrains pulled from Mustangs, Dodge SRTs, and Camaros, each packaged to start and run right in place on their pallets. The restoration shop bustles with mechanics and craftsmen working on more than a half-dozen vehicles, including an old Charger with a Hellcat engine swap and a beautifully-restored Chevy 454 SS pickup.

It’s a big place, which means a lot of walking. Beyond the upholstery facility, I take a break on a luxurious, stitched leather couch that’s built into the back end of a metallic yellow ’48 Caddy. (They start at about $10,000, in case your La-Z-Boy needs replacing.)

We eventually arrive at our destination. I walk through the door of the paint shop—one of the few indoor spots with enough room to house their recent acquisition—and the sheer length of AQC’s Jetway 707 envelops my field of view.

It’s a lot to look at, this Jetway, both from its sheer size and from all its intricacies. Everything ahead of the windshield is unmistakably ’68 Oldsmobile Toronado, but the rest is all AQC’s effort to create a spacious and luxurious airport shuttle.

“They went over and above trying to build something right—you could tell they cared about what they were doing,” explains Rick Fragnoli, one of two brothers who own Cleveland PaP. “From my research, they put so much money in their tooling and creating this hand-built product that they just never got off the ground.”

Countless details testify to the time and effort involved in developing and engineering the Jetway. Fragnoli believes the steel roof on early models like his was welded from multiple pieces rather than stamped as a single unit. (Later models used fiberglass.)

The windshield is unique to the Jetway, and so are all those doors. “People think the doors are from a GM station wagon, but all the bodywork behind the front fenders was custom-made by American Quality Coach,” says Fragnoli. The panels, even the roof, are heavy-gauge steel, and though there’s a staggering amount of rust, the Jetway still feels sturdy in construction.

Three rows of three individual seats each, plus a bench in the back and room on the split bench up front, means that 14 passengers could fit comfortably. There’s more than enough headroom for all aboard, and there’s ample space for old-time suitcases in the separated luggage compartment in the back. Dual trailer beam axles on leaf springs help support all the weight out back.

All this capacity is the result of AQC’s founders’ decision to build the Jetway 707 with GM’s full-size front-wheel-drive architecture. The Olds 455 V-8 provided ample power, but more importantly, the lack of a tunnel for the drivetrain enabled a flat floor pan for added occupant comfort.

That comfort, at least in this particular Jetway, was initially offered to GM executives who used it as a shuttle to and from Detroit’s Metro Airport through the late ’70s. It was then used by the airport itself up until the mid-’80s. After that, a limo company took ownership, adding the odd “centipede” graphics down the sides. A family picked up the Jetway in 1999 and put it to their own use. “There’s even a photo of this car at the Woodward Dream Cruise in 2004,” says Fragnoli.

Things took an unfortunate turn not long after 2004 when a younger relative shot out the windows of the old limo with a BB gun. The owner angrily set off in the Jetway to confront him and managed to severely damage the transmission in the process. The Jetway then sat until it was listed for sale in the fall of 2023. When Fragnoli saw the listing, he did not hesitate.

“There’s no doubt it’s pretty rough,” says Fragnoli, pointing out that those shot-out windows are custom pieces. He then motions me toward the front seat, which he demonstrates can move back and forth despite being bolted down—that’s how much rust is in the floor. “It is going to be a lot of work,” he added, “but nothing we can’t handle.”

Fragnoli has a battery cart at the ready, with which he demonstrates to me that the Jetway’s big 455 starts without a hitch. Aside from the abundant exhaust leaks, the V-8 sounds pretty healthy. When he shuts it down, I ask what his plans are for the behemoth.

“I’m not a big restoration person, but I think it might be a little sacrilegious to tear this one apart.  The original plan was to do a front-wheel-drive, twin-turbo LS setup,” he says with a wry smile. “But then we thought about how rare it is—one of only seven left in the U.S. and nine left in the world, unless someone else finds one. It’s not going to be an OEM nut-and-bolt project because there’s no paperwork left on these, but I think we’re going to keep it more original to start.”

Fragnoli intends to drive this Jetway with its existing 455 and share it with fellow enthusiasts. Despite the huge undertaking ahead of the team at Cleveland PaP, he’s already making summer plans. “The goal is to be on the road with a driving, functional car with glass back in it and the interior done,” he says. “But the bodywork, the paint, some of the metalwork’s still going to be in progress. We’ll get out, do some shows, maybe do the Power Tour and let people see and enjoy it. It’s such a massive project that it’ll take years to fully complete, but next winter we can tear it back down and make progress in stages.”

Speaking of progress, the Cleveland PaP crew appears to have rolled up their sleeves in the weeks since my visit. The company’s YouTube channel shows the interior removed and the floor completely cut out. The seats are off to the upholstery staff, and if that Cadillac couch was any indication, cossetting accommodations await this Jetway’s occupants. Judging by the rest of Cleveland’s operation, the whole car is in store for a dramatic makeover. For any necessary airport trips next summer, I know just who to call.

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Sydarith Bo is used to questions about his 1980 Toyota Crown. At shows, he sees the questions forming in people’s brains as they try to comprehend what’s in front of them. Though the model was sold in the U.S. from 1958 to 1972, most Americans had never heard of the Toyota Crown until its 2023 return as a hybrid crossover. They’d almost definitely never seen one, least of all a Crown coupe. There is a tiny “Toyota” script above the rear license plate, but only hard-core JDM nerds usually know the make without asking.

“It looks like a Fairmont Futura and a Dodge Diplomat had a baby,” said one observer during our photo shoot. Indeed, the car is so full of Malaise Era American styling cues that it could easily have just rolled off the set of CHiPs. For Bo this is a feature, not a bug. “I like unusual cars, ones you don’t see very often and that nobody else has, but I also like G-bodies like Cutlasses and Regals, and my lady likes 1980s Monte Carlos.”

A classic full-frame boulevard cruiser, the Crown is almost totally unlike the popular JDM imports that have streamed into the U.S. over the last decade. “Bubble-era” icons like the R32 Nissan Skyline GT-R started turning 25 years old (and thus legal to import) in 2014, soon followed by 660-cc kei cars—everything from Autozam AZ-1s to Subaru Sambars. Many of Initial D and Gran Turismo fans’ favorite 1990s JDM cars have since become U.S.-legal. Their popularity partly reflects the influence of Japanese culture in 21st-century America, where Walmart sells sushi and Gen-Zers grew up on Yu-Gi-Oh! and One Piece.

Bo’s car comes from an earlier milieu when American culture—everything from bands to blue jeans to cars—loomed large in Japan. But this particular vintage of Crown is also among the last of its kind; although the model would continue as a stodgy Brougham-esque sedan for decades, the coupe was axed in 1983, eclipsed by the Toyota Soarer—a sophisticated luxe performance coupe that eventually morphed into the Lexus SC. In a sense, his Crown is right at the intersection between old and new school.

The American Influence

Most don’t know it, but the 1958 Toyopet Crown was the first mass-market Japanese car sold in the United States. Its American influence was baked in from the beginning, when development began in early 1952 at the tail end of the Allied occupation. A significant portion of Japan’s postwar economic recovery stemmed from U.S. aid, combined with industrial demand from the Korean War, which included many orders for Toyota trucks. (And, from 1946–50, Toyota’s Koromo plant repaired U.S. Army Plymouths.) The occupation brought a lasting cultural influence, which included lots of American cars.

Though Toyota had built cars since 1936, they weren’t truly mass-produced, usually using truck frames and often with bodies made by outside contractors such as Kanto Auto Works. The Crown, conceived by company president Kiichiro Toyoda, was instead conceived and created entirely in-house. Foreign partnerships were common at the time (Nissan with Austin, for instance, or Hino with Renault), but the only thing about the Crown that wasn’t wholly Japanese was its styling influence.

This was the Fifties, when American cars meant prestige, so the Crown prototypes all drew from that well. One even resembled a miniaturized 1951 Cadillac. When the final production model bowed, it was less imitative than that but still very “Detroit.” Toyota was hardly alone in this approach, when fins sprouted on everything from Alfas to Zundapps during the 1950s. The Crown’s well-timed 1955 debut in Japan coincided with major post-Korean-War investment in industry and infrastructure, and Japan’s economy grew, on average, by almost 10 percent annually until 1970, powering the rise of domestic automakers.

In the 1960s the Crown evolved, slowly but surely becoming cleaner and less Detroit-like in its appearance. In time it gained six-cylinder power and a widened V-8 “Crown Eight,” model, which became the Toyota Century in 1967. The last addition was a hardtop coupe in 1968.

That original Crown made Toyota the domestic market leader and soon inspired rivals like the Nissan Cedric and Prince (later Nissan) Gloria, though those cars took different visual paths. The Cedric donned a Pininfarina suit in 1965, while the Gloria went through Euro and American phases. All three cars were redesigned in 1971.

The Whale and The Hardtop

In an attempt to court more private owners rather than fleet or corporate buyers, Toyota radically reshaped the Crown into the low-slung S60-series, seemingly inspired by the late 1960s Ford Thunderbird and AMC Rebel. Nicknamed “Kujiara” (Whale) for its distinctive round shape and body-color bumpers, Japanese buyers were horrified by it at the time. The design was way too sporty for its conservative clientele and seemed to abandon the dignified looks of the 1960s. Collectors now, however, adore it.

The radical change allowed for Nissan’s equally new “230-Series” Cedric and Gloria, penned by 240Z designer Yoshihiko Matsuo; both employed American themes and “Coke-bottle” sides. Nissan solved the problem of differentiating expensive sedans from common taxi versions by adding a four-door hardtop for 1972, helping kick off a JDM hardtop sedan bonanza.

The S60-generation Crown was a rare misstep, and 44 months after its launch, Toyota replaced it with the S100-Series. The lesson both companies took away from this battle of the broughams? Make these cars as conservative as possible.

According to the late Japanese journalist Eizo Ikeda, writing about the S100’s design for Car Styling Quarterly in 1975, the Crown’s designers were looking more at American regulations than themes. The S100’s answer to Nissan’s airy four doors was instead a “Pillared Hardtop,” inspired, Ikeda wrote, by U.S. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) regs. The Crown was nevertheless dropped in America in 1972.

Ultimately, the Crown did not return stateside, but Toyota ended up coming to some of the same conclusions as Detroit’s designers when faced with FMVSS standards. The “Pillared Hardtop” roofline looked Cadillac Fleetwood-esque but, otherwise, there wasn’t much discernably “foreign” in the styling. Despite the effects of OPEC and the Nixon shock, the S100 Crown was very successful. Sales rose by 58 percent in 1975 and the Crown again became Japan’s “formal sedan” to beat.

Detroit’s designers and Japan’s were now playing the same game with similar rules. The upright “formal look,” which relied on frilly chrome details and the visual signifiers of luxury like Opera windows and Landau tops, was king in 1970s America. It was also exactly what Crown customers wanted. “Formality” was a more serious cultural touchpoint in Japan; Toyota designers even had women in wedding kimonos and bridal wigs test the sedan’s ergonomics.

Twilight of the Full-Frame JDM Coupe

When it came time to design the S110-Series, the memory of the round S60 was still fresh so Toyota kept down the path of squared-off lines. Mechanically it was largely unchanged: rear-wheel drive, fours and sixes from 2.0 to 2.8 liters, a perimeter frame, and a live rear axle.

As before, the coupe lineup was more limited than the other Crown variants. The two-door came only with gas-powered sixes, either in tax-savings 2.0-liter (125 hp), 2.0 turbo (145 hp) or full-fat 2.8-liter “Royal Saloon” (145 hp and, after 1981 with twin cams, 170) trims. The lower rungs could have five-speed manuals, the 2.8s used three-speed automatics.

In America there was a long tradition of big two-doors, and such cars sold well in the coupe-crazy Seventies. Not so much in Japan, so in hindsight, it seems surprising that the coupe carried on at all.

Early Crown coupes were quite pretty, but selling a flashy two-door version of a car mostly associated with taxis and officialdom in a country with punitive tax laws was always a challenge—one made harder by conservative styling. Crown coupes were not exported after the S60 generation of the early 1970s, and Nissan dropped the Cedric/Gloria coupes months before the S110 Crown debuted in September 1979. The S110 was a hit, with annual sales passing 150,000 cars for the first time in 1980, but the coupes were only a sliver of the pie.

Designers are always responding to the world around them, and 1970s Japan was still mad for American culture while eager to put its own spin on things. After American R&B artists soared on the Japanese charts, Soul Train came to Japanese TV in 1975. In 1980, Yellow Magic Orchestra became the first Japanese band on the show. Sales of American-style jeans soared from 7 million pairs in 1969 to 45 million in 1973, a year after Japan’s first home-grown denim brand, Big John, debuted.

Showgoers and online commenters often compare Bo’s Crown to the 1980 Thunderbird/Mercury Cougar and other early Eighties two-doors from Ford and GM. The wheels do suggest AMC Concord hubcaps, but are they borrowed? Given production lead times, there’s no way Toyota’s designers could have seen all these cars’ details, so it’s just as likely that the designers were aiming for the same targets at the same time in a world made smaller by 747s. Convergent evolution.

The New Wave

While big coupes didn’t sell in Japan, sportier two-doors and personal-luxury cars did. Both Toyota and Nissan had entirely new takes on this genre in the pipeline. Nissan struck first with the Leopard, which came as a sedan or a coupe, but at the 1980 Osaka motor show, Toyota dropped the “EX-8” concept. This sleek coupe, angular but aerodynamic and owing nothing to any foreign design, was Toyota’s real Thunderbird. Three months later, it went into production as the 1981 Toyota Soarer, replacing the two-door Crown.

Compared to the later Soarers the original seems visually restrained, but at the time it was a huge leap in cool factor. Sharing its engines and a variety of parts with the Supra, it was as quick as it looked, and it bristled with technology, including touchscreen-activated climate controls, digital gauges, an electronically-controlled suspension, and lots of other high-tech toys. It beat out the Honda City to win the 1981 Japan Car of the Year award.

A hit from the start, the Soarer was not exported but regardless sold more than 30,000 units a year. Although Toyota doesn’t have exact figures on the breakdown among Crown body styles, that volume was probably ten times the total for the prior Crown coupe, whose S110 generation ended in after 1982. By 1991 the Soarer arrived in the U.S. as the Lexus SC, largely putting the remaining American personal/luxury coupes to shame.

Old-School Vibes

The Coupe is Bo’s second Crown, but he’s always liked Toyotas. “Growing up, we had Cressidas and Previas, very typical Southeast Asian family cars, but I also have an appreciation for Chevy vans.” The child of Cambodian immigrants, Bo has always lived in Tacoma, Washington but also grew up on nearby farms. “In the summer, we’d wake up at 4 a.m., hop in the Chevy van and go pick strawberries.”

As soon as he had money for cars he spent it on weird ones. “I had a ‘63 Studebaker Lark Wagonaire, the one with the slide-back roof, but I always liked Crowns.” He loves S60-generation Crowns, “But they’re expensive, so a friend and I found an S110 sedan for auction in Japan.”

He heavily customized that first sedan and had no intention of selling it, but after it made the rounds on social media, a man in Florida, Danesh Sookal, made him an offer he couldn’t pass up. “He’s Trinidadian. He and his father had Crowns there in the Eighties, but they had to leave them when they moved.” Repaying the favor, Sookal remembered seeing the coupe at a Virginia importer months earlier.

The car was still there, Bo said, “sitting outside with four flat tires and a destroyed white vinyl top. They didn’t want to sell it because it was so rare.” The importer was eventually persuaded, and Sookal and his son Ryan trailered the car to Florida, drained the fuel tank, got it running, and then helped Bo ship it back to Tacoma.

The car needed interior pieces because things were just worn or torn, including the back shelf and the door top fabric, which wears out quickly on S110s, he added. “The vinyl top was replaced with new material and in a new color, but it’s also a color that was offered on these originally.”

And how does it drive? “Like an old American car, like a G-body but with less power. It’s only a 2.8 and an automatic, so I wouldn’t say it’s fast. It’s the same engine as in Cressidas and Mk. II Supras, but the Crown is heavier. The suspension’s really soft, so it’s a boulevard car, and we cruise Point Rustin every weekend. Newer tires did make it handle a little better though.”

As with his previous Crown, he plans to add custom wheels. “I’m a wheel guy, so I’ll keep the stock wheels but I also have three-piece welded Enkei EK62 and a set of 15-inch Vogues for a sort of Cadillac look.” The rest of it will probably stay the same. “I’d like to repaint it, but the trim is so rare I’m a little afraid to. Those rain gutters are accessories. If they broke I’d never find new ones.”

One other tiny addition? The Buddha hanging from the rearview mirror. “My grandmother gave me that Buddha and it’s supposed to protect you while driving. I don’t think of it in a very religious way, but I do like having a piece of Cambodian culture with me. We have to hold on to things like that.”

***

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Spectating at Bonneville Speed Week can be dangerous, but not for the reasons you might expect. While the racers often reach almost incomprehensible speeds across the dry lake bed, the spectators are kept behind the starting line and far off the course. Unless an errant race car hooks off toward the impound or pit area—which has happened—the racing only gets dicey for the drivers. As a spectator, what you’ve got to look out for is Salt Fever, a serious urge to compete in land-speed racing that can last a lifetime. For Clay Pitkin, a Utah native, the fever is proving incurable.

In August 1990, Pitkin’s father, Terry, drove the two of them to the Bonneville Salt Flats in their 1984 Mustang. The two weren’t prepared for the hot summer weather—the car didn’t have air conditioning—but they did pack a lunch. The two sat in the Mustang near the starting line and watched cars head off down the course and over the horizon. “I have to give kudos to my dad,” Pitkin said, “because he’s the one that took me out and introduced me to Bonneville.” They returned the following year, bringing lawn chairs to enjoy the racing from a cooler vantage point.

Pitkin has been going back to the Salt Flats every year since. The turning point came in 2002, when he and his father-in-law, Ted Crandall, made the trip together. They spotted a sign that read “Pit Crew Needed” and asked the driver what that might entail. The driver, who was attending the event solo, said he needed help getting buckled into his car and picked up at the finish. For their trouble, he’d buy them a steak dinner that night in nearby Wendover. That sealed the deal.

After years of serving on the crew for the car, a Suzuki Swift, Pitkin eventually bought it and took over as driver. That Suzuki Swift succumbed to the harsh and salty Bonneville conditions, which allowed rust to take hold of the car’s sheetmetal. The race car is now a 1997 Geo Metro, a rebranded Suzuki Swift. Instead of the 1.0-liter three-cylinder that came with the car, the subcompact hatch is powered by a 900cc two-stroke twin from an Arctic Cat snowmobile. The car has been running the engine since 2012. Before that, it had used a 1000cc two-stroke triple that was not able to make as much power.

Mike Hair at Custom Pipes Incorporated had done a lot of research in exhaust and expansion chambers, so Pitkin contacted his company to design the expansion pipe that leads to a Mitsubishi turbocharger. At 13 pounds of boost, the 900cc engine produces an impressive 285 horsepower at the wheels! Pitkin made some important modifications to keep that power from breaking loose. He welded the crankshaft to add strength and selected new pistons and new rods that would hold up to the intense pounding the engine takes while going full-throttle for miles at a time. The engine is mounted to a stock Metro transmission by way of adapter plates machined by Lenard Myers at Custom Fab & Machine in Salt Lake City. First gear is useless; Pitkin launches the car in second.

For the sake of aerodynamics, the car’s grille is closed and neither the engine nor the charge cooler relies on a radiator. Instead, both are cooled using a water tank located in the car’s cargo area. Competing in the I/Blown Gas Altered Coupe class, the car has run a best of 135 mph. The current class record, set in 2016, is 144.032 mph.

When we asked Pitkin how his 2023 Speed Week was, he laughed and replied with a single word: “Wet.” Indeed, the weather at Bonneville has caused the cancellation and delay of the last two Speed Week events, respectively. Thankfully the rain let up enough at 2023’s event to allow some passes.

“From a personal standpoint, we got a lot of questions answered,” Pitkin said. Unfortunately, the bearing that connects the engine and transmission failed during a run when he was approaching 90 mph. “It decided it had had enough, and did not consult with me,” Pitkin joked. That was on Thursday, and racing would wrap up on Friday morning, so Pitkin and his crew— his wife, Heidi, his sons Brad and Bryce, and the aforementioned Lenard Myers—packed up and made the two-hour drive back to their respective homes north of Salt Lake City.

Pitkin and his crew plan on returning to Speed Week in 2024, naturally, and hope to get the car sorted out in the meantime. That will mean more time spent on the dyno and on getting the snowmobile engine to play nice with the Geo/Suzuki transmission. If you’d like to risk the Salt Fever, Pitkin would surely welcome you into his pit and show you around the unique race car. If you’re looking for a steak dinner, there are probably plenty of teams that could use a hand. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

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Welcome to Original Owner, a series showcasing—you guessed it—people who bought a classic car new and still own it. The cars don’t need to be factory-original, just still in the hands of the first owner and still getting driven. Got a tip? Email tips@hagerty.com —Ed.

From April through October 1964, about 24 million people filed through the New York World’s Fair, held at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens. Among the highlight attractions, spread over 650 acres, were the Swiss Sky Ride over the Fairgrounds, a working video phone shown by AT&T, a genuine jetpack flight demonstration, and even a nine-minute speech by an animatronic Abraham Lincoln.

From the automotive world, the General Motors Futurama display introduced concepts for future cities and transportation on Earth … and the moon. Chrysler’s very real Turbine Car suggested a possible alternative to the piston engine.

At the Ford Pavilion, however, there was a car that excited fairgoers could go out and buy right away: the 1965 Mustang. Unveiled there on April 17, the spicy-looking compact coupe went on sale across America the same day. Its $2368 starting price was affordable, and Ford dealers reportedly took 22,000 orders.