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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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.

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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“The number of vomit emojis has definitely gone down,” laughs Marc Davis, founder of Moment Motor Co., about the business’s social media attention. I guess you have to learn to laugh at stuff like that, especially when you’re doing something as drastic (and new) as putting electric motors into old cars. Plus, car people on the internet are quick to judge no matter what you do. The response Davis gets now, though, is a lot more positive, and it’s indicative of the changes in public perception since he started swapping EV powertrains into classic cars in 2017.

Indeed, those changes came big and they came quick. On the new car market, EVs have gone totally mainstream, and electric’s performance and maintenance advantages have become clearer. On the old car scene, the arguments for electrifying classics made by Davis and people like him, mainly that these conversions keep classics on the road long-term and help bring new people into the hobby, have gained more traction and acceptance. As for the electric powertrains themselves, they’ve improved and have become more readily available, while the process of converting a car is now easier. To see how all this happened as well as what the steps are for “de-ICEing” and electrifying a classic, I visited Moment’s shop on South Congress Ave. in Austin, Texas.

Then, to find out if EV swaps are really “soulless” like the skeptics say, I drove three of Moment’s finished builds: A Mercedes-Benz 280SL, a 1966 Jaguar E-Type, and a G-body Porsche 911 Carrera.

Davis’ first career was in the tech industry, but he’s a lifelong car guy who spent weekends tinkering in his garage and building relationships in the classic and hot rod communities. He still love cars of all types, but saw electrification as something new, exciting, and part of the future. Experience from his professional life combined with the passion in his personal life in 2017 when he formed Moment, and there’s a clear overlap between tech and cars. “Our team is mostly made up of either engineers from the tech industry who are passionate about cars or performance cars builders who are excited to work with these new drivetrains,” says Davis. “Everything we do is tracked in modern project management software…Progress is tracked with pictures, hours, descriptions, and detailed updates to the client the whole way through.”

While plenty of shops specialize in a fairly narrow range of makes and models, the goal with Moment from the beginning was being able to convert any classic car to electric power. So far, Moment has completed about four dozen builds, ranging from Porsche 356s and Alfa Romeo Spiders to Chevy Blazers and Toyota pickups. Being versatile was key since Davis knew the market for what they were doing was relatively small.

The technology, even less than a decade ago, was also limited. The first builds were, “and I hate saying this, mostly repurposed golf cart and forklift kind of stuff. It worked but was low-power and simplistic.” There were of course new EVs on the road in 2017, namely Teslas and Nissan Leafs, but the manufacturers wouldn’t sell their powertrains to anybody. The workaround was that as those Teslas and Nissans hit salvage yards, their drivetrains could be removed and repurposed. Even from wrecked cars, these were better than anything else that was available and became Moment’s preferred source of powertrains from later in 2017 until 2021. Then, more recently, as the rest of the new car industry has caught up, there are EV powertrains and components that are functionally equivalent, warrantied, and widely available. That’s what goes into Moment’s builds today.

The facility is located near the end of Austin’s trendy South Congress Ave., and one thing is striking from the moment you arrive there: Despite the ’60s and ’70s vehicles outside and all the cars in various states of assembly inside, the place is quiet. The floors are clean. All the tools you’d expect to find in a place that takes apart cars and puts them back together again are there, but so are wiring, diagrams, a humming 3D printer, electric motors, and batteries lining the workbenches. As for the cars, the sights and smells you expect from a jacked-up Austin-Healey 3000 with its hood wide open simply aren’t there. Neither is this Healey’s tall 6-cylinder engine, nor any drips of oil. In its place is a compact electric motor nestled under the tunnel where the four-speed gearbox used to be.

On the other side of the shop, a 1963 Corvette Split Window rests alongside a ’68 Mustang fastback. Both look like they just got back from a Pro Touring meet, but they’re electric, too. There are also a couple of 911s and an Alfa GTV, as well as several W113-generation (1963-71) Mercedes-Benz SLs. Moment has converted enough of these W113 builds that their process has gotten both quicker and cheaper. Which isn’t to say that any of their builds are quick or cheap. Each takes months, and the cost ranges from $50K–$150K, not including the donor car. Even so, Moment currently has a nine-month wait list.

The wide range of cars in the shop suggests that Moment has a wide range of customers, and they do. Many are traditional car collectors who “see what we do as a way to rejuvenate and enjoy one of their classics in a different way.” They also see clients who have long had an affinity for classic cars but for one reason or another “never had the confidence or desire to keep up with the maintenance,” Davis says. These could be people who inherited a classic car from an enthusiast relative and see electrification as a way to enjoy and preserve a car that’s been in the family, or it could simply be someone who fell in love with a classic and sees electrification the only way to realistically use and enjoy owning it. Other clients are simply very new to classic cars altogether. “They drive new cars and like the simplicity of them; they’re primarily EV owners. Then, they see a perfect old Mercedes or vintage pickup and literally fall in love, but then find out they can own one with a modern electric drivetrain.”

Builds like these, then, bring new people into the old car world. What’s more, they keep old cars out and about in regular use. Many of them might ordinarily sit and suffer neglect if they were left stock. Despite the massive changes and updates under the skin, Davis says “ultimately we’re about preserving these things. We want these cars to be driven, not sitting in the garage. We want to give someone the ability to just go out and go whenever they want.” There’s simply far less to worry about and check for than with a ’60s-era, carbureted gas engine. “In the end we’re putting cars back on the road, driving.” It’s hard to argue with that.

When someone brings a car in for conversion, Moment fully inspects everything and addresses any necessary fixes. “We aren’t a restoration shop, so if the car needs metal work, paint, or repair, we partner with other shops to handle that stage of the process.” Then, they de-ICE the car, removing the drivetrain and fuel systems.

What happens to the old engines? Many owners want to keep them. Many don’t. “We can try to sell them, but you’d be surprised how hard it is. I have a storage unit with far more of them than I expected.”

Next they 3D scan the car, mainly the engine bay, transmission tunnel and trunk to determine where all the new components and drivetrain will have to fit. One challenge is weight distribution, as they want to keep the balance and driving dynamics as close to the original design as possible. Another is simply where to fit everything, as the space under the lines of a ’60s sports car was never meant for things like rectilinear battery boxes. This effort often requires designing and test-fitting brackets, platforms, and mounts to hold everything in place. Meanwhile, the team figures out where to route the high voltage cabling and coolant lines. Understandably, when they’ve converted the same type of car a few times, like Mercedes 230/250/280SLs, the process gets quicker and easier.

After final assembly, Moment tests and tunes the car, sorting out everything from throttle response curves and thermal systems to squeaks, creaks, and rattles—these are still old cars, after all. After enough test miles and tweaking, the finished product goes to the customer, while any new parts created through the process go into a library of chassis-specific components to make future builds easier.

So, how does the finished product actually drive? Of the three electrified classics I’m driving during this visit, the Mercedes-Benz 280SL makes the most sense as a candidate for EV conversion. It’s not surprising to learn that more W113-generation (1963-71) SLs have gotten the Moment treatment than any other car.

The 2.8-liter, 180-hp, fuel-injected, single-cam six that powered this car out of Stuttgart in the ’60s is a fine engine. It’s smooth, stout, well-built. But it was never the star of the show. It doesn’t make a memorable noise. Nobody ever bought a 230/250/280SL for what was under the hood, and most U.S. buyers ordered theirs with an automatic, anyway. Instead, they bought it for the looks—arguably designer Paul Bracq’s magnum opus—as well as the clever “pagoda” hardtop, and the classy, comfortable interior. This was a car for leisurely cruising at moderate to high speed and looking good while doing it, and that’s still the main appeal of the W113 for classic car buyers today. What does an EV swap take away from that experience? Nothing, really. It arguably makes it better.

“I think if you went back to the Mercedes folks in 1967 and said you had this silent, smooth, powerful drivetrain, they’d probably think it was perfect for a car like this,” Marc says as we slide into the SL’s springy seats. And, from the driver’s side, the W113 platform and the electric motor complement each other well. It rides like a normal SL, and it steers like one. In fact, everything feels like the original, except, of course, for the much deeper reserves of power and torque, which push you forward no matter how fast you’re going. The way this example is geared makes low speed acceleration swift but not savage, while speeding up from 60-80 mph is accomplished surprisingly quickly. If any “soul” or “character” has left this SL, I’m not really missing it.

The E-Type, I think, is a tougher sell as an EV. Yes, there was an electric E at the royal wedding, and a U.K. company even makes a drop-in EV kit for Jag’s most famous sports car, but the original XK six-cylinder engine is one of the all-time greats. It powered beautiful cars and won major races for decades. It looks great. It sounds great. Its length and heft dictated the E-Type’s long, lithe, forward-hinged hood, and the twin exhaust pipes tucked under its tail are one of the E’s more distinguishing features. To take all that away, then, removes much of the car’s character, right? Well, yes, but not as much as you might expect.

Getting in, there’s no doubt you’re in an old Jag. The leather smells right. The signature toggle switches on the dash are all there. So are the gauges, except that some offer different read-outs. For the dial to the right of the speedo, which measures kilowatts but has been cleverly designed in the style of the original Smiths tachometer. The only obvious clue to the car’s alternative drivetrain on the inside are the simple up arrow, down arrow and P (Park) buttons where the shifter boot used to be. Some of the batteries reside under the luggage area, but you’d have to lift a panel to find them. On the outside, the only obvious clue is the lack of those exhaust pipes. Somewhat surprisingly, their absence doesn’t take anything away from the XKE’s famous good looks.

A bigger surprise is just how much this car feels like a good-old-fashioned gas-guzzling E-Type on the road. I was afraid it might drive like a twenty-first century roller skate cosplaying as old English sports car, but that’s not the case at all. The tail still squats and the nose still lifts slightly under hard acceleration. Under cornering, you still feel stiffening and flexing through the wood-rimmed steering wheel.

Despite the extra heft and all the batteries distributed throughout the platform, the rear brakes are still inboard as they were in period. Because this example is geared more for highway driving and passing, acceleration from a standstill isn’t startling, but it is immediate and, especially in the ’60s setting of the cabin, feels very quick. The package delivers about 300hp and 375 lb-ft to the Jaguar rear end via a carbon-fiber driveshaft. At higher speeds, rolling into the left lane for a quick squirt of acceleration to pass someone is completely effortless. It’s almost intoxicating, in that over-too-quickly, want-to-do-it-again kind of way. This would be a fantastic car on a short road trip. I did miss that legendary twin-cam six up front, but not as much as I thought I would. A couple of times I forgot about it completely.

Finally, of the three, the 911 Carrera gives the most uneasy first impression as an electrified classic. For 60 years now, the weight of a flat-six mounted in the back has been the most consistent part of a 911’s makeup. But not in this one. This car presents the heft of its batteries more noticeably than the other conversions, and it’s not the traditional distribution as the tail-heavy original. As a result of packaging requirements, Moment had to locate some of the batteries up front, occupying much of the front trunk between the headlights.

The driving experience, then, doesn’t hew to classic 911 dynamics. This car feels heavy, particularly in the steering. Even at high speed, working the steering wheel through twisty bits fires up your shoulder muscles. It’s a contrast to the normally light-on-their-feet, stock 911s of this period.

Notice I said heavy, not slow. Indeed the acceleration feels very quick, and the car very planted. Throwing it into a bend requires less bravery than tail-snappy 911s of yore. Traction and power are very easy to come by. And while it’s not as good as the music from an air-cooled six, the electric motor’s noise coming up the transmission tunnel from behind and between the seats is not unpleasant, and emits more of a growing mechanical whir than the high-pitched electric whine I was expecting.

Speaking of the transmission tunnel, what’s hiding underneath it is this EV Porsche’s party piece. The G50 five-speed that originally came in this car is a fantastic gearbox, so Moment kept it right where it was and adapted it to the new motor. It does take some getting used to—you only really need to accelerate from a stop in second gear (doing so in first is borderline violent and correspondingly brief) and around town or on country roads you can have almost all the fun you want in third or fourth, but it remains fun and satisfying to shift. Also, while you do have to use the clutch pedal to go from gear to gear, you don’t have to do anything with your left foot when you come to a stop because the gearbox isn’t hooked up to a constantly rotating ICE engine. No stalling uphill from a stoplight here.

Like the Jag, the Porsche sacrifices plenty through losing its ICE engine. But it gains plenty, too, and it certainly put a smile on this skeptic’s face.

EV swaps are not for everybody, but I can see why this type of conversion is getting more popular, and Davis sees the future in its as well. “At this point the only downside is cost and perhaps range, but both of these things will only get better over time.” Davis also foresees greater standardization across this corner of the industry, and even complete EV-conversion kits for certain vehicles in the near future, like components specifically designed for electrifying a Tri-Five Chevy or VW Beetle, to name a couple.

No matter what kind of emojis you’re posting when an EV conversion hits your feed, it’s hard to deny that the classic car industry is going through big, quick, interesting changes. Shops like Moment are not only driving those changes, but also keeping the hobby going, and even growing it.

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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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For five months—6 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week—Derek Drinkwater’s life was consumed by a race car that competed only once, in the 1950 24 Hours of Le Mans, where it finished a middling eleventh. Drinkwater could never own it: It’s worth too much money, and happily resides in a museum in Naples, Florida, while Drinkwater and his wife, Pat, live in Chiddingfold, England, where he wears several hats—a truck mechanic, a caterer, a race car driver, a popular television host.

The car he’s so taken with is called Le Monstre, French for “the monster,” so named by fans and the media at Le Mans, because the car’s styling is somewhere between cartoonish and hideous.

If Drinkwater couldn’t have the monster, he’d just build one. He told Pat that he’d be eating in the garage for a while. She begged him not to do it. “I have to get it out of my system,” he told her.

It’s all the fault of Briggs Swift Cunningham II, who was the sort of man who could make the average Joe feel good about millionaires. Born in 1907, family money funneled into Cunningham’s bank account from a variety of sources: A growing company named Procter and Gamble, the Pennsylvania Railroad, Citizen’s National Bank, the meat packing industry and multiple other businesses. And this was before he married Lucie Bedford, granddaughter of the founder of Standard Oil.

Cunningham didn’t smoke or drink or carry on like the rich people in The Great Gatsby. He preferred to spend his money in competition: He built a boat and sailed it to victory in the 1958 America’s Cup, and—along with college chums he met at Yale, brothers Miles and Sam Collier—he built and raced cars.

Cunningham was already an established racer when a pair of entries for the 1950 24 Hours of Le Mans fell into his lap. You’d think he would just buy a pair of Ferraris or Talbot-Lagos, but Cunningham was different: If he was going to France, he wanted to take something American.

But what? Cadillac was building a potent 5.4-liter, 160-horsepower V-8; stuff that into a short-wheelbase Cadillac Series 61 two-door, and at least you’d have something that might go the distance.

That wasn’t quite enough for Cunningham and his cohorts: Sure, they sent a stock-appearing Series 61 with an auxiliary 35-gallon fuel tank and twin carburetors as one entry, but for the second, Cunningham noticed the rule book said modifications to the body were allowed. He removed the steel body completely and had an engineer at Grumman Aircraft design something in aluminum that would be lighter and more aerodynamic. It looked like a bar of Procter and Gamble soap. The French dubbed it “Le Monstre.”

Technical inspectors at Le Mans scrutinized Le Monstre, rule book in one hand, fine-toothed comb in the other. No, the rules didn’t say you could replace the entire body, but they didn’t say you couldn’t. It was judged legal. Cunningham, along with tuner Phil Walters, drove Le Monstre. The Collier brothers drove the other Cadillac, which the French were calling “Petit Pataud,” which translates to “Little Clumsy.”

Little Clumsy finished tenth, while Le Monstre was 11th, a victim of Cunningham stuffing the car into a sand bank early on in the race. It took him about a half-hour to dig the car out by hand.

For some reason, all this resonated with Derek Drinkwater, who usually works on and sells Diamond T trucks, known mostly for the rugged six-wheel vehicles built for use by the military in World War II. He uses vintage trucks in his high-profile catering business, and he also appears on several auto-related TV shows.

This may not be the first time he has been obsessed with a famous vehicle: He was profiled in a documentary about director Steven Spielberg’s first film, the low-budget, made-for-TV Duel, about a sinister Peterbilt truck that chases a hapless traveling salesman (Dennis Weaver) driving a Plymouth Valiant. In the documentary, titled The Devil on Wheels, Drinkwater says he “fell in love” with the 1971 movie. He found a vintage Peterbilt attached to a tanker like the one in Duel, bought it on eBay, drove it 2700 miles from Portland to Houston, put it on a boat and had it sent on a four-week cruise to England.

So maybe spending five months building a replica of a car that raced once, years before Drinkwater was born, is not that out of character. After all, he had already built and raced a Cadillac like Little Clumsy, but that wasn’t enough.

It was Pat who actually got the ball rolling: She located a short-wheelbase 1950 Cadillac in Arizona. “We bought that and used its chassis,” Drinkwater said. It would not be easy. Le Monstre and Little Clumsy both remained in Cunningham’s considerable car collection, along with subsequent Cunningham-built cars, many with Cadillac engines. That collection fell into the hands of Miles C. Collier, son of Cunningham’s Yale friend and Le Mans team driver, who houses the collection at the Revs Institute in Naples, Florida. The Revs Institute was of great value to Drinkwater, supplying all sorts of photos and measurements of Le Monstre.

But what they didn’t have was any sort of blueprint. So Drinkwater built a big projector and a huge screen, on which he projected a life-sized side photograph of Le Monstre. He outlined the entire car on the screen, matching the appropriate measurements, and effectively made his own blueprint of the car he would build.

Gradually it took shape. Inside, it used the same Cadillac V-8 engine, down to Le Monstre’s odd five-carburetor fuel system with a Carter carb in the middle, surrounded by four Holleys. The same three-on-the-tree shifter and transmission that, incidentally, made downshifting for sharp turns at Daytona a challenge. The same drum brakes. Drinkwater resisted the urge to update the suspension.

Outside, Drinkwater formed the aluminum panels himself, which he admits is not his specialty. The panels were affixed to a tubing framework by airplane-style Dzus fasteners. Rear lights, like the original, come from a 1948 Ford. The factory Cadillac steering wheel was replaced. A small engraved plate placed on Le Monstre’s dashboard, just left of that steering wheel, read “Custom built by Frick-Tappet Motors Inc.,” of Long Island, New York. A nearly identical plate in Drinkwater’s car reads, “Custom built by Derek Drinkwater Motors Inc.” of Chiddingfold, England. The car was painted white with a big blue stripe down the middle, which was a Cunningham staple.

On Facebook, a growing number of people watched Drinkwater’s build take place. He let it be known that he was in search of a special gauge like one used on Le Monstre: Two people responded. The first guy had one he’d sell Drinkwater for $3000. The other guy also had one. He wrote, “I’ve been following you on Facebook. You can have it for what I paid for it 20-odd years ago: $200. I’m honored to be part of the build.”

Drinkwater finished his monster in 2018, and began driving it at some racetracks in Europe, including Brands Hatch and at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. He also raced it at Le Mans, in the Le Mans Classic, a series for vintage cars.

At Goodwood, both the original Le Monstre and Drinkwater’s tribute car showed up, and he had the opportunity to compare them side by side. The tunnel behind the driver’s head, containing the roll bar, is two inches taller and wider than the original, because, Drinkwater said, that’s what the rules require now. And the white on Le Monstre’s body has turned to more of a cream color, likely due to age. Otherwise, they appear to have emerged from the same factory.

Last November, he drove his car at the Classic 24 Hours at Daytona, an annual event patterned after the Le Mans Classic. The event was designed for cars raced in 1965 or newer, but Drinkwater asked the organizers, Historic Sportscar Racing, if they would allow him to come, “and they said, ‘Of course, we’d love to have you.’” His car hit 142 mph in practice, faster than Le Monstre went at Le Mans.

This month he returned to Daytona—his car wintered in Florida—and Drinkwater fabricated a trailer hitch for the car, hooked up a teardrop camper, and he and wife Pat hit the road, leaving Daytona and bound for California. He spoke to Hagerty during a quick stop, about 40 miles east of Austin.

“No roof, no windshield wipers, no heater—what could go wrong?” Drinkwater said, laughing.

“So far, the trip has been fantastic. We’re taking the scenic route.” He and Pat have basically taken a year off from work, so there’s no hurry to get home. Surprisingly, there’s no chase car full of parts and a mechanic following them—“We’re on our own, just me and Pat in the little camper. Tonight, though, we’re getting a hotel room. The camper is great, but a hot shower, you know…”

So far, only one thing has gone wrong: A couple of days before our conversation, Drinkwater said he received an email from the vaunted Monterey Historics, held at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca each August. Drinkwater had asked to race there, but he was turned down because his replica of Le Monstre wasn’t, well, Le Monstre.

“They said the car’s not original, and I know it’s not the original car, but underneath, everything is a 1950s short-wheelbase Cadillac. It’s still an historic car, there’s no new aftermarket parts or anything else.” He said there are multiple well-positioned automotive enthusiasts advocating for him, “So I hope we still have a shot.” After all, he said, the event’s first race is even called “The Briggs S. Cunningham Trophy.” Even if he’s refused an entry, he plans to park it in the spectator lot.

Drinkwater’s car is scheduled to return to England in November, and he and Pat have a lot of America to see between then and now. A couple of days ago, he checked in to their Instagram account from the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas. It was colorful.

Taking a year off doesn’t mean they’ll be relaxing. On the morning we spoke, Drinkwater and Pat had spent nearly two hours using the free internet at McDonald’s updating their social media accounts and returning texts and emails.

“The response has been fabulous,” he said. “The way people slam on the brakes to take a video of us on the freeway, I’m sure there’s going to be an incident.”

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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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Wolves howl in the forest while on the hunt. So do car guys when they sense they may make a killing. That could explain why, during the run-up of classic Corvette values in the early 2000s, my friend Scott Young and I bought this 1964 convertible sight unseen. Reportedly built by a Milwaukee enthusiast in 1968, the “Executioner” competed at the strip and in regional International Show Car Association (ISCA) shows. Ultimately, however, the radical customizing turned a low-mileage 300-hp, four-speed Sting Ray into a nearly unsaleable oddity. We just didn’t know it yet.

Popular in the early 1960s, straight-axle drag conversions meant surgically altering the frame, and so began the journey of this genial Daytona Blue roadster into a medieval menace. Sawed off and discarded was the independent front suspension—a real value loss. In showboat tradition, chromed parts included the requisite tubular axle, steering box, and control arms. Revealing the brightwork were 12-spoke American Racing spindle-mount mags. Chrome likewise found the traction bars, the rear transverse spring, the driveshafts and control arms, the wheelie bars, and the push-bar (fashioned like an executioner’s axe).

Over the stock Daytona Blue, Milwaukee painter Butch Brinza applied a candy blue finish, which used fish scales to create a shimmery pop. The Corvette’s original blue vinyl interior ceded to diamond-tufted navy seats, floormats, door panels, and hardtop, which also sported a ventilated Plexiglas backlight. Still more chrome graced the rollbar, fire bottle, and butterfly steering wheel. All in for the win!

The once-mellow 327 had been stroked to 370 cubic inches and wore a chromed side-by-side manifold topped by dual quads and chromed scoops. Early in our stewardship, it vehemently resisted starting; something was afoul with cam and/or ignition timing. You’d swat the pedal and turn the key, and the engine would backfire dramatically. The predicament broke three starter motors, and once, a flame-front bigger than Krakatoa nearly torched the ceiling. Ultimately, a visiting friend requested a 9/16-inch wrench and reset the distributor. Thereafter, the Executioner started fine.

Driving that thing anywhere was another matter. Every couple of miles, the engine surged and stopped, then mulishly refused to restart. Looking back, I suspect the root was a clogged fuel line or filter, a tired pump, a plugged gas-cap vent, or some similarly easy issue. But when you don’t have a clue, you’re clueless. Ultimately, after nursing the Executioner to 20,458 miles, we tapped out. Naturally, selling that car was equally difficult. “We were the only ones who didn’t make money on a Corvette!” Scott joked. Yep, we were those guys.

No wonder—our execution was fatally flawed.

***

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

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

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

Buzz Saw 2.0

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

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

Chrysler 1000X

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

Uncertain-T

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

’39 Ford COE

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

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

Imperial Evolution

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

Deuce of Hearts

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

Oma’s SS

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

The Frankenboss

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

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

“My Type”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enjoy the gallery.

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TwelveAir

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

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

The 2024 Detroit Autorama kicked off at noon today with the announcement of the “Great 8” finalists for the Ridler Award, arguably the most prestigious prize in the world of custom cars. Here are those finalists. We’ll be covering the Ridler winner after it has been announced at the award banquet on Sunday evening.

1959 Corvette “XS ive”

Owner: Steve Sheats, Henderson, CO
Builder: True Color Customs (body, paint, carbon)
Interior: Randy’s Upholstery
Chassis: Art Morrison
Wheels: Schott custom
Engine: 700-hp 427-cubic-inch LS V-8
Transmission: Tremec T-56 Magnum, polished and brushed case
Modifications include: Widened quarter panels, flared doors, side coves modified to be functional air extractors

1968 Mercury Cougar “Predator”

Concept: Fastback Mercury Cougar
Owner, designer, builder: JF Launier, Vancouver, BC
Interior: Lee Baxter’s Hot Rod
Chassis: JF Customs
Wheels: Curtis custom
Engine: Kaase Boss 529 V-8
Transmission: Tremec TKX 5-speed
Suspension: Gary Yorston, with tubular A-arms up front, 3-link setup and coilovers in back, 9-inch Ford positraction differential
Brakes: Four-wheel discs
Modifications include: Mustang fastback roof, front end shortened 4 inches, wider and longer rear quarter panels

1953 Corvette Coupe “TwelveAir”

Owner: David Maxwell, Saltsburg, PA
Designer and builder: Kendig-It
Chassis and body: Custom all-aluminum unibody and custom aluminum body skin based on the 1953 Corvette “Corvair” Motorama car
Engine: Custom Race Car Engineering, all-aluminum 9.9L naturally aspirated V-12, based on LS architecture
Transmission: Late-model Corvette automatic rear transaxle
Exhaust: Handformed stainless steel
Suspension: Custom inboard pushrod setup
Brakes: Wilwood discs at all four corners

1959 Chrysler 300E “1000X”

Owner: Randy Kohltfarber, Phoenix, AZ
Builder: American Legends
Paint: James Evens
Interior: Patrick Goodwin; custom Sparc steering wheel, Dakota Digital gauges, custom console, swiveling bucket seats, 3D printed door panels, custom leather upholstery, suede headliner
Body: About 50 mods, including reshaped pillars and doors, tucked bumpers, lots of one-off 3D printed parts; factory glass is flush-fitted
Wheels: Custom carbon fiber
Engine: 1000-hp 6.2L Chrysler Hellcat V-8 with a custom stainless steel exhaust
Transmission: Tremec T-56
Brakes: Wilwood custom
Suspension: Air shocks with rear cantilevered dampeners

1963 Chevrolet Impala SS 409 Hardtop “Good Vibrations”

Owner: Mike Garner, Fleetwood, PA
Designer: Eric Brockmeyer/ Denise Moyer-Lehman
Builder and paintwork: Bruce Harvey’s Pro Comp Custom (Pro Comp has built the last two Ridler winners)
Interior: Paul Atkins
Engine: Original Chevy 409 V-8
Transmission: Richmond 5-speed
Wheels: Custom 10-spoke by MHT

1951 Kaiser Henry J Pickup “Henry Jenner”

Owner: Joe Faso, Las Vegas, NV
Builder: Revision Rods & Rides
Designer: Eric Brockmeyer
Chassis: Custom built by Roadster Shop
Interior: Upholstery by Recovery Room, Dakota Digital gauges
Engine: LS3 V-8 with casting marks removed
Transmission: GM 4L65E with casting marks removed
Modifications include: Converting a Henry J sedan into a unibody pickup truck with a floating grille, pancaked and stretched hood, stretched fenders, chopped roof, 4-inch stretched wheelbase, hand-built bed and surround

1956 Chevy Bel Air two door “Smoothy”

Owner and designer: Gene Talsma, Hudsonville, MI
Body and paint: Ron Sall, Body Werx
Interior: Pro Auto Custom Interiors
Chassis: Smoothed and modified RS Tube Frame 4
Engine: 440-hp 6-liter LS V-8
Transmission: GM 4L65
Modifications include: Tucked and shortened bumpers, frenched 3rd taillight in roof, shaved and peaked hood and trunk

1967 Cadillac Eldorado “Vanilla Gorilla”

Owner: David Blattner, Big Lake, MN

Often, Autorama organizers will choose as a finalist a car whose owner or builder didn’t think they’d be competing for the Ridler trophy, but the concept and build quality are worthy of recognition. David Blattner’s shortened ’67 Eldo is one such car. As a result, the build team didn’t have printed “hero” cards or a placard with the car’s special features in the way that all the other Ridler competitors had prepared. The builder did tell me that they took a full 24 inches out of the car’s length. A stock production ’67 Eldorado is 221 inches, but Cadillac designer Wayne Kady’s original styling sketches portrayed a personal luxury car that was even longer, powered by a proposed V-12 engine. This “shorty” version was so well executed, I’m pretty sure Kady would approve.

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Nowhere were the good times of the Fabulous Fifties more evident than in Detroit, the town that ate, drank, and slept cars. If you drove northeast on Gratiot Avenue from the heart of Detroit, you would pass the under-construction interstate highway that Eisenhower had ordered and the numerous new car dealerships that dotted the avenue before coming upon Gratiot Auto Supply. The big parts store and speed shop had opened just a few years previous and was growing exponentially as it tried to supply the burgeoning ranks of hot rodders who were hungry for more of everything that made cars go fast.

You would pass shops where young men were building race cars and storefronts where ordinary folk were creating businesses that would help supply parts and equipment for the rapidly growing auto industry. If conditions were right, you might hear the roar of racecars doing battle at Motor City Speedway. For a car guy in the ’50s, there was no better place to be than here, in the capital of the automotive universe—and Al Bergler was a car guy.

At a used car lot on Gratiot, in 1952, the 16-year-old Detroit native was cleaning and polishing automobiles for 50 cents an hour. It was his second job; his first was selling peanuts and popcorn at the speedway. At the lot, Bergler was close to the action and loving it. Occasionally, he’d get behind the wheel, too: To stock the lot, the owner bought trade-ins from new car dealers all over the city, and Al was part of the crew that would herd the new rolling stock to the lot. “I always looked for the coolest car,” he said, “and then I would drive that one back to the lot.

If one of the new acquisitions showed signs of having been driven by a teen, like fender skirts, a spinner knob, or mud flaps, Al would remove the offending parts and add them to his personal hoard of car goodies. When a ’41 Ford convertible rolled into the lot, Al took a shine to it. After borrowing $75 from his grandparents, he bought the car. Thus began a personal love affair with automobiles that still keeps him busy today at a spry and very lucid 87.

When he wasn’t at the used car dealership or cruising with friends, the young Bergler was a student at Pershing High School. However, while the teacher was explaining subordinate clauses, Al was thinking about cars he would build. With his parents’ blessing, he left Pershing and enrolled at Washington Trade School in Detroit, where he studied academic subjects in the mornings and learned to weld and straighten damaged sheetmetal in the afternoons. During his last semester, he chopped the top of a ’36 Ford for a teacher. The result was far better than one would expect of student work in a shop class.

It soon became obvious that shaping metal was Al’s art and calling. After graduating from the trade school, he went to work in a body shop. In between making damaged customer cars new again, he set about building a car for himself. The first one he built was a ’34 Ford Coupe. Hankering for a street-rod roadster, Al cut the top off the Ford, prettied it up, and planted a stock Chrysler Hemi under the hood. Not yet fully aware of the physics of internal combustion engines, he mounted six Stromberg deuces atop the bone-stock engine. It took that gasping Chrysler a while to catch its breath under full acceleration, but the build was a start.

Bergler’s next build was a rear-engine Crosley drag car, powered by that same stock Hemi. Al ran it for a short time, including an appearance at the ’59 US Nationals in Detroit. However, “I didn’t have the money it would have taken to make that car right,” he said.

Without a major investment, the Crosley would never be competitive, so Al set about building his first competition coupe, using a long-extinct design that was never common but always exciting: essentially dragster frame rails with a body at the rear and the driver draped over the rear axle.

Of course, no passenger car body was ever meant to be mounted on a narrow dragster chassis with the driver moved far to the rear, but some small European cars could be modified to serve that purpose. The Austin Bantam was among the more popular choices. Of minimal weight and modest proportions, the Bantam was a nice fit for a dragster chassis.

Unfortunately for Al, whose sole source of income was his body shop job, a finished dragster chassis would have been a stretch. Instead, he ordered a Chassis Research kit, essentially a box of cut and bent tubing from which an aspiring racer might build a copy of the dragster chassis that was selling robustly on the West Coast. Al built his car using gas torches and an arc welder.

Around about this time, Al met Ron and Gene Logghe at a Michigan Hot Rod Club event. The Logghes were just getting their feet wet in the race-car-building world, turning out accessory parts like front axles. Al mounted one of their axles on his Chassis Research frame. His venerable Chrysler engine was now sporting a supercharger, and the blower moved the little coupe with some urgency, although with the engine’s near-stock internal parts, the car was still not capable of beating the top dogs on a national level. Always game, Al and his coupe—which he had named Aggravation—gave it a try, competing at NHRA’s 1960 U.S. Nationals, which were once again held in Detroit.

Active duty with the National Guard gave Al some time to think about what was next. Once free of that obligation, he got together with the Logghe brothers to build a first-class competition coupe on a brand-new chassis. For power, he purchased a long-stroke, highly modified blown Chrysler engine from Connie Kalitta, another Logghe customer. Again, Bergler chose a Bantam body. Like every car Bergler has built, this one was beautifully finished, with the Bantam body seamlessly joined to the dragster, lots of chrome, flawless paint, and every part finely detailed. He named it Aggravation II. 

Back then, many racers would premier their new drag cars at Detroit’s Autorama rod and custom show. Even though it competed against many purpose-built show cars, Bergler’s pretty coupe won the first Ridler Award in 1964, the nation’s most prestigious award for custom cars.

With its stout Logghe chassis and potent stroker Hemi, Aggravation II was a winner on the drag strip as well as on the show floor, and Al demonstrated that by winning Super Eliminator and the Best Appearing Car award at the 1966 NHRA SpringNationals. The car set AA/C records numerous times and recorded a best of 8.10 seconds at 184 mph on gasoline. Aggravation II appeared at Metro Detroit’s Woodward Dream Cruise a few years ago and is now in a museum.

At some point in the mid-’60s, Al decided Aggravation II needed a nose piece that would cover the front of the chassis, a look that was becoming common on the most attractive Top Fuel dragsters. He asked a guy who had done aluminum work for Logghe how much it would cost. $300 was the answer. At the body shop where Al spent his days, that was three weeks’ pay, so he decided to do the work himself, bending the aluminum over a four-inch pipe. Soon he was doing almost all the aluminum work for Logghe-built dragsters and funny cars. Hundreds of aluminum race-car bodies and interiors later, he’s still using the 4-inch pipe to bend metal.

“I made a bench on which I could clamp the pipe down. Still have it. Still using it.”

Al built one more competition coupe, a ’23 Model T roadster on another Logghe chassis, powered of course by his big-inch blown Chrysler motor. Ahead of its time, this “coupe” sported a canopy much like those used on today’s Top Fuel cars. At the ’67 Winternationals in Pomona, California, he won the competition coupe class and another Best Appearing Car award. The ’23-based coupe would later win Super Eliminator at the .67 SpringNationals in Bristol, Tennessee.

Bergler didn’t always work at the same body shop; for a brief period, he ran his own outfit. “During the late ’60s, I had a shop on Gratiot,” said Al. “One day, ‘Diamond’ Jim Cavallaro of Diamond Racing Engines called and said that Tom Ivo was in town and needed a place to work on his car. I told Jim he would be welcome at my shop. Ivo is a great guy but he likes to sleep days and work nights. While working at night, he played loud music. Neighbors complained, and I lost that shop.

“But that started a thing where guys on tour with their race cars would stop by for some aluminum work or just to service their car and hang out. I learned a lot from other racers, and I think they benefited as well.”

For 1970—now working from a shop on Groesbeck just around the corner from Logghe—Al remade the AA/Comp car as an AA Gas Dragster (AA/GD) with a digger-style body on the same underpinnings and raced to the runner-up spot at the 1970 NHRA Summernationals.

But the writing was on the wall. You couldn’t make much money with a gas dragster, and the fuel dragster boys with their faster, nitro-methane-burning cars weren’t doing much better. Funny Cars, on the other hand, were getting substantial appearance money from track operators all over the country, so Al teamed up with Tom Prock and built a Vega flopper on a Logghe chassis. Prock took the driver’s seat and Bergler handled the wrenches and build. A generation-two 426 Chrysler Hemi replaced the venerable gen-one Chrysler motor.

At first, Bergler and Prock drew blanks when trying to come up with a name for the car. Having previously rented out a corner of the shop to Pete Seaton and his funny car, named Seaton’s Shaker, they drew inspiration from that team. Thus was born the Motown Shaker, a funny car that would serve Bergler well for years to come. Prock, however, got an offer he couldn’t refuse—a chance to drive the Castronovo family’s Custom Body funny car—and left for the East Coast. Butch Maas then took the driver’s seat of the Motown Shaker, with Al filling in from time to time.

Most of the team’s appearances were match races, because that’s where the dollars were in the early ’70s, with the occasional national event rounding out the schedule. The Motown Shaker was a regular at the storied eight-car flopper shows held Wednesday nights at the U.S. 30 drag strip in Gary, Indiana. At one of those events, the blower exploded at half track, breaking the roof supports and leaving Al blinded. He recalls trying to spin the car out. Instead, it made a hard right turn and headed off between the light poles and out into a field. It continued across the field, which tore up the car a bit before it rolled to a stop. The track safety people couldn’t find Al and the car. He recalls standing up next to the broken car, shouting and waving his arms until he got their attention.

At some point during those profitable days of funny car racing, Al’s son Ron Bergler came on board as a wrench and crewman. In ’73, Al took over the driver’s seat full time and a Mustang body replaced the Vega’s. In ’77, the Mustang gave way to a Corvette, and in ’80 a Firebird became the last Motown Shaker.

“The match race money was drying up,” Al said, “and it was time to focus on my business.” Al brought the curtain down on his career as a pro racer, but his contributions haven’t gone unnoticed. He’s a member of both the Michigan Motor Sports Hall of Fame and the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame. NHRA has also recognized his work, honoring him with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Racing a funny car full-time in the ’70s meant you would spend far more days on the road than at home, leaving little time for anything else. So with those days behind him, Al decided that in addition to focusing more on his race car fabricating business, he would devote more time to his personal life, and he soon married his high school sweetheart, Nancy, who has now been Mrs. Bergler for some 40 years.

Al and Nancy bought a beautiful home in a forested neighborhood in Shelby Township, Michigan. A large pole barn behind the house serves as Al’s shop. Touring racers still stop by. Bob Pacitto, who worked for Logghe and has driven top drag cars including some for Connie Kalitta, stops by every day to hang, do some bench racing, and lend a hand on a job when needed. Although Al, at 87, is taking on less work, he’s still building race car bodies. When this reporter stopped by to see Al just after Christmas, Al was building a nosepiece for a customer’s dragster.

Although he hasn’t raced in over 40 years, All has done a lot of cackle tests, events where nitro-burning supercharged cars are started so the fans can hear the wonderful sound of the monster motors. At many events, dragsters and competition coupes are push-started, just as they were 60 years ago, adding an extra bit of old-time flavor. Al has cackled the Ridler-winning Aggravation II, along with various dragsters.

Al credits Ed Golden, a former Ford designer, with getting him involved. Golden had purchased the Probe AA/FD and took it to Al’s shop for restoration. When NHRA staged a cacklefest at the 2003 Hot Rod Reunion in Bowling Green, Kentucky, Golden asked Al to sit in the car and start it as it was pushed down the track. Al managed to wiggle into the seat of that old fueler and took the wheel. At the right moment, he clicked on the magneto switch and the fuel-burning supercharged Chrysler engine roared to life.

“It was an emotional experience,” said Al. “It’s like I was young and taking on the best at 200 mph with the sound of the exhaust pounding in my eardrums and flames shooting skyward to either side of me. I was overcome by memories of great times.”

“I was awe-struck; it was like I had been reborn,” he says. “When it was over, I was crying. I tried to call Nancy to tell her about it, but could barely speak.”

“’Call me back when you get yourself together,’ she said.”

***

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Brown City, Michigan is about 60 miles northwest of Detroit. The rural town of about 1300 people feels pretty far removed from the Motor City. Like much of Michigan’s “thumb,” this town’s roots are more agrarian than automotive. Yet, as the welcome signs proclaim and the city’s official insignia remind you, Brown City calls itself the “Birthplace of the Motorhome.” If nothing else, it’s certainly responsible for the genesis of that term—all thanks to what became known as the Dodge Travco Motorhome.

Quite a lot of Travco history has been lost to time, but all accounts suggest the story began in Brown City in 1958, when local farmer/ part-time trailer manufacturer Ray Frank felt the itch to design and build a rolling home-away-from-home for family vacations. The result—a fairly ungainly-looking, aluminum-clad conveyance—used Dodge powertrain and, depending on the tale you choose to believe, was constructed inside a chicken barn.

Frank’s creation wasn’t the first RV—plenty of “camping cars” and “house cars” preceded it in the decades prior—but it was the first to be christened with the name “motor home,” a term Frank coined after first trying the less-convincing “motorized trailer.” Frank ultimately hand-built several one-off copies for well-heeled travelers. No two examples were completely alike; in fact, a price list from 1960 suggests both front- and rear-engine designs were offered; Dodge engines and stratospheric price tags ($9000-$11,000, or $95,000-$116,000 today) were the only shared characteristics.

By 1961, Frank decided there was enough demand to build RVs full-time and sought a standardized chassis from which to work. Apparently a Mopar loyalist, Frank turned to Chrysler, but he didn’t quite find the chassis he required. Sure, Dodge built stripped chassis for step vans and milk trucks, but those were based on light-duty pickups and, at the time, equipped only with six-cylinder powerplants. After some coaxing, Chrysler managed to cough up a modified version of its sturdiest P300 chassis, now fitted with the A-series polyspherical-head 318 V-8 and a Torqueflite transmission. From there Frank was off to the races, building 20, 23, and 26-foot long motorhomes.

A complete upheaval of the Dodge Motor Home lineup arrived in 1963, doing away with the the varying lengths and boxy aluminum bodywork. Frank switched to a single 27-foot model, wearing a body molded from fiberglass and draped across tubular steel supports. If Frank wasn’t the pioneer of this construction method, as his entry at the R/V Hall of Fame suggests, he was certainly one of the first RV manufacturers to use it. If nothing else, the new body’s appearance was unique; his 18-year-old son allegedly helped Frank design a rotund body with a tapered tail and minimal wheel openings.

So, exactly how involved was Chrysler in this venture? To this day, it remains unclear. Some suggest Chrysler offered fiscal and engineering support to Frank and his team, pointing to that modified P300 chassis (aka the P375) as a sign of corporate patronage. Others remember that Chrysler originally declined to build and sell Frank the chassis he was looking for, forcing him to partner with a local Dodge dealer to source his chassis. That was all before Chrysler had a change of heart and ultimately developed its own line of motorhome-specific chassis.

This much is certain: Frank’s motorhome had the Mopar marketing machine on its side. Not only did Frank freely market his creation as a “Dodge Motor Home” starting in 1961, but Chrysler itself pitched the campers through its own PR office and ad agencies. By the mid-1960s, the Motor Home was a familiar sight in Dodge’s own truck sales literature and at select Dodge dealerships. Later Motor Home literature even used a logo suspiciously similar to Dodge’s own trademark. Yet despite this cozy relationship, Motor Home literature made clear these coaches were the product of an “authorized body builder.”

Frank sold the motorhome business in 1965 to PRF Industries, which owned several other RV manufacturing entities, including one that would go on to furnish interiors for the GMC Motorhome. PRF then formed a new subsidiary—Travco—to oversee the Brown City operations, which carried on molding giant slabs of fiberglass and assembling Motor Homes with little change.

Both Frank- and Travco-built motorhomes earned a reputation for being stout, well-made machines. All the conveniences of home—including integrated air conditioning, TVs, and hi-fi stereos—were available at added cost, if so desired. In its 1968 buyer’s guide issue, MotorHome Life Magazine called the Dodge Motor Home “a high-cost super-deluxe unit, lavish and top-quality in every respect, from basic engineering through interior decor.”

A later “Dodge Mahal” model further leaned into this luxurious reputation, fitting niceties like a credenza with folding table, plush carpeting, velour drapes, and a heated towel drying rack at the angled galley-style kitchen.

As these Motor Homes traveled the world, they managed to worm their way into pop culture. An early Frank-built example gained prominent placement on an episode of The Donna Reed Show while CBS News correspondent Charles Kuralt kicked off his decades-long On The Road travel series in a Dodge. Traveling country musicians seemed to hold these models in high esteem; “Doc” Tommy Scott was an early adopter, while Johnny Cash’s red-and-white example had a cameo in a 1969 documentary film about the singer.

Like many other motorhomes, Travcos were also sold as “Commercial Travellers,”—empty shells that allowed businesses to upfit the vehicle for use as a mobile office, banking center, TV repair shop, or, as in the case of two enterprising Vermonters, a mobile ice cream parlor.

Travcos also found their way into the world of motorsports. A rented 1966 example competed in the inaugural public running of the Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash, finishing dead last after driving 57 hours coast-to-coast (and ruining a freshly baked lasagna in the process). Across the pond, a Travco decked out in John Player Special colors served as a trackside shelter for Team Lotus drivers during the 1973 Formula 1 season.

So why is “motorhome” a household name when Travco isn’t? Blame stiff competition, especially in the late 1960s and early 1970s, which chipped away at Travco’s market share with more affordable options. A 1966 price list for Travco motorhomes notes a 27-foot model stickered at $11,995 before options—almost half the median price of an actual house that year. Meanwhile, Winnebago Industries was happy to sell you a new motorhome; it was shorter and less fanciful, certainly, but a motorhome nonetheless and for half the Travco’s asking price.

PRF tried to adapt. It added new model lengths and floorplans and applied the occasional styling facelift using newer Dodge chassis models with updated engine choices (the A-series 318 gave way to the 413 and, ultimately, the 440). It even went so far as to launch a less expensive (and completely different-looking) Travco-branded model in the early 1970s.

In the end, Chrysler wound up pulling the rug out from beneath the company. Looking to shed any non-core businesses as it teetered on the verge of insolvency, it exited the North American medium-duty truck and motorhome chassis markets in 1978. Travco, which remained exclusive to Dodge all this time, suddenly found itself up a creek without a chassis, unlike many of its rivals, which had already built GM-and Ford-based motorhomes for some time.

The following year, PRF sold Travco to rival Foretravel, which continued building Travco-based motorhomes—including rear-engined pusher models and a 35’ three-axle coach—into the late 1980s. After that, Foretravel focused on its own designs.

The Frank/ Travco/ Dodge Motorhome may not be as technically innovative as GMC’s all-in-house creation, nor has it inspired a cult-like following to rival that of Airstream. There is, however, a small group of loyal owners—many of whom congregate within a Facebook group chock full of historic and helpful information—who endure. These Travco die-hards find the Dodge Motor Homes endearing enough to own and, most importantly, drive.

Among their ranks, we find Hagerty reader Chase Fell of Birmingham, Alabama. While his brother originally fell in love with Travcos and discovered this particular 1966 270 model sitting in a Texas field in the late 1980s, the motorhome managed to charm Fell into bringing home the remarkably original coach in 1999.

“I’ve messed around with old cars and trucks for a while, but this is just something different,” Fell says. “Almost no one seems to have one in these parts, and certainly not at the car shows I take it to. So many Travcos suffer from ‘strip and run’ syndrome—someone has the romanticized idea of restoring one before realizing they’re restoring both a house and a car at the same time, and find themselves underwater.”

While some owners continue to use their vintage Travcos for traveling, Fell isn’t one of them. Instead, his fiberglass-bodied Mopar serves as an interesting cruiser.

“I love tinkering on it, even if I find myself repairing repairs I made 20 years ago,” Fell says, noting it helps that the kitchen cabinetry effectively serves as an in-house tool chest. “But I really just like taking it out for a drive. It doesn’t fit in my neighborhood, so even just the act of going out to take it for a spin is a day trip in itself.

“But I still love the thrill of firing it up and getting a 58-year-old RV from point A to point B without failure, even if it’s just across town. That’s enough fun for me.”

***

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The post Have Dodge, Will Travco: How One Man’s Camper Ushered “Motorhome” into the Lexicon appeared first on Hagerty Media.

At Barrett-Jackson’s marquee Scottsdale auction last month, two trends stood out. They both have to do with custom cars. First, the sheer quantity of customized vehicles was overwhelming. Second, the customs consistently brought more—sometimes much more—than their stock year/make/model counterparts, even ones restored to factory specifications. Tradition dictates that modifying your car doesn’t add value to it and indeed often detracts from its value. The results at Barrett-Jackson, particularly for several vintage Corvettes, seem to fly in the face of that tradition.

First, some background. The term “custom car” has evolved over the past twenty years. In the past, it referred to re-imaginings in the tradition of Ed “Big Daddy” Roth. They were extravagant, fanciful, and creative. They displayed little of the original car they claimed as a starting point and nodded more to cartoons than to anything seen on the roads of the real world. Over the past couple of decades, those customs have merged with a new and increasingly popular category called “restomod.”

Coined by the team at Barrett-Jackson—Craig Jackson, Steve Davis, and Gary Bennett—in the mid-2000s, restomod refers to cars that are mostly stock-appearing on top (aside from a lower stance and large modern wheels) but have completely new underpinnings. Twenty-first-century drivetrains, upgraded suspension and brakes, and comfort features like modern air conditioning are the main ingredients. The end product is supposed to feature the performance, safety, and reliability of a new car while retaining the style and presence of a classic. These make up the majority of “customs” today, which have little connection with the creations of “Big Daddy” Roth.

Where buyers buy, builders build. For buyers and builders of restomods, Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale has increasingly been the go-to auction event. This has set up a contrast between the “customs” and their restored, stock-configured counterparts. The customs are winning the battle of the bids, and they were ubiquitous at WestWorld.

Custom Corvettes were particularly abundant, and two pairs exemplify the contrast between factory-correct and thoroughly customized. The customs are fresh, professionally built, and gorgeous, but the restored cars aren’t slackers, either, and both the stock Corvettes sold at prices appropriate to their condition, options, and documentation. In each case, though, the customs won out by a large margin.

First, the pair of 1958 Corvettes—Lots 1108.1 (stock) and 1338.1 (custom). Lot 1108.1 was a factory-correct black-over-blue car with a 283 cubic-inch, 270-hp dual-quad engine, four-speed manual, hardtop and soft top, heater, and radio. An older restoration, it showed some age and miles but was still close to showroom condition. It sold for $220,000.

Lot 1338.1, meanwhile, was painted in Cashmere over Linen leather and although it had a 1958 Corvette VIN, the chassis underneath was a modern frame by noted builder Art Morrison. It also featured a 6.2-liter LT1 engine from a 2023 Corvette as well as an automatic transmission, adjustable coilovers, 19-inch alloy wheels, Wilwood disc brakes, and air conditioning. Aside from some fit issues with the windshield and door posts, it was a gorgeous, comfortable, and surely exhilarating ride. It sold for $440,000—double the final price of the factory-correct ’58.

Then there were the 1963 coupes, lots 1363 (stock) and 1363.1 (custom). Lot 1363 was a Sebring Silver over black vinyl split-window coupe restored to like new. Not only that, it was a rare Z06 Competition model, which in 1963 got you a 327 cubic inch, 360-hp fuel-injected engine, Positraction rear end, heavy-duty shocks, larger front anti-roll bar, and upgraded brakes. It was Bloomington Gold certified and has been awarded NCRS Top Flight. A genuine Z06 is among the most valuable early Corvettes, and this one sold for $330,000.

Lot 1363.1, the very next car across the block in WestWorld, was another split-window coupe finished in black over red leather. Its modern drivetrain was made up of a Wegner LS9 block, an LT4 crankshaft, a Magnuson supercharger, and a Tremec T56 6-speed manual. It rode on a low chassis frame, also from Art Morrison, as well as coilovers and a multi-link suspension. Other upgrades included Wilwood brakes, Schott alloy wheels, Vintage air conditioning, and Recaro seats. It sold for $412,500.

The contrast goes beyond price because these are of course very different vehicles despite sharing the same year/make/model. The restomods are fresh and beautiful but also up-to-date in their performance and luxury equipment. They are each unique statements of style and exclusivity. Their appeal is immediately apparent, though they may only be driven a few miles to a show or in a parade, then exquisitely detailed to remove all traces of dust, dirt, or—God forbid—mud. But as they age, even with limited and careful use, their “edge” will soften. Patina is not the friend of the restomod. A digital touchscreen from 2024 in a 1964 Corvette may look awkward and out of place in 2044.

Factory-correct restored cars age and lose their edge, too, but to a far lesser extent. Should the restored cars get used to the point where they show patina, the act of re-restoring them can also help boost their value once more. Owning one of these Corvette customs is surely a satisfying experience, not only for the feeling behind the wheel but also for possessing a singular, intricately assembled, and detailed creation with a special combination of style, power, technical sophistication, and performance. Owning one of the carefully restored original configuration Corvettes is less distinctive, but also less subjective and more historically relevant as an authentic, unmolested piece of the era that produced them.

Different versions of the same car for different buyers, then. But the collector car market, which has long favored authentic factory-correct above all else, is now embracing custom creations with open arms.

***

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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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Before we proceed, let’s ensure we are all on the same page on the concept of trolling, as Merriam-Webster defines the act as to:

“Antagonize (others) online by deliberately posting inflammatory, irrelevant, or offensive comments or other disruptive content.”

Let’s focus on the phrase “disruptive content,” because the disruption presented here is on par with Amazon versus Sears. The trolling you feel isn’t a mirage: The oddly proportioned, first-generation Mustang seen above isn’t AI generated, and its owner uses this creation as a daily driver.

Contrary to information posted elsewhere on the internet, this “Honda Stang” was placed on Facebook Marketplace with the sole intent to raise the collective blood pressures of social media users. It worked, spurring another automotive news outlet to ask, “What would possibly compel someone to do something like this?” Sadly, they answered their own question with conjecture in lieu of reaching out to the owner for an interview. Kristofer (the seller) didn’t much care for what he was reading online, but luckily we here at Hagerty have the latitude to actually interview someone before publishing a story.

I reached out and got the truth about this Honda-infused Mustang. As our phone call progressed, Kristofer started shutting the Mustang’s doors/hood/trunk while asserting, “Tell me if there’s another Honda that sounds like that!”

He’s right; the Honda Stang made metallic thuds like every first-generation Mustang I’ve experienced. Kristofer’s choice in a commuter vehicle is certainly bold, and he wasn’t shy about the ramifications of his purchase decision:

“I know this is an insult to several generations of enthusiasts with a single car, and I bought it because my co-worker hated it. I drove 14 hours to buy it: Ford people hate it, Mustang people hate it, Honda guys hate it. I’ve hit a trifecta here, but I never thought a troll post would take off like this. I mean it’s got a backup camera for god’s sakes.”

And Kristofer wasn’t kidding when he said his troll post stirred things up. The feedback from Facebook users was both frustrating and amusing, as the positive comments were occasionally overshadowed by the most offensive words you can imagine. The lack of humanity in some people is tragic, as Kristofer notes the Honda Stang is “just a car…metal, cloth, rubber, tires. It’s not worth this.” At least the misleading reporting he read elsewhere on the internet was far more entertaining. So he was thrilled to set the record straight with Hagerty, and he shared things he did not post in the listing.

Kristofer openly admits that he was neither the builder nor the intended recipient of the Honda Stang, but he’s doing what it was designed for: It’s used for commuting to work and has needed nothing aside from maintenance and regular upkeep expected for an 18-year-old Honda.

Our treats from the owner started with shared photos of the original donor cars, complete with a listing for the rust-free doors needed to make that 1965 Mustang shell into a road-worthy body transplant. The donor Mustang was indeed left to rot in a field, and the builder was the only person interested in saving it. Or ruining it, and the same could be said for the (presumably) usable 2005 Honda Accord sedan that donated its heart and soul to this project.

The build pictures of the Honda Stang show how “disruptive” things got before the final coat of shiny paint was applied. This is a hat car in all its glory: The rusty shell of a Mustang was dropped onto the Honda Accord and modified as needed to fit into its new home.

While both cars have nearly the same wheelbase (the Honda is 0.1-inch shorter), the location of the cowl in a front-wheel-drive Honda necessitated moving the Mustang’s front wheel arches further back to get the dashboard in the right spot. From there, the rear also had to move back. The custom rocker panels (lower than a stock Mustang) and deep chin spoiler (to protect the radiator support) further show how the Mustang was altered to be a Honda Accord under the skin.

A set of 17-inch Torq Thrust style wheels from a 2005 Mustang GT completes the deception, as the Honda and the S197 Mustang use the same bolt pattern. Or, as Kristofer put it,”the Honda Stang is not a K24 in a Mustang, it’s a Mustang on a Honda!” The Honda DNA truly shines in its 30-mpg fuel economy, ice cold A/C, great heat, cruise control, airbags, catalytic converters, and full OBD-II diagnostic functionality. Modifications to the Honda part of the Mustang are modest, as it sits on coilover shocks and has a Flowmaster muffler.

“Its not a Mustang sitting in a field anymore, it even gets driven in the snow.”

The “hat” car adage of being able to get anything from the local parts store also holds true, as Kristofer recently grabbed a power steering line for his “2005 Honda Accord” and installed it without a hitch. He kept the Honda-themed rocker panels but notes that passersby unexpectedly hate the non-standard fuel filler location, as it looks too much like a Mustang II. But since Honda demanded a filler neck location in that quarter panel, the Honda Stang abided.

The reality of Honda Stang ownership is that Kristofer has also been trolling his neighbors in real life. He gets negative comments on a regular basis, and is “flipped off twice a week,” as you’d expect from a four-wheeled troll with world-class engineering. But with 8000 miles of commuting under its belt, it’s hard to deny the allure of daily driving with an interior sporting the modern comforts we expect, but in a vintage wrapper complete with crank windows and a pillarless hardtop.

The interior is familiar to anyone who has been in an Accord, but the Tesla-style touchscreen in the center stack is a nice upgrade. The stereo definitely adds to the experience, complete with a Pioneer amplifier and a subwoofer from a 2006 Chevrolet Cobalt SS. Kristofer admits he is brand agnostic in his choice of subwoofers, but the hat car purists among us would insist it needs either a Honda or a Ford loudspeaker instead … am I right or what? 

That upgraded stereo runs off the Honda’s dashboard wiring, to the point the fancy screen is integrated with the airbag-equipped steering wheel’s audio controls. That was by design, and Kristofer asked me the rhetorical question, “Why should I lose creature comforts in my ’65 Mustang?”

While other automotive news sources questioned the cleanliness of the carpets, their condition is to be expected in a vehicle that sees work boots on a daily basis. Kristofer is a mechanic by trade, and the Honda Stang is his mighty steed for just about everything. He noted how the new Honda floor created a far more cavernous trunk than that of a stock Mustang, a feature he regularly puts to the test as a commuter car.

Contrary to other reports in the media, Kristofer is a dyed-in-the-wool Blue Oval fan. “I have 2011 Ford F-350 Powerstroke with 643,000 miles, and I love Ford aside from the Focus DCTs.” He just has no problem trolling people—and enjoying the fruits of combining two fantastic vehicles into one nearly perfect daily driver.

But there’s an irony in Kristofer’s “disruptive” behavior, because he received two offers at his $15,000 asking price. Both are from out of state, however, so cash wasn’t exactly flashed in his face, ensuring that “the offers are tempting but it’s hard for me to let go.” Perhaps he should actually sell, as Kristofer is still in touch with the builder, and this troll post emboldened them to go even further. There’s a chance a rust-bucket 1965 Mustang fastback will donate itself to a Subaru WRX chassis in the future. Wow.

Watch this space for any updates, and follow Kristofer on TikTok, as there’s likely more to come on this story.

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The post This Mustang-bodied Honda successfully trolled the internet appeared first on Hagerty Media.

The initials RML may not be very familiar, although the initials SWB no doubt will be. The former stand for Ray Mallock Limited while the latter, of course, stand for short wheelbase and are most commonly associated with the Ferrari 250 GT SWB. That’s the car from which this restomod (if you can even call it that) takes its inspiration.

This particular SWB, however, started life as a hypercar. Allow us to explain:

Most of RML’s work over the last 40 years has been undertaken on behalf of other people: think Aston Martin and Bizzarrini continuation cars, some championship-winning World and British Touring Cars, the McLaren Senna GTR, the Nio EP9, and the Nissan ZEOD RC, which was the Garage 56 entry at Le Mans in 2014. All have emerged from the RML workshops.

But Michael Mallock (Ray’s son, who now runs the company) wanted something for RML to really call its own. The logical thing was to design an outrageous machine with wild numbers—a hypercar to take on the Koenigsegg Jesko, McLaren Solus GT, or Aston Martin Valkyrie. After a while, though, Mallock realized that wasn’t the sort of car that he wanted to create. He wanted something that was modern but beautiful like a ‘60s GT—and something that was engaging to drive at any speed.

Thus the RML SWB was born from the underpinnings of a Ferrari 550 Maranello. Just 30 will be produced, each one costing £1.35 million ($1.7M) plus taxes, and each will be a tactile delight, with an open-gate six-speed manual gearbox, a naturally aspirated V-12, and a cabin full of beautifully wrought metal switchgear. Öhlins dampers underneath and carbon bodywork up top complete the picture.

Of course, you won’t see a Ferrari badge on the outside or inside of the car, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t legitimate heritage associated with the RML badges. You see, the Mallock name has its own story, and in the film below we take a look at the fascinating life of Arthur Mallock, one of motor racing’s true unsung heroes. It’s a story that involves some Meccano, the Official Secrets Act, and Max Mosley…

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The post In <em>The Driver’s Seat</em>: Henry Catchpole on the RML SWB appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Last Wednesday morning at 9:30 a.m., Scott Wallace and the other founders of ECD Automotive Design stood at a podium in the Nasdaq MarketSite, located in the northwest corner of a 48-level skyscraper in Manhattan. As video advertisements for ECD beamed out from the front of the building across Times Square, Wallace, the CEO of the company, and the others all pressed a big button on a computerized table. Bells rang, signaling the opening of the Nasdaq stock exchange.

The bells also signaled the beginning of trading for ECD (formerly known as E.C.D., but the company has dropped the periods), now listed on the stock exchange as ECDA. “We’re moving into a new era—not just for ECD, but for the classic-car restoration business in general,” Wallace said.

He means that. Just 11 years ago, ECD began life as East Coast Defenders, importing used-up 1983–94 Land Rover Defenders from Great Britain to the United States to rebuild and modernize them. That remains the core business, but the company has added the Land Rover Series IIA, the Range Rover Classic, and the Jaguar E-Type, which starts at $299,995 and has a 450-horsepower GM LT1 V-8 engine.

All this happens in a new, very modern, 100,000-square-foot facility in Kissimmee, Florida, just south of Walt Disney World in Orlando, just up the road from where the original factory once stood. Called the “Rover Dome,” the building contains the new factory, with two assembly lines, soon to become three. It also contains the offices of ECD Automotive Design. Everything’s under one roof.

Wallace gave me a tour of Rover Dome, which is not a dome but a long continuous building, a few weeks before the company went public. “See this employee break room? It’s bigger than all the offices combined in our original location.” Even at 100,000 square feet, Rover Dome will soon need to be expanded.

ECD has delivered nearly 600 vehicles since it was founded, many of them priced at $300,000 or more. In what’s called a “business combination,” EF Hutton Acquisition Corporation, through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) formed by affiliates of EF Hutton, is providing capital that could go toward the needed expansion.

The Hutton-led effort agreed to a $15 million private investment in public equity (PIPE) after ECD was assessed at a pro forma enterprise value of $330 million. Wallace will continue as CEO, alongside fellow founders Tom Humble, Emily Humble, Elliott Humble, and CFO Raymond Cole.

Why Land Rover Defenders? Several of the founders grew up in the Midlands of England, 40 miles from the factory that built Defenders. “They were surrounded by Defenders from an early age, and were mostly driving around on friends’ farms with bales of hay, the family dog, and sometimes the occasional farm animal,” says a brochure for the company. Overseas, the Defender isn’t the trendy vehicle it is in the U.S.—it’s a genuine workhorse.

So ECD imports often-battered Defenders from across the pond. They are literally stripped, and their old engines and transmissions, which are stacked up behind the Rover Dome, are parted out to what is apparently a surprising number of people who are restoring Defenders. Back inside, ECD disassembles the Defenders down to their bare, sandblasted-and-painted frames. Then it rebuilds them with modern components, mostly with new V-8 engines and transmissions from GM, up to and including a supercharged LT4 version.

Will ECD ever run out of Defenders to import? “Never,” Wallace said. “They’re everywhere.” The company has seven employees on the ground at Burton-on-Trent in England who do nothing but source Defenders and load them in containers for the voyage to America. There’s a healthy aftermarket making Defender body panels, but the one thing ECD must source from an original truck is the roof panel, Wallace said. “No matter how hard we try we can’t find roofs that really fit the vehicle.”

The majority of vehicles ECD sells are built to spec, entirely bespoke. At one end of the Rover Dome is a comfortable couch, across from a 72-inch TV screen. It’s next to the office of John Price, director of vehicle design. His assistant sits at a laptop while you sit on the couch and design your perfect vehicle.

Which I did, choosing a longer Defender 110, with room for seven. We started out with the color—I’d seen a lovely seafoam green Defender 90—the smaller truck, with room for five—on the assembly line. Price sorted through several shades until I found the one I liked. (Often, customers know exactly what they want—a woman recently flew to Kissimmee on her private jet to deliver a sample of the color she wanted.)

I opted for a beige leather interior, white and silver trim, including the rollover cage outside the body, and silver wheels. Flooring in the rear was polished wood. For power, being a simple man, I chose a 430-horsepower Chevrolet LS3 with an automatic transmission. I selected a suspension that was firm but not brutal. You can spend an hour designing your Defender—ECD will even select the proper dashboard clock, and show it to you on the big screen. Once satisfied, all I needed to do was come up with about $300,000 (they need $25,000 down). I was $299,975 short.

If you don’t want to wait for a bespoke build, ECD typically has some completed Defenders for sale—17 vehicles at this writing, including three 1995 Range Rovers that have been completely rebuilt, one sporting a supercharged LT4 V-8 for $209,995.

The current selection of ready-to-wear Defenders includes both the 90 and 110 models, topping out with a 1995 110 for $299,995. It and several others have an even 1000 miles on the clock—all the builds are driven that far before they’re sold to make sure nothing is wrong. Even if there is, you get a 24-month transferrable warranty and 24/7 roadside assistance. The least expensive Defender available for purchase is a previously owned 90, powered by a 5.3-liter V-8. It is $149,995.

So what does the average ECD Defender buyer do with their purchase? The majority actually use them for off-roading—often the Defender is kept at a vacation house or ranch. But some customers use their Defenders as daily drivers, just like buyers of brand-new Defenders do. (For comparison’s sake, the little 2024 Defender 90 S starts at $56,400, while the big Defender 130 V-8 with 493 horsepower starts at $116,600, plus $1475 in shipping.)

A walk through the Rover Dome is enlightening. The hundred employees are scattered through various modules, ranging from upholstery to the thoroughly modern paint booth. Most are wearing company-branded tee shirts and jeans or shorts; it’s a very casual environment. The facility is spotless, well-lit, and cooled with Big Ass Fans (that’s the name of the company). There are a lot of British accents, including those of Wallace and the other founders.

At the far end of the building are the dual assembly lines, the one on the left for Defenders, the one on the right currently dedicated to Jaguar E-Types. The cars are acquired the same way the trucks are, usually tired examples that are taken down to bare frames and rebuilt completely, typically with a new powertrain from GM.

That said, a growing part of ECD’s business is in electric conversions. It started out using Tesla motors and batteries acquired through the aftermarket, but found that these are particularly difficult to tune. ECD is now using Ampere units—Ampere is a company based in Dawsonville, Georgia, featuring “simple drop-in electric drivetrains.” One of the available Range Rovers at ECD has electric power—it’s for sale at $279,995.

ECD has built one electric Jaguar E-Type, and there was another one on the assembly line when I visited. The one that is already built has three batteries—two up front, and one in the trunk, for a total of 42 kWh. That’s good for 450 horsepower, just like the LT1 gas engine, and a range of 150 miles.

After the tour, I took a quick drive in the rain in a new Defender 110 with the 6.2-liter LS3 and an automatic transmission. It was remarkably buttoned-down, the air suspension absorbing bumps and potholes like no 1983–94 Land Rover Defender before it. Even for a relatively heavy vehicle, power was more than plentiful. Aside from the looks, the only real holdovers from the original were a startlingly wide turning circle and pedals that were so close together I needed to left-foot brake.

Otherwise, ECD’s truck looked and felt like a brand-new vehicle which, for all intents and purposes, it was.

Scott Wallace and his team are planning to go big, or go home. Will other aftermarket builders follow suit?

We’ll see.

***

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The post 11 years, 600 rebuilt Defenders, an IPO: ECD has big plans appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Road-registering Porsches that aren’t really supposed be on the road at all is a Bruce Canepa speciality. The California native has fitted license plates to 911 race cars and was instrumental in the Show or Display bill, which granted special exemptions for road cars without U.S. homologation. All legal, all above aboard, all leaving a trail of “what the … ?” in their wake when they roar past on a U.S. highway.

But if you’ve heard of Canepa, you’ll probably know there’s more to his story. He’s raced at everything from the 1979 24 Hours of Daytona (third) to the 2023 Rennsport Reunion (first), set a world record in 2002 for twin-axle big rigs at Pikes Peak, and made a name for himself beyond motorsport with his eponymous luxury car dealership, which opened in 1982.

Today, a staff of 80 works at his Scotts Valley headquarters, where Canepa is as renowned for its restoration and race preparation services as the impeccable cars on offer—engines, interiors, paint, composites… all is taken care of on-site.

But it always comes back to Porsche, so we recently caught up with Bruce for a guided tour of two projects—one a road-legal 934 race car, the other his take on Porsche’s 1980s supercar, the 959.

The 959, of course, was road-legal in most markets, just not the U.S. (Porsche declined to submit cars for crash-testing). But making it road-legal in the States over two decades ago has culminated in Canepa’s incredible 50-car run of 959 CS models, which cost around $1.6M—in addition to the cost of a base car now valued around the $2M mark. McLaren’s Zak Brown owns one example.

Canepa and 959s go back to Bruce buying his first in 1988. “I was the first to bring one to the United States. I brought it in on a tourist visa under a friend’s name from overseas, I drove it for a year—that was easy—then it went back and left the country,” he says.

But others weren’t so lucky, including Bill Gates of Microsoft, who had his car impounded at San Francisco customs. The Show or Display bill of 1998 provided the workaround.

“We passed a bill in Congress to make them legal and that really became an exemption for cars that weren’t homologated in the U.S.,” Canepa says. “There had to be fewer than 500 cars in production that were also historically or technically significant as well as never intended to come here.”

Cars did not need to meet U.S. crash standards and could be driven for 2500 miles per year (though a retiring official later confessed there was no enforcement on that figure—good job, given one Canepa customer racked up 72,000 miles).

The 959s did, however, need to meet U.S. legislation for the year of production. It meant some significant work for the 2.8-liter flat-six, which features an air-cooled block, water-cooled four-valve heads, and sequential turbochargers (one for low-rpm boost, then a big hitter to make the numbers).

“We switched to Motec management, switched the turbos, put on knock sensors and cats, and did a bunch of stuff, ” Canepa says. “We not only got them to pass the federal emission standards but we passed CARB—California Air Resource Board—which was unheard of pretty much.”

Passing emissions standards also simultaneously led to Canepa unlocking massive amounts of pent-up power.

“We put an engine on the dyno and it didn’t look right—you got the one turbo, and it starts increasing in power, then all of a sudden it’s gone and then it starts coming back up again,” recalls Canepa. “A guy from Weissach was kind of helping us on the side and he said ‘Yeah, that’s the way they are.’ He couldn’t tell me what to do, but he would tell me what not to do. So I said I’m going to put twin turbos on it (rather than sequential) and he said, ‘That’s right, you’ll notice we never did that sequential turbo thing again!’”

The result was a bump from 444 hp to 580 with catalytic converters and 91-octane fuel and no internal modifications. The engine has been developed ever since.

Canepa then turned attention to the chassis, taking the simplified and inch-lower 959S suspension set-up as its jumping-off point. “The only thing I disliked about the first year in my car was the hydraulic suspension. It was a pain in the ass and would porpoise and do weird things. Our coilovers have titanium springs and Penske builds our shocks—it’s much more controlled but still very compliant.”

Canepa has also upgraded the brakes and offers magnesium hollow-spoke alloys with the look of the originals but a diameter increased from 17 to 18 inches—the size Porsche originally intended to fit but couldn’t due to the lack of a suitable tire.

The expertise means that from the total production of 292 units never intended for U.S. sale, Canepa estimates 87 to 90 have passed through his workshops. Today that has culminated in the 959SC, a 50-unit run that “reimagines” Porsche’s first supercar and is billed as the final evolution of upgrades Canepa will ever create for the 959.

Upsetting for some purists it may be, but a 959SC does represent a sympathetic and highly appealing package of upgrades far beyond what Porsche ever could have imagined in-period.

The entire build is said to take 4000 hours, with over 500 devoted to prepping the body alone, which is painted either in Porsche’s paint-to-sample colors or a one-off shade. A further 400 hours are lavished on the gorgeous interior, the detail extending even to new tool pouches and owner’s manual in matching leather.

But the most impressive numbers of all are reserved for the engine, described by Canepa as its fourth generation and engineered by legendary tuner Ed Pink. Highlights include twin BorgWarner turbos with internal wastegates, new pistons to raise the compression a little, Pankl titanium connecting rods, and an upgraded valvetrain. It’s an exhaustive and all-encompassing overhaul good for a massive 850 hp with 650 lb-ft of torque.

The vibe is very much ultra-luxury GT, and no two 959SCs will ever be alike.

Canepa’s 934 project, meanwhile, goes back to Bruce’s racing roots. He entered his first sports car race at Sears Point in 1978 driving a Porsche 934.5 (essentially the Group 4 racing version of Porsche’s 930 Turbo road car, with the rear wing and wheels from the 935 Group 5 racer) then upgraded to the last factory-built 935 the following season. It’s a car he still owns and he raced it to victory at Rennsport this year.

When it debuted, the 934 race car was incredibly close to production specification, making it an ideal candidate for a road conversion. Porsche produced just 31 examples, and Canepa has converted four for road use. The blue car pictured is Bruce’s own 934.5.

“Guys laugh when I tell them, but I say it’s just a 1976 911 Turbo, you know?” says Canepa. “The front spoiler doesn’t rub, it’s got good ground clearance, we soften it up a little bit, put in a really good brake pad, and I just throw my luggage in the back—it’s easy.”

Each 934 undergoes a typically meticulous Canepa restoration, with a paint finish the race cars could only dream of (and which originality buffs might balk at) as well as attention to detail throughout. Bruce highlights the trademark rivet-on arches.

“When these were built, the flares never fit like this, but we have a composites guy in-house to get it just right,” Canepa explains, before talking us through wheels with period-correct center-lock nuts but an upgrade in diameter from 16 to 17 inches.

Inside—as it was in-period—the feel is very much road car with a few racing upgrades. There’s a racing seat with harnesses, a roll cage, a small-diameter steering wheel, and that’s pretty much it.

“The factory delivered these cars with carpet and power windows, so we take the lollipop seat, split it in half, and add one or two inches, depending on the size of the guy,” he explains. “The only thing I change is the rubber matting material underneath the carpet, particularly at the back, just to kill the noise. I put electric A/C in one or two of them, and it’s got all the things you need, a gas gauge, a speedometer, a handbrake …”

Much like with the 959, the 934 engine is also tuned to be much more driveable, notably with a Garrett turbocharger featuring modern wastegate technology to reduce lag, and Motec management so it starts from cold and idles smoothly, then delivers its power progressively. The twist is the output—a huge 670 hp in a car weighing around 2535 pounds.

The third car converted by Canepa was an orange example for actor and comedian Jerry Seinfeld. “Jerry has done a lot of miles in his car, and he just sent me a text last week saying it’s four years to the day since he’d fired it up and driven off on New York plates.”

Canepa’s own website shows the car idling in its workshops, then cuts to Seinfeld at the wheel, grinning like a man who knows he can drive a racecar straight past a police car without going to jail.

What comes next for Canepa? “I’m going to do the Carrera GT,” reveals the founder. “I’ll do all the interior, a proper clutch, figure out a wheel … it just needs a couple of things to make it more user-friendly. It’ll be very understated.”

Given Canepa’s track record, “a couple of things” will likely evolve into a whole lot more. Watch this space.

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The post Talking Porsches with Bruce Canepa appeared first on Hagerty Media.

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.

The concoctions we cover in our Homegrown feature series are usually the products of simmering adulthood creativity, constructed by individuals with superfluous time and money on their hands. But, as the cliché goes, for every rule there is an exception: The “car” depicted here began as 14-year-old Deacon Fancher’s sketches. It subsequently took shape over five years of effort between Fancher and his grandpa, Bill Spadafora, aka Popops.

Deacon, now 19, is a sophomore at Oakland University in Auburn Hills, Michigan, enrolled in journalism and film studies. He not only dreams about constructing cars, he hopes to someday write about them. (Please don’t hold that against him.) His other fantasy is to add bodywork, lighting, and the equipment that will make his car eligible for plates and street driving.

The term that best fits Deacon’s vehicle is cyclecar, reflecting that it is a motorcycle/car tweener with open wheels. The cyclecar’s brief moment of glory occurred in the 1910s and early ‘20s before the versatile Ford Model T booted them in automotive history’s ditch.

Deacon explains, “To get my project rolling, I bolted an 8.5-horsepower Honda single-cylinder engine and CVT from a snowmobile in the back of a steel-tubing spaceframe bent and welded by Popops in his garage. Grandpa is retired from an engineering career at GM, Bosch, Dana, and BAE in the Detroit area so he brings the expertise I lack to this project.

“Our wheelbase is 86 inches, track widths are 49 inches, overall length is about 11 feet. While the original idea was seating for two, there’s not going to be room for a passenger once I add a shifter and the necessary control pedals.

“Various chassis parts including the rack-and-pinion steering gear, brakes, and wheel hubs came from a Yamaha Rhino 700 side-by-side utility vehicle. Our control arm suspension system is homemade from steel tubing. Here, grandpa used Suspension Analyzer on screen to refine the geometry. The Factory Spec spring-shock units were purchased new via Amazon.

“I admire pre-war cars so we selected Ford Model A wire wheels fitted with Universal 19-inch bias-ply tires. Popops machined the adapters necessary to bolt these wheels to our Yamaha hubs. So far, our investment is about $2800 just for parts. My car runs, drives, and draws smiles wherever we take it. I belong to Oakland U’s Golden Grizzlies Formula SAE racing team so there is ample advice concerning what to do next.

“A 95-horsepower 1100-cc four-cylinder engine and five-speed transmission from a Yamaha Maxim XJ motorcycle are already in hand to add speed. My car’s curb weight is below 1000 pounds so excellent acceleration and decent cornering are assured.

“We’re just starting to think about bodywork. Naturally my SAE team members suggest using molded carbon-fiber panels which would require lots of learning on my part. More realistic options are fiberglass, aluminum, and canvas.

“The current John Deere bucket seat will definitely be replaced by something with a lower hip position to drop the top of my head well below the current 4-foot-tall upper frame loop.

“I feel very lucky on two counts—my family totally supports this fantasy and working elbow-to-elbow with Popops has been amazing fun. Every break I get from school gives us the chance to advance our project another step.”

While it hasn’t been Hagerty’s habit to cover Homegrown builds in progress, with installment reports, that’s precisely what we’re up to here. We’re not only anxious to see Deacon’s car finished, we’re hoping to be near the head of the line for a test drive.

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It’s a scene as American as apple pie on the fourth of July: A barn interior, about half a century ago. There, in southwest Michigan, Scott DeGaynor and his six-year-old son Jon are working on a car. Though American in essence and origin, the machine is far from typical Big Three fodder. It’s a Devin Special—a fiberglass sports car body married to a home-built chassis and a V-8 powertrain. That combination afforded mid-century Americans of even modest means a chance at besting the rich kids in their imported Ferraris and Porsches.

In the barn, Scott DeGaynor is doing what he loves most, what he will spend a lifetime doing: building powerful machines. Young Jon DeGaynor is learning to take things apart, put them back together, and how to form metal and weld. He’s learning to appreciate and love automobiles, particularly fast and nimble sports cars of the homebrewed variety. That passion still burns bright five decades later.

Scott, now 81, and Jon, 57, still work on cars together. They are often preparing or racing one of their two Devin Specials, with which they’ve tasted victory in a variety of vintage racing series.

First cobbled together by dad in the early 1960s, the first DeGaynor Devin Special, modified and updated many times over, still wins races today. Like other homebuilt Devin-bodied sports cars, the Degaynor’s was inspired by the 1958–59 Devin SS, a rare American sports car that combined a powerful Corvette V-8 with a lightweight body and a refined ladder-frame chassis. Predating the Shelby Cobra, the SS won a number of class titles and made its mark at Pikes Peak, in SCCA racing, and at road courses around the country. That success continued well into the 1960s.

Oklahoma-born Bill Devin, aka “the Enzo Ferrari of Okie Flats,” was an aircraft mechanic and Navy veteran. Based in California, he got his start in cars modifying a Crosley Hotshot. He built his first from-scratch sports car, the Devin Panhard, in 1954, a year before the Corvette premiered. Constructed on a chassis of Devin’s own design, the Panhard sported a fiberglass body produced from a mold taken off a Deutsch-Bonnet. Molding fiberglass was a relatively new technique at the time, and Devin had to develop his own methodology.

Under the swoopy body was a 745-cc, horizontally opposed two-cylinder Panhard engine that Devin had fitted with overhead cam heads cribbed from a motorcycle. The car was successful on the track and soon Devin developed a shapely body that he could produce in 27 different sizes to fit a variety of chassis. He also produced some turnkey sports cars in limited numbers, such as the Devin C and the Devin D.

The Devin SS, the crowning achievement of Devin’s work, was created in collaboration with two Irish race car drivers—Malcolm MacGregor and Noel Hills. The Irishmen engineered and built a tube chassis with fully independent suspension and disc brakes. After the chassis was shipped to the U.S., the curvy Devin body and 283-cu-in Chevy V-8 were fitted. The car was a technical success, competing head-to-head with Ferraris that sold for more than twice the price. Unfortunately, it was not a financial success; after completing 15 cars, Bill Devin was bankrupt.

Today, very few examples of the SS remain, and Bill Devin died more than 20 years ago, but Devin bodies are still produced by Devin Sports Cars of Abington, Pennsylvania. And over the years, many enthusiasts and racers have mounted Devin bodies on homebuilt chassis or underpinnings cribbed from another car. The resulting vehicles are today known as Devin Specials.

Early Devin Specials—those built in the style of the SS, with V-8 engines and capable underpinnings—are considered classics in their own right. California hot rodder and racer Ak Miller created one of the best-known Devin Specials, which he dubbed the Cobra Kit Special. His creation was a Devin body mounted on an AC Bristol chassis. He added a Shelby-modified Ford 289-cu-in V-8 and won the Pikes Peak Hill Climb in 1964.

When Scott DeGaynor broke ground on his Devin Special in 1962, he built it on MG frame rails with substantial bracing and a roll cage on top. For power he chose a Studebaker V-8, which soon yielded to a DeSoto Hemi, and, ultimately, a 327 cu-in Chevy engine. Over the years the car was continually modified, and when Jon was old enough to wield a wrench and a welding torch, he became part of dad’s team.

By the time he was in high school, Jon was taking turns behind the wheel of the sports car, which had proved very competitive in local road racing events. Life, however, got in the way of racing for the DeGaynors, and they parked the Devin in 1984, soon after Jon graduated from high school.

Decades passed, but for a father and son who had worked and raced together, a restoration of the old Devin was inevitable—a matter of when, rather than if. In 2010, Jon and Scott started thinking about what they might do with their sports car that sat under a tarp. Rather than just dive in unarmed, they consulted with people who actively raced Devins in vintage events. That led them to Jim Melton in Wisconsin, who had built a beautiful and quick 1959 Devin Special for Group 4 competition in the Vintage Sports Car Driver Association series. (Group 4 is for pre-1962, limited-production sports cars.) Ideas started coagulating.

Jon and his dad couldn’t agree on how to spec out the Devin, so they instead decided to race two cars. One would be the car dad had built so many years ago, and the other would be Jim Melton’s Group 4 Devin, which Jon purchased. You can see where this is going; father and son could race each other in Group 4 vintage events. And they went at it with gusto.

Soon thereafter, Dad’s car was stripped down to the bare outer frame rails and completely rebuilt with a new tube chassis modeled largely after that of the Melton-built car. In 2016 it was equipped to compete in Group 6, which allows wider tires and later-model engines among other things. Most important, Group 6 it draws larger fields and offers better competition than Group 4.

By 2018, dad was approaching 80 years of age and decided his days in the cockpit were over. (He still took to the skies in a BD-4 airplane, one of three aircraft he built over the years.) The DeGaynor father and son nevertheless remain inseparable, and they continue to race together. Jon takes the wheel of the Group 6 car while dad serves as crew chief.

I saw Jon’s Group 4 Melton-built car at the American Speed Festival in Pontiac, Michigan. It was one of a score of race cars the folks from the M1 Concourse track had invited to participate in the annual event. Sporting a very retro-looking 350-cu-in small-block Chevy topped with an ancient four-deuce manifold, plus a beautifully finished cockpit and shiny black paint, the Devin Special immediately caught my eye. A peak under the rear revealed a Jaguar rear end and fully independent suspension. Up front is rack and pinion steering. Coilover shocks sit at all four corners.

When they fired up that motor for a demonstration lap on the M1 tarmac, the car won my heart. On the track, it accelerated briskly down the straightaway and tucked in tightly in the corners.

The Group 6 car—the car with which the DeGaynors most often compete—is powered by a 327 Chevy with a single four-barrel carb. In the rear is a Ford 9-inch solid axle. Although less technically sophisticated than the Jaguar rear on the Group 4 car, Jon says the solid axle provides more predictable handling given that camber change is not part of the equation, as it can be with older fully independent rear suspension designs. Jon says his Group 6 car is approximately 10 seconds per lap faster than the Group 4 car on most circuits.

As the 2023 racing season draws to a close, dad’s car has been doing great in Group 6 with Jon at the wheel. If the DeGaynors and their pretty all-American machine haven’t clinched a Sportscar Vintage Racing Association (SVRA) Group 6 season championship by the time you read this, you can be sure they came darn close.

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I’m behind the wheel of what I consider to be perhaps the most beautiful Ford Mustang ever built, a Bullitt-esque Highland Green 1968. This one packs 710 horsepower under the hood and bites the pavement with Michelin radials mounted on gray Torq Thrust wheels. If I were to be chasing a Dodge Charger, all raised intersections would look like jumps.

Unfortunately, we’re in Orlando, where intersections are mostly flat and thus do not resemble those in San Francisco. There’s no vintage Charger in sight. And we can’t officially call this car a “Bullitt” Mustang, since Tom Scarpello, founder and CEO of Revology Cars, doesn’t have the rights to that name. We’ll just refer to it the way they do in the Revology factory: the Option B build.

There’s no point in asking Scarpello what car his buyers cross-shop the Revology Ford Mustangs with, because the answer is, not much. “Maybe a Porsche 911 GT3 RS,” he says. “And you couldn’t find two more different cars.”

His customers are mostly people who can buy what they want, so even at $300,000, they aren’t giving up much to buy one of Scarpello’s cars.

Of course, such automotive enthusiasts may number in the hundreds, rather than thousands, which is fine with Revology’s head: The company was founded in 2014, and total production is well under 200 so far. There are customers for everything Revology builds.

“Builds” being an important word here: Revology Mustangs are not restomods, which are by definition modernized original vehicles—truly vintage cars with updated brakes, powertrains, suspension, tires and wheels, and maybe air conditioning. More involved projects—the whole-hog extreme being the Porsche 911 “reimaginations” executed by Singer Vehicle Design—extensively modify the exterior and interior, as well.

The 1968 fastback Mustang I am driving shares no parts with an original car, despite the spot-on appearance. It’s new, as in all-new,  from the ground up. That means it drives like a car right off the showroom floor, rather than a 56-year-old antique with every kink ironed out. This fresh-from-the-box element is a central reason why his customers like Revology Mustangs so much—they can be—and often are, a daily driver.

Restomods “are a collection of parts,” Scarpello argues. “They aren’t necessarily an engineered platform. The reality is, it’s asking too much. The guys who build them are talented, but the parts involved may not play well with each other. It’s just not realistic.

“So my idea was to start with one platform, and that’s all we’re going to build. Every car we build will have the same basic architecture. Electrical, powertrain, chassis, everything. And we’ll do different body styles on top of it that make it look different, but each one is essentially the same car. And that’s what we’ve done.”

Scarpello and Revology builds steel-bodied Mustangs from 1966 to 1968, in convertible, 2+2 fastback, and Shelby GT350/GT500 forms, each riding on that same platform.

Scarpello’s 51,000-square-foot facility in an industrial park near the Orlando airport, a former pharmaceutical repackaging facility. It’s is his second real factory; the first was a dark warehouse on the outskirts of town. He’s already looking for more real estate and more employees to add to the 104 already working on site; the current factory isn’t cramped, but it’s getting full.

None of this could have happened unless Scarpello was able to get permission from Ford and Shelby to build these Mustangs. He spent time as an executive at Jaguar, Nissan, and Infiniti, but he also ran Ford’s Special Vehicle Team. SVT, you’ll recall, built the SVT Mustang, Contour, Focus and the second-generation Ford Lightning, and working at that job gave Scarpello an introduction to Ford’s top management. He credits his former boss at Ford for helping secure a license to build these new-old models.

It doesn’t hurt that Ford CEO Jim Farley is a Revology fan, and that two Ford family members—Edsel, and Bill, who bought one for his wife, Lisa—own Revology Mustangs, with a third Ford family member presently planning out his build.

“No one had ever done this before. It’s difficult to get a company like Ford to do anything like this. Big companies operate on inertia, or competitive reaction, like if the other guy across town is doing it. And that wasn’t the case.

“The plan was always to build licensed cars. We never considered ourselves to be a custom shop. Our goal was always to be a manufacturer.”

Compared with most new cars, resale value appears to be plenty high. Revology has four certified previously-owned cars for sale, at an average price of $292,375. The cheapest is a 1966 convertible for $216,000.

The level of detail on these cars is remarkable, and authenticity is respected wherever possible. Scarpello could easily ring up Recaro, for instance, and buy some perfectly fine seats. Instead, his craftsmen design and build each seat for each car.

Otherwise, “We pick the parts that we want, and then we redesign the platform to accommodate them,” Scarpello says.

Example: The high-performance Ford engines Revology uses generate a lot of heat. It would have been simple to survey the aftermarket and gobble up a decent three- or four-core radiator and some cooling fans, but his engineers took the entire Ford factory cooling system associated with the engines and re-engineered the front of the car to make it fit. “We have cars in Arizona, as well as Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and we’ve never had a cooling issue,” Scarpello says. “That kind of thing would not be feasible for a restomod builder. Couldn’t do it.”

Revology has 176 cars in 18 countries, Scarpello tells us, and the cars are drivers even outside the U.S. An owner of a Revology 1968 GT Fastback Mustang, Botswana’s Clinton Van Vuuren, entered it in The Cape 1000 this year, a rugged four-day drive starting and finishing in Cape Town, South Africa. In many ways a typical Revology customer, Van Vuuren has a collection of 60 classic vehicles.

There are some celebrity owners too, like comedian and car collector Kevin Hart, who has a black 1965 convertible. “Two of our owners have five of our cars apiece,” Scarpello says, and a third is buying one of all eight models Revology offers. Base price for a 1968 Mustang GT 2+2 fastback Cobra Jet: $291,760.

The car I am driving, build number 184, was pulled directly off the production line before final inspection. Clearly Scarpello had enough confidence in it to put a writer behind the wheel.

Its options range from polished, flush-mounted hood latches ($635) to a Focal K2 sound system ($4895) to full Nappa leather upholstery ($10,475). The leather-wrapped, three-spoke steering wheel (no airbag, not required under the law) is $1290. I would have preferred the wood steering wheel, but that’s my only complaint. The perfectly-applied Highland Green metallic paint (which is not saying it’s a Bullitt) costs $975.

Those charcoal Torq Thrust wheels ($2195) hold fat P275/40ZR17 Michelin Pilot Sport PS2 radials. Carpet is square-weave wool: $3375. Under the hood isn’t the Cobra Jet engine but something better and much more powerful: A Roush-tuned 5.0-liter supercharged V-8 rated at 710 horsepower and 610 lb-ft of torque. Transmission is a close-ratio Tremec T56 six-speed manual, attached to a heavy-duty driveline. A 10-speed automatic is also available; take rate between that and the manual is about 50/50.

Push a button and the engine roars to life, burbling through a Borla exhaust. Snick it into gear—clutch action is firm but not tiringly so—and go: The suspension, with coil springs and control arms up front and a live axle out back, is stiff but adequately compliant. The ride won’t beat you up but it does allow for very flat cornering, on whatever few corners we can find on Florida roads.

The Tremec is typically a smooth-shifting transmission, no different in this application. Blast through second and third gears and the Borla’s exhaust note goes from burble to roar. The very good kind of roar. Power rack and pinion steering is light, and the big 13-inch brakes work as you’d expect for a modern street machine.

Yes, I can see this as a daily driver: All I need is $322,130 to make it happen.

Bottom line: If Detective Frank Bullitt had one of these cars, and we aren’t saying this is a Bullitt Mustang, the chase scene in the movie would have been a whole lot shorter.

***

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I’ve driven my ’55 Bel Air in almost every Woodward Dream Cruise, Metro Detroit’s nostalgic celebration of automotive culture that springs up each August. This year my wife, our adult son, and I decided to just enjoy the show, whereas in past years I’ve frequently spent the day reporting on some assignment. We cruised to the event’s Ferndale starting point in the early morning, then headed north to Hunter House for a breakfast of cheeseburger sliders, with stops at Pasteiner’s AutoZone Hobbies and at a the Cruise’s unofficial epicenter near 13 Mile. There we bumped into our friends Ken and Susan Lybolt, whose Barbie car Austin Healey was recently featured on these pages, but I was soon distracted by a screaming-orange hot rod.

It was a 1937 Fiat Topolino with big gum in back and skinny tires up front, looking for all the world like a fuel altered car from the golden age of drag racing, and parked just across the street from the Lybolt machine. The orange paint appeared to be nearly flawless from a distance, with nicely rendered lettering identifying the car as “Orange Crush.”

I walked over to take a closer look. The car was built on a tube chassis, much like early funny car designs. Nestled between the rails was a carbureted big-block Chevy. “Okay, a drag car,” I thought, but no—it had headlights, taillights, and even a side mirror. “Street altered,” if there is such a thing, would be a more apt descriptor. Little did I know that I was just scratching the surface of this pretty little orange car, which despite looking new and unmolested, was a in fact a mystery machine at least thirty years in the making.

On Dream Cruise day, machines that no one would ever expect to find on a public road motor up and down Woodward. I’ve seen an Isetta with a Chevy V-8 in back, a motorized unicycle, and a rolling outhouse overflowing with clowns. But this was my first Fiat Topolino hot rod coupe.

I called out to a crowd of spectators on the side of the road, inquiring after Orange Crush’s owner. No response, so my family and I left, but later I called Ken and asked if the Fiat owner had returned. “Gone,” he said, “took off down Woodward.”

Later that day, I got a text from Susan that included an image of a business card. “We saw the Fiat Topolino cruising down Woodward and Ken flagged him down,” she wrote. The owner’s name: Jim Hudnut. Naturally, I called and arranged for a time to meet.

Hudnut the car nut

Hudnut is a Motor City old-timer, a friendly wrench who proved even more interesting than his unique automobile. His hands are grease-stained and calloused, as are the paws of any mechanic worth their salt. He grew up in Lathrup Village, a middle-class Metro Detroit neighborhood. He graduated from Southfield High School in 1970, coming of age in the days when you were either a jock, a scholar, or a car guy.

Hudnut has always been a car guy to his core. Right out of high school he picked up a ’57 Chevy, sans motor, for $300 and built a 301-cubic-inch small-block Chevy in the basement of his parents’ house. Those 301s were the hot ticket for low-buck racers back then. All it took was a 283 V-8 bored 0.060-inch over stock. The 283, an engine produced in the millions by GM, could be had for a song in just about any boneyard. Aftermarket pistons, like those in the J.C. Whitney catalog, sold for about $100 a set, and Chevy’s legendary Duntov 30-30 camshaft was available for $50 or so.

In Hudnut’s ’57 shoebox, that 301 small-block was good for low 14-second ETs—fast enough to win stock class at Detroit Dragway or turn away the rich kids’ GTOs and Chevelles on Woodward or Telegraph Road.

“We raced on Telegraph,” Hudnut said. “Woodward was high-dollar stakes, but you could stoplight race on Telegraph for pocket change.”

A couple years of study at Northwood University (Michigan’s training ground for auto industry professionals) got Hudnut started in the service station business. In the early ’80s he signed on as a mechanic at Mel Farr Ford, eventually earning his credentials as a Ford Master Technician. Drag racing and fast cars became distant objects in the rear-view mirror as time passed. Wanting to escape the busy, closed-in suburbs of his youth, he bought a few acres of land wedged between the big state parks near Brighton, Michigan.

Never afraid of hard work, Hudnut singlehandedly built a log cabin on that land in 1990. Not just any old log cabin, either, but a 2400-square-footer made with timbers trucked in from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and joined with 12-inch spikes pounded in with a sledgehammer. When Mel Farr’s 11 Ford dealerships went blooey in 2002, depriving him of steady work, Hudnut opened his own repair business in a pole barn behind the cabin.

Life for Jim and Terrie, his wife of 47 years, was good. The business supported them well, the house was paid for, and the handful of neighbors who lived nearby became friends.

One of those neighbors was an old drag racing buddy from back in the day, who kept telling him how the guys they grew up with were racing again. So, when Hudnut reached retirement age in 2018, he decided to get together with the old gang on the drag strip. Not wanting to spend a fortune building a car from scratch, he bought a cool little Henry J street machine and set about converting it to a drag car. Today, it runs 10.80s in Open Comp at Milan Dragway. With a dose of nitrous it has run 9.80.

A Fiat comes calling

The Henry J was enough for Hudnut … until he spotted the blistering orange Fiat Topolino in a Facebook Marketplace ad. It was a basket case, having been disassembled for reasons unknown and advertised for sale by a guy not far away; Hudnut dropped by to have a look. He apparently liked what he saw, and at $7K, the price was more than reasonable. Beating out a line of would-be buyers, he plunked down the cash and dragged the machine home in boxes.

Hudnut learned very little about the Fiat’s history from the seller, who surmised it had been built about 40 years prior by Dominic Blasco, a well-known Chicago area drag racer who has managed numerous drag strips. The car came with a title, but the Michigan Secretary of State (DMV in most other states) couldn’t provide any information about previous owners.

The car’s origin wasn’t a matter of deep concern for Hudnut, so he got to work. In short order, the Topolino was together, using the parts supplied by the seller. Among them were a tube chassis and a fully assembled big-block Chevy V-8 displacing 413 cu in. Hudnut has dug into the engine and reports it has a hydraulic cam and pistons with a small dome, which means it’s likely a stock 375-horsepower factory engine with a bit of an overbore that should bump output up a bit. Of course, even 375 horsepower is more than enough for a car that weighs about 1600 pounds.

Other equipment includes a Powerglide transmission with a streetable 11-inch torque converter and a ’58 Corvette third member. That rear end gives Hudnut pause, as the axles had apparently been shortened and welded to fit the narrowed case.

Future plans include replacing the Corvette rear with a narrow nine-inch Ford unit. Also due for replacement are the Mickey Thompson rear tires, which are far too old to be driven on with even minor aggression. The engine can be left as is, since it runs well and will probably be very reliable and powerful enough to take the little car to some healthy elapsed times, should Hudnut decide to run the car at the track.

I photographed the Orange Crush Fiat on the expansive lawn behind Hudnut’s oversized log cabin. If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn the car was a recent build, given its condition. Hoping to learn more I called Blasco, who is currently managing the US 41 Dragstrip in Indiana. He barely remembered the car, saying he didn’t build it and had owned it only briefly in the ’80s or ’90s, driving it just a few times before selling it. He thinks the chassis was built by the first owner but couldn’t remember from whom he had purchased it or exactly when that had occurred. (None of this is surprising given that Blasco has owned many drag cars in the years since.)

Thus, Orange Crush’s origin remains a mystery. Perhaps an informed reader will recognize the pretty little faux Fiat and tell us more about it in the comments section below.

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The door shuts, the key turns, and there’s a whirring of the fuel pump before the starter motor cranks away and the engine catches. There’s an explosion as fuel is compressed and ignited, and the 5.75-liter V-8 settles to a chugga-chug-chug, fumes filling the air and hydrocarbon flecks spitting from the exhausts. It is everything and more you’d hope from a 1970 Ford Mustang Mach 1—theatrical, attention-seeking, and a hint of the anti-establishment, ready to melt rubber into the road and race for pink slips.

The Mach 1, however, is being moved to make way for a 1965 Mustang of an altogether different kind. When the key is turned in that car’s dashboard, there’s no explosion of internal combustion and no fumes from exhausts to melt the hairs in your nose and bring tears to your eyes. Instead, you hear the faint whir of electrical systems waking up and running checks. Then you turn the key further, ease down the brake pedal, and nudge the short shift lever from neutral to drive, before leaning into the accelerator.

The imperious hood of the Mustang coupe emerges from the workshop of Alan Mann Racing, and a passing driver of a delivery van appears somewhat perplexed that an American pony car is moving without making a sound—or rocking on its suspension to the beat of a V-8.

It may be equally perplexing to those familiar with Alan Mann Racing (AMR), the British team that ruled the grid during the swinging Sixties. The company was founded in 1964 by Alan Mann, after his success in motor racing impressed Ford so much that the carmaker effectively set him up as its European racing operation. Alan Mann Racing became part of the blue-blood brotherhood, and Fords would capture the most high-profile championships of the era, including the British Saloon Car Championship, the European Touring Car Challenge, and the FIA World GT Championship for Manufacturers. Meanwhile, the drivers behind the wheel were the best of the best: John Whitmore, Jacky Ickx, Bo “Bosse” Ljungfeldt, Graham Hill, Frank Gardner, Jackie Stewart, Richard Attwood, and Bruce McLaren all did battle in AMR cars.

Ford pulled the plug on its “Total Performance” strategy, and in turn its European satellite racing operation, at the end of 1969. Alan Mann switched to aviation, developing Fairoaks Airfield, on the doorstep of his old racing workshop in Surrey, as well as a successful helicopter leasing business. It wasn’t until 2003, and an opportunity to share driving duties at the Goodwood Revival, that Mann got the bug for racing again, reviving Alan Mann Racing for historic motorsport.

Mann died in 2012, which left AMR in the safe hands of his sons, Henry and Tom. Today, the workshop is a handful of miles from the site of the original garage in Byfleet. And the first question for Henry Mann is obvious: Why electrify a Mustang?

“We’d always wanted to do a Mustang restomod,” says Henry, “because we’d done so many rally and race Mustangs, and quite a lot of road cars too, and figured we could do a half-decent job of a restomod Mustang.” In February 2022, Ford contacted Henry and Tom, inviting the brothers to the unveiling of its Ford GT Alan Mann Heritage Edition, a special version of the supercar that paid tribute to AMR’s lightweight 1966 Ford GT experimental race cars. During the event, held at the Chicago Auto Show, Henry was rather taken by a 1978 F-100 pickup “Eluminator” concept that Ford had played around with, dropping out its straight-six engine and fitting the battery-electric powertrain and front and rear electric traction motors from a 2021 Mustang Mach-E GT. “It was really popular, and the lines to ride in it were huge. There was so much interest in it.”

While at the show, Henry met another Henry—another Henry Mann, in fact—who happened to be the first owner of the 2022 Ford GT Alan Mann Heritage Edition. The two concluded that an electrified Mustang with the Alan Mann Racing name attached to it would be a very cool thing indeed.

After more than a year of development, in partnership with Nick Mason, a former vehicle development engineer at Ford who founded EcoClassics in Maldon, Essex, AMR had a prototype up and running.

Henry explains that beneath the surface of this standard looking 1965 Mustang—called the Alan Mann Legacy ePower Mustang—sits an off-the-shelf inverter, motor, and battery management system, all sourced from China, while the two battery boxes were designed in Britain specifically to fit the Mustang. The motor and one battery sit in the engine bay, the other battery is in the boot, giving a 50/50 weight distribution, while power is sent to the back wheels through a Torsen limited-slip differential.

The battery is a 77-kWh unit, able to accept AC and DC charging, and is claimed to give a touring range of up to 220 miles. Using DC rapid charging, Henry Mann says the battery will charge from 20 to 80 per cent in 40 minutes. In muscle car terms, that all translates to an output of 300 hp, and there’s 228 lb-ft of torque as soon as you flex your right foot. For a 1965 Mustang, that’s impressive. It means the car is capable of accelerating from 0 to 60mph in 5.2 seconds, with a top speed of 97 mph.

On the rain-soaked roads around the company’s workshop, the silent Mustang provides a brisk turn of speed up to around 60 mph, in part thanks to impressive traction that comes from AMR’s years of experience building racing Mustangs. The suspension design has been changed to incorporate independent double wishbones with coilovers all around, and from a standstill there’s just the slightest skip from the back wheels as they claw at the road before the Mustang whines away.

That suspension is complemented by rack-and-pinion steering in place of the old worm-and-sector steering box, and together they create a more modern driving experience, where the car rides our lumpy, bumpy British roads better than a Mustang on rear leaf springs; it tracks true and straight and stays flat and planted through twists and turns. Admittedly, the steering is heavy—too heavy for some tastes, perhaps. But the weight when loaded up beyond the straight-ahead gives a feeling of confidence in what the front tires are up to.

As I make a beeline for the historic Old School Café, and a mug of builder’s tea, it’s clear that the car’s acceleration tails off beyond 60 mph, but it gets there briskly enough, and it’s arguably plenty enough for today’s busy roads. What’s not so welcome is a resonance coming from the propshaft, between 40 and 60 mph, something Henry Mann later tells me they’re working to remedy. There’s gentle energy regeneration when you lift from the throttle, and when you stand on the brake pedal, the effort and impressive stopping power of the uprated system (six-piston calipers at the front, four-piston items at the rear) remind me of the Jaguar I-Pace eTrophy racing car I drove a few years back.

There are other modifications, too, which will be welcomed by some. The updated instrument cluster, for example, looks period-correct but displays all the information an EV driver could want. Or the touchscreen infotainment system with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Best of all are the modern front seats, complete with integrated seatbelts, which are noteworthy for being so solidly mounted, while proudly displaying the Alan Mann Racing logo, stitched into the headrest. Perhaps the neatest touch of all, however, is the location of the charging port. When I ask Henry Mann where they’ve hidden it, he flips down the front number plate and there it is.

Sipping my tea at Old School Café, I wonder whether AMR team members and drivers may have gathered here, back in the Sixties, after shaking down race cars at the nearby Longcross test track (now used exclusively used for blockbuster filmmaking). I wonder what they might have thought of the ePower Mustang parked out front.

I jump back in the Mustang and drive past the track, and I encounter a large, smooth, open roundabout where it’s possible to explore the limits of grip. The suspension and steering, as well as the new bespoke subframes to carry the battery packs and motor, give the Mustang a robust feel. Old cars of this era should pitch, dive, roll, and heave on their suspension, while the body flexes under load, but there’s none of that in this Mustang, and when the tail does let go, I’m surprised at how high the limit of adhesion is.

At this stage, I can sense some will be shaking their heads at the thought of an electric classic Mustang. After all, the pony car was enjoyed by many as a tire-smoking attention-seeker, not a zero-emissions solution for London’s ever-expanding Ultra Low Emissions Zone. But given there were more than 1.3 million Mustangs made in the first two years of production alone, converting a small number to electric propulsion isn’t going to endanger the species.

Personally, I’d rather my Alan Mann Racing Mustang come with those suspension and brake upgrades, some additional structural bracing, and a rocking V-8 that shakes my neighbrs’ windows every time I start it up. After all, when you take the soundtrack out of an old car, all it serves to do is exaggerate the noise of all the other moving parts and squeaking trim.

I do wonder, however: Does the current approach not endanger the very existence of Alan Mann Racing? After all, if EV retro-fit conversions of classics really catch on across the hobby, might legislators take a dim view of fire-breathing racing cars and noisy, smelly race meetings?

I put that question to Henry. “I think with the rise of synthetic fuels, there’s plenty of argument for keeping these [racing cars] as they are. But I think some people are going to want electric just because of the tailpipe emissions issue, and the quietness and the more civilized behavior in a city, where you’re not belching out unburnt hydrocarbons when idling at the lights. And it’s such a negligible contribution to the overall emissions of the road transport fleet that I hope it [legislation] wouldn’t be changed.”

The thorny issue for potential buyers in Britain is that the extensive changes made during the conversion mean the car could not retain its original registration number. Instead, it would have to be submitted for an Individual Vehicle Approval test, and that would require further changes to the car, which AMR are weighing up “depending on customer demand.”

Interested parties in America, meanwhile, will be able to have the complete conversion carried out by Alan Mann Racing’s U.S. partner, Mann ePower Cars, based in Hatboro, Pennsylvania. The cost will be a minimum of $250,000 (£203,000), says Henry Mann, for a turn-key car. He adds that sum could be lowered if an owner has a donor car in good condition.

So, the retro-fit electrified Mustang is a curious thing on all sorts of levels. It’s not a muscle car as we know it. And it can’t be bought as a turn-key car in the U.K., only the US. And if you had the conversion carried out on your classic Mustang in the U.K., it would lose its original registration, due to the rule-makers at the DVLA. Such is the price of progress, I suppose.

Things used to be a lot simpler, and noisier, in the Sixties.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Dr. Frankenstein’s infamous creation combined a terrifying exterior with a tender soul. Car builder and drift racer Faruk Kugay’s brand of mad science is something of an inversion of the fictional Victor’s original formula; the beautiful blue bodywork of his Jaguar XKE 2+2 houses a modified 750-horsepower monster heart transplanted from a Mk. IV Toyota Supra.

It’s equal parts sacrilege and thoughtful homage, depending on your point of view. In essence, however, this is a straightforward restomod that improves on the base blueprint’s performance. The foundational Jaguar E-Type has been upgraded with a more powerful engine, but it maintains a degree of respect for the original layout by keeping a straight-six. The car wears bigger wheels, beefier brakes, more rubber, and bulging fenders to contain it all, but it’s still clearly identifiable as a Jaguar, even without any badging. Squint, though, and you’ll take note of several deviant details from Coventry’s spec.

The heavily tweaked, single-turbo Toyota 2JZ-GTE 3.0-liter under the long clamshell snout isn’t the only dose of purist poison here. There are also front brakes borrowed from a Corvette; a ZF five-speed taken from an E36-generation M3; a differential, rear subframe, and rear suspension from BMW’s E60 5 Series; and a carbon-fiber-reinforced, 3D-printed widebody kit filled out by 17-inch Rotiform wheels designed in Southern California.

The overall package, built by Kugay’s Sonoma Raceway-based DevSpeed Motorsports, is a vision that stands in contrast to the all-English E-Types restored and perfected by Eagle, but once you look beyond the mixture of Japanese, German, and American additions, you’ll find that this car hasn’t forgotten its roots, it’s just a more radical reinterpretation. Despite the international DNA, it’s still an evolution of the original formula that dates back to Malcolm Sayer’s and Jaguar’s first concepts in the late 1950s. We especially like the gold paintwork on the 2JZ’s valve cover—a subtle acknowledgement of the early XKE inline-sixes that wore the same scheme.

The most obvious homage to the E-Type’s history? That would be the bodywork. Heavily influenced by the designs of the original factory E-Type Lightweight racing cars which also ditched the road version’s chrome bumpers for a smoother, more aeronautical appearance, the Illumaesthetic-designed widebody is aggressive enough to fit modern wheel and tire sizes without bastardizing the the E-Type’s timeless proportions.

Similarly, while those cavernous rear haunches may be hunkered down over two-piece 17”×10” wheels that would swallow the originals on even the racing versions, the Rotiform STLs (STeeLies, cute.) can easily be seen as a modernized take on the Lightweight’s footwear. The rears are wrapped in 255/40 R17 Bridgestone Potenza RE-71 RS tires, while 17-inch ×8.5-inch fronts wear 225/45 R17s. It is a handsome setup, but we’d love to see what it would look like on smaller-diameter wire wheels and chunkier tires.

The livery is refreshingly simple, especially amid the sea of attention-grabbers at an event like SEMA (where this build was joined two other heavily modified machines sponsored by the Japanese motor oil company, ENEOS). The rear window has the typical smattering of sponsorship logos, but the eggshell blue paint combined with the prominent white “meatballs” on the doors is undeniably classic, perfectly suited for a Lightweight-inspired E-Type.

Most of the elements in Kugay’s E-Type build can be traced back to Jaguar’s original ideas and components, but the connection past the cylinder count and layout is pretty thin. Part of that just comes from necessity to operate in the modern restomod space; in the 1960s, 265 hp was plenty of power for a 3.8- or 4.2-liter sports car. You need a lot more to hang with SEMA show cars in 2023.

Tuned 2JZ motors have been making insane power for years now, and Kugay’s 24-valve twin-cam single-turbo is no exception. The party piece for the 750-hp-capable mill is a small-animal-swallowing BorgWarner EFR 8474 turbocharger, which is supported by CP-Carillo pistons and connecting rods, engine bearings from King, and and interestingly aligned intercooler supplied by Vibrant Performance.

Additional supporting pieces include a new USDM-spec cylinder head with Deatschwerks injectors, a throttle body setup from Driftmotion, a Link G4 Fury ECU, a Lightcell fuel cell, and a complete replacement of the fuel injection system courtesy of Nuke Performance.

Is anyone else imagining Jesse, the “mad scientist” from The Fast and the Furious, rattling off this list of mods from under the Jag’s clamshell hood?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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With eight generations to choose from, you’ve got to be a killjoy not to love one Corvette or the other. What the early roadsters lack in speed they make up with classic charm. The sold-out C8s are America’s feasible Ferraris. The six tweener generations broom away workaday misery in the first mile of any weekend excursion.

But what if you could mix and match your favorite Corvette design features without consuming more than a single slice of precious garage space? That’s precisely what Russ Weid of Chelsea, Michigan, has achieved with his 2013 C6 Corvette dressed as a Mid Year (1963–67). Weid’s hinged headlamps, beefy hood, and flared front fenders match the 1967 Corvette’s nosepiece. The tapered roof and split-window backlight pay homage to the ’63 factory Corvette coupe.

Weid bought his Corvette nearly new in Dallas a decade ago with a base 6.2-liter 430-hp V-8 and six-speed manual transmission. Karl Kustom (KK) over Tuxedo Black paint. Their fastidiously made skins are hand-laminated fiberglass bonded with vinyl-ester resin. KK also fitted new custom bumpers, aluminum grille bars, and door handles to Weid’s Corvette. Known as a “split build” because two model-year designs are replicated, the body makeover cost Weid $95,000. Only 14 of the 64 Corvettes converted by KK embodied this split-year configuration.

To add energy under the hood, Weid added a low-pressure Edelbrock E-Force supercharger. He estimates that upgrade yields about 550 horsepower. A new Billy Boat cat-back exhaust system includes two cross-flow mufflers and a flamboyant quartet of pipe tips. Weid’s wife Diane helped EVOD Industries design the unique custom forged-aluminum wheels wearing P275/35ZR-18 front and P325/30ZR-19 rear red-line radials.

The cost of these mods added to the $50,000 core charge yields a bottom line crowding $170,000. The retired Chrysler test driver and mechanic is convinced he made a shrewd investment. The stock suspension provides a nicely controlled ride and the engine’s thunder never overwhelms conversation. Weid confirms, “Even though I’ve owned my Corvette for a decade, it’s still a thoroughly enjoyable treat. Every spring that I remove it from its winter storage bubble, I feel like a giddy 16-year-old!”

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When Dominic Palazzolo’s highboy Ford Model A Roadster rolls into a cars and coffee or a cruise night gathering, he can be pretty sure he’ll have the only “gow job” on the premises. What on earth is a gow job? In brief, it’s a stripped-down high-performance automobile built and equipped as it might have been in the early 1930s. In other words, a prototypical hot rod.

Most of today’s automotive enthusiasts peg the birth of the hot rod in the late ’40s or early ’50s, when returning G.I.s, bursting with pride, energy, and dollars they’d been unable to spend on the battlefield, embraced four-wheel excitement in the form of cars modified to look good and go fast. Quite often, the object of their affection was one of the abundant and inexpensive machines of the ’30s, usually a V-8 Ford Model B, and quite often a roadster. While this performance revolution undoubtedly kicked off the post-war hot-rod craze, it wasn’t the first time America had fallen in love with fast cars. The fathers and grandfathers of the ’50s rodders took a high-speed turn at the wheel as well. And at least for a time, their cars were called gow jobs.

I had never heard of gow jobs until I met Palazzolo at a “Parking at Pasteiners” gathering on Metro Detroit’s Woodward Avenue and did a little research. “Gow,” I learned, was a slang term for opium, in the wild and crazy days of the jazz age. At the time, the drug was used to hop up racehorses. Since the cars of the ’20s were only a generation removed from the horse as a primary means of transportation, gow job was an obvious choice of terminology when it came to describing automobiles modified to perform better than factory-issue vehicles. “Hot rod” was both a term and a notion still far in the future.

The first gow jobs were Ford Model Ts, but the more advanced Model A became the vehicle of choice in the late ’20s. Modified carburetors, higher compression ratios, and larger displacements, along with a variety of other techniques, served to increase the horsepower output of the four-banger engines. Removal of extraneous body parts, like fenders, interior trim, and even windshields made the machines lighter. Roadsters could be driven on the street, yet they were light enough for competition. Some of the most serious racers went even further, creating “speedsters” that were stripped of all sheetmetal save the cowl and cockpit.

Of course, grandpa had to test his machine in competition, and for the Southern Californians who led the charge, the venue of choice was Muroc Dry Lake, now part of Edwards Air Force Base. Situated in Antelope Valley, just 100 miles north of Los Angeles, it was close enough for a day trip, even in a modified car. At Muroc, the expansive and sunbaked lakebed provided ample room for acceleration, and the young daredevils pushed their modified machines to speeds that Henry Ford had never intended.

Most of the competition results weren’t recorded. At the time, no one suspected we might be interested in learning more about their speed contests almost a century later. But there are records of a few events, including one held in 1931. At that meet, the winner was Ike Trone driving a 1929 Model A Roadster. Trone’s Ford four-cylinder had been fitted with a Riley cylinder head, dual carbs, and various other goodies, supplied by nascent SoCal speed shops, some of which would eventually become part of the huge California automotive performance industry.

Palazzolo might never have owned a Model A gow job were it not for his long-time friends, Keith and Judy Allen. The Allens are Model A aficionados, senior citizens, and restoration experts. They’ve repaired and refurbished many a stock Model A for car owners across the country. In fact, one of their Model A coupes, a rusty unrestored survivor, was once displayed at Hagerty headquarters in Traverse City, Michigan. Devotees of traditional Ford performance, the Allens have hopped up early Fords to varying degrees, ranging from slightly warmed over to hot as heck. While much of their work has been for customers, they have also built several cars to satisfy their own Model A cravings, including a stripped down, hopped-up gow job that they cobbled together about 14 years ago.

The Allens, with an almost obsessive love of the Model A, would never butcher a survivor car, so for the gow-job build they picked up parts where they could—here, there, and everywhere. Knowing the Model A community very well, they were able to locate pristine Model A body parts in the Irish Hills area of Michigan. A sheetmetal expert who specializes in prewar Fords assembled the panels using original Model A rivets.

A chassis was purchased from another supplier of Model A hardware and was fitted with rebuilt original parts, including brakes, steering, and drivetrain. Judy Allen scoured swap meets, picking up parts here and there. The transmission and rear end were rebuilt using stock Model A parts. An old engine that had seen many miles of service was mildly modified and installed in the chassis.

Keith and Judy Allen drove the assembled car for a while, occasionally pushing it to its limits, and its old engine predictably gave up the ghost. That opened the door for a fully rebuilt, more extensively modified engine, or as they were called back in the day, a “banger.”

Allen’s Model A experience had taught him that pistons from a 327 cubic-inch Chevy V-8 would work nicely in Model A cylinders, once overbored to 4 inches. That yielded a displacement of approximately 216 cubic inches.  Aftermarket Model A pistons are available for a 4-inch bore, but used Chevy pistons are less expensive and lighter. An overbore increases the compression ratio, and to boost it further, the cylinder head was milled. A camshaft with a bit more lift and duration was installed, along with stainless steel valves. The stock intake manifold with its single updraft carburetor gave way to two Zenith carbs on a Vortex manifold. To enhance the engine’s high-rpm capability, Allen machined 13 pounds off the flywheel and installed a later-model Ford clutch and pressure plate. The vast majority of the parts that went into the engine and drivetrain would have been available to a 1930s enthusiast building a gow job.

Palazzolo and the Allens have been friends for many years, so it wasn’t long before he saw the roadster and fell in love. The Allens were reluctant to part with the car but their friend was persistent, so they agreed to sell him the car—with stipulations. It could never be equipped with a V-8 engine and no changes to its configuration could be made without the approval of the Allens. Although Palazzolo had no intention of modifying this very special car, he understood why his friends wanted to safeguard their baby.

With the Model A tucked away in his garage, Palazzolo made a few allowable modifications. First, he revamped the interior, replacing the Model A bench seat with what we would call bucket seats from a Ford Tudor. Back in the day, they were called “jump seats,” because moving from one seat to the other required a jump of sorts. He also added a folding canvas top, an accessory considered unnecessary by dry-lake racers, but a nice addition for a Michigander who might encounter nasty weather on the road.

Like many of us who are very fond of an automobile, Palazzolo drives his Model A with caution, but he has occasionally had it over 70 mph on those narrow bias-ply tires. That can get exciting given the way those tires squirm, but that’s not the kind of excitement he enjoys. Both he and Allen think the car is probably capable of 80 mph. That would be downright thrilling. They know the dry-lake racers of almost a century ago would approve.

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Buying somebody else’s modified car is a roll of the dice. On the one hand, the odds are pretty good that corners have been cut, important steps skipped, and lower-quality parts used for the sake of a budget. On the other hand, some builds come from a well-known and respected professional shop, or from a perfectionist who spent so much time, attention, and money that there’s almost nothing to nitpick.

At the end of the day, though, someone else’s build is done to someone else’s tastes and preferences, which never exactly match your own, no matter how nice it is. Such is the case with this spectacularly restomodded, Honda-powered 1977 Toyota Celica. The car is hard to fault and easy to like, yet it sold for $64,050, not exactly chump change but surely far less than it cost to put together and another example of how hard it can be to gauge the restomod market.

Toyota introduced the Celica way back in 1970 (just a year after the 240Z) as a two-door, 2+2 coupe that offered driving fun and real-world practicality on a budget, sort of like a pony car in a more compact package. Indeed, the influence of American pony cars is obvious at first glance. The available hatchback version, dubbed the “Liftback” by Toyota, looks like a mini–Mach 1 Mustang. Proven passenger-car mechanicals from the Toyota Carina kept costs down and reliability high, and the contemporary press praised the Celica for being lively if not particularly fast.

Motor Trend called the Celica Liftback its Import Car of the Year in 1976, which speaks to the foundation of this build, but there is a lot less Celica underneath this ’77 coupe’s Nissan R34 Skyline GT-R Midnight Purple III paint than there used to be. Thoroughly and exquisitely reworked over years by the seller, who acquired it in 2010, it has a hefty list of mods to go through.

First is the work of art under the hood, a 2.2-liter F22C VTEC four and six-speed manual from a Honda S2000, which has been fitted with Jenvey individual throttle bodies, J’s Racing tubular header, an a-Spec titanium muffler, and a Koyo aluminum radiator. The instrument cluster and starter button also come from an S2000.

Other additions include staggered-width custom-made 16-inch BBS RS wheels, Wilwood disc brakes, AccuAir suspension, polyurethane bushings, Addco swaybars, fiberglass bumpers, front and rear spoilers, fender flares, Bride bucket seats, Alcantara headliner and rear seats, NRG quick-release steering wheel, audio components from Kenwood, JL Audio, and Audison, and the aforementioned Midnight Purple III paint. According to the seller in this video profiling the car, 98 percent of the bolts on the car are titanium, including the ones holding on the BBS wheels.

The seller bought the car in 2010, sight unseen, out of Oklahoma. The S2000 swap had already been professionally done, but the rest of the car had serious rust so a complete teardown and rebuild to its current configuration took place from 2011–16. It still looks gorgeous, and the attention to detail is impressive, especially things like the fabricated rear bodywork and blended-in fender flares.

A $64K final price isn’t exactly cheap, and it’s about 10 grand more than an absolutely perfect S2000 would sell for, but it’s also almost certainly less than the sum of the parts used to build it, to say nothing of the hours and hours of specialist labor. It’s also less than the $65,100 someone paid for a very clean but all-stock ’76 Celica Liftback model on Bring a Trailer two years ago.

The market for restomods is a tough one to figure out. Some cars sell for big prices, well into the six-figure territory it cost to build them. Certain models—C2 Corvettes are a perfect example—have seen enough restomod builds to create a small, trackable market and generally understood pricing. Most others don’t, and it has us thinking ahead to ten or 20 years from now and how the market will treat older, used restomods that will have been around long enough to be classics in their own right. Regardless, in this case somebody got a badass, fast, very well-done Celica restomod for way less than it cost the seller to put the vehicle together, and that isn’t a bad way to buy a car.

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Erik Hansen built The Bat Outa Hell in his spare time while working at CAL Automotive Creations in Bennington, Nebraska, a shop he has been with for more than 10 years. He was still a new hire when he got to put his traditional hot-rod knowledge to work on the flathead-powered Checkered Past, the ’40 Ford coupe built by CAL Auto Creations for Ron Cizek that won the Ridler Award—hot rodding’s Nobel Prize—at the 2013 Detroit Autorama. Hansen was also heavily involved in the Buick Invicta that won the Al Slonaker Memorial Award at the 2023 Grand National Roadster Show. You might also recognize him if you remember the feature we did on the Omaha Coupe; Hansen helped to get it back on the road and was behind the wheel during the photoshoot.

Each year since the late 1940s, Bonneville Speed Week brings the promise of land speed racing to a salt flat in northwest Utah, organizing cars by engine type into classes that honor the genesis of hot-rodding as we know it. Even when rain soaks the dry bed of Lake Bonneville and records remain elusive, as they did in 2022, a migration of traditional hot rods rumbles into Wendover to celebrate the past.

This year, just as much as we were looking forward to racing, we were looking forward to seeing and riding in this 1931 Model A coupe, recently back on the road after a thorough reimagining by Erik Hansen.

This coupe wasn’t Hansen’s first hot rod. “I started building a rat rod with a flathead when I turned 16,” Hansen told us. Inspired by his great-grandfather, who rode a Harley-Davidson flathead to college and ran the local stockyards in addition to being a blacksmith, Hansen got to work fixing a 1924 Model T that had been sitting at his great grandfather’s shop for 40-plus years. The makeshift pickup was stock from the cowl forward and had an all-original Model T drivetrain, but it had sat outside in the rain for so long that the engine was locked up. The banger motor had to go, and the T became Hansen’s first flathead V-8 hot rod. It gave Hansen a lot of experience and also a desire for a traditional, racy hot rod. Ford’s successor to the T, the Model A, would be that car.

“I think I was probably 18 when I picked it up,” says Hansen, who is in his early 30s. The exact date isn’t that important to him, as the sad Model A he found in the early 2000s was never supposed to be the actual project—just a placeholder. The A had been dragged, unceremoniously, into a field and was full of brush. It seemed its last task was to serve as a dirtbike ramp. The sorry condition was no problem, because the price was right: For $100, Hansen bought the reference he needed to build a chassis for what would be his real hot rod, set to come at a later date.

Over the course of six years he replaced, piece by piece, all of the panels that were too far gone to be salvaged. The field-find began to resemble his vision of a proper hot rod Model A. Since he knew from day one that he wanted to run his Model A fenderless, Hansen built quarter panels from scratch, shaping 20-gauge steel on an English wheel. The new quarters raise the rear wheel arches to match the line of the tires and maintain their radius, much like the arches on a ’32 Ford. He also wrapped the bottom of the quarter panels underneath, curving them like those on a ’32.

“Model A guys are always trying to make it look like ’32 stuff because we can’t afford a ’32,” Hansen joked.

Hansen also made the doors from the beltline down as well as the decklid skin. Its inner structure is from Brookville, however.

Most of the roof is original, although Hansen had to massage it back into shape: When the body was pushed around the field where it previously resided, the roof had taken a beating. Hansen chopped the top four inches, giving the car a purposeful look while still leaving plenty of room inside the cabin.

Some of the quarter window steel is original, as Hansen found some Ford sheetmetal that was left over from an inventive farmer. Due to rationing during WWII, and because Ford stopped making commercial vehicles to shift to military ones, farmers often cut the roofs and decklids of Model A coupes and sedans to create makeshift trucks, a body style that offered more utility on the farm. Somehow, the quarter-window frame from one of those converted A coupes was passed down to Hansen.

After working in his spare time for six years, Hansen got the car on the road. He spent a lot of time with it, driving the car from his home in Nebraska to the Hot Rod Hillclimb in Colorado, to Austin, Texas, and to Dubuque, Iowa. He racked up about 20,000 miles over the course of three years, but he never really liked the way the A looked with the previous chassis.

About three years ago, Hansen started this version using Speedway Motors ’32 Ford frame rails. The rails were pie-cut and pinched in at the cowl to be around five inches narrower at the spreader bar while also being kicked up an inch and a half to drop the front end. A ’32 grille shell was pinched to match. Both ends of the frame are bobbed, so there are no frame horns sticking out at the front. The rear of the chassis also angles up a few inches thanks to a Z in the frame. With the dimensions all sorted, Hansen added an X-member from a 1935–40 Ford and boxed the rails, setting the boxing plate just inboard of the ends of the C-channel to give him a place to hide hoses and brake lines.

There are lots of interesting things going on with the suspension, but the modifications are well hidden. The trickery is only really noticeable if you inspect what looks like a factory Model A shock: It’s really just a shell. Hansen gutted the internals and replaced them with bronze bushings that mount a shaft that has a bellcrank connected to a tube shock. Transverse springs—both Posie Super Slide—mount a heavy ’32 Ford axle up front and a ’57 Ford nine-inch in the rear. Both axles are mounted with a Watts link to keep the axles centered under the car, and both use an antiroll bar. Self-energizing 11-inch front drums and ’57 Ford 10-inch drums in the back provide plenty of stopping power for such a light car.

One of the few “modern” components Hansen used in the coupe’s build is the T5 transmission. This one, from a GM F-body, moved the shifter rearward in the cabin, which was just what Hansen wanted. The transmission’s .72:1 overdrive allowed for aggressive, 4:56:1 gears in the Ford nine-inch rear axle, a ratio that really let the flathead V-8 wind up in the lightweight coupe.

Front wheels are 16×4.5 inches, similar to those found on a ’40 Ford. They wear Firestone 5.50×16 tires. For the rears, Hansen chose “kind of an oddball”: A ’50s light-duty International pickup yielded a pair of 16-inch Kelsey Hayes wheels with a Ford 5×4.5–inch bolt pattern, and Hansen widened them to be six inches across. They wear 7.50-16 tires.

There really was no question when it came time to select a powerplant for the coupe: Hansen is a huge Ford fan and loves everything about the flathead V-8, from the engine’s aesthetics to its sound and, of course, its proven history in racing. This block is a ’49 8BA bored .060 inches over with a set of Aries forged pistons, a stock Mercury crank, and 8BA connecting rods. Displacement works out to 265 cubic inches.

Sharp heads, pirated from a retired local dirt-track car, originally offered 9:1 compression. The heads were corroded and had some broken fins, but they still had the right look. Once Hansen welded them up and cut larger valve reliefs to help with flow and to drop compression a touch, they offered some big performance gains. A set of Cometic MLS gaskets seals everything up.

Hansen has modified the engine since the A initially hit the road. The first iteration of the flathead provided too much boost, and the cylinder pressure didn’t agree with the threads in the head. On a quick trip for lunch with a friend, as Hansen tells it: “I got on it and blew the spark plug. The spark plug wire held onto it and whipped it into the ditch.” Delayed but not discouraged, Hansen found the plug beside the road, cross-threaded it into the head, and got back in the car. He now uses a set of steel inserts to keep the plugs in place, and the blower is now underdriven to provide less boost.

To mount a supercharger on top of the flathead, Hansen started with an Offy four-barrel intake. He milled the top off and flattened it down to accept a one-inch-thick aluminum plate, which he welded in place and then milled to fit a GMC 4-71 blower. The blower is also a vintage piece, removed from a road grader that Hansen found in a junkyard. While he was milling the intake, Hansen added a burst plate in a hard-to-see spot, down low. If a massive backfire ever happens, the pressure has a place to go, and it won’t blast the blower off the manifold.

Hansen’s handiwork can be spotted all over the engine. Some of our favorite details are the front drive idler pulley and the generator/alternator mount. Each looks like it is cast in one piece, but only because Hansen put in a lot of effort. He tapered the belt tensioner in a lathe before heating it up in his forge and bending it into shape. The clamshell clamp for the generator/alternator he fabricated from several milled parts, welded, and then blended in the welds with a die grinder and sanding discs.

After the gaps and edges were even, the aluminum parts, including the heads, blower, and blower snout, were needle-scaled and then bead-blasted to make them all look like raw castings. Trail Performance Coatings powder-coated the blower and heads to give them a magnesium look. While you might think the fins on the castings are bare, they too are finished in clear satin powdercoat.

Holley 94s are Hansen’s go-to two-barrel. Their long production run makes parts easy and cheap to find, and he seems to have a knack for tuning them. The three carbs, each topped by a Grace & Co. air cleaner, use a progressive linkage that allows the flathead to run on the center carb for the first half of the throttle’s travel. That keeps the power manageable while fuel economy is a respectable 16–18 mpg on the highway. Not bad considering its aerodynamics, as Hansen puts it, are like, “a big parachute with that visor on it.”

He could drive the car cross-country and use just the center carb. Once the throttle passes 50 percent, the outboard carbs begin to open up. That’s when things start to get fun. “As soon as the secondaries open, the blower can become efficient,” Hansen says. The boosted flathead is good for about 300 horsepower, more than enough to be rowdy in a car that weighs around 2000 pounds.

The car is reinforced with a 1-5/8-inch DOM roll cage, made up from several pieces left over from the tube chassis used in a land-speed race car, a competition coupe built by CAL Auto Creations. Hansen doesn’t have any lofty racing aspirations; the cage is there “mostly just because there’s no wood structure left in the body.”

The shift boot uses upholstery from a ’57 Chevy project built at CAL Auto Creations. The owner brought in a beat-up original seat to get reupholstered. However, there was enough material from low-traffic areas to salvage and sew up a shift boot. That project also donated the bit of ’60s or ’70s tuck-and-roll vinyl that Hansen used as his coupe’s headliner. Both bits of material seem appropriate for the build. Even better, they have the perfect old-car smell.

This version of Hansen’s coupe, though recently completed, has already driven the 3000 miles from Omaha to Bonneville and back, with just a few teething issues. Overall, it seems that the time spent on the new chassis was well worth it: Hansen reports that his shop-brewed suspension is a great match for the car, and it drives just as he had hoped. “It handles phenomenally. I can just slide it around a corner,” said Hansen.

Ever the perfectionist, he’s scheming on future projects with the car: “I’m probably gonna chop it more someday.” Like any true hot rod, the Bat Outa Hell will never be quite finished.

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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.

George A. Carter III, 78, a Hagerty member residing in Athens, Texas, has enjoyed a fruitful life constructing his playthings from scratch. This started at age 11 with a hydroplane he built from Popular Mechanics plans. Carter obtained his first car at age 14, then won a Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild award in high school.

This Homegrown genius has four significant inventions to this credit: the first commercial laser tag (Photon), a two-seat Baja racer configured for closed-track use, the first 50-mph ATV, and an Optically Paired Tactical Engagement Simulation System (OPTESS) intended for military use.

Regarding the Prototype’s design, Carter explains, “I was seeking the look and feel of a legitimate Le Mans prototype racer. One of my starting points was a die-cast model of BMW’s V12 LMR. I was also inspired by the Panoz LMP-1’s distinctive front-engined layout.

“To expedite the build, in 2010 I selected a 2002 Corvette Z06 as my donor car. Stripping away the factory bodywork, roof, doors, glass, bumpers, and interior trim dropped curb weight to 2620 pounds, a quarter-ton below that of the Z06.

“I kept the 5.7-liter LS6 V-8, boosting output from 405 to an estimated 445 horsepower with long-tube headers, aftermarket catalysts, a cold-air intake, and tuning revisions. Sliding the engine rearward eight inches within the stock 104.5-inch wheelbase improved weight distribution. This was achieved by shortening the long torque tube between the engine and the rear transaxle. I kept the six-speed gearbox, disc brakes, suspension hardware, and steering equipment with minimal changes. Except for some TIG welding provided by a friend, I did most of the work either in my garage at home or in a bay I rented at a local jet-ski repair shop.”

Simple math yields less than six pounds per horsepower. Add in the Prototype’s pointy nose, low center of gravity, rear weight bias, lack of a windshield, and functional rear wing, and you’ve got performance that is definitely locked and loaded in the motorsports category.

While the forged-aluminum Corvette suspension control arms were retained, Carter increased wheel diameters an inch by fitting CCW forged-aluminum rims made by Weld Racing. The Nitto NT05 295/35ZR-18 front and 335/30ZR-19 rear radials fill the wheel openings quite nicely. Overall body width is three inches greater than the donor Corvette. Coilover dampers from Texas-based LG Motorsports supplanted factory springs and shocks.

“A significant issue with my long front overhang was the likelihood of suffering driveway damage,” Carter adds. “To avoid that, I fit a 4-inch-diameter air bag between each front lower control arm and the frame. I fill a carbon-fiber air tank to 4500 psi, then inflate the air bags by remote control when I need to lift the nose. The tank is large enough that I can pressurize it at home for occasional use, thereby avoiding the weight and bulk of an onboard compressor.

“Keeping the complete original steering column expedited that area of the interior’s construction, though I did swap out the Corvette steering wheel. After adding square steel tubing to reinforce the factory chassis laterally, I realized that starting from scratch with an all new space frame would probably have saved me time. On the other hand, keeping the original instrument cluster and electronic controls for the anti-lock brakes and traction control was definitely a wise move. I also kept the factory 18-gallon fuel tank, though every last connection to it has been altered.”

Carter reports that constructing his racy bodywork consumed the better part of three years. Given the fact that computer-aided design technology was changing almost daily in 2010, he chose hand-drawing body sections on paper over the on-screen methodology. Although the step-in cockpit entry is certainly easier than creating hinged doors, vast amounts of urethane foam and some 50 gallons of Bondo were consumed in mold construction for the fiberglass and Kevlar body panels reinforced with vinyl-ester resin.

“To keep my nine major and several additional small body panels true with the world,” Carter says, “I used thin Masonite templates to define the surfaces. They were positioned laterally adjacent to the centerline and spaced at six-inch intervals the full length of the body. After one side was perfected with Bondo, flipping over each template made sure the opposite surface was a symmetrical duplicate.”

Carter’s gorgeous headlamps were pirated from an Infiniti G35 while the taillamps originally belonged to a Toyota Celica.

Following a 2013 paint job, Carter and a friend with racing experience transported the Prototype to a nearby road course for shakedown runs. His initial observations: “My car feels like a giant go-kart given the low seating and open cockpit. The handling and ride resemble a Corvette except for the fact there’s absolutely no body roll. The exhaust is unruly during full throttle use and while downshifting but it quiets down nicely during cruising.”

Asked if there were any hassles obtaining license plates for road use, Carter replied, “None at all.  The state of Texas thinks my Prototype is a 2002 Corvette!” That strategy has worked perfectly over the 8000 road miles Carter has enjoyed driving his car during the past decade.

“In traffic, I’m surrounded by rolling cell-phone photographers. Once, a crosswalk cop stopped me until pedestrian traffic cleared, then ordered me to ‘get on it.’ Middle-aged ladies waiting for their buses give me thumbs-up salutes. Twenty-something kids in Ford Mustangs are always game for a race (which I decline). The most infuriating question I receive is ‘did you build your car from a kit?’ My admiring family members appreciate the fact that this Prototype is much more practical than some of my other concoctions.”

What’s next on Carter’s agenda? In celebration of his very first automotive project, he’s purchased a 1953 Studebaker coupe to be fortified with a 6.2-liter GM LT1 V-8. In this Texas garage, long afternoon naps are never part of the daily game plan.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Welcome to Homegrown—a new 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 at tips@hagerty.com with the subject line HOMEGROWN. Read about more Homegrown creations here. —Ed.

Bill Papke, 76, is a retired architect residing in Ada, Michigan. Explaining what moved him to build a car at home, he notes, “I’ve always been fascinated by concept cars, especially wedge-shaped designs. I own a replica of the 1970 Bertone Stratos Zero and also a 1990 Vector W8, both of which excel in this design genre. When Elon Musk presented his Cybertruck, I realized that I could build my own wedge car defined by four flat planes. My goal was to make it look like it had been chiseled out of a solid chunk of aluminum.”

What lies beneath Papke’s Raazer is a Honda Beat, the last car design to be approved by Soichiro Honda, Japan’s Henry Ford.

Honda began by recycling small engines in a wooden shack located in Hamamatsu. In 1948, when war-torn Japan craved transportation of any kind, Honda started selling motorized bicycles. Barely a decade later, the first Honda dealership opened in America. Soon thereafter, Honda motorcycles outsold Triumphs in England and Harley-Davidsons in the states. Today, the globe’s grandest engine producer powers everything that moves, from lawn mowers to jet aircraft.

The Honda Beat was a mid-engine two-seater originally designed by Pininfarina for urban use. Known as kei cars, these machines were powered by engines whose displacements were limited to 660cc and whose output was capped at 63 horsepower. Two years ago, Papke found just the 1991 Beat he needed for sale on Bring a Trailer. He explains: “The Beat I purchased was in excellent shape with only 42,000 kilometers on its odometer. I chose that particular car because of its short wheelbase, seating locations, and convertible body style.”

The design process began with sketches, which were followed by a clay model. Papke adds, “Later I built several 1/24th scale models from my CAD drawings to match the dimensions of the Beat’s unibody chassis.

“The frame supporting my body panels is made of 1/8th-inch wall thickness aluminum extrusions cut to length on a compound miter saw. I hired a mobile welder to assemble those pieces. Another vendor used my CAD files to cut my body panels out of quarter-inch aluminum sheets with a waterjet. The flush-mounted frameless windows are 3/16-inch laminated automotive glass. The bodywork is fastened to the aluminum frame with epoxy and wrapped with titanium-colored vinyl sheeting. In addition to the $12,000 Honda Beat’s cost, I spent roughly $13,000 on materials.”

“The entire construction process took only a year. While Raazer has license plates for legal street use, I drive it only to car shows and exhibits. I’ve entered it in the sculpture category of ArtPrize, a competitive event that will occur this September in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The total prize money at stake in that event is $400,000.”

Asked what project will follow this car, which resembles one of the Great Pyramids of Giza, Papke replies: “Another wedge, of course!  This time it will be an even simpler design with just three flat planes. Fewer than that is impossible. As your article’s title predicts, my next car will be called ‘Edge’.”

***

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Hennessey Performance has unveiled its flagship version of the new, seventh-generation Mustang Dark Horse. Before we delve into Hennessey’s black magic, a few facts on where the Dark Horse starts: From the factory, the Dark Horse already comes with Brembo brakes and 5.0-liter Coyote V-8 upgraded with connecting rods from the GT500 and a new twin throttle-body intake manifold. The tweaks are enough to make the Dark Horse’s engine the most powerful version of the 5.0-liter Coyote to date, at 500 hp.

To make the Dark Horse even more special, Hennessey adds a new air intake system that feeds a positive displacement supercharger, along with a new fuel pump and injectors to keep up with demand. After Hennessey’s tuneup, the result is 850 hp and 650 lb-ft of torque, more than enough to transform the Dark Horse into a whole new breed of pony, matching the power level of the supercharged 5.2-liter, flat-plane-crank V-8 found in Hennessey’s sixth-generation GT350.

In addition to the massive power upgrade, every H850 Dark Horse will wear a front splitter, side skirts, and a rear spoiler, each formed from carbon fiber. Unique forged aluminum wheels and Hennessey badging on the quarter panels and rear fascia will also set every H850 apart. Inside, the modifications are minimal, with Hennessey embroidered headrests. The “heritage” graphics seen on this red example, which resemble the door stripes from the 1969 Boss 302, are optional.

John Hennessey, company founder, and CEO, is excited to bring the next chapter of Hennessey performance to market. “Our supercharged Mustang builds have continually been customer favorites over the years, and Ford’s improved S650 platform will prove to be its most capable. Without question, our supercharged 850 horsepower Dark Horse model will be one of the most exciting and powerful muscle cars on the road—sure to turn heads with its distinctive supercharger wail and exhaust note.”

Each H850 package is backed by Hennessey’s three-year, 36,000-mile warranty and Hennessey is currently taking orders, although for now, there’s no official word pricing. Expect the first models to hit the street at the end of this year.

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Welcome to Homegrown—a new 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 at tips@hagerty.com with the subject line HOMEGROWN. Read about more Homegrown creations here. —Ed.

The beauty of building your own ride from scratch is that you can indulge your wildest automotive fantasy. Ric Murphy, 77, of Mesa, Arizona, designed and built what he called the Tryon Viper in the 1980s and ’90s, shortly after the unforgettable Battlestar Galactica TV series aired. Murphy sold five Vipers total, in both finished and kit form, with prices starting at $3200. Later, one of his customers sold a finished Viper for $37,000!

Murphy’s current business, Precision Model Distributors, constructs radio-controlled scale models of semi-tractor trucks and earth-moving equipment whose prices range from $1000 to $10,000.

Murphy, of course, also has a Tryon Viper of his own. Though it is licensed and insured as a motorcycle, Murphy built it to be safer, more efficient, and more weather-resistant than any two-wheeler: “A 1/8-inch wall thickness rectangular steel tubing framework encircles the driver and a passenger with substantial protection aligned with a car’s bumper height. Highly aerodynamic bodywork pierces the air with only 1/10th the drag [coefficient] of a motorcycle and rider. A top speed of over 100 mph along with 40+ mpg are well within the Viper’s scope.

“Of course, no motorcycle provides the restraint of seat belts or any significant comfort in inclement weather!

“Key dimensions are a 110-inch wheelbase, a 43-inch overall height, and a maximum width of 76 inches. The rear luggage compartment provides 8 cubic feet of space. A pair of tanks located behind the rear wheels carry 10 gallons of gasoline. The color-impregnated fiberglass bodywork is lined with Core Mat to retain its shape. Interior bulkheads are laminated while the outer shell is still in the mold for maximum strength. To eliminate assembly and alignment issues and to provide maximum strength, the completed body shell is bonded to the steel perimeter frame. Finished weight ranges from 1200 to 1800 pounds.

“The recommended powertrain for a Tryon Viper is a 1969-or-newer Volkswagen 1600 flat-four air-cooled engine with your choice of manual or automatic transmission. There’s sufficient space in the back to bolt in a turbocharged rotary engine from a Mazda RX-7 with up to 250 horsepower but that alternative would require a liquid cooling system.

“The rear suspension is torsion-bar trailing arm equipment from a VW Beetle or Type 3 Squareback. The front end is a single leading arm with motorcycle-type dual coil-over dampers guided by a VW Type 1 steering gear and column. An 8.00-18 trailer tire with high-speed capability is fitted in front while there are 205/70R-14 radials at the rear.”

On-center seating accurately mimics that of an aircraft. According to Murphy, “There’s ample room inside for two large occupants with the driver supported by a fiberglass dune-buggy seat and a tandem passenger in a custom-made seat with knees spread for clearance. The windshield and side glass are made of smoke-tinted acrylic plastic.

“For entry and egress, the entire hinged canopy can be raised at the touch of a dash button or remotely thanks to a 1957 Buick’s convertible top hydro-electric lift cylinder. The instrument panel can be outfitted with standard engine-oil temperature, fuel level, and speedometer gauges along with artificial horizon, vertical compass, and bank-angle indicators for aviation enthusiasts.

“Tryon Vipers have experienced service throughout the galaxy and have proven suitable for combat or merely hopping between star systems. They also make excellent ‘Ground Cruising Vehicles’ except for this concern: They always grab more than their share of attention in traffic including that of law enforcement officials.

“I enjoy informing the curious that neutronic, anti-matter, and quantum propulsion systems are all available in this machine. It cruises at Warp Factor 1 and attacks at Warp Factor 3. And that Tryon Vipers have proven totally effective intercepting Klingon cruisers.”

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Clones of special cars are manna for the masses. Built to resemble classic models, they can fill a void for the enthusiast who pines for the real thing but finds it unavailable or unreachable. Some of the best are near-perfect copies. Then there’s another class of clones, or tribute cars, as some like to call them. These are idealized versions of a classic, meant to better the original and project the owner’s idea of what that car could be given their vision and today’s technology. The copy may overleap the classic in one or more ways, including style, craftsmanship, power, and handling. Mike Smith’s reimagining of a 1965 Shelby Mustang GT350R is just such a machine—and he built it single-handedly, in his own garage.

Even a cursory inspection of Smith’s Mustang leads one to believe that he must have been an automotive restoration pro in the years before he retired. In truth, he spent most of his working life on the floor. A finish carpenter, he created artistic wood floors featuring elaborate designs for wealthy customers. You might say the floor was his birthright. His grandfather and father had both been in the hardwood flooring business, but on the sales side of things. Mike, on the other hand, was built with the psyche of an artisan, so while sales pitches didn’t come naturally to him, crafting very special hardwood floors did. Over the years, creating custom flooring became more than a job. It was artistic expression, a precise and well-executed process that culminated in a beautiful result, and it’s an aesthetic that guided him in building his dream car.

As a teen, Smith was a car guy, cruising Metro Detroit’s storied Woodward Avenue in his 340 Mopar and doing a bit of stoplight racing. In later years, he added a wife, kids, and obligations, so cars became appliances rather than toys. But cars—fabulous, fast cars—were always in the back of his mind.

Around 2014, as Smith approached retirement, he spotted a pair of ’65 Mustang taillights peeking out from under a pile of junk in a neighbor’s garage. The nascent car guy in him took note, and Smith asked the owner if he might be willing to sell. The guy said no, but he would let Smith know if it ever came to that. Well, several years later, it came to that, and Smith became the proud owner of a rusty, beat-up C-code ’65 Mustang, your basic wreck.

“Although I drove a Mopar as a teen,” Smith says, “I came from several generations of Ford owners. I had always liked the Shelby GT350R, so I decided to build my own version, but with better suspension and more power—a lot more power.”

Smith examined the dusty, rusty old car that would be the starting point for this ambitious project, and the perfectionist in him took over. If he had been asked to create a beautiful, elaborately bordered hardwood floor in a fabulous house, the first step would be to rip out the old flooring. Translating that kind of thinking to the Mustang project—his very first attempt at automotive restoration and modification—the obvious starting point was complete disassembly. So, with impact gun in hand, he took the car apart, trashing all the old suspension parts before ripping out the powertrain and interior. In a matter of days, only the shell of the Mustang remained. Everything else went to the curb.

The kind of total remake Smith had in mind would be difficult with the Mustang’s bare bones sitting on his garage floor, so he put his carpentry skills to work and built a dolly on which the car could be easily moved. While he was at it, he built a wooden rollover jig that would enable him to work on the car from any angle.

He used a dustless blasting machine to strip the car of paint and detritus, revealing a multitude of holes and rust. The right door was rotted out and had to be replaced, as did the upper and lower parts of the cowl. Mouse urine had wrecked the floor pans, and there were rust holes in the sheetmetal here and there, so Smith cut out the bad stuff and patched in new metal with a MIG welder.

“I had done a bit of welding here and there in the past, but working with metal day after day was new to me,” says Smith. But for someone who had spent a lifetime working with his hands, welding proficiency came quickly. Bit by bit, old, damaged metal gave way to new, and Smith’s Mustang took shape.

The front fenders from the ’65 were junk, so Smith purchased flared fiberglass ones from an aftermarket supplier. “It took me six days to hang one fender,” he says. “Nothing fit right. Had to cut the incorrectly sized fender to fit the doors. I made mounts and glassed them in. Once I had it figured out, I installed the second fender in three hours.”

Some body parts, including aerodynamic mods and a panel that covers the rear side window to make the standard pony more closely resemble a Shelby Mustang, were attached with solid rivets using an air hammer and bucking bar, just as in aircraft construction. Why? “Because I like the look,” says Smith.

Structural integrity is critical in a high-performance car, so Smith stiffened the unibody and welded in a roll cage. Rather than spending a lot on preformed wheel-well tubs, Smith made his own by combining sections of stock tubs. A pair of 2 1/2-inch rear fender flares were added to the body to further stretch the wheel well dimensions, providing ample room for stout 285/35 ZR18 Nitto rubber in the rear and 275/35 ZR18 in front.

Building a car on an empty shell offers a multitude of options, so Smith took full advantage and installed a Global West dual-wishbone coil-over front suspension in place of the Mustang’s stock components. A Street or Track three-point Watts-link rear suspension with coil springs and Bilstein shocks replaced Ford’s heavy non-adjustable leaf-spring setup in the rear. A 9-inch rear differential and axle housing are supported by the links. The sum total of the suspension upgrades is a sea-change improvement over what was basically a Ford Falcon chassis.

In keeping with his desire to build a car that invoked the best of the Shelby GT350R, Smith decided to plant a small-block Ford engine under the hood, but it had to be a small-block with big power. With an overbored Dart 302 aluminum block and Scat stroker crank, the Mustang’s new engine displaces 363 cubic inches. Mahle pistons on Scat connecting rods provide a compression ratio of approximately 11:1. Atop that stout bottom end are SBF Renegade 220cc Competition cylinder heads, a high-rise aluminum manifold, and an old-school, 750-cfm Holley double-pumper four-barrel. Smith, a devout perfectionist, matched all the ports to the gaskets. On a chassis dyno, Smith’s gem of a small-block knocks out 582 horsepower at the rear wheels. A Tremec five-speed manual transmission delivers that power to 3.50:1 gears in the rear axle.

All those numbers and parts are impressive, but the most amazing thing about Smith’s Mustang is that he didn’t turn to anyone for help. He worked on the build every day for over a year and never had to rely on outside suppliers. He used all the skills he had developed over many years of working with wood and learned some new ones as well. For example, he learned how to paint cars. He had hoped to hire someone to apply the final finish, but after checking prices, he built a paint booth in his garage, wet down the floor, and sprayed the Royal Maroon paint—a 1968–70 Mustang color—applying three coats each of color and clear coat.

The stunning red Mustang that Smith rolled out of his garage in September 2018 is a potent race car and a road warrior in equal measure. He doesn’t plan to compete with his pony car, but he has taken it to track days at M1 Concourse on Woodward Avenue in Pontiac, Michigan. He’s not sure how well his steed performs versus similar cars, but he says that on track days he always seems to catch up to the traffic ahead of him and then must back off to get room to play. Sounds like well-earned fun.

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More accustomed to his eight-second drag Camaro, Sean Cagle wasn’t swayed by the idea of lapping a road course in a basic production car. A persuasive friend insisted he try it. About a decade ago, when Cagle finally got his road course maiden voyage in an SVT Cobra track-prepped by Caliber Customs, the drag racer began singing a different tune.

“I remember wondering, ‘When the hell is he going to brake?’ I knew we were going to crash, but the car stuck. I just couldn’t believe a basic Mustang could do that,” he says.

Cagle wanted to feed his newfound love for cornering. Building a domestic track car that could match his drag Camaro for performance stats seemed costly, however. As long as he wasn’t crashing into other cars, he figured, he could swing it. That thinking steered him away from wheel-to-wheel competition and into the wild world of time attack.

From Camaro to Corvette

In time attack, it’s one car on track at a time. Driver and car compete against the clock. For his battle against the stopwatch, Cagle started with another Camaro—a fourth-gen like his drag car—but ultimately went for a bolder, smaller, lighter, and more aerodynamic build: a C5 Corvette Fixed Roof Coupe (FRC). Naturally, he partnered with Caliber Customs and owner, Matt Lambrecht, for maintenance, modifications, and race support out of Madera, California, north of Fresno. After adding a cage, a Racetech bucket seat, a cam, an exhaust, and a set of Toyo R888 tires, Sean was already setting laps on the 13CW configuration of Buttonwillow Raceway in the 1:55 range. Pretty remarkable for a lightly tuned, $15,000 car.

The C5 Corvette, even in stock trim, is a great road course machine. The manual transaxle helps with traction, the V-8 motor is plenty pokey, weight is moderate, and the driver enjoys a direct, unfiltered connection to the car via each input. That said, the steering is a bit slow in a motorsport context, but the feel through the wheel is encouraging and the steering effort, once the tires are warm, is high. The front end feels intuitive and easy to place. There are no invasive driver aids in this car, so it can bite, but the Corvette FRC is not as unforgiving a car as some would believe.

Performance tuning is all about chasing equilibrium, and Cagle’s modified C5 was suddenly lighter and capable of much more grip than was compatible with the factory leaf spring suspension rates. The consequence was ridiculous body roll, which Caliber solved with a set of double-adjustable Penske shocks, along with that AP Racing Radi-Cal front brakes. (The C5’s entry cost is low, but it does eat up consumables like tires and brakes.)

Once the car had put up some competitive times, closer to the low 1:50s, Cagle and Lambrecht felt confident they could make a mark in the Global Time Attack race series. Their first event was at Buttonwillow in March 2016; the C5 took first place in the Limited RWD class with a time of 1:53.34 around the 13CW configuration.

Beginner’s luck? Careful preparation? Cagle didn’t care. He’d found success in a competitive environment, and the culture of the series suited his temperament.

“Country boys” make their mark

Global Time Attack hosts a fiercely competitive field that includes a number of six-figure builds, but the entrants nevertheless maintain a casual, supportive atmosphere. “I’ve had my competitors lend us tools and parts when, otherwise, we would’ve been screwed,” Cagle says. Try finding that in comparable road racing series.

Sean and Caliber describe themselves as the “country boys” of Global Time Attack. They pride themselves not only on their ability to hang with the larger and better-funded teams, but also their contribution to the convivial atmosphere in the pits. “We see ourselves as the jokers of the GTA bunch and we party hard,” Cagle explains. “If you’ve been by our pits after the sun’s set, you’ve likely been offered one of the fine whiskies we’ve tabled.”

The pressure to find those last vital tenths is palpable, however. For Cagle, it’s the main force that keeps him coming back. “I’ve got one lap, a $2000 set of sticker tires, friends and family watching, 190 beats a minute, and I’m gridded up against some incredible drivers. It takes all my focus. I’m getting chills thinking about it,” he gushes.

Forced induction

Toward the end of his first season, the C5’s 5.7-liter LS1 V-8 started losing oil pressure. It was a good opportunity for Cagle and Lambrecht to pause, discuss a rebuild, and map out their grand plans for the future. The next mountain to climb: Global Time Attack’s Unlimited class and a lap goal of under 1:40 on Buttonwillow 13CW.

To shave off more than 13 seconds they’d have to double the Corvette’s power output. A highly-strung, 7.0-liter LS7 V-8 could have met their power goals, but not cheaply or for very long. The duo thought back to their teenage years, when they raced their turbocharged Camaro at the drag strip with great success. “Our thinking was simple,” Sean explains. “Turbos might give us the power we needed with better reliability than what the normally aspirated [LS7] engine could offer.”

There were other upsides: “We also wanted the whistling noises.”

Snappy turbocharging seemed to check all the boxes, but Cagle and Lambrecht knew they could not skimp on hardware. Any lag that would delay throttle application was a non-starter. They settled on an 6.0-liter LS2 V-8 (standard on the subsequent C6-generation Corvette), filled it with tougher internals, bored it to 6.1 liters, and fitted it with a Holley Dominator ECU. The stage was set for the best boost on the market.

With optimal throttle response as the goal, they took a page from the book of then-Ultimate-series-leader Will Au-Yeung, who ran a BorgWarner EFR turbocharger. This range of high-tech turbo technology, specifically the EFR 7163 model, suited Cagle’s C5 FRC build for a two important reasons:

• Tight Packaging: To fit a turbo and its piping on both sides of the engine, behind the front axle and low in the chassis, the system had to be compact. The EFR is not particularly large.
• Turbine Wheel Mass: The EFR’s titanium aluminide compressor wheel is 50 percent lighter than the same-sized wheel made of Inconel, making it one of the lightest on the market. Less mass means less lag, which means a response and drivability closer to that of a normally aspirated engine.

They settled on a pair of small-frame EFR 7163s. The two turbos allow for nearly 1000 horsepower and can transition from full vacuum to their full 16 pounds boost in 0.4 seconds.

That feisty response imposed some restrictions on the length of the car’s sessions. Quick boost response requires a compact turbine housing, but pushing all of that boost through the an 0.85 A/R (area over boost) housing caused exhaust temperatures to soar as high as 1860°F. That’s 160 degrees hotter than the compressor wheel is rated for.

The build quality of the EFR turbo, they figured, was solid enough to handle the excess heat, but concerns remained during the first outing with this new motor. Cagle had to be cognizant of the temperature during his initial laps, making sure to keep the engine sufficiently cool as he started taking mental notes on the new setup.

Spinning plates

Time attack is all about setting the fastest-possible lap, which is a carefully coordinated endeavor. The C5’s turbo temperature limitations permit one fast pass before the turbos overheat, among a number of other crucial variables to juggle.

The most visible strategy is that the Corvette’s tires are kept under warmer blankets, making it one of the few cars in Global Time Attack to do so. Because of these critical target temperatures, the car cannot sit on the grid awaiting its turn. As a result, it is always the last to join, escorted past the queue like a detained criminal onto an airplane. After setting its one fast lap, it’s usually the first ushered off the track.

Then there’s the matter of fuel: The race car’s Radium fuel cell holds a mere eight gallons. By the time the car leaves the pits, completes an out-lap, a flying lap, and an in-lap it’s 5 gallons lighter in under 5.5 minutes or so.

Even without the fuel constraints, it’d be tough for any driver to last much longer behind the wheel. The engine’s oil catch can vents some of its contents into the cabin, but because the entire cockpit is sealed to reduce drag the vapors don’t dissipate. “After one lap, my eyes were watering,” said Time Attack ace Kevin Burke after a couple casual laps in the car.

Clutch temperature is another thing to monitor: Cagle only needs third and fourth gear to round Buttonwillow, so he doesn’t need to shift all that often. He must, however, remember to completely release the clutch pedal before applying throttle or the clutch will slip. More slip yields higher clutch temps.

As we look, Cagle sets out tentatively for his session, careful not to overcook the turbos or the tires. (The car has no traction control, either.) All told it is a fairly straightforward driving experience, he notes, provided the driver respects the copious power on tap—and all of the essential operating windows.

Burke agreed, impressed with its approachability and capability: “It rides on clouds and absorbs every curb. The on-limit behavior is progressive. You don’t realize how fast you’re going because it works so well.”

Driving is but one part of a complicated development process targeting the car’s ultimate potential. After rolling back into the pits, Lambrecht plugs his laptop into the car’s computer, rifles through minute data points: exhaust gas temperature, turbo wheel speed, throttle input, fueling, crankcase pressure, knock activity. After the download comes a quick debrief before Cagle suits up for another run.

A cleansing fire

It wasn’t always so seamless. Back during their first outing with the turbo motor, Cagle and Lambrecht were still learning how to get the car to behave. With a build of this magnitude, one or two errors are understandable, but they turned out to have disastrous consequences.

At the time of the fateful incident in November 2018, the C5’s crankcase ventilation catch can was located above the downpipe. There were no signs during dyno testing that this should be cause for concern, but that changed out in the real world. Once the lateral g forces came into play that first track day, engine oil worked its way out the valve cover breathers and completely filled the catch can, all in the space of one hot lap.

By the time Cagle started his second lap, he saw smoke. The flames spread faster than he could react, preventing him from unlatching the hood, grabbing the extinguisher, and pointing it at the source in time. His desperate attempts to douse the fire through a hood vent were in vain.

He dropped the dinky fire bottle and felt his heart sink, turning to witness the support truck taking the long way to the scene. By the time it arrived, he was already walking away from the charred wreckage.

The Corvette needed new front body panels, new plastics, new turbos, a new wiring harness, and a smattering of other bits that had been irrevocably burned. Cagle had some reservations about fixing the car, given the scale of the damage, but he’d committed to the cause—as did the team who took responsibility for the fluke catastrophe. Everyone resolves to rebuild the car better than before.

Phoenix reborn

By the time the crisped car made it back to Caliber Customs, the team was already planning a big-time return. A few additions promised improved high-speed performance. Along with a complete AJ Hartman Aero package, Caliber added KW EXR three-way coilovers. Optimized with trackside support from KW’s lead engineer, this suspension helped the car confidently attack curbs at higher speed.

The team also sourced an engine block from a 6.2-liter LSA V-8, within which additional webbing allowed for more boost. A full manual Tilton pedal/master setup helped improve brake feel, and fine-turning the brake system for travel, pressure, bite, and release made it a confidence-inspiring setup. With no ABS on board the C5, Cagle was grateful for all the feedback he could get.

With a motorsports-grade harness, the best of five sampled heat wraps, a Dailey Engineering dry sump, a relocated catch can, and the bit between their teeth, Cagle and crew returned to Global Time Attack for the 2019 Finals at Buttonwillow. “We wanted redemption,” Lambrecht declares.

Feeling the wind in his sails, Cagle strapped into the latest iteration of his dream car and set a time of 1:44 on his first flying lap. Clearly, he’d lost nothing from the time away. The team’s final time at that event was a 1:43.2, placing them in second place behind champion drifter and road racer Dai Yoshihara. Redemption achieved.

Though the C5 build had proven its capability, Cagle and Caliber took another stab at the last Global Time Attack Finals in November of 2022. They made quite a splash, logging a 1:40.2 that bested decade-long Billy Johnson’s RWD Unlimited record. Many whiskies were poured that evening.

Better still, on-board data indicated the car had more to give—a 1:38 was feasible. That time was even projected using predictive timing software during the competition, at least until the boost pressure crept up too high and triggered the system to cut ignition for several seconds. With a little luck, sub-40s are well within reach.

“I have a love-hate relationship with this car,” Cagle says. “It requires so much from me and the rest of the team. I have to rely on these knowledgeable, meticulous professionals—Matt, Mikey, Nick, and Steve—to run this car. It’s a complicated machine, so everyone has to be sharp.

“I can live with that, though. That is the price of going extremely fast—and it’s a price I was willing to pay since I wanted to see what it was capable of with the best people and products thrown at it.”

Breaking their own record at Buttonwillow 13CW is the next big goal. For all the necessary stars to align demands an unparalleled organizational effort from the outset, but the players involved consider it a deeply rewarding one to pursue. Cagle and Lambrecht, along with the rest of Caliber Customs, may yet manage that one perfect lap.

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Welcome to Homegrown—a new 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 at tips@hagerty.com with the subject line HOMEGROWN. Read about more Homegrown creations here. —Ed.

Like every car enthusiast, Troy Jensen, of Caldwell, Idaho, harbors fantasies of a Shelby Cobra coiled in his parking spot. What distinguishes this 54-year-old mechanical engineer from most dreamers, however, is that he successfully converted 14 years of spare time into the running, driving homegrown snake you see here. (Use your imagination to see what this sports car will look like once its fiberglass skin is finally finished.)

“From the start,” Jensen explained, “it was clear that purchasing an actual Cobra or even a Factory Five kit was beyond my means. The exhilarating growl of a big-block Ford V-8 was also out of reach. The good news is that my CAD [computer-aided design] skills allowed me to follow cost-conscious alternative paths to my goal line.

“To approach the performance of the third-generation Mazda RX-7 I’ve owned for years, I decided that simply scaling down a real Cobra made the most sense. When a 3/4th-scale design failed to accommodate my 5-foot, 11-inch build, I upped the ante to 8/10th-scale. That approach yielded a tidy 72-inch wheelbase, a length barely over 10 feet, and a 55-inch maximum width. At this juncture, my car is successful in autocross events without a hint of bodywork. Given the fact this is a lifetime project that may never reach what naysayers consider ‘finished’ status, I’m happy to enjoy my pet’s current acceleration, braking, and agility prowess.

“When a friend challenged the ‘go-kart’ descriptor I used to explain this car, I coined the more evocative ‘Rattlesnake’ name. I’m happy to add that friends and family members have supported this fantasy from its start.”

We asked Jensen to describe how he downsized a Ford V-8 to suit his 8/10th-scale predator. He responded: “The syncopated thump of a Harley-Davidson V-twin has always been music in my ears. Then, out of the blue, my close friend Jason’s Buell Cyclone, powered by an air-cooled 91-horsepower, 1203cc V-twin, was wiped out by an errant Saturn. Fortunately, he walked away from the accident with minimal injuries; after the dust settled, he bestowed his bike engine to my cause.”

That begged the question: Is this Rattlesnake a four-wheeled motorcycle? “That’s actually not a bad way to describe it,” Jensen said. “I built the spaceframe out of light, stiff 4130 chromoly tubing. Nearly all the steering, suspension, brake, and half-shaft parts are from a first-generation [NA] Mazda Miata. There’s an unholy mix of other components from Legends-series dirt-track race cars and from snowmobiles, as well as several 3D-printed parts. You wouldn’t be wrong calling my Rattlesnake a junkyard dog.

“One major challenge was adapting the Buell’s integral five-speed, no-reverse transmission. To accommodate my two-seat cockpit, I ran the Buell’s right-side power output back to the car’s centerline via chain into a transfer case providing a reverse gear. A second chain runs from that box to a Miata differential reconfigured for chain drive. Miata half shafts are shortened to provide a 44-inch rear track dimension versus 43 inches up front.

“Shopping for Cobra-esque wheels at Tire Rack, the ones I preferred were of course the most expensive. They’re 7-inch-wide, 12-spoke Enkei RPF1s fitted with Toyo R888R racing radials sized 185/60R14 in front and 225/50R14 at the rear. I found a nice tight pair of bucket seats in the Speedway Motors catalog. A friend donated a Bugeye Sprite’s windshield that I hope to use after it’s been narrowed to fit my cowl.”

One Rattlesnake oddity is what appears to be no fewer than four header pipes collected into one large exhaust pipe running down each side of the car. “I was going for the true Cobra flavor here, even though each side pipe is fed by only one cylinder,” Jensen said. “The other three pipes merging into each collector are capped off. It turns out that this arrangement causes internal reverberation, magnifying the rumble, especially at idle.”

Jensen plans to continue his scaled-down Cobra theme in the bodywork. “I have begun making the smaller inner panels out of 3D-printed parts,” he said. “The outer shell will consist of four molded-fiberglass pieces: a hinged nose section with a forward opening for engine-cooling air, a panel running down each side, and a fixed trunk compartment cover. To avoid the complexity and weight of hinged doors, the driver and passenger will simply step aboard over the side panels. While my current fuel tank holds only two gallons, I intend to install a larger capacity tank in the trunk upon completion of the fiberglass panels.”

Like other home builders, Jensen has avoided keeping detailed estimates of the time and money he’s invested. “I’d guess my parts outlay is around $7000 thus far,” he revealed. “For every hour spent actually cutting, welding, and fabricating, I probably spent 10 hours on the computer designing that aspect of the car. Hands-on construction consumed roughly 2000 hours spread over 14 years. And while I haven’t yet rolled Rattlesnake across any scales, I’d estimate it weighs only 800 pounds, without a driver, which is why its maneuverability is so exhilarating.”

Adding plates to legalize Rattlesnake for road use is another thought-provoking concern. “Thus far I’ve fine-tuned my car during quick jaunts around the neighborhood, using a trailer to attend autocross events,” he said. “I have fond hopes of visiting a road course, drag strip, and possibly the Bonneville Salt Flats to document performance.

“While there are off-road and utility-vehicle categories available for obtaining Idaho license plates once I’ve passed a safety inspection, long trips on major highways are not part of my game plan. The reason is because of the ugly squishing sounds that would result from any confrontation between my ultralight roadster and some hulking semi-tractor trailer rig.”

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We know what you’re thinking: Why didn’t Cadillac build a lifted, four-wheel-drive, apparently Baja-ready, diesel-powered Sedan DeVille in 1964?

The popularity of the Sedan DeVille is well-documented. It started production in 1958, and Cadillac built various iterations through 2005, spanning eight generations altogether. And while we’ve seen custom DeVilles aplenty, this one rings our bell.

To wit (and we’ve helped out with spelling and punctuation): “Full show 1964 Cadillac Sedan DeVille full custom, nut-and-bolt restoration. Frame started from a brand-new dealer-delivered GMC 2500 that was heavily modified to fit the Cadillac’s body perfect [sic].

“This vehicle is a show car, it is not a backyard build. Vehicle has every option a GMC truck would have, a diesel Allison engine, all electronics, custom sound system, functional airbags, shift on the fly, EFI live, on and on. This was a no-budget build. Drivetrain has 27,000 miles on it, the build has 1200 miles on it, all documented.”

So would you like to drive this DeVille? Better bring cash. It’s a classic “I know what I’ve got” ad: “Please don’t ask any stupid questions. Yes, it was built right; yes, it has it; yes, it does it.”

So! Will the buyer take a cashier’s check? Uh, possibly not. “No, I will not take your fake cashier’s check. You buy it now, price is $70,000 cash money.”

So here’s the Craigslist ad, which we came upon via barnfinds.com. Beware, though: Once seen, this Sedan DeVille cannot be forgotten.

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A French carpenter who crafted a Citroën 2CV out of wood has cashed in after selling it at auction for €210,000 ($225,000).

Michel Robillard began the project in 2011 and spent the next five years and some 5000 hours crafting the car out of four different types of wood. Walnut was used for the wings, while a mix of pear, apple and cherry wood makes up the rest of the bodywork.

Modelled on a 1955 Tin Snail, completed with its corrugated hood, Robillard’s 2CV actually sits on the chassis of a 1969 Dyane, and is driven by a 602 cc 3CV twin-cylinder air-cooled engine.

The detailing is extraordinary, even extending to the interior with a fully wooden dashboard, steering wheel and gear selector. The removable cloth seats have been refitted with wooden slats, so it might not be quite so comfortable when driving through a plowed field with a basket of eggs as the original Deux Chevaux.

Although it’s not road legal Robillard’s wooden wonder is capable of topping 50 mph and is well-travelled having been on display at countless car shows and museums in France. Its new owner, Jean-Paul Favand is a 2CV collector and runs a museum, where the car will go show.

The amazing auction price, achieved at Rouillac’s 35th Garden Party auction in Tours, is a record for a 2CV, almost doubling the cost of even the rare twin-engined Sahara, one of which recently sold in Monaco for €132,000 ($141,500).

Robillard’s next project could net even higher profits as he is now working on a DS21 Décapotable Chapron, hoping to down tools within the next three years.

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Ross Myers is the consummate car collector. His father was a keen car enthusiast, and Myers’ own enthusiasm began when he was a child; he grew up with everything from Model T Fords to classic Pierce-Arrows. He still has some of those cars, including his dad’s Pierce-Arrow coupe. Over the years, they’ve been joined by Duesenbergs, a Thomas Flyer, many Porsches and Cobras, and a slew of racing cars with a focus on Carroll Shelby, Holman & Moody, and the Trans-Am Series. There are more than 70 cars in the collection. Myers especially loves vintage racing and is a regular at the Monterey Historics.

But his passion is hot rods.

Myers owns one of this country’s finest collections of historic hot rods, capped by a Detroit Autorama Ridler Award–winning ’36 Ford three-window coupe built by Troy Trepanier and crafted from the bones of a derelict ’36 that Myers bought when he was just 8 (!) years old—and kept for decades. Myers especially likes ’36 Fords. He owns several, stored in an updated historic factory and museum complex in Boyertown, Pennsylvania, called 3 Dog Garage. (The collection takes its name from three Bouvier des Flandres dogs that are deceased but still fondly remembered.)

That is not, however, the theme of the cars he is bringing to Greenwich.

It’s not often that an enthusiast owns both Duesenbergs and Deuces, but Myers is the exception. He especially likes hot rods with interesting stories and famous owners/builders. Myers and his wife, Beth, have are bringing six vehicles to Greenwich for this year’s concours. The cars will be on display both Saturday and Sunday—and that’s good, because you’ll want to study them in detail.

The Kookie Car

This flamed, raked, and bobbed 1922 Ford roadster pickup starred in the TV Series 77 Sunset Strip, with Edd “Kookie” Byrnes as a jive-talking car jockey (parking valet). The car was built by part-time B-movie actor Norm Grabowski of Sunland, California, and it starred on the covers of Hot Rod magazine, Car Craft, and many other monthlies. Ross Myers says he watched every episode of that popular show and was delighted when the car came up for sale.

But there was a catch. The once-iconic roadster had been totally transformed by a previous owner, with ugly dual headlamps, dual superchargers, and even dual rear wheels. Fortunately, all the original parts had been saved. The San Francisco shop of nationally recognized hot-rod builder Roy Brizio restored “Kookie” to its 1950s TV configuration, even leaving the crude chassis welds “because that’s how Norm built it.” It won the Pebble Beach Historic Hot Rod Cover Car class in 2019.

“The Kookie Car has to be the wildest-looking machine that’s ever been to Pebble Beach,” says Brizio. “For the 2019 Cover Car class, there were some fierce contenders, including Tommy Ivo’s nailhead-powered T-bucket and Phil Cool’s Deuce highboy with a blown big-block Chevy. But the Kookie car had undeniable hot-rod appeal, with its flames, the wild paint, and all the chrome. Even more important, if you mentioned the Kookie car to anybody, they knew about it. It was amazing.”

“I was going to buy that car,” Myers says, looking back. “I probably spent too much on it, but I really wanted it.” You’ve got to love that attitude.

1932 Ford Five-Window Coupe: “The Avenger”

Don Tognotti was a successful Sacramento, California, businessman who owned a chain of custom auto parts stores. He also built a few very well-known hot rods and customs in the 1950s and 1960s. The most radical and best remembered is this car, which he named “The Avenger.”

It is a 1932 Ford five-window coupe that he built in 1960, and it was a consistent winner at rod and custom shows in California at the time. It is wedge-channeled, which gives it the unique raked stance that is one of its trademarks. The other is the big 1951 Chrysler (early) Hemi V-8 engine that is a tight fit in the available space it occupies. The engine was not radically modified, but it did use 1953 Chrysler heads and wore custom exhaust headers. Those headers were so cool they became a constant topic of conversation by all who saw them or who wrote about the car for the hot rod and custom magazines of the time. Its sheer audacity still makes Avenger a topic of conversation nearly 60 years after its creation.

The Dick Williams AMBR-Winning 1927 Ford Roadster

First owned by Dick Williams of Berkeley, California, this handsome T won the coveted America’s Most Beautiful Roadster (AMBR) award in 1953. It’s likely the first hot rod with a hand-built, chromoly tubular chassis. State of the art for its day, it packed a lusty 286-cubic-inch Mercury flathead with Belond “W-Type” headers, four Stromberg carburetors on an Edelbrock manifold, and Navarro high-compression heads. The tubular chassis had rare Kinmont disc brakes on all four corners, a suicide front end, and a Halibrand quick-change rear.

Hall’s Top Shop in Oakland, California, did the rolled and pleated black leatherette upholstery. Frenched ’46 Ford taillights, a full belly pan, a rolled rear pan, and chromed reversed wheels with ’50 Mercury caps were just a few of many features. It took two and a half years to build. Everything was buffed and chrome-plated—even the oil pan.

“I heard about this car years ago from (noted Pennsylvania hot-rod builder) Jim Cherry,” Myers says. “It was always one of his favorites. For its time, with all the modifications, that AMBR win, and 123-mph Bonneville racing history, it was remarkable.”

The Doctor Wetzel 1932 Ford Roadster

Famed builders Clay Jensen and Neil Emory from the Valley Custom Shop in Burbank, California, were best known for sectioned custom cars such as the famed Jack Stewart Oldsmobile Holiday 88 coupe called “The Polynesian.” They didn’t do many hot rods, but when they did, iconic cars such as the Dick Flint roadster and this sharp yellow Deuce afforded them lasting fame. Valley Custom was one of the most influential shops in the 1950s and many of its cars have survived.

Jensen and Emory built this channeled ’32 with a racy DuVall windshield for Dr. Leland Wetzel, who picked up his new, professionally built hot rod at the shop in Burbank, drove it to Bonneville, and then to his home in Springfield, Missouri. It was owned for years by Kurt McCormick, a Missouri-based Barris Kustom enthusiast, and he installed a blown Cadillac V-8. Thankfully, Myers had Roy Brizio track down the original flathead V-8 and reinstall it. (By the way, Neil Emory was Porsche Outlaw creator Rod Emory’s grandfather.)

The Frank Mack 1927 Ford Roadster

This snappy black-painted 1927 Ford Model T roadster was built by Frank Mack in Farmington, Michigan, and it starred at the first Detroit Autorama in 1953. Beautifully proportioned and flathead powered, the car was driven by Mack on the street—in fact, thanks to its snug top, he even took it out in the Detroit winter weather. That sleek track nose was made from two ’41 Chevy fenders and there’s a full belly pan. Its wonderful patina and still-lustrous black lacquer paint attests to the fact that this car is totally original and it has never been restored.

Unusual for a Midwest hot rod, the Mack T was featured in Hot Rod magazine in the early 1950s. Frank did the work himself, with no aftermarket parts. That’s when hot-rodders had to be metal men and mechanics—Mack was both. Historic-rodding enthusiast Bruce Meyer owned this car in Beverly Hills for a while, but he was too tall to drive it. Ross Myers says he fits in this tiny T just fine. And he has no plans to change anything on this Midwest hot-rodding time warp.

1932 Ford Lee Titus Roadster

This 1932 Ford roadster was built in the late 1950s by Lee Titus, who owned a speed shop in Culver City, California. When Titus opened his shop in 1955, it was a natural progression from his experience as a well-known and highly competitive California dry lakes and Bonneville Salt Flats hot-rod builder and racer. Lee’s technical skills and a clear vision of what he wanted helped transform this roadster into a car worthy of a Hot Rod magazine cover and feature article in the May 1959 issue of that publication. Retaining its fenders, finished in black lacquer with a red interior, and powered by a fuel-injected Corvette V-8, it was pure California and pure Lee Titus.

Hot-rod photographer Andy Southard was the car’s next owner, during which time it became the subject of a multi-part feature in Rod Action magazine, when Dick “Magoo” Megugorac removed the fenders and transformed it into a highboy. Subsequent owners of this car included a host of famous hot-rodders, including Jim Busby, Bruce Meyer, Bill Hammerstein, and Andy Cohen. After 60 years and many changes, the roadster was recently restored to its 1959 Hot Rod magazine cover configuration by Roy Brizio.

Roy Brizio gets the last word:

“I especially appreciate Ross’ quest to build a collection of significant hot rods for his museum,”’ says Brizio. “He has a plan. He wants to acquire historic cars, usually with an East Coast heritage. When I first went to see his 3 Dog Garage Museum, I was in awe. Very few people are trying to amass such a collection, and you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone making it happen on such a high level. Ross is dedicated to not only these cars, but to the sport of hot rodding itself.

“Perhaps he thinks, ‘I could have a Ferrari 250 GTO like other people, or I could have the greatest collection of significant, one-of-a-kind hot rods—and I would be the only guy.’

“He’s not going to own every historic hot rod,” Brizio adds. “There are cars at the Don Garlits Museum, at the NHRA and the Petersen Museums, and collectors such as Bruce Meyer, Dick Munz, and John Mumford are not giving up any cars. That said, I think Ross is doing a helluva job. I was blown away with what he has. He’s built an enormous, time-consuming construction business and, despite all his work responsibilities, he’s had time to dig up and revive important hot rods for the world to see.”

You can enjoy six of Ross Myers’s cars on the concours field—and it just might make you want to travel to 3 Dog Garage to see the rest of them.

Historic Hot Rods is one of 20 classes to be featured at the 2023 Greenwich Concours d’Elegance, on June 2–4, 2023. Download the 2023 Greenwich Concours d’Elegance event program to learn more about Sunday’s other featured classes, Saturday’s Concours de Sport, our judges, sponsors, nonprofit partners, 2022 winners and more! 

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Pontiac built its last car in 2009, yet fans remain committed to the glory days that brought athletic styling, powerful engines, sporty suspension, and fun marketing to bear from the muscle car era all the way until the G8 GT and Solstice GXP at the end of the brand’s run. Some fans, like the crew at Trans Am Depot, were so dedicated they refused to let the triumphant muscle car days end after the Pontiac was shuttered. Take, for example, this 2013 Camaro that was transformed into a 6T9 GTO with custom body panels and graphics that evoke one of the most exciting muscle cars ever built, the 1969 GTO Judge.

The body modifications made to create the GTO look were extensive, with a custom hood, front fascia, grille, quarter panels, and decklid, as well as a rear fascia that incorporates the 1969 GTO’s signature twin-bar taillights. The custom grille features quad hidden headlights and the new, twin-scoop hood also features a Pontiac trademark hood-mounted tachometer. Completing the theme, 20-inch aluminum wheels are a modern verison of Pontiac’s Rally IIs. Inside, custom upholstery on the bucket seats features a nod to the stitch pattern on the ’69 GTO’s buckets. There are also several Hurst Judge emblems and a healthy dose of the same tangerine paint found on the exterior, which is like a modern take on Pontiac’s Carousel Red.

Of course, this car had to uphold Pontiac’s tradition of performance, so it rides on a lowered Eibach suspension. The first of seven planned 6T9 GTOs, this example is also fitted with the Stage II engine performance package, which includes a positive displacement supercharger that boosts the 6.2-liter LS3 V-8 to 580 hp, more than enough to back up its muscle car persona, even against the legendary Ram Air IV.

We admit it’s a little strange seeing a 1969 GTO face on a 2013 Camaro, but it all sort of makes sense if you look at the history of Pontiac’s archetypal American muscle car. While the GTO spent much of its life as a mid-sizer on GM’s A-body platform—with a brief stint as a compact X-body—it also made a comeback from 2004 to 2006 as an Australian import that was built on GM’s Zeta platform. That same platform gave us the Canadian-built fifth-generation Camaro that Trans Am Depot has used to build this homage to the GTO Judge.

Bidding on this custom convertible is off to a good start. If you’d like to make this brute a part of your collection, there’s still time, however. The final hammer falls on June 8 at 4:20 p.m. Eastern.

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I’ve been an appraiser for well over 20 years, and over that time I’ve gotten to see some pretty remarkable rides. People even trust me enough to let me judge fancy cars on golf fairways every once in a while. You might think that walking among seven- and eight-figure beauties would change my taste, but I still have my (not so guilty) pleasures.

My name is Dave Kinney, and I love Superfly cars.

Okay, I know that sounds like the kind of confession you’d hear at an anonymous meeting. But Superfly cars are a rolling poke in the eye to the snooty automotive establishment, and for that I can’t get enough of them.

Still, the garish customized cars of the 1970s are definitely not everyone’s cup of Jack and Cola. Notice that I don’t use the word “pimpmobile.” I’m not a fan of this term, though I admit it paints a pretty accurate picture in most people’s minds: a big, over-stylized American luxury car covered in vinyl, chrome, and extravagant paint. Interiors perhaps lavishly decked out with mirrors, shag carpet, and even televisions.

I prefer the “Superfly” moniker, which I think fits even better. Brought into broader use by the 1972 movie, Super Fly, and Curtis Mayfield’s song “Superfly” (one word), the term quickly morphed to mean something cool or incredibly stylish, if gaudy. These cars more than fit that bill.

Let’s be real: This was the ’70s. Lots of Superfly car owners were simply people who liked flash and excess and had the cash to afford it. Back then, I frequently used to see a Superfly car parked outside of an accountant’s office near my hometown. When I finally saw the car on the road, yup, the “numbers man” at the wheel was the CPA that owned the business. Bookkeepers like flash, too.

I dug these cars enough that I bought one in 2005: a Lincoln Mark IV-based “Bugazzi.” Made in California and with a George Barris connection (or at least Barris told me so), the Bugazzi was a short-lived fantasy car, loaded with all the options you might expect for the day. An onboard TV, gold trim, faux external exhaust pipes, padded vinyl half roof, genuine marble trim on the dashboard and in the door panels, the works. The entertainer Danny Thomas bought one new. I enjoyed owning the car, though my wife was a little less than thrilled having it around. I guess she just has poor taste in luxury cars of the 1970s.

You can keep your neo-classics—your Zimmers, Spartans, or later Excaliburs—to me, they’re not in the same league. Although there are a few neo-classics I do like, overall, they aren’t the real deal. For me, they took themselves a little too seriously. I make that distinction because I have discerning taste, though you also might argue it’s more a result of my complete lack of taste. Potato, potahto.

I especially like the cars that were actually built and customized in the 1970s. Mine has to be a two-door, Lincoln or Caddy only. E&G Customs “Rolls” grille please, with Superfly headlights (an homage to Lucas P-100 headlights as seen on many Rolls-Royce Silver Wraiths of the 1950s). I’ll take a padded vinyl top, limo-style reduced rear window, some vinyl trim, chrome belts with buckles on the trunk would be nice. An exposed spare tire (or Continental-style spare), and lots of extra chrome to complete the look. Pure Klass, and with a capital K, for sure.

At this point, you’ve got to be saying, “Dave, how do I learn more about this fascinating sub-genre of cars, and if I want to buy one, what do I need to look for?” It’s as simple as searching for ’70s-era customized luxury cars—I get lost down this rabbit hole on a regular basis. You’ll quickly get a feel for what shops or coachbuilders you like. As far as buying one, there’s a healthy array of price points, and ultimately they’re based on malaise-era domestic cars, so keeping them running is not much different than your typical American collector vehicle.

For those more casually interested in enjoying Superfly cars, I suggest digging up more movies from the ’70s. The James Bond film Live and Let Die features my personal favorite, the Corvorado. Driven by the movie’s villain, Mr. Big (played by Yaphet Kotto), the white-over-red Corvorado was a custom Corvette with design features of a contemporary Eldorado. Conceived by the creative Les Dunham of Dunham Coach in New Jersey, the exaggerated proportions of this outlandish coupe were maximum Superfly.

Even those that didn’t make the silver screen capture attention. Small shops across the country turned out unbridled custom Cadillacs, Lincolns, Buicks, Oldsmobiles and others, and some of the more prominent brands, like Stutz, still pull down good money when they come up for sale. A split-windshield 1971 Stutz Blackhawk went for $212,800 at Gooding’s Amelia sale this year (though later cars are available for substantially less). Evidently, some people share my taste.

Superfly cars might be maligned, and they’re definitely niche. But as the kids say, “if you know, you know.” To the rest, I suggest chasing your own version of fun; don’t let The Man hassle you.

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“Dana Mecum’s Spring Classic” auction—aka Mecum Indianapolis—is one of the largest auctions of the year, and there is always something for everybody. Last year’s sale featured over 2000 vehicles, and prices ranged from $1100 to $2.2M. Quite the spread.

Given the venue and the timing of this 36th annual event (May 12–20, the week before the Indy 500), rare muscle and significant racers always fill the docket. These include a group of Ram Air IV Pontiacs, Bruce Springsteen’s Chevelle, and a bunch of Shelby Mustangs, but below are the cars we’ll be keeping a close eye on.

1965 Chevrolet Chevelle Z16

The Z16 is a significant step in the Chevelle story. Marking the first time a big-block made its way into showroom Chevelles, the Z16 arrived in mid-1965 as a two-door hardtop that was hot on the heels of Pontiac’s GTO. With its 375-hp 396-cubic-inch V-8, it was potent but expensive and not actively promoted, so Z16 production only amounted to 200 units. In addition to the big-block engine, Z16s came with a Muncie M20 wide-ratio four-speed, a 12-bolt rear, heavy-duty suspension, a front sway bar, a rear stabilizer bar, 11-inch drum brakes, and stiffer frame rails. This Z16 is represented as one of just three in Crocus Yellow over white and has been body-off restored. It has sold before, first for $89,100 at Mecum Kissimmee two years ago, then for $165,000 in Scottsdale the year after. For Indy, the estimate is even more ambitious, at $250,000–$275,000.

1969 Chevrolet Corvette L88/ZL1

Built by GM as an L88 coupe, prepared by legendary Corvette racer John Greenwood, and decked out in stars and stripes by his brother Bert, this big-block bruiser is a race-winner and record-breaker. One of three built by Greenwood and sponsored by BFGoodrich to promote its new line of T/A radial tires, it was initially meant for promo duty, but the crash of another one of Greenwood’s Corvettes meant that it was pulled off the bench and prepped for racing.

Part of that prep involved swapping the already-potent L88 engine for a race-spec aluminum ZL1 mill. Driven over the course of its career by John Greenwood, Bob Johnson, Dick Smothers, and Don Yenko, it won its class at the 1972 Watkins Glen 6 Hour race. It also ran at Sebring and Daytona. At Le Mans in 1973, it set the GT class speed record of 215 mph on the Mulsanne straight, before engine trouble took it out of the running at the four-hour mark. Given a concours restoration more recently, it’s one of the most in-your-face American cars to ever lap Le Mans, which celebrates its centenary this year.

1969 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

While that Greenwood Corvette was lapping road courses, other ZL1s like this Camaro were burning up the quarter-mile. Ordering the ZL1 in your Chevrolet pony car, COPO 9560 in GM-speak, got you a race-derived aluminum 427 that the factory rated at 430 hp, but in reality it likely made quite a bit more.

Just 69 ZL1 Camaros were sold, and this Fathom Green car is one of the 50 that went through Fred Gibb Chevrolet in Illinois. It has a mostly unknown early history but was restored with correctly dated and numbered parts and sold at auction in 2007 for $603,750. At Indy, Mecum estimates it will bring between $700,000 and $900,000.

1969 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham “CadMad”

Named for promoter Don Ridler in 1963, the Ridler Award is essentially best-in-show for the annual Detroit Autorama, and it’s something that every hot rod builder dreams of winning. This Cadillac, built by the team at Super Rides by Jordan in Escondido, California, and known as “CadMad,” won the Ridler in 2019.

A 16-year project that reportedly cost $2M, it started life as a 1959 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham but now has a tube frame chassis, no rear doors, and a Chevy Nomad roof. It has go to match its show, too, with a 632-cubic-inch twin-turbo big-block V-8 that makes a reported 1025 hp. Auctioned off in 2020 for $302,500 (and profiled by us here), it has a $350,000–$450,000 estimate at Mecum Indy.

1971 Chevrolet Corvette ZR2 Coupe

To the uninitiated, classic Corvettes all look pretty similar, but the right combination of letters and numbers can really peg the price meter. “ZR2” is certainly one of those combos. In 1970, the Corvette got an optional “LT1,” a saucy small-block with solid lifters and 370 hp. A “ZR1” package combined that engine with beefed-up suspension and brakes, an aluminum radiator, and an M22 “Rock Crusher” four-speed, while deleting air conditioning, the radio, and power steering/windows. For 1971 only, Corvette added the “ZR2,” which was essentially a big-block LS6-powered version of the ZR1. The solid-lifter 454 was rated at 425 hp, and just a dozen ZR2s were produced.

Built at the St. Louis plant and delivered new in Toronto, this car is reportedly the last of that dozen. The coupe, in Brands Hatch Green over a dark green interior, last sold in Scottsdale nine years ago for $495,000, and at Mecum Indy it has an estimate of $475,000–$600,000.

1970 Dodge Challenger “Black Ghost”

Although it’s primarily “legendary” if you were part of the Detroit street racing scene 50 years ago, this Hemi Challenger is nevertheless famous enough to be in the National Historic Vehicle Register, and for Dodge to name one of its “Last Call” Hemi models this year. That it is being sold from the same family that bought it new has also caused quite a buzz in the car media world.

The “Black Ghost,” as this triple-black Challenger R/T SE Hemi is known, haunted Woodward Avenue in the first half of the 1970s, beating lesser cars between the lights and then disappearing into the night. The disappearing act was partly because the owner was a police officer who wanted to keep his street racing hobby on the down low and avoid a super-awkward traffic stop. He stopped racing it in 1975, and in 2015, just before his passing, he signed the title over to his son. The current condition #1 (Concours) value in the Hagerty Price Guide for a ’70 Hemi Challenger R/T four-speed is $414,000, but an unrestored and very famous example like this could bring a hefty premium.

1960 Chevrolet Corvette

Casner Motor Racing Division, given the Italianate name “Camoradi,” was the outfit of American airline pilot Lloyd “Lucky” Casner. Camoradi’s best achievements were with its Maserati Birdcage, which won at the Nürburgring twice, but the team also campaigned with America’s sports car, the Corvette. Camoradi was allocated two factory-prepared Vettes for 1960, which supplemented the three given to fellow American sportsman Briggs Cunningham’s team. On its maiden outing in Cuba, this car won the GT-only race in Havana and three days later won its class at the Cuban Grand Prix (Stirling Moss won overall in Camoradi’s Maserati).

At Le Mans, it finished second in class behind Cunningham’s Corvette and 10th overall, but it didn’t actually cover enough distance to be officially classified. At the Swedish Grand Prix GT race, this Camoradi Corvette took the checkered flag but, while in Sweden, it got into a nasty wreck that smashed up the front end, hardtop, and windshield. The engine somehow wound up powering a speedboat in New Zealand, but the rest of the car remained in Scandinavia until the 1990s, when it was brought back to the U.S. and restored. Another piece of Le Mans history up for grabs during the race’s centenary, it has an oddly specific presale estimate of $2.0M–$2.1M.

1970 Plymouth Cuda 440 Rapid Transit show car

In 1970, Plymouth launched its “Rapid Transit System Caravan” promotion and toured the country with “Supercar Clinics” in partnership with the Sox & Martin drag racing team. A big part of the party were the four customized Plymouths given wild paint jobs and body modifications. Three of them wound up in the collection of Steven Juliano, whose estate sold them via Mecum in 2019 for $236,500, $264,000, and $341,000. Juliano tried to buy the fourth one, this wild Cuda 440, but its owner would never budge, and it has only recently seen the light of day after almost 50 years in a garage.

Designed by Harry Bradley and built by Chuck Miller at Styline Customs, the Rapid Transit Cuda has a custom steel grille and lower fascia, as well as a custom rear and a little electric motor that rattles the shaker hood for car shows. Originally finished in red, it was painted green, blue, and white for the 1970 Rapid Transit System program and got its current red, orange, and white job with that lovely fade in 1971.

It was then purchased by a private owner who drove it around for a bit, didn’t like all the attention he got (what did he expect?), and stuffed it in the garage. The odometer shows just 976 miles. This marvelous Mopar has a $500,000–$750,000 estimate for Mecum Indy.

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In late-1940s Britain, Rover general manager Spencer Wilks tasked the company’s chief engineer, his brother Maurice, to develop a vehicle that could lift the company from obsolescence. Once a manufacturer of cars for the well-to-do, Rover was in a period of transition. During World War II, its manufacturing facilities had been turned into “shadow factories,” secretly producing important aircraft components. When hostilities ended, the worldwide demand for luxury vehicles was a fraction of what it had been before the war, and Rover needed a new strategy.

The Wilks’ answer was a sensible vehicle aimed at farmers, deliverymen, and light industry. A machine for navigating bombed-out roads, to help get the country back on its feet.

The immediate postwar years were a time of shortages. Most British steel of the era had been diverted for the production of ships and tanks. At the opposite end of the metallurgy spectrum, aluminum had become vastly important, needed for aviation components. Early in the war, Germany had great success in using submarines to slow the volume of transatlantic shipping. As hostilities churned on, however, Allied cargo ships sought safety in numbers, banding together in vast, escorted fleets called convoys. As more and more of those convoys made it to England, large alloy mills in the southern United States were better able to support Britain’s wartime demand. By the time the last bombs had dropped, an aluminum surplus had accumulated, and much of it sat in Rover’s factories.

There was another critical and unexpected surplus: American military Jeeps. Before the war, Britain had the largest mechanized army in the world. But in 1940, a series of military blunders and the disastrous Battle of France destroyed some 60,000 British land vehicles. America and England entered into a lease agreement that saw the former sending more than 80,000 Jeeps across the Atlantic, where many remained after the war.

The Wilks brothers’ first prototype was built atop the box-frame chassis and axles of one such Jeep, with body panels of surplus aviation aluminum. Color choices were limited to airplane-cockpit dark green and two lighter shades of the same color. Near the end of 1947, a fleet of early production models were tooling around the midlands for testing.

By 1948, Rover’s new “Land-Rover” had a name: Series I.

The Series I was originally a stopgap vehicle, meant to inject new life and capital into the staid Rover brand. After the company blew through its surplus of aluminum and drab paint, the thinking went, its factories would triumphantly return to the manufacture of saloon cars.

Except they didn’t. The Series I became a massive hit.

For the next decade, Rover rolled out a series of new features on the model, all intended to make that very utilitarian vehicle more inviting for a human being. Heat, an actual roof, and windshield wipers all became standard. A longer-framed “station wagon” variant was fit for families and commercial use. In 1958, the Land Rover Series II debuted, featuring the breed’s first styling changes—a wheelbase widened for stability begat a new midsection, and hardtops received rounded upper rear windows that would evolve into the leaky “Alpine” windows found on Land Rovers for generations. In 1961, the Series IIA arrived, bringing new engine choices and small cosmetic updates.

If all of the above felt like an unsolicited history lesson, that’s because it was. At least for me.

As a Land Rover enthusiast and current and former owner of numerous pre-2008 Discoverys and Range Rovers, I’m ashamed to say I knew none of this. I could blame my historical apathy on the brand’s confusing nomenclature, which includes an era when Land-Rovers were Rovers but not Land Rovers (the hyphen was fired in 1978), or the convoluted ownership tree of England’s many carmakers, which to this day leaves me unable to distinguish an MG from any other Anglian sports car of the last half-century.

Really, though, it probably has something to do with how, in America, we rarely take the time to consider how our shiny new things came to be. Especially when something old has been made fashionable and new again.

My opportunity, history lesson, and experience came via an invite from Greg Shondel, president and cofounder of Himalaya, a Charleston, South Carolina firm that specializes in the restoration and customization of Land Rover Defenders and Series models. Shondel was eager to introduce Himalaya’s latest completed restomod project, a client-ordered 1967 Series IIA featuring an updated powertrain and modern comforts.

The name rang a bell. I had become somewhat familiar with the brand through Instagram, where a creepily accurate algorithm had presented Himalaya to me via “Reels,” the latest distraction that people my age mindlessly scroll through in bed when we should absolutely be attempting to sleep.

Himalaya was not originally owned by the Shondel brothers—the company began life as a design firm that specialized in restorations and outsourced most physical work. Greg and his brother James eventually acquired the firm as a passion project. The acquisition was prompted after the pair restored a right-hand-drive Defender together and found themselves in the middle of a booming market for vintage SUVs. The parts and supply-chain relationships established during their restoration, they realized, could underpin a business model for building more trucks.

Early on, Greg and James aimed to complete five builds per year, with all restoration work done under one roof by a single team of craftsmen. After a few years, Himalaya’s roof grew significantly larger, the company moving into its current 16,000-square-foot shop. It now turns out around 30 completed trucks annually.

Each client arrives with an outline of what they want, and the Shondels’ entire team comes together to help fill in the blanks. With engine packages including GM’s popular LT/LS V-8s and a variety of diesel (Cummins) options, Himalaya offers a veritable “choose your own adventure” of power, including turbo- and supercharging.

When I arrived, the shop’s house upholsterer was busy putting together a set of custom seats with tweed accent panels and matching leather, while simultaneously working on a solution for a client who had expressed worry that the white leather in her soon-to-be-completed Defender would fall victim to the markers, ketchup, and general child-disgustingness of her six grandchildren. (The solution was a new, marine-grade synthetic with the look and feel of leather but toddler-proof durability.)

One space over on the floor, a Cummins-powered Defender project sat awaiting the completion of its wiring. A quirk of scheduling meant that every Defender build in the facility was incomplete, so my driving experience was unfortunately limited to the restored Series trucks at hand.

Like Rover in the 1940s, Himalaya has its own stockpile of aluminum, albeit in salvage condition. The company’s boneyard is what keeps production moving, a fascinating collection of confidentially unsheltered and multi-generational old Rovers waiting to be brought back to life.

Robert Howard, Himalaya’s head of production, is the company’s direct line for that boneyard and for countless hard-to-find parts. Hailing from the English village of Redditch, Rob came on board after Himalaya merged with his own Land Rover restoration firm, Astwood. Redditch, he said, is a place where “you can’t look left or right without seeing a Land Rover of some type,” and that connection gives Himalaya direct access into Britain’s network of forgotten barns and salvage yards. Rovers affixed with snowplows, ambulances, ex-military vehicles—no truck is off the table, and Rob knows where to find them. After being packed into shipping containers, Rob’s finds eventually make their way across the Atlantic, where they’re meticulously inspected by United States customs officials before being shipped to the low country.

It was a chilly and gray day in Charleston, maybe 50 degrees Fahrenheit, a Midlandesque morning. The remains of an overnight rain dappled the roads. Fittingly, my first drive came in the form of a beautiful and unrestored 1968 Series IIA model that Himalaya considers its “shop truck.” That machine would serve as a stock reference for the recently finished restomod I would drive later.

This was my first time in a Series truck, and my only expectations came from a brief conversation with my own Land Rover mechanic. Do not, he told me, “get too excited.”

The ’68 was classic Series green. Everything had a feel, a smell, a texture. Bodywork imperfections were common—Series trucks were meant as working vehicles from day one, rarely fussed over on the line—and the paint’s smooth topcoat made the flaws seem like features. The doors closed differently each time, and the visibility-impeding, hood-mounted spare tire somehow seemed like an absolute necessity.

Slipping out of the Himalaya garage took a little finesse. The pedals felt loose by design, and the clutch pedal gave only a few inches of engagement. Brakes and steering were all on me, unassisted, and if there was any rain, I’d be at the mercy of an original set of visibly branded Lucas electric windshield wipers. To their credit, they worked pretty well.

Once on the road, the optional hard top, luxurious for its day, did its best to keep out the damp and chilly morning air. A little burning oil, a touch of clutch smell, some rattles—all things you’d expect in a half-century-old truck basically designed to be a tractor. The non-synchronized transmission ruled out imprecise downshifts, and finding the correct gear was a matter of maybe two or three tries.

As an owner of classic cars since I was a teenager, this sensory feedback is something I’ve come to appreciate and really enjoy. This site is no stranger to the subject: you and a vehicle, actively working together to get where you’re going, a partnership that gives no allowance for cell-phone time or troubleshooting Bluetooth. There is absolutely a time and a place for a quiet, comfortable, and computer-assisted conveyance, but with a rig like this, you drive simply because you enjoy it.

A surprisingly small amount of time passed before many of the Rover’s cues felt normal. Braking a little early, putting a little more effort into tighter steering situations, settling into a driver’s seat that initially felt uncomfortably close to oncoming traffic—along with the stereotypically British weather, it was easy to see how saloon-car owners in 1960s England would have found this new driving experience refreshing, challenging, and quite charming.

To me, it was perfect. Sitting high in the driver’s seat, I felt like a tradesman on the way to mend a tractor in the Cotswolds or do some sheep-shearing in Chipping Norton. Granted, this may or may not have been neurologically influenced by the petrol fumes making their way into the interior.

After my baseline drive in the late 1960s, I slipped into the present with what Shondel believes is the future of Himalaya—a modern take on the Series IIA. As with all Himalaya builds, the truck’s design plan was outlined through customer input.

Every angle featured a utilitarian throwback detail from Rover’s early days. Original cone-shaped front turn signals, accurately recreated bumpers, even the retained under-windshield vents, functionally simple and charming, they all suggest that customer familiarity with Series II lore impacted the truck’s final form.

The first suggestion that this IIA was different came in the subtle, sealed-beam LED headlights and teak-lined cargo area. Before its current restoration, the ’68’s body was finished in a limestone shade, a tone kept alive on the new wheels. With a nod to the original Series I engineering strategy, the rig now uses the wider axles from a Defender for stability, while a custom Brembo brake system makes stopping less dramatic. Under the hood is a tightly yet neatly fitted General Motors LS3 V-8 mated to a five-speed manual.

In the interior, a cleverly hidden air-conditioning system supplants Land Rover’s original speed-regulated ventilation, while a Bluetooth audio interface and push-button start are neatly integrated into the dashboard.

The sensations were similar to those of the shop truck, but the feedback was more engineered. The doors closed solidly and consistently but with the same sound. There was subtle engine vibration and gearshift feedback at startup, just without the worrisome rattles and smells. The transmission allowed for confident downshifts, which begat a gravely gurgle—a lovely reminder of the 6.7-liter just on the other side of that hard-to-find aluminum bulkhead.

On the road, Himalaya’s new IIA was comfortable yet still required my full attention for shifting and making good decisions with that LS3. Zipping up onramps into busy Charleston traffic was fun and effortless, and the IIA’s updated suspension had no qualms with a quick lane change prompted by another driver’s cell-phone fixation. It’s easy to imagine a truck like this thriving in a larger city, among tight parking spots, unforgiving curbs, and indifferently maintained metropolitan roads.

Mixed in with a feeling of renewal and modernity were some reminders that no old Land Rover was designed to hold your hand. The side mirrors sat in their original location, far away on the front fenders. Adjustments required a few trips back and forth from the driver’s seat or good communication with a passenger. The center-mounted modern gauges weren’t easy to read at first glance, as the speedometer’s chrome bezel impeded my view of the needle at lower speeds. Safety equipment was best described as historically accurate.

I mentioned my silly mirror gripe to Greg Shondel and his design team. They felt confident the mirrors could be mechanized if requested. If, you know, you’re that kind of person.

At drive’s end, none of my personal grievances trumped the feeling of someone taking photos of a car I was driving while I sat a stoplight, or an excited kid yelling out, “Mommy, look at that cool Jeep!” A reaction, I imagine, shared by kids in 1960s Britain.

One of the things I tried to keep in mind during my drive was how that ’68 was one person’s very specific vision brought to life by many people—the design and functionality choices did not have to line up with the ones I would have made. With interest in restomodding seemingly at an all-time high, the newly popular online slogan “respect all builds” should also include respecting the proper execution of the original concept. Himalaya’s work does just that.

A similarly appointed custom IIA from Himalaya will run you from $175,000 to $225,000. If you’re a purist and prefer the originality of a frame-off stock restoration, $150,000 will get you your own IIA in whichever shade of aircraft green you desire. A modern drivetrain in a long-wheelbase Himalaya 110 wagon will be around $300,000, with the firm’s priciest and most customized truck rolling out of the shop at $400,000. To get the historically accurate IIA experience, ask for a gasoline-scented air freshener.

In a market where a carbureted Ford Bronco from the early 1970s can easily command $230,000 on that website where you have to provide your own trailer, Himalaya’s IIA offers a comparatively priced option; setting aside the obvious Ford-Land Rover differences, much of the appeal here is in the bond-building fun of having intimate control of the design process. Your ideas begin with a vehicle that, for many, has more charm, history, and rarity than any currently trending classic American SUV. On top of that, a Series IIA is a timeless shape almost impossible to ruin.

It remains to be seen if Land Rover’s recent success with its new throwback Defender—and how car enthusiasts tend to obsess over past designs—will embolden JLR to consider a Series-truck revival. If I were an enthusiast with the means and desire to procure a restored or restomodded Series II, though, I’d absolutely pull the trigger now, while the supply chain for aluminum Rovers is strong.

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Winning the Ridler Award is a lifetime achievement—for builder and for hot rod, since the latter is only eligible once—and adds substantial value to any vehicle so honored. How substantial? We’ll find out next month, when CadMad, the 2019 Ridler winner, crosses the Mecum block in Indianapolis in a no-reserve auction.

Arguably the most prestigious award bequeathed by the hot-rod industry, the Ridler Award is named for the late Don Ridler, who was the first professional promoter hired by the Michigan Hot Rod Association in the 1950s, as the MHRA was trying to launch the annual Autorama car show. The event grew, largely due to Ridler’s efforts, and moved to the Cobo Center in downtown Detroit in 1961. In 1963, Autorama decided to honor Ridler with an award given in his name. 60 years later, it’s still awarded to the best of show at the massive Detroit Autorama.

Ridler Award winners often sell collector-to-collector, so this will be a peek into what a sterling one-off Cadillac station wagon can bring at public auction.

Ridler Award candidates can’t have been shown elsewhere prior to the Autorama, and they must move under their own power. That likely isn’t an issue with CadMad, which is powered by a $97,000, 632-cubic-inch big-block Chevrolet V-8 with twin turbochargers, a powertrain that supposedly pumps out 1025 horsepower. The car began life as a 1959 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham, with a body styled originally by Pininfarina.

CadMad was 16 years in the making, a $2 million project ultimately finished after the owner’s death. The owner’s brother, Craig Barton, helped the car past the finish line, fulfilling his brother’s dream of competing for a Ridler award.

It was built by the team at Super Rides by Jordan in Escondido, California. Shortened by 18 inches compared to the Cadillac wagon upon which it is based, CadMad now wears a Chevrolet Nomad roof and no rear doors. The acid-dipped body, and everything underneath, was narrowed to help the Nomad top fit. It’s all stretched over a tube-frame chassis. Ron Marqus is the man responsible for the custom interior, upholstered in pink and burgundy with glossy wood accents.

Supposedly the two-tone exterior, essentially orchid and silver, cost $300,000 alone, Mecum says.

What will CadMad bring? The was car auctioned off once before, in 2020, and brought $302,500. We’ll find out if it has appreciated when the car goes on the block at Dana Mecum’s Spring Classic in Indianapolis on May 20. We suspect it has.

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Plymouth hit the road in 1970 with its “Rapid Transit System” and put on clinics with drag racers across the country, highlighting the performance potential of its various V-8 engines. However, there were more than just elapsed times to brag about, as a quartet of customized muscle cars was also a part of the reverie. Three of those special cars wound up in Steven Juliano’s collection and went up for sale four years ago. The final custom, designed by Harry Bentley Bradley and built by Chuck Miller at Styline Customs, is this 1970 ’Cuda that’s bound for Mecum’s Indy 2023 sale.

It features a custom steel grille and lower fascia, along with a gorgeous custom paint job sporting a luscious fade. Originally finished in red, the car was painted green, blue, and white for the 1970 Rapid Transit System program and received the paint you see here in 1971. In our opinion, the second custom color scheme is superior. While the style is similar, the lines are more complex and the addition of the front-to-rear fade makes it absolutely striking. It’s audacious and loud, but given that it started life as a 1970 440-cubic inch ’Cuda with a shaker hood, subtlety was never really an option.

After retiring from Rapid Transit Service, this car was purchased and hardly driven, as evidenced by the 976 miles currently on the odometer. The brawny 440 and custom paint and bodywork drew too much attention, and the car was garaged in 1976, where it would remain, nearly unseen until early last year.

Ryan Brutt, the Auto Archeologist, has a video with Chuck Miller that goes into some of the history of the car.

Despite spending almost 50 years in storage, the lacquer paint survived amazingly well, with only a few chips and scratches (and some cat paw prints). Inside, the upholstery and carpet appear to be in great shape.

Like the three other custom Rapid Transit cars, this one’s sure to bring a premium when it crosses the auction block this May. Juliano had tried to purchase this car and knew the owner, but never actually got to see the car in person. Perhaps now that it’s out of hiding and back in the limelight it can once again join its fellow Rapid Transit System partners.

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A few years ago, Hagerty columnist Jay Leno reconstructed a 1931 Duesenberg Model J LaGrande Coupe, one of six built in the style. The original body had been removed and scrapped in the 1940s by a Ford-Lincoln dealer in Indianapolis, which replaced it with a hideous, bulbous, self-designed mess of a body. Restoring such an irreplaceable classic to its original build standards takes serious funding and unparalleled expertise, as you might expect. Leno’s car was reborn thanks to the historical knowledge and restoration expertise of Randy Ema, the renowned Duesenberg historian who today owns the storied brand.

Such resources, both human and financial, are not always available.

Twenty-five years ago, for instance, two ambitious model car designers set out to recreate a somewhat mythical, “lost” Duesenberg. All they had to go on was a chassis number, an old story, a trunk full of memories.

The Coupé Simone

The Duesenberg, nicknamed Coupé Simone by its original buyer, was regarded as one of just a few examples bodied on Model J chassis that were left over after E.L. Cord dissolved his Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg luxury car empire in 1937. As the story goes, it vanished after delivery in war-torn Europe and never seen in public.

The story of the lost Duesenberg developed a following in enthusiast circles on the nascent internet in the 1990s, gaining a legendary status that continues even today. Wider public interest in the Coupé Simone took root in 1998, when the Franklin Mint produced a 1/24-scale model of the car. (After succeeding with commemorative coins, plates, and costume jewelry, the Mint moved into the high-quality collectible automobile model industry.) The Mint then followed up with a 10th-anniversary edition model in 2008; known as the “Midnight Ghost,” it was based on the supercharged Model J chassis (the so-called SJ) and wore a different color scheme that the original buyer had reportedly rejected in period as “too fast and menacing.”

The plot, you see, thickens.

Duesenberg: Redux

After 25 years of being limited to scale models, magazine stories, and internet legends by which to remember the mysterious Duesenberg, the classic car world will soon welcome a real, drivable Coupé Simone. Construction on the real-life chassis begins next week.

Greg Martin’s Iconic Rod and Custom in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, is experienced in traditional coachbuilding methods. Martin is being assisted by the Franklin Mint model’s original designers, as well as modern digital imaging tools.

Duesenberg aficionados will recognize Williamsport as the home of Lycoming Foundry and Machine Co., a member business of the same Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg family that built the legendary Duesenberg 420-cubic-inch, dual-overhead-cam, 32-valve straight-eight engines. Another auspicious connection: The Coupé Simone, as the legend goes, emerged from a small and obscure coachbuilder located in Green Brier, Pennsylvania, just 60 miles from Williamsport. Its name was Emmett-Armand Coachworks of America.

Despite this, history books seem to have no record of the Emmett-Armand Coachworks that supposedly made the Coupé Simone body. Why would that be? And why did all the principals involved, including the original builders—Emmett Hardnock and Armand Minasian—seemingly disappear without a trace?

With a little trip in the Wayback Machine, we will discover how an exercise in art imitating life morphed into life imitating art.

***

It began with a barn find

In February 1997, Automobile magazine ran a six-page feature story on a fascinating “barn find” discovery of a “lost” one-off Duesenberg bodied in 1939. In this case, the barn held no car—just a chest full of design drawings, correspondence with a buyer, and numerous other artifacts from the obscure Emmett-Armand Coachworks.

As the story goes, two Franklin Mint Precision Models designers were attending the Mint’s Antique Auto Show in 1995 when they were approached by a young man showing a 1932 Cadillac coupe. There was, the young man said an elderly woman in his home town of Green Brier, Pennsylvania with an old car, parts, and tools in a barn. The woman had kept it all safe for decades “in the hope that her husband, lost in the war, would return.” Intrigued by the tale, the two designers drove to Green Brier to investigate.

With permission from the elderly woman who owned the barn, they searched a trunk found therein. The drawings, letters, and photos it contained, most yellowed and moisture-stained from decades in storage, depicted a car with flowing aerodynamic lines reminiscent of the flamboyant Art Deco creations by France’s Figoni & Falaschi coachworks.

The trunk’s contents also provided evidence of a bizarre saga to rival the most sordid elements of the Real Housewives cable TV franchise. The wealthy Frenchman who had commissioned the car, Gui de LaRouche, had named the Coupé Simone for his lover. The project took the small coachbuilder nearly three years to complete. Its proprietors, Emmett Hardnock and Armand Minasian of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, planned to debut the car at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. There, its futuristic look would have fit perfectly with the sprawling event’s theme.

Instead, things took a sinister detour.

Love and war

Prior to the World’s Fair, de LaRouche demanded delivery of the Coupé Simone in France. The timing could not have been worse. Hardnock traveled by steamship to accompany the car and collect final payment. Before the ship docked, though, Germany invaded France, plunging Europe into chaos.

Hardnock made it to Paris, nevertheless facing a conflict of a different sort. It seemed that de LaRouche’s assistant, Antoine St. Claire, who had been overseeing the Coupé Simone project for him, had also been having an affair with his lady. Taking revenge, the jealous de LaRouche forged papers implicating St. Claire and Simone as traitors to France. He refused to make final payment to Hardnock, who then teamed up with St. Claire to steal back the car.

In a telegram to Minasian in America, Hardnock explained that he would attempt to transport the Duesenberg to Prague, Czechoslovakia, where relatives could hide it. And then both he and the car went missing. Minasian booked passage to France to search for both, but he, too, never returned home.

Engrossed by the story, the two Franklin Mint designers made a fifth-scale fiberglass model based on the drawings they’d discovered. They then made the model the centerpiece for an elaborate exhibit at the Franklin Mint Museum in Philadelphia, featuring many of the materials from the trunk. Impressed by the presentation, the company’s owners decided to make the mysterious Coupé Simone their next Duesenberg 1/24-scale model in 1998.

More fascinating than fiction

If you remember that Automobile article, you might also remember the disclaimer at the end: The car and the entire story behind it were made up.

It was neither a hoax nor an April Fool’s prank, though. Rather, the two Franklin Mint design directors, the very real Roger Hardnock and Raffi Minasian, created the melodramatic story and all the artifacts that supported it as an exercise to inspire their design process.

In the accompanying interview (scroll down below), Minasian explains to Hagerty how the process (and fun) of building the backstory and creating the “documentation” immersed him and Hardnock into the period. The exercise, he said, allowed them to envision an over-the-top, futuristic-looking car from the viewpoint of designers in the late Thirties, rather than as designers in the 1990s looking backward.

“The Coupé Simone [model] sold better than Franklin Mint’s two previous real Duesenberg models,” Minasian recalled. “We’d speculated that the story was almost more important than the actual vehicle.”

***

Back to reality: Duesenberg built the glorious Model J, SJ, and JN chassis from 1929 until 1935 (481 total), but orders for cars came in slowly during the Great Depression. Three dozen supercharged “SJ” examples were made.

When buying a Duesenberg, the customer bought a chassis with powertrain for $9500 (about $207,000 today!) and then selected a coachbuilder to construct a body. The total price would go into the high teens or even higher in some cases. A 1937 Duesenberg Model J Convertible Berline bodied by Rollston in New York City is considered the final car completed and sold while Duesenberg was still operational. A couple leftover chassis received bodies by 1940.

While the Emmett-Armand Coachworks may be imaginary, Duesenberg itself engaged in a bit of fiction with LaGrande, its in-house “coachbuilder.” Contract body makers built the LaGrande bodies according to designs from Gordon Buehrig, Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg’s artistic maestro who also created the landmark Auburn 851/852 Speedster and the Cord 810/812. Most LaGrande bodies were built by the Union City Body Company in Union City, Indiana, including the original body of Leno’s 1931 coupe. The company continued as a commercial truck and bus body maker that Utilimaster absorbed in 2005.

The LaGrande name itself was a sneaky play on LeBaron—at the time perhaps America’s most renowned designer and coachbuilder—which created some memorable Duesenberg Model J bodies.

Realizing the Coupé Simone

The curvy Art Deco Coupé Simone would have been a daunting coachbuilding project even in the late 1930s, a time when the craft was still thriving. Today, Martin and his Iconic Rod and Custom Shop plan to apply traditional coachbuilding methods to produce the body, albeit with a little help from digital technology. Martin recently constructed a 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO replica using these very techniques, building its body by forming aluminum over a wooden buck.

“I sold that one but have enough parts to do another,” he told Hagerty.

Martin’s approach to the Coupé Simone will be comparable but will not have a Chevy LS engine, as the 250 GTO replica had. (We’ll get to the powertrain in a moment.)

Minasian is consulting on Martin’s project, including providing original drawings and models from the Franklin Mint. Using 3D scanning on a scale model of the Coupé Simone yielded full-size two-dimensional patterns in sections. Martin will use those to make a wire frame out of half-inch hollow tubing and build the aluminum body around that.

The Coupé Simone will be a very large car, though not quite as large as the biggest Duesenbergs. Most of the three-dozen SJs were built on a 142-inch wheelbase, but a few were on the company’s 153.5-inch wheelbase. Two special models, known as SSJs, used a 125-inch chassis.

By necessity, the full-size Coupé Simone will be more of a 9/10-scale car. As Minasian explains: “The digitized scale does not translate exactly to full size. It gets close, but you must do some finessing, some adjusting, because proportions sometimes get exaggerated when you enlarge them. And so, frontal overhang, vehicle height, some of the general characteristics including the length of the wheelbase, are different.”

The Coupé Simone story states the imaginary car was built on a 153.5-inch wheelbase SJ chassis, so the 10 percent reduction yields a 138-inch wheelbase for Martin’s realization.

“We will probably raise the height a couple of inches for practicality, but the overall look won’t change,” Minasian explained.

Martin will build the Coupé Simone in its Midnight Ghost spec, with a two-tone silver and dark gray exterior and tan leather interior.

“We’ll make a ladder frame chassis and then use subframe sections for the engine cradle and rear suspension,” he said. “We’re talking with a couple of companies about suspension ideas.”

The Coupé Simone will roll on modern rubber, possibly wrapped around Dayton wire wheels, which some original Duesenbergs used. When Martin spoke with Hagerty in early February, he said he would use a straight-eight or V-12 from the period, possibly fitting the engine with a McCulloch supercharger.

“I’m going to leave that as a surprise for the moment,” he said.

Of note, Auburn offered cars with a 6.4-liter V-12 engine in the Thirties. (Leno owns one of those, too.) Duesenberg also built a 1936 prototype called the “Gentleman’s Roadster,” using the Auburn V-12 built by Lycoming. The Auburn engine later became the basis for a larger-displacement version used in American LaFrance fire trucks.

In keeping with the spirit of the period, the Coupé Simone will use a modern five- or six-speed manual transmission. Martin has been through some arduous builds, so he expects to have to overcome obstacles along the way.

“There are always challenges,” he said.

He has a video crew documenting the whole build, so we’ll all get to witness how an imaginary “lost” Duesenberg becomes a real, drivable car in the 21st century.

***

Interview with Raffi Minasian

Raffi Minasian, one of the two designers that created the Coupé Simone, spoke with Hagerty about the fictional backstory that inspired his Roger Hardnock’s beloved design. A designer, professor, and journalist, Minasian is also a Pebble Beach Concours d’ Elegance judge and a frequent speaker and panelist at automotive conferences. Over the past 40 years, he has designed and built several award-winning show cars, hundreds of scale model cars, thousands of automotive accessory parts, and worked in partnership with shops building custom cars and hot rods and restoring concours-winning vehicles. He co-hosts the weekly Clutch Radio with Dan Rosenberg podcast, consults on restoration projects, and performs inspections and valuations. Minasian served for six years on the board of the Hagerty Collectors Foundation, which became the Hagerty Education Fund and now the RPM Foundation.

Hagerty: The first Franklin Mint Coupé Simone model came out a quarter-century ago. Did you ever envision someone building a full-scale, drivable version? 

RM: Roger Hardnock and I had always imagined that somebody might approach us to build it. Over the years, many have asked if they could. The answer was always yes, but only depending on what level of build they were planning. Our vision has always been that it be a steel or aluminum-bodied car with the right level of fit and finish and execution, not a fiberglass body on top of a production chassis.

Hagerty: How did you connect with Greg Martin’s Iconic Rod and Custom shop?

RM: Greg contacted me in spring 2022. After some conversations about what was possible, it became clear that he had both the passion and skills to pull it off. This will be his car.

Hagerty: Will you be involved the build?

RM: I’ve been working with Greg, and that will continue. I’ve sent him drawings and specs. We’ve discussed quite a bit about the construction details. I’ve built cars myself, so I’m no stranger to that aspect. I’ve done quite a bit of work with other shops, building hot rods and customs, and I do a lot of forensic restoration on vehicles that have lost their original body work.

Hagerty: Which came first, the Coupé Simone’s design or its fictitious backstory?

RM: Designers tend to think about the future and project what the world is going to be like 5, 10, 20 years from now. We thought, why not apply those principles to the past? Before we designed the Coupé Simone, we immersed ourselves in that period, what was going on with car design, what was happening culturally, and let the design of the vehicle emerge from that mindset. Then it was just a matter of weaving the speculation into the history, which we thought was a tremendous amount of fun. That was the main driver behind it.

Hagerty: How did you set the stage for a late-’30s setting?

RM: By drawing in the style of the period and aging our drawings. We spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out how to make a drawing look old and wrinkled. When you see what your drawing looks like, what you’ve drawn in contemporary times, and you’ve applied a history to it, you’ve given it a visual identity that creates a kind of romanticism. Ultimately, that’s what people felt when they saw it. They wanted to believe the story. Like a good movie, it pulls you in.

Hagerty: If you had not created the dramatic backstory, do you think you could have designed Coupé Simone?

RM: I don’t think so. I think the idea behind the creation of it, the story and the atmosphere for it, were integral to the effort. It’s not the average person who spends that kind of money on something as astonishing as a car of this sort. The background, the history, the hubris of it must be there to give a sense of who this person is.

Hagerty: There were plenty of colorful, wealthy people who commissioned extravagant cars for themselves in the Thirties. How did you create a story that seemed relatable to a wider audience?

RM: The person who commissions it is a wealthy cosmetics entrepreneur. And his love interest is someone he cannot have. So, he names the car “Simone” for her. It’s kind of a play on the irony. It’s the thing he can’t have, and it’s a car that doesn’t exist, much like her returned affections for him. The car gets lost in Europe in the delivery. Both partners in the coachworks are also lost. All that loss tugs on the heartstrings of what people connect to when they hear personal, historic stories.

Hagerty: Franklin Mint ultimately made two different versions of the Coupé Simone, and Greg is building the second version, the 10th anniversary model, which has a different color scheme than the first. How did that come about?

RM: After I left Franklin Mint, I continued as a consultant for them. When they asked me to create a 10-year anniversary version, I went back to our original story, which described an initial version of the car that de LaRouche, the cosmetic executive, rejected. That was done as a supercharged car with dark gray and silver exterior and a tan interior. In the story, de LaRouche visits the coachbuilders in Green Brier, but he arrives late because of train delays. So he’s taken for a frightening ride in the car in the middle of the night. And he tells them, “It’s too fast, too frightening, and too menacing-looking. You must change it.”

Hagerty: And that becomes a plot twist in the story?

RM: The coachbuilders then changed to a non-supercharged engine and chose a color scheme based on the baskets of green apples and lilacs that a local young girl would sometimes bring to the shop. There’s a sort of two-tone in lilac flowers, which inspires the car’s main colors. And there’s kind of a light fading green stripe representing the apples.

That revised version becomes de LaRouche’s car and the original Franklin Mint model. The version he rejected, which we called the Midnight Ghost, then justifies the 10-year anniversary car. Franklin Mint offered that one as a limited-edition of 1500. I signed a plaque for the bottom of it, and it sold out within weeks. That’s the car Greg is building.

Hagerty: When you previewed the model and exhibit at the Franklin Mint Museum, how did the visitors and media respond to the story of a previously unknown Duesenberg?

RM: We didn’t tell anybody that it was real or not real, but we did put a small placard in a corner that explained it. Probably nobody read it, though. A couple of people who signed the guestbook said that they remembered their fathers talking about seeing the car at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. Another wrote that he believed he knew where the car was in France.

Hagerty: How did the Automobile story happen?

RM: [Automobile art director] Larry Crane told us Automobile was going to give the story six color pages. He said he loved finding out about it and getting caught up in the story before realizing it was fictitious. He said he wrestled with revealing that it wasn’t real, to see what letters readers might send, but ultimately decided to tell the truth at the end of the story.

Hagerty: This fictitious car got the blessing of the Duesenberg community?

RM: The Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Museum asked us to provide information on the families involved to put into their archive, which we provided along with the explanation that the story was fictional. We were connected with people in the Duesenberg community, so we contacted Randy Ema, who owns the Duesenberg brand. He was excited about the project and provided us with a chassis number for a Duesenberg that was known to no longer exist.

Hagerty: Despite the Automobile story and other reports revealing the truth, the fiction seems to still live on …

RM: Even today, I see Coupé Simone images on social media on a regular basis from people posting photos as though it’s historically accurate. Some have put the Coupé Simone on lists of beautiful cars from the Art Deco period.

Hagerty: What kind of punctuation mark would you say building a real Coupé Simone puts on the story?

RM: When Greg’s build is completed, the Coupé Simone story will be told, and at what point then is it no longer not real? Because if you now have the artifact and you have all the story, it becomes something in and of itself. Ultimately, what we’re really trying to do for people is engage their creativity, their imaginations, and inspire them to think a little bit differently about vintage automobiles and the emotional connections they inspire.

***

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This article first appeared in Hagerty Drivers Club magazine. Click here to subscribe and join the club.

If the matte black Cadillac hearse hadn’t been parked outside the row of beige concrete and brick buildings, it would have been easy to miss Brothers Custom Automotive, a mecca of hot rods, customs, and Ford flathead V-8s in an industrial park in suburban Detroit.

Rosie the shop cat, who presides over the front office, demanded belly rubs from us before we continued into the 8000-square-foot shop. A sweeping glance took in a shark-mouthed land speed racer, a slammed two-tone Lincoln Premiere, modified Fords from the ’20s through the ’50s in various states of repair, a royal blue Mercedes 190SL, a flared Alfa Romeo GTV, and a primer-coated 1965 Bentley S3.

The cars and parts were interspersed with machining equipment, some as old as the cars being serviced, like a Bridgeport mill and a Sun engine tester straight out of the Truman era. The shop’s playlist was as eclectic as the cars, ranging from Sinatra’s “My Way” to the Wu-Tang Clan’s “C.R.E.A.M.”

Over by the trio of two-post lifts, owner Bill Jagenow was under the dashboard of a cream-colored 1952 Ford Vicky sedan, attempting to diagnose faulty turn-signal wiring using an original factory service manual. Middle-aged, with short, blond hair styled somewhere between rockabilly and military, he was wearing a button-up shirt emblazoned with the Brothers logo. Eventually, he found the electrical short in the Ford, and the Vicky was back to blinking.

Across the garage, Autumn Riggle, Jagenow’s partner and the shop’s manager, meticulously wet-sanded Alfa body panels fresh from the paint booth. Her jet-black Bettie Page bangs complemented her Dickies work shirt. Two other full-timers were hard at work, one welding up a set of seat rails for the Alfa and the other adjusting the carburetors on a ’35 Ford.

Riggle met Jagenow in Detroit through the local car and music scene. She was working in the fashion industry, but as their relationship progressed, she became more involved in the shop’s operation. “I went from selling shoes and coats at Gucci to ordering spare parts on my lunch break,” she recalled. She eventually joined full time to run the business side of the operation.

Jagenow and Riggle are fixtures on the Detroit car scene, from concours to cars and coffee. Due to its community presence and reputation for winning shows, Brothers doesn’t have to advertise for business. Patrons include C-suite execs from the Detroit automakers, professional sports figures, celebrities like Eminem, and average Joes. The reach of Jagenow’s reputation is not limited to Motown, though. At one point during our visit, he had to excuse himself to take a call from a German collector regarding a potential job.

Jagenow had a circuitous journey from being a kid on the east side of Detroit to his current role as an automotive magician for the Motor City elite. He discovered his natural mechanical skills while keeping his first car, a 1972 Cadillac, running in high school. Then he joined the Navy and was stationed in San Diego, where he got caught up in the hot-rod scene. “I was drawn to the way the people in Southern California changed how the car sits,” Jagenow said.

He made friends with hot-rod legend Gene Winfield and other devotees to the discipline. After the Navy and a stint at the California outpost of Mercedes tuner Brabus, he drove his 1949 Ford back to Detroit to work for an automotive supplier.

By day, Jagenow developed and made parts for concept cars. By night, he was wrenching on his own cars and those of his friends. Before long, he found himself maintaining the private collection of former Meadow Brook Concours d’Elegance chairman Larry Smith, who helped spread the word that this former Navy man was the real deal. After Jagenow was laid off during the Great Recession, which devastated the Detroit auto industry, it was only natural that he would become a full-time mechanic and hot-rodder. The enterprise started out of his home garage in partnership with his brother Steve, who is no longer involved. But the name stuck.

Although proficient in rebuilding powertrains in anything from prewar grand tourers to concours classics, Jagenow’s real passion is the flathead Ford V-8. Which explains why flathead engines and oily parts were jammed onto floor-to-ceiling shelves, under workbenches, and wherever else there was room in the Brothers shop.

Indeed, Jagenow is a flathead virtuoso, with his engines powering land speed racing cars that chase records at Bonneville as well as reliable daily drivers. “It’s a beautiful engine—nothing is hidden—and I love the sound they make,” he mused. For the land speed racers, he attends the races with spare parts in tow to act as pit crew.

In order to break speed records and provide extra oomph to street cars, Jagenow invariably turns his attention to the intake side of Ford’s first V-8.

“It’s the biggest restriction to making power with a flathead,” said Jagenow, as he showed me a cut-in-half cylinder head. He uses the half-head to visualize how much metal he can remove from the intake passages to increase airflow. Half art, half science. He also doesn’t hesitate to use go-fast bits from the likes of Iskenderian, Stromberg, and Edelbrock.

Brothers Custom does far more than hopping up engines, though. The crew is well versed in frenching taillights, chopping tops, channeling bodies, and other old-school methods of car modification, but they don’t shy away from using modern paints and body fillers or from more mundane tasks like brake jobs and oil changes.

“I care for these cars like they’re mine,” said Jagenow. “I know all the nuts and bolts on them. I show all the customers everything that I can to keep them safe and make good decisions to keep the car on the road.”

The culmination of Brothers’ skill sets is Jagenow’s ’27 Ford roadster. It’s a striking machine, wearing deep gloss black with a crimson interior. A 4-inch channel—when a hot-rodder raises the floorpan so the body sits lower on the chassis—gives the Ford an imposing posture. In 2013, the car won the Best in Show award at Autorama Extreme. The ’27 is not just a garage queen, however. Jagenow drove it to Chicago for a car show, the flathead V-8’s lumpy, unmuffled bark coming out of both exhaust pipes in stereo.

Ideal for a road trip? Not quite. “It sucked!” Jagenow said.

The vibrant car scene in Detroit runs the gamut from coachbuilt classics to lowriders and vinyl-wrapped supercars. Jagenow and Riggle are in the thick of it all. But Jagenow likes to reimagine cars through historic filters.

“Hot-rodding can be whatever you want it to be,” he said. “But I prefer what cars used to look like in a 1940s magazine.”

Brothers Custom (Troy, Michigan)

• Open since: 2006
• Cars serviced yearly: 75–100
• Crew size: 5 full-timers
• Sweet spot: Hot-rod teardowns and flathead soup-ups
• Shop vibe: Greasy Rally Rats with an eagle eye for perfection

***

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Need to brush up on your custom-car lingo? Here are 35 must-know terms to help you make sense of the artistry on stage in Detroit in 2023. —Ed. 

The Detroit Autorama’s Ridler Award is arguably the most prestigious trophy in the custom-car world. Each winning vehicle costs at least a million dollars to build. Last year’s winner, Rick Bird’s Sho Bird, a 1931 Chevrolet whose radical front-end styling incorporated two big turbochargers and exhaust pipes, was a bit controversial. I don’t know if the Ridler judges are affected by popular opinion, but this year’s Great Eight finalists seemed to go in the other direction, with restrained styling no matter how extreme the modifications might be.

Clean lines and elegant executions were the themes of the day, like the winner Maximus, pictured above. Another departure was the fact that none of the finalists were prewar cars, so no traditional hot rods, a factor which further distinguishes the 2023 Ridler competition from the year’s other top custom award, the America’s Most Beautiful Roadster at the Grand National Roadster Show in Pomona, California.

The selection in Detroit were fairly diverse and original. Concerning popular postwar cars that you can see at just about any custom car show, no Corvettes, 1969 Camaros, ’57 Chevys, or Chevrolet S-10 pickups made the cut.

1950 Mercury: Maximus

The closest thing to a traditional hot rod was probably Maximus, a “lead sled”-styled 1950 Mercury two-door wearing metallic pearl “Candy Root Beer” paint, competing in the Radical Hardtop class. Built by Bruce Harvey’s Pro-Comp Custom shop near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (which built 2022’s winner, Sho Bird), with an interior by Paul Atkins, the car is owned by Luigi Deriggi, a grocer from Toms River, New Jersey.

Powered by a Ford Coyote V-8 engine with Borla stack injection and a Kooks mandrel-bent exhaust, the Mercury is mounted on an Art Morrison chassis fitted with air-ride suspension and one-off wheels by Chris Boyd. (Read the full story on Maximus here.)

1958 Chevrolet Cameo: El Cameo

Jim McDaniel’s El Cameo, in the Radical Pickup class, is a “what if” project, as in: What if Chevrolet had made a more car-like pickup truck before the 1959 El Camino, based on its Cameo pickup?

El Cameo was designed by Dave Kindig and built by Dan Wickett’s Hot Rod Construction. The build involved fabricating custom metal-stamping dies to create production-looking body panels that had never actually been produced before. I was a bit confused because McDaniel describes the El Cameo as converted to unibody construction but the body rides on a custom Art Morrison chassis. Its suspension is configured so that McDaniel, who has competed at the national level in the SCCA, can take the truck autocrossing, so El Cameo is hardly your typical straight-line-speed hot rod. It turns out that “unibody” means that the pickup’s separate bed has been integrated into the cab’s body, just like on the El Camino.

While El Cameo is listed as a 1958 model, it’s actually based on a ’56 Chevy pickup, with a ’58’s front end grafted on. In back, the bed has a floating zebrawood deck that lines up perfectly flush with the open tailgate, due to the tailgate’s sophisticated hinge system.

McDaniel’s choice of a powerplant involved some thought. Rather than just drop in some kind of LS (which would still be brand appropriate), he took a step farther and sourced a period-correct, 348-cubic-inch Chevrolet V-8, manufactured in November of 1957, and had it bored and stroked to 443 cubic inches by Dixie Dyno. Horsepower and torque figures are 560/569. You can read the full build book here.

1965 Ford Mustang: GT 427

One of the questions that I like asking Ridler finalists is: “If you can’t win, which other finalist do you like the best?”

While some owners and builders declined to answer, the most popular response was the flawless black and white 1965 Ford Mustang in the Street Touring class, a 20-year project started by another owner and completed by Rejean Desjardins of Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. An owner-built vehicle, Desjardins’ “GT 427” is an example of a simple concept—in this case, a black-and-white color scheme—executed well.

Actually, calling the GT 427 a simple concept or a restomod doesn’t do it enough credit. The idea was to come up with what modern Ford engineers might have created if they were tasked with making a contemporary concept car for today’s show circuit, given a no-expense-spared budget. Custom carbon-fiber parts include a complete roof overlay, engine bay panels, the grille, front splitter, side mirror, hood, hood scoop, and a Ring Brothers’ trunk lid.

With the exception of the hood and trunk lid, which are painted white, all of the carbon-fiber parts have exposed matching weaves aligned on a 45-degree bias to the centerline. The front clip is a single piece, body seams have been eliminated, and the headlights and taillights have been flush-mounted. The frameless side windows are also flush-mounted.

The Mustang is powered by a 5.0-liter “Boss 302” Coyote engine with stack fuel injection and Motec management, driving through a Tremec 600 gearbox. Chassis upgrades include boxed and contoured frame rails, a JME K-frame with CNC-machined control arms, Wilwood six-piston calipers, and an in-house designed Watt’s linkage rear suspension.

1955 Chevrolet: Chrome Blues

Another owner-built Great Eight finalist with a well-executed two-color scheme was Melbourne, Florida’s Snodgrass brothers’ Chrome Blues, a 1955 Chevrolet convertible in, as you would expect, lots of shiny chrome and a beautiful shade of paint the brothers call Twisted Blue Pearl.

Many of the Ridler competitors’ displays include floor-mounted mirrors so you can see the vehicles’ undercarriages and, in the case of the Chevy ragtop, the underside was as perfect and clean as the rest of the car. An estimated 8000 hours was spent on the build. Body mods include shortened front and rear pans, redesigned and narrowed bumpers, one-piece welded front end, redesigned headlights, a frenched antenna mount, custom firewall, seamless cowl, and mini tubs for the fat rear tires. Paint was done in-house, while Space Coast Plating did all of the gleaming, mirror-finished chrome.

The beige leather and suede interior is by Fusco Upholstery, with modern electronics, infotainment and options. Mechanically, the Tri-Five Chevy is mounted on a custom tube frame, and is powered by a LS3 GM V-8 driving through a GM 4L60E automatic gearbox.

Getting an owner-built car into the Great Eight is quite an accomplishment. When organizers were putting out the Great Eight banners, I saw one of the Snodgrass brothers hug someone, his eyes glistening with tears of joy. When I said to him, “You’re crying,” he replied, “I’m just proud of the fact that the three of us [brothers David and Kenny Snodgrass and their associate Mike Wisnewski] did it all by ourselves.”

1953 Chevrolet 1300: Silver Ghost

Just about every year there’s at least one obvious underdog in the Ridler competition. Tim Hampel’s Silver Ghost was one of those. Despite the name, it’s a 1953 Chevy 1300 pickup truck, not a vintage Rolls-Royce. It got that name because of its flawless silver paint set off with a bronze engine compartment and interior.

Hampel said that his hopes were high but that he really hadn’t expected to be in the final eight selects. His statement was evinced by the fact that his display didn’t have any of the accoutrements that Ridler finalists usually have, like fancy lights, mirrors under the car, build books (a couple of cars even had signs with bar codes to access digital versions), or professional signs listing the mods and contributors to the build.

This was Hampel’s first effort to compete for the Ridler. As a matter of fact, while the truck was built to be a show car, the decision to bring it to the Autorama wasn’t made until just two months ago. Many of the other cars in the competition have owners and builders who been in touch with show organizers over the entire course of their builds—in some cases, for years.

Hampel originally built the car himself when he was 18 years old in 1984 but parked it about ten years later. He had a young son then whom he hoped would want to work on it when he got older but his now grown son has other interests. Hampel decided to rebuild it himself about six years ago, intending for it to be a daily driver, but after turning the project over to Nick Ryan of Arlington, Texas’ Killer Hot Rods: “It morphed into this. Nick did a terrific job.”

Ryan told me that “simple and clean was the goal,” although every panel on the truck has been shortened, stretched, or reshaped in some manner. The truck is powered by a supercharged 468-cubic-inch big-block Chevy V-8 with Holley fuel injection. The intake is supplied with air via a custom 3D-printed scoop on the cowl that echoes the front end. The truck is mounted on a customized factory chassis, with tubular control arms in front and a custom four-link suspension in the back, with a pro-street-style rear end.

1967 Chevrolet Nova: Rome

Tim Hampel’s Chevy truck might not have had the usual signage, but the placard with build information for Foristell, Missouri’s Shawn Nichoalds’ 1967 Chevrolet Nova/Chevy II stretched nearly the entire length of the silver car.

Rome, competing in the Radical Hardtop category, was designed and built by Samson Design. There are about 30 body modifications listed, all sorts of things shaved, stretched, and smoothed but you’d have to be an expert on the Chevy II to spot them as they are so subtle and well integrated into the design.  The Chevy II was originally manufactured with semi-unibody construction, so to handle increased power some of those body mods involved reinforcements to frame connectors, the front crossmember, subframe connectors, and the rear frame rails.

The custom tan and black leather interior was done in-house and features a custom headliner, handmade panels, and a custom, billet-machined steering wheel with the Rome “R” logo. The 18-inch wheels are off-the-shelf units from Schott but they have custom-machined center caps embellished with the logo.

The truck is powered by a 496-cubic-inch “stroker” big-block Chevy V-8 with a billet aluminum timing cover and custom two-piece valve covers. Transmission is a 4L80E by TCI with a TCI Outlaw shifter. The limited-slip differential sits in a narrowed rear end from Beilman Fabrication. Brakes are by Wilwood with a custom billet master cylinder, logo included.

1978 Ford Mustang II: King Coyote

George Conrad’s 1978 Ford Mustang II, titled King Coyote and built by Rowes Rod and Custom, was my sentimental favorite: It annoys me when people inaccurately trash the downsized Stang as a glorified Pinto. Conrad’s car is based on a ’78 King Cobra and, as you’d expect from the car’s name, it’s powered by a Ford Coyote engine—in this case, wearing a Whipple supercharger.

King Coyote has flush-mounted rear glass, shaved and styled quarter glass, a fabricated duckbill spoiler on the deck lid, new LED taillights with custom housings, an aero-inspired rear roll pan with a diffuser, Shelby Cobra–styled side pipes, and a Shelby-styled fuel filler.

Perhaps to mollify Mustang II haters, the front bumper is from a ’67 Mustang and the rear bumper is a tucked and modded ’67 Shelby unit. The interior was fully fabricated for the build, featuring handcrafted leather along with billet sill plates, shifter, steering wheel, and pedals. Shelby racing harnesses are mounted to the chromoly roll bar. Dakota Digital supplied the gauges, and Vintage Air made the A/C unit. If those side exhausts aren’t loud enough, King Coyote has a 2000-watt “Harmon Cardon” (sic) 5:1 Dolby audio system.

1969 Dodge Superbee

One of the reasons why cars competing for awards like the Ridler often have signs indicating the various body, paint, and mechanical shops that did work on their builds is that placing in the Great Eight, let alone winning a Ridler, can do wonders for those businesses.

When I interviewed the builder of Kathy Cargill’s ultra-clean and straight-looking 1969 Dodge Superbee, he didn’t want his face on camera. When I asked him for the name of his shop, he said he didn’t have a shop, that he just builds cars for one family along with his painter. That might seem a bit odd, but then the Cargill family owns a 158-year-old agribusiness that is the largest (by revenue) privately held corporation in the United States. They can afford to employ their own private custom-car builders.

Kathy Cargill is a notable car collector with a passion for all sorts of performance machinery. In addition to her hot rods, she owns a number of McLarens, including a Senna. Her Great Eight Mopar has a 392-cubic-inch supercharged Hemi, Heidts Super T subframes and suspensions front and rear, Wilwood brakes, and one of Budnik’s stock wheel sets.

Surprisingly, for a custom car, since most Ridler competitors try to come up with original paint colors, the Superbee is finished in a standard Volkswagen group color—Volcano Red Metallic, used on a number of factory stock VWs and Audis.

***

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Bruce Harvey was the builder of Sho Bird, Rick Bird’s 1931 Chevy that won last year’s Ridler Award at the Detroit Autorama. To say that the Chevy’s radical front-end styling—incorporating two huge turbos and a chromed exhaust system—was an acquired taste is to understate the response from some naysayers. Another of Harvey’s builds brought home the Ridler Award for 2023: Luigi Deriggi’s 1950 Mercury two-door, “Maximus.”

Winning one Ridler more or less makes a builder’s career, so back-to-back titles is an an impressive achievement for his Pro-Comp Customs shop near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. At the award ceremony in Detroit, Harvey told me that this time around  he wanted to demonstrate that he could produce a more restrained design than Sho Bird.

Harvey sported an ear-to-ear grin after the win, but “Maximus” owner Deriggi was wearing a face of mild shock. When I asked him to wrap up his reaction in a sentence, all he could say was, “Unbelievable!”

Though not based on something more predictable, like a ’32 Ford, the “Maximus Mercury” is fairly traditional for an extreme custom car with a handful of modern touches. You may recall that one of the most famous customs ever made, often described as the most influential custom car ever, is the “Hirohata Merc.” The Hirohata car is a 1951 Mercury Club Coupe that was chopped, channeled and stuffed with so much lead body filler for Navy veteran Masato “Bob” Hirohata (by George Barris’ brother, Sam) that it spawned the nickname “Lead sled.” Deriggi has wanted a 1950 Mercury-based custom ever since he saw Sylvester Stallone drive one in the 1986 movie, Cobra. Direggi’s stable also includes a 1941 Ford and a vintage Mustang.While it may have been inspired by the Cobra and Hirohata Mercuries, Deriggi, who owns a mini-supermarket and wholesale grocery business in New Jersey, wanted something original in concept. And Harvey delivered.

The roof has a 5-inch chop and the body panels were shaved. Custom taillights and fender-mounted exhausts were fabricated along with molded bumpers. Maximus also features a hand-built grille, front spoiler, and a very cool hood scoop that echoes the front end’s general shape. The Merc is finished in a shade of metallic and pearl brown called Candy Root Beer, highlighted with a slightly contrasting airbrushed motif along the car’s beltline. Chris Boyd provided the custom-designed offset wheels: 20 and 22 x 10-inch chrome 10-spoke showstoppers.

Paul Atkins did the fully custom interior. which features tan leather on the seats (based on TEA buckets) and door panels, with color-matched headliner and carpeting. The dashboard and full length console are finished in chrome and the same root beer paint as seen on the exterior. Sparc Industries created a custom steering wheel specifically for this build. New Vintage USA provided the gauges for a custom dashboard fabricated by Harvey’s team at Pro Comp.

So much for the show, now for the go. The Merc body sits on a customized Art Morrison chassis with air suspension. Power is provided by a beautifully polished Ford “Coyote” V-8 with Borla stack fuel injection and topped by eight gleaming, chromed velocity stacks. (Everything is improved with velocity stacks!) Power flows through a Ford AOD automatic transmission and a quick-change differential.

Everyone in attendance seemed happy with the choice of winner. Well, everyone except for the remaining Great Eight finalists. Check back with us tomorrow for a rundown article on the seven runners-up

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Welcome to Homegrown—a new 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 at tips@hagerty.com with the subject line HOMEGROWN. Read about more Homegrown creations here. —Ed.

Long-time Hagerty member Steve Heller, 77, has spent half a century selling what he calls “live edge furniture and space age artifacts” from his Fabulous Furniture shop in Boiceville, New York. In spare moments, he mustered the energy to create four wild customs, including his so-called Fintasia 2 presented here.

“In the early 2000s, I needed a long-distance cruiser to travel between my store and the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore where some of my sculpture became part of their collection. Since my customized ’59 Cadillac, called Fintasia, was definitely not the right vehicle for such missions, I purchased a Mercury Grand Marquis to serve my hauling needs,” recalls Heller.

“My partner in crime, Mark Karpf, and I reshaped every inch of the exterior in my shop’s driveway, including the addition of ’50s-era DeSoto tailfins. What we christened the Marquis de Soto won the New York Times Collectible Car of the Year award and subsequently best of class at Pasadena and Sacramento, California shows.

“After that custom was sold to a California buyer, I purchased a near new Dodge Magnum in 2011, drove it home, and promptly ripped into it. We called that custom Cro-Magnum. Even though it dropped jaws everywhere I went with it, that custom was a bit too subtle for my tastes, so I bought another Magnum—a 2006 R/T wagon to efficiently transport my creations—and promptly went to town on that.

“For what was soon labeled Fintasia 2, we created the biggest ’59 Cadillac tailfins we could imagine. All the modifications were made of either original 1950s sheet metal or fabricated from scratch. No Bondo was allowed.

“This custom sports a total of eight Cadillac bullet taillamps! The scallops in the paint contain 23k gold metalflake. Construction took two years and cost around $75,000.

“Fintasia 2 also won its class at the Grand National [Roadster] Show in Pomona. While visiting the west coast, I swung by Jay Leno’s garage in Burbank. Unfortunately, the place was locked tight. But just as I was leaving, I heard someone yell ‘Hey! Hey! Where ya going?  It was Jay; he spent some time inspecting my creation and sharing generous compliments.

“We recently repainted Cro-Magnum with the intention to sell it. Those proceeds will hopefully finance my next customizing adventure!”

Anyone interested in seeing Fintasia 2, visiting Heller’s studio, or purchasing his Cro-Magnum Dodge can reach him at Fabulous Furniture, 3930 Route 28 in Boiceville, New York or email him at fabfurn1@gmail.com.

***

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Despite its name, the Grand National Roadster show is about more than roofless, pre-war metal. This event brings out scores of coupes, convertibles, sedans, wagons, and trucks each year. And to complement the show’s America’s Most Beautiful Roadster award, organizers present the Al Slonaker Memorial Award to a high-end custom vehicle that makes its debut at the Roadster Show in Pomona, California.

This year’s winner is the 1960 Buick Invicta Custom presented by Angie and George Eliacostas of Chicago, Illinois. The lavish bubbletop is a one-year-only design with quad headlights paired up like the jet engines from a B-52 bomber. The build was handled by CAL Auto Creations in Bennington, Nebraska, where the crew spent countless hours expertly tailoring the car’s already impressive lines into a work of art.

We asked George Eliacostas what made him choose a ’60 Invicta. “It’s out of the box, you don’t see it done, and it truly makes a statement,” he told us, pointing out the one-year-only body lines that were factory-original on the Invicta. His Custom, however, features a number of other that make it look like a factory-built concept. The headlight bezels, for instance, are blended into the body; all of the exterior trim is made from copper, too, with far fewer seams than the factory Invicta’s thin stainless trim.

Fans of mid-century iron will be glad to hear that the Buick is powered by a 401-cubic-inch Nailhead, but this one’s special. It has custom valve covers and a custom intake that’s fed by way of a crank-driven centrifugal supercharger. We saw the engine bay at the Grand National Roadster show when the car was presented unfinished and in bare metal back in 2019; a before/after comparison shows the few changes made along the way.

At the rear of the car, the centers of the taillights now serve as the fuel filler and vent. Behind the license plate, where the factory fuel filler would have been, is the trunk release—keeping the trunk lid free of any blemishes. The rear bumper is a clean design that ditches the split factory bumpers in favor of a sleek, single unit.

Underneath the car is a chassis and suspension that’s every bit as worthy of display as the bodywork. “When this thing is on the rack, you can spend hours on the underside and never get tired of looking at it.” Eliacostas told us. After a peek at the reflection of the independent rear suspension’s rear differential, we had to get down on the floor and take a closer look. He wasn’t kidding: the underside is finished with the same exacting detail.

Perhaps our favorite part of the car is its restyled interior, featuring rear seats custom-built to match the front buckets. The seat back trim in all four seats is lit with warm LED lights. The effect is powerful, and it completely looks the part of a factory build. If some rogue Buick designers were looking to take on the Eldorado, this is the interior that they would have cooked up. Starline Hot Rod Interiors in Papillion, Nebraska, shaped the seat foam and upholstered the interior in custom-dyed leather and NOS fabric.

Eliacostas plans on taking the car to Florida where it will serve as a coastal cruiser. He seemed absolutely thrilled that the car was everything he had dreamed it would be. The team at CAL Creations also breathed a sigh of relief now that they didn’t have to keep the long-running build a secret. Of course, now we’re waiting to see what they come up with next.

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Each year, car builders from across the country make the pilgrimage to Pomona, California, for the Grand National Roadster Show. Each hopes to bring home the hardware recognizing them as winners of the prestigious America’s Most Beautiful Roadster (AMBR) award, given annually since 1950.

The stellar field this year was all Ford, and the lineup included six 1932 roadsters. However, it was the immaculate detailing, gorgeous proportions, and flawless black paint of Jack Chisenhall’s ’32 roadster that stood out most. Chisenhall, of San Antonio, Texas, took home a check for $12,500 from Automotive Racing Products for his efforts. He will see his name on the AMBR trophy as both owner and builder alongside names like George Barris, Art Himsl, Boyd Coddington, and Chip Foose.

Finalists are selected and displayed in an array around the impressive trophy and a team of judges scrutinize every detail of the cars, including how it looks in motion.

Chisenhall’s roadster was inspired by Dodge-powered Indy racers. The idea for this Deuce started forming in his mind more than 40 years ago. In 2000, Chisenhall had famed hot rod designer and Art Center alumnus Thom Taylor pen a rendering that put his idea on paper.

The car was ultimately built in Chisenhall’s San Antonio shop, with George Hagy serving as the principal fabricator. Chisenhall helped out with fab work. and—as is typical of builds of this magnitude—many other talented artists and technicians also had a share in the roadster’s success. The rows of perfect louvers on the hood sides were formed by Jimmy Shine. Mark Grohman was responsible for the mechanical work. Gary Gates machined many of the custom parts, including the brakes. The interior was finished by Sid Shavers (who has many award-winning builds on his resume) and the mirror-smooth black paint was the work of Darryl Hollenback, an AMBR award winner himself back in 2016.

Powering the Deuce is a 355-cubic-inch early Dodge Hemi built by Donny Anderson and good for 420 hp at 5500 rpm. It features a heap of custom parts, including cast aluminum heads and one-off stack injection machined by Cody Chapman.

The depth of quality among the eight other AMBR contenders, making up nine total finalists, gave judges a tough decision. The field ranged from racy and traditional to sleek and elegant. When you see these cars up close, it really demonstrates what it means to be judged among the cream of the crop. Congratulations to all of the builders and craftsmen who put such tremendous effort into these gorgeous machines. Long live the Deuce!

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Welcome to Homegrown—a new 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 at tips@hagerty.com with the subject line HOMEGROWN. Read about more Homegrown creations here. —Ed.

Constructing a car at home rarely proceeds beyond the dream stage for most enthusiasts, but Bob Elton of Ann Arbor, Michigan, has two running and driving homebuilts to his credit. Over a span of 15 years, in his spare time, this 75-year-old Hagerty member, automotive engineer, and craftsman designed and constructed the two machines shown here. Each wears fiberglass coachwork atop a steel frame, and each is powered by a General Motors V-8 driving the rear wheels through a Hydramatic transmission.

Elton has been retired for seven years, but he began his career in 1965 as a Hydramatic co-op student—a young engineer on loan to GM as part of school. In the mid-1970s, he ran an independent car-repair and fabrication shop, then earned his degree from the University of Michigan. Over a 50-year career in engineering, he worked for Chrysler, Ford, and GM, plus a few suppliers and consultants.

During that career, Elton was able to get time on manufacturer-owned CATIA computer-aided-design (CAD) software, to shape his bodywork. “The first step,” he says, “was designing a vertical cross-section every 10 inches or so, the full length of each body. In addition to accommodating the driver and passenger, my bodywork had to package the mechanical equipment while embodying the interior and exterior aesthetics I sought. After drawing sketches for years, I spent a year or so per project, advancing my concepts to CAD shapes.”

When he was satisfied with those shapes, Elton printed out the outline of each body cross-section, then glued each outline to a piece of thin plywood. After cutting each of those pieces to match, he assembled them atop a surface plate, to form a full-scale body buck. Gaps between the panels were filled with styrofoam. Pound after pound of plaster followed, to perfect surface details—first rough plaster, then patching plaster, then drywall mud. The result was sanded smooth, then painted with lacquer and polished to facilitate inspection of surface highlights. To perfect the car’s aesthetic, Elton deviated from his original CAD drawings in select places.

This was Elton’s Roadster as full-scale model. That model was handed off to a subcontractor, who created both body molds and finished fiberglass panels. The main body, including the hood and four separate fenders, was completed in 2011. The car’s steel frame, Elton says, incorporates sections from the frames of both a Chevrolet Caprice and a Chevy S-10 compact pickup. His final layout “provided a 126-inch wheelbase while supporting Chrysler power rack-and-pinion steering, front disc and rear drum brakes, and an S-10 live rear axle. The new coil-spring rear suspension I designed has anti-squat geometry.”

After the Roadster passed state inspection, earning a VIN and license plates, it was insured by Hagerty and readied for its first test drive, which came in 2012.

Elton then commenced work on his Coupe. While the Roadster incorporated the grille from a 1938 Cadillac LaSalle and pulled inspiration from Cadillac V-16s of that period, the Coupe ventured in a different aesthetic direction. “I drew inspiration from Virgil Exner’s 1952 Chrysler D’Elegance concept car and added hints of Bentley’s 2003 Continental GT,” Elton explains.

A more direct approach was used to construct the Coupe’s chassis. The 1986 Chevy El Camino possessed the 117.1-inch wheelbase, track dimensions, and coil springs that Elton sought, so he employed a frame from that car with few modifications beyond some rear-suspension refinements.

“Instead of farming out the fiberglass work,” he says, “I crafted all ten exterior-panel molds myself. The windshield and side glass came from a 2000 Ford Mustang, while the rear glass was sourced from a 2017 Chevy Corvette. My Summit Racing fuel cell holds 16 gallons. Final painting will be the responsibility of a nearby shop specializing in Corvette work.”

Prior to completion, Elton’s Coupe was test-driven near his residence sans bodywork. In March 2022, it passed inspection and was issued its VIN and plates.

Elton is hesitant to guess how many thousands of hours and “investment” dollars went into his homebuilt siblings. He does reveal, however, that farming out some of the Roadster’s work drove the car’s total cost over $100,000.

Another requirement worth mentioning is the patience of Elton’s wife, Mary, who tolerated his many late nights on the job. A reminder, then, to all the dreamers: Before you undertake anything of this scope, remember, you’re not just planning for dollars and construction hours. Add in ample moral support.

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For 40 years, Vancouver was home to a small family company that made practical the dream of classic motoring. More affordable Porsche replicas certainly exist, but with Intermeccanica, you got quality and attention to detail. Today, as the last handful of the marque’s cars near completion, the production run is ending. It’s the end of an era.

The car here is one of the breed. A 2010 Intermeccanica Roadster, it’s a replica of a Porsche 356, or rather, an homage to the idea that a mid-Sixties Porsche represents. Under the rear deck, tuned for a torquey 170 hp, is a 2.3-liter, air-cooled Volkswagen flat-four. The rear wheels are eight inches wide, the suspension holds the body low, and Wilwood brakes offer modern stopping power. This car is quicker, safer, and more practical than a real 356, but it also looks, sounds, and even smells right, reminiscent of the real thing.

The Roadster’s owners, John and Marcia Hinde, are the kind of people you love to meet. This is their second Intermeccanica, built to their specifications. John has added his own tweaks over the years, including a 15-gallon fuel tank for additional range.

“I’ve slowed down a bit these days,” he says. Then he shows me his elbow, scraped up from riding dirtbikes with his son.

The Hindes didn’t buy this thing just to look at it. Their Roadster currently has around 94,000 kilometers on the odometer and some 30 Hagerty classic-car touring events under its belt. When the Intermeccanica was brand new, John and Marcia drove it to California. It has been driven across Canada to Toronto, 2700 miles one-way. It has shrugged off a deer strike near Spences Bridge, survived countless vicious potholes, and been drifted over miles of gravel roads.

That’s use, not abuse. The beauty of a car like this is not simply in the improvements made for a more pleasant drive in modern traffic, but in the way it simply disassociates from badge snobbery. Flinging a classic 356 down gravel would be a delightful way to shock Porsche purists, but you’d also be risking a considerable investment. With the Intermeccanica, the return is a great story.

Intermeccanica is Canadian, but the marque’s origins are Italian. Founded in Turin in 1959, the brand was originally a supplier of tuning parts—think Abarth, just less well-known. With certain coincidences: Carlo Abarth was from Austria-Hungary, and Intermeccanica founder Frank Reisner was a Hungarian-born Canadian. In fact, the two companies were early competitors—Abarth successfully used his ties with Fiat to block and hurt Intermeccanica’s business.

North America met Reisner’s marque through the Apollo, Griffith, Indra, and Italia sports cars. Produced in the 1960s in partnership with various stateside companies, those machines married Italian styling to American powertrains. Reisner endured various financial ups and downs but endured. In 1975, he and his family moved to California, where he set up a partnership building replicas of Porsche’s 356 Speedster. In 1982, the family returned to Canada, the company relocating to a workshop in Vancouver’s False Creek area.

Rather than trying to rush product out the door, Reisner capped production at a couple dozen cars per year. He engineered for his cars a box frame, with wider track than a real Speedster, simultaneously moving the rear-mounted engine forward for better weight distribution and increasing cabin room. Build time from order to completion was around six months, with each car created around a basic guideline but otherwise customizable.

Intermeccanica’s reputation grew. From Japan came the request to build a replica of the VW Kubelwagen. A few were built, alongside those 356 replicas; they were the last project in which Frank Reisner was personally involved. Henry Reisner, Frank’s son, joined the business while still in college, working on the assembly line. When Frank died in 2001, Harry had already advanced to running the business. He co-founded ElectraMeccanica, an EV-focused offshoot, in 2015. Intermeccanica became a subsidiary of ElectraMeccanica two years later, and Henry retired from the company in January of 2022.

The last few Intermeccanicas built wear chassis numbers in the low 600s. Two of those cars are bound for the U.S. market, for Michigan, where they will have their engines installed, a production quirk that makes the cars legal for American import. Those machines will receive Subaru engines, while the last car for a Canadian customer will live in Calgary with air-cooled power.

Time marches on. ElectraMeccanica’s current project is a single-seat EV commuter called the Solo. Whether the coachbuilding/replica-car business will continue is unclear. But on the 40th anniversary of the founding of the company’s Vancouver operation, the legacy bears reflection. It’s a heritage of perseverance. It’s in the tales of owners like the Hindes. It’s not merely a desire to recreate the past. Intermeccanica offered a blank slate, ready for you to write your own story. We’ll miss it.

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The story of “The Beast” gives credence to Mark Twain’s claim that “truth is stranger than fiction.” Somebody needs to get Ron Howard on the horn, because the director behind films like Frost/Nixon, Rush and Thirteen Lives could do a fine job of bringing this quintessentially British tale of high hopes, a high “Roller” and the High Court to the big screen. You couldn’t make it up.

John Dodd, the man most associated with one of the craziest cars of the 1970s, died early last month at the age of 90. A short statement written by his daughter on the car’s Facebook page said: “To followers on here who have not heard the news, my father John Dodd, creator of ‘The Beast’ passed away last week. He will be sorely missed but has left us with many moments and his legend will live on.”

Live on it will. Not everything that has been written about The Beast is true. Some half-truths are presented as facts. Performance figures are accompanied by words like “claimed” and “approximately.” Fifty years of myths, buts and maybes thus curdled into a plot worthy of a docufilm.

The story starts, not with Dodd nor in the 1970s, but with Paul Jameson in 1966. Jameson, described by Richard Heseltine in his book, Excess All Areas, as “an inveterate specials builder” was building his first car. Many people might start small; dip their toe in the water before cannonballing in at the deep end. Not Jameson. He wanted to create something with a 27-liter Rolls-Royce Meteor engine. Yep, 27 liters..

The Meteor was a non-supercharged version of the Merlin V-12 fitted to the Spitfire, Lancaster, and Hurricane planes, although the engine fitted to the original car had a less illustrious past, serving in a Centurion tank. Jameson paid £20 (£300 or $360 in today’s money) for the engine with blocked bores and a cracked cylinder head.

In its original form, the car—retrospectively known as the Jameson Mk1—featured a frame made of box-section girders, Jaguar Mark 10 rear suspension and a front-end comprising Wolseley 6/99 parts. According to Motor, which praised Jameson’s workmanship, the body-less car emerged with a “55/45 weight ratio and excellent handling.”

At this stage, the car was just a rolling chassis, with Jameson struggling to find a suitable clutch and gearbox. He was testing the car at Biggin Hill when he encountered Dodd, an automatic transmission specialist and serial Rolls-Royce owner based in Surrey. It was a meeting of minds, with Dodd labelling Jameson “one of the best engineers alive in Great Britain.”

Dodd supplied a gearbox with modifications, but was surprised to receive a phone call from Jameson asking if he’d be interested in buying the rolling chassis. It was delivered the same day, with Dodd turning to Fibre Glass Repairs (now FGR Motorsports) for help with the body. Predictably, for a company which specialized in dragsters, The Beast looked outlandish.

In his book, Richard Heseltine describes it as “a bodyshell akin to a steroidal Ford Capri,” while in a feature written in 2014, Octane labelled it “a grossly distended take on a Mk1 Capri.” One thing’s for sure, it was not the car that Rolls-Royce had always promised itself.

Other parts included a windscreen from a Jensen FF, rear glass from a Reliant Scimitar and seats from a Lotus Elan +2, along with a cut-down grille and Spirit of Ecstasy mascot from a Rolls-Royce Corniche. Hey, Rolls-Royce built the Meteor engine, so why not stick its famous grille and mascot on the front?

The Beast is registered as a Rolls-Royce with a 27000-cc engine, something Dodd derived great pleasure from. “And that wasn’t me,” he said in an interview, “that’s what the LCC (London County Council) decided.” Brilliant.

Rolls-Royce wasn’t amused. Speaking to Nationwide’s Christopher Rainbow in February 1974, Dodd said: “They’re not making any comments at the moment,” but things would change in 1981. More on that in a moment, because in 1975, the original car was damaged by a fire on the way back from a car show in Sweden.

Fortunately for Dodd—although not for Rolls-Royce and its lawyers—the insurance company paid £17,000 (the equivalent of £121,000) for the car and a further £1500 to remove it from Sweden. This was in addition to the £2000 BP paid to put its logo on the car. The chassis survived the fire and returned to Fibre Glass Repairs for a new body.

Incidentally, Fibre Glass Repairs was run by Bob Phelps, who along with his son Roy, owned and built Santa Pod Raceway. Dodds was always quick to credit the Phelps for their input. In an interview with Octane, he said: “Roy Phelps and his father, the late, great engineer Bob, designed and built both cars from scratch. After the fire they told me to put it back on four wheels again.”

Despite the drag strip connections, The Beast was never designed for the quarter-mile. “It was always a road car,” he told Octane.

The car emerged from FGR with a new shooting brake-style body, complete with four rear lights from a Mk1.5 Capri, Austin Westminster front suspension and steering, Jaguar XJ12 independent rear suspension with stronger driveshafts, stiffer springs, and a pair of dampers at each corner, Jaguar vented discs on the front and a GM Turbo 400 three-speed automatic transmission. Another Rolls-Royce Meteor engine was sourced from Jameson, which on this occasion had seen service in a Boulton Paul Balliol trainer aircraft.

Declining the opportunity to keep Rolls-Royce and its lawyers happy—and going against Phelps’ wishes—Dodd insisted on a R-R grille, this time from a Silver Shadow.

Nearly a decade after it made its debut at the Custom Car Show at Crystal Palace, Dodd’s creation rose like a phoenix from the flames, fueling the interest in the car and stoking the fire smoldering at Rolls-Royce. Its celebrity status extended beyond the custom car and street machine circuits.

In the May 1981 issue of Street Machine, Mike Collins wondered what made The Beast such a magnet of attention. “I’m not sure what it is exactly about the Beast which turns the media on, they’ve been offered far more powerful and exotic traffic toys and ignored them; perhaps it’s the fact that the estimated seven hundred horsepower is developed at a mind-boggling twenty-five-hundred rpm.

“On the other hand, it could be that they like Dodd’s finger up at the Establishment in the form of the Rolls grille and lady backed up with a bigger engine than most anything on the road. Itself backed by a character who fully understands what he wants from this car and gets it as he drives round most exoticars.

“It’s not so much the power which turns ordinary folks on, but more than likely the fact that the Beast features the world’s most prestigious radiator shell and mascot in front of its custom-built body, draped around a totally outrageous power plant, which is taxed and tested for street use.”

Dodd loved taunting Rolls-Royce and would often call the company pretending to be a speculative customer interested in buying a car he had just seen whizz past him on a European road. This led to the myth about a baron with a Porsche phoning Rolls-Royce after The Beast had overtaken him while driving flat-out on a German autobahn. It wasn’t a baron, it was Dodd.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Rolls-Royce issued a High Court writ, accusing Dodd of trademark infringement. The case generated a lot of media coverage, with Dodd attending the hearing in his big, beige and bonkers car. In this Classic Driver story from 2016, Dodd says: “I drove it to the hearing every day and parked right outside the court. The Rolls-Royce representatives parked opposite in a Silver Spirit with the number plate ‘RR 1’—funnily enough, they got towed away and I didn’t.

“On the final morning of the trial, my lawyer sacked himself saying I was ridiculing the highest court in the land. His last piece of advice was not to take the car that day, otherwise it’d be confiscated and I’d never get it back.

“They said I was behaving like a maverick. Perhaps 1000 horsepower was a bit excessive, I thought, so I called a friend who had some stables in Hyde Park for a favour. Me, my wife and my children took a horse each, and clip-clopped to the doors of the Courts of Justice—that caused a bigger sensation than the car had!”

The judge ruled for Rolls-Royce’s and Dodd was fined £5000 and ordered to pay the same in costs for ignoring it two days later at a car show in Southend. Dodd lost an appeal and was sentenced to six months in prison for refusing to pay. With a warrant issued for his arrest, Dodd fled to the “Costa del Crime” to escape extradition, with the car arriving soon after, before it lost its Rolls-Royce signature pieces.

From Malaga, Dodd ran a successful automatic transmission repair business, with the locals treated to the sight and sound of The Beast, still wearing its original KPD 67K number plates. “Dad loves getting visitors to see the car!” is just one of the responses posted by his daughter Suzanne when Facebook visitors asked to see The Beast. There’s a sense that John Dodd was justifiably proud of the car and its backstory.

Unlike many entertainers from the 1970s, the celebrity status of Dodd and his magnificent non-flying machine has remained intact. Featured by some of the biggest motoring mags—check out Ollie Marriage’s 2008 road test—the car even returned to its spiritual home of Santa Pod. In 2018, Custom Car reported on a “sedate 15.23 at 91mph and 2mpg.”

Why did he do it? In the Nationwide interview, he said: “The truth is, I wanted something different. The idea was to have a car that could beat anything on earth [and] at the same time run on the cheapest [two-star] petrol you could buy.” Not wanting foreign supercars to hog the limelight, he continued: “Cruise at 200mph and beat anything else. Make it all British.”

Could it do 200 mph? The Guinness Book of Records listed it as the most powerful road car in the world, saying “it exceeded 200mph (321.8km/h) on many occasions on Continental roads.” The Daily Express claimed the car could hit 260 mph, a figure you suspect that Dodd was only too happy to endorse. In 1973, the RAC timed the car at 183 mph. Still want that F40, F1, or Veyron, etc?

Whether it’s 180 mph, 200 mph or 26 0mph, or 600 bhp, 800 bhp or 1000 bhp, The Beast is 27 liters of flamboyant, anti-establishment excess. On an episode of Top Gear, in which Steve Berry is somehow louder than the engine, Dodd said the 19-foot-long and two-ton car would consume eight pints of fuel a minute, delivering just 2 mpg. The small numbers of The Beast are just as outrageous as the big ones.

There are other stories, like the time Dodd allegedly outran a police helicopter on a drive from Ayr to Carlisle. A police Range Rover failed to stop him, with Dodd escaping prosecution because the traffic cop couldn’t identify the driver. A screenwriter would never be short of inspiration when telling the story of Dodd and his car.

With the passing of John Dodd, the motoring world has lost an eccentric and driven individual who cared deeply about the car he co-created. Thanks to The Beast, his legend will indeed live on. Ron Howard, it’s over to you …

***

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Via Hagerty UK

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Welcome to Homegrown—a limited series about homebuilt cars and the ingenuity, diligence, and craftsmanship of their visionary creators. Know of a killer Homegrown car that fits the bill? Send us an email at tips@hagerty.com with the subject line HOMEGROWN: in all caps. Enjoy, fellow tinkerers! —Eric Weiner

Brian Booth, 57, has devoted 24 years, over 20,000 hours, and unmentionable dollars constructing the homebuilt he dubbed “Voo Doo.”

Booth is an artist and designer who spent 19 years at GM before becoming the chief designer at the L.A.-based firm Flyer Defense, which supplies rugged ATV personnel carriers to the U.S. Army. He’s also an instructor at the Los Angeles Art Center College of Design. His portfolio includes Chevy and Olds exteriors, Pontiac interiors, Chevy and GMC light trucks, various Opels, and the MV-1 taxicab.

Voo Doo’s propulsion system resembles something NASA might dream up. Seeking immunity from environmental/geo-political disruptions, Booth engineered his driveline to run on a wide variety of fuels, yielding what amounts to a science fair on wheels.

A 181-horsepower UQM Power Phase 135 DC electric motor drives the rear wheels through a Ford Mustang 9-inch, 5.14:1 differential. Ten LG Chem lithium-ion batteries provide 60 miles of emissions-free range for daily commuting. A Thunderstruck control unit keeps the electric propulsion system happy while an Elcon 240-volt charger sits onboard to replenish the batteries during stops.

When plugging in isn’t practical and charge is running low, a Garrett GTP 60-67 gas turbine spins a pair of ultra-light Auragen generators to energize the battery pack on the roll. “Believe it or else,” Booth explains, “I found this 60,000-rpm whistler—normally used as an auxiliary power unit—installed in a John Deere Gator side-by-side off-roader.”

“In my teen years I was inspired by the McDonnell F-101 Voodoo supersonic interceptor my father flew in the Air Force,” says Booth. “My priority here was more how I conserve energy than outrageous power and speed.”

Operating in its series-hybrid mode, Voo Doo’s range is extensive. The Garrett turbine is happy to swill gasoline, alcohol, diesel, bio fuel, or CNG.

“Thanks to my final drive ratio, low-end electric torque, and light weight, Voo Doo’s initial acceleration should be impressive. But even with an unlimited budget, I’d never want more than 500 hp in this homebuilt. I think the new generation of road-going performance must include responsible fuel consumption.”

Booth’s homebuilt mimics a C8 Corvette’s overall length and height. However, the wheelbase is longer by a foot while track and width dimensions are 4-5 inches greater, all to provide seating space for two adults plus two lucky kids. While he was timely employing an electric driveline, fitting four doors to this sports car must be considered a radical innovation.

The Voo Doo’s ten lithium-ion prismatic batteries are stacked two high inside a tubular stainless steel backbone. “A friend of mine designed the independent suspension systems employing unequal-length control arms at each corner,” Booth explains. The disc brake hardware is a mix of GM and Wilwood components. The unassisted rack-and-pinion steering gear was purchased from Unisteer Performance. Forgiato forged-aluminum wheels, 21×9.6- in front, 22×10.0-in back are fitted with ultra-low-profile Pirelli radials (245/35R-21 in front, 245/30R-22 in back).

Booth employed Alias CAD software to shape his exterior. A friend of his on the east coast milled stiff foam to create the main body mold. Booth helped lay up the fiberglass skin in the finished mold before designing and constructing his seats, instrument panel, center console, and door trim at home. The Aircraft Windshield Company helped shape the crystal clear polycarbonate windshield. Voo Doo’s side glass was custom made by Booth in his garage. In lieu of a back window, three cameras provide a comprehensive rear view.

‘The greatest challenge was a commitment to build my own fiberglass body, which cost ample time and money due to the need to mill the stiff foam used to make the mold,” says Booth. “That phase was done some twenty years ago before the advent of 3D printing. Once that technology became available, I was able to employ it to save cost and time constructing the interior components such as the roof pillar covers.

“Voo Doo has a true four-passenger interior with jump seats in back large enough to accommodate my 6-ft 1-in height. The front seat headrests came from an actual Voodoo aircraft and I installed a working AC system to maintain long-distance comfort.”

As for the weight, Booth hasn’t had a chance to put his homebuilt machine on the scale, but he’d “estimate the curb weight is about 3000 pounds.”

“Near the beginning of design and construction, a close friend counseled against trying to build a car at home. I learned so much collaborating with friends that I’m glad I ignored that advice. California assigned my VIN this August, long after I had enjoyed a few shake-down runs around the block.”

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In two decades of sympathetically modifying cars, we’ve come a long ways from muscle car owners’ brains nearly exploding at the mere suggestion of upgrading their ’60s classic with fuel injection and disc brakes. Today, it’s not uncommon for top shops building mega-dollar restomods to use little more than the donor car’s body shell. A whole lot of people, it turns out, are willing to spend huge sums to enjoy modern performance and reliability in a classic body, with side helpings of comfort and modern tech.

Too bad you can’t just order a ’69 Camaro restomod like you can a 2022 Camaro, with the benefit of a warranty and service network support. Well, that might soon be changing. At Hagerty’s Motorlux event in Monterey, California, in August, upstart Kindred Motorworks opened pre-orders for the first models in a line of fully modernized classic vehicles. Kindred’s opening quartet will include the ’69 Camaro, first-gen Volkswagen Bus and Ford Bronco, and the late-’40s Chevy 3100 pickup. Prices are steep, ranging from $149,000 for the Camaro with the LS3 V-8 to $199,000 for the battery-electric VW Bus.

Company founder and CEO Rob Howard expects most customers will drive the cars rather than preserve them in garages for future buyers.

“We’re building them so that you can enjoy the drive,” Howard tells Hagerty. “They’ll have power disc brakes, modern tires, and perfect balance across the four wheels. All will have seatbelts, headrests, cup holders, rearview camera, and Bluetooth stereo.”

Who is Kindred?

Based on Mare Island in Vallejo, California, Kindred Motorworks is currently prepping its production facility. Howard expects to start production in 2024 and deliver the first customer cars by the end of that year.

Production, you say? Yes, as in an assembly line. However, the process is more akin to that of specialty makers such as Morgan, which use standardized parts and processes as well as extensive work by skilled hands. In that context, Kindred’s projected numbers are ambitious. Company founder and CEO Rob Howard sees the company ramping up to 300 employees and eventually building 1000 restomod vehicles per year.

“Not right now, but that’s where it’s headed,” Howard says.

Kindred Motorworks did not grow out of any existing custom builder. Howard and his core team have been working together for 15 years building supply chain and technology companies, which were sold to a larger retailer. Standardization is their expertise, but they are also car enthusiasts and collectors. Howard believes their combination of talents and experience provides a strong foundation for Kindred.

The idea of a restomod company, Howard explains, came to him when he was reviewing the logbook of all work done to build his’57 Chevy wagon over four years.

“I worked with nine different vendors for that car,” he recalls. “The timeline really got dragged out. I was looking at the book and realized how complex the process had been. I knew as a tech person I could organize it in a much more efficient way if I applied technology to it. I thought there could be a real business to simplifying the modernization of these cars.”

Howard says the response at Motorlux in Monterey was encouraging. Attendees saw only the VW Bus in the metal but were drawn to the other vehicles on Kindred’s roster. “We opened pre-orders. We’re way ahead of schedule from where we thought we’d be.”

ICE and EV

Kindred’s revamped Camaro and Bronco will have good ol’ V-8s to start, with battery-electric versions promising 200-mile ranges in the design stage. The VW Bus and Chevy pickup will be BEV-only. Howard says the EV options were well received at the Monterey event, the Bus in particular.

“Those buses had 46 horsepower originally and were not that safe. Ours will have enough power to easily get onto the highway with the flow of traffic. That changes the experience dramatically. You can go up hills without worrying about what’s behind you.”

The ’69 Camaro “LS” comes with Chevy’s 495-hp 6.2-liter LS3 V-8 and six-speed automatic or manual transmission. Performance hardware include power rack-and-pinion steering, four-link rear suspension, and a nine-inch Torsen limited-slip differential. Inside, you’ll find the classic ’69 Camaro houndstooth upholstery and, for the automatic, a basket-handle style shifter like the original.

A $199,000 “LT” version packs the 700-hp supercharged LT5 and rides on independent rear suspension and 19-inch forged aluminum wheels with Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires. Its leather and Alcantara interior will have Recaro Sportster GT seats and a Momo Mod 08 steering wheel.

Notably, Kindred is building these Camaros its own way—no SS396 lookalikes.

The Bronco is pure Ford, with a 460-hp, DOHC, Coyote V-8 under the hood. Its paint palette includes 10 bright ’60s-flavored hues, with no grays at all. Priced at $169,000, it’s a bit more accessible than the $250,000 an established player like Gateway Bronco asks. Howard says Kindred will add more models in coming years.

Backed by investors

You’ve probably read stories of high-budget restomods taking a year or more to build. A car with complex needs might go from shop to shop for different steps of the build and get stuck in one waiting for backordered or custom parts. Kindred’s plan chucks that whole scenario.

“We have everything under one roof,” Howard explains. “Our paint shop, upholstery shop, tire shop … everything we need is here. There are no third-party sub-contractors involved in our restorations.”

It’s an ambitious plan supported by investors. The company reports that it raised $20M through two funding rounds, with backers including venture players like CPMG, Goldcrest, Fifth Down Capital, and Robert Downey, Jr.’s Footprint Coalition. Other angel investors come from the automotive, technology, and investment communities. (Full disclosure: Hagerty is an investor in Kindred Motorworks.)

Rebuilding old like new

Howard emphasizes that Kindred Motorworks is not a manufacturer like Revology, which builds brand-new reproduction classic Mustangs based on the Dynacorn body shells. He says backers were attracted by Kindred’s approach to restoring and rebuilding cars, albeit scaled up and applying a wide array of standardization processes.

While Kindred may not officially be a manufacturer, it follows a similar approach. The company has created a literal blueprint and assembly manual for each model. All cars start as an original core with a VIN. That way, the company avoids any production restrictions placed on small-volume specialty car manufacturers.

“In a lot of ways, we’re an integrator of existing systems,” says Howard. “We have a brake partner, a seat partner, stereo partner, et cetera.”

Kindred will source donor cars from around the country, according to company spokesman Alex Nunez. “The population of donor vehicles is not small,” he says. “For every great vintage car or truck you see, there might be a dozen or more like it resting somewhere.”

There’s no need start with a rare Camaro, for example. A base six-cylinder or V-8 model will do just fine, because all of the mechanicals will be replaced as part of Kindred’s restoration process.

Replicating a custom build

Howard understands that the Kindred cars may have a different appeal than traditional restomods built according to the custom specs of individual owners.

“We create the designs. We build the exact same car over and over. It’s like a new car in that sense, where you can choose a color, maybe a tire choice, but very limited options. That allows us to manage our supply chain, so we can buy our parts by the container load instead of for one-off situations.”

While some might say that lack of customization seems to defy the restomod ethos, Howard explains why he sees promise in Kindred’s business model.

“Many people buy vintage cars and are then disappointed when they drive them,” he says. “When you go out to the driveway, there are reasons why you’re going to take your modern car instead of the classic.”

Kindred’s cars, he says, are designed to eliminate those reasons by delivering a modern driving experience in an original body shell.

While that combination may appeal to drivers of any age, Howard believes it is critical for Kindred to attract younger buyers. The data supports his strategy. SEMA’s Classic Cars, Modern Markets report issued in 2021 found that 38 percent of owners under 45 years old would prefer a restomod, compared to 22 percent of older owners.

Assemblers wanted

By creating a standardized process, Howard explains, Kindred employees do not need to be veteran auto technicians. As is the case with mass-market vehicle production, workers will be trained.

“Although we need master mechanics in certain steps, we don’t need them for all,” he says. “We’re taking the knowledge out of the master mechanic’s head and putting it into our technology platform. In our world, a task is a task. It doesn’t matter which car it is.”

Integrating parts inventory management into the technology platform will also help to keep production on schedule.

Warranty and service

Howard wants to build Kindred into a brand that enthusiasts will immediately recognize for the kind of vehicles it builds. What Singer Vehicle Design has done with its “reimagined” Porsche 911s comes to mind.

The cars will wear “Kindred” badges, and the company will maintain a registry to track vehicle ownership. Howard says original and subsequent owners will get warranty work and vehicle service through a network of providers currently being set up.

“We will have complete information about every vehicle we build, including knowing which technician did every step and every part that went in. We can order parts for each car with a click.”

New customers will be able to order entirely online, and when new models are launched, existing owners be offered early access to pre-ordering.

In the ongoing debate about how the hobby goes forward as the new-vehicle industry transitions to EVs, where does Kindred Motorworks fit in? Consider that many younger enthusiasts are discovering the appeal of 1980s and 1990s cars for their modern driving benefits. Meanwhile, enthusiasts of all ages who admire the style of earlier icons go to great effort and expense to modify and restore them for better daily driving.

Kindred seems to be aiming at both groups, as well as newbies. Granted, with sticker prices well into the six figures, these builds are not exactly within the grasp of the average Joe. But ideas at the top of the food chain inspire other innovators, and the concept of a restomod that looks like a one-off custom but is as straightforward to buy as a new car? It’s an interesting one, indeed.

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My first exposure to Lotus and Caterham Super Sevens came from watching them race at tracks like Lime Rock and Watkins Glen. They were so small and so fast, and that appealed to me. At the time, back around 1980, a friend had a street Super Seven, and he let me drive it. It was a rare version delivered with the Lotus twin-cam engine.

I grew to love the Super Seven and I wanted one. Scouring ads in all kinds of papers and magazines, I found a reasonably priced one in Galveston, Texas, a few months later, so I jumped on a plane to go see the car. It looked great with the blue nose cone and cycle fenders contrasting with its polished aluminum panels. It had a Ford Cortina 1600 crossflow engine. Although I really enjoyed the taco festival that was in progress when I went down there, the heat and humidity at noon just about knocked me over.

After I arrived in Galveston, I asked the owner how he could stand to drive it in this heat. He told me that the most uncomfortable time to drive was at 3 o’clock in the morning, and that’s why he was selling the Caterham.

I bought it and had it shipped back to Connecticut. As the car was being unloaded, a friend drove by and saw it. When I came back outside, he was standing there looking at it, so I asked him if he wanted to go for a drive. We barely got down the road and the hood flew off, at which point my friend said, “Oops, I looked at the engine and didn’t latch it.”

Although I managed to straighten the aluminum hood, I couldn’t quite polish it out to match the rest of the panels. I also took the opportunity to get some swept front fenders from the Caterham dealer and then painted the entire car the same metallic blue of the original nose cone and fenders.

The tiny car was incredibly fun to drive, and when I had the engine out and on a dynamometer, it registered 140 horsepower, which was great for a car that weighed 1200 pounds. As always, though, I wanted more power. A local race-prep shop with a lot of experience building Formula Ford engines installed the biggest valves that could fit, added stronger valve springs to prevent float, raised the compression ratio, and re-jetted the big Weber carburetors. With those changes, it revved to 7000 rpm and made about 200 horsepower at the flywheel. I would put in three-quarters of a tank of race fuel and then top it off with high-octane gas for the street.

The result was a car so fast that it could really scare you. I had so much fun driving it, especially with a passenger to terrify.

I kept the Super Seven for about 10 years, before listing it for sale in the Bargain News. An Ohio doctor was in Connecticut for a Skip Barber driving school at Lime Rock, and he happened to see the ad. He called me and decided to drive down to see the car. After I scared him to death on a brisk drive, he was impressed enough to buy it.

That car was so fantastic that neither my Prisoner Edition green-and-yellow Super Seven nor the right-hand-drive Lotus twin-cam–powered car that came later lived up to the high standards it had set. To me, part of what made the first Super Seven so great was that it was a bare-bones performance car in a tiny package, so, if anything, the carpet and the plush upholstery of the Prisoner Edition Super Seven (one of about 40) worked against the car. The two later Sevens also lacked the electrifying performance of my Galveston car, especially after we were through with tuning the engine.

Looking back on it now, I don’t know for certain if the first car was really that much better than the ones that came after it or if it was simply a case of my memory building it up. Either way, after my two later forays into Super Seven ownership, I realized that I couldn’t go home again. But the fantastic memories I have of my first Super Seven are enough to last a lifetime.

This article first appeared in Hagerty Drivers Club magazine. Click here to subscribe and join the club.

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Henry Ford introduced the rolling assembly line in 1913 and brought automobile ownership within reach of the masses. He also put in motion the eventual decline of coachbuilding, a trade that is thought to date back to the Romans and which produced some of the most spectacular automobiles of the 20th century. Coachbuilders delivered a few handmade bolides produced by irreplaceable craftsmen using ancient tools and techniques, while mass production harnessed unskilled labor and mechanized automation to deliver millions of identical vehicles at an affordable price. One form of production flourished while the other diminished until, in the postwar period, it was practiced by only a few specialized design houses—and most of those are gone today. But has coachbuilding died out completely?

No. Thanks to new technologies and materials, plus an innate aversion by people of means toward commonplace consumer goods, coachbuilding has never really gone away. Today, the art of coachbuilding fuses cues from traditional hot-rodding, new-car customization, and old-car restoration. No surprise: Many of the skills and techniques for those various disciplines overlap. What fans of hot rods, customized new cars, and restored classics all have in common is the desire to own a car that is completely singular and not made on an assembly line.

“There’s something magical about things that are made by hand, whether it’s a leather handbag or a boat or a piece of pottery or a car,” says Steve Moal, whose family has been in the coachbuilding business for more than a century and who runs Moal Coachbuilders in Oakland, California. “Handmade things are not plentiful these days.”

Moal’s customers tend to be looking for one-off vehicles that evoke the past but are not replicas. For example, in 2012, Moal completed the Gatto, a Ferrari-powered coupe built from scratch that conjures—but does not copy—the 1950s work of Italian masters such as Zagato, Touring, and Pininfarina. Another current project in Moal’s shop is a tube-frame, aluminum-bodied roadster with the powertrain from an Aston Martin DB4. The owners, rabid Aston collectors, “just wanted their own Aston Martin-ish car that was completely unique. Nobody is trying to fool anybody—it’s not a real Aston. They’re just trying to pick up the spirit of the period,” Moal tells us.

In another arena of modern coachbuilding, designers try to merge classic themes with 21st-century standards of technology, performance, and safety. “It will never be as free as the 1930s,” says freelance automobile designer Niels van Roij, who in 2016 was commissioned to create a one-off wagon version of a Tesla Model S, a project that led van Roij to make custom coachbuilding his full-time job. “We can’t possibly develop a whole car; it would never be at the level of an OEM. But there is still a lot we can do.”

Van Roij’s “Breadvan Hommage” (pictured below) is just the sort of mad, nerdy fever dream that makes you both smile in amusement and nod in respect. You can’t believe somebody would be crazy enough to build a modern-day tribute to one of the oddest cars ever to turn a wheel in competition, and yet you love that somebody pulled it off. “In all honesty, the original car wasn’t a very good piece of design,” says van Roij of the original 1961 Ferrari 250 GT Breadvan. “They did it in a hurry.” But as an expression of one person’s obsession with Ferrari’s lesser-known history, the Breadvan Hommage is a perfect example of the unexpected directions that modern coachbuilding can take you.

Thanks to safety and emissions rules, you can’t walk into an automobile showroom, as you might in the industry’s golden years, and buy a naked chassis ready for a unique body from your favorite carrozzeria. But you can still commission a vehicle today that is entirely your own. That is, provided you’re willing to pay a lot, wait a long time, and make a million decisions about shapes and colors and materials.

“I once had a customer who squirted out a pack of Colman’s mustard and said, ‘Make that color,’” says Tim Gregorio, senior director of product experience for Singer Vehicle Design, which restores old Porsches with a highly contemporary flair. “What shocks me isn’t the number of people who go into this overwhelmed by the choices, but the number of people who know exactly what they want.”

Today’s coachbuilders stand on the shoulders of the giants who first recognized that the invention of the automobile could be a boon to the carriage-making industry that flourished at the end of the 19th century. Car buyers were no different from the buyers of horse-drawn barouches, landaus, and cabriolets, said Arthur F. Mulliner of the famous Mulliner coachbuilding family. Addressing the Institute of British Carriage Manufacturers in 1907, he said that “the purchaser of the motor carriage purchases because the carriage work meets his requirements or taste, and it is therefore the carriage work that sells the car.”

The interwar period of the 1920s and ’30s was the heyday of coachbuilding, mainly at the upper echelons of the market where the buyers of Duesenbergs, Bentleys, Bugattis, and other exotic marques could order bespoke bodies from separate firms. Their names echoed those of any fine clothier at the time: the Walter M. Murphy Co., J. Gurney Nutting & Co., Carrosserie Gangloff, and Figoni & Falaschi Carrossiers, among the many that hammered the metal that graces the cars that today populate the major concours. It’s said that the level of opulence (plus the simplicity of the engineering at the time) was such that some owners had both summer and winter bodies for the same car.

Social upheaval in the Depression and the subsequent world war ended many of these firms, while the auto industry that emerged from the era was leaner and more focused on volume through line production. Still, the coachwork industry thrived for a time, especially in Italy, where ancient metal-working skills were still nurtured and where design has always trumped most other considerations in manufactured goods. “It is in my country’s nature to have specialists,” Sergio Pininfarina once told a reporter. “Our people are artisans. We take pride in our work and perhaps we also know something about form and function.”

Through the 1950s and early ’60s, famous design houses such as Pininfarina, Bertone, Touring, Boano, and Zagato continued to sculpt fabulous creations for discerning buyers who craved exclusivity. However, the business was changing fundamentally. To survive, the coachbuilders turned from catering to individuals to catering to automakers, competing to build the high-profile, low-production models that larger companies were either too busy or too focused on volume to produce themselves. The business became less about individual taste and more about pleasing corporate clients and their committees of designers, engineers, and bean-counters. “I’ve known car builders from all over the world,” commented Nuccio Bertone to the author of a book about his company. “And every man jack of them had his own opinion.” (The only exception, Bertone noted, was Ferruccio Lamborghini. According to Bertone, “He said, ‘I’ll make the mechanical bits, you see to the body. The Bertones of this world don’t need my ideas.’”)

But the blazing meteor that took out most of these remaining firms was the increasing regulation that in the 1970s drastically drove up the costs of developing new cars. Over time, the industry responded through model consolidation, producing fewer specialty vehicles; in the 2000s, design work was pulled almost entirely in-house. Even Ferrari ended its nearly 70-year relationship with Pininfarina in 2017 when it cut the front-engine F12, the last production Ferrari to wear a Pininfarina badge. It was part of the decimation of the independent Italian coachbuilding industry. Pininfarina was purchased by India’s Mahindra Group and now lives on as a design consultancy. Bertone went bankrupt in 2014 and folded, its name sold to an architectural firm in Milan. Zagato has evaded death only by becoming an independent design house working on everything from commuter trains to agricultural harvesters while still producing the occasional dream car and rebodied Aston Martin.

Today, what is left of the coachbuilding trade is a tiny cottage industry largely dedicated to building retro cars from scratch or reshaping existing mass-production vehicles into one-off creations that express their owner’s personality and aesthetic. Commissioning one lands somewhere between ordering a tailored suit and building a custom house in terms of cost, personalization, and buyer involvement. Projects typically take from a year to 18 months (though Moal has done projects stretching to five years), they usually cost double but often triple the original purchase price of the car, and they require the designer and customer to practically get married. “The client needs to be willing to invest not just the funds but the time,” says van Roij, whose portfolio includes the design for a Rolls-Royce Wraith shooting brake called the Silver Spectre (seven will be made), and a modern two-door Range Rover dubbed the Adventum Coupe that evokes the configuration of the 1970s original.

“I visit the client at home to see their art, what their musical tastes are, and what’s in their garage,” says van Roij. “I know their wives, I know their children, I know the name of their dog.” In return for all this openness, he adds, the client gets back a car that expresses his or her individualism in a way no mass-produced car could ever do, no matter how the option boxes are checked at the dealership. When van Roij worked on converting the Tesla Model S into a wagon, for example, the factory green was abandoned, he says, for a green that was more vibrant and complimentary of the new shape—and which also came from the logo of the client’s company. “That’s what coachbuilding is about,” says van Roij. “The rest of the world sees a green car and [the owner] sees his company that he built.”

Similarly, the Breadvan Hommage completed last year expresses a reverence for Ferrari history while also taking liberties to produce a car with a more curated and harmonious shape than the original. That’s partly because van Roij isn’t interested in producing exact copies, and partly because the original, a used 1961 Ferrari 250 GT SWB modified by privateer racer Count Giovanni Volpi as an aerodynamic experiment, was not especially pretty, van Roij says. “They didn’t call it the Breadvan because they liked it.”

However, a Ferrari enthusiast in Germany was keen to create a car that evoked Volpi’s strange machine (born out of a spat that Volpi was having with Enzo Ferrari, who refused to sell Volpi a new GTO). Sketches were made, followed by an expensive full-size clay model—a step not many builders take but which van Roij insists upon for any commission as he believes it’s the best way to visualize and perfect the design before metal is cut. Certain hard points of the manual-transmission Ferrari 550 Maranello coupe on which the Hommage is based were preserved to retain the modern usability as well as to hold down costs. “If you change a door by 2 centimeters, it can cost $20,000. You have to change the glass, the rubber, all the sensors. The amount of engineering is huge.” The result shows a modern reshaping of the original’s numerous vents and ducts as well as a rethinking of its Kammback rear—though, in the end, after trying different rakes to the tail, van Roij and his customer agreed to adhere to the original’s perfectly vertical rear end. It’s the only part of the nuovo Breadvan that matches the 1961 car line for line.

The techniques used to make the Breadvan as well as most coachbuilt cars today are Old World—and painstaking. Steve Moal’s craftsmen work mainly in aluminum for its vintage appeal and light weight, but it’s a demanding metal that requires knowledge and experience to get right. “Where you put the seams is important, so it doesn’t fatigue and crack,” he says, adding that old-school oxyacetylene welding is employed because the finished weld is more malleable and less prone to cracking. “When you’re finished, it’s beautiful, but it isn’t always beautiful along the way.” Still, Moal’s clients tend to like some imperfections in their cars, the hammer marks and other evidence of handwork, at least underneath. “We have a sports car here that is finished in gloss black and it’s perfect, but we have not painted the inside panels, because the owner wants to see what I like to call the signature, or the fingerprints, of the craftsman.”

At Singer, which is based in Southern California and has delivered fewer than 160 cars over its 13 years of operation, the goal is to fully preserve the 1989–94 Porsche 911 (aka 964) that the company uses for donor cars but with a thoroughly contemporary updating in both performance and styling. Incoming cars go through a 4000-hour transformation in which they are stripped down to the bare metal, repaired from years of road use, altered as needed for new components (for example, the company replaces all of the factory hinges with milled aluminum ones of its own design) and to clean up unnecessary brackets and reshape less-than-lovely factory welds and edges. The car is then fitted with carbon-fiber body components before heading for paint and interior trim.

While more of a restoration shop than a coachbuilder, Singer nonetheless shows what is possible—as well as what is challenging—in using new materials such as carbon-fiber composite. Every exterior panel on a Singer project except for the doors is either remade in carbon fiber or skinned in carbon fiber, says Gregorio, the components sourced as a kit from a local aerospace supplier. The material has advantages in weight and durability but also requires new techniques. Unlike the aluminum and steel that skilled craftsmen shape with press brakes, English wheels, and hammers, carbon fiber is molded to its final form.

“You can’t shape it after the fact or just push it a bit to fit; you get what you get, which is why you need to maintain a very good relationship with your carbon supplier,” says Gregorio. A worker trying to achieve Singer’s tolerance goals of a half-millimeter can’t even grind carbon fiber if the piece is slightly oversized. “Once you grind it, you can’t put it back like you might tack a weld onto metal,” he says. “You approach it with a very light hand.”

During the month or so that the car spends in Singer’s body shop, the new body panels will go on and off the car six or seven times as the company’s technicians perfect the fit. Particularly nerve-racking is a carbon-fiber skin that is bonded to the factory’s original steel rear quarter panel, which can’t be replaced entirely with carbon because it’s a load-bearing part of the car’s monocoque shell. The huge composite piece that Singer applies stretches from the aft doorjamb to the rear bumper and is bonded with an adhesive that allows workers to adjust it for up to 30 minutes, though if it’s hot in the shop, that lessens the cure time. “You only get one shot at it,” says Gregorio. “If you have to remove it, it would require major surgery.”

Today, coachbuilders are hemmed in by constraints that would have been unimaginable to their early predecessors, ranging from new materials to regulatory prohibitions to trademark issues. In the past, Ferrari has attempted to use trademark protection to insulate its designs from modification or copying. And owners of the trademark for the modified 1967 Mustang known as “Eleanor” from the 2000 film, Gone in 60 Seconds, have sued to stop unlicensed copies.

Is it even legal to modify a current production car for your own purposes? Singer makes it very clear that they “restore” cars, not “build” them, the semantic dance done to keep the company free of legal entanglements. James Glickenhaus, the New York–area collector, racer, coachbuilding customer, and now full-time carmaker, notes that it is one thing to modify a one-off car for a private customer; quite another to make a business out of it. Basically, “you have to talk to your lawyer,” he cautions, adding that Ferrari allows customers to modify a new car and leave the Prancing Horse on it, but doesn’t allow any changes to the windshield or any of the side glass. The Maranello firm will bless factory-modified cars, as it did so often for the Sultan of Brunei, who was famous for his stable of bizarre, one-off Cavallinos, but the fee runs into the millions.

Glickenhaus started creating his own cars in 2006 when he built the Ferrari P4/5 as a tribute to his favorite 1960s-era prototype sports racers. “Having driven every type of exotic car of the past 50 years, I know a few things about them,” he says. The donor car was a brand-new Ferrari Enzo that was heavily modified, the design and fabrication work done by Pininfarina. The ultimate product was a stunning machine that looked both backward at the company’s racing history and also forward toward the future, but the price was equally dizzying. Just tooling up a set of bespoke tail-lights for the P4/5 that were DOT compliant cost $250,000, Glickenhaus says.

Since then, he has branched out with new designs for supercars, including the sexy mid-engine, three-seat, manual-transmission wedge called the SCG 004, as well as an off-road buggy called the Boot, a tribute to the Baja Boot that Steve McQueen raced in the Baja 1000 in 1969 (Glickenhaus owns the original). But Glickenhaus has moved beyond being a mere client or coachbuilder; he will make new cars from the ground up at his facilities in Danbury, Connecticut, and Pont-Saint-Martin, Italy, north of Turin.

Jumping from coachbuilding or resto-rodding to full-blown carmaker producing legally certified vehicles is not a move for the faint of heart. “To start a small car company, it’s $100 million to start,” says Glickenhaus, and “if you make a car nobody wants to buy, then you might as well take that money and sink it in the East River.” Still, he notes, a run of a few hundred cars (with the first deliveries of the 004 and Boot expected this year) should make the business profitable, assuming he’s gauged the market right.

Most people wanting a unique car do not want to be automakers. For them, hiring a coachbuilding firm to alter an existing car will be enough of an exposure to the stresses and challenges of carmaking. And for the effort, they will not only own a unique automobile, they will get to delve into that curious area where art and machinery merge. For the job of the coachbuilder, Nuccio Bertone once mused to a journalist, is “the realization of a dream which is present in us all but which only the artist has the ability to translate into concrete form.”

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Volvo has cultivated a well-earned reputation for safety and understated design over the past six decades. Now and again, though, the normally staid Swedes have been known to have a little bit of fun. Remember the turbo “R” models? The six-cylinder Polestars? How about the bizarro TWR Volvo 850 wagon that competed in the British Touring Car Championship?

These cars notwithstanding, we don’t normally see Volvo’s name among the wild builds that light up the SEMA show each year in Las Vegas. That’s about to change. Volvo Cars USA has teamed up with Sarah “Bogi” Lateiner’s of Girl Gang Garage and BASF to build a wide-body Volvo called the “Iron Maven.”

This is an ambitious project, far more complex than simply dropping an LS crate motor into a boxy 240 sedan or a swoopy P1800 coupe. Instead, try wrapping your head around a 1961 Volvo PV544 stuffed with the guts of a 2019 Volvo S60 T8 Recharge Polestar Engineered. (Go ahead, take a breath after reading that name.) The package includes the S60’s supercharged and turbocharged four-cylinder engine, plug-in hybrid system, vehicle control systems, interior luxury, adjustable suspension, infotainment—all of it.

The finished build will be unveiled at SEMA in November.

Some will recognize Bogi as the co-host of Motor Trend’s All Girls Garage TV show. Like Girl Gang Garage’s earlier builds, the Iron Maven is an all-female endeavor, with a total of 150 girls and women participating at different times to work on various elements of the build.

These two Volvos seem lightyears apart on the evolutionary scale. While a pure battery-powered EV, meaning no internal combustion engine, would represent greater evolutionary distance between the S60 and the PV544, Bogi and Volvo thought an EV conversion would be too easy. (At least for this particular project’s purpose, which we’ll get to in a moment.) They got what they wanted; the S60 T8 Recharge Polestar Engineered intricate hardware must all be located in specific sections, which is a challenge in a 1960s Volvo that’s much smaller than the donor car. Let’s start there.

ICE + BEV = 415 HP

The 2019 S60 T8 Recharge Polestar Engineered employs both conventional gas and battery-electric powertrains. Up front, a 328-horsepower, 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine that’s supercharged and turbocharged sends its power exclusively to the front wheels through an eight-speed automatic transmission.

Unlike many modern hybrids, however, there’s no electric motor inside or connected to the transmission. Instead, all-wheel drive comes courtesy of dual rear-mounted electric motors that generate another 87 horsepower for the rear wheels, giving a combined output of 415 hp and 494 lb-ft of torque. In between the two powertrains, installed beneath the luxurious cocoon of modernist Swedish luxury, sits an 11.6-kilowatt-hour battery pack that weighs over 400 pounds. This setup means no driveshaft to the rear wheels. Running as a hybrid, this model was rated at 72 MPGe and could drive up to 22 miles on battery alone. Volvo claimed 0-60 in 4.3 seconds for the 4500-pound sedan.

The S60 T8 Polestar Engineered comes with a brake-by-wire system, all the multimedia connectivity you would want, manually adjustable Öhlins suspension, and extra-luxurious Contour power-adjustable front seats. The Girl Gang Garage is putting all of that into the simple-as-a-hammer Volvo 544 not just for kicks, but because they’re on a mission.

Girls just wanna have fun … and wrench on cars

Volvo teamed up with Girl Gang Garage for a common cause. Both share the goal of increasing the number of women working in the auto industry, particularly in dealer service departments. It seems that, while many female car nuts aspire to work in the automotive arena and have the skills to do so, dealerships historically have not rolled out the welcome mats for them. What’s more, sexist attitudes among some male employees often causes friction.

Women currently make up fewer than 10 percent of automotive repair maintenance employees, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. At the same time, we seem to hear a lot about how dealers can’t find enough qualified techs. Volvo has been listening.

Volvo spokesman Russell Datz tells Hagerty, “It’s difficult to get technicians now, so to overlook this talent pool is foolish and short-sighted. We asked how we could persuade retailers and independent shops that they need to be looking at women as their future labor force.”

Volvo, he explained, has been doing so via accelerated training programs for current techs, recent graduates, and military vets, along with scholarships and partnerships at its training centers across the U.S.

Bogi approached the problem from a different angle.

“I want to show that there are women in the trades kicking butt, and there’s a lot more who want in,” she says. “Doing crazy builds like this Volvo is about drawing attention, so we get to have those conversations. We want to reach as many women as we can.”

A factory-trained BMW technician, Bogi ran her own specialist repair shop in Phoenix, Arizona, for more than 10 years. Having experienced the bad that women can encounter working in auto dealerships, she became an advocate for change. Among other things, she established the Girl Gang Garage as a place to encourage girls and women to pursue careers in the male-dominated automotive industry.

“I wanted to create a safe space where I could give women in the trades the opportunity to meet each other, to be validated, to build their confidence and push their skills further.”

Confidence and skill were just the tips of the proverbial iceberg for what was needed to bridge the very different worlds, mechanically speaking, of this project. It takes a big helping of chutzpa to throw your lot in with such a complicated build.

When a Volvo looked like a Ford

Although primitive by any modern standards, the Volvo PV544 was a sturdy performer in its day. A minor evolution over Volvo’s first postwar car, the PV444, the 544 arrived in 1958 and continued in production alongside the more modern 122 model until 1965.

As a contrast to the Volkswagen Beetle, Volvo promoted the 544 as “the family sports car.” Advertising touted its 85-horsepower four-cylinder engine, 95-mph top speed, rally- winning pedigree and a claimed 35-mpg fuel economy. Volvo’s American branch had also become known for its humorous advertising, which cheekily poked a little fun at the 544’s resemblance to 1940s Fords. As it turned out, the style was perfect for a hot rod build.

“The ’61 came to us as a shell with a bunch of parts piled inside of it,” Bogi explains. “It had been sitting in a field in Arizona. Overall, the car was in solid structural condition. It didn’t have much rust, just a patina with old gross paint.”

The 2019 S60 donor vehicle is a former Volvo tech-training car.

“This is taking two unibody vehicles, from two different eras, and joining them together,” says Bogi. “The big challenge was making the two cars fit one another, structurally. The S60 is much wider and longer.”

A glance at the stats shows the disparity:

The project began with some heavy-duty metal surgery.

“There’s no instruction manual for this,” jokes Bogi. “It was figuring out where to separate these two vehicles from their own components and then put them together. We just started cutting. We cut the S60’s roof off, then we cut the sides off and kept trimming the floor until we could somewhat see the outline of the 544.”

And they kept on cutting.

“We had to shorten the S60 floor. We cut it in half laterally and took out 16 inches, then welded that together. We took the floor out of the 544 and put that on top of the S60 for fit. That’s been the game throughout this whole thing. If something doesn’t, we see how much we could structurally get away with removing.”

When it all did finally fit together, the Girl Gang welded the 544 body onto the modern car’s floor and then also widened its fenders by 5.5 inches.

“She’s a very curvy girl,” says Bogi. “We’ve reduced, reused, and recycled during this process. About 80 percent of the metal that we’ve used is all original 1961 Volvo metal. We’ve only had to use one aftermarket part so far. Everything else is from the Volvos or handmade.”

The mission calls for using as much of the 2019 Volvo plug-in hybrid as can be transferred into the 544 shell.

“Everything has been heavily modified,” Bogi explains. “We’re using the S60 dash, but we had to cut it to make it smaller. We’re using the S60 seats, but they had to be cut in half and narrowed by two inches. That was a feat by itself.”

The S60 also donated its power glass moonroof, front and rear cameras, Volvo Sensus infotainment system, keyless entry, door- and trunk-lock actuators, seatbelts and even the driver’s airbag.

As of August, the car was ready for primer from the firewall back, with more work to be done on the front.

The Girl Gang

Among the 150 girls and women who will ultimately have a hand in the Iron Maven’s creation are some current Volvo dealership techs. Others range from newbies and hobbyists to mechanical and electrical engineers and chemists and stay-at-home moms.

“Their reasons for participating are as diverse as their backgrounds,” Bogi says. “We generally work with groups of 2-3 or 7-8 women at once. Some from out of town will stay for a long weekend or a week, some up to a month. A lot of the locals will come in several times per month to lend a hand when they can.”

The challenge, she explains, is harnessing a constantly changing crew’s talents and sheer desire to work.

“Every day is different and has different challenges—figuring out on the fly who’s going to be good at what, and where I can teach somebody the most,” she says. “I might be dealing with pros with 5–20 years of experience one day, and the next day I could be teaching somebody how to use a ratchet. I like to put women on things that they’re afraid of, to push their skills and build their confidence and courage. Somehow, magic happens and it works.”

The “magic” is fueled by camaraderie and common cause.

“This is not my build, it’s our build,” she says. “There’s a lot of collaboration. When we encounter a problem, we gather around and figure out how we can solve it. As examples, the shape of the fenders is handled by five different women. We had a mechanical engineer and her 14-year-old daughter who wants to be an engineer help design the front suspension.”

Boots on the ground

Porsha Conrad, a 19-year-old tech at Bob Penkhus Volvo in Colorado Springs, shared her experience of working on the Iron Maven.

“I routed the brake lines,” she explained. “I struggled figuring out how they were routed under the car, but with Bogi’s help, we figured it out.” The experience of both working on the build and observing others, she added, provided deeper insight into the engineering and technology of the modern Volvo plug-in hybrid.

Conrad offered straightforward advice for other women in the automotive trades, or planning to get in: “Don’t give up. You may always face sexism and adversity in the workplace, so stand up for yourself. I feel empowered when I take apart a car or reassemble an engine.”

Volvo set up a Snapchat group for female dealer techs as a support network. “It’s very active,” she says.

The color of change

The Iron Maven will make its SEMA debut in the BASF booth. In the meantime, the public can vote to select its paint color from among three custom hues developed with BASF. After SEMA, the Iron Maven will likely make other appearances, but no firm plans have been announced. Wherever the car goes, though, the message will be the same.

“We want to prove to ourselves as women in the trades that we’re capable and we can do anything we set our minds to,” says Bogi.

And they want to make sure the auto industry takes notice.

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Welcome to Homegrown—a new limited series about homebuilt cars and the ingenuity, diligence, and craftsmanship of their visionary creators. Know of a killer Homegrown car that fits the bill? Send us an email at tips@hagerty.com with the subject line HOMEGROWN: in all caps. Enjoy, fellow tinkerers! -Ed

While Noah Webster may not concur, we’d define a serious auto enthusiast as an individual who continues fiddling with cars in the evening after a long day toiling over them at work. Garrick Zack, 47, a designer in GM’s Advanced Studio in Warren, Michigan, fits that description to a T. While Zack won’t disclose the future products he’s working on by day, we’re frankly more interested in what he’s cooking up by night, in his garage. He proudly shared with us the replica Lancia Stratos HF kit car he assembled from Lister Bell, at his home north of Detroit.

Over the years, Lister Bell (now LB Specialist Cars) has sold roughly 150 Stratos kits to customers around the world who admire the design and performance of one of history’s most legendary rally cars. Homologated for the FIA’s Group4 competition in 1974, the Lancia Stratos HF (High Fidelity) won five Tour de France competitions and the World Rally Championship from 1974 through 1976.

Zack notes, “My kit came in a box larger than a full-size van. Each of the fiberglass body pieces was wrapped separately; the space frame was assembled but no driveline components were included. The quality of the panels facilitating tight gaps and perfect alignment impressed me from the start.

“Because the white exterior color is molded into the gelcoat, no painting was required. My initial cost was around $50,000 though it’s hard to guess what it might be today due to fluctuations in the international currency exchange rate and other variables. My total investment was approximately $100,000. Initial construction took place in my mother-in-law’s one-car garage. Later, I was able to use a friend’s two-car garage.”

LB is based in Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, U.K., north of London. This enterprise isn’t currently selling its STR kits due to pandemic- and Brexit-related challenges. While Lancia originally built nearly 500 Stratos cars for homologation, LB has sold around 150 of its STR replicas to date. Factory originals bring $500,000 or more depending on their competition record in the rare instance one reaches the auction block. And then there’s MAT in Italy that charges $600,000+ (not including the cost of a Ferrari F430 donor car) to make its modern-age New Stratos.

LR’s tubular spaceframe provides engineered mounting points for all suspension and driveline components. There are control arms in front and struts in back with a dual-rate coil-over damper at each corner. This arrangement provides a pleasant ride with excellent balance and body control during the inevitable aggressive driving. The brake system includes opposed-piston calipers and slotted discs made by HiSpec in England. Compomotive “coffin spoke” aluminum wheels are shod with aggressive Michelin Course radial tires, size 215/55VR-15 in front and 335/35VR-15 in back.

While the rally pod lamps look like they’d be excellent for urging laggards out of the passing lane, Zack doesn’t use them. The pop-up fender headlamps and low-mounted fog lamps provide ample night-time illumination, he reports.

Zack’s engine is the 3.0-liter four-cam 24-valve V-6 that powered Alfa Romeo 164 sedans in the late 1990s. After suffering the failure of the first used engine he purchased, Zack found a fresh replacement still in its crate. This fuel-injected V-6 provides around 230 horsepower and is married to a five-speed manual transaxle. LB made the entire exhaust system, including mufflers, out of stainless steel.

The custom-made bucket seats are included in the kit. All the Veglia instruments are common with a Fiat 124, except for the Auto Meter fuel gauge. Door and panel latch hardware also came from Fiat parts bins.

The biggest issue Zack experienced was persuading the Italian electrical system to behave. “Thankfully, Brian Scott, an electrician I know at work got my car to start and run perfectly,” he notes.  “Also, I’d be remiss not mentioning my wife Renee’s contributions. She not only kept our two kids out of my hair when I was busy working, she pitched in repeatedly, trial fitting and removing the engine. Her support made this a totally enjoyable project.”

Since completing the project five years ago, Zack has enjoyed driving his homebuilt Stratos some 3000 miles. “It’s a time machine with roots deep in the past yet capable of drawing attention today,” he adds.

“The compact size, light weight, and quick steering make my Stratos feel like maneuvering a go-kart. My kids love taking rides.  The best part is the satisfaction I realized from assembling this car myself.”

Climbing into the driver’s seat over the guard beam that intersects the door opening is a major challenge but much easier than escaping this Stratos’s grip on my un-limber body. There’s more room and far easier entry and exit on the navigator’s side of the cockpit.

Zack demonstrated the agility he adores on a quick lap of his neighborhood. Forward visibility is excellent, especially to the sides of the car, though the view to the rear is full of black louvers. The exhaust note is just right—assertive but never oppressive or annoying to neighbors.

The designer also admires the interplay between function and form evident in his homegrown Stratos. We’d say it’s a stunning result from a serious car enthusiast burning the candle at both ends.

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Welcome to Homegrown—a new limited series about homebuilt cars and the ingenuity, diligence, and craftsmanship of their visionary creators. Know of a killer Homegrown car that fits the bill? Send us an email at tips@hagerty.com with the subject line HOMEGROWN: in all caps. Enjoy, fellow tinkerers! -Eric Weiner

Every now and again, from across the lake where I reside, the captivating sound of a Rotax aircraft engine powering a small seaplane reaches my ears. This is my cue to cease what I’m doing to witness the tidy water-and-air craft slip Earth’s surly bonds. This week I met the man behind the machine, 62-year-old retired Ford engineer John Hickey, who combined Kitfox aircraft components with floats thirty years ago.

Imagine my delight when this new neighbor friend also presented six of the eight three-wheeled HyperRocket “autocycles” he’s built at home in his pristine southeast Michigan shop.

Hickey spent 30 years at Ford specializing in fuel economy development—a worthy cause in the current moment of $5 gasoline and the industry’s transition toward electric propulsion. It was the unlikely combination of his professional expertise and his experience building the seaplane that led to his creation of the HyperRocket. Combining lightweight aircraft aerodynamics with the performance of a sport motorcycle produces what Hickey calls a “crotchless rocket,” named so because no frame or fuel tank resides between the driver’s knees.

For each HyperRocket he produces, Hickey spends approximately six months on design and analysis, followed by six months of fabrication. The gas-powered versions boast a wide front track, handlebars and controls from a Suzuki motorcycle, a single rear drive wheel, and room for the driver and one passenger. Hickey sought to optimize performance while minimizing fuel consumption, focusing on ample stability, accurate control, and light weight.

How light? One version creatively combines a Suzuki Hayabusa 1340-cc inline-four motorcycle engine with turbocharging and intercooling to achieve a phenomenal 500 horsepower in a 585-pound, ready-to-rumble package. That machine has topped 200 mph on Hickey’s secret test track.

“While my job at Ford maximizing fuel efficiency provided much of the expertise required for this project, there were significant engineering gaps that had to be filled,” Hickey explains. “The most notable was every aspect of vehicle dynamics—how the suspension design interacts with the physics of motion to determine stability. A software called Wishbone was instrumental in laying out the front suspension.

“Aerodynamics is the second performance concern. Here, JavaFoil software helped optimize drag, lift, and directional stability. A third software obtained from Performance Trends predicted engine output considering bore, stroke, and boost pressure parameters.”

The complete suite of Computer Aided Design (CAD) and physics-based analysis software helps optimize all aspects of the design including performance, fuel efficiency/range, stiffness/stress, aerodynamics, suspension dynamics, and braking ability.

“Using software to model and predict performance is standard OE car-manufacturing methodology,” says Hickey. “You start early—long before production commences—to assure that essential safety and performance goals are achieved in your final design.

The high-strength-steel chassis tubing is cut on a purpose built CNC machine to exacting tolerances. Borrowing a page from historic aircraft manufacturing procedures, Hickey covers his structures with ultralight polyester fabric drawn taut with heat. Paint and/or a wrap gives each HyperRocket constructed thus far a unique appearance. The nosepiece is made of thin fiberglass molded locally by a shop using a form created by Hickey. Two options are available to minimize the ill effects of cockpit buffeting: wear a helmet or add the optional windshield shown here. One such HyperRocket entered in the Vetters Fuel Economy Challenge achieved 140 mpg.

“My goals were light weight, low aerodynamic drag, and minimal frontal area,” explains Hickey. “What I ultimately achieved in the HyperRocket an 0.27 drag coefficient, and a frontal area below one square meter. For reference, the drag coefficient for un-faired motorcycle and rider typically tops 0.75.

“Achieving suitable stability became a development effort. My first two HyperRockets demonstrated less than perfect stability in crosswinds, gusts, and while passing other vehicles on the road. Anything this light can become a kite in certain circumstances, so I fine-tuned steering, suspension, and external shape details to remedy those issues.”

Hickey’s crowning achievement is the pearlescent-painted, fully electric tandem-seat HyperRocket featured here. Combining Tesla Model S battery cells with a Netgain HyPer9 AC motor and direct drive yields a machine that’s simultaneously zero-emission, quiet, and the arch enemy of inertia.

I know that’s true because Hickey (foolishly) allowed me to terrorize a nearby neighborhood in his stealthy electric HyperRocket. While the chain-drive noise produces a soundtrack that is louder than he’d like, the most noise I heard came from the Toyo Proxes R888 205/45ZR-17 rear tire scratching the asphalt beneath its tread. I found the three-wheeler to be an ideally quiet means of scooting to 60 mph in less than five seconds, and adjustable brake regeneration makes this a true single-pedal machine for most situations. There’s some feedback from the road through the rack-and-pinion steering that guides the Federal 14/7 low rolling resistance front tires.

The streamlined shape and 780-pound curb weight for the HyperRocket EV yields 260 miles of around-town range and 150 miles of highway range. The front seat slides fore-and-aft to accommodate various body builds, and a sleek windscreen serves nicely as a wind deflector Bringing a companion requires removal of the clear plastic cover over the second seat. Alternatively, that rear space can accommodate up to 500 pounds of cargo.

Hickey adds, “The relatively easy part of this project was achieving good correlation between simulated and real-world results. Once my engineering models were perfected, I used them to predict the performance of rockets, Teslas, and electric motorcycles … with excellent correlation.”

The mainstream auto industry’s move to BEVs should advance the home-built cause, because electric motors are easier to integrate than combustion engines with their fuel, intake, and exhaust systems. At last year’s SEMA show, Ford introduced its Eluminator crate motor, essentially the same 281-horsepower AC motor and gear reducer that drives the Mustang Mach-E. That $3900 propulsion package weighs but 205 pounds. As you might imagine, neither batteries nor electronics controls are included.

Exposure to his HyperRockets convinced me Hickey’s ambitions are practically unlimited. At present, he is examining means of integrating the electric motor within the rear wheel’s hub to provide additional seating space while also eliminating drive chain noise. A more long-view goal is to explore the feasibility of selling his homebuilt three-wheelers in higher volume, which would require a deep-pocketed backer in the Elon Musk or Henrik Fisker vein. We wish him nothing but good luck and great success.

Any reader (or investor) anxious to learn more about Hickey’s gas and electric-powered creations can reach this modern-day Orville Wright at: HyperRocket1@gmail.com

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A well-known California show car is almost ready for the spotlight once again. This chopped and customized coupe, known as the Tom Hocker ’40 Ford, was built and then rebuilt by Barris Kustom Industries in the 1950s. It has gone through several iterations, not uncommon for a high-caliber show car, and even made a cameo appearance in American Graffiti. Now, owner Rich Hubbard has placed it in the hands of John Canepa at Canepa Customs in Huntington Beach, California, who is restoring it to its most well-known style while going above and beyond with fit and finish.

Tom Hocker didn’t own his ’40 Ford coupe long before he began its lengthy customization process. One of the early changes was to the frame, which was modified to allow for a lower stance. The chopped top, completed at Barris Kustom Industries in Lynwood, California, came a bit later. It was done by Sam Barris, with final bodywork and paint prep by Junior Conway. George Barris was responsible for the paint. After leaving Barris’ shop, the car toured California and was featured in the November 1953 issue of Rod & Custom magazine. Even when the car wasn’t called out by name, Canepa was able to find photos of the coupe in dozens of publications. You can find some vintage photos of it on various sites dedicated to custom car history. Tom Hocker’s widow, Lois, was also able to provide lots of information about the car to help Canepa with the process.

As you can see, tremendous progress has been made, and before long the coupe will be back in one piece. We’ll be following up as the project moves along, but for now, here’s a look at some of the fantastic work that has already been done on the chassis and drivetrain. Better take a peek before the body goes back on and it gets hidden from view!

Hocker had lowered the car before it ever found its way to Barris Kustoms. The notched frame had seen quite a few miles and had been repaired at various times over its long life. Canepa found a clean ’40 frame and started fresh for the rebuild. This frame has been notched, with the X-member brilliantly extended to blend into boxing panels that reinforce the sectioned portion. Further, the crossmember that holds the transverse rear leaf spring has been flattened to yield the proper rear stance.

The 1953 Cadillac 331-cubic-inch V-8 was a fantastic find. The low-mileage mill was in such great shape that it didn’t need a rebuild. After a thorough inspection, it was buttoned back up, masked off, and painted. Cadillac’s 331 debuted in 1949, the same year as Olds rolled out its Rocket V-8. Both were overhead-valve designs that brought a lot of power to the market and found favor among hot-rodders. Hocker’s coupe used a hopped-up flathead until the early ’50s but switched to a 331 Cadillac V-8 by 1957.

Canepa has made quite a lot of progress on the build, which is planned to appear early next year in time for the 70th anniversary of the coupe’s 1953 Oakland Roadster Show debut. The body is looking as beautiful as ever and we’re sure the chassis never looked this good. We’ll be following along as the car is completed and hope to see it at Pomona for the 2023 Grand National Roadster Show!

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A former SEMA show vehicle is crossing the auction block on Bring a Trailer. This customized Pontiac Vibe “GT-R” was shown by General Motors at the 2001 SEMA show, previewing the production 2002 Pontiac Vibe and highlighting some of the upgrades that could enhance the mini wagon’s looks and performance.

The most noticeable modifications to the Vibe’s exterior are its unique body kit: aggressive fascia, new wheels and tires, no fewer than two rear wings, a set of tinted headlights, and the addition of a ram-air scoop positioned on the driver side of the hood. These modifications are rather tame compared to some of the wild builds for which SEMA is known, and 21 years later, it has aged quite well. Inside, you’ll find red MOMO bucket seats up front and a custom subwoofer enclosure in the back. The 1.8-liter four-cylinder is mated to a six-speed manual transmission and breathes through a custom intake that draws air through the aforementioned hood scoop. An exhaust from APEXi also helps the inline-four churn out a bit more oomph.

Kit aside, though, what exactly is this thing?

The Pontiac Vibe was a rebadged Toyota Matrix/Voltz that used the same platform as the Corolla. It was built in the Fremont, California, factory that now cranks out Teslas. Because of its Toyota roots, you probably won’t find too many Pontiac fans clamoring to own it. The fact that it appears to be a pre-production model that didn’t get a full VIN also means it’s not viable as a daily driver because it can’t be registered for public roads. That explains why there are fewer than 1000 miles on its odometer.

We can’t help but wonder what will a future owner might this thing for. Will it remain as-is, keeping the history of a SEMA show vehicle? Our thoughts immediately turned to a race car conversion, since it’s not suitable for the street. If the buyer is from the Pontiac camp, perhaps they’ll consider swapping in one of the strangest front-wheel-drive powertrains Pontiac used in the brand’s final decade, the LS4, the only transverse application of a GM LS V-8. It might be fun trying to scratch for traction with a mighty V-8. If, however, they’re a Toyota fan, maybe they could adopt the all-wheel-drive system that came shortly after the Vibe’s launch and lean into Toyota’s rally legacy and Celica GT-Four heritage.

While the build may be a niche piece of Pontiac and Toyota history, the auction hasn’t yet eclipsed $8000 despite opening on July 3, so this may yet prove a bargain for the buyer. Our silly racing daydreams aside, this Vibe is a time capsule of SEMA customization where OEM meets aftermarket.

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The Detroit Autorama returned this year, following a pandemic-related hiatus that canceled the 2021 event. While show organizers haven’t yet released official attendance figures, the sense on the ground was that car lovers returned in droves. Lest you think that the Detroit Autorama is a showcase reserved for hot rods or wild customs based on vintage American cars, you may surprised to learn that Autorama’s 800-or-so roster boasts a startlingly diverse range of enthusiast automobiles, trucks, and motorcycles. Example: while I was talking to the owner of an eye-popping, orange 1930s Ford sedan, my eye caught sight of a Jaguar XJ13 replica, finished in the appropriate British Racing Green. And then, one of the more popular cars at the show was a Creamsicle orange-and-white 1965 Volkswagen Beetle decked out in all sorts of store-bought and custom Beetle memorabilia, all displayed by a family that considers it to be part of theirs.

Most people’s idea of the custom car world is formed by the various build shows that have proliferated over the years on cable television, complete with artificial drama and deadlines. However, it’s also a safe bet to say that most of what you see on “reality” television has a limited relationship with actual reality. If you want to see the real deal when it comes to custom cars and trucks, you have to come to the Detroit Autorama to see the competitors for that show’s Ridler Award, named after Don Ridler, one of the show founders more than 60 years ago. The Ridler is arguably the custom world’s most prestigious award.

The winners of the 2022 Ridler Award are owners Rick and Patty Bird of Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, for their radically customized 1931 Chevrolet Independence coupe: the “Sho Bird.” Rick and his brother own the trucking company their father started, R.W. Bird Trucking in Pleasant Gap, Pennsylvania. For a first-time Autorama competitor to win the Ridler is quite an accomplishment.

The car was built by Bruce Harvey’s shop, Pro Comp Customs in Glenshaw, Pennsylvania, over a two-and-a-half-year period. Rick Bird told me that six months into the build he decided to add twin turbos to 509-cubic-inch big-block Chevy V-8 by Shafiroff. The only problem was finding a place to put the turbos and their plumbing; the engine and transmission had already been pushed backwards so they couldn’t be behind the engine. The turbos could also not be moved to the back of the car, as some customizers do, because that’s where the radiator was placed. Bird and Harvey ended up mounting the two 72-mm Nelson Racing turbochargers and their polished chrome plumbing stacks right up at the front of the car, with the spools facing forward, making the turbos and their intake and exhaust pipes into visual elements. The setup gives the front end an aggressive, imposing look. The Chevy is painted in PPG Vibrance Wineberry and Orange Glow over a variety of basecoats.

Bird said that canceling the 2021 Detroit Autorama because of the pandemic gave him another year to get the car “just right.” Getting things just right included a 5-inch chop to the roof and matching the trunk lid to the roof’s profile, and channeling the floor over the frame to lower the body. Pro Comp hand shaped the grille, hood, hood scoop, fenders, running boards, side scoops for the rear mounted radiator, windshield frame, and taillight panel. The frame was also hand fabricated while Advanced Custom Chrome of Erie, Pennsylvania, was responsible for chrome plating. The car has a custom cantilevered front suspension that manages to combine a 1930s era solid front axle with a modern pushrod coilover shock absorber setup. Mickey Thompson tires are mounted on custom wheels by Billet Specialties.

All in all, the Sho Bird is a stunning car, built to an exceedingly high standard. The interior is fully custom, with a custom dash with a bespoke Classic Instruments instrument panel. The dash flows into a custom console. Above is an additional roof mounted console. Door panels and seats are also custom.

Rick Bird didn’t expect to be a Great 8 finalist. When I spoke to him on Friday, he couldn’t stop grinning. By Sunday evening, when they were presented with the Ridler Award, he and Patty were walking on air.

In past years the Ridler trophy was awarded at the show’s Ridler Ball, but apparently this year organizers were unable to find a ball sponsor. Instead they used the Riverfront Ballroom at Huntington Place (formerly Cobo Hall) for a more extensive award ceremony open to the public. The Detroit Autorama is a judged show, with trophies given to scores of vehicle classes, and additional cash awards.

Judges for the Ridler Award pick eight finalists on the Friday morning of the show, before it opens to the public. The Ridler finalists are called the Great 8, sponsored by BASF coatings. This year’s Great 8 seemed to me to diverge from previous years with what I think are more inspired choices. No ’69 Camaros or ’57 Chevys, just one traditional Ford roadster, a Chevy coupe from the same era, three orphan brands, Studebaker, Pontiac, and Oldsmobile, a couple of Mopars, and a very cool scratch-built homage to the 1950s Devin sports cars.

Competitors typically spend a half million dollars or more, and devote years, to see their dreams made real in metal, fabric, and composites. There are rules, of course. No matter how wild the customizations may be (and some cars are actually built completely from scratch, rather than customized versions of production vehicles) Autorama is a car show at its heart; vehicles have to be functional enough to be driven under their own power onto the show floor. Hoods are up to expose the engines.

Build quality is as high as you’d expect at a major concours like Pebble Beach or Amelia Island, perhaps even more so as concours cars are restorations to existing templates, while the Ridler competitors are very often making entirely new things.

While the “Sho Bird” Chevy won the ultimate prize of $10,000 (not to mention eternal glory), there were plenty of other glamorous and inventive creations at Autorama 2022. We’ll be shining a light on the other Ridler finalists in a future story—stay tuned.

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As car enthusiasts, we all have our opinions about Corvettes. Whether you agree with mine is no matter, and vice versa, but one thing is certain: The Corvette is an American icon.

It has been known around the world as America’s sports car, but this fiberglass-bodied Chevy is most touted for its high performance-to-price ratio. It’s the measure by which all Corvettes have been judged, particularly since the fifth-generation car was introduced in 1997. Beyond the satisfying sounds produced by its hallmark V-8, customers can relish supercar performance at sports car prices.

To achieve that performance-to-price ratio, the Corvette team has focused almost solely on mechanical brawn. Beyond a decent driver interface, you could say that the rest of the Chevy’s interior has always been somewhat of an afterthought. Each cabin is a mélange of off-the-rack General Motors componentry and Corvette-specific pieces, the combination has never taken my breath away.

While the interiors have been forgettable, my favorite Corvettes to pilot are the C5 Z06, the C6 427 convertible, and the C7 Grand Sport and ZR1. If I had to choose one, it would be a toss up between that 427 convertible and the Grand Sport. Regardless of my choice, though, my first stop would be at John Caravaggio’s shop.

For years I’ve heard the name Caravaggio and discovered that its work elevates the interiors of Corvettes to levels seen in finer European cars. What’s particularly interesting is that John Caravaggio’s eponymously named shop isn’t located in Southern California like most premium custom shops—think Icon and Singer Vehicle Design. Rather, Caravaggio trims and tunes Corvettes at a shop in the Toronto suburbs.

Like most of us, Caravaggio has loved cars since he was a child. After working for his father in the construction business (he admits that’s what most Italian kids did in Southern Ontario), he got his start in the car business by doing convertible conversions in the early ’80s.

Convertibles had waned in popularity through the ’60s and ’70s, and by the ’80s, they were few and far between. Caravaggio’s shop made the convertible conversions a viable business, chop-topping everything from Porsches to Corvettes. Caravaggio was even doing crazy Gemballa Porsches, but by 1990 the bottom had fallen out of the sports car market.

The audience for modded European cars simply evaporated, so Caravaggio pivoted to Corvettes. By the time the C5 arrived, he and his team were ready for prime time. “My wife convinced me to go to a show in Bloomington, Illinois, and we brought a car down,” Caravaggio recalls.

“John Cafaro, the Corvette C5 designer, drove by with a golf cart. He turned around, parked his golf cart, walked in, looked around, and asked me, ‘Is this your car? Can I sit?’ He sat and we talked for four hours.”

“He said, ‘I love what you do. I love your ideas and I’ve got a car I want to build. Let me come back with something.’ He left and came back with a sketch and it turned out that we had the same idea. We both wanted to build [C5] speedsters.

“Before we left Bloomington, we were invited to dinner at the C5 registry dinner and John got up in front of about four hundred people and said, ‘I found a guy—if I have anybody build me a car, this is the guy.’ Our business basically took off from there. That was all we needed and we became Corvette people overnight.”

Caravaggio saw that C5 Speedster project to completion and now it’s a fully resolved custom Corvette. Starting with a windscreen that’s shorter by ten inches, the shop adds a new convertible top and side windows, an updated exterior, and, of course, a custom-trimmed interior. Even today, if you’d like a C5 Speedster of your own, Caravaggio and his team will make one for you.

One of the most stunning projects Caravaggio’s shop has done is the C6 Super Coupe. Think of a C6 that’s had its roofline shortened by a couple of inches, lost that big glass hatch, and gained a roof reshaped into something more sleek and elegant. This Super Coupe could be called prophetic: You’ll recognize the C7’s roofline in the Super Coupe and we can’t simply chalk that up to a coincidence. Whether the resemblance is due to correlation or causation is only known by Corvette insiders—but the C6 Super Coupe is gorgeous.

Unlike most shops that focus on American cars, Caravaggio is interested in high levels of finish and customization rather than simply big power and sending customers out to terrorize their local cars and coffee.

“When we started, we were applying basically everything I learned from working with European cars because the Europeans built a totally different car than the American guys do,” Caravaggio says. “The Americans are hot rodders and the Europeans are tuners. I’ve tried to tailor my business as a tuner and build custom cars that look good inside and out, as opposed to building a car that just goes fast.”

Customers come to Caravaggio from around the world and from all walks of life because they want something that no one else has. It’s the quality and attention to detail of the Toronto shop’s interior work that makes all the difference, and it fills a market need that is satisfied by European carmakers but ignored by Chevrolet. Imagine if Corvette offered something like Ferrari’s Tailor Made Programme or Porsche’s Sonderwunsch—that’s exactly what Caravaggio’s shop is doing.

For the C8, Caravaggio is taking its Corvette tuning experience to a completely new level. Their latest project is based on the mid-engine Corvette and called the Unica Series 1. When most C8 shops will add elements to the Corvette’s bodywork, the Unica Series 1 goes in the opposite direction.

Caravaggio has completely redesigned the exterior bodywork and refines Tom Peters’ lines. The original equipment panels are replaced by bespoke pieces manufactured in carbon fiber, which lighten the car by about forty pounds.

Nearly every body panel has been reshaped with a design ethos that is decidedly minimalist and, while plenty of Corvette elements remain, the Unica Series 1 transforms the C8 into an elegant and distinctive American sports car. The busy creases of the short hood, the blade-like boomerang of the main air inlets—they’re calmed and softened in Caravaggio’s interpretation.

The Unica Series 1 is limited to a run of just thirty cars, and since each customer will select exterior and interior finishes, no two cars will be alike. Beyond the basic conversion, which rings in at $110,000 in addition to the cost of your C8, Caravaggio is offering several performance upgrades to suit the new look.

When I first laid eyes upon the Unica Series 1 images, my first thought was that it was the work of a professional—and indeed that’s the case. To protect the innocent (or the guilty, depending on your perspective), Caravaggio’s politely requested that we respect the designer’s request for anonymity, but rest assured, the Canadian shop is working with the right people on this C8 project.

Tell us your thoughts. Did this Canadian shop mess with mid-engine perfection, or is the Unica Series 1 what the C8 should have looked like from day one?

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Consider the door officially open for road-legal turnkey replica cars. After years of arduous waiting, small-volume manufacturers are now able to start selling replicas built to resemble the makes and models from 25 years ago or longer.

Originally written into law in 2015, the Low Volume Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Act was designed to protect small, ambitious automakers by providing a regulatory path that would allow them to build and sell replicas of older vehicles not meeting ordinary federal safety laws. The paperwork then sat in stasis, passing a December 2016 deadline until litigious action by SEMA jumpstarted NHTSA in October of 2019. Roughly two years later, now that NHTSA has finalized regulations to implement the law, the wait is finally over.

This is an enormous win for small businesses and entrepreneurs in the automotive sector. Now, low-volume manufacturers will be able to make, import, and sell up to 325 vehicles per year. The law effectively creates a second vein of government oversight—apart from the heavily regulated one applying to large-scale OEMs—that is designed specifically for boutique manufacturing.

“SEMA applauds NHTSA’s final rule allowing companies to market classic-themed cars,” said Daniel Ingber, SEMA Vice President of Government Affairs. “Regulatory barriers have previously prevented small automakers from producing heritage cars that are coveted by consumers. The roadblocks have been eliminated. This is a hard-fought victory for enthusiasts, small volume manufacturers, their suppliers, and all the men and women who will be hired to fill new jobs created by this law.”

It’s not a total free-for-all, of course. Any replicas made and sold must adhere to modern emissions standards, according to NHTSA. Additionally, all low-volume manufacturers must register with NHTSA, EPA, and CARB before selling vehicles.  According to SEMA, that process may take several months. Approved manufacturers will be required to submit annual production reports.

The final ruling does contain a few deviations from the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM), submitted back in January 2021. Two main changes of note: First, registrants will no longer have to submit documentation or possess a license to the intellectual property necessary to make a replica vehicle, but simply certify to the fact. Second, replicas won’t be required to maintain the exact dimensions of the original vehicle in question, but rather maintain a 10 percent over/under.

Official recognition and regulation of low-volume automotive manufacturing is long overdue. We look forward to the talented creations that will come out of this new opportunity for automotive enthusiasm to flourish.

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Nostalgia is a funny thing. It can inspire meticulous restorations of historically or sentimentally important vehicles. It can also result in the, ah, rather polarizing Corvette before you.

This is no amateur effort, by the way. A legitimate representative of the “neoclassic” trend popular in the ’70s and ’80s, this 1969 Corvette is the second of roughly 12 examples customized by hot-rodding legend George Barris. Barris, the creator of the original Batmobile, wasn’t above following the current fashion once in a while—turbine-powered dragsters and sofa-equipped Toronados aside. He even indulged a friend for this particular Corvette build. Frank Monteleone had already commissioned a “kustomized” 1941 and ’56 Ford from the Barris shop, and evidently he thought that the 1969 model year could use a little improvement.

Under the hood sits a 350-cubic-inch V-8, the default offering for the second year of the Corvette’s third generation. This car’s three-speed automatic, however, does put it among a more select group: Only 8161 (out of 38,762) cars were fitted with Chevy’s Turbo Hydra-Matic in 1969. But you’re wondering what exactly Barris did to America’s sports car, no?

Barris’ vision of “a 1930s-style modern sports car” started with a lengthened frame. He then stretched the hood, replacing the Corvette’s horizontal grille with a Parthenon-esque, upright radiator shell that juts outward from the fascia’s horizontal plane. He framed this schnoz with headlights stolen from a Ford Granada, stamping new lines into the fiberglass hood to emphasize the cab-back proportions. He raked the windshield, added a center spine, and worked a V into its top contours to mirror the cowl. (The convertible top was customized to fit the new roof silhouette.) Though Chevrolet did offer side-exit exhaust systems for the ’69 model year, and many cars were retrofitted with them, the quad-exit setup on the Barris car is for show only.

The rear deck gained two streamlined humps behind each seat and, naturally, rocket-style taillamps. Barris didn’t overlook the details, either: Check out the pinstriping around the gas cap and on the rear decklid, the caps on the wheels with the Barris crest, and the plaque in the side cove behind the “exhaust.”

It is, as they say, a look—and you can adopt it, if you like. Mecum is selling this very example on Saturday, March 19, in Glendale, Arizona. Your author is an avid fan of the 1969 Corvette and cannot, under any circumstances other than military-grade torture, imagine choosing the Barris version over what God and Chevrolet originally intended. Barris’ mechanical dexterity here, though, is objectively worthy of admiration. And if good art is meant to disturb, well … then this is great art.

The post When the Batmobile’s designer customizes a Corvette, this happens appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Electric motor swaps are gaining mainstream popularity, and that’s only going to increase with both Ford’s Eluminator and GM’s eCrate offerings to come. We even got the chance to drive Ford’s Mustang Mach-E-powered F-100 pickup, and our story piqued some interest over at AEM Performance Electronics. Would we be interested in giving its Tesla-swapped S197 Mustang a go, AEM asked?

We said yes, naturally, and soon headed to AEM’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California. First up, Lawson Mollica, AEM’s Director of Marketing & Public Relations gave us some of the technical basics. There’s a lot to unpack here—some of which we will get into—but we’ve opted to keep you engineering nerds in suspense with a more holistic nitty-gritty deep-dive article to come, in which we will explain exactly how an EV swap differs from your average engine swap. For now, what follows is our experience behind the wheel of AEM’s electric-propulsion pony car.

The basics for this build, which AEM is calling the “Testang”: it started as a 2007 Mustang GT, the model’s final solid-axle generation. AEM purchased the car from an enthusiast that had already made the Tesla conversion, and from the outside, you can hardly tell the car’s been converted. Replacing the solid axle is Tesla’s base drive unit that you can see through a Plexiglas window in the trunk floor. The Mustang’s chassis was modified to accept the unitized package of Tesla hardware that includes the motor/regen system along with the Tesla control arms and brakes. Replacing the Tesla shocks are QA1 coilovers. Teslas are quite wide, and the backspacing required to fit under the Mustang quarterpanels was very close to matching Corvette wheel specs, so that’s what the Testang wears.

AEM is an electronics company, and those components are what the Testang is meant to highlight. AEM developed its own Inverter Control Board which replaces Tesla’s inverter controller, allowing the company to build its own torque maps and change the driving characteristics and get more power out of the Tesla motors. That controller is mounted to a circuit board that attaches to the Tesla’s inverter. AEM’s Vehicle Control Unit (VCU) is what orchestrates current demand in relation to pedal input to turn a wild project car into a relatively civilized machine.

Under the hood—replacing the three-valve, 310-hp, 4.6-liter V-8—is an array of six hybrid car batteries, with six more located under the car where you’d normally find the fuel tank. AEM went with batteries from hybrid cars because they’re optimized for short bursts of high-energy draw, like getting a vehicle up to highway speeds, allowing the gas engine can take over when cruising. We mentioned that the car is equipped with Tesla’s base drive unit, but the original builder equipped it with the more powerful sport drive unit. But this setup is no wimp; AEM’s controller, in conjunction with these hybrid batteries, is able to get 330 lb-ft of torque and 300 kW from the motor, which translates to 400+ horsepower. That’s more power out of the Tesla base drive unit than Tesla gets from its larger, sport drive unit.

Drive control for the Testang is operated with a console-mounted panel that includes the shifter, an on/off switch, and a button whimsically labeled with a turtle and a rabbit that allows for the selection of pre-set power levels. The turtle mode, unlike the one found on your riding lawnmower, will still power the Testang to highway speeds. It is, however, adjustable, so you could add a valet mode that truly limits buffoonery. We started our test will full power and tapped the D button to shift to Drive. Hawthorne is located in Los Angeles’ South Bay, so we used Highways 105, 710, and 405 to get a feel for the Testang in real-world conditions. Merging into freeway traffic, we demanded full-throttle acceleration and got all 400 hp in a smooth, controlled manner, without any wheel slip thanks to AEM EV’s extensive torque mapping development time. The Testang easily climbs in speed, a feat that’s particularly salient during 60-80 mph passing maneuvers that feel like they’re over in half a second.

As with a factory electric vehicle application, AEM enables the motor to act as a generator, although the regen function was dialed way back when we were driving to allow for a much more familiar coasting feel when releasing the throttle. That’s also adjustable, of course.

The Testang’s 12-volt system was left intact to power the aftermarket stereo in the dash worked, as well as the auto-up power windows.

There’s only one real aspect in which the Testang is lacking: HVAC. With no engine constantly running to drive it, electric vehicles rely on a separate motor to power the AC compressor and the previous owner removed much of the factory Mustang’s AC system. AEM will have that resolved soon, as their VCU has been used to run AC as well as battery cooling and heating loops in other electric vehicles. The company is already working on Testang V2 to satisfy increasing demand to get this car into the hands of eager enthusiasts. AEM’s engineers still need a development mule that can be torn down and modified at a moment’s notice, and AC in the Testang will be a must during the summer.

AEM’s Testang handles a lot like a modern Mustang, in part because the batteries are positioned in such a way that they replace weight where it would be found in a normal Mustang—up front and under the hood. The additional batteries and the drive unit do put more weight over the rear, effectively balancing the car a bit more, but it doesn’t feel like a heavy modern EV. As for the electric power delivery, it is 100-percent smooth and dialed in just as you’d expect from a factory EV. That’s a hugely impressive accomplishment, and somehow the Testang still feels like a Mustang aside from the powertrain.

There are some compromises. The battery capacity of the Testang provides it less than 100 miles of range, and that range is quickly used up by aggressive track driving. AEM has been hitting the autocross with the Testang, which is why it the computer (which calculates based on recent usage) showed just 37 miles of estimated range with the batteries more than half charged. On the other hand, with the modest battery packs, the vehicle’s weight isn’t as high as you might expect. AEM reports a 3600-pound curb weight, which is right at the high end of a well-equipped 2007 Mustang GT. As battery tech gets better and there are more and more options for power-dense batteries become available, enthusiasts building their own EV conversions will hopefully face fewer compromises. As it stands, it’s already viable for an enthusiast to build a car like the Testang and the process should only get easier as companies like AEM lay the groundwork.

AEM sees EV conversions as a critical avenue for future enthusiasts and hopes to be the supplier for the hardware needed to simplify the process. Considering that even some of our most carburetor-obsessed gearhead friends have warmed to the benefits of an electric cruiser, let alone one that can hit the autocross like the Testang, we think that AEM is onto something.

The post Driving AEM’s Tesla-powered Mustang appeared first on Hagerty Media.

The word “icon” is thrown around so nonchalantly in the car community these days that sometimes it falls short in describing a vehicle that’s so revered it represents an entire segment of the collector car community. Case in point: the 1951 Hirohata Mercury. Now, there’s an ICON.

Arguably the most famous custom car ever built, the Hirohata Merc was the creation of legendary Barris Kustoms and is one of only 30 automobiles listed on the National Historic Vehicle Register. Now it could be yours. The modified Mercury will cross the auction block on Saturday, January 15, 2022, at Mecum’s Kissimmee (Florida) Auction. Presale estimate is $1M–$1.25M, but since it has never been offered at auction before, it’s difficult to say where the hammer might fall.

“It’s the quintessential lead sled, and it’s Barris associated, so that’s a big deal,” says Greg Ingold, Hagerty Price Guide editor. “Big, golden age Kustoms’ cars are very uncommon at auction, so whenever one is offered it draws attention.”

This one is drawing a lot of it, and rightly so.

“As far back as I can remember, it’s been the car that gets talked about, because it made the new look,” says Herschel Conway, who worked for brothers George and Sam Barris, and was interviewed extensively for a four-part video series about the cutting-edge cruiser. “The other cars became mild customs alongside this radical custom.”

“It was the top,” adds automotive historian and author Pat Ganahl. “It was the best. It set the trend for custom cars.”

Fresh out of the Navy in 1952, Masato (Bob) Hirohata took his standard 1951 Mercury Coupe to the Barris brothers and asked that they give it a pillarless “hardtop” look similar to what the shop had done to Nick Matranga’s then-famous 1940 Mercury Coupe. Beyond that, Hirohata encouraged the brothers to flex their creative muscle, and they didn’t take that freedom lightly.

Powered by a 1953 Cadillac 331-cubic-inch OHV V-8 engine with three Stromberg carburetors, the Mercury’s many modifications included removing the door handles (a hidden button opened the door), building a custom grille from three 1951 Ford grilles, and adding frenched headlamps, ’52 Lincoln taillights, and side trim from a 1952 Buick. The corners of the doors and trunk were rounded, the rear was chopped more than the front to give it a lower stance, the car was given a custom rolled-and-pleated upholstery job, and the dash and glovebox were pinstriped by the legendary Von Dutch. And its bright pastel green paint job was like nothing anyone had ever seen.

The custom car community went bananas, and the Hirohata Merc soon graced the covers of automotive magazines from Hot Rod to Motor Trend. The car even appeared in a movie, 1955’s Running Wild. Hirohata decided to sell it not long after the movie was released. Among the Merc’s owners was Robert Waldsmith, who also used it as his daily transportation and was hit by another car, an accident that required repairs and new paint—two-tome gold. The car was eventually sold to Doug Kinney, an employee of Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, who repainted it lime green.

Believe it or not, however, the Hirohata Merc ended up in a used car lot, where it was purchased by a 16-year-old kid named Jim McNiel. It couldn’t have gone to a better person. McNeil considered himself a caretaker more than an owner, and he preserved and carefully cared for the Merc until his death in 2018.

The Mercury placed first in class at the 2015 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, was added to the National Historical Vehicle Register in 2017, and has been displayed on the national mall in Washington, D.C., and at the Petersen Automotive Museum.

The Hirohata Merc represents a pivotal shift in American car culture. And although it wasn’t the first radical custom Mercury, it has become one of the most significant. It could also become the most expensive. We’ll be watching.

The post The legendary Hirohata Merc is looking for a new home appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Editor’s note: When this was published in last month’s issue of Hagerty Drivers Club magazine, we received quite a few letters from people who felt that we were pushing a particular agenda. As the author of this piece, let me assure you that we have no such intentions. Our goal is to show our readers another kind of automotive enthusiasm. Yes, it’s controversial, and yes, it often falls afoul of the law—but haven’t we all looked back at the “outlaw” days of hot rodding and street racing with approval and even pleasure? I’d ask you to give these fellow enthusiasts a fair hearing. And as always, thank you for reading this site and for sharing our love of cars. — Jack Baruth

They call him “D-one Tha Chosen,” and today, his music is the soundtrack for countless different street scenes in Houston and elsewhere. In 1996, however, he was just a 10-year-old boy sitting in a candy-apple-red 1986 Lincoln Town Car, watching the plate-glass window of a fried-chicken restaurant shatter into a thousand pieces under the coordinated sonic assault of four high-powered, 18-inch subwoofers.

“Pat Lemon owned that car first,” recalls D-one, all these years later. “The man who was like a father to me, Darryl Williams—he had just gotten out of jail. So I was riding with him and Pat Lemon. We got to Frenchy’s in the Third Ward. Pat popped the trunk … if I’m lying, I’m flying, alright?” D-one says with a smile. He is tall, lean, charismatic. Attired in flawless street style, relaxed in the mid-rise office in southwest Houston where he signs artists and sells records. “When he popped that trunk and those 18s hit … he took down the whole front window of Frenchy’s.”

The Town Car was painted red for a most unusual reason: Its owner was affiliated with the infamous Crips gang. “Unusual,” because in Los Angeles and other locales, the Crips traditionally wear blue; in Houston, paradoxically, the Crips “rode red.” Their control of the streets was far from absolute, however. To have a red car on “swanger” wire wheels was a double provocation.

You could be killed for your gang affiliation, another dropped body in the slow burn of crack-fueled gang violence. Or you might get carjacked out of nowhere by someone who would throw your lifeless body to the curb, pull the swangers off your car and sell them, after having burned the rest.

Not the best place to be, especially if you were 10 years old and subject to being caught in the crossfire. But it was also where the action was, the gravitational pull of which, to a young boy, is both stronger than any mother’s caution and older than epic poems of yore. “We rode in that car all day … and that was really the day that I fell in love with all of it,” D-one says. “The cars, the music—it started with that 1986 Town Car. It was one of the first slabs.”

The exact definition of “slab” has been debated since the cars first rolled through the mean streets of Houston. Some said that slab stood for “Slow, Loud, and Bangin’.” The origin of the name, however, is simpler than that: A slab is a custom car that you put out on the concrete slab of a Houston freeway. Not a lowrider, and not a pimpmobile, though there are common threads of style and sourcing that run through all three of these genres. A slab is a vehicle in which you are seen—and heard. It has a unique look. Not only can it shake the windows; it can shatter them. No two slabs are alike. And you always know who is behind the wheel. It’s a modern coat of arms, the livery of a street nobility, and honi soit qui mal y pense, as King Arthur and his knights were wont to say.

D-one made it home safely that night in 1996, and every night thereafter. He was, unfortunately, the only passenger in that slab on that day who would survive to the present. Pat Lemon, the car’s owner, was killed on the street shortly after that seminal afternoon with D-one. From Lemon, the Lincoln passed into the hands of Houston rapper Fat Pat. It’s featured in his music video for “Tops Drop;” a long, lean, vinyl-roofed presence among Eldorados and Broughams and aero- headlamp Buick Regals. Almost everyone is on the swanger wheels, the chrome spokes extending past the wheel wells and out into your space. Elbows out. Staking a claim on the street.

In February 1998, Fat Pat was shot and killed at age 27 by an unknown gunman. The next owner of the car was reportedly another local rapper, also shot and killed. “After that,” D-one relates, “it was sitting on Wyoming and South Park for a minute. But … they burned it. You know, it was like a death car. Everybody who owned that car got shot.”

That was the end of the road for what was arguably the most famous of the early slabs. But the slab scene? It was just getting started.

In the beginning

In the beginning was the ’83, and the ’83 was with the Cadillac Eldorado. That razor-edged personal luxury coupe had been downsized for 1979 in triumphal fashion. After four years on the market, however, the Eldo’s appeal began to wane. Knowing the proclivities of their customer base, some Cadillac dealer accessory managers tapped Cragar to supply a variant of its “Star” wire wheel for 1983 Eldorados.

Customers of the era would have immediately noticed two differences between the plastic-wire wheel covers and the real ones. Viewing the car in profile, set behind the wires of the Cragar wheels, one could see the Eldorado’s four-wheel disc brakes. More important, the centers of the real wire wheels extended about 4 inches proud of the wheel rim and tire sidewall. This meant that people on the street could discern the Star wheels from all sides of the vehicle. The wheels had presence.

They were a success; for 1984, the Cragars returned with a slightly different design and a little bit more of that “poke” extending out past the wheel. After that, the wheels were no longer offered, likely because the effort involved in servicing tubeless wire wheels built by a third-party vendor exceeded the interest and/or capabilities of Cadillac dealers. As the Cragar-equipped Eldorados passed into the hands of second and third owners, the wheels quickly became de rigueur on urban streets.

Houston was no exception. Here, the heady aphrodisiac of seemingly limitless oil money had ensured a steady flow of loaded Cadillacs from showroom to mansion to suburb to street. Many dealers reworked the cars in full neoclassic fashion, with Rolls-Royce-style aftermarket grilles (a popular version had a superimposed pair of capital-C letters echoing the double-R, with “CLASSIC – CADILLAC” in place of the Crewe original text) and nonfunctional Continental kits featuring fiberglass faux spare wheels hanging off the rear bumper.

That oil boom was followed in ghoulish fashion by an oil bust and the explosive arrival of crack cocaine on the streets of Houston. The most successful drug dealers of the era gravitated toward those elaborately styled 1980s Eldorados, the same way that New York City pimps in the early 1970s had been attracted to customized “El Dogs” by the likes of Wisco and Les Dunham more than a decade previously. Those ’83s and ’84s were the ur-slab, and their revered trinity of Cadillac badge, elbows-out wire wheels, and Continental kit went on to define the trend for the next 10 years.

“To be a real slab,” D-one clarifies, “it almost has to be a Cadillac.” Most of the early slabs were Eldorados with the Biarritz package, although in most cases the signature stainless-steel roof panel of the Biarritz gave way to a convertible top or a faux-convertible fabric cover. Full-size, C-body Cadillacs were also popular, with particular respect paid to the 1990–92 Brougham model and its flush-mounted, corner-wrapped headlamps. The appeal of the “Brougham nose” was so strong that several shops started adapting them to other GM cars. While this modification is a straight swap onto any B- or C-body full-sizer, to make it work on the narrower E-body Eldorado and Seville requires some true artistry, attenuating the grille in a manner that doesn’t look obvious, with the headlights fitted properly in the available space.

Any well-attended slab party in Houston creates a sort of uncanny-valley effect for Cadillac fanciers; you might see five or six cars in a row that all look like 1992 Broughams from dead ahead. As they pass, however, you’ll see that, in reality, they are Eldorado convertibles, Coupe de Villes, or Oldsmobile Ninety-Eights. What’s more prestigious, we ask D-one: a flawless Brougham conversion on a Ninety-Eight, or an original Cadillac? “It’s got to be the real thing for me,” he states. “The rest, you’re just trying to put the Cadillac style on it.”

By the early 2000s, there was a complete cottage industry of tiny customization shops to apply the candy-colored paint and Continental kits to the car of your choice. Rarely did a shop offer the whole package to a potential customer or even serve as a general contractor coordinating a build. Instead, the cars were built in fits and starts as their owners came up with the necessary funds to keep things going, rolling from shop to shop on borrowed steel wheels for a little trim here, a little upholstery there, paint somewhere else.

You couldn’t call your slab finished until you had a bumpin’ sound system, preferably accessed via a trunk that rose hydraulically on custom linkages to display a plexiglass jewel box of amplifiers and speakers. Ideally, you would have a message under the trunklid. It could be boastful: UR DREAMS – MY REALITY. Or meant to show affiliation: SOUTH BANK STILL STUNTIN. Even thoughtfully reflective: IT DON’T HURT TO FORGIVE. With that done, it would be time to finish the car by finding an appropriate set of wheels.

Cragar Stars were far more valuable on the street than were the Eldorados to which they’d originally been fitted. One well-known customizer estimated that there were as few as 50 sets of Eldorado wheels in circulation by the beginning of this century. To have a set of 83s or 84s—by then, they were known by their production year—was to attain a height of social felicity rarely seen outside of rapper or athlete status. It also meant you stood a good chance of being killed for your wheels. In those years, the murder rate in Houston was triple the national average. Who knows how many of those deaths started with a covetous glance at a set of 84s, bolted to a ragtop Eldorado? The supply was limited; the demand was murderous.

Something had to give.

“We Took the Bus to a P.O. Box”

Eddie Kennedy runs 3rd Coast Customs out of a weathered steel building dropped between homes on an otherwise residential street. He’s been here for more than two decades in a car-customization career that spans three. Much of the shop is thick with months’ worth of dust; he apologizes early and often for this state of affairs during his interview. Yet his work is known for being nearly flawless, particularly when it comes to Brougham conversions. “The parts are so hard to get that I started fabricating my own fiberglass fascia and stainless-steel grilles,” he explains. “But you still need the headlights, and they’re $1500 each in any junkyard that still has them.”

Kennedy was also front and center for what could best be described as a Swanger Crisis of sorts. “There was an older guy here who was repairing and rechroming the 83s and 84s, but he couldn’t do enough. By 1998, you could easily get killed just for owning a set,” Kennedy says. “You couldn’t be a regular 9-to-5 guy and own these wheels. Had to be an outlaw, a dealer. And even they couldn’t ride alone on the streets. So they started going in packs. And they painted their cars the same color. So you’d know their affiliation.”

The Swanger Crisis took another turn, when in 2007, a company called Texan Wire Wheels started making all-steel replicas of the original Cragar wires. Kennedy heard a rumor early on that someone was remaking the wheels, but all he had was a P.O. Box number in California. He did the obvious thing: he took a bus to California and staked out the post office until the party in question came to get their mail. Kennedy’s work as perhaps the first Texan dealer did much to resolve the crisis. “We ended up selling the first 10 sets of wheels,” he recalls. “It was almost like a black market.” The deadly demand for original Cragars disappeared as slab fans gravitated toward the newest and most outrageous Texans. People without hard and fast criminal affiliations started building and driving slabs, although they were careful to choose colors that were either neutral or particular to a general region rather than a gang.

Over the years, the protrusion of the hubs increased through Super, Extreme, Orangatang, and finally Giraffe poke. Giraffe pokes have a full 24 inches of extension past the wheel rim, adding 4 feet to the already substantial width of a full-size GM sedan. “I’m 50 this year, and I don’t care for the 15-inch and 24-inch poke,” admits Kennedy. “The wheels wrap around each other in traffic, ruin the cars. But the younger generation wants the longest poke, at the highest price. Ten thousand dollars for Giraffe poke.”

The cost of the most extreme swangers isn’t the only deterrent. In summer 2021, not a single shop in Houston had a set in stock. “Pay me now, maybe you could get them in October, but probably not,” one salesman admits. As a result, the heat is once again turning up on the people who drive slabs. To “ride one-deep,” or to drive unaccompanied on these wheels, is riskier than BASE jumping with a discount parachute. To make matters worse, the increasing presence of Giraffe pokes on Houston freeways is extremely unpopular with the 9-to-5 crowd, leading to more pressure from the police. Cops are writing tickets and confiscating cars. “And once they have your car,” D-one notes, “you won’t get it back, because down here a lot of cars change hands without any paperwork. The name on your title might be the man who owned the car 20 years ago. Is he gonna get it out of impound for you?”

Leaders of the New School

So much of today’s slab culture would be familiar to any 20th-century hot-rodder, from the police-related drama to parts availability to the perpetual ascendancy of General Motors in the scene. To that list, you can now add that age-old source of societal friction, “generational conflict.” To the original slabbers, most of whom are now between 40 and 60 years old, the definition of the hobby hasn’t changed one bit. It’s still a Cadillac on 84-ish wire wheels with a Continental kit, Vogue white-wall tires, and the candy-colored paint job of your click. (In Houston, the reader will note, the word “clique” is spelled the way it sounds, as exemplified with local hip-hop pioneers Screwed Up Click, or S.U.C. for short.)

A new generation of slabbers has consistently challenged and redefined what slab should mean. The wheels, the sound systems, the flashy attitude? Still mandatory. But when the GM Class of ’77 and its descendants became too hard to find, the youngsters adapted and started building W-body Impalas, LaCrosses, and Grand Prixs as slabs. When those became scarce, another group began to focus on late-model versions of the Chrysler 300 and the Dodge Charger. On the day we interviewed Kennedy, he was working on a fully modified, two-year-old Cadillac XTS. It had candy-purple paint, a motorized Continental kit, a redyed leather interior in a scheme best understood as “Goober Grape,” and 15-inch poke Texans with Vogues. Yet Kennedy was reluctant to call it by the traditional name. “I guess,” he says with a sigh, “this is what people are seeing as a slab nowadays.”

Indeed, after attending any event where the ’83 Eldorados and ’90 Broughams are out in force, wearing their perfectly judged “box” styling and covering roughly 221 by 76 inches of concrete in appropriately menacing fashion, it’s hard not to see new-generation slabs built on the XTS or Charger platform as children of a lesser god. Yet to do so is to miss the point by more than a little.

At some phase of its historical development, every automotive subculture comes to a turning point: Is it the blues or is it hip-hop? The blues is a time-capsule scene, admitting of no significant changes or enhancements since Peter Green signed off from Fleetwood Mac in the spring of 1970. It is primarily understood and enjoyed by people who have a historical perspective. Young people are allergic to such a viewpoint, the same way they are allergic to Pat Boone or Chopin or Metallica. Hip-hop, on the other hand, is messy, occasionally embarrassing, and almost always unable to reach the artistic level of its original practitioners in the current day—but it is evolving, it is relevant.

Houston’s slab scene is its own unique definition of automotive enthusiasm. It is drenched in heresy, divorced from traditional taste, and liberally splattered with blood besides. Yet the arrival of a slab on the streets of Houston’s Third Ward is as electrifying, as important, as much of an event in 2021 as it was when Pat Lemon rolled up to Frenchy’s in his Town Car in 1996 and literally exploded on the scene. The slab’s past is rooted in tragedy, its present is rocked by controversy, and its future is as opaque as the hyper-tinted windows of an Impala slab rolling slowly past a potential rival. But it is completely, utterly, indisputably: alive.

The post Elbows Out: Houston birthed the slabs, a car culture of its own appeared first on Hagerty Media.

SEMA hands out quite a few awards during their event including “Best New Vehicles for Personalization” and “New Product Award Winners.” The first category is handed out to the top trending vehicle models to customize, a category that Ford and Toyota swept. The awards are voted on by exhibiting manufacturers. “The SEMA Award celebrates the industry’s unique ability to identify and set trends that influence automotive enthusiasts worldwide,” said Chris Kersting, SEMA president and CEO. “Consumers are able to look to SEMA Award winners for guidance on which vehicles offer the greatest opportunities for customization.”  The five category award winners were:

• Car of the Year: Ford Mustang
• Sport Compact of the Year: Toyota Supra
• 4×4/SUV of the Year: Ford Bronco
• Full-size Truck of the Year: Ford F-Series
• Mid-Size Truck of the Year: Toyota Tacoma

The Bronco was no surprise here and was far and away the most displayed customized vehicle at SEMA this year. The second most popular vehicle in booths was the C8 Corvette so we were a little surprised to see the Mustang take the Car of the Year Award. Adding the Mach-E to the family may have helped the Mustang win this year. Showing the GR Supra Sport Top and GR Supra Heritage Edition in the Toyota booth was a great way to demonstrate its support of personalizing their cars. The overlanding and camper world has been exploding over the last couple of years and Toyota is embracing it with the Tacozilla and other customized trucks in their booth. The variety of options from Ford with the F-Series helped it win Full-Size Truck of Year. Whether it’s two-wheel-drive, or four-wheel-drive, is powered by an EcoBoost V-6 or turbo-diesel V-8, or is a half-ton or a dualie, they all fit under the same F-Series umbrella.

Do you agree with the winners? When you think of a car that encourages personalization, what comes to mind?

Here are some images of the winners from SEMA.

The post Ford and Toyota sweep SEMA awards for new-vehicle personalization appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Another SEMA show is in the books, and it was an important one. After hosting a virtual show in 2020, the 2021 show marked a return to in-person attendance and also a first time for the SEMA show to include the new West Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center. The added square footage allowed the show to spread out a bit, leaving more room for foot traffic and much-needed tables and seating for snack breaks. As usual, hundreds of feature vehicles were in attendance. We barely had time to take in the fabrication nuances and interesting choices of texture and color of one build before the next stunner pulled our eyes—and feet—away.

We’ve already highlighted some of the interesting pro-touring muscle cars and sports cars from the Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational, as well as our favorite trucks and 4x4s, but this gallery is our biggest yet, with more than 250 cars, engines, and other interesting builds from SEMA 2021’s many locations.

At the Hagerty booth, we announced our partnership with Radford Racing School, and Ant Anstead unveiled the electric roadster he helped design and build for TV host Drew Scott.

This 1969 Firebird built by BBT Fabrications is powered by a 468-cubic-inch Pontiac V-8 from Butler Performance. The twin-turbo mill makes somewhere in the neighborhood of 1200 horsepower and sends it through a T-65 six-speed built by Bowler Transmission. The car rides on a Roadster Shop chassis with IRS, and just about every body panel on the car has been customized, including flared fenders, flush rear glass, shaved drip rails, and a unique rear fascia and grille.

Brandon Miller’s 1986 Nissan 300ZX is powered by a beautiful Nissan inline-six that’s based on an RB25 block. With a ported RB26 head, bigger bores, and a stroker crank, the engine now displaces 2.8 liters and churns out 250 horsepower to the wheels.

Tim Strange from Strange Motion built a timeless 1965 Chevelle with his father. He had hoped to track down a Chevelle he had previously owned, but when a high-school friend learned Tim was in the market for a project, he sold Tim what was left of this car. It had been parked in a corn crib when a tornado hit, taking the corn crib and the car’s front clip along with it.

The damage done by the tornado is long gone, as you can see. Strange boxed the factory chassis, Z’ed the front, and added tubular cross-members. He cut out the factory floor and channeled the car to create its low stance. Inside, the former bench seat car has front buckets and the rear bench from an Impala. The 505-cubic-inch big-block is set way back in the engine bay—so far that Tim had to notch the cowl for the distributor. Almost all of the engine rests behind the front spindles.

We spoke with dozens of car owners about their builds, and we plan on bringing you more detailed features on some of these fantastic rides in the weeks and months to come. In the meantime, enjoy this gallery of 300+ images of some of our favorite images from SEMA 2021.