For a car that helped define what pony cars were all about, the first-generation Chevrolet Camaro got off to something of an ignominious start. As we covered in a story about Bill Mitchell and Irv Rybicki’s interview in the mid-1980s, neither one of these icons of style at General Motors had any particular love for the design eventually became the First Generation Camaro.

The truly fascinating part of dual interviews that Mitchell and Rybicki gave to the Benson Ford Research Center at the Henry Ford Museum was that the second-generation Camaro, which ran from 1970 to 1981, should’ve been the first generation.

“We did what we were asked to do,” Rybicki said in that interview, regarding the First Generation Camaro. “But when that program was finished, I got with our vehicle packaging group, and we started planning the second-generation car, and there was no interference. We did a new underbody and placed the seats where we wanted them, and got the cross section.”

Mitchell echoed Rybicki’s sentiments: “[T]hey ran for ten years, because I got the right dash to axle, the right cowl height,” he said. The look stood the test of time.

So, the 1970 to 1981 Camaro exists as an example of what could’ve been in 1967 had the team had the time to fully execute the ideas that they had about what a personal sports car should be, rather than rushing to grind out cars in an effort to catch up with Ford’s Mustang.

The February 1970 debut of the second-gen Camaro was a clean-sheet design that nonetheless followed a familiar formula designed to meet a broad spread of buyer’s needs: Six-cylinder at the base level with a manual transmission, all the way up to the Z28 at the top of the food chain. (As an aside, the slash disappeared from “Z/28” in 1970, and wouldn’t return till the 2014 Z/28.) The broad range of engines was augmented by the order guide’s flexibility: You could buy the base car with absolutely no frills and a big block V-8 with a four-speed manual, meaning big power could be had without the added cost of stripes, emblems, and wheels that the Z28 offered.

During the second-gen car’s run, the Z28, along with the Type LT and SS, got all the attention, but the real sales numbers came from the low- to mid-trim levels like the Sport Coupe and Berlinetta, which provided basic transportation for Americans all over the country. These two-door sporty coupes were a significant part of what everyday American buyers drove daily before they shifted over to four-door sedans from Toyota and Honda.

As the years went from 1970 to the mid-1970s, a fuel crisis and perceived ebb in demand for performance cars further encouraged Chevrolet to position the Camaro as more of an everyday vehicle rather than the tire-smoldering drag car or road course dominator it had been in the past. Chevy’s marketing leaned on the universal appeal of a sporty car that actually worked as a daily driver, emphasizing the long doors and easy access to the back seat. “Getting in and out is a snap. Especially in the back,” reads one print ad from 1970. “It’s OK if you have to slip in an occasional shopping bag.”

Especially through a modern lens, with the sixth-gen Camaro selling around 25,000 units a year, the second-generation Camaro was an unqualified smash from the second it arrived. With the exception of 1972 and 1973, when strikes caused production numbers to dwindle, the second-gen Camaro always sold in the six digits. Between the years of 1977 and 1979, Chevrolet sold more than three quarters of a million Camaros. In 1979—when Chevrolet sold 282,571 units—it outsold the Toyota Corolla by about 8,000 cars.

Over 12 model years, the Camaro went from a tire-boiling performance car to a tape-stripe packaged personal coupe and nearly back again as the third generation loomed. That said, in any search for a second-gen car, you’re much more likely to find a Z28 or other performance-oriented model than you are a base coupe with its original six-cylinder engine intact.

1970

The 1970 Camaro was produced at two plants—Van Nuys, California and Norwood Assembly in Ohio. In that first year there were five engines available: At the base level was the 155hp Turbo Thrift 250-cubic inch inline six cylinder. Oddly, Chevrolet referred to the 307-cubic inch V-8 and all three of the variations of 350-cubic inch V-8 as “Turbo Fire.” The 307 delivered 200 hp, while the 350s offered 250 hp with a two-barrel, 300hp (L48) and 360hp (the LT1 in the Z28), both with four-barrel carburetors. At the top of the ladder were two versions of the Turbo Jet 396-cubic inch V-8, producing either 350 or 375 horsepower.

Four basic transmission setups were available, dependent upon the engine selected. The base was a three-speed manual, which was standard with the six-cylinder and the 307 V-8. The six-cylinder and the smaller V-8 were also available with the Powerglide two-speed automatic, while the 307 and 350 V-8s could also be ordered with the TH350 three-speed automatic. The 350s and the 396s could be had with Muncie four-speed manuals, and if you wanted an auto with your big block, a beefier TH400 three-speed would be fitted.

For the first time, the Z28 could be had with an automatic. You could also get two different low gears (a 2.52:1 and a 2.20:1) in the Z28’s four-speed manual, along with your choice of a 3.73:1 or 4.10:1 rear end. This choice of rear gears were available on big block cars, too, while lesser-engined cars based their gear sets on transmission choice.

Chevrolet offered five basic trim levels in 1970: A base car identified as “Standard” in the order guide. The “Style Trim” (RPO Z21) included parking lamps mounted in the front valence, bright hood trim, body-color inserts on the door handles, and bright “Dual Concentric” rings on the taillamps.  Rally Sport (RPO Z22) included Rally Sport emblems, the iconic split front bumpers and the valence-mounted parking lights. The SS (RPO Z27) came through with a standard 350-cu.in. V-8 with a four-barrel and dual exhaust, power disc brakes, hood insulation, and a black grille and rear valence panel, plus 7-inch wide Rally wheels. The optional 396 also gave the suspension a boost with a rear stabilizer bar.

At the top of the food chain was the Z28, which featured the standard 360-horse LT1 V-8. With 11.0:1 compression, four bolt main bearings, a unique cam, mechanical lifters and a four-barrel, extruded aluminum pistons, bigger valves, and a thermo-modulated fan, and other tweaks, this engine was among the most revered small blocks that Chevy produced. The Z28 also provided higher rate springs and shocks, a front and rear stabilizer bar and a quick-ratio steering box. On the outside, the Z28 received a rear deck spoiler, stripe kit, and gray-painted Z28 wheels with F60x15 white letter Goodyear Polyglas GTs.

There’s a lot of confusion about what constitutes a Rally Sport, in large part because that trim could be applied to anything from Z28s all the way down to six-cylinder cars. The only way to fully identify whether a car is an RS—five decades after it was produced—is to find code Z22 in the build sheet. It’s more than just the split bumpers, too, and buyers should note that people have been adding split bumpers onto standard noses almost since the get-go. True RS cars will also feature Hide-A-Way wipers (RPO C24) as well as the contents of the Z21 Style Trim Group. On SS and Z28 trims with the RS option, the only obvious callout will be the RS emblem on the steering wheel.

Inside, the standard car was a lot more stripped than popular imagination remembers. The floor console was an option, for example. It’s always a treat to run across a bare-bones base car with a floor shifted three-speed and no console. Interior packages included the Z23 Special Interior Group (additional instrument cluster lighting and wood-grained accents on the instrument cluster and steering wheel) and the Z87 Custom Interior (everything in Z23 plus deluxe seats in either cloth or vinyl, a glovebox light, additional instrument cluster lighting; a luggage compartment mat and engine compartment, hood, and interior insulation.)

Standalone options ranged in the dozens from air conditioning—though not on the Z28—to a forced air rear window defogger. Major option groups included ZP5 (Appearance Guard Group—door edge guards and front and rear floor mats), U14 (the Instrument Panel Gage Package that came with temp and voltage gauges, plus a clock and tachometer), and ZQ2 (Operating Convenience Group: a clock, sport mirrors and the rear defogger).

A few minor notes: 1970 was the only year the second-generation Camaro was available with the “Camaro by Chevrolet” emblem on the rear decklid. The side marker lights on a 1970 Camaro also don’t flash with the turn indicators, a one-off anomaly for that year.

There were 15 color options in 1970, with three tones of vinyl top, and five interior colors in total, three of which were available in Knit Vinyl and Pattern Cloth. The vast majority of the 124,901 Camaros produced in 1970 featured a V-8: Just 12,578 featured the 250-cu.in. six-cylinder, making these cars pretty thin on the ground in 2023.

1971

1971 was a pivotal year for performance, or more specifically, the lack thereof—GM lowered the compression ratios of all of its engines, and dropped its most potent 396 from the engine lineup.

The 250-cubic inch six and 307-cubic inch V-8 were identical in performance to 1970. The two-barrel-equipped 350-cubic inch engine dropped to 245hp from 250hp. But the big drop was for the four-barrel 350 (270hp from 300hp in 1970), the four-barrel 350 with dual exhaust in the Z28 (330hp from 360 the prior year) and the 396 (now marketed with its actual displacement of 402 cubic inches) sat at an even 300 horses.

The 1971 grille was the identical tight rectangular pattern of the 1970, and unique to those two years of Camaro.

Inside, there were further changes. 1971 debuted high-back bucket seats for all Camaro models rather than low-back buckets with a separate headrest. That high-back design would continue for the remained of the second-gen’s run. And for the first time, 1971 Camaro models featured a pictograph on the smaller rubberized headlamp switch, replacing a larger chrome pull knob from 1970. The two-spoke base steering wheel is slightly different in 1971, more of a rectangular shape than 1970’s somewhat triangular design. The four-spoke wheel (RPO NK4) was an option that would eventually become standard the following year.

15 colors were available, with four vinyl top options and five interior colors. In 1971, Chevrolet produced a total of 114,630 Camaros, with about 90 percent of that production allotted to V-8s, and just 11,178 six-cylinders.

1972

The order guide in 1972 looks different, and a lot easier to comprehend. The basic difference is down to “6-Cylinder Model” with the 250-cu.in. inline six, and for another $95, the “8-Cylinder Model” with the 307-cu.in. V-8, making it absolutely clear why V-8-powered Camaros made up most of the production in any given year.

Major options continued to include the Z27 Camaro SS (with the L48 350 or with the optional LS3 402); Z23 Rally Sport (still available on everything, but deleting RS emblems on Z28 and SS); Z21 Style Trim; and Z28 Special Performance Package. All of the engines were rated for SAE NET HP in 1972, showing a significant drop from 1971. The 250-cubic inch six was rated at 110hp, the 307 V-8 at 130hp, the L65 350 V-8 at 165hp, the L48 350 at 200hp, the Z28 350 at 255hp, and the 402-cu.in. V-8 at 240hp. Transmission offerings remained the same.

The big exterior change for 1972 was the larger grille pattern, which the 1972 model year Camaro shares with ’73. But it’s the only year that the Camaro has this grille pattern without the underlying larger, stronger bumper supports. Besides that grille, the exterior largely stayed the same, though lots of changes were occurring inside. The steering wheel went to the four-spoke urethane NK4 sport wheel that became synonymous with the Camaro until 1981. Three-point seatbelts became standard for the two front passengers. The door panels underwent a style revision, with map pockets and a change holder. Speedometers dropped to a 130-mph max, down from 150 in the first two years. In prior years, four-speed-equipped Camaros used a Hurst shifter, but that was eliminated for 1972.

In previous years, Z21 (Style Trim) was included in the Z23 Rally Sport package, but in 1972, the packages were independent, meaning you could buy a car that was Rally Sport equipped, but not have bright exterior trim. It’s important to note that prior to the 1972 model year, the engine code was not part of the VIN. That changed in 1972, with the fifth digit of the VIN signifying the engine:

• D = 250ci
• F = 307ci
• H = 350ci
• K = 350ci (SS)
• L = 350ci (Z28)
• U = 396ci (SS)

Fifteen colors were available in 1972, with another five vinyl top hues. Six interior colors were available with two reserved for vinyl only. This was a grim year for Camaro production, thanks to a strike. Just 68,671 Camaros were produced, with only 4,821 six-cylinders, and the balance in V-8 production.

1973

This was a big year in second-generation history, for a number of reasons. First off, it’s the last year for the original flat-faced design. This marks the last year for the split bumper, and the only year the split bumpers have additional reinforcement beneath, specifically to allow these cars to pass the 2.5-mph federally mandated bumper crash test.

On the performance side … well, there wasn’t a performance side. 1972 was the last year for an SS, and with it went the big block. From here through the end of second-gen production, the Camaro would have a six-cylinder as the base engine, and small block V-8s as options. Power ratings fell again: To 100hp for the six, 115hp for the 307-cu.in. V-8, 145hp for the two-barrel L65 350, 175hp for the four-barrel L48 350, and 245hp for the Z28 350. The transmission offerings also changed, with the deletion of the Powerglide. The only automatic available henceforth would be a Turbo Hydra-Matic 350.

In the SS’s place was the Type LT—ostensibly standing for “Luxury Touring,” a fact made obvious by the full foam front and rear seats designed to give “superb riding comfort” and “firm support.” Seats could be covered in either vinyl or cloth. The “deep twist” carpet was supposed to be more luxurious, and could be ordered in accent colors depending on the upholstery color. Standard on Type LT was the Décor/Quiet Sound Group, which included sound deadening on the floor, cowl-to-fender seals, a headliner insulating pad, and full hood insulation, along with woodgrain on the door panels. The LT got special emblems on the decklid and sail panels outside.

Turbine wheels were available for the first time in 1973 on every trim except Z28, and the full wheel covers were revised. The bad news of the Z28 losing its mechanical lifters was salved slightly by the Z28 finally being offered with air conditioning. Throughout the lineup, the console and automatic transmission shifter were revised to a single ratchet style shifter, rather than the basket-handle shifter of the first few years. Inside, all Camaros had a mandated seat belt warning buzzer. In the trunk, a space saver spare debuted.

16 colors provided the most extensive palette to date, and seven vinyl top colors expanded the range as well. Five colors were available for the interior, but only two were available in cloth trim. Production picked up nearly a third to 96,751, with 93,137 of those cars shipped with one of the V-8s.

1974

Federal bumper standards forced a major facelift for the 1974 Camaro. Look around at how other makes and models had their faces altered during the same time period, and you realize just how successfully Chevrolet designers were able to integrate the bumpers into the Camaro’s overall aesthetic.

Along with the new aluminum bumper up front came an all-new fiberglass nose with deep sugar-scoop headlamp buckets, and turn signals set between the grille and the headlamps. The rear quarter and rear valence was redesigned to add a larger aluminum bumper to the rear as well, which also integrated wedge-style wraparound taillights with full red lenses. Front and rear bumpers had jack slots, so the bumper jack was revised.

The delightful baby moon center caps of the first three years gave way to the same aluminum center caps from the Nova. Radial tires became an option for the first time. The Z28 got wild new graphics for ’74, just in time for the designation to disappear for a few years.

Changes were afoot inside, too, some subtle, some not. A retractable, inertia reel shoulder belt became standard, and an AM/FM stereo was on the option list. Gone as quickly as it arrived was a seatbelt interlock that prevented the car from starting if the seat belts weren’t engaged.

Mechanically, there were a few revisions, too: Power steering became standard on all V-8-powered Camaros. The fuel tank increased from 18 gallons to 21. The Z28 got an HEI electronic ignition, which would eventually make its way to all the cars. The 307 disappeared in favor of the two-barrel 350. 16 colors made up the paint options, along with the widest color range of vinyl tops to date at 10 colors. Nine interior colors were available, along with some great two-tone check patterns. Production skyrocketed in 1974 to 151,008, with 128,798 cars shipped with V-8s and the balance 250-cubic in. sixes.

1975

While the big changes all occurred in the 1974 model year, there was more in store for 1975, and most of it wasn’t good. The Z28 was gone, though the Rally Sport re-emerged toward the end of the year as a paint and trim package. The familiar “Camaro” cursive script was still on the glovebox lid, but the front fenders received a block script in all caps.  The rear window was also redesigned to mirror the wraparound look of the tail lamps, and to provide more visibility to the rear. The tricolor emblem in the grille on the 1974 model year moved up to an escutcheon on the fiberglass nose.

Inside, power locks were available for the first time, along with a new cruise control option. The Sports Décor package (Z08) showed up briefly, including body-colored sport mirrors, a body-colored insert on the door handles, and body-colored appliqué on the bumpers. That package disappeared halfway through the year, so it’s a relatively rare sight nowadays. The Type LT featured bird’s eye maple trim inside, versus the previous year’s meridian walnut. Even the handful of people who bought sixes could get air conditioning in 1975. According to the order guide for 1975, for the first time, leather seating was available in either Dark Saddle or Dark Oxblood. That option disappears in 1976 and wouldn’t return in the second generation.

There were also a few mechanical changes. The big one was the addition of the catalytic converter, which required the modification of the passenger side floor. All V-8 cars received twin exhaust outlets. HEI became standard on all engines, including the six. Rear brake drums were finned for better cooling.

16 colors were available, along with nine vinyl top choices. Interior colors were limited to just five. Production held steady in 1975 to 145,770 units, with a growing percentage of six-cylinder cars at 29,749, and 116,021 V-8s.

1976

It seems hard to distinguish the differences between a 1975 and 1976 Camaro, though there were a number of minor trim revisions, as well as some significant mechanical changes.

On the Type LT, the rear valence panel under the decklid received a smart brushed aluminum cover that set the entire back of the car off nicely.

Outside, a new Landau top trim was available. It’s essentially a reverse landau top from what you might be familiar with on a Colonnade body, where the vinyl is only over the front passengers, rather than wrapping around the rear window and quarter. This replaced the full vinyl top available up to this point. Custom-styled urethane and alloy wheels were also options for the first time in 1976.

Upholstery revisions were again in the mix, with new sport cloth-and-vinyl trim patterns. The instrument panel trim shifted from interior color to a tan simulated leather, which made the black-faced gauges seem to leap out of the dash. Optional gauge packages included a voltmeter rather than the old ammeter.

Mechanically, 1975 introduced the 305-cubic inch V-8 as the middle engine in the lineup. The 145-hp two-barrel split the difference between the 105 hp inline six and the 165hp of the 350. Power-assisted brakes were now standard, and the braking system received minor updates.

There were 14 colors for 1976, with another seven vinyl top colors. Five interior colors were available. Production numbers were way up again for 1976, with 182,959 total. That number is made up of an increasing percentage of six cylinder cars with 38,047, along with 144,912 V-8s.

1977

Camaro news for 1977 was big, if only for the return of the Z28. Tom Zimmer—the Camaro’s Chief Engineer—demanded it, reportedly after seeing the Pontiac Trans Am’s sales numbers take off.

The Z28 debuted at the Daytona Motor Speedway in February that year. While it wasn’t exactly the car that Pontiac delivered, it did pretty well for itself, with a 185-horse 350 fitted with a Rochester four-barrel carburetor. The exhaust went through a single cat, but split into dual resonators and tailpipes with no mufflers. The standard transmission was a Borg-Warner four-speed with a 2.64:1 low gear. The stick wasn’t available in California, which only got the three-speed Turbo Hydra-Matic, though the shift points were revised upward.

The Z28 emphasized handling over straight line performance, with revised 365-lb springs and a 1.2-inch stabilizer bar up front. Springs in the rear were 127-lb. versus the standard 89 to 99 pound springs in lesser Camaro trims. The rear stabilizer bar trimmed back a bit to .55 inches versus .69 inches, and the rear springs benefitted from higher durometer rubber shackle bushings. The 15×7 Z28 steel wheels returned, though they were painted body color instead of gray as in previous years.

The exterior package included Z28-specific decals on the hood, front fenders, front and rear spoilers, wheel wells, rocker panels, and door-handle inserts. The bumpers—the same bumpers as any other Camaro in 1977—were body color. Headlight and tail light bezels and window trim were black anodized, and the rear trunk panel, rocker panel and parking light buckets were painted black to match. Front and rear spoilers were standard and the Z28 received the full U14 gauge package. And for the first time, the Z28 received a unique steering wheel with faux rope “whipping” around the rim. That steering wheel would remain a Z28 component until the last model year of the second generation.

Only two minor changes occurred on the balance of the Camaro lineup: intermittent wipers were optional for the first time, and the four-speed transmission moved the location of reverse to far left and down. Colors grew a bit more limited to 13 in 1977, and you had more than half as many vinyl top colors to choose from, too. Inside, though, just four colors were available. Boosted by the popularity of the mid-year Z28, Camaro numbers exploded to 218,853, outselling the Ford Mustang for the first time, and including 14,349 Z28s. The total breakdown includes 31,389 inline sixes and 187,464 V-8s.

1978

A whole range of exterior changes occurred in 1978, largely centered around the bumpers. The aluminum bumpers that arrived in 1974 were reportedly supposed to be replaced with urethane bumper covers by 1976, but that change was delayed for two long years. When they finally came around, however, they gave the Camaro a significant refresh that helped propel the car to fresh sales highs.

Front and rear fascias were both revised, and hid impact-absorbing construction designed to withstand a five-mph impact without damage. The headlamp and turn indicator buckets were more squared off than previous years, and they were smooth chrome in all but the Z28. Prior years had a pebbled finish that didn’t fare well in the weather. The Camaro emblem once again moved to the middle of the grille. Tail lamps were revised to a more geometric pattern, with amber turn signals split by a fuel door in the rear panel, instead of behind the license plate. The license plate mount itself moved from the rear panel down into a molded section of the bumper.

1978 also marked the first year for the T-Top option. Interestingly, the brochure shows the option, but the available order guide from October of 1977 doesn’t. The Rally Sport also re-emerged as a separate trim level rather than an RPO package.

There were some mechanical changes, as well. The 305 received the four-speed manual as the standard transmission, and all but the Z28 had taller rear axle ratios to help fuel economy. Lower control arms received heftier bracing for improved chassis stiffness, and redesigned rear spring shackles improved stability.

The color palette shrunk again to nine choices, with nearly as many vinyl top colors to choose from. Upholstery color choices grew to six. Production numbers again surpassed anything previously seen for the Camaro, with an astounding 272,631 total, including 36,982 six-cylinders and 235,649 V-8s.

1979

1979 brought another year of growth for the Camaro and the all-time sales record for the model. The biggest revision was the trim name shift from the Type LT to the Berlinetta, which included custom interior, bright upper and lower grille, bright windshield and rear window moldings, a dual pin stripe, body color sport mirrors, argent appliqué on rear panel, specific trim and either polycast wheels or color-keyed aluminum wheels. The Berlinetta also received Amberlite insulation blankets in the doors, rear quarters, roof/sail panels, behind the rear seat, under the package tray and under the carpeting. Dual horns and the full gauge package were also standard equipment.

Inside, all Camaros got new brushed aluminum-style instrument panel trim, and the optional forced air rear defroster gave way to a heated backlight.

Color options expanded to 11 in 1979, along with seven vinyl top choices. Six upholstery colors were available. It was the best-ever year for the Camaro with 282,571 produced, including 21,913 six-cylinders and 260,658 V-8s. Despite the economy, rampant interest rates and rising fuel costs, the Z28 alone represented 84,877 units sold.

1980

The penultimate year for the second-generation Camaro represented a lot of change for the car, some good, some not so much. For the first time ever, the base Camaro wouldn’t rely on the inline six that had powered Chevrolet vehicles since 1962. In its stead were two V-6s. California got an even-fire 231-cubic inch V-6 with internal balancing that would eventually go on to power the lion’s share of GM products for the next 20 years. The other 49 states got an odd-fire 229-cubic inch six for 1980.

Also available—and universally despised—was a 49-state L39 267-cubic inch V-8 good for 120 hp and 215 lb-ft. of torque.

The Z28 got ever-more menacing three-bar, tri-color graphics in 1980, and even slightly more horsepower, too, at 190hp, provided you didn’t live in California. Z28s sold there were limited to a 305 V-8 and a TH350. It also got the nifty Air Induction hood for the first time, with a solenoid-fired flapper that snapped open at wide-open throttle, perhaps one of the coolest gimmicks to come out of the 1980 model year.

Polycast wheels finally bowed out for this model year, replaced by polished wheel covers for the Berlinetta.

The disco era may have finally reached its conclusion, signified by the deletion of the vinyl top option for 1980. Color choice exploded to 14 selections, while interior colors were limited to five. Production dropped significantly in 1980, down to 152,005 units. The available V-6 was a smash, selling 51,104 units—the best ever showing for a six cylinder. V-8s totaled 100,901 units.

1981

In its final year, the bulk of the Camaro lineup was a carryover from the 1980 model year, but there are still changes to talk about.

The biggest revision was the standard Computer Command Control emissions system, which took up some valuable real estate in that year’s sales brochure. It was an early ECU that not only monitors fuel mixture, throttle position and 02 emissions, but transmission performance as well, since the computer controlled the new lockup torque converter. It’s also notable for the birth of the Check Engine Light for the Camaro.

For 1981, the Rally Sport fell out of the lineup. Like all cars, Camaros in 1981 featured a 17-digit VIN. Power brakes were a standard feature for the first time, as was a space saver spare. Halogen headlamps became optional, and there were 13 colors available in the final year, with six interior color choices. While a shadow of the 1979 zenith, sales were still pretty strong for 1981, with 126,139 Camaros produced. V-6 models continued to perform well at 52,004 units, while V-8 models dropped to 74,135, including 43,272 Z28s.

Before You Inspect

There are few vehicles with as deep a set of historical and reference resources as the Second Generation Camaro. The biggest resource—and one that we’ve used here for production figures and year-to-year changes—is NastyZ28.com, which has long been the primary resource for 1970 to 1981 Camaro enthusiasts. The American Camaro Association runs the Camaro Nationals which takes place this July in Morgantown, Pennsylvania.

VINs in these cars changed three times over the span of Second Gen Camaro production, so be aware that the information encoded in those VINs will change depending upon the year. There’s a good VIN decoder at Chevy-Camaro.com, and aftermarket supplier Classic Industries has a version, as well. Double R Restorations has an outstanding series of videos covering every aspect of Second Generation Camaro purchasing, but start with the video on common rust areas. This is the dividing line between a Camaro that can reasonably be put back together, and one that’s too far gone to serve as anything but a parts car.

We won’t go into great detail here because it’s all laid out in the video, from rust around the windshield and backlight to floors, trunks, quarters and doglegs.

Your prospective Camaro—like all cars from the era—may or may not have a build sheet tucked up under the rear seat, over the glovebox, over the fuel tank, in the springs of the front seat, under the carpet by the transmission tunnel or elsewhere. The Service Parts Identification label that has been so helpful in determining option codes wasn’t fully integrated until 1984, so that’s unfortunately not an option on these cars.

Cowl tags were part of every Camaro built between 1970 and 1981, so you’ll find valuable information there. What information is contained in the trim tag varies depending on the year, but thankfully Chevy-Camaro.com has an excellent pull-down menu by year which will help you learn what your target Camaro left the factory with.

The GM Heritage Center managed to get its Historic Information Kits back online recently, and we found every order guide for every Camaro from 1970 to 1981 listed. There’s invaluable information there about what options, colors, powertrains and equipment your Camaro may have come with.

Before You Buy

Like all cars from the 1970s and 1980s, second-generation Camaros were prone to rust. As Russ from Double R Restorations notes, in a lot of instances, you really can’t tell the extent of the rust on things like window channels until you’ve taken the glass out and gone past the point of no return. Areas like toe boards hold rust that you can’t see underneath because of body bracing. Frame rails can also be destroyed.

The good news is that there really isn’t a body part that you can’t find for these cars from a supplier like Classic Industries, Year One, Rick’s Camaros, Classic Muscle,  National Parts Depot, Camaro Parts Central, and a nearly inexhaustible list of smaller parts suppliers.

Mechanically these cars are straightforward, and they remain plentiful, with a few exceptions. For less desirable engines like the 267-cubic inch V-8 and the odd-fire 229-cubic inch V-6 are going to be hard to source. Many of the 350-cu.in. V-8 heads that came out of this era are commonly referred to as the least desirable in Chevrolet’s history, but swapping them out for something better is relatively easy. Transmissions and rear ends are plentiful, no matter which your Camaro happens to have.

Which one to buy? Aside from the stronger powertrains and muscle car-era ties of the early models, it’s largely a matter of personal preference. Some buyers are going to be after an 1970 RS/SS, and some are going to want the full disco package in a 1980 Z28 with T-Tops. They’re all equally susceptible to rust, and all have a fairly prolific aftermarket.

What to Pay

Given the long lifespan of this generation and the variety of spec, there’s quite a spread in values. “Number 2 values vary widely for these, from just $11,200 for a 1980 base with the lowest output V-8 to $84,800 for a 1970 SS 396/375hp L78,” says senior auction editor Andrew Newton. As always, check out Hagerty’s Valuation Tools to ensure you get the latest values for your specific Camaro.

If you simply like the shape of the Second Generation Camaro, choosing a six-cylinder car, or something like a clean Berlinetta will save you enough money to send a kid to stage college for a few years. The pandemic boom had a dramatic effect on all Camaro prices, and prices are still up significantly, but prices have softened a little recently. That said, certain trends remain: “For both the early and the later cars—the latter of which tend to be cheaper—it’s the high-spec performance models that have seen the most appreciation by far,” says Newton. “For example, while 1981 Z28s are up 80% over the past four years, 1981 base and Berlinetta models are up just 24%.”

Quoted values for these cars—regardless of year or condition—is up 32 percent in the last three years, according to the Hagerty Valuation Team.

Gen X unsurprisingly quotes 38 percent of 1970 to 1981 Camaros, while making up 32 percent of the overall collector car market. These were incredibly popular cars when Gen X was growing up (and continued to be so when they became the used cars that populated their high school parking lots), and they have the liquid cash to buy one. Millennials have a strong affinity for these cars, too, making up 20 percent of quotes—about consistent with their share of the market. Gen Z quotes 11 percent while being seven percent of the overall market. Boomers are still a strong ownership bloc, but not as much as you might think. They quote 30 percent of all 1970 to 1981 Camaros in Hagerty’s database, while making up 35 percent of the market.

Buy the best Second Generation Camaro you can afford, and if you can verify that any rust areas have been addressed, all the better. And as with any classic purchase, have the car looked over by a qualified professional.

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Back in 1920, an enterprising man out of Statesville, North Carolina named C.H. Turner started a foundry. Being a smart guy in an agrarian place, he punched out a lot of farm implements and milling equipment using a constant supply of scrap metal made available via a rail easement. After World War II, Turner’s foundry focused on making Jeep-ready implements for the budget-conscious farmer. Production later shifted to castings to support the textile industry. And finally, in 2024, some idiot punk started parking strange cars in the foundry, with the adjacent idea of turning it into a clubhouse for his friends.

Hi, I’m the idiot. It’s me.

As you may recall, the derelict sock factory that I rent was starting to become somewhat of a headache. I’d put in a ton of work cleaning it up with the hopes it could serve as a suitable storage unit for my many weird cars, but the deeper I got into it, a few things became obvious:

1. It would never be mine.
2. There was no solid wood in the entire structure.
3. The wood floor construction limited vehicle parking significantly.
4. It was and always will be a neighborhood hangout for truant teenagers.

My eye was wandering.

While out on a neighborhood stroll, it wandered to a sign in front of the old foundry. My heart started racing like I had, I dunno, just seen an ad for a Lada on eBay Kleinanzeigen or something. I called the agency listed on the ostentatious yellow For Sale sign, fully prepared to hear a completely unobtainable figure. The voice on the other end of the line quoted a price more appropriate for a small bungalow on the shabby side of town. I repeated the number back to her, for clarification. She echoed it back to me, clear as day. Wow.

I looked over at my wife and mouthed the confusingly reasonable sum.

“This is all you,” she said, tugging at the dog.

The TI-83 graphing calculator in my head started summing up the foundry’s indoor and outdoor spaces, and what they could potentially rent for. How cool it would be to have a space where my friends and I could store prospective car projects and work on things in an automotive commune of sorts? This really could work!

While scouting the place out a little more, I noticed that the door of the depression-era brick auto shop across the street was open. I poked my head in. A guy named John came out from behind an old Land Rover Defender 90 and introduced himself.

Good vibes around here, I thought to myself.

John explained all of the recent happenings at the foundry over the past several years, some of them downright odd: inconsistent business flow, pink-painted window frames, and a “Free Hugs” sign zip-tied to the chain link fence. Eventually, the former renters had to be evicted with help from the Sherriff’s Department. The body shop inside the structure ceased to exist. It had since sat empty.

John, a native of Columbia, South Carolina, had been working at his auto shop for 25 years. He and his dog showed us around his various projects. I didn’t really want to waste any more of his valuable wrenching time, so before long we bid adieu and agreed that it would be nice to be neighbors. This, even though he seemed a little confounded about my dreams for the place.

Encouraged by our exchange, I called back the agency and set up a showing ASAP: the next day at 4:00 p.m. The tour started with a walkaround. The facility consists of three-quarters of an acre with a sprawling complex of several conjoined structures. A quick visual inspection showed a new roof and three new roll-up doors. And what’s that out back? Oh yes, a train stop! Back in the foundry days, this place was—and still is—connected to the local scrap yard by rail. Talk about convenience! The rail spur behind the shop floor features an elevated loading platform and a dedicated diversion for the factory. The days of me loading up a hulk and hollering “incoming!” in the direction of the scrap yard are probably far off, but the listing agent encouraged a call to the rail company, Norfolk Southern.

Facing the street is a 1500-square-foot garage area with big casement windows to let in natural light. When the listing agent slid the roller door up, I felt it: this was sh**tbox car heaven.

Well, not yet. A complete furniture set apparently from the lobby of a La Quinta hotel was lining one wall, while dog cages, trash, and a filthy stereo system occupied the rest of the space. On the plus side, the natural light was beautiful, and a wood stove in the corner was sure to work fine. Cozy morning wrenching did not seem far off. Dumpster first, dreams later.

The “garage room” feeds into the main shop floor of the foundry, all 12,000 square feet of it. With some of the panes having been shot out by local vandals, water had pooled in some areas following five inches of recent winter rain. It’s also possible that the open chimney of the smelter was funneling water in. (Bargaining point noted.) On the other hand, a pair of old Chevrolet trucks and heaps of old equipment and tools left in the facility could provide several weekends of quality entertainment. We followed a wobbly staircase up to a relatively nice loft, complete with empty water bottles and broken grow lights. It started to make sense why power had been physically cut to the property and the cops got involved.

Upon analysis of the facts at hand, it was clear to me: It was perfect!

Still, aiming to keep a cool head, I took the weekend to really think it over and crunch numbers. Given the age of the structure, many potential hurdles came to mind: financing, contingencies, inspections, incorporation, environmental baggage, insurance, security, maintenance… it was enough that my sleep suffered tosses and turns. In the morning, my engineering brain pleaded that I create a spreadsheet. Once the numbers made sense, I stopped by a nearby bank; locals were fond of the structure, and the people I met with were more than happy to loan on the property, provided a few conditions were met. (Most of these were already on my list).

I’ll spare you the gory details about weeks of environmental research, report writing, appraisals, and insurance quotes. Suffice to say, it all worked out. As of writing, we’re under contract, and by the time you read this, we’ll be just about closed, provided nothing goes sideways.

As soon as I e-signed the paperwork, I let loose in the group text chat with my car friends. Moments later, someone had volunteered up a Webb 2S mill (a Taiwanese Bridgeport copy) for donation. Many cohorts expressed interest in renting space in exchange for money, help, or both. Soon, my Holden, Studebaker, pair of Citroën Amis, Hobby 600 spaceman/motorhome, Moskvich, and whatever else I end up with will soon have a home. They’ll all soon have roommates, too. My foundry/car commune is imminent!

The post Car Storage Part 3: Sh**box Heaven in an Empty Foundry appeared first on Hagerty Media.

NASCAR Cup driver William Byron’s victory in Monday’s Daytona 500 was a welcome anniversary present for his team owner, Rick Hendrick, who formed Hendrick Motorsports 40 years ago to the day.

Hendrick, 74, is now one of the nation’s largest automotive dealers. In 1984, he was struggling to pay the bills for his fledgling one-car NASCAR team, then called All-Star Racing. He had hired driver Geoff Bodine after a deal to have Richard Petty drive for the team fell through.

Let's throw it back to our first win @MartinsvilleSwy in 1984! Geoff Bodine led 55 laps during the race to bring home a big victory for Hendrick Motorsports. #TBT pic.twitter.com/dYvD64Vz8A

— Hendrick Motorsports (@TeamHendrick) April 8, 2021

“I think about the day when we came down here [to Daytona International Speedway],” Hendrick said last week. “Geoff Bodine and I were talking about it. I think we had six full-time people and a bunch of volunteers. We finished eighth in that race.

“When I walked down pit road and I saw the Wood brothers and Richard Petty and Junior Johnson, I thought we shouldn’t even be here. It brings back a lot of memories. Daytona is a special place.”

It was made more special when Byron crossed the finish line in the number 24 Chevrolet Camaro Monday night, with Hendrick teammate Alex Bowman a close second.

It was the ninth Daytona 500 victory for Hendrick Motorsports, tying it with Petty Enterprises for the most wins. It had been 10 years, though, since a Hendrick car won the Daytona 500, with Dale Earnhardt, Jr., taking the checkered flag in 2014.

“You couldn’t write the script any better, 24 in ’24,” Hendrick said after the race. “We win this on our 40th to the day. And we tied a record now, so that’s awesome.”

Hendrick is the honoree at the 29th Amelia Concours d’Elegance, held February 29 through March 3 at the Ritz-Carlton in Amelia Island, Florida. Many notable Hendrick Motorsports cars will be on display, including the Garage 56 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 that ran in the 24 Hours of Le Mans last year.

On Saturday, March 2, Hendrick will take part in a seminar titled “40 Years of Hendrick Motorsports,” moderated by former Hendrick crew chief Ray Evernham, and featuring past Hendrick Motorsports drivers Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Terry Labonte, and Kenny Schrader. It will be livestreamed on Facebook, courtesy of Chevrolet.

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So here’s the headline news from the NASCAR Daytona 500, held Monday due to storms that dumped three inches of rain on the track on Saturday and Sunday. As you are likely aware, the season-opening Daytona 500 was postponed by one day, to be followed by Saturday’s rained-out the Xfinity series United Rentals 300, essentially creating the Daytona 800 for the fans willing to sit there from 4 p.m. to almost midnight, whether their seats were in the grandstand or at home in front of the television.

With temperatures dropping to 49 degrees by the end of the evening’s races, the grandstands were pretty empty by the last few laps. We’ll have to wait for the TV ratings to see if fans at home made it through all 800 miles of racing.

William Byron, the 26-year-old, under-the-radar driver of the #24 Chevrolet owned by Hendrick Motorsports, won his first Daytona 500. With six victories in 2023, he was the winningest driver of the season, but a major victory had eluded him until now.

Byron didn’t start racing until he was 15, perhaps 10 years later than other NASCAR drivers his age, who typically start out in karts shortly after they can walk. Byron began his racing career at the computer, on the iRacing game that allows you to compete against drivers all over the country who use the platform.

“I’m just a kid from racing on computers and winning the Daytona 500,” Byron said after the race. “I can’t believe it.” Hendrick teammate Alex Bowman was second, Christopher Bell was third. The complete results are here.

You’ll notice a lot of big names are far down that list, such as polesitter Joey Logano, finishing 32nd in the 40-car field, and 2023 Daytona 500 winner Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., who finished 31st, or 2023 NASCAR Cup champion Ryan Blaney, who came in 30th. Those drivers, and plenty more, were caught up in multiple crashes, including a 23-car pileup with nine laps to go. Victims of that one included three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin, who finished 19th.

As soon as Byron’s victory celebration was completed, NASCAR pivoted to the Xfinity race, scheduled for 9 p.m. It took the green flag at 9:04. It was arguably a better race than the Daytona 500, and certainly wilder; it was also a crashfest, with Richard Childress Racing driver Austin Hill winning in his Chevrolet for the third straight year.

Hill, 29, will be running the full Xfinity season for Childress, who plans to put him in some select Cup races this year, and likely full-time in Cup in 2025. “I don’t even know what time it is,” a jubilant Hill said in Victory Lane. “I know it’s past my bedtime, but we’re about to party tonight.” Sheldon Creed came in second, Parker Retzlaff was third. The complete results are here. As with the Daytona 500, plenty of contenders fell out of the running due to wrecks, causing nine caution periods.

Five drivers raced in both the Daytona 500 and the United Rentals 300, with John Hunter Nemechek having the most to show for his long day: A seventh-place finish in the 500, and a matching seventh in the Xfinity race. Also (maybe) worth noting for fans of the Malcolm in the Middle television series: Star Frankie Muniz, in his first NASCAR Xfinity race, finished 35th after being caught up in a crash not of his making.

In all, it was an interesting if disjointed weekend. NASCAR controls virtually everything that goes on at its track, except the weather, and it has caused more shuffling of races so far in this very early season than typically happens in a full year. First the NASCAR Busch Light exhibition race, scheduled to be run Sunday, February 4, in the Los Angeles Coliseum, was moved to Saturday with very little notice because of storms that were headed to California. Not surprisingly, TV ratings were far worse than they were in 2022 and 2023 because a lot of fans didn’t get word of the move.

This year, only one of the weekend’s four races ran when it was originally scheduled to: the Daytona NASCAR Craftsman Truck race on Friday night. Saturday’s ARCA race was moved to Friday after the truck race due to the gloomy forecast. As predicted, Saturday was a washout, except for Xfinity qualifying. NASCAR gave up and called the Xfinity race when the rain resumed after qualifying. Sunday’s weather was even worse, with the Daytona 500 called at 9:30 Sunday morning.

Once the final TV ratings are in for this year’s two main Daytona races, they are expected to be a disappointment for NASCAR. (The least-watched Daytona 500 on record, according to Sportico.com, was in 2021, when the race was also delayed by rain.) Ratings are especially important to NASCAR given its new seven-year TV deal with Fox, NBC, TNT, and Amazon Prime, reportedly worth $7.75 billion, signed last November and due to start with the 2025 NASCAR season. Both NASCAR and the TV partners rely on advertising, which appears to be reasonably strong.

A racing website, Cawsnjaws.com, has tracked NASCAR broadcasts since 2018 and logged the television coverage for Monday’s Daytona 500. In 195 minutes, which is how long the actual race broadcast took, not including the opening ceremonies, there were 129 commercials, for a total time of 57 minutes. Fortunately for NASCAR, there were plenty of wrecks, plus the two made-for-TV “stages” that interrupt the races at set intervals, to get all the advertisers in.

Exactly how the revenue from the new TV deal will be split among the teams has yet to be decided, and the lack of resolution resulted in a story by the Associated Press on Sunday that added another cloud over the weekend. The story said that NASCAR teams have hired Jeffrey Kessler, one of the country’s top anti-trust lawyers, to advise them “in their ongoing dispute with the family-owned stock car series over a new revenue-sharing model.”

“We want to make a deal, we are just looking for a fair deal,” Curtis Polk, a part owner of 23XI Racing and member of the teams’ negotiating committee, told the Associated Press. “There is no give and take. We’ve been told, ‘This is all there is; there is no flexibility.’ That’s not a negotiation.”

Kessler, according to AP, “most recently successfully represented Division I college football and basketball players in a landmark antitrust case that led to financial stipends for athletes. He also led the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team in its successful fight for equal pay as well as litigations for current free agency rules in the NBA and the NFL.”

NASCAR’s 15 chartered teams represent 36 cars and drivers in a typical race lineup of 40 cars. There was a meeting on Saturday, the AP reported, attended by high-powered team owners Rick Hendrick, Joe Gibbs, Michael Jordan, and Roger Penske, to discuss revenue sharing and the charter system, which is set to expire at the end of this season.

The charter system is hard to explain, but here goes: At one time, the field for a NASCAR race was set purely by qualifying. If you weren’t fast enough, you didn’t race. But this meant that if top drivers like Dale Earnhardt or Jeff Gordon had a bad qualifying day, a great many fans of those drivers would be profoundly disappointed. So in 2016, NASCAR handed out charters to the teams that, over the previous three seasons, had participated in the most races. The charters guaranteed that their cars would be in the race regardless of qualifying. That meant fans would always see the stars race, and teams could court sponsors more easily, because the sponsored cars would never miss a race.

Here’s where it gets complicated: NASCAR allowed the teams to sell charters to other teams. A team with four cars, and four charters, might cut down to three cars and sell the fourth charter. Each year, it seemed, the value of a charter grew; one charter reportedly sold for $40 million late last year.

With charters set to expire at the end of 2024, teams are scrambling for answers from NASCAR on what sort of arrangements will be made for the future. So far, it appears that the sanctioning body has not been forthcoming. Add that to the TV revenue-sharing dispute, and it seems likely lawyers may be involved.

Stay tuned. This could get interesting as the season progresses. Which it does this weekend, with NASCAR Cup, Xfinity, and Craftsman Truck races scheduled at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

***

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In 1976, I was 12 years old and really into cars. My friend Tim and I would ride our bicycles all over suburban Boston to scour car dealerships for their point-of-purchase brochures. That summer, Chevrolet unveiled “The New Chevrolet,” a completely redesigned full-sized B-Body Caprice and Impala. I still recall seeing an ad and being so mesmerized by the new design. That feeling stuck with me, simmering on a low flame within my subconscious into adulthood.

I’ve been in music my whole career, and early on I got into the world of high-end audiophile music systems and exotic cars. Eventually I opened a car audio/security shop in Fairfield, Connecticut, called Audio Coupe. One day around town, I happened to see two unmarked 1988 9C1 police-package Caprices being prepped for decommission and auction. One of them, this car, had been primarily used to give out parking tickets at the local train station and had clearly been well maintained, so I decided to buy it. My wife likes to remind me that I went to register the car a few days after our daughter was born in early June, 1996. I paid $2800 for the car.

Even with 90,000 miles on it and worn police-issue Firestone tires, the Caprice lay flat through turns, much more adeptly than you might expect for a sizable sedan. Mind you, this is no BMW M5—but I was surprised how well it performed overall and how reliable the Quadrajet carburetor was.

The police-issue bucket seats over rubber floors were an odd look but I liked it, so I just replaced the flooring with fresh rubber, refreshed other worn parts, and had the seats reconstructed.

The stock 350 small-block was low horsepower/high torque, and the final drive was 3:08, so the car was fun off the line, had a silly top speed, and barely made it up steep hills. The first two things I fixed were the exhaust system and the balky, always-hunting 700R4 automatic with overdrive. For the former, I had a custom dual stainless 2.25-inch system made up, and the latter was replaced with a high-performance 700R4 with manual lockup. I’m a cruiser, not a racer, and it has been marvelous for years.

I chose the best body shop around—they were all hot rod guys—and had the car carefully massaged and sprayed with a slightly modified version of the factory color and many layers of lovingly sanded clear coat. I used factory-new Chevy parts to replace all of the rubber gaskets and chrome trim, the bumpers, and the mirrors, and I ditched all of the glue-on trim, the hood ornament, the AM/FM antenna, and the spotlight in order to get the cleanest possible look.

Regardless of the tortuous task of keeping up with revolving EPA regulations during the 1970s and ’80s, GM most certainly should be ashamed of itself for the mess under the hood that it turned loose on customers throughout the era. When addressing the engine bay, I asked my builder to clean house and start fresh. I wanted something utilitarian and sensible.

I chose a turnkey small-block from Chevy called the Fast Burn 385, which is the venerable ZZ4 with upgraded aluminum heads, a Holley 750 and a serpentine belt system. We put the motor on a dyno and it gave me back just under 400 hp, perfect for my recreational cruising and the occasional charity car show here in my new hometown of St. Petersburg, Florida.

We ditched the ugly fan shroud and installed electric fans, chucked the ugly plastic bottles for the washer fluid and coolant overflow and replaced those with stainless containers tucked out of the way. I then added an aircraft-grade aluminum fresh air intake system reminiscent of the old Ram Air concept, with a snorkel under the bumper on the driver’s side.

The 700R4 transmission has been flawless, spinning my custom-made driveshaft and U-joints back to a Moser Engineering Ford 9-inch limited-slip 3.73:1 rear end. The car sits on Bilstein shocks and new springs, slightly lowered from the factory stance, with new Hotchkiss suspension and sway bars front and rear. The brakes are Wilwood vented discs front and rear. I was super careful in hunting for wheels, seeking to upgrade performance but maintain a retro visual appearance. The offset American Racing 18-inch Rally rims did the trick beautifully, letting me spin down the highway on fat Michelin tires.

Inside, I added a Dakota Digital instrument cluster that gives me an integrated tachometer, and of course I built a music system that sounds great but is not visible in any way. I replaced the 1988 windshield with glass from a 1977 model so I could get the AM/FM antenna in the window and lose the fender-mounted mast.

I have had the Caprice for 27 years now. It has that traditional muscle car rumble at just the right volume, and people seem to appreciate it more as I drive by or pull into a cruise night. They also like to share stories of the four-door family hauler their parents had when they were kids. Some people are puzzled as to why I chose this car, and I totally get that. Building a Caprice is an irrational thing to do—certainly not with the potent resale value of a Corvette or Camaro. But it is my counter-culture hot rod, and that’s perfectly fine with me.

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As far as getaway cars are concerned, Chevrolet’s mid-engined C8 Corvette would probably acquit itself well. The raw American power from the LT2 V-8 and that agile chassis would certainly give you a decent chance of outrunning Five-Oh, if such a crisis presented itself. (Let’s get this out of the way: Don’t run away from the police.) However, if your getaway Vette happens to be chained to a 53-foot car hauler … along with nine other C8s … all still wrapped in delivery packaging … well, that would complicate things a bit.

According to a Facebook post from the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office, Twenty-three-year-old Isaiah Walker of Lawton, Oklahoma, was arrested on Thursday for multiple felony charges after he stole a semitruck and car hauler trailer laden with ten C8 Corvettes. Walker encountered the truck and trailer on Thursday at a Love’s Truck Stop along Interstate 10 in Wilcox, Arizona, just east of Tucson.

According to the driver, whom police say was the person who phoned in the theft, Walker talked to him for a bit but then pulled him out of the cab and climbed in himself. Walker then locked the door of the truck and drove the carrier out of the lot himself, according to police.

A chase ensued after a deputy from Cochise County located the truck a few miles away. According to police, Walker began to drive the truck recklessly once he realized he was being pursued, causing other vehicles to leave the roadway. A short while into the chase, the truck pulled over and stopped, and Walker was taken into custody by the deputy and another police officer from Wilcox.

Police say Walker “admitted to stealing the vehicle and advised that the Corvettes were not the reason and that he needed a truck to get home as he had just been released from prison.” It’s unclear whether or not Walker had just been released from prison when he stole the semi, but he has now been booked into the Cochise County jail for robbery, 11 counts of theft of means of transportation, and felony theft.

“I am extremely proud of the officer and deputy involved in this investigation,” said Wilcox police chief Dale Hadfield. “The deputy and officer showed great restraint and patience in bringing a serious crime to a peaceful resolution, all while keeping the property of others from being damaged. The stolen vehicle was safely recovered without damage and was released to the driver so he could continue his delivery.”

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Today’s automobiles don’t require regular tune-ups like the cars of yore once needed. The electronic sensors and computers that regulate spark, timing, and fuel mixture are not maintenance items, although they do have to be replaced if they fail. And in today’s engines, spark plugs operate well for 100,000 miles or more. There are still filters to be replaced and components to be checked, but modern maintenance procedures are far different than what we old-timers remember.

Older cars need more attention on a more frequent basis. A typical owner’s manual for a 1950s car calls for a 10,000-mile that includes swapping out spark plugs, replacing points and condenser, and checking the carburetor idle mixture and ignition timing. In addition, recommended maintenance calls for oil changes every 2000 miles and regular lubrication of numerous components in the engine and chassis. With an older classic or an ancient beater, regular maintenance of ignition parts and filters is critical to smooth running and adequate power. Let’s walk through the process together.

Step 1: Swap out the spark plugs

To replace the spark plugs, carefully remove the plug wires and their insulating boots from each plug. If you think you’re not going to be able to tell which wire belongs to which plug, tag the wires. Inspect them: If you see deterioration of the insulating boots, or severe burns or cracking of the cables, replace them. Likewise, if the cables’ contacts are corroded to the point where they can’t be cleaned, replace the wires.

To remove the spark plugs, you’ll need a 3/8-inch drive ratchet and a spark plug socket. In most cases, a short extension allows better access. A ratchet with a flex head that can rotate to different angles can be helpful. A 5/8-inch or 16-mm hex socket will fit many plugs. Some Fords use plugs with a 9/16th-inch hex. A few European and Asian vehicles use 14mm plugs, and there are a few applications that use plugs with a 7/8-inch, 3/4-inch, or 18-mm hex. Most older American cars are fitted with plugs that have a 13/16-inch hex.

Some BMWs are equipped with plugs that require a thin-wall, 12-point, 14-mm socket for removal. Check the specs for your car before purchasing a tool.

Once the spark plug is fully loosened, extract the magnet or a rubber sleeve inside that grips the plug (most cars have one or the other). On many cars, that combination of ratchet, socket, and short extension is all you’ll need, but on some models, it may not allow you to access all the plugs. My ’55 Chevy V-8 is equipped with a combination generator/power steering pump, and some left-bank plugs are best serviced from under the car with a 13/16-inch open-end wrench.

Before installing the new plugs, inspect them for damaged insulators or bent electrodes, then set the gap between the inner and outer electrodes. For most older vehicles with coil ignition, a gap of 0.025 inches is generally recommended. For even older vehicles with magneto ignition, the gap should be set to 0.020 inches. You can use a conventional feeler gauge to set the gap, but a round wire gauge is better. I have a tool that consists of a calibrated ramp of gradually increasing thickness. By sliding the plug along the ramp, the gap is easily measured. Your auto parts counterman may stock gapping tools as giveaway items. At the very least, they are inexpensive.

If you have to change the gap, carefully bend the outer electrode with needle-nose pliers or with the slot on the gapping tool. Don’t bang the electrode against a hard surface: You might crack the insulator, which can cause a short.

Some plugs come with the metal gasket installed. On others, you have to work it on over the threaded end. Place a small amount of dielectric grease on the plug threads and install them. Tighten moderately. If space permits the use of a torque wrench, torque them to 25 pounds. If you can’t use a torque wrench, screw the plugs in by hand until they seat, then tighten another half-turn with your wrench. It’s always best to start them by hand; there’s nothing like a cross-threaded spark plug to ruin your day.

Step 2: Service the distributor

The replacement and adjustment of distributor parts is fairly easy on many cars, as the distributor is mounted at either the side or at the front of the engine. Except on my ’55 Bel Air, in which the distributor at the rear of the engine and snug up against the firewall. One must either have really long arms or lie atop the engine to reach it.

On some cars, the distributor cap can be removed with the spark plug wires attached. On my old Chevy that’s near impossible, as the wires are routed behind the engine, and there’s not much room for maneuvering. In any case, you’ll want to remove the wires from the cap at some point to check for corrosion or other damage. I mark the position of the number one cylinder’s wire in the cap, then pull all the wires out of the cap, wiggling each a bit as I tug on them so as not to damage the wire terminals. Armed with the firing order (1-8-4-3-6-5-7-2 for my Chevy) and the rotation (clockwise), it is easy to reinstall them correctly. But because the wires disappear behind the engine and under the exhaust manifolds before they arrive at the spark plugs, I number them as well, wrapping a short piece of masking tape with the cylinder number written on it around each wire.

After removing the distributor cap, have a look inside. There you’ll see contacts that distribute voltage to the spark plugs for each of the cylinders. For example, the cap for an eight-cylinder engine has eight contacts evenly spaced within the circumference of the cap. If the contacts are badly corroded or if the cap is damaged, they should be replaced. The contacts will likely be mildly corroded. In that case, clean them with a small, sharp knife or similar tool.

Remove the rotor from the top of the distributor shaft. Check for corrosion on the conductor at the rotor’s outer edge. Mild corrosion can be removed with an emory cloth or small file. Severe corrosion that has caused pitting or loss of material is grounds for replacement.

Within the distributor, you’ll find the breaker points and condenser attached to the breaker plate with screws. While old-time service manuals suggest that points can be cleaned and readjusted if they are in fairly good condition, I replace them if I’ve already dug in this deep. Many distributor parts for older cars are still available from standard aftermarket sources, even for cars that are 70 or more years old. And they’re generally not very expensive: Breaker points for my ’55 Chevy, as listed in the East Coast Chevy parts catalog, sell for $15.00. Other distributor parts are equally inexpensive.

Ignition parts for less common cars may be harder to find. But suppliers who specialize in servicing classics and exotics should have them. Of course, you may pay considerably more. Ignition points for a Ferrari 250 GTO are $53.50 from awitalian.com.

The breaker points are attached to the distributor breaker plate with one or two screws. You might also find an eccentric adjusting screw that can close or open the point gap when it’s turned with the locking screw loosened. Be careful removing the screws, as they’re small and it’s easy to drop them.

On most systems, the condenser is wired to the breaker points via a screw terminal and is held in a bracket that is attached to the breaker plate with one screw. The points and condenser can usually be removed together.

Before installing new points and condenser, apply a very small amount of dielectric grease to the distributor shaft cam. Install the points and condenser. Some points are adjusted with a slotted screw hole in the breaker point assembly that enables adjustment of the installation position. The points on most 1957 to 1974 GM cars are adjusted using an 1/8-inch Allen socket adjustment screw that can be accessed with the distributor cap removed, or through a sliding metal window in the cap. Thus, on these models, final adjustment of the points can be completed with a dwell meter after reassembly. But whichever type of breaker point adjustment you’re dealing with, it’s important to set the air gap before buttoning things up, even if you intend to fine-tune the adjustment with a dwell meter after starting the car.

The breaker points are fitted with a cam follower that rides on the distributor cam. To adjust the air gap, crank the engine until the cam follower is on a peak of the cam. Then adjust the gap to 0.015 inches by moving the breaker point assembly in or out before tightening the screw or screws that lock it in place. On those GM cars with the Allen adjustment, just turn the Allen screw until the correct air gap is achieved.

Install the rotor, cap, and plug wires. Then, if you have a dwell meter, attach its black lead to ground and its green lead to the negative terminal on the coil or as directed by the instructions for your meter. Dwell is the number of degrees of rotation that the points remain closed. Start the engine. You should see a reading of about 30 degrees dwell for V-8 engines. A degree or two in either direction is okay. A six- or four-cylinder engine will be happiest with a couple of degrees more dwell.

If dwell is not correct, you will have to readjust the points. If you are working on a ’57 to ’74 GM car, you can adjust the dwell while the engine is running by turning the 1/8-inch Allen screw, accessed through the metal shutter in the distributor cap. For most other cars, remove the distributor cap and readjust the air gap, moving the breaker point assembly closer to the cam for less dwell and further away from the cam for more dwell. If dwell bounces around more than a degree or two, the distributor shaft bearings are probably worn, and the distributor should be replaced.

Step 3: Check ignition timing

After installing new points, a check of ignition timing is necessary. Attach your timing light inductive lead to the number one spark-plug wire, and attach its black and red power leads to positive and negative contacts. Disconnect the vacuum advance and plug the vacuum line. On most cars, there will be a line on the harmonic balancer that indicates top dead center (TDC) for the number one cylinder. Behind the harmonic balancer, on the engine, there will be a degree scale. With timing light attached and engine running, aim that line at the degree scale. The flashing light will indicate how many degrees before top dead center the plug is firing. The spec for my Chevy is 8 degrees before top dead center (BTDC), which is indicated by four lines on the scale. With today’s higher octane fuels, I set it to 10 degrees BTDC.

Step 4: Replace filters

At minimum, your car probably has filters for air, oil, and fuel. Of course you should change your oil filter every time you change your oil. And for a classic car that is driven infrequently, oil change intervals should be 2000 miles or every two years.

Fuel filter intervals vary widely by filter type, and many classic owners who don’t put many miles on their car may never have to change it. But a good rule of thumb calls for replacing the fuel filter after 20,000 miles of driving.

Air filters made of paper or synthetic material should last at least 20,000 miles. Oil bath filters, like that on my ’55 Chevy, should be cleaned and refilled with oil at tune-up time. But the filter housing oil level should be checked every 1000 miles or so. I clean the wire mesh element of the oil bath in a solvent bucket and then blow it out gently with the air gun. I then douse the element with SAE 50 engine oil and fill the reservoir to the full indicator mark with the same oil. If temperatures are expected to remain below freezing for an extended time, I use SAE 20 oil. When servicing the oil bath air cleaner, I cover the areas of the engine around the carburetor with plastic drop cloths, because drips are inevitable.

Step 5: Adjust idle mixture

Before 1980 or so, carburetor idle mixture adjustment was an important part of a tuneup. Begin by setting the idle rpm using the adjustment screw on the carburetor throttle linkage. For my old ’55, GM recommends setting the rpm to 450 rpm. If you have a dwell meter, it probably doubles as a tachometer. A vacuum gauge will also be necessary to pinpoint the idle mixture setting.

With the vacuum gauge attached to a manifold vacuum port, turn the idle mix screw gradually in clockwise and/or counterclockwise direction until you find the spot where rpm peaks and the vacuum reading is highest. If that increases the idle rpm above the spec for your car (or what you’re comfortable with in terms of vehicle creep and smooth idle), reset the idle speed via the idle speed screw on the throttle linkage, and then recheck the mixture adjustment. If you’re unable to detect any difference in engine performance as a result of this procedure, you may have a vacuum leak or a bad carburetor.

If you don’t have a tachometer or vacuum gauge, you can probably get a good approximate idle mixture setting just by adjusting for what your ears tell you is the maximum engine speed. A lot of old timers set idle mix strictly by ear, made possible through lots of experience.

In every case, lots of experience is a mechanic’s best friend.

***

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What better way for a gearhead to celebrate Valentine’s Day than with tiny trucks that make you say “aww”? We originally published this story in the summer of 2018; it’s back because LUV lasts forever. –EW 

It might be hard to imagine, given the current, cutthroat state of the pickup truck segment, but there was once a time when these task-focused haulers were largely an afterthought to the bean counters in Detroit. Fifty years ago, before King Ranches and Longhorns lined their interiors with enough leather to reach from Lansing to Laredo, trucks were barebones affairs built to get the job done and sold to customers who honestly weren’t expected to use them as daily drivers.

An even more hands-off approach was applied to the burgeoning compact-truck scene, which caught the Big Three completely off-guard at the beginning of the 1970s. General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler had essentially ignored the small pickups being imported by Toyota and Datsun throughout the previous decade, blissfully ignorant of the fact that a growing cohort of buyers was willing to take a chance on a “foreign” brand if it meant an easy-to-drive truck that offered decent practicality and a low purchase price. In fact, it’s safe to say that Datsun (now Nissan) carved out its first important foothold in America by way of its 320/520 series of mini-trucks.

Scrambling to capture a demographic they hadn’t even known existed, Michigan’s best minds had to come up with a compromise, and quickly, until they could marshal the resources required to develop their own homegrown trucks. The result was a series of captive imports rebadged to battle the best that Japan had to offer … with the best that Japan had to offer. Each automaker was able to avoid the egregious 25-percent “Chicken Tax” by importing its rigs in chassis cab configuration for final assembly stateside.

Let’s take a look at the trio of mini-trucks fielded by Detroit for that awkward 10-year stretch that lasted right up until the likes of the Ranger and S10 took over the reins.

Chevrolet LUV

GM’s ace in the hole when it came to dealing with the nascent mini-truck madness was that it owned a sizable chunk of Isuzu. After a few terse phone calls, Chevrolet had its first compact truck ready to go, sent across the Pacific in droves to America where it would receive both the Bowtie and the unusual “LUV” badge, an acronym for Light Utility Vehicle.

The LUV was as basic as you could get when it appeared in 1972, offering a 1.8-liter, 75-horsepower, four-cylinder engine; four-speed manual gearbox; and 88 lb-ft of shrub-pulling torque. With a 102.4-inch wheelbase and 1400 pounds of cargo capacity, Isuzu’s finest was a paragon of pint-sized practicality.

In 1976, the LUV would gain a three-speed automatic and front disc brakes. By the end of the decade it was possible to snag a chassis-cab version of the truck, choose between 6- and 7.5-foot bed lengths, add four-wheel drive, and benefit from an additional five horsepower from an upgraded four-banger. A number of styling changes would also come and go with the Chevrolet, including a switch from quad headlights to a simple pair in 1978.

Chevrolet was strategic in spreading the LUV, making the truck available first in parts of the country where buyers had already demonstrated significant interest in smaller pickups. As a result, the LUV sold in huge numbers, with sales shooting from just over 20,000 in its first year all the way to a peak of more than 100,000 in 1979.

The second-generation truck that appeared in 1981 adopted styling that resonated with fewer buyers, but it wouldn’t matter that sales were cratering because the S10 was right on the horizon—and besides, Chevy had little to complain about having moved 462,000 LUV units since the model was introduced. Not bad for a segment that no one saw coming.

Ford Courier

The Ford Courier was another example of an American institution leaning on a Japanese partner to fill a hole in its product planning. In 1972, Mazda was already selling the B1600 in the United States (and had been offering the more powerful B1800 in Canada since 1970), but it hardly minded when the Blue Oval strong-armed its way into the mini-truck mix by rebadging the B1600 as the Courier. Besides, Mazda had the Rotary Pickup waiting in the wings, so what did it matter if Ford wanted a few thousand piston-driven trucks in the meantime?

Ford took a more aggressive approach to updating the Courier than Chevy did with the LUV, at least when it came to drivetrain choices. Whereas the LUV would stick with its original powerplant throughout its entire production run, the Courier’s initial 1.8-liter four—with 74-hp and 92 lb-ft of torque—was eventually complemented by a roughly 90-hp, 2.3-liter option lifted from the Pinto (for its 1977 redesign), and then replaced entirely by a 2.0-liter mill (in ’79).

Ford also made a three-speed automatic available alongside the truck’s standard four-speed manual right from the start, adding a five-speed option in 1976. Strangely, despite the ostensibly identical Mazda delivering 2250 pounds of cargo capacity, the Courier matched the LUV with an advertised 1400-pound carry rating.

Other changes throughout the decade included the unusual decision to lengthen the cab by three inches in 1976, one year before the second-generation model debuted. Also strange was the availability of third-party four-wheel drive (most notably under the Courier Sasquatch name) in the absence of a Ford-developed system.

If you’re an EV historian, then you’ll also be intrigued by the ultra-rare Jet Industries ElectraVan 750, a battery-powered version of the Courier that offered 60 miles of range on a single charge.

The Courier would survive until 1982, when it was retired in favor of next year’s iconic Ranger.

Dodge D-50 / Plymouth Arrow

Chrysler leaned on its long-standing history with Mitsubishi when it came time to tackle the surging mini-truck threat. Unlike Mazda and Isuzu, however, Mitsubishi was pickup-poor throughout most of the ’70s, leaving the Pentastar on the outside looking in at all of the action being soaked up by Ford and GM.

It wasn’t until 1979 that Dodge would import the Mitsubishi Forte, which had gone into production the year before, relabeling it the “D-50.” Deciding that the best way to make up for lost time was to double its efforts, Chrysler also tagged Plymouth into the pickup game with the Plymouth Arrow, which was identical to the Dodge.

With a wheelbase seven inches longer than that of the LUV, and featuring a choice of engines delivering between 93 (from a 2.0-liter four) and 108 (from 2.6-liter four) horsepower, the Mitsubishi twins were certainly competitive. This was especially true when considering the larger motor’s 139 lb-ft of torque, and the availability of three, four, or five forward gears. Payload remained locked at the seemingly industry-standard 1400 pounds and was delivered by a 6.5-foot bed (with another 100 pounds of bed capacity added the following year).

In 1981, the D-50 would be renamed the Ram 50, and while the Arrow would disappear by 1982, the Dodge version would continue on for an astonishing 13 additional years (finally leaving the American market in 1994). During that time it would gain four-wheel drive, a four-door model (in addition to extended-cab versions), and endure a brief flirtation with diesel power.

Why did the Ram 50 endure? Truth be told, Chrysler was in total chaos in the early ’80s and had no money to throw at a dedicated compact-pickup platform. While Ford fans and Chevy loyalists were enjoying the Ranger and S10 for the 1982 and ’83 model years, Mopar maniacs were instead gifted with the ultra-weird (and short-lived) Dodge Rampage and Plymouth Scamp, L-body front-wheel-drive haulers that had more in common with the Subaru Brat than they did a legitimate truck. These were followed by the unibody Jeep Comanche in the middle of the decade, which was itself joined by the mid-size, and full-frame, Dodge Dakota in 1987, creating a confusing-at-best situation at Mopar dealerships for much of the ’80s.

That confusion seems appropriate considering how long it took the Big Three to figure out there was a mini-truck market in the first place.

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Kyle Larson, the 2021 NASCAR Cup champion, is one step closer to his IndyCar debut at the 108th running of the Indianapolis 500. Following his fifth-place finish at the Clash preseason NASCAR race Saturday at the Los Angeles Coliseum, he traveled to the Phoenix Raceway for an Indy car test on Monday.

Granted, the one-mile Phoenix oval is a far cry from the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but Larson said in a Zoom call today with the media that he learned a lot from the test. “I had a few moments where I was uncomfortable. I thought that was good to feel that at 190 or whatever we’re going—180 maybe in the corner— compared to going 220 [mph] at Indy. Having the moment, being surprised by something, I think that was a benefit.”

He nearly lost the car once: “Got a little bit loose into the corner,” he said. “As I was leaving the bottom, it just started to get sideways. I was able to catch it.

“Honestly, though, nothing about yesterday felt way different than what a Cup car feels like. That was good for me. I think the characteristics of the Indy car versus the Cup car, at least at Phoenix, felt very similar. You’re just going a lot faster in an Indy car.

“The moments happen a lot quicker. The edge of ‘good’ versus ‘not good’ feels a lot sharper. Yeah, it didn’t feel way, way different than what I was used to. Even with those moments of getting sideways, it didn’t feel way different.”

On May 26, Larson is planning to do the “double,” shorthand for running both the Indianapolis 500 IndyCar race and the Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR Cup race, which are held on the same day. He will compete at both events for his NASCAR team owner, Hendrick Motorsports.

Doing the double is a physically and mentally demanding exercise, requiring the driver to compete in the Indianapolis 500, hurry to the airport, board a private jet for the Concord-Padgett Regional Airport in North Carolina, which is 430 miles away, then board a helicopter that lands at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

The late John Andretti was the first driver to attempt the feat, on May 29, 1994. In 2001, Tony Stewart became the first and only driver to successfully complete all 1100 miles of both races, finishing sixth at Indy and third at Charlotte, despite complaining over the radio of an upset stomach. Besides Andretti and Stewart, only Robby Gordon and Kurt Busch have attempted the double. Busch was the last in 2014, where he finished sixth at Indy but dropped out of the Coca-Cola 600 with engine problems. He completed 906 total miles.

Dubbed the “Hendrick 1100” (t-shirts, hats, and model cars are already available at Hendrickmotorsports.com), Larson’s HendrickCars.com–sponsored Indy car, from the Arrow McLaren stable (with full-time drivers Pato O’Ward, Alexander Rossi, and David Malukas), was unveiled last August. In October, Larson passed his rookie orientation at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. His Indy car is powered by Chevrolet, like Larson’s NASCAR Cup car.

He’s unlikely to get another run in the open-wheel, Dallara-Chevrolet race car until open practice in April at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, then in the practice sessions leading up to the Indianapolis 500. Besides lapping at Phoenix, when he went through five sets of tires, he practiced pit stops and making in-car adjustments that are possible in an Indy car but not in a NASCAR Cup car.

Night running. pic.twitter.com/kEdn0TBpyI

— No. 5 Team (@Hendrick5Team) February 6, 2024

Larson thinks he got up to speed in the Indy car, but since he was out there by himself, he really isn’t sure. “I have yet to be on track with anybody else, so I don’t know,” Larson said. “I’m not able to compare to anybody else yet. I could have been half a second or more off the pace yesterday. I just have no clue. Once we get to the month of May or the open test in April, that’s when I’ll be able to kind of judge myself based off of the guys who do this for a living.”

Few doubt that Larson, arguably the most versatile driver in the Cup garage, will get up to speed or that he’ll get his share of attention. “I do know there’s a lot of race fans that are excited to see me out there. That makes me excited, as well. I feel like I’m a grassroots type of racer. Even though I race on Sunday in the Cup Series, I still feel like I resonate with the local short-track fans. I think that’s exciting. That’s what gets people liking me.

“I know I’ve got a lot of support on the fan side of things. I’m sure the whole NASCAR garage will be paying attention to how my couple weeks is going there.”

And as for the Daytona 500, on February 18: “Hendrick Motorsports is always really fast there. I know our race car is going to be good. It obviously takes some luck to get to the finish, but you also have to make good decisions and be prepared.

“Although on paper we’re literally like the worst team on superspeedways, I do believe that we are much, much better than what we show on paper. I feel like 90 percent of the time we’re in the top six or eight at the end of the race, the final 10 laps, then we get caught up in a crash, end up finishing 28th or worse.

“Eventually it’s got to work out. We keep putting ourselves in position. I’m confident that we can go out there and win or at least get a good finish and get off to a good start for the year. There’s a lot of factors that come into play at those superspeedway races. You have to cross your fingers that you can be in front of the pack and then you execute at the finish.”

***

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The Chevrolet Corvair remains by far the most controversial American car ever made. With nearly two million built for the 1960 through 1969 model years, it’s also reasonably plentiful in American car graveyards to this day. Today’s Final Parking Space machine is a ’63 Corvair Monza two-door, now residing in a family-owned yard just south of the Denver city limits.

By the late 1950s, Volkswagen, Renault and other overseas manufacturers were proving that American car shoppers were willing to buy small cars, while American Motors was cleaning up by selling easy-to-maneuver Ramblers. In response, Ford got into the compact game with the Falcon while Chrysler did the same with the Valiant, both of which featured some engineering innovations but didn’t deviate far from traditional Detroit designs. General Motors, meanwhile, went radical with its design for a new compact for the Chevrolet Division to sell.

The Corvair had an air-cooled flat-six engine in the back, much like the later Porsche 911. This allowed GM to lighten the car by using a transaxle instead of separate transmission and drive axle assemblies, while also eliminating the weight and complexity of a liquid cooling system.

More important, the design permitted the use of a flat floor with no driveshaft tunnel. A bench-seat-equipped Corvair could thus fit six occupants while occupying a very small footprint and boasting a curb weight of about 2300 pounds (hundreds of pounds fewer than a 2024 Nissan Versa). Putting the engine behind the rear wheels also improved traction on snow and ice.

Drawbacks to the design included the difficulty of providing effective passenger heat to an air-cooled car and handling that proved much different than that of the front-engine/rear-wheel-drive cars that most Americans had been piloting since the days of the Ford Model T. Rear-engined cars tend to be prone to oversteering during loss of traction, and the early Corvair’s swing-axle rear suspension (similar to that of the VW Beetle and Mercedes-Benz W120) could cause rear-end jacking in extreme situations.

The 1962 death of comedian Ernie Kovacs in a Corvair crash made headlines, and Chevrolet didn’t help matters by skipping a front anti-sway bar on the early Corvairs (recommending 15 psi of front tire pressure instead). Continuous Corvair suspension improvements were made over the years, with a fully independent rear suspension going into the 1965 and later cars, but the damage to the Corvair’s reputation had been done.

Corvair sales peaked in 1961 and 1962, declined significantly during 1963 through 1965, then fell off a cliff in 1966. Production continued through 1969, but few were paying attention to the Corvair by that point. Ralph Nader gets most of the blame from enthusiasts for the demise of the Corvair, but his “Unsafe at Any Speed” wasn’t published until the end of 1965 and didn’t attract much mainstream attention until the following year. (For a deeper look at whether the Corvair will really kill you, click here -Ed.)

What really killed the Corvair was competition from within the Chevrolet Division itself, taking the form of the Chevy II/Nova compact. That car, which debuted as a 1962 model, wasn’t much bigger than the Corvair and had a traditional water-cooled engine driving the rear wheels (it didn’t hurt that it looked quite a bit like its handsome full-sized Chevrolet brethren). The Corvair barely edged out the Chevy II/Nova in sales for 1962, then fell steadily behind thereafter.

This car is a Corvair 900, also known as a Monza, the top Corvair trim level. The Monza began life in coupe-only form, but it spread to sedans and wagons soon after. GM had envisioned the Corvair sedan as the big seller for the line, but buyers flocked to the coupes and convertibles. Very bad news for Corvair sales arrived at Ford dealerships in 1964 when a certain Falcon-based sporty car hit the scene; every Mustang buyer was a potential Corvair Monza coupe buyer who got away.

From the build tag, we can see that this car was built at Willow Run Assembly in Michigan during the last week of October, 1962, and that the exterior paint was Ermine White. It was equipped with the optional folding rear seats.

It has the base three-speed manual transmission (a two-speed Powerglide was optional, as was a four-speed manual) and the 80-horsepower engine.

The optional AM radio shows the CONELRAD nuclear-attack frequencies at 640 and 1240 kHz. Nineteen-sixty-three was the last year in which these markings were required.

Worth restoring? This one is pretty rough from sitting outdoors in the harsh High Plains Colorado climate for decades, so it makes more economic sense as a parts donor for nicer Corvairs.

***

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I saw Leigh Scott’s car before I saw him. It was parked in front of Pasteiner’s Auto Zone, the automotive hobby and book store on Metro Detroit’s Woodward Avenue. A sky blue beauty, the 1966 Impala Super Sport convertible sported a 427 badge riding on the front fender. It was the kind of near-perfect machine that leaves car folk speechless, particularly those of us who came of age in the ‘60s.

Leigh Scott, the car’s owner, is an accomplished restoration expert and dedicated fan of big Chevies with big-blocks under the hood. He wasn’t always in the restoration business; he only took up the trade full-time after retiring from a management position at GM. But Scott’s story precedes his days at GM by many years.

It begins with 14-year-old Scott working long hours outdoors on a street deep in the east side of the Motor City. With knuckles bleeding and limbs sore, he was trying to get his beat-up ’64 Dodge looking decent and its 413-cubic-inch V-8 running more or less well. His street-side workplace was just off Gratiot Avenue, the epicenter of car culture in that part of town.

Old-school east siders, including Scott, would argue that Gratiot—which boasted the shops of pro racers, numerous cruiser hangouts, and the nationally renowned Gratiot Auto Supply—was the busted-knuckle hardcore center of Motor City automotive culture, inhabited by dedicated car folk who looked with a bit of disdain at the privileged young people who cruised Woodward.

Scott patched up the rust holes in the Dodge as best he could and sent it to Earl Scheib for a $29.95 paint job. When he turned 16, he took his driver’s license test in the Dodge at the Michigan Secretary of State office on Seven Mile Road. By then it was jacked up and equipped with loud Thrush mufflers, looking and sounding the part of a street machine. The state employee who tested him asked whose car it was, probably thinking it belonged to an older friend. “It’s mine,” said Scott.

He drove that loud and potent Dodge to school, first at Detroit’s Cass Technical High School, and after he and his single mom moved, to Pontiac Central High School. After graduating in 1973, Scott didn’t have enough money to continue his education, but a relative who worked at a college in Kentucky offered him employment that could help him pay for tuition. In Kentucky, he found his second car, a ’56 Chevy. He drove it back to Detroit, planted a big motor under the hood, bolted on some Cragars, and got into all kinds of trouble on the streets.

At the time, the car-crazy young of Detroit’s east side drag-raced on Conner, where it passes through cemeteries on both sides of the street near Seven Mile Road. Since there are no intersections, quarter-mile runs are possible, if extremely dangerous. One night when Scott was competing on that dark street with slicks on and headers uncapped, he saw the lights of a cop car in his mirror. Already close to losing his license, he took off down Seven Mile, with the squad car in hot pursuit. Turning off into a side street, he shut the engine off and coasted into a driveway. Ten minutes or so later, he fired it up and drove home. His mom met him at the door and said the police had been there looking for him and were coming back.

They didn’t. But weeks later, he encountered a cop while parked in a local Dairy Queen. The officer recognized the car and told Scott he was lucky that he couldn’t arrest him after the fact. Rather than take a chance on another moving violation, he remained in the DQ parking lot until the officer left. Due to the establishment’s parking lot policy, he had to down half a dozen ice cream cones to remain on site.

Like many young men who run a bit wild, Scott eventually calmed down. He kept working on that ’56 until it was pretty and took it to Detroit’s Autorama custom car show, winning second place in his class. He didn’t want to keep driving the showy shoebox on the street, so he bought a ’66 Caprice that had bucket seats and a gauge package along with a 390-horsepower 427 big-block motor. Again, he decided it had the potential to be too nice for daily driving and began a restoration. Big car, big motor, restoration. It was a pattern he would repeat many times over.

When Scott restored that first ’66 Chevy he was working on the assembly line at GM. Soon thereafter, he applied for a floor supervisor position and got it. That made him a salaried employee, and GM paid for his education. He eventually earned a BA in Business at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a degree in International Finance at Wayne State University. That got him promoted to a position as a program planner for GM International. In 2000 he moved to GM Design where he managed programs for specialty vehicles like COPO Camaros. His final assignment was in the Cadillac Design Studio with Kip Wasenko, Tom Peters, and other heroes of GM design.

5r“I was a manager,” Scott said, “so I would just try to get the stylists to show up at work on time and bug them to finalize a design so we could get it released.”

Meanwhile, he kept restoring big Chevies with big-block motors—first for himself, then for customers who had seen his work at shows. Almost all of them were ’66 models. When he retired from GM in 2016, he set up his own shop, Detroit Automotive Restorations, in Southfield, Michigan. He now owns four ’66 Chevys, the Impala Super Sport convertible pictured here, a black Impala Super Sport convertible with the 425-horsepower L72 427, the 390-horsepower 427 Caprice that he restored 40 years ago, and a concours-winning Caprice with bench seat, four-speed, and 396 big-block. That last one is a rarity. But all big-block, big Chevys are uncommon. According to Scott, GM built about 1.5 million full-size Chevys in ’66. Only about 6000 were equipped with the 427-cubic-inch engines. Many of those were later trashed by folks looking for a big-block to swap into their Camaro, Chevelle, or Corvette.

As one might guess based on the photos herein, Scott is a perfectionist. His restoration routine calls for total disassembly. Every nut, bolt, and piece of insulation is removed and repaired or replaced. Rust holes and other damage are erased. The bare bodies are treated to a chemical wash in huge tanks at American Metal Cleaning in Toledo, Ohio. There, the car bodies are dipped in an alkaline solution that strips away everything, including any aluminum parts that might be attached. When the body is clean, Scott loads it into an enclosed trailer and hauls it down to Elkhart, Indiana, where it’s e-coated with primer. This process is an electro-magnetic operation that sucks the primer into every crack and crevice on the body, and it’s now standard industry practice for the steel-bodied cars of major automakers.

Back in Scott’s shop, the body is finished flawlessly and painted before the car is assembled carefully with parts that are either new or look like new. The disassembled engine is sent out for degreasing and machine work, but Scott does the final assembly himself. He knows big-blocks.

I shot Scott’s Impala convertible at his Bloomfield, Michigan, home on a gloomy November Sunday as winter threatened to move in, but the car’s flawless finish shone through the gray. It’s a beauty, outfitted with original equipment and a host of dealer-installed accessories. He’s currently working on yet another ’66 big Chevy with a big-block for himself as well as several for customers.

I wish one of them was for me.

***

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The cop who pulled me over was thoroughly pissed. “You could have killed me,” he screamed through my open car window. “You came flying up that hill headed straight at me! I thought you were going to crash right into my door.”

Chasing my pal, Joe, in his white-on-red ’55 Chevy convertible, I had driven, admittedly, in a bit of a hurry up the Mayfield Road hill from Cleveland’s Eastside “Little Italy” neighborhood to where it crested a hill, jogged left, and headed east toward the suburbs. But not so hurried that I was driving dangerously, at least in my opinion. And I hadn’t noticed the cop sitting lights-off in the row of cars always parked along the far side of that street.

I apologized to the officer, explaining that I had driven that hill-topping left-hand jog many times before, that I was totally in control, and I was in no way close to crashing into him or anything else. He calmed down a bit, checked my license and registration, lectured me to slow down, and eventually let me go. Whew!

Meanwhile, Joe was patiently waiting for me a bit farther up the road. It was a little past midnight, and we were on our way from somewhere to somewhere else in our never-ending quest for fun female companionship.

This was the summer of 1966 between my freshman and sophomore years in college, and my car-guy dad (in his second-childhood years) had bought me a well-used, white 1960 Chevy convertible motivated by a 335-hp Tri-Power 348 V-8 as my daily driver. That 348 was about as strong as they came in its day, and that big Chevy was seriously fast, more than capable of getting me into major trouble. I loved my dad, but what was he thinking?

Joe and I were working evening shift six nights a week at Eaton Corp.’s truck-axle plant in Cleveland. The work paid well but used up most of our nights. The good news was that we were free most of each day to work on our cars (and our tans). The bad was that we had just a couple hours, after getting off work at about 11 pm each night, to party.

The 348 was also plagued by more than its share of troubles, and mine spewed copious blue smoke out of its dual exhausts whenever I stood on it hard. So, despite constant temptation, I did that very seldom … except to blow off the occasional stoplight challenger or remind pal Joe how much quicker it was than his sexier small-block V-8 ’55. Enhancing its fun-to-drive factor, my car also pumped all that prodigious power through a four-speed manual gearbox with a floor shifter cobbled up by a previous owner.

That was hardly the only time I got pulled over that summer, but I miraculously got through it without a ticket for speeding or anything else. I drove sanely enough, even in that rocket-ship car, to avoid not just tickets but also dangerous incidents on the road.

I do vividly recall one butt-clenching afternoon when I underestimated the amount of room it would take to pass a line of slower cars on a two-lane highway. When I realized that an oncoming car was closing too quickly, it was too late to brake hard and duck back into line, so I floored it and managed to clear the lead car just in time to swerve back into my lane. I’m sure I scared not only myself but everyone in the surrounding cars—both in oncoming traffic and in the line that I had barely cleared—not to mention the pretty young lady in my passenger seat. She never dated me again, and that might have been why.

As a serious car guy, I could not resist tinkering with that car when not bombing around in it. I once did some amateur hop-up work at a friend’s house and screwed up the ignition timing enough that it wouldn’t start. I ended up having to leave it in his parents’ garage overnight while I studied up on the problem, then went back and fixed it the next day.

But I was not qualified to attack the worsening burnt-oil smoke screen the Chevy belched out every time I accelerated hard. So, when the summer was nearing its close, my dad took it to our local dealer to have them diagnose and repair that problem before I drove it 600 miles down to college in North Carolina.

It seemed okay afterward … until it didn’t. The oil smoke was gone, and it ran well around town. So, I loaded it up and headed for school. In the middle of the night, at highway speed near the town of Front Royal, Virginia, the 348 decided to self-destruct. It apparently lost oil pressure and clanked to a smoky stop by the side of the road. Damn! I spent the rest of that night trying to sleep in the car, then gathered up what I could carry, stuck out my thumb, and hitched the rest of the way down to school.

My father, bless his understanding heart, called a Chevy dealer in Front Royal and had the car towed there, then took a couple of days off work to drive down and take over the situation while I was sitting carless in class. With my okay, he negotiated a deal to trade it for a new ’63 compact Chevy II convertible, then drove that much tamer but more reliable ride down to me at school.

I had had about enough of big-power cars by then, and the six-cylinder, three-on-the-tree, white Chevy II was a pretty decent ride. It served me well for the next two years—not fast, but fun, handling well compared to that big, old ’60 Chevy.

***

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The mission of the subcompact Chevrolet Vega was clear from the beginning of the program in 1968: to be the best affordable small car in America, if not the world. It was designed top-to-bottom to perform and handle better, with better fuel efficiency, than any direct competitor from VW’s popular (anti-Detroit) Beetle to Toyota’s Corona to Ford’s size-larger Maverick compact.

That was the direction from General Motors president Ed Cole and the challenge for then-Chevrolet general manager Elliott M. “Pete” Estes. Cole, you’ll recall, was the engineering executive credited with leading design and development of the legendary Chevrolet small-block V-8 and, before that, the 1949 Cadillac OHV V-8. As Chevrolet’s general manager from 1956-61, he also championed the (later much maligned) rear-engine Corvair and its aluminum-block flat six. And he pushed such bold innovations to be market ready in record time.

“Cole … envisioned the car as a world-beater,” wrote Michael Lamm in the April 2000 issue of Collectible Automobile magazine. “Every specification, the way the Vega was engineered and styled, its performance, handling, fuel economy, quality, durability, ease of maintenance, comfort, options, body choices, the Lordstown assembly plant—even the way it was shipped—was carefully planned and refined by the best minds in the business. The goal was to make an automobile that would cost one dollar per pound, beat the VW Beetle in quality and value, one-up the Toyota Corona in amenities and performance and outsell what GM knew was coming from Ford, the Pinto … and he wanted it in showrooms in 24 months. This was a brutally short time to design and engineer a new car, especially one that borrowed almost nothing from any other. But timing was crucial.”

As the Corvair was being shamed out of existence due to the tricky handling of its VW-like rear swing-axle suspension (though it was fixed for its third model year), the need for an industry-leading GM small car became increasingly urgent. “Detroit couldn’t wait much longer,” proclaimed Car and Driver in its September 1970 issue, which featured both the new-for-’71 Vega and rival Ford Pinto as its cover story. “The small-car market, which includes both imports and American compacts, has been growing steadily, and by last spring it had reached 29 percent of total domestic sales … Worse yet, even within the small-car market, almost half (about 13 percent of the total) is the exclusive territory of the imports. Detroit hasn’t been able to touch that … The import market has gotten too big to ignore. It’s over a million cars per year.”

The good

Initially, at least, the Vega—named for the brightest star in the constellation Lyra—appeared to meet Cole’s high aspirations. “The press was invited to ride along on an engineering trip from Denver to Phoenix,” CD reported, “and on this trip, the standard Vega proved itself capable of cruising silently across the desert at speeds above 80 mph, climbing mountains with an ease that will turn VWs green with envy, slicing through curving mountain roads with aplomb and squeezing 25 miles from every gallon of regular in the process … In handling the Vega [when equipped with the optional handling suspension] is less of an athlete than a Z/28 Camaro but much better than the standard Vega, and with the 110-horsepower engine, it will accelerate through the quarter in 19.1 seconds with the speed of 74 mph.”

Lamm, who was West Coast editor for Popular Mechanics at the time, added in his Collectible Automobile story that the trip extended from Colorado Springs, Colorado to GM’s Mesa, Arizona Desert Proving Grounds, and that Chevrolet provided three rival cars for comparison: a VW Beetle, a Toyota Corona, and a newly launched Ford Maverick. “Two of the other journalists along were John Bond, publisher of Road & Track and Car Life, and Bill Sanders, technical editor of Motor Trend,” he reported. “After we’d come in from our first day on the road, Bond said that he thought the Vegas handled better than any economy car he’d ever driven. ‘The most impressive part of the trip,’ Bond wrote soon afterward in Car Life, ‘was the phenomenal cornering power of the three Vegas. None of the other cars could begin to keep up on the switchbacks of the long descent out of Flagstaff.’”

The writers on that trip, Lamm continued, all agreed that the Vegas seemed “well put together … comfortable, roomy, reasonably quiet, and fun to drive. They out-performed the three comparison cars in every way. The Vega hatchback coupe with the L-11 performance package and four-speed stick could go zero to 60 mph in 13.5 seconds, while the next-fastest car, the Maverick, took 15.4 seconds. The Corona and Beetle trailed badly at 19.0 and 20.0 seconds respectively.” (No mention of the Vega’s base 90-horsepower, one-barrel-carb engine.)

To sweeten the Vega’s appeal, multiple options were offered: the 110-horse engine, four-speed manual transmission, axle ratios up to 3.36 with limited slip, a handling package with anti-sway bars front and rear, and fat A70x13 tires on six-inch-wide styled wheels, a special interior with imitation wood, softer seats and a full set of gauges including a tach.

And, thanks to Henry “Hank” Haga’s GM styling studio—the same one responsible for Corvettes and the gorgeous 1970 Gen II Camaro—it trumped all other small cars in looks. Even the base two-door sedan boasted a ’70 Camaro-like face and a Fiat 124-esque profile, while the lower-slung hatchback, the “Kammback” wagon and the wagon-based “Panel Express” trucklet were downright sexy for their day.

“The car had great proportions, and it was an entry level vehicle, not high-end,” says Jerry Palmer, who was Haga’s assistant at the time and eventually rose to executive director of design. “It was an exciting time because that program had a lot of exposure both inside and outside of the corporation. The Fiat 124 was a target vehicle.” Former GM (and now independent) designer Steve Pasteiner opines that, “The fastback and the wagon were both nice designs. I remember seeing it in Body Development, the engineering studio. There was a Fiat 124 Coupe there also as a comparison or inspiration vehicle.”

“Vega 2300 is unlike any other Chevrolet ever built,” said General Motors vice-president and Chevrolet general manager John Z. DeLorean in an August 6, 1970 Chevrolet press release. “It meets the growing desire for an American-built car which—besides being small in size—is fun to drive, safe, comfortable, economical to own and operate, easy to maintain and long lasting in both construction and styling. Vega sets a new standard of customer value in the economy market with performance and handling far superior to any car in its field.”

As a young Chevrolet engineer at the time, this writer had the opportunity to take home a 110-horsepower, four-speed manual, early build Vega hatchback for a weekend a couple weeks before its September 10, 1970 launch, and I was seriously impressed by the way it looked and drove. So were the friends I let drive and ride in it.

“We call it Vega 2300,” said Chevrolet’s October 1970 launch ad. “We also call it, ‘The little car that does everything well.’ Because it does. Vega moves well, stops well, steers well, rides well, handles well, responds well, passes well, travels well, parks well, wears well, and is priced well under what you’d expect to pay for such a talented little car.

“In our highway tests, Vega has been getting gas mileage in the neighborhood of the little imports, which isn’t a bad neighborhood. Yet, unlike your average little car, ours steps right out when you step on the gas. The engine is a specially designed overhead-cam four with a lightweight aluminum alloy block. It turns slowly and quietly at turnpike speeds, with power to spare. Disc brakes are standard in the front. So are bucket seats, except on the truck.” Base price (with a three-speed manual transmission) was $2090, while the hatchback stickered for $2,196, the Kammback wagon for $2,328 and the “Panel Express” truck for $2,138.

It also impressed the editors of Motor Trend, who assembled an ARS (Conference of Automotive Research Specialists) panel that included ace racer/racing school founder Bob Bondurant, renown auto engineer/journalist/author Karl Ludvigsen and its own staff to evaluate and test the new domestic models. “In a conference room in Palm Springs, California,” they wrote, “after a grueling 4-day ride and drive that saw Detroit’s finest put through a 1,000-mile wringer, we … cast our votes and made Vega 2300 Motor Trend‘s 1971 Car of the Year.” Bondurant commented that he had been away from American cars for about five years, “and it is pleasantly surprising to see how good they’ve gotten, especially these new little ones.”

The bad

Yet Chevy’s new small car, despite its noble intent and initial promise, seemed cursed from its beginning. A massive UAW strike halted production for several weeks after just 23,000 Vegas had been built, and its innovative, single-overhead-cam, sleeveless-aluminum-block 2.3-liter (140-cubic inch) four-cylinder engine—already handicapped by a low 8.0:1 compression ratio to meet emissions mandates on no-lead gas—needed at least another year of development. GM Research had been experimenting with sleeveless (for lower cost and weight) aluminum-block engines since the late 1950s, and this one’s design started at GM Engineering, then was handed over to Chevrolet Engineering to test, develop, and optimize for production readiness. Among other issues that would surface during its early production years: its silicon-impregnated-aluminum cylinder bores tended to lose lubricating effectiveness over time, especially in cold weather, leading to piston scuffing, high oil usage (exacerbated by failure-prone valve-stem seals) and even some piston seizures.

Says Ludvigsen today: “I recall being at the Vega launch and riding with [then Chevrolet assistant chief engineer] Lloyd Reuss in one of them. He was telling me how they’d done their homework by looking at similar-sized engines from other makers. Aware as I was that the BMW 1600 was a superb OHC engine … I said, ‘Did you look at the BMW?’ ‘No,’ he replied, ‘We didn’t look at that.’ That was a big oversight”—probably because they were benchmarking engines from lower-priced, higher-volume cars.

The Vega’s barely adequate, six-quart cooling system and tiny (foot-square) radiator also caused problems when owners didn’t keep them fully filled. “In combination with leaking valve-stem seals, the engine would often be low on oil and coolant simultaneously,” Lamm wrote in CA. “This caused overheating, which distorted the open-block deck, allowing anti-freeze to seep past the head gasket, causing piston scuffing inside the cylinders … Chevrolet added a coolant-overflow bottle in 1974 and an electronic low-coolant-level indicator for 1976.”

Then there was the tendency of the screws holding the optional 110-horse engine’s Rochester two-barrel carburetor’s top cover to loosen due to the engine’s strong vibration at some rpms. “The top cover would then jump up and down,” Lamm wrote, “which activated the accelerator pump, which shot raw gasoline through the cylinders and into the exhaust system. Fuel would puddle inside the muffler and eventually explode: backfire.” All these issues and more despite Chevrolet’s claimed six million miles of engine testing.

“Once on the West Coast I had a Vega loaner from GM,” Ludvigsen recalls. “I was running around on various calls, and at a certain stage the engine started running roughly. Very odd. I lifted the lid and looked around … the major screws holding the carburetor together had come adrift from the engine’s vibration!”

Other problems included rust resulting from GM Fisher Body’s highly touted, rust-preventative Elpo dip primering process not reaching all nooks and crannies of the Vega bodies. And some related directly back to unwise cost-cutting. The Vega program was GM’s first to be designed and developed by a cross-functional project team led by a single chief engineer/program manager, initially James G. Musser, Jr.

And Cole’s direction was to make it as inexpensive to build as possible at GM’s then-new and highly advanced Lordstown, Ohio assembly plant at the very aggressive rate of 100 cars per hour, nearly twice the typical 55-60 per hour. And when DeLorean replaced Estes as Chevrolet general manager in early 1969, he appointed Reuss to succeed Musser as Vega program manager with a mandate from Cole to “cut costs but don’t cut anything else,” according to Lamm.

Car and Driver, in the same September 1970 story that praised the Vega’s performance, handling and styling, also cited some negatives: “On the other side of the ledger, mountains have to be climbed in second gear (which is good to about 80 mph), it will stumble to its knees whenever you try to launch it rapidly from a traffic light because of its incredibly long axle ratio, and a print-out has determined that the steering could be no less than 4.4 turns lock-to-lock because everything quicker would raise the parking effort above the arbitrary maximum.”

In a December 1971 CD comparison test of six “Super Coupes, the New Breed of Enthusiasts’ Cars,” Vega finished next to last, ahead of Ford’s equally new Pinto but behind the winning Opel 1900 Rallye, a Mazda RX-2, a Capri 2000 and a Toyota Celica. “We’ve always thought of the Vega as a well-engineered car,” the article said, “but many of its virtues are blocked by some equally impressive vices. For one thing, it’s noisy—the noisiest car in the test—and most of it can be blamed on the long-stroke four, which vibrates the hell out of the car. Under full-throttle acceleration, there is a period at 4800 rpm (47 mph in second and 74 in third) that registers a full 88 dbA at the driver’s ear, and that, friends and neighbors, is NOISE. None of the other test cars were [sic] even close. [This CD test car was clearly not the one they had reported in September as “cruising silently” at highway speed.] And the Vega is considerably noisier than the others at a constant 70 mile per hour, too. The really sad part about this is that the Vega has an elaborate sound package, a thick blanket under the hood, padding under the carpet and deadening material stuck into many of the body’s underpanels, all of which contribute to its being the heaviest and slowest car in the test—and it’s still noisy.”

Bob Storck, a knowledgeable journalist with personal Vega experience who was a consulting engineer for GM-supported race teams and Milford proving ground contacts at the time, sums up the car’s problems: “The same Reynolds aluminum/silicon-imbedded cylinders worked great for Mercedes but with better attention to piston plating and proper aging of the cylinder bores. The attempted fixes for drivetrain vibration—heavy dampers, coatings and sound proofing—more than offset the weight savings from the aluminum block. A failure-prone cam belt that was not warranteed. The base three-speed transmission, the original two-barrel carb, the optional two-speed automatic and the iron cylinder head, all entirely price-driven. And the almost vertical nose-down shipping, which created compromises to cooling and oiling. The combination of the all-new car platform, new engine, new shipping process, new technology and new factory were too much to overcome, especially with a young activist labor group and a litany of management fiascos.”

The ugly

A few months into the build, Vega production reached 73.5 per hour, and the cars were relatively well built. “They still had mechanical flaws,” Lamm wrote, “but the quality of assembly—things like fit and finish—was not a problem.” Then in October 1971, GM’s newly created GM Assembly Division (GMAD) took over the Lordstown plant from Chevrolet and Fisher Body and angered the union workers by laying off some workers (to improve efficiency) and tightening discipline.

“Feelings between GMAD and the UAW grew progressively worse,” Lamm continued, “with management accusing workers of intentionally slowing the line and sabotaging cars by leaving off parts and doing shoddy work. The workers countered that GMAD sped up the line and cut staffing. Whatever the truth, quality did suffer and, in March 1972, the UAW called a strike that lasted most of that month.”

GM recalled hundreds of thousands of Vegas three times in 1972. The first was 130,000 cars with the optional L-11 two-barrel carburetor for potential fires caused by engine backfiring that could blow out the muffler and heat the fuel tank to where it leaked. The second was 350,000 cars with the standard one-barrel carb because an emissions system component could fall off and jam the throttle linkage. The third was 526,000 Vegas with rear axles that could separate from the car enough to drop it down on its rear suspension. At one point, safety crusader Ralph Nader went after the Vega as “sloppily crafted, unreliable and unsafe.”

The rest of the Vega’s story

To his credit, DeLorean tried hard to improve it and its reputation. He put additional inspectors on the assembly line, introduced a computerized quality control program that had each car inspected as it was finished and repaired if necessary and pushed updates and fixes into production as quickly as the system would allow.

An optional GT package (the 110-horsepower L-11 two-barrel engine, F41 handling suspension, special tires and trim) for the Hatchback and Kammback was added in mid-1971. Then for 1972 came a revised exhaust system and drivetrain to reduce noise and vibration, plus recalibrated shocks and an optional three-speed automatic. Unfortunately, further mandated emissions reductions dropped the base engine to 80 horsepower and the optional four to just 90 horsepower. The next year saw some 300 changes, Chevrolet said, including five-mph front bumpers, a new Holley two-barrel carb for the optional L-11 engine, a new four-speed Saginaw manual transmission and linkage, new LX notchback and (woodgrain-decaled) Estate Wagon models and a limited-edition “Millionth Vega” commemorative model, of which 6500 were built.

For 1974, there was new front styling, five-mph rear bumpers, a 16-gallon fuel tank replacing the previous 11-gallon tank and (in January) plastic front fender liners—after the rusted front fenders of thousands of 1971-74-models with no inner fenders or fender liners had been expensively replaced under warranty. There was also a “Spirit of America” limited-edition hatchback model. And in May of that year, Chevrolet, under new general manager Robert Lund, notified the approximately 1.3 million Vega owners at the time that it would cover under warranty the cost of any engine damage caused by overheating.

Important among Chevy’s claimed 264 changes for 1975 was new High-energy Electronic Ignition (HEI) and an upgraded catalytic converter, and the (relatively) high-performance Cosworth Vega was launched. Even as Vega sales were sagging due to its many problems, Chevy said it made another 300 changes for 1976 beginning with substantial cooling and durability improvements (including hydraulic valve lifters and long-life valve stem seals) to the 2.3-liter engine—by then delivering just 70 horses in base form and 84 with the two-barrel carb. And that updated “Dura-Built” engine was covered by a five-year, 60,000 warranty. That year also brought another facelift and a substantially upgraded chassis (shared with the new ’75 Chevy Monza) with a box-section front cross-member, larger brakes with vented front rotors, and extensive anti-rust improvements, and the slow-selling Panel Express model was discontinued.

“For 1976,” Lamm wrote in CA, “GM finally started to get it right.” Among the new options were a Borg-Warner five-speed manual gearbox, a sliding glass “Sky Roof” and an eight-track tape player, and new models included a GT Estate Wagon, a notchback Cabriolet and a limited-edition Nomad wagon. Chevy’s Vega was by then a pretty good car … but way too late. And the notchback sedan’s base price had inflated to $2,984 and the more popular sporty hatchback to $3,099. Total ’76-model sales sank to 160,524 (including 1,447 Cosworth Vegas) from their ’74 post-fuel-crisis peak of 460,374.

Few changes beyond further emissions improvements came for ‘77, which would be Vega’s last model year. Just 78,402 sedans, hatchbacks and Kammbacks were built as the new-for-‘75 Monza—built on the Vega’s platform and sharing its 2.3-liter engine and powertrain—displaced it as Chevrolet’s subcompact entry. Interestingly, the Monza was designed to accommodate GM’s Wankel rotary engine, which was also intended as a Vega option (as was a V-8). But GM eventually gave up on the Wankel due to unresolvable cost, emissions, fuel economy and oil consumption problems, so no rotary (or V-8) Vegas were built.

The Chevrolet Vega was a textbook case of General Motors introducing an all-new car well before it was proven and ready, then spending multiple years and millions of dollars trying to fix it on the fly even as its increasingly bad reputation was sinking its sales. We’ve written about such cases in the past (Pontiac Fiero, Buick Reatta and Cadillac Allante come to mind), but probably none so important and ultimately disastrous as this all-new small car that GM needed so badly as the 1973-74 oil embargo was killing its bread-and-butter big cars and elevating small, fuel-efficient imports to levels they would grow and maintain to this day.

As we said up front, the Vega was not really a “bad car.” It was a brilliantly conceived, breakthrough domestic small car that was sadly cost-cut, poorly executed, under-developed and hurriedly launched to a sorry result well beyond Chevrolet’s and GM’s ability to save it.

***

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Honda is pressing on with two major EV launches planned for this year despite issues surrounding the General Motors Ultium battery platform, upon which Honda’s EVs will be based.

At a business briefing event held today with members of the media, Mamadou Diallo, American Honda’s senior vice-president of auto sales, laid out the plans for Honda’s North American division in the coming year. Following the briefing, Diallo was asked whether there were any concerns that software problems with GM’s own Ultium-based products—related to a recent voluntary stop-sale of the Chevrolet Blazer EV—might negatively affect the launches of the Prologue and ZDX. “We’re confident that the software issues will be addressed by the time that we begin deliveries,” Diallo said.

Later this year, Honda’s first two volume EVs—the Honda Prologue and the Acura ZDX—will arrive at dealerships. Both of these crossover SUV-type electric vehicles will make use of GM’s Ultium battery platform, the fruit of a partnership between Honda and GM that was announced in April of 2022. That partnership was initially supposed to produce a handful of affordable, “sub-$30K” EVs as well, but Honda and GM nixed said venture in October of 2023. The Prologue and ZDX were far enough along to warrant seeing through to completion and launch.

Make of the split what you will, but these first two offerings are going to be vital for Honda, which wants to produce more than 2 million BEVs annually by 2030. Getting off on the right foot is imperative, and as it stands, the launchpad for the Prologue and ZDX may raise some questions.

To recap: Late last year, Chevrolet issued a stop-sale order for the hotly-anticipated Blazer EV, one of its most important new vehicles, citing concerns about software issues that were leaving owners stranded.

A statement provided by Chevrolet spokesperson Chad Lyons reads as follows: “We are aware that a portion of Blazer EV owners have experienced some software quality issues. To ensure our customers have a great experience with their vehicle, we are temporarily pausing sales of Blazer EVs. Our team is working quickly to roll out a fix, and owners will be contacted with further information on how to schedule their update. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

Those teething issues on the Blazer appear to involve infotainment screens that are flickering and then turning off completely, and some news outlets such as Edmunds and InsideEVs reported more serious problems around charging system failures and modules that were no longer communicating with the vehicle.

In Edmunds’ case, which had purchased the vehicle to add to its long-term test fleet just two months earlier, the Blazer EV in question experienced 23 different problems that resulted in a multi-week dealership visit. Edmunds noted that a GM engineer and a technician from another dealership were flown out to attempt to remedy the issues. Their story detailing the issues came out on December 20 of last year, and at that point, the car had been in the shop for two weeks.

Lyons tells us that the Blazer EV is the only vehicle affected by the stop-sale. Meanwhile, in a follow-up story, InsideEVs reported that it had received emails from owners of not only the Blazer EV but also from owners of the GMC Hummer EV and the Cadillac Lyriq—offerings also based on the Ultium platform—who said they had experienced similar issues.

Honda has not provided any hard dates on when those Prologue and ZDX deliveries will begin, saying only that both EVs will arrive at dealers in early 2024. It may be a case where Honda will sit tight and hold any specifics until it has fully confirmed that these issues won’t affect its products.

The precise extent to which the aforementioned issues could affect the Honda models is not known; Honda appears poised to offer its own software and user experience for the Prologue, ditto Acura with the ZDX. (A key differentiator between the Prologue and anything GM? The inclusion of Apple CarPlay, which GM is dropping this year on all new vehicles, starting with the 2024 Blazer.)

It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out. Per Lyons’ statement above, the stop-sale for the Blazer EV is still ongoing, and there’s no official end in sight. With no specific timeline in place for an “all-clear” announcement, Honda and Acura may yet have to adjust their paddles on the launch of arguably each brand’s most important new vehicle of the year.

***

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Dan Campbell is a gritty, laser-focused, no-nonsense everyman who’s also been described as an affable, goofy meathead. All are true. If there’s a job to do, you want him on your team. And when that work is done, he’s a guy you want to party with. In football terms, he’s a “player’s coach”—he loves his guys, and they love him.

When it comes to Campbell, it’s all about authenticity and loyalty, two things the playoff-bound Detroit Lions head coach has exemplified his entire life. He doesn’t pretend to be something he’s not, a philosophy that was reflected early on in his choice of vehicles. During Campbell’s playing days at Texas A&M and early in his NFL career with the New York Giants, he continued to drive a tired 1990s Chevrolet pickup truck that he affectionately called Betsy. The exact details are a bit sketchy, and after an extensive internet search we could find no direct quotes from Campbell about the single-cab pickup, but everyone who knew Betsy remembers her fondly. Sort of.

“It was a white pickup, beat-up—it was ugly, too,” former A&M teammate and NFL All-Pro Dat Nguyen tells ESPN. “I don’t know if it had rust, and I don’t know how he got it, but I know we didn’t grow up with much, so I’m assuming it might’ve been passed down from his dad to him … 

“[When] you see Betsy, you know that’s Dan. If he parked in front of the weight room … your ass better get in there quick because he’s going to be on you, because he’s already started.”

Speaking of starting (or not starting), Shane Lechler, another former A&M teammate and roommate, says Campbell and the truck needed to be rescued every now and then.

“I had to go get him a couple times,” Lechler says. “He was trying to drive to Glen Rose [Texas] one day, and I think something happened and I had to tow him back or some shit, I don’t know.”

The truck, and Campbell’s loyalty to Texas A&M, converged when head coach R.C. Slocum brought in a top recruit to visit the Aggies’ College Station campus. Campbell and Lechler took the player under their wing—until the guy expressed his appreciation for one of their rivals.

“We were hosting a recruiting trip for somebody that came in, and me and Dan were taking the guy out,” Lechler tells ESPN. “And the guy is like, ‘I really like it here, but I think I’m going to go to the University of Texas.’ Dan just pulled the truck over, kicked him out of the truck, and we left. He’s like, ‘You got to go, you’ve got to get out.’ 

“I thought Dan was going to drive like a mile down the road, then turn around and go get him, but we never went back. We were at a party out of town too, not a fraternity party, but someone was hosting a party out of town, like away from town. Man, next morning R.C. Slocum was so mad at us.”

A tight end, Campbell was selected by the New York Giants in the third round of the 1999 NFL draft, the 79th player taken overall. Betsy came along—Nguyen jokes that he can’t confirm whether Campbell drove the truck there or it was towed—even though Campbell suddenly had enough money to buy whatever vehicle he wanted.

Campbell, now 47, spent four NFL seasons with the Giants (1999–2002), three with the Dallas Cowboys (2003–05), three with the Lions (2006–08), and one with the New Orleans Saints (2009) before retiring as a player. He later served as an assistant coach for the Miami Dolphins (2010–15) and went 5-7 as the team’s interim head coach in 2015. He was an assistant for the New Orleans Saints for five seasons (2016–20) before the Lions named him as their head coach in 2021. 

After a legendary press conference to introduce Campbell, in which he promised that his team would make the city proud and never go down without a fight (he even suggested there would be some knee biting involved), some in Detroit suggested that the coach’s rah-rah persona might wear thin if he didn’t win in the Motor City. That proved to be untrue. After the Lions stumbled to a 3-13-1 record in his first year and got off to a 1-6 start in 2022, Campbell and his team rose from the ashes. Detroit has gone 20-7 since, including a 12-5 record this season and the team’s first division title in three decades. On Sunday night, the Lions will host the Los Angeles Rams in the first round of the playoffs, where they’ll attempt to score their first postseason victory since January 5, 1992.

Alas, it appears Betsy did not come along for the ride. Regardless, she lives on, as legends do, through the memories of those who knew her as Campbell’s beloved truck.

“He was proud of it,” says Steve McKinney, Campbell’s close friend and former Texas A&M teammate. “He loved that truck … ol’ Betsy.”

***

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Just about everybody knows that the Chevrolet Corvette has been the most successful American sports car in road-racing history, with a trophy case featuring hardware from 125 top-tier race wins—nine of them at Le Mans—since 2000. But most people don’t realize that the factory Corvette Racing program was largely run by an outside vendor.

Not that General Motors was trying to keep a secret. Clued-in fans and members of the media knew the score. But to the general public, Pratt & Miller sounded more like an accounting firm than a race car engineering powerhouse.

Later this month, the company will move out of the shadows to center stage of the motorsports world at the Rolex 24. There and then, Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports—yes, the official name is a mouthful—rather than General Motors will enter a pair of all-new Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs built in-house to chase a title in the GT Daytona (GTD) Pro category of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

“It’s the next chapter for us. It’s the first time in our history in the 25-year-plus history of Corvette Racing that Pratt & Miller’s name will be in the title,” says vice president Brandon Widmer. “I wouldn’t say that it bothered us [to be behind the scenes for so many years], and we still have a very strong relationship with GM. But I will say there’s a lot of excitement around the company about having the name front and center in the name and on the car.”

In addition to the two bright-yellow Vettes being fielded at Daytona with GM backing, Pratt Miller is building at least 18 more GT3.Rs for customers. At the moment, three privateer teams are committed to racing six customer Corvettes in 2024. You, too, can join the list for a mere $735,000 per car—plus spares and optional upgrades. Hey, at least batteries are included!

In recent years, Pratt Miller—which was bought by Oshkosh Corporation in 2021 for $115 million—has diversified into high-tech electrification, autonomy and mobility projects for customers ranging from OEMs to the Department of Defense. The company has come a long way since it was founded in 1989 by Jim Miller, a gentleman racer and travel agency mogul, and Gary Pratt, a mechanic and fabricator at the Protofab race car shop.

After competing in Trans-Am, Miller wanted to move up to IMSA’s premier GTP series. So he and Pratt hired America’s premier race car designer, Bob Riley, to build a blue-sky prototype. Riley’s Intrepid debuted in 1991. With an 800-horsepower Chevy V-8 mated to the highest-downforce chassis the world had ever seen, the Intrepid was wicked-fast but snake-bit. Wayne Taylor posted the team’s only win, while Tommy Kendall’s career was derailed by a gruesome crash at Watkins Glen, and the program was shelved before the car realized its potential.

Still, the Intrepid cemented Pratt & Miller’s relationship with GM. In years to come, the company would build Oldsmobile Auroras, Cadillac CTS-Vs, Pontiac GTOs and Chevrolet Camaros that competed in various series. But the company’s future was assured in 1997, when it was hired by GM to develop a full-race version of the C5 iteration of the Corvette.

The car debuted in 1999—and was trounced by the Dodge Viper. But Pratt & Miller quickly turned the tables on the Mopar gang, and in 2001, the team’s bright-yellow Corvettes scored a remarkable overall win in the Rolex 24 and a storybook class win at Le Mans.

“Winning Le Mans was hugely emotional,” former Corvette Racing team manager Doug Fehan recalls. “You stand up there on this giant elevated podium cantilevered out over the pit lane, and as far as you can see down the straightaway is a sea of fans. You’re standing on that top step holding the trophy with a wreath of flowers around your neck, and they play the national anthem of the United States of America. Dude—Olympic frigging moment. Tears were running down everybody’s face, and you’re thinking, ‘How the hell did I ever get here?’”

The next two decades brought plenty of laurels as four generations of Corvettes rubbed fenders with factory-backed cars from Dodge, Ford, Porsche, BMW and Ferrari at the most exalted levels of production-based sports car racing. In recent years, though, OEM interest in this hideously expensive class of racing dwindled to the point that the category was discontinued. Starting in 2022, a new era dawned as sports car series around the globe adopted regulations based on more affordable and user-friendly GT3 cars.

The GT3 class was invented by Stéphane Ratel in 2006 to create a formula that would attract both manufacturers and gentleman drivers—the yin and the yang of sport car racing. GT3 regulations reined in costs by spec-ing race cars that didn’t deviate radically from the street cars on which they’re based, which meant manufacturers could theoretically make money on their customer-racing programs. Meanwhile, driver aids such a traction-control and anti-lock brakes made the cars easier to handle and, therefore, more attractive to gentlemen drivers.

To homologate cars for racing, manufacturers must build at least 20 cars. Pratt Miller gets ZO6 bodies-in-white from the Corvette plant in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and transforms them into race cars at their shop in New Hudson, Michigan. The new GT3 cars aren’t as sophisticated or expensive as the GTLM cars they replace. But they’re designed for different end-users—privateer teams and, in many cases, amateur drivers.

“We need to make sure that the cars are very easy to maintain and easy to set up and race successfully with a wide variety of drivers and a wide range of driver capability,” Widmer explains. “Those things were new to us and a bit unique from what we’ve done in the past.”

The GT3 formula has been an enormous success, generating large fields and nail-biting competition. For example, this year’s entry list for the Rolex 24 features 37 GT3 cars from 11 manufacturers—Chevrolet, BMW, McLaren, Lexus, Lamborghini, Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Acura, Aston Martin and Ford, which will be unveiling its dramatic, brand-new Mustang.

Pratt Miller will be racing two cars in GTD Pro, which, as the name implies, is meant for top-rank professional drivers. Two more Z06 GT3.Rs campaigned by AWA will be competing at Daytona in the GTD class, which is open to lower-level pros and amateurs who are typically paying for their seats. Also, TF Sport will be running a pair of Corvettes in the FIA World Endurance Championship in Europe, Asia and North and South America, while DXDT Racing has ordered two more Z06s for the World Challenge America series.

So 2024 will bring plenty of international exposure to a company that’s long stayed out of the limelight. That could be a problem if the new Corvette doesn’t measure up. But Widmer isn’t worried. “We’re looking forward to high car counts this year,” he says. “That’s a big deal for us. A lot of competition is a good thing.”

***

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Do you ever feel old? I don’t terribly often, but I do more so when I see a great old car. Today’s case in point: This magnificent 1970 Chevrolet Caprice. It’s almost 54 years old, but to me, it’s still only 20 years old—25 max!

I remember these due to a brief but vivid childhood memory. An old friend of my dad’s, Donnie Moore, always drove cheap used cars. He was hard on them, so they were replaced with rather frequent regularity. He nicknamed many of them: a Chevrolet Vega was “Darth Vega” and a Thunderbird of indeterminate age was dubbed the “Thunderchicken.” I also remember, at various points, a blue, circa-1975 Dodge Colt coupe, an ’84 or ’85 Buick LeSabre, and a Grand Marquis.

Whenever he got a “new” set of wheels, he would frequently stop by my parents’ house to show the car to my dad. And one day, probably around 1989–91, he stopped by with a full-sized 1970 Chevrolet.

I am not 100 percent certain if it was a Bel Air, Biscayne, or Impala, but it was a four-door pillared sedan in metallic gunmetal gray, with a black interior. I think it was a Bel Air, but honestly can’t remember.

It was in slightly weathered, but intact, shape—right down to the factory wheel covers. I think I was interested because it was the first 1970 big Chevy I’d seen up close. I was familiar with the 1971-up Caprices, because a neighbor down the block had a ’71 four-door hardtop in that light lime green metallic that was so popular back then.

Anyway, he stopped, parked in the driveway, and then he and my dad commenced chatting. I was approximately 10 years old at the time, and I proceeded to gawk and circle the Chevy with avid interest.

The ’70 Chevrolets were a facelifted version of the all-new 1969 versions, but there were several noticeable cosmetic changes. The biggest one was that the “loop” bumper/grille, encircling the grille and headlights on 1969 versions, was replaced with a conventional chrome bumper below the quad headlights and all-new grille. Out back, the elongated horizontal taillights were replaced with thin, vertical versions.

In 1970, Chevrolet still offered a dazzling variety of models, instead of the all-truck, all-crossover line today (except for the Corvette and Malibu). But never mind, we’re talking about the first year of the Me Decade, not 2023. You had trucks, Suburbans, Vegas, Chevelles, Novas. And full-size Chevys. Glorious, full-size, classy, attractive full-size Chevys.

Coupes. Sedans. Hardtops. Convertibles. In trim levels from plain to totally fancy. And there was no fancier Chevrolet in 1970 than the Caprice, unless we want to engage in a discussion about the Monte Carlo. But that’s a conversation for another day.

In 1970, Caprice meant luxury from GM’s contribution of Detroit’s Low Priced Three, which back then consisted of Chevrolet, Ford, and Plymouth. Ford was making hay with its similarly luxurious LTD. Plymouth, meanwhile, had recently canned the top-trim VIP nameplate and its best model was the somewhat contradictorily-named Sport Fury Brougham.

But in 1970 GM was still a near-impenetrable juggernaut, the 800-pound gorilla of U.S. motordom, and so the Caprice and Impala were extremely popular.

First appearing in 1965 as a four-door hardtop only, as a super-deluxe appendix to the popular Impala line, the Caprice became its own model in 1966, adding station wagons to the mix. By 1970, it was an integral part in the full-size Chevrolet line, available as two-door and four-door hardtops, as well as the wood-sided Kingswood Estate station wagon, available in two- and three-seat models.

The 1970 Caprice Sport Sedan retailed at $3527 ($27,912 today) before options. Curb weight was 3905 pounds. At the time, Chevrolet didn’t break out models by trim level and body style, but from what I could glean from my automotive library, 92,000 Caprice V-8s were built for 1970, in all body styles.

Most expensive Caprice that year was the three-seat Kingswood Estate, at $3866 ($30,594). There was no convertible that year; if you wanted to go topless in 1970 you had to settle for an Impala. A Caprice convertible would appear for 1973.

This Caprice, absolutely gorgeous in Misty Turquoise with matching turquoise brocade interior, was spied at the annual car show in Bishop Hill, Illinois, a tiny enclave with Swedish roots in Henry County, Illinois. I attend every year, and it never disappoints. Today’s subject was my favorite car at the show this year.

If you’ve read enough of my columns, you know that I love Detroit land yachts and I love turquoise. I was about three-quarters through my walkthrough of the show and had just taken pictures of a gorgeous 1971 Oldsmobile 442 convertible when I spied this off to my left. Zounds! After stopping for approximately 12 seconds to photograph the 1979 Seville parked next to it, I commenced drooling over this Caprice.

My favorite body style and my favorite model. So sharp. And although I would have preferred the color-keyed factory wheel discs and fender skirts, this remarkably well-preserved example was just as pretty with its Chevy Rally Wheels and whitewalls.

It also had the optional 265-horsepower Turbo-Fire 400-cubic-inch V-8, a step up from the base 250-hp, 350-cu-in V-8. All the better to motivate you while riding in turquoise brocade, cushioned comfort.

As the 1970 brochure stated, “Some people have professional interior consultants design their living area. Some people. You. All you need to do is choose the Caprice interior that strikes your fancy … everything is color and design coordinated. Seat shape and material, carpeting, wall and ceiling fabric, instrument panel form and function. Everything. Beautiful.”

Such a comfy car, in such beautiful colors! I loved it. Every bit of it. And I walked away feeling just a little bit sad that you can no longer get American cars like this. Caprices, LeSabres, Bonnevilles. They were such great cars: Chevrolet built 162,800 full-size cars in 1970. Today? Zero. But some still live on, even in this day and age. I salute them.

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Another Vega? As Marge Gunderson said in Fargo: Oh, yeah! One would think in this day and age that finding a Vega, the notorious GM subcompact that polarized so many, would be a difficult task. But some way, somehow, I keep finding them. Or word’s gotten out and they’re finding me!

I’ve mentioned it before, but the Maple City Cruise Night, held annually in the small college town of Monmouth, Illinois, is a must-attend event for me. Essentially, the whole town turns into a car show. And anything goes! It’s a show where you really never know what you’ll see. I love that.

Last year there was a mint condition 1977 AMC Gremlin X. In previous years I’ve seen a 1976 Continental Mark IV with the Lipstick Luxury Group, a 1959 Dodge Royal Lancer, spectacular 1964 Cadillac Series 62 in Turino Turquoise, a 1976–77 Mustang II Ghia, a remarkably well-preserved sky-blue 1973 Pinto Squire, and a giant red 1974 Cadillac Eldorado convertible that would have done Big Enos Burdette (of Smokey and the Bandit fame) proud.

It isn’t like the local monthly or weekly cruise nights, where you start seeing the same cars over and over. Here, there is always something new. Some cars I’ve seen once and never again. You’ll see license plates from Iowa and Illinois and Missouri, sometimes even Wisconsin. It’s grand.

And so it was in August, when I hopped in the car and pointed it onto I-74 and then Highway 34 to Monmouth. As always, I made sure I had plenty of memory space in my camera and a fully charged battery. Once, at a Cadillac and LaSalle club show in Milwaukee, my camera flatlined just as I was taking pictures of a fantastic 1968 Fleetwood Series Seventy-Five limousine. I vowed then and there that I would never have that happen again.

But I am digressing again! Back to our featured car. When I initially posted a few pictures of this car on my Facebook page, my friend Jim Smith, who worked as a lot jockey at a big Chicago Chevy dealer back in the ’70s, had this to say: “Rare as a purple unicorn. I only recall having one, in white, in demo service at the dealership.”

He wasn’t wrong. When I was researching in my home automotive library to write this column, I found that only 3461 Vega Estates were built for 1977, which was the last year for a Vega in any form. The non-woody version was much more plentiful, to the tune of 25,181 units.

The ’77 Vega Estate had a base price of $3745 (about $18,975 today). As the 1977 Chevy station wagon brochure confided: “Vega. It might just be all the wagon you need.” And there was definitely a somewhat defensive tone in the description as well. Anyone around in the ’70s will remember the Vega had some teething issues upon its debut, the severity of which depends on who you ask, but regardless, rust, breakdowns and other functional complications were evident.

As the brochure continued, “Yes, it’s still the compact wagon that’s just right for today’s young thinker, regardless of age. And Vega’s still the wagon that offers an engine built to take it.

“We documented that when three 1976 Vegas, with Dura-Built 2-barrel carburetor engines, conquered 60,000 miles in and around Death Valley in 60 days in the summer of ’75. Maintenance was adjusted for dust conditions. Only one timing belt was replaced and 24 ounces of coolant were added to one of the three engines.”

I can’t speak for every Vega owner out there, of course. But my aunt Lori Klockau had a mid-’70s Vega Estate as a student teacher at the University of Iowa back then. Believe it or not, it was a Vega Estate, too. At any rate, she drove it for several years, and that little woody wagon ran like a Swiss watch. She never had any trouble with it. Of course, others’ mileage may vary. But even today Aunt Lori remembers that car fondly.

As for the 1977 Vega Estate, naturally it was a bit flossier than the plain-Jane Vega wagon. The biggest attraction, of course, was the “New simulated oak wood-grain paneling with simulated wood-grain outline moldings on the rear and full side panels.” The “new” must have been referencing the type of wood-grained paneling used, since there had been woody Vega wagons since 1973.

Other extras on the Estate included full wheel covers, deluxe bucket seats and trim, custom door panel and rear side panel interior trim, a day/night inside rear view mirror, the all-important (in the 1970s) rear seat ash trays, and more. A Vega GT wagon was also available, though there were no separate production breakouts I could find.

Our featured Vega Estate was finished in code A-2929 Light Blue with a complementary light blue vinyl interior, and optional Rally II wheels. It also appeared to have factory Four-Season air conditioning, judging from the vents along the bottom of the instrument panel.

I had just gotten over gawking at a 1976 Lincoln Continental Town Coupé at the show when I saw this Vega woody and briefly lost my mind. Holy cow, what a rare birdie! I have seen a few Vegas, but frequently they are hot rodded with a small-block Chevy V-8 and fat rear tires. But here was a bone-stock Vega—and an Estate!

I’m not 100 percent certain, I may have seen one or two long ago when I was a kid in the ’80s, but this was definitely the first Estate I’d seen in 25 years, at least. Yumpin’ yiminy!

After I regained consciousness and a nice lady helped me stand up, I began taking many, many photos of it. I loved it. I spoke with the owner, a very nice guy, and he confirmed it was a 1977. I knew it was either a 1976 or ’77, due to the grille. What a time capsule—not mint, but a very honest original car. It was a treat to see!

***

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As 2023 winds to a close and we turn our attention to what lies ahead, a moment of reflection is due for cars that won’t see another year. In true end-of-year fashion, we’re feeling a bit dismayed about a few vehicles that are making their way to the big parking lot in the sky. We’re also happy to show a handful of vehicles to the exit.

Presented here, in no particular order, are five cars that we’ll miss come 2024—and five that we most certainly won’t. Be sure to join us in the comments: Which of our choices do you agree with? What other vehicles should have made the list?

We’ll miss:

Chevrolet Camaro

We’ve already covered the Camaro’s demise in extensive detail, from the last sixth-gen to roll off the assembly line (a manual ZL1 1LE) to four unique models that time forgot. But to say we’ll miss the Camaro remains an understatement.

Over six triumphant generations, the Camaro stoked the pony car wars to ever-increasing heights. With no word yet from Chevy on any sort of succession plans, there’s an Alpha-platformed hole in our hearts. The sixth-generation car was a genuine performance masterpiece, gifting the Camaro with a superb chassis that finally matched (or even exceeded) the heroic powerplants found under the hood. Pour one out, folks: The loss of this one stings.

Dodge Challenger/Charger

If the Camaro was the athlete of the Detroit muscle crowd and the Mustang was the icon, then the Dodge Charger and Challenger siblings were the ones you wanted to hang with at a party. Their boisterous demeanor and ability to meet buyers at seemingly any price point meant that there was a Mopar solution for everyone.

While there are rumblings of a new gas-powered Challenger on the horizon, and Dodge snuck a new vehicle silhouette into a holiday ad, such a vehicle will likely ditch the rumbling Hemi V-8 in favor of a twin-turbo inline-six. The Challenger and Charger names may endure, but their ethos will change significantly. For that reason, we mourn the demise of the Mopar twins.

Audi TT

When Freeman Thomas sketched out the first lines for the Audi TT, few could have predicted the impact the car would have—not just on Audi’s trajectory, but on the entire world of automotive design. When the Mk1 TT hit the streets in 1998, it was an immediate success. Early examples are now starting to find a place within the collector-car zeitgeist.

The TT spanned three generations over 25 years, but it will not see the calendar turn over again. Little sports cars like this are a hard segment to survive in, but the TT managed to do so without ever sacrificing the avant-garde styling that made the first one such a revelation. The gorgeous green going-away present pictured above is one of 50 Final Edition cars, all of which are coming to the U.S. The TT departs this world with its head held high—for very good reason.

Kia Stinger

The shapely proportions of a four-door liftback, a 365-hp twin-turbo V-6, all- or rear-wheel-drive, and genuine sporting intent … from a Kia? That was the thought clanging around much of the automotive world when the Stinger arrived in 2017.

Kia wanted to use the Stinger to change the public’s perception of the company from rental-fleet-chic to something a bit more aspirational. The success of the Stinger in that regard is up for debate—the Telluride did more of the heavy lifting—but the fact that the Stinger was a genuinely interesting machine is fact. Like the Pontiac GTO—yes, we went there, figuratively and literally—the Stinger was an attempt to get buyers to pay attention. Unfortunately, the Stinger was always in for an uphill battle, and 2023 marks the year it finally waves the white flag.

Audi R8

Over two generations, Audi’s mid-engined supercar shone as the brand’s most aspirational product. It may have been overshadowed a bit by the Lamborghini Huracán, with which it shared a platform and engine, but the R8 was no snoozer.

After a few years of coasting down the depreciation curve, first-gen R8s are starting to catch the eyes of collectors. Heck, we put it on last year’s Bull Market List (though, one year on, it hasn’t ascended to the heights we thought it might.) Perhaps the second-gen cars will experience a similar fate one day. This author certainly hopes so, because he has a bit of a soft spot for the R8. Way back when I first left college 10 days early to start my first job at Car and Driver, the Audi R8 was the first car I was allowed to drive—very slowly, through the parking lot of Virginia International Raceway over to the gas pumps. Still counts.

We won’t miss:

Fiat 500X/Jeep Renegade

We won’t miss either of these two, but our distaste for each stems from different places. The Fiat 500X and the Jeep Renegade were basically two adaptations of the same basic platform and drivetrain by two different brands.

We’d consider the Jeep the more appealing of the two, because, well, Jeep, but neither model wowed the American buyer. The 500X always felt quite compromised and uninspired, with European styling that failed to translate to our shores. The Renegade, while cute, is a spendy (just shy of $30K) proposition that’s also priced too similarly to the Compass ($27,495), a more spacious offering. Sales for the Renegade have plummeted in recent months, while sales of the 500X never really took off.

Mazda MX-30

Sold exclusively in California, the Mazda MX-30 was kind of destined to be a flop. With a 35.5-kWh battery and a meager, EPA-estimated electric range of 100 miles, this thing was handily outgunned by the competition by the time it arrived. Small and cramped, with a rear-hinged second-row door that opens like those on older extended-cab pickups, the MX-30 felt like the bizarre answer to a question almost nobody asked. That it won’t survive another year might just be in the best interests of everyone.

Mercedes-Benz CLS-Class

For a while there, the Mercedes-Benz order catalog reminded us a lot of the menu at The Cheesecake Factory: We’re sure many of the offerings on hand are quite tasty, but the sheer volume of options triggers paralysis by analysis.

The CLS-Class was initially pitched as a style-forward tweener that employed the E-Class chassis and a copious amount of sweeping bodylines. (It also fell into that silly camp of “four-door coupes” at which we loved to roll our eyes.) When Mercedes announced in 2022 that it would begin trimming its product lineup to focus on core offerings, we knew the writing was on the wall for a few of these go-betweens. For 2024, the CLS-Class is no more—not that most will notice.

Jeep Cherokee

Let’s make one thing clear here: We do miss the Jeep Cherokee. We just won’t miss this Jeep Cherokee.

Revived in 2014 for a lower-rung model situated below the costlier Grand Cherokee and above the Renegade, the Cherokee nameplate has, for the better part of a decade, come to denote a unibody crossover SUV that never could quite hack it against the competition. The nine-speed automatic gearbox was a consistent disappointment and the interior always lagged behind the competition in terms of finish, design, and quality.

Maybe we can all just forget this thing ever happened and agree to envision the loveable, boxy XJ when we talk about Jeep Cherokees. What do you say?

Kia Rio

Normally, we’d lament the demise of yet another affordable car that could be had new with a warranty for under $20,000. But in the case of the Kia Rio, we’ll hold our tongues. Ask gearheads to explain what they picture when you say, “Kia Rio,” and you’ll quickly hear jokes about engines flying through the hoods and tales of generally terrible build quality.

The current Rio is a fine car, but fine doesn’t cut it in a segment where the profit margins are thin and sales trends are only pointing down. In reality, there’s probably room for two, maybe three offerings in the subcompact sedan segment these days in America, and Nissan’s Versa and the Mitsubishi Mirage will carry this banner into 2024.

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By most accounts, the term “Malaise Era” was coined by journalist Murilee Martin. Taken from Jimmy Carter’s famous speech, it reflects the pervasive funk that the U.S. found itself in post-Vietnam, though Martin and fellow car enthusiasts tend to further focus it as the term to define a decade’s worth of lackluster autos. The period was marked by rampant inflation and a frustratingly stagnant economy. Everything from American exceptionalism to oil, and even natural fibers, seemed to be on the way out, replaced with polyester leisure suits, disco, and well, seemingly not much else. Most importantly, horsepower took a lengthy holiday as fuel prices and insurance rates went up while speed limits went down.

We’re about to mark a truly happy milestone, however: By my count, 2024 marks the 40^th anniversary of the end of this much-maligned era. Four decades on from 1984, maybe, just maybe the cars that helped us get back to horsepower and driving enjoyment can find a more appreciative audience, and we can take a more charitable view of the re-emergence of the American performance car. On the other hand, maybe it’s still too soon.

The onset of the Malaise Era came with shocking speed. In 1972, big blocks were as easy to find as Triceratops in the late Cretaceous period. Just two model years later, they had nearly disappeared. The twin asteroid-like impacts of the 1973 oil embargo and the recession that it triggered quickly made the American performance scene look like a post-apocalyptic wasteland. By the 1974 model year, things looked bleak indeed. Horsepower was down dramatically and rising curb weights from things like mandated diving board five-mph impact bumpers helped further blunt performance. By 1978, things had gotten so bad that the fastest American car was actually a truck. The Dodge Lil’ Red Express pickup was one of the few vehicles you could buy that was capable of a sub-seven second 0–60 time.

The degradations that the era spawned have been well-documented—from the Mustang II to the 305-cubic inch “California” Corvette, and the Iron Duke Camaro. All of these were fodder for the “Rust in Peace” series I did for The New York Times in the early 2000s. Even the once-feared Pontiac Trans Am, one of the few large-displacement cars to survive the big block mass-extinction, was only able to extract a pitiful 200 hp from its massive 455 cubic inches in 1975, mimicking the output of a cheap, loud, “as seen on TV” juicer. If you had the distinct displeasure of living through it, the Malaise Era seemed to last as long as the most recent ice age. Bright spots were few and far between, and often, they weren’t American—the Porsche 930 and the Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9 were fast but crazy expensive, and unless you lived in New York or L.A., you likely never saw one.

Help eventually arrived—fuel injection, three-way catalysts with oxygen sensors, multi-valve cylinder heads, turbochargers, and finally variable valve timing, all did their part to make horsepower a thing again. The Buick Regal Sport Coupe/T-Type brought turbocharging to American showrooms around the same time that the Saab 900 SPG Turbo started making its reputation as a seriously quick car. By 1984 the turbocharged, V-6-powered Regal Grand National was making 200 hp and an astounding 300 lb-ft of torque, figures that had rarely been seen since the early ’70s. (It’s important to remember, too, that 200 hp in 1984 SAE net was probably closer to 250 hp in pre-Malaise SAE gross measurement.)

By 1984, America’s premier pony cars were becoming de-zombified as well. The Z/28 Camaro of that year made 190 hp, and the 5.0-liter Mustang 175 hp. By the next model year, both had cracked the 200 hp mark. 1984 also introduced the fourth-generation Corvette, a dramatic upheaval from the early ’60s roots of the prior generation. The Malaise era was definitively over, although its last vestige, the reviled 55 mph national speed limit, hung on until it was modified in 1987 and then fully repealed in 1995.

Malaise Era cars have certainly found collectability over the last 10 to 15 years—Urethane-nose, late ’70s/early ’80s second-generation Camaro Z/28s, and Bandit Trans Ams, (so-called “mustache muscle”), certainly have their fans, but then oddly enough, so do the Charlie’s Angels-era Mustang II Cobras. These, however, are mainly novelty/irony/nostalgia buys. I suspect few people are likely to care about them after the generation that came of age during the Smokey and the Bandit and Fast Times at Ridgemont High days passes from the scene.

It’s the cars that brought an end to the era, the turbocharged Regals, IROC-Zs, and post-1983 Fox-body Mustangs, that we should be building bronze statues to, or at the very least, collecting with more gusto. They truly saved driving and ensured that horsepower didn’t become just another quaint unit of measurement (like pennyweights or Macedonian cubits), understood and remembered only by our grandparents and great-grandparents.

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

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

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

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

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

Meet the Bulls: 2024 Lineup

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

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1989 Lamborghini Countach 25th Anniversary

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

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

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

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

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

1989 Lamborghini Countach 25th Anniversary

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

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

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

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

HAGERTY AUTO INTELLIGENCE SAYS:

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

***

1946–50 Chrysler Town & Country

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

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

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

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

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

1947 Chrysler Town & Country

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

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

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

HAGERTY AUTO INTELLIGENCE SAYS:

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

***

2008–13 BMW M3

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

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

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

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

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

2013 BMW M3

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

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

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

HAGERTY AUTO INTELLIGENCE SAYS:

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

***

1997–99 Mitsubishi Pajero Evolution

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

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

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

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

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

1997 Mitsubishi Pajero Evolution

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

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

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

HAGERTY AUTO INTELLIGENCE SAYS:

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

***

2011–16 Ferrari FF

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

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

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

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

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

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

2014 Ferrari FF

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

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

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

HAGERTY AUTO INTELLIGENCE SAYS:

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

***

2000–05 Jaguar XKR

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2006 Jaguar XKR

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

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

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

HAGERTY AUTO INTELLIGENCE SAYS:

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

***

1965–70 Chevrolet Impala SS

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

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

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

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

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

1969 Chevrolet Impala SS

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

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

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

HAGERTY AUTO INTELLIGENCE SAYS:

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

***

1981–86 Jeep CJ-8 Scrambler

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

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

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

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

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

1983 Jeep CJ-8 Scrambler

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

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

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

HAGERTY AUTO INTELLIGENCE SAYS:

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

***

1964–66 Ford Thunderbird

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

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

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

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

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

1964 Ford Thunderbird

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

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

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

HAGERTY AUTO INTELLIGENCE SAYS:

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

***

1997–02 Plymouth Prowler

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

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

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

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

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

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

1997 Plymouth Prowler

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

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

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

HAGERTY AUTO INTELLIGENCE SAYS:

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

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

***

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Chevy is updating its cash-cow Tahoe and Suburban siblings for the 2025 model year. The takeaway: Americans still care about towing, and they still like their big, cushy rolling bunkers to have V-8—or fantastically refined diesel—power.

Most of the updates we’ll discuss here span across both the Suburban and the Tahoe, so unless specifically stated, figure that the updates apply to both Bowtie Big Boys. The six trims offered for each one, laid out in ascending order of cost and ritziness: LS, LT, RST, Z71, Premier, and High Country.

The biggest news, although it won’t be offered until 2025, is the addition of the second-generation 3.0-liter Duramax turbodiesel straight-six. We first saw that engine on the new Silverado 1500, and as expected, it’s now coming to these two. The new(ish) mill produces 305 hp and 495 lb-ft of torque, gains of 10 and 7.6 percent, respectively. A retuned turbo, new higher-flow injectors, new steel pistons with revised cooling jets and an updated temperature control system are to thank for the added grunt. Tahoes and Suburbans with the first-gen diesel were already remarkably quiet, but this new one also gets new sound-deadening material and a revised intake that Chevy says will help it run even quieter. For the first time, Chevy is making the diesel available on the Z71 trim.

If diesel ain’t your thing, you still have two choices for V-8s: the 5.3-liter, and the 6.2-liter. The former is standard on the LS, LT, RST, Z71, and the Premier. The latter is standard on the High Country only, but it’s also offered on the RST, the Z71, and the Premier. All engines, including the diesel, pair with GM’s 10-speed automatic transmission.

All that grunt means a fairly capable tow rig, too. Chevy will offer a max trailering package which on select trims will include a higher-capacity radiator and cooling fan, as well as an integrated trailer brake control. Other towing tech of note: A new trailer tire health monitor; boat ramp assist, which will provide a checklist and instructions for towing, launching, and retrieving a boat; and trailer navigation, which will use Google Maps to calculate the ideal route for your rig based on the size of the trailer. Properly equipped, the Tahoe will be able to lug 8400 lbs, the Suburban 8200.

There are a raft of cosmetic updates inside and out, too. Both 2025 models get revised exterior styling that includes new front lighting elements and occasionally some trim-specific design. Namely, the Z71 trim level, Chevy’s “off-road” variant, will get a new high-approach front bumper that includes a metal skid plate and red tow hooks, both vital for hopping curbs at the Whole Foods.

Opt for the RST or the High Country variants, and you’ll have access to 24-inch wheels. (Remember when those were like the final unlock of Need For Speed Underground video games? The times, they are ‘a changin’.) Two new exterior colors join the fray as well: Cypress Gray and Lakeshore Blue Metallic.

Inside, a new interior features a 17.7-inch-diagonal central infotainment screen akin to the one that now adorns the Silverado and Silverado HD. It’s standard across all trims, as is the 11-inch digital instrument cluster ahead of the driver. Alongside the new helping of tech, 2025 Tahoe and Suburban get a few physical tweaks as well, including a redesigned center console, a new steering wheel design, a new shifter, and trim-specific stitching.

The High Country, which is basically a Cadillac Escalade in all but the name, gets a host of unique interior touches such as real wood inlays (a first for the Chevys), special leather seats, a unique steering wheel, and access to a special Jet Black and Mocha interior color combo. (We saw GMC give its top-rung Yukon, the Denali, a similar treatment; these buyers are spending the big bucks and they feel entitled to something extra special. Chevy copying this move doesn’t surprise us.)

The biggest update for the current generation of Suburban and Tahoe when it arrived way back in 2019 was the addition of multilink independent rear suspension. That system has been retuned, Chevy says, to further improve ride and handling. As expected, both the adaptive air ride suspension and GM’s magical Magnetic Ride Control suspension systems will be offered. Magnetic ride will be standard on Premier and High Country and optional on the RST and Z71 trims. Air ride, meanwhile, is available to just the High Country, Z71, and for the first time, the RST model.

The 2025 Tahoe and Suburban will be assembled at Chevy’s Arlington, Texas, facility, which celebrates 70 years of continuous production next year. Pricing will be revealed at a later date closer to when these beasts of burden start popping up on the assembly line.

***

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With the Camaro nameplate retiring soon, we’re honoring the beloved two-door with a series of love letters, fun lists, and memories that you can follow here. Many performance cars, especially nowadays, aim for an anodyne version of perfection that only a few can afford. The Camaro is for the rest of us—and it’s always ready to party.

If there’s one thing that my obsession with automotive history has taught me, it is to be very careful with declarations of the absolute. In the annals of any long-running nameplate, there seems to always be an odd one out, an exception, an often-forgotten footnote. That’s what makes the subject so rich and interesting, and that of Chevrolet’s pony car is no exception. In the spirit of our recent love letters to the departing Camaro, here are four unique Camaros that time forgot.

1968 Camaro CS Coupe Frua

A key element of the Camaro story is the development blitz that took place after the 1965 Ford Mustang’s success caught GM off balance. Still, none of that haste was apparent in the Camaro’s refined looks. Under the stern watch of the legendary Bill Mitchell, GM Design hardly put a foot wrong with its pony car. But Mitchell was dismissive of the first Camaro’s design due to the many compromises deemed necessary for cost reasons. We’d nevertheless argue that the original Camaro looked great even in basic trim, thanks to its crisp lines, perfectly judged proportions, and deftly modeled surfaces.

Most would conclude there was little room left for aesthetic improvement, but that didn’t stop the Italians from saying “Hold my Nebbiolo.”

Presented by the Turinese coachbuilder Pietro Frua at the 1968 Paris Motor Show, the Camaro CS Coupe was a sleek 2+2 that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Maserati showroom. But while Frua’s Camaro exuded an air of sophistication that belied its humble Chevrolet underpinnings, it was far from an original design.

You see, in those days, Italian design firms had no qualms about selling variations of the same design to multiple clients. Frua’s one-off Camaro CS Coupe is one of several cars sharing a common design theme that the coachbuilder made between 1967 and 1971. Notably, this group includes the 1967 Monteverdi 375 S, the 1969 AC 429 Coupé, and even a one-off in 1970 based on the Dodge Challenger.

1976 Camaro “Europo Hurst” Frua

Nearly two million second-gen Camaros were built over the model’s 12-year production run. (There will never be enough of these around if you ask me.) Contrary to the previous model, GM designers were given adequate time and significantly more leeway. In my view, it shows.

Particularly in its purest early incarnations, the second-generation Camaro stands out as one of General Motors’ finest designs this side of a Corvette. I would say that the second-gen Camaro’s design embodies the best of both worlds. Its overall shape, stance, and details drew heavily from period Ferraris, but the final result exuded the kind of bravado that only an American car can pull off.

Pietro Frua exhibited his own take on the second-gen Camaro at the 1976 Turin Motor Show. However, the Turinese coachbuilder left most of the donor car alone this time, save from a rather slick hatchback conversion. As we noted in 2020 ahead of its sale via RM Sotheby’s auction (just $31,900!), Frua’s slick version was not your daddy’s Camaro.

Integrating a large hatch door required a near-complete redesign of the Camaro’s rear end, which lost its curvaceous haunches. Nonetheless, the result is rather graceful and could easily pass for something built by GM itself. Another neat detail: the clever use of black paint to visually connect the donor car’s window profile with the new rear quarter windows. The same can’t be said for the redesigned front clip, though, which looks rather bland and generic.

This Camaro started life as a regular coupe but was treated to a Hurst T-top conversion after it arrived in the U.S. in early 1977. Later the same year, Frua repeated the trick on a Pontiac Firebird, which was displayed on his company’s stand at the Geneva Motor Show.

1985 Camaro GTZ Concept

A childhood spent watching Knight Rider reruns means that third-gen GM F-bodies will always hold a special place in my heart.

But, besides my tender years’ fascination with The Hoff’s talking Firebird, I consider the 1982–92 Camaro one of the few genuinely outstanding designs to come out from GM during Irv Rybicki’s tenure as Design VP.

Upon Bill Mitchell’s retirement in 1977, the GM top brass wanted a gentler, more malleable design vice president. They got their wish, but the tradeoff came at a tremendous price. As GM Design lost its edge, the cars got blander, and the differences between each division’s offerings became harder and harder to spot. The latter point was put in stark evidence in 1983 by Fortune magazine, with its infamous cover featuring GM’s four near-identical A-body intermediate sedans.

But that nadir proved to be the jolt GM’s management needed. Chuck Jordan, who would succeed Rybicki as design VP in 1986, spearheaded the creation of an awe-inspiring array of show cars to demonstrate GM wasn’t brain-dead after all.

The Camaro GTZ concept car was presented at the 1985 Chicago Auto Show. It was based on a production T-top coupe but sported redesigned front and rear ends whose smooth design didn’t quite gel with the donor car’s more angular middle section, which remained unaltered. Instead of the usual Chevy small-block V-8, under the Camaro GTZ’s clamshell hood sat a 4.3-liter V-6 rated at 240 hp and mated to a five-speed manual transmission.

Contrary to other more spectacular GM concept cars from the same era, the Camaro GTZ was quickly forgotten once its auto show run ended. It remained stored at the company’s Heritage Center until 2009, after GM’s bankruptcy, when it was auctioned off along with other vehicles from its collection.

1989 Camaro California IROC-Z

As the 1980s drew to a close, automobile design had completed its transition away from the folded-paper style of the ’70s and was heading fast toward the opposite end of the spectrum.

Earlier during the decade, the trend for smoother shapes had been primarily driven by the pursuit of aerodynamic efficiency. But by the time the Berlin Wall fell, that singular focus on aero began to fade in favor of a newfound playfulness. The inspiration came from nature, and the new trend became known as bio-design.

Created by GM’s advanced design studio in Newbury Park, the 1989 “California Camaro” perfectly epitomizes that period. As the aim was to “prepare” the public for the radical design of the upcoming fourth-gen Camaro, the California IROC-Z took the same design theme and cranked it up to eleven. With its short rear overhang, elongated prow, and large “butterfly” doors, it was as striking a vision of the future as any of the legendary Motorama show cars from the ’50s. GM Design had definitely gotten its mojo back.

Despite its less extreme proportions and a somewhat compromised stance, the fourth-gen Camaro launched in 1993 lost little of the California concept’s visual impact. It may not be everyone’s favorite Camaro, but it undoubtedly was the most daring one. It eschewed the classic long hood/short deck proportions in favor of a dramatic wedge profile with a steeply inclined windscreen and a scuttle stretching forward atop the engine.

That turned out not to be what buyers wanted. The more traditionally styled Ford Mustang consistently outsold the Camaro, so GM played it safe when it came time to reboot the nameplate after its 2002 demise.

It’s sad to see the Camaro ride into the sunset again. Still, I hope that whenever GM brings it back, it’ll return looking confidently toward the future rather than like an overblown caricature of its 1960s namesake.

***

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

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Napoleon once said, “Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.” Bear with me—this does relate to cars. Because, inevitably, some cars do just get forgotten, even ones that caused a splash when they were new. The 1953 Packard Caribbean was supposed to be America’s “smartest” and “most glamorous” sports car. Packard went bust only a few years later and most people today have never even heard of the Caribbean. Remember the AMC Rambler? Motor Trend gave it “Car of the Year” accolades in 1963. But if you were born after, say, the Carter administration, you’ve probably never seen one.

Obscurity, however, has never claimed the 1970 Chevelle. By any measure, this peak year for Chevrolet’s bread-and-butter muscle car remains one of the most popular automobiles in the hobby, across both budgets and different generations of enthusiasts.

You haven’t been able to drive a new Chevelle off the lot in 46 years. You haven’t been able to drive one of the fast ones off the lot in over half a century. Yet, by make/model, the Chevrolet Chevelle is the fourth-most-insured car on Hagerty policies. Narrowing it down further to year/make/model, the only Chevrolets more popular than the 1970 Chevelle are the 1967, ’68 and ’69 Camaros, and the ’57 Bel Air. That’s a lot of staying power for a 54-year-old car.

There have been plenty of headline-worthy Chevelles from over the years, but it’s no surprise that the 1970 model year cars are the standard bearers for the nameplate from collectibility and valuation perspectives. It was arguably the biggest year for muscle cars as a whole, and the Chevelle came refreshed and ready for a fight. Along with a dramatic restyle, GM finally lifted its self-imposed ban on engines larger than 400 cubic inches in intermediate cars. The monster 454-cubic inch Chevy engine became one of the biggest guns in the muscle car arms race (beaten in cubic inches only by the Oldsmobile, Pontiac, and Buick 455 engines), easily larger than the rival 426 Street Hemi or Boss 429, as well as the biggest mill Chevrolet ever threw into a passenger car.

Six years prior, the Chevelle started with more humble beginnings, but its trajectory toward muscle car greatness wouldn’t take long. After its launch in 1964 as Chevrolet’s entry into the burgeoning mid-size segment, the Chevelle slotted in between the smaller Chevy II and the full-size Impala. Almost immediately, increasingly more potent 283- and 327-cubic-inch V-8s found their way into the Chevelle’s high-performance Malibu SS trims. The Chevelle SS, available with the range-topping big-block 396, became its own distinct series for 1966, the year in which the model also got its first significant facelift. The fenders cut forward towards the headlights for a more aggressive, motion-implying front end, and the roof on coupe models swept back more gracefully. Most memorably, though, the fenders got rounder and bulged at each end for the “Coke bottle” styling that became all the rage in the second half of the ‘60s. A more substantial refresh gave the 1968 Chevelle all-new, even more sculpted bodywork as well as a shorter wheelbase.

This was further refined in 1970 with a squarer shape, bobbed front and rear ends, subtly-flared fenders, a more prominent grille, and new bumpers. SS models featured a body-colored bar bisecting the blacked-out grille and a domed hood. These more taut, cleaner lines might have been conservative compared to other muscle cars, but there was no question the Chevelle SS meant business. “We made our tough one even tougher,” the ads proclaimed.

But the copywriters were just as likely talking about the big bent-eights underneath the SS’s domed hood, and the beefed up options that came with them. While the still perfectly potent SS 396 stayed on in two different outputs, the big news for 1970 was option code Z15, aka the Chevelle SS 454. Ticking that $503 box added heavy-duty suspension, power front disc brakes, SS wheels, the 454-cu-in LS5 engine (which was also available in the Corvette) rated at 360 hp and 500 lb-ft of torque, and a standard Muncie M21 close-ratio four-speed transmission. An M22 four-speed or three-speed Turbo Hydramatic were also available.

An additional $263 got you the even hotter LS6 engine. A 454 with forged aluminum pistons, forged steel connecting rods and crankshaft, solid lifters, and 11.25:1 compression, the LS6 put 450 hp and 500 lb-ft of torque under your right foot. The one-two punch from these 454s was short-lived, though, as by 1972 the LS6 was canceled, and although the LS5 was still available (except in California), a drop in compression reduced power to 270 net hp.

Muscle car enthusiasts know the well-worn story of emissions legislation, unleaded gasoline mandates, and surging insurance premiums that bled the performance out of performance cars, with a noticeable impact beginning in 1971. Though performance was unbridled in ’70, demand for top-end muscle had already begun to wane—most sources point to fewer than 9000 SS 454s built for 1970, a fraction of the total ’70 Chevelle production that ran into the hundreds of thousands.

Today, though, the past is just context to better appreciate these cars in the flesh. I strolled up to this 1970 SS 454 Sport Coupe, currently listed for sale here on Hagerty Marketplace, and there’s no question that it looks the part. Whereas the scoops, decals, and colors of a GTO Judge or High Impact-painted Mopar embodied the era’s excess, the seriousness of the ’70 Chevelle’s design, especially in Tuxedo Black with broad white stripes, feels more timeless.

As with any muscle car, the option list goes a long way toward shaping a great cruiser, drag strip terror, or something in between. This example left the factory with the LS5 454/360hp engine, M22 “Rock Crusher” four-speed transmission, 3.31 Positraction rear axle, ZL2 cowl-induction hood, Soft-Ray tinted glass, power steering, heavy-duty battery, and pushbutton AM radio.

A $148 option, the cowl-induction hood subtly sets the car apart. Hood pins suggest that this is no ordinary Chevelle, and a vacuum-operated flap toward the cowl flap opens up at full throttle to feed extra cold air to the hungry Holley four-barrel underneath it.

Now, as the ads for this car say, “[t]he performance starts as soon as you’re seated.” The standard bench seat (buckets were available) in the SS puts you in a position few would call “Super Sporty,” but it is comfortable and offers a cool, commanding view of the subtle crease atop each front fender and the big dome in between them.

Of course, the loud parts beneath that dome are the star of the show, hinted at by each fender’s “454” badges but made perfectly clear when you twist the key. Even plodding along in traffic, the big-block growl coursing through the exhaust and rhythmic, urgent idle never let you forget you’re in an old muscle car thrust along by enormous pistons. The angry-sounding engine is the perfect complement to the car’s purposeful looks.

You might expect that implied brawn to present itself in the controls as well, but that’s not the case. The steering wheel is surprisingly thin and almost delicate-feeling, with little feedback and ample power assistance. It takes a decent amount of input before you see actually feel the car begin to turn. The clutch is also reasonably light, and though the beefy Hurst shifter reaching up from the floor does require long and deliberate throws, it doesn’t require much effort to operate.

Road testers in-period found that the LS5 Chevelle would hit 60 mph in around six seconds. Five decades on, the numbers might not be much to write home about, but there’s no questioning the Chevelle’s ability to deliver a visceral off-the-line experience. Mashing the throttle on 7.4 liters worth of carbureted V-8 feels like an occasion every single time. The Chevelle certainly feels quite fast, and it sounds even faster. I have no idea how much benefit the cowl-induction hood truly adds, but the little air-inhaling flap dares you to drop the hammer just for that added visual effect just ahead of the windshield. The more powerful LS6 was a tempting value when it was new and it proved a popular option, but at no point driving the LS5 did I think, “boy this is slow, it really needs a few dozen more horses.” It’s still a beast.

The Chevelle doesn’t stop as well as it goes, but that’s to be expected from a front-heavy 53-year-old big-block muscle car. The power front disc/rear drum combo in this one is perfectly adequate. So, somewhat surprisingly, is the handling. It doesn’t change direction like a sports car (nobody would ever expect it to), but it feels planted around a mild bend. Unlike many of the bigger and softer American cars from back then, it’s not just a boat that floats around corners. Compared to a 1967 Chevelle SS 396, it feels tighter, flatter, and faster, a bit like the older car on mild steroids.

When you settle things down and just cruise, the ride turns quite compliant and, loud exhaust notwithstanding, is quite comfortable. When Hot Rod tested an SS 454 in 1970 it called the Chevelle a “pleasant and very predictable road and highway car.” On the right road and in the right weather, that’s still plenty true in 2023, even if the 10-or-so mpg makes for frequent pit stops.

With body styles ranging from sunny day drop-tops to family wagons, a broad engine lineup that included sleepy straight-sixes and the ground-pounding LS6, and long list of trims and options, the Chevelle market can be overwhelming. Even narrowing the view down to just the peak year of 1970 doesn’t help all that much. Condition #2 (“excellent”) values in the Hagerty Price Guide range from $11,800 for a relatively pedestrian 307/200hp-powered Malibu sedan all the way up to $373,000 for an LS6 convertible. It’s the Super Sport models that top the wish lists of most enthusiast collectors, however, and there the picture gets a little clearer.

Being quintessential muscle cars, 1970 SS Chevelles were caught up in the muscle car boom that preceded the 2008 financial crisis, and were equally part of the bust that followed it. LS6s returned to their pre-recession values the quickest, but the other models weren’t too far behind. Today, the LS5, which is technically rarer than the LS6, is worth roughly half as much and arguably the better value. Prices range from $50,100 for a running but rough car in #4 condition to $112,000 for a concours-ready show car. Add about 15 percent for a four-speed over an automatic, and the usual muscle car rules about matching numbers and as much documentation as possible apply here.

When looking at buyer interest for 50-year-old cars, it tends to skew towards people who remember those cars when they were new or new-ish, like baby boomers or older Gen Xers. Not so with the second generation Chevelle. Despite wearing a badge that hasn’t graced a new car in well over 40 years, buyer interest largely mirrors the collector car market as a whole.

Given the huge range of values already mentioned, plus the absolutely enormous aftermarket support, parts availability, and knowledge base for these cars, there’s a Chevelle for every type of enthusiast. The SS 454s are just king of the hill when it comes to desirability.

In its 1970 road test, Hot Rod also proved prophetic about the Chevelle’s place in the future. “The past is gone. The future may never see a car like this…We savored every moment of this car, for the memory may have to last a long time.” It did indeed have to last a while, a couple of decades, even, but performance cars have long since caught up to and far exceeded the levels of the muscle car era. So while “glory is fleeting” rings true for this old car, what about “obscurity forever?” With the scores of people who buy, sell, race, and restore Chevelles, or just have fond memories in one, not yet. Not even close.

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To view the Hagerty Marketplace online auction listing for this 1970 SS 454 Sport Coupe click here.

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The post The last great big-block Chevelles won’t be forgotten appeared first on Hagerty Media.

With the Camaro nameplate retiring soon, we’re honoring the beloved two-door with a series of love letters, fun lists, and memories that you can follow here. Many performance cars, especially nowadays, aim for an anodyne version of perfection that only a few can afford. The Camaro is for the rest of us—and it’s always ready to party. Still, we can’t pretend the car we’re about to celebrate over the next week or so is perfect. That in mind, let down your hair and come with us for a deep dive into what, exactly, makes the fourth-gen Camaro so bitchin’.

It’s more or less common knowledge that the Ford Mustang nearly became a front-wheel-drive car in the 1990s, a diversion that ultimately produced the Probe. The Camaro had its own brush with front-drive around the same time, yet the program failed to meet weight, cost, and safety targets. This was pretty much standard operating procedure for General Motors at the time. The company posted its largest-ever loss at $23.5B, a hangover from years of binging on ill-considered technological cure-alls (plastic-bodied Saturns; automated factories where robots wound up spray-painting each other; Lotus).

Despite all that, a new rear-drive Camaro arrived for 1993, and it was a beast. GM had just put the finishing touches on the LT1, the most significant update to the small-block V-8 since its introduction in the 1950s. In the Camaro, it made 275 horsepower, a 30-hp bump compared with the outgoing car and a 40-hp advantage over the contemporary Mustang GT. It sat way back, the block tucked under the cowl of the windshield for better weight distribution. “It’s almost a mid-front-engine car,” said John Heinricy. (Try to remember that if you’re ever changing the rear spark plugs on one.)

It also had a sophisticated double wishbone front suspension, although getting it to production required a King Solomon–like choice: “The guy who was responsible for the financials said, ‘There’s just no way the program can afford to do a new front and an independent rear suspension,’” recalled Heinricy. “I said, ‘Let’s do the front and hopefully in a couple of years we can come in with a program to upgrade the rear.’”

That proved to be wishful thinking. Annual production at the outset was well over six figures but dropped to around 60,000 a year in the late 1990s. Those volumes for a sports car don’t sound particularly bad to modern ears. Yet GM had miscalculated. “We had configured Sainte-Thérèse [a factory in the suburbs of Montreal] to build two shifts of Camaro and Firebird,” remembered Scott Settlemire, who was product manager for the car in the late 1990s. “By ’96, we went down to one shift, and that’s when you lose stupid amounts of money.”

What went wrong? It’s tempting to point to the broader shift in consumer taste, and this was indeed the period when many would-be coupe buyers started finding their way into small SUVs. Yet as always for the Camaro, there is the inconvenient counter-factual of the Mustang, whose sales skewed upward during the decade. “It’s easy for an engineer to say this, but I blame marketing,” said Heinricy. “They just didn’t take the car seriously.”

The styling didn’t help. Baby boomers, in their millions, were entering midlife and beginning to look back, and much of the car industry was pivoting to indulge their nostalgia. Cars like the Mazda Miata and Dodge Viper winked at the past, and Volkswagen’s New Beetle, shown in concept form in 1995, gave it a full-on bear hug. And yet the wedge-like fourth-gen Camaro, largely the work of GM’s Advanced Studio in Warren with influences from young designers based in California, continued to gaze straight ahead. “Chuck Jordan [GM design chief from 1986 to 1992] was always looking at the horizon—creating the next big thing,” said John Cafaro, who led the studios that designed the Camaro and the Corvette.

By the time the Camaro got a mid-cycle update for 1998, rumors abounded that it was on death’s door. The car itself begged to differ. The all-new aluminum LS1 V-8, which had debuted in the C5 Corvette just a year earlier, brought horsepower unseen since the early 1970s. In the Z28, it put out 305 horsepower; SS models, fitted by after-marketer Street Legal Performance with a cold-air intake and freer-breathing exhaust, made 320 horsepower. It has become gospel in Camaro circles that these numbers were conservative. Heinricy denies underrating the cars but notes that little other than tuning software differentiates a Camaro’s LS1 from a Corvette’s. “It was a very simple thing for somebody in the aftermarket to do a calibration that brings that all to life.”

The car persisted and in its final years became profitable again, per Settlemire, thanks to higher take rates on those V-8s. Yet it ultimately met its demise due to banalities of crash standards. “There was a new head-impact standard that came on to the books on September 1, 2002, and in order for us to meet that, we would have had to severely pad the windshield opening,” Settlemire said. “And it’s kind of hard to see out of a windshield of a fourth gen, anyway.”

Just over 40,000 Camaros made it out of the factory that final year, less than a third of the production of the rival Mustang, which was strutting about with a new Bullitt package. The irony was not lost on the car’s internal champions. “Ford saw the Mustang as something really important… they decided to go after it and keep it going,” said Heinricy. “GM just didn’t feel that way about Camaros.”

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The post Fourth-Gen Camaro (1993–2002): The one that died first appeared first on Hagerty Media.

With the Camaro nameplate retiring soon, we’re honoring the beloved two-door with a series of love letters, fun lists, and memories that you can follow here. Many performance cars, especially nowadays, aim for an anodyne version of perfection that only a few can afford. The Camaro is for the rest of us—and it’s always ready to party. Still, we can’t pretend the car we’re about to celebrate over the next week or so is perfect. That in mind, let down your hair and come with us for a deep dive into what, exactly, makes the third-gen Camaro so bitchin’.

“For reasons that probably baffle those who witnessed the mullet’s first rodeo in the ’80s, the hairstyle has become an unlikely symbol of hot,” reported British GQ in March 2023. What better time, then, to reexamine the legacy of what might be the most misunderstood Camaro?

The third gen, produced from 1982 to 1992, is the one people are most likely to mock. It had the weakest engines, starting as low as 90 horsepower in base models; build quality ranged from suspect to depressing; and there’s the association with big hair and even bigger bravado.

Yet this Camaro might be the most ambitious and—wait for it—sophisticated of the bunch. Development commenced in the mid-1970s, the tail end of General Motors’ golden age. Despite nagging challenges from upstart imports and regulatory pressures, the company still commanded more than half of the American car market. Bill Mitchell and his acolytes still roamed the halls of the Warren Tech Center. “You could see that there was trouble ahead—the company was getting involved in front-wheel-drive cars they didn’t know how to do—but there were these pockets of great design,” recalled John Cafaro, who joined in 1977 as a designer for Chevrolet and retired in 2019 as the brand’s global design director. “One of them was the Pontiac Firebird studio, as well as the Camaro and Corvette studio.”

The ’82 Camaro, with its sharp creases and unadorned body panels, seemed to have as much in common with Giorgetto Giugiaro’s stylings of the period as they do the pony cars that preceded it. There was more than a hint of motorsport—Cafaro, who designed the Z28’s nose, drew inspiration from the slantnose Porsches that were dominating Daytona. It was a beautiful departure from the go-fast gimcrackery that had taken over performance cars in the late 1970s. Thanks in large part to its enormous glass hatch, it was more functional than any Camaro before or since—more than trivial given that 1980s car buyers used them to do things we now reserve for 2-ton crossovers. (The Camaro was also, in this era, the Chevrolet most likely to be purchased by a woman.)

The pressure to perform as an everyday commuter and the fuel crunches of the era left their mark on the car’s performance as well, and not entirely for worse. The third gen was nearly half a foot shorter than the car it replaced, not to mention lighter. To drive one even today is to be surprised by the sensitivity and the immediacy of its steering. “You really could embarrass the Corvettes in autocross if you wanted to,” remembered John Heinricy, who is probably best known for his role as director of GM’s performance division in the early 2000s. But in the 1980s, he was a production engineer for Chevrolet who spent his weekends racing F-bodies at events, including IMSA’s showroom-stock series of the period, the Firestone Firehawk Endurance Championship.

It was those extracurricular efforts that bequeathed the perfect track-day Camaro. In an effort to upgrade the brakes, which Heinricy deemed “marginal” for racing, he helped slip a racing package into showrooms under the then-unused RPO (Regular Production Option) code 1LE. It included brake rotors lifted off Caprice police cars, an aluminum driveshaft, a baffled gas tank, and a suspension so stiff that Heinricy personally spoke with each customer to ensure they knew what they were getting into. “We really wanted the cars to race. We didn’t want them just to be bought as a street driver.”

The Ford fans will note that we’ve so far avoided talking about engines. Indeed, they stank, at least initially. A corporate decision to cap displacement at 305 cubic inches, as well as fumbling experiments with throttle-body injection (a half-measure between carburetion and full-on fuel injection), meant the Z28 limped out of the gate with 165 horsepower. It needed close to 10 seconds to hit 60 mph. The base car, with its Pontiac-sourced Iron Duke four-cylinder, needed double that.

Those numbers, ignominious as they are, rapidly improved. By 1985, the top dog (now called an IROC-Z, a nod to Chevrolet’s participation in the International Race of Champions) could be had with a fuel-injected, 215-hp, 305-cubic-inch V-8. Two years later, the 350-cubic-inch small-block returned with 245 horsepower. Yet those anemic early ’80s cars, produced in the hundreds of thousands, left a bad taste in many enthusiasts’ mouths. The fact that a great deal of the survivors today look ready for a role in The Walking Dead doesn’t help.

Amid a wave of nostalgia for 1980s icons, including but not limited to mullets, these Camaros are at last on the rise. A third gen in perfect condition and the right specification—that is, a later IROC with a fuel-injected engine—can bring more than $40,000.

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The post Third-Gen Camaro (1982–92): The one that’s misunderstood appeared first on Hagerty Media.

With the Camaro nameplate retiring soon, we’re honoring the beloved two-door with a series of love letters, fun lists, and memories you can follow along with here. Many performance cars, especially nowadays, aim for an anodyne version of perfection that only a few can afford. The Camaro is for the rest of us—and it’s always ready to party. Still, we can’t pretend the car we’re about to celebrate over the next week or so is perfect. That in mind, let down your hair and come with us for a deep dive into what, exactly, makes the second-gen Camaro so bitchin’.

In drag racing, first gear gets you off the line, but second gear wins the race, and everything can come down to how well you execute the shift. By 1970, after just three short model years of the original Camaro, GM was ready to reach for the shifter.

Sketching of the second gen began in 1966, right after the design work wrapped on the first Camaro. This time, Chevy Studio 3 chief Henry Haga and his counterpart at Pontiac, Bill Porter, were determined not to let family-car proportions hamper their work. The second gen was a clean break, with almost no design elements carrying over from the original. Haga’s team drew the cowl so low that GM engineering pushed back, grousing that there was no way to package the car’s heater, air conditioner, radio, and glove compartment within such a compressed space.

According to Chevy historian Michael Lamm, styling chief Bill Mitchell—a full-fledged GM vice president—was called in to settle things. Mitchell backed up his designers, holding that a low cowl was essential to the car’s sporty character and that it shouldn’t rise even a fraction of an inch. The gen-two Camaro thus became the designer’s Camaro.

The 1970 ½ Camaro, so-called because its arrival was delayed by labor unrest, was proportioned to look dramatically lower, longer, and sleeker, with a slipstream roofline and a much sexier stretch from the dash to the front axle, known as the dash-to-axle ratio. This despite the wheelbase and overall construction, a semi-unitized steel architecture with a bolt-on front subframe, remaining conceptually unchanged from the first gen.

For the face, inspiration came from the then-new 1968 Jaguar XJ6 making the auto show rounds, with its prominent rectangular grille bracketed by faired-in headlights and driving lights. A decision to do away with a quarter-window supposedly saved GM $18 per car, money plowed into better cabin insulation including a double-wall roof. However, besides hampering rear visibility, no quarter-window meant excessively long doors, which were better for accessing the rear seats but made a shimmy job out of exiting a Camaro parked in a garage or between cars.

A decision to give Pontiac almost entirely separate sheetmetal for the Firebird, including slightly different doors, likely killed the convertible as well as a proposed two-door wagon. Tooling up such niche spinoffs for both Chevy and Pontiac was deemed prohibitively expensive, so the F-body for the 1970s arrived as a hardtop coupe only, with T-tops arriving as an option in 1978.

Performance, as well as design, was a calling card—at least at first. Hot engines included a 360-hp small-block V-8 and a 396-cubic-inch V-8 with 375 horsepower. At least one equipped with the Chevelle’s famed LS6 454-cubic-inch V-8 roamed GM’s proving grounds.

The “designer’s Camaro” arrived just as sales in the segment were tanking. Inflation was raging, OPEC was rampaging, and GM was facing mounting costs for meeting new safety and emissions regulations. In its first year, the second gen sold barely 50 percent of what the ’69 had sold. A devastating six-month UAW strike at the Camaro’s Norwood, Ohio, plant in 1972 prompted GM to consider killing the F-body outright. Production was halted so long that 1100 partially assembled Camaros and Firebirds collecting dust in the plant had to be scrapped because their 1972 bumpers no longer met 1973 safety standards.

However, the car had friends in high places within GM and ducked the ax. The second-gen carried the Camaro flag on for an astounding 11 years even as competitors ballooned in size and then drastically shrank (Mustang) or disappeared altogether (AMX, Challenger, etc.). Indeed, the F-body survived long enough for the 1977 blockbuster Smokey and the Bandit to inject new life into the segment; the 272,000 sales of the aging 1978 Camaro beat that of any year of the first gen as well as finally—finally!—swamping that of the Mustang.

As in drag racing, the Camaro launched in first, but it won in second.

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The post Second-Gen Camaro (1970–81): The one that had class appeared first on Hagerty Media.

With the Camaro nameplate retiring soon, we’re honoring the beloved two-door with a series of love letters, fun lists, and memories over the next several weeks. You can follow along by clicking here.

My first and only Camaro set me back $312 a month when I could hardly spare it. Finished in fetching pewter paint with black hood stripes, the 1973 Z/28 shot an arrow through my frontal lobe, the part of the brain that’s supposed to control our impulses. When I saw the car in the fall of 2008, my wife and I had recently finished revamping our old house and welcomed our third kid into the family. The bank account hovered near zero, I’d just started a new job, and crisis in the nation’s economy was becoming more dire by the day.

You’d have to be a fool, given the circumstances, to finance a 25-year-old pony car, right? Well, this fool convinced himself that the $22,000 Chevy wasn’t a toy—it was an investment.

About a year later, the lust fog cleared enough for me to realize that the more I used the car—in pristine condition, with only 24,000 miles on the odo—the more likely it would depreciate. All while I was making monthly payments, with interest. Investment? Please.

I sold it, lost only a couple of grand, and was hugely relieved. Yet I was sad to see the Camaro go, and I wish I still had it today.

I’ve always had a soft spot for the Camaro, probably from the IROC models that were everywhere during my high school days in New Jersey’s big-hair era. When we learned earlier this year that Chevy would once again end production of its pony car, we knew we had to send it off into the history books with a comprehensive look at all six generations. It’s also the cover story of the November/December 2023 issue of Hagerty Drivers Club magazine.

The celebration begins at this link, which you can return to regularly as we celebrate the Camaro with more articles in the coming weeks. Make sure to check back often to read the latest stories. If you want a more tangible experience, join the Hagerty Drivers Club and enjoy our fantastic print magazine that arrives in your mailbox every other month, along with roadside assistance, full access to the Hagerty valuation tools, and more. Never stop driving!

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

The post To Camaro, with love appeared first on Hagerty Media.

With the Camaro nameplate retiring soon, we’re honoring the beloved two-door with a series of love letters, fun lists, and memories over the next several weeks. You can follow along by clicking here.

Let’s not pretend the car we’re about to celebrate over the next week or so is perfect. In fact, the Camaro has always been flawed and beset with contradictions. It’s a sporty car, sometimes a very capable one, and yet many built over the decades had humble four- and six-cylinder engines and spent their lives as workaday commuters. It’s built by America’s largest automaker but is the consummate underdog, always playing catch-up with its crosstown rival, the Mustang, and scrapping for development dollars with its big brother, the Corvette.

The Camaro has, for most of its existence, lived in the crosshairs of the suits, who sent it into cold storage in 2002 and are doing so again at the end of this year. (Don’t think for a second, though, that it won’t be back.) To be even more blunt: The T-tops often leaked, the doors were usually too heavy, and the view out was almost always obstructed.

No matter, we love Camaros—have owned them, wrenched on them, and generally gotten up to no good in them. Judging by Hagerty data, you feel the same: It’s the fourth most popular car we insure. Our affection has a lot to do with all those “problems.” Many performance cars, especially nowadays, aim for an anodyne version of perfection that only a few can afford. The Camaro is for the rest of us—and it’s always ready to party. That in mind, let down your hair and come with us for a deep dive into what, exactly, makes the Camaro so bitchin’. We start at the beginning…

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First Generation (1967–69)

The one that picked a fight

It was the worst kept secret in Detroit in the summer of 1966. Ever since the arrival of the spectacularly successful Ford Mustang two years earlier, all eyes had turned to Chevrolet and its expected counterattack. Word had gone around that the Bowtie’s answer, the so-called F-car, would be about the same size and price as the Mustang and that it would be christened the Panther. Ford even ginned up a mocking TV ad in which a feline panther unsuccessfully chased a Ford Mustang, and Ford PR reps would quip to any reporter who would listen that Chevy’s blatant knockoff should really be called the Parrot.

On Tuesday, June 28, 1966, newly promoted GM vice president and Chevrolet general manager Elliot Marantette “Pete” Estes made the official announcement from Detroit’s Statler-Hilton hotel over a coast-to-coast conference call with 200 reporters gathered in 14 cities. Backed up by a boisterous squad of Michigan State University cheerleaders, Estes triumphantly announced that Chevy’s new Mustang-beater, due in showrooms that September, would be called—well, uh, it sounded something like “ka-MAIR-oh.”

The Los Angeles Times reported that “a 30-member press gathering at the Beverly Hilton reacted to Estes’ announcement of the name with silence.” To the north, the San Francisco Examiner stated that journalists’ first reaction there was, “‘He must be kidding.’ The name sort of stirs the imagination as much as a wet noodle.”

Estes said that he settled on Camaro only that morning at 10 o’clock, because it both upheld Chevy’s C-centric naming convention—Corvair, Corvette, Chevelle, Chevy II—and in colloquial French loosely translates as “comrade,” (“…a word that also has its connotations,” said a smirking New Hampshire paper).

“We chose a name which, besides being lyrical and new, also reflects the purpose of the car. The real mission of the auto is to be a close companion of its owner, tailored to his or her individual tastes,” said Estes. Some observers also suggested that GM’s recent smackdown in the Ribicoff traffic-safety hearings that grew out of Ralph Nader’s 1965 book, Unsafe at Any Speed, and GM’s hiring of private investigators to discredit Nader had scared GM away from aggressive names that “subtly encourage speed by exciting images of power and violence,” according to one columnist at the time.

So, comrade Camaro it was, although bewildered French speakers said they had never heard the word before, and the entire English-speaking world had to be trained on how to pronounce it. “CA-maro,” and not “caMARo” or “camaRO.” Ford PR reps chortled—again, to anyone who would listen—that a Spanish word very much like it refers to a type of shrimp.

They had every reason for swagger. In just two years, Ford had pumped out more than a million Mustangs, saving the mid-1960s from being an otherwise dreary period for Detroit of repeated factory strikes, encroaching foreign competition, and soft sales. Additionally, the Mustang proved that there was a huge untapped market for what the industry called “specialty cars.” “When you have a winner, you have to expect competition,” mused Ford Division general manager Don Frey, who at the time lived across the street from Estes. “Imitation continues to be the sincerest form of flattery.”

Contrary to expectations that were elevated by the fiberglass-bodied Corvette and the rear-engine Corvair—as well as the front-drive ’66 Olds Toronado and the over-head-cam Pontiacs—there would be nothing very radical about the all-steel, rear-drive 1967 Camaro save for the hideaway headlights that disappeared behind motorized panels in the grille of RS editions. Chevy was aiming hard for a circa-$2400 base price, considered critical to effectively challenging the Mustang, and it would not be deterred by any of the techno-wizardry then pouring forth from GM R&D.

According to Chevy historian Michael Lamm, GM’s See-the-USA division committed to building a Mustang competitor as early as August 1964. It was a rush job on a shoestring, a sporty car to be grafted onto the bones of the Chevy II/Nova sedan (as was the Mustang an offspring of the Falcon). Bill Mitchell, who in 1958 succeeded Harley Earl as GM’s design chief, oversaw the styling of that first Camaro, code-named XP-836 and executed in Chevrolet Studio 2 at GM’s Technical Center in Warren, Michigan, where it was assigned to division stylist Henry Haga.

From the earliest clays, the Camaro’s shape departed from that of the straight-edged Mustang, brooming aside the midcentury-modern convention of flat fender lines and slab sides in favor of rounded haunches and a sloping nose and tail, pulling in elements of both the Corvette and Corvair. As with other sporty cars of the era, the ’67 Camaro’s front and rear fender lines swelled upward to peaks directly above the top of the wheel arches before tapering off. That little trick, called “Coke-bottle styling,” had made period designs from the Ford GT40 to the Lamborghini Miura to the ’68 Dodge Charger look good.

Although the Camaro’s 108.0-inch wheelbase was identical to the Mustang’s, its sedan underpinnings—including the high cowl and conservative dash-to-axle ratio—meant the first-gen Camaro would never be as long, low, or sexy as designers would have liked. Modern collectors might strenuously disagree with him, but Mitchell was a bigger fan of the second-gen 1970 Camaro, saying later that the ’67 was the hasty product of a committee.

Unlike the fully unitized Mustang, which had a frame welded to its body, GM engineers designed the Camaro around a semi-unitized concept, meaning everything forward of the firewall was supported by a bolt-on frame while everything aft of that was, as on the Mustang, integrated with the body. That engineering decision was unwittingly a gift to future restorers and customizers, who could easily swap out the Camaro’s front subframe for a new one or, in more recent years, an all-aluminum pro-touring setup.

Toying with many ideas, including a two-seat roadster and a two-door Nomad-style wagon, Chevrolet eventually settled on two straightforward body styles, a notchback coupe and a convertible, available with six-cylinder or V-8 and various trim levels. People had admired the look of fastbacks since they went mainstream in the late 1930s, but they almost universally plunked their money down on cars with protruding trunks. The 1966 Mustang notchback outsold the fastback by a rate of 14 to 1. The first Dodge Charger in 1966 was a daring fastback—and a colossal failure. The only real exception was the Barracuda, which Plymouth broadened in 1967 with a notchback to join the existing fastback and convertible. The Cuda fastback held its own, selling about the same as the notchback—though all of Barracuda’s sales in 1967 didn’t add up to two months’ worth of Mustang sales. Chevy was aiming higher, and it didn’t want the distraction of a fastback.

Ultimately, however, the first Camaro couldn’t beat Mustang in the showroom. Chevy’s two plants in Norwood, Ohio, and Van Nuys, California, churned out around 221,000 units in ’67, rising to 243,000 in 1969, when even a fading Mustang sold almost 300,000 units. But as the turbulent 1960s drew to a close, GM was undaunted; the Camaro and its sister car, the Firebird, were established enough in three short years to be worthy of a complete reinvention for the next decade.

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Alan Poster, much to his chagrin (and astonishment), has already received more than his 15 minutes of fame, all because his new 1968 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray convertible was stolen less than three months after he bought it.

Actually, the theft of the Corvette wasn’t what made Poster famous; it was the return of that stolen Corvette that made him famous. That’s because the car was gone for 37 years before it was miraculously returned to him.

Now, more than five decades after Poster first saw that C3 in a New York dealership and spent pretty much every cent he had on it, he’s saying goodbye to the car once again. Willingly, this time.

“It’s a crazy story,” Poster says of the Corvette’s wild journey, “… a really crazy story.”

It was January 1969, and the 26-year-old guitar salesman was fighting the winter blues. Fresh off a divorce, the Brooklyn native took solace in driving his blue Corvette ragtop, even on snow-covered roads. Although The New York Times later reported that Poster purchased the C3 to ease the pain of his breakup, Poster says he bought it before his divorce. The sports car, based on Larry Shinoda’s radical Mako Shark concept, rolled off the assembly line on July 16, 1968 and was shipped to a Chevrolet dealer in Great Neck, on Long Island. Poster, perhaps already mourning the demise of his personal relationship—or maybe expediting it—was enthralled with the Corvette and shelled out about $6000 for it. That would be $55,320 today.

“I got the Corvette in the divorce,” he says now, “and she got everything else.”

Poster told The Times in 2006 that it was a financial stretch to buy his dream car. “I didn’t have a lot of money. I went out on a limb to get this thing. It was an egocentric muscle car that just came out. Back then, Corvette was hot as heck. [Owning one] was an absolute fantasy of mine.”

Poster lived in Queens at the time and drove the Vette fast whenever he could. He also liked to impress women with it. In fact, on the night before the car was stolen, he was picking up a date and returned to the car just in time to thwart an attempted theft. “People were yelling, ‘Kill him!’ but I let the guy go,” Poster says. “I actually started laughing. I thought that was a little severe.”

As it turned out, he had only postponed the inevitable.

The following night, when Poster went to pick up the Corvette at a parking garage, the attendant returned and said it was gone. Poster reported it stolen on January 22, 1969. Just three weeks into the new year, his C3 was the 6620th automobile swiped in New York in 1969. By year’s end, that number had risen to 78,000.

Poster never received an insurance settlement for the Vette because he didn’t have the money to insure it. “I was heartbroken,” he says. “It was a big wake-up call. I never thought I’d see it again.”

As the years passed, the odds of recovering the car grew. Poster moved to California and settled in Petaluma, just north of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. In 1976, he founded Ace Products Group, which makes gear for musicians—things like bags, cases, cables, stands, adapters, and connectors. His business became a huge global success, and it allowed him to travel around the world “a hundred times,” he says. It also afforded Poster a yellow 1974 Corvette. “I was still trying to live my dream,” he admits. He eventually sold the car and moved on.

Then, nearly four decades after his 1968 Corvette convertible was swiped in New York, Poster received a phone call from the New York Police Department, saying his car had been located. He thought the call was a prank.

It wasn’t. Somehow, Poster’s Corvette had mysteriously followed him to California. Although he hadn’t insured it way back when, the theft had been reported to the National Insurance Crime Bureau, which maintains a database of stolen vehicles. Before an automobile can be shipped out of the country, U.S. Customs routinely runs the VIN through that database. On December 7, 2005, as three classic cars were about to be shipped to Sweden, Customs got a hit: One of the cars, a ’68 Corvette, was flagged as stolen in New York on January 22, 1969. There was no other information—no name, no address, not even a record of the police bureau where the theft had been reported.

Contacted by the California Highway Patrol, the NYPD suddenly had a lot of work to do, and they had to do it quickly. If the owner wasn’t found by January 1, the Corvette would be released to its Swedish buyer.

As The Times explained in 2006, Cliff Bieder and William Heiser, two detectives in the auto crimes division in Queens, were assigned the case. “It was the equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack,” Heiser said at the time. After four days of meticulously searching through microfilm, “Our eyes were hurting,” Bieder said. Then, on December 23, Heiser scored. “I thought [my partner] was going to pass out.”

Locating Poster didn’t take very long; the two detectives spoke to the buyer of Poster’s last house, who said he had moved to California. They soon found Poster through his company, and on Christmas Eve, Bieder called him at his office.

“He said, ‘You had a car stolen in ’69? A Corvette? We have your car,’” Poster explains. “I thought, ‘This is a scam, a cruel joke.’ They had to convince me that it was true.”

The CHP picked up Poster and drove him to see the Corvette for himself. The media, which had been alerted ahead of time, was waiting for him to arrive.

“It was really something,” Poster says. “When I got out of the police car, there were cameras everywhere. It seemed like 40 or 50 people were asking questions. It was insane. I thought, ‘I’m not built for this.’ In retrospect it was fun, but going through it was not.”

The story was on TV, radio, and in newspapers all over the country, and Poster was inundated with calls and emails for weeks. “The woman that I’d taken on that blind date the night before it was stolen, she called me. I got a call from an old girlfriend that I hadn’t seen in years. I even got a proposal, but I had no interest in that,” Poster says with a laugh.

“My accountant was in Brazil at the time, and he saw my picture on the front of a newspaper there and he thought, ‘Oh, oh. What did he do?’ It was a big deal. That story was everywhere. It was crazy for a while. One day I thought, ‘I don’t want to be famous anymore.’”

Poster initially had big dreams for the car, but it never materialized. “I drove it only once after I got it back,” he laments. “It had been painted silver before it was returned to me, and the interior had been changed to red, so I had it repainted blue like it was (Le Mans Blue Poly 976, to be exact, over a blue interior). I tried to rekindle my excitement for it, but it felt different—that was another life. I was going to take it to shows and tell the story, but it never happened. Everything had changed. Looking back, I should have done something with it; I regret that I didn’t. It was big news.”

Even comedian Jerry Lewis saw the story, and he wanted the car. “His people contacted me and offered me a hundred grand for it,” Poster says. “I told them ‘Nah, I’m going to have fun with it.’”

He didn’t. Instead, the car sat for years. Several months ago, Poster decided to bring the Corvette up to snuff so he could sell it, and he enlisted the help of Nathan Stratton, who assisted him in selling a 1988 Mercedes-Benz 560SL years earlier. They refreshed it cosmetically and mechanically, but most importantly they installed an original (but not the original) 327-cubic-inch V-8 engine, since the one with which the Corvette was born had been swapped out somewhere along the line.

“We did our best to make it look like it did before it was stolen,” Poster says, “and I think it does.”

The car’s odometer shows 60,000 miles, but most of those were driven by strangers. The New York Post reported at the time that there were three prior owners of the Corvette dating to 2001, including the person shipping it to Sweden, but since those people apparently had no idea the car was hot, they were not charged. The thief who stole the C3 in January 1969 has never been identified.

Poster’s Corvette will soon be offered on BringATrailer.com, and since a ’68 Corvette Stingray convertible in #2 (Excellent) condition has an average value of $53,700, he will finally get his $6000 back. But that isn’t the reason he has decided to part with it.

“I just turned 80 … 80! I can’t believe that,” Poster says with a laugh. “My life is a lot different now than it was back then. I live on a houseboat in Sausalito—the SS Maggie (built in 1889), which I bought four years ago. I didn’t used to believe in ghosts, but I do now. That thing (the houseboat) is haunted. Plus, I have an apartment in New York. I own a Range Rover. I’m in a different place.

“You know, I’m just so grateful. A lot of great things have happened to me, including getting the Corvette back. Now it’s time for it to go to someone else.”

This time around, however, if Poster wants to check on his old flame from time to time, he’ll know where to find it.

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Everybody loves a bargain, whether it’s happy hour beers at your local, BOGO at the book store, or a two-fer at your favorite online retailer. Heck, in some jurisdictions, Black Friday has somehow turned into the entire month of November. In this economy, you’ll hear few complaints.

There are deals to be found throughout the classic car market as well, and, lucky for us, that includes the performance realm occupied by America’s Sports Car. Despite a few eye-watering results in 2023, like the $3.14M record price RM Sotheby’s achieved in January for a 1969 ZL-1 convertible, Corvettes have always represented good value for money. After digging into the data from our most recent update to the Hagerty Price Guide, we’ve determined that these seven Corvettes—one from each generation, excluding today’s C8—are the cheapest examples you can buy right now. Unsurprisingly, they hover around base-model territory, but a Corvette is a Corvette, and it’s almost impossible to go wrong.

For this exercise, we’re focusing on examples in #2 condition (Excellent), which means they drive like new and might even win you a trophy at a regional car show. If there’s someone on your “Nice List” this holiday season, now might be the perfect time to shop.

C1 (1953–62)

1956 Convertible

The 1956 Corvette represented a complete overhaul from the models that preceded it, the most notable difference being those gorgeous side coves sometimes set off by two-tone paint. Following the V-8’s introduction in 1955, three different 265-cid V-8 configurations were offered in ’56, with outputs of 210, 225, and 240 horsepower. The penny saver here is the base car, breathing through a four-barrel carb and putting its adequate power to the back wheels through a three-speed manual transmission. Following a modest rise in prices that began with the onset of the pandemic, prices peaked around April 2022 before settling back to pre-pandemic levels. Today, a car in #2 shape sells for about $70,500. Figure around $60,000 if it’s equipped with the Powerglide automatic.

C2 (1963–67)

1964 Convertible

Chevy’s 1963 redesign of the Corvette gave us a coupe for the first time, and what a coupe it was; the one-year-only Split-Window Corvette is rightly regarded as one of the most beautiful cars to ever hit the road. The rest of the Corvettes in second-gen lineup were no slouches, either. Open or closed, you can’t go wrong. Take the ’64 327/250 convertible, for instance. In this configuration, with the optional four-speed manual and single Carter four-barrel, it’s sitting at about $64,000, and closer to $51,000 if equipped with the base three-speed manual. It’ll never be a match—on the street or the auction block—for its hi-po 327/375 fuelie counterpart ($89,400 for a #2), but you’ll hardly care when you’re buying million-dollar looks for Silverado money.

C3 (1968–82)

1976 Coupe

The swoopy, pointy, sexy “Shark” Corvette hit the streets in 1968, and though it would trade its chrome bumpers for even more fantastic plastic by 1974, the basic shape soldiered on into the early ’80s, by which point more than 542,000 had been produced—roughly equal to total production of C1, C2, and C4 Corvettes combined. While few enthusiasts would ever accuse a ’76 Corvette of being potent, a nicely kept 180-hp L48 coupe is a joy to own. They also take us into affordable, sub-$20K territory, with an average sale price of $19,500. That may seem cheap, and prices appear to be leveling off as we end the year, but keep in mind these cars have gained nearly 64 percent in value since 2018, which means that if the best time to buy one was five years ago, then certainly the second-best time is today.

C4 (1984–96)

1986 Coupe

When it arrived, the fourth-gen Corvette was a revelation in every way, a world-class performer underpinned by an all-new chassis, with a funky digital dash to rival the finest Texas Instruments calculator in the land. After debuting with 205 hp, base cars quickly got a bump to 230, and for 1986, a convertible model returned to the lineup following an 11-year absence. It’s the ’86 coupe we’re interested in, however, and at around $17,900, it’s the cheapest Corvette of them all. But for how long? The five-year trajectory on these cars has seen them gain 50 percent, and they’re still headed up.

C5 (1997–2004)

1997 Coupe

Until mid-2021, fifth-gen Corvettes represented one of the best bang-for-buck ratios in the performance-car world. Today, at an average #2 price of $26,400, they’ve gained the attention of collectors, but they’re still a solid deal. And with 345 horses on tap from that terrific LS1 V-8, a near 50/50 weight balance, and 30 mpg possible on the highway, there is little this Corvette can’t do. The ’97 model year was coupe-only, and the automatic transmission was standard, so these days it generally means a 10 percent discount. If you prefer two pedals, it’s a good way to save yourself some dough. If you prefer the wind in your hair, however, maybe consider our next pick.

C6 (2005–13)

2005 Convertible

Prices have cooled in 2023 on all but the very best ’05 Corvettes. Thankfully, a #2 condition car is not the very best, so a convertible at $32,000 is a stellar deal. Especially when you consider the 400-hp LS2 lugging it around. In fact, the kind of performance this car delivers for the price is almost unfair; an ’05 Porsche 911 convertible in similar fettle will set you back $55K, for example. There’s no intermediate shaft bearing issue to fret over in the Corvette, either. Win-win.

C7 (2014–19)

2014 Stingray Coupe

Before Chevy made the dramatic switch to a mid-engine layout for the C8 Corvette, the seventh-gen car gave enthusiasts everything they could want from a front engine/rear-drive layout. The car featured a 455-hp LT1 V-8 mated to an all-new seven-speed manual gearbox that offered rev-matching, a carbon fiber hood and removable roof panels, plus a more premium interior (finally!) and a full suite of gizmos designed for coddling and convenience. We don’t currently feature these in the Hagerty Price Guide, but you can get yourself into one for around $48,600, and when compared to some of the very latest, very snoozy new-car offerings, why wouldn’t you?

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The story of the GM10 platform, also known the W-body, is a tragedy on par with that of Macbeth, a tale intertwined with the larger issue Scotland’s moral order. Is the car platform underneath the 1980s Buick Regal so significant? Many would disagree, but consider the staggering sum of of dollars in play; since the start of development work on the GM10 in 1982, a mind-numbing seven billion dollars was thrown at the project. At the same time, it lacked a dedicated team for leveraging the General’s deep reserves of staff and resources, and the dream of engineering a world-beating mid-sized platform was dashed by strategic missteps. Pontiac’s Chief engineer Robert Dorn was the platform’s project manager, and he struggled for clout in a post-1984 corporate landscape that shook GM up like a smoothie.

Part of CEO Roger Smith’s initiative was to organize GM into separate business divisions. Dorn worked under the new CPC (Chevrolet-Pontiac-Canada) division, but his job was to make a mid-size vehicle that would assert GM’s dominance for every brand (except Cadillac). It was a tall order to match market dominance forged from years of success with the A-bodies we know and love (Cutlass, Chevelle, etc.). Plus, global threats were now on the horizon: Toyota was gaining ground with the third-generation Camry, Accords were corruptingly good, and America was downright bullish on Ford’s Taurus. Even worse, Dorn was up against the rest of GM’s new front-wheel drive platforms. The W-body had internal enemies in the A-body, L-Body, and the N-body at one time or another in its long lifecycle.

While the sedans pictured above were introduced in 1990, the GM10 coupes had a two-year head start. This was strategic misstep number one: failing to identify the degree to which markets were disinterested in big coupes like this. To borrow a term from drag racing, this wasn’t a hole-shot launch, and model year 1988 ended with a depressing figure of 100 + days of inventory on dealer’s lots. Yikes.

According to Rude Awakening by Maryann Keller, this misfire led to “temporary plant closures to reduce the surplus dealer inventories.” The sedans, once they arrived, didn’t fare significantly better. They lacked key selling points such as Chrysler-worthy airbags, Honda-like engines, or Toyota levels of customer satisfaction. The competition was collectively reinventing how American families hit the highways, while GM was still struggling with relevancy after the 1984 reorganization.

Honda, Toyota, and Ford subsequently feasted on the carcass of GM’s former market dominance, whose share dropped precipitously in the 1980s. The GM10’s subsequent redesign (part of that multi-billion dollar investment) was a mixed bag: more conventional rear suspension (note the transverse leaf spring design in the Lumina photo above) but also more milquetoast styling. The predicament changed little, as Ford dominated the value/fleet side of this market with the Taurus, while Honda Accord/Toyota Camry were the standard-bearers for premium family sedans.

We’ve finally arrived at Buick, which was responsible for building the most prestigious car on the GM10 platform: the Regal. Its sights were set higher than the V-6 Taurus or a four-banger Honda. The Regal Coupe may have initially faltered in 1988, but the sedan came with larger engines (3.1 and 3.8-liters) and the top-spec Gran Sport looked like a modern take on what made the original A-body Skylark GS so special during the muscle car era. With big alloy wheels and a firm suspension, the W-body Regal had the hardware to be a modern grand tourer. However, let’s recall what the folks at Motorweek thought about it:

Oh dear. You know there’s trouble afoot when John Davis says “don’t blame them, the GM10 Regal design was finalized before the current Buick brass came to power,” within the first two minutes of the road test. It’s a generous way to suggest that other automakers were making superior cars in the same (or lesser) competitive set, but I question the review’s real-world effectiveness. How many PBS watchers snickered, turned off the TV, and looked elsewhere for their next mid-luxury family sedan?

Those who didn’t grab the remote for their Magnavox might have ultimately appreciated the Regal GS’ luxurious interior and futuristic dashboard, something we’d see eventually in modern luxury EVs. (With touchscreens, of course, instead of recessed black trim.) The CD player, much like its trucky GMT400 cousin, is mounted far away from the rest of the audio controls. The dual-mode HVAC was ahead of its time, as was the cupholder located in the center console. But the lack of airbags was a dealbreaker for many, even with the Regal GS’ respectable thrust and competent handling. The price was on point, compared to other luxury brands in the segment, but conquest sales would in the end prove difficult.

Buick’s overall sales dropped on the regular as the GM10 transitioned into the ubiquitous W-body, and it’s still a bit hard to believe that we can thank sales in China for keeping the brand afloat during General Motor’s bankruptcy. (China is still a big market for Buick today.) But that was twenty years after the GM10’s introduction in a sea of globalized competitors hungry for their market share. And it was forty years after “the good old days” of General Motor’s market dominance: that idyllic time when products from Japan and China would be laughed out of darn near every American household. Time can be a cruel mistress, and the launch of the GM10 is evidence of the auto giant’s failure to appreciate just how much times had changed. Though it was in many ways a solid-performing mid-sizer, one of time’s victims, in the end, was the ’91 Buick Regal Gran Sport.

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In the early 1990s, things looked grim for the large family sedan. The minivan was rapidly gaining territory as the American family hauler of choice, chomping away at a space once utterly dominated by the big-bodied automobile. As the Big Three sought to adapt to changing market tastes, little thought (and money) was granted to the platforms that underpinned four-door, big-motored vehicles with bench seating for six and trunks for another few. They realized that smart money might drag aging platforms into another decade of service, even if it would potentially be their last.

But before the big sedan’s curtain fell, General Motors sought to give its aging B-body platform, which had just been redesigned in 1991, one last shot of sizzle. At the 1992 Detroit auto show, The General debuted the Impala SS concept, resurrecting a name that had been dormant for more than 20 years. The brainchild of designer Jon Moss, the Impala SS concept boasted blacked-out bodywork, big-block V-8 power, and a menacing stance. It was an immediate hit, so much so that GM opted to greenlight production of such a beast.

By the time the Impala SS reached production lines in 1994, the car’s formula had been softened quite a bit. Gone was the 510-cubic-inch big-block; in its place, a detuned version of the 350-cubic-inch LT1 V-8 found in the contemporary C4 Corvette. Though the LT1 lacked the punch of a big-block, it still produced 260 hp and 330 lb-ft of torque, figures good enough to propel the two-ton bruiser to 60 mph from a standstill in around 7 seconds.

Blessedly, the river-stone-smooth bodywork, which was essentially cribbed wholesale from the slow-selling Caprice and treated to heaps of black paint, remained. Underneath that bodywork was a chassis that remained virtually unchanged since it’s inception in 1977 for the third-generation Caprice. To match the performance of the LT1, the Impala SS scored the 9C1 police car package which provided an upgraded and lowered suspension, a high-capacity cooling system, dual exhaust, a transmission cooler, and larger disc brakes for the rear. A limited-slip differential was also fitted, as were gorgeous 17-inch cast aluminum wheels.

The overall proposition of the Impala SS struck a dying, perhaps dormant chord with American buyers. When production ended just three years later in 1996, more than 69,000 units had found their way onto our highways and byways.

Five-figure-production runs do not a rare sleeper muscle car make, but this 1995 example, currently offered on Hagerty Marketplace, boasts a little something extra under the hood that will help it stand out: The car’s LT1 V-8 has worshipped at the altar of Lingenfelter, a storied name in the world of aftermarket GM performance. It now boasts a displacement of 383 cu-in and a handful of other upgrades that juice output to a claimed 440 horsepower.

Other drivetrain upgrades include a Tremec T56 six-speed manual transmission in place of the 4L60E automatic, 4.10 rear gears, a two-stage clutch, a Borla stainless steel exhaust, and more. When this car was cataloged for Hagerty Marketplace, its odometer showed just 54,445 miles.

It’s a well-equipped example elsewhere too, boasting convenience features such as a power antenna, leather seating surfaces, a PASS-Key II theft-deterrent system, an adjustable steering column, a power trunk opener, and much more. The only stated imperfections, according to the listing, are a bit of peeling clearcoat on the roof, hood, C-pillar, and driver’s-side doors.

To many, the Impala SS marked the end of an era in automotive history. If you’re into those “last-of-their-kind” vehicles, this example is a blue-chip piece. Add in the extra helping of power and that sweet six-speed, and this might just be the perfect rendition of a sleeper muscle car. The auction comes to an end on Monday, November 20 at 3:30 p.m. ET, giving you a few days to get your ducks in a row before you toss a bid or two into the fray.

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Be you a rural or an urban dweller in these United States, it’s a safe bet there’s a Chinese restaurant not too far away from where you live. While Chopstick Diplomacy played a part in the success of these dining establishments, the migration of people into the U.S. on merchant visas is the most likely reason for the prevalence of these restaurants. Their rise created a large number of delicious entrees with Chinese influences, and some of us quite love how the cuisine has percolated into American society over the last century.

Be it next to a rural truck stop or a wallet-draining experience at Caesars Palace, Chinese food is here in America to stay. The same could be said about Chinese car design. From bold color palettes to huge in-car entertainment screens and thoughtful exterior contouring, car design from China is making a mark on par with the Hofmeister kink and Sacco planks invented by Germany all those decades ago. Case in point is the 2024 Chevrolet Traverse—specifically, the dorsal fin over its rear wheels. As you will shortly see, this is Chinese takeout at its finest.

But first, a little about the Traverse’s dorsal fin. It has an upward thrusting motion into a glass panel, making the rear end look far less static than that of your average family hauler, with its uninspiring A, B, C, and D pillars. I don’t care for Chevrolet’s application of the fin: It feels like an afterthought, a visual cue added without regard for the frame of the vent window on the rear door. That vent window kills the flow of the glass above the fin. It feels like a part of a cost-conscious, mid-cycle refresh, even though the 2024 Traverse is significantly different than the model of the previous year. (Chevy even messed with the DLO to add DLO FAIL to the A-pillar. How great is that?)

I expect the intended buyer of the 2024 Traverse to love all the changes. But where did the dorsal fin C-pillar design come from originally? I did my best to go back in time, and I learned that the fin originated on a car that came from China in the year 2019. But that car’s fin wasn’t cosmetic like the Traverse’s; this one had purpose. The dorsal fin allowed for a smaller quarter window and, in addition, visually forced your eye to pay no attention to the opening roof above it. Until the roof actually opened.

Meet the HiPhi X and Y, made by Chinese tech company Human Horizons. While the HiPhi Y doesn’t have the dorsal fin, it’s clear that a little upkick in the sheetmetal above the rear wheel—that, or gullwing roof doors—signifies a HiPhi product. Impressive branding for any automaker, much less a young one.

Clearly the folks at Human Horizons had Tesla’s design successes on their minds, taking the insane “falcon wings” from the 2015 Tesla Model X to the next level: instead of a huge rear door, which is painfully complex and somewhat unreliable, the HiPhi X and Y use a conventional door that hinges at the rear. The glass then rolls into the door and lets the roof lift along with the quarter window, like the hatch on a hatchback.

The arrangement is crazy but logical: HiPhi implemented something on the side that’s been scienced out (so to speak) by the likes of Land Rover at the rear. The dorsal fin below the roof’s hatch is just a big, pointy arrow forcing your eyes to notice the show right above it. And what a show that is!

Suggesting that the HiPhi X is a clever piece of design is akin to calling Mr. Chow just another Chinese restaurant. (Unfamiliar with that establishment? Keep reading.) And this automotive flight of fancy actually made production, likely spurring fits of jealousy in design studios owned by more traditional, more risk-averse automotive manufacturers. While the use case is questionable, the HiPhi is aimed at the frivolity of the luxury SUV market, not the white-collar audience of the Chevy Traverse. And for that reason, the HiPhi is a smashing success.

At least in theory, because some customers will be leery, citing the complexity and unreliability of the Tesla falcon doors. Odds are the HiPhi’s door/hatch combination will be significantly more durable, and the dorsal fin below isn’t corny like the Model X’s dance show. The door/hatch accomplishes the same thing (i.e. makes it easy to install baby seats, etc.) but does so with understatement and long-term functionality. But like any other design element since the advent of the chrome grille, once one company does the fin, everyone else will follow.

The HiPhi X’s radical door arrangement lends itself logically to a dorsal fin below a floating C-pillar. Too bad none of the rolling tributes made after its 2019 introduction had the nerve to include an actual door above the fin.

I’d wager this dorsal fin helped convince many a suburban family hauler to buy the new Kia Carnival minivan over a traditional SUV, even without a roof door allowing kids to trampoline their way out of it. The fin will likely serve the Volvo EM90 multi-purpose vehicle in the same manner, especially in Volvo’s home market of Sweden China. China is indeed a safe space for minivan appeal, but it’s also a place where car design can flourish.

That flourishing extends to more than cheap subcompacts and affordable EVs. China’s rise to power in the last 20-ish years has elevated automotive design for everyone, not unlike how Chinese food been showcased as a culinary art thanks in part to a gentleman named Mr. Chow.

I can’t remember exactly how much I spent at Mr. Chow’s establishment in Las Vegas: remembering such details means you didn’t have enough fun in America’s city of sin. But I remember the theatrics, the dynamic artwork, the exquisite food and cocktails, and the company I kept. And that’s precisely what you should feel when experiencing anything designed with purpose, when the owner/company of said organization throws as much money at the design as they darn well please. Aside from cars like the dreamy Lucid, we rarely see this level of purpose in American car design. And that’s a shame.

But money for a flourishing design scene comes at a cost, as cheap labor has downsides, and cheaper cars mean safety isn’t always built into Chinese designs. But the HiPhi X wasn’t intended just for China, and it passed all necessary safety tests for retailing in the European market. It’s only a matter of time before HiPhis infiltrate everyone’s social media feed…

… If they haven’t already. You know, just like General Tso’s chicken on menus from East to West coast.

***

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There’s an argument to be made that the hearts and minds of pickup truck buyers, when it comes to electrification, will be won not in consumer driveways, but in the fleet business, where battery power truly makes sense.

Consumer truck buyers are showing some resistance to giving up their gas and diesel pickups, but for fleet administrators all that matters is the bottom line, and being able to plug in your pickups instead of filling up the fuel tanks may be too good of an opportunity to pass up.

Ford has done well with its Lightning fleet pickup, and General Motors is hoping to prove the electric Silverado four-wheel-drive work truck, or 4WT, will follow suit.

Specs: 2024 Chevrolet Silverado EV Work Truck

• Price: $77,905/$80,345 Base/as tested
• Powertrain: Dual motors, one front, one rear
• Output: 510 hp and 615 lb-ft of torque
• Layout: Four-wheel-drive, four-door, five-passenger full-size pickup truck
• 0-60 mph: Six seconds (estimate)
• EPA Fuel Economy equivalent: 67 MPGe city, 59 highway, 63 combined
• Competition: Ford F-150 Lightning, Rivian R1T, Ram 1500 REV

We got a drive in a Silverado EV 4WT, and we see no reason why it won’t be a success, so long as the initial price ($77,905 base, $80,345 as tested) doesn’t get in the way. That said, this truck was reasonably well-equipped, more of a supervisor’s pickup than a daily workhorse, as your crew doesn’t really need adaptive cruise control or Sirius/XM radio. The only option was a $545 spray-in bedliner. Still, it’s a lot of money for a manual driver’s seat and rubber floor mats.

If you want truly deluxe, you can opt for the RST model, which will top $105,000 and serve up a whopping 754 horsepower and 785 lb-ft of torque.

This 4WT has 510 horsepower and 615 lb-ft of torque, with a 10,000-pound towing capacity. Range on a full charge, we were told, is a startling 450 miles.

On the road, the 4WT rides very smoothly, a testament to a well-thought-out four-wheel independent suspension and the fact that it isn’t a conventional body-on-frame design. It’s quiet, too. Acceleration from a standing start is a bit leisurely, due more to the truck’s weight—about 8500 pounds—than a lack of muscle. Handling is good, but you can’t disguise that much weight when cornering. The turning circle is very tight.

The 24-module Ultium battery pack features public DC fast charging capabilities of up to 350kW, enabling approximately 100 miles of range to be added in 10 minutes based on GM estimates. The EPA listing says that a full charge can be had in 12.7 hours with a 240-volt system.

No engine means there’s a large frunk, almost 11 cubic feet, up front and a nearly six-foot bed at the rear that can haul 1440 pounds of cargo. Flip-up rear seat bottoms also reveal a big hidden cargo container.

Our truck was Summit White with a Jet Black interior. It was a handsome vehicle, with a Chevy Avalanche-like profile and gloss black-painted 18-inch aluminum wheels with all-season tires.

When combined with the available accessory power bar, the Silverado EV’s PowerBase charging system offers up to 10 outlets, to provide a total of 10.2 kW of power for worksite or recreational needs, including powering a home or office with 120- and 240-volt power.

Chevrolet says that after the initial launch, they will offer customers “the ability to content the truck across various price ranges, with MSRPs starting from $50,000, $60,000, $70,000, $80,000 and more, allowing them to choose the truck that meets their capability and pricing needs.”

Sounds good. But if you want to be the first supervisor on the job site with a 4WT, expect to pay a premium price.

2024 Chevrolet Silverado EV 4WT

Highs: Impressive range, plenty of usable space and features that should make work easier. Target market feels right for the moment.

Lows: Not cheap—at least to begin with. Predictable EV heft is hard to hide.

Takeaway: A respectable first salvo in what’s going to become a hotly contested—and vital—segment.

***

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Cute, isn’t it?

This 1961 Chevrolet Corvair pickup represents an unusual chapter in automaking history, when Chevrolet, Ford, and Dodge offered “flat-faced,” cab-forward vans, and modified them into light-duty pickup trucks, a formula made popular by Volkswagen. This example is offered on Hagerty Marketplace.

This pickup’s formal name is the Chevrolet Corvair 95, so named because of the very short 95-inch wheelbase (the wheelbase of a modern Honda Civic wheelbase is a foot longer). This made the Corvair 95 maneuverable and easy to park, and the bed allowed for a lot of cargo room.

This Rampside version, built from 1961 through 1965, is so named because of a fold-down ramp on the passenger side, making the loading of motorbikes, karts, or lawn equipment (the Corvair 95 was popular with landscapers) simple and easy. There’s even a rubberized edge at the top so the paint doesn’t get scuffed. The Rampside was also popular with West Coast surfers, who could just place their boards in back and head for the ocean. There’s a rear tailgate too, of course.

The engine is a rear-mounted flat-six-cylinder displacing 145 cubic inches. It has 80 horsepower and 128 lb-ft of torque, and is listed as having the Corvair 95’s “beefed-up” engine “with more durable exhaust valves, exhaust valve rotators, lowered compression, and carburetors with larger jets for cargo-transporting duties.” It’s air-cooled, and you can see the vents in the rear quarters.

There’s 80 cubic feet of load space. Payload capacity is a healthy 1900 pounds.

The transmission was typically a three-speed, but this example has the more coveted four-speed manual transmission, operated via a floor-mounted shifter.

Inside, the 1961 Corvair 95 is pretty bare-bones, with a vinyl-covered bench seat. Aftermarket accessories include a steering column–mounted tachometer, and a dash-mounted Kenwood stereo. The big two-spoke steering wheel is nearly horizontal, like a bus driver’s, to make ingress and egress easier. Mileage shown is just over 75,000, but it isn’t known whether or not that’s correct.

Baby-moon hubcaps and thin whitewall tires complete the period look. Many Corvair 95s were two-toned, but this one is refinished in a single blue color with a matching dashboard. It wears chrome bumpers front and rear.

It’s a bit unusual to find a classic that is willing and able to work for its keep, but this Corvair 95 is. It’s available on Hagerty Marketplace, with closing bids due Tuesday, November 7, at 3:50 p.m.

***

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I recently sold my 29,000-mile 2008 Chevy Silverado 3500HD dually Duramax diesel (a.k.a., the sort-of formerly mouse-infested truck). Like most automotive moves. I thought it through very carefully. It was not an easy decision.

I had a long and curious history with the truck. It was my former work vehicle when I used to do field geophysics (detection of unexploded shells on old military training ranges). The company I worked for bought it new in 2008 and spec’d it to tow a 32-foot trailer containing a geophysical survey system (a small Gator-like UTV that towed what looked like a carbon fiber boat trailer loaded of metal detectors and high-resolution GPS). We ordered the truck with a utility body on it to house tools and parts and provide a work space if need be. As I was the one who designed the geophysical equipment and kept it running, I needed to be in the field with it. Initially we had a guy with a commercial driver’s license (CDL) who drove the truck for us, but I eventually took the helm. I was never able to do the block-traffic-and-back-up-to-the-loading-dock-in-one-try thing, but then again I never needed to. Nearly all the driving was interstates and very rural areas.

Unfortunately, the bulk of the geophysical work went away by 2013, leaving the truck with only 22,000 miles on it. The company closed the big building I worked in and relocated my group to much smaller industrial space. We parked the truck and trailer in the parking lot, but it turned out the landlord didn’t have permits needed from the city for overnight parking of commercial vehicles. This kicked off a repeating annual cycle of my needing to find new digs for the truck and trailer, then getting kicked out of it when the landlord needed the lot space. Around that time, the company I worked for split in two, its paperwork was never transferred to the half of the company the truck actually belonged to, and I was the only one who paid attention to its annual insurance, registration, and inspection needs.

In the meantime, my work load at my old engineering job spiraled down to near nothing. I left in 2015 and became a full-time automotive writer but remained a consulting employee and had an unofficial quid pro quo with them regarding the truck. I kept it legal for them by taking it in for its annual Massachusetts inspections and renewing its registration. In return, they let me use it for occasional errand-running, such as moving my kids into and out of college and hauling cars, as these uses also helped keep the truck exercised. I sometimes emptied the 32-foot trailer of geophysical equipment and strapped a car inside, but it was way more trailer than I wanted to be towing, and I usually opted for renting a U-Haul auto transporter (open trailer) instead.

When there was only one employee left in the small industrial space, the company closed it and liquidated the equipment inside. Since the truck and trailer were parked elsewhere, they were spared the liquidation axe. The truck, incredibly, had only 28,000 miles on it. However, it had been sitting at the edge of a parking lot that backed onto a wooded area, and by that time, mice had gotten into it and done a lot of damage, infesting the headliner and the heater box.

Knowing the large amount of work necessary to abate the gag-inducing smell, I sent the company photographs of the rodent damage and made them an insultingly-low offer for the truck. The combination of the fact that I appeared to be the only one left who knew exactly what the truck was, the old paperwork snafu over which part of the company owned it, and the 100-percent-accurate photos of the mouse damage worked to my favor. It took a few months, but eventually I was the owner of a running, driving, rust-free, dent-free, 28,000-mile 2008 Silverado 3500HD dually Duramax diesel with a utility body for a practically-stole-it price. Except, of course, for the fact that it smelled like that episode of Mythbusters where they put a dead pig in a Corvette and left it in a cargo trailer for six months to see if anyone would still buy it.

I wrote several pieces about the abatement of the mouse damage. Serious trigger warning: I don’t recommend that you click on any of the following links unless you have a strong stomach. The first piece was on the purchase of the truck and the overview of the rodent problem. The second dealt specifically with replacing the headliner (I found a used headliner at a junkyard in Woonsocket Rhode Island, about 45 minutes south of me for $150,  drove there in my little Winnebago Rialta RV, and picked it up).

The third piece detailed my efforts at cleaning out the contaminated heater box without taking the quoted 20 hours needed to pull the dash to get at it. Instead, I bought another heater box to use as a test mule, figured out where to drill inspection and cleaning holes, snaked in an inspection camera, and located and removed the nest and mouse carcass. This was never going to be as complete a decontamination as would be achieved with the box removed and disassembled, but with repeated flushing with enzyme-based cleaner, occasional running of an ozone generator, and lots of fresh air and sun, the smell abated to the point where my wife—she of the exquisitely sensitive nose—would ride with me with the windows up and the A/C on. The heat was a big more fragrant, but it was easily tolerable.

With the bouquet of the abattoir largely gone, and with the truck’s original dry-rotted tires replaced with a not-inexpensive set of Michelin LTX Defenders, I was a man with a big bad and presumably highly-reliable truck. Naturally I assumed that I’d become a towing madman, dragging home any number of sweet, new, hunted-and-killed automotive prizes. At a minimum, I knew that my long-time storage of five cars in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, was ending, and that I’d need to move them to a new home, possibly in winter.

Make no mistake, it was incredibly handy owning a truck like this. Some friends dissed the utility body, but when it was pouring rain and I needed to move my niece into her new apartment, it was fabulous. During the period when my sister and I were cleaning out our mother’s house prior to its sale, the truck was in near-constant use. My sister would say, “Ariana wants the sofa and chairs, and Elena wants the swing set,” and my sons and I and the truck would make it happen. Plus, the body’s shelves and cabinets swallowed multitudes of car parts given to me by estates of deceased motorheads.

But with regard to the truck being an enabler to me buying and dragging home every stupid car that caught my eye, it just didn’t turn out like I expected. There were a few reasons why.

Understand that, in addition to having access to the Silverado before I bought it, I’ve owned six Suburbans, so I’m familiar with both the flexibility and limitations of owning a vehicle you can tow a car with. I’ve generally followed the framework that, on the short-haul end, buying a long-dead car with flat tires and seized wheels 10 miles away is usually worth throwing a hundred bucks to someone on Craigslist moonlighting with their employer’s roll-back flatbed, and on the long-haul end, it’s hard to make the economics of towing a car a thousand miles work, but for a running vehicle a few hours from home, sure, rent the U-Haul auto transporter for 60 bucks, show up, drive the car onto it, and drag it back. But the problem is that a) U-Haul is sometimes sold out of auto transporters the weekend you need one, and b) the logistics of going to U-Haul, waiting in line, hooking the thing up, then having to off-load the car and return the trailer by the end of the day adds a surprising number of hours to the exercise, enough that one begins to think that, unless they can own a truck and a trailer (for which I simply don’t have the room), the car-towing utility of the truck alone is less than you’d think.

In the two-and-a-half years since I bought the truck, I’ve used it exactly three times to tow cars. And none of those were new purchases. Two were moving my own cars between storage areas. The other was taking delivery of a widow’s car that I was helping her sell.

But even if I did suddenly increase my use of the truck to buy cars, the dually Duramax would still be massive overkill. This is the kind of truck you use to tow a ramp trailer with six cars on it. I have no need for a tow monster like this. I could do occasional short-run towing with just about anything.

A few other things factored into my thought process. One was that, despite my history with the truck, I didn’t really enjoy driving it. I often say that part of the joy of owning a vintage car is simply using it to run errands—it turns the mundane into an event. The truck was the opposite. If I needed to run out on a Sunday morning to buy milk and the truck was at the top of the driveway and I took it, I’d think, “This is a completely ridiculous vehicle to be driving.” Between its length, its horrible turning radius, and the extra width and poor visibility imparted by the utility body, it certainly wasn’t the vehicle of choice for parallel parking or tight parking lots.

Another was that, although its oodles of ground clearance provided ample access when I needed to replace its stolen catalytic converter, in general the truck’s size and weight was daunting to this guy whose soft spot is 1500- to 3000-pound 1970s European cars. I didn’t own a floor jack that I felt safe using to lift it, and even if I did, thinking about dealing with the torque on the lug nuts and the size and the weight of the wheels felt like stretching what my 65-year-old body could comfortably do. I realized that, when the time came for pads and rotors or front-end work, I’d probably need to pay someone else. I’d be happy to do that if there was a good reason for me to own the vehicle, but the more I thought about it, there wasn’t.

Lastly, despite the truck’s low mileage potentially buying me trouble-free towing, there was the specter that if and when it needed work on the injection pump or the injectors replaced, I’d cry.

So I thought about it carefully. With the sale of my mother’s house, the truck’s window of usefulness had passed. If my wife and I resurrected our desire to find a car-centric property out in the country, the truck would again be a godsend. Was that more likely or less likely to happen within the next year? The answer seemed to be the latter.

As far as value, when I bought the 28,000-mile 2008 Diesel Emission Fluid (DEF)-free Silverado with the utility body during the pandemic, I had folks telling me that supply chain issues made it so you couldn’t buy a new truck like this if you wanted to, so if I could make the mouse smell livable, it was worth crazy money. I’d only put a thousand miles on it, and between the purchase price, Massachusetts taxes and fees, the new Michelins, the lift pump, and some other odds and ends, I only had seven grand in it.

So I cleaned it, shot it, wrote up a highly-detailed ad documenting the low mileage and fully disclosing the rodent history, and put the truck on eBay with a $25,000 opening price, a $37,500 Buy It Now price, and a $32,500 reserve. I linked to the eBay ad on both Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist. I had no bids and only a handful of interested messages. I began to think that if I had to sell it for less than $25K, I’d just keep it until it needed work.

But then I was contacted by a local guy up in Gloucester, Massachusetts, who owns a concrete and gravel company and has two other Duramax diesel work trucks. He was the kind of buyer you just wanted to hug—messaged in complete sentences, showed up exactly when he said he would, followed through on every part of the process with great communication. When he test-drove it, we rolled up the windows and turned on the A/C, then the heat. I nervously awaited the odor verdict. He shrugged and said, “Smells like every other work truck I’ve ever owned.” A few days later he offered me 30 grand for it. I realized I’d be out of my tree not to take it. The deal is done.

The truck is still in my driveway, but money and papers have been exchanged. The buyer is coming this weekend to drive it off to a life of real labor. Maybe it’ll love that. Or maybe it’ll think, “Remember that guy who rescued us and de-moused us and then just left us alone in his driveway most of the time? That was awesome.”

We’ll see whether or not I buy something better suited to my habits. For now, the little Winnebago Rialta RV has enough interior room to move things, provided they’ll fit through the narrow side door, but it has zero towing capability.

I’ll miss the truck, but what I’ll miss more is the idea that I could use it whenever I needed it. I think I may have liked that part even more before I actually owned it.

***

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

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Specialty Vehicle Engineering (SVE), the current caretaker of the Yenko trademark, is not letting Chevrolet’s lovable Camaro go quietly into the night. Following a handful of Yenko Camaros built in years prior, the company just announced three versions of the 2024 Camaro: one with 1150 hp, another with 1200, and a range-topping model that offers a whopping 1500 ponies—provided you’ve filled the tank with Sunoco 260GT race gas.

Camaro loyalists know the Yenko name thanks to Don Yenko, the hero who, in 1967, installed Chevrolet’s 427-inch big-block V-8 into the Camaro—an engine Chevy did not offer in that model. Even today, cars with Yenko badges are found on muscle cars (or the occasional SUV) packing outlandish power.

Each of the Yenko/SC Camaros built by SVE starts as an SS 1LE, a one-stop factory-built shop for all of the performance goodies in the Camaro catalog combined with Chevy’s workhorse 6.2-liter LT1 V-8. Given this foundation, all three SVE models (or “stages”) get magnetic ride control, track-tuned suspension, and coolers for oil, transmission, and differential, plus an electronic limited-slip diff and Recaro performance seats.

For stages I and II, SVE pulled the 6.2-liter LT1, upped its displacement to 6.8 liters (416 cubic inches), and slapped a supercharger atop it. Other upgrades include a forged steel crankshaft, H-beam rods, forged aluminum pistons, ported high-flow LT4 heads, upgraded fuel system, ARP head and main studs, and a larger throttle body. Once reinstalled in a Camaro, that beastly powerplant exhales through a custom stainless steel exhaust. Final power figures, on 93 octane: Stage 1 will bring you 1150 hp and 910 lb-ft of torque. Stage II gets you 1200 hp and 1000 lb-ft. Stage I is offered exclusively with the Camaro’s 10-speed automatic, while Stage II gets the six-speed manual as its sole gearbox choice.

The kingmaker in this group, however, is the Yenko/SC stage III, which takes things up quite a few notches. Whereas stages I and II make do with an uprated version of the LT1, the stage III ditches that engine entirely. Instead, it cribs the iron-block 6.6-liter V-8 found in GM’s heavy-duty pickups. From there, SVE goes to town: Displacement is increased to 7.0 liters, that magic 427 cubic-inch displacement figure you’ll remember from Yenkos of old.

Along with a supercharger, that forged steel crank, forged aluminum pistons, and more, the stage III car gets I-beam rods, an upgraded valvetrain, a revised induction system to suck in more air, and a variable boost control system. All that to keep 1500 hp and 1350 lb-ft of torque in check. (Again, provided you’re on race gas. Figures will be slightly lower on 93 octane.)

Stage III will also be offered exclusively with a six-speed manual, though the gearbox receives a high-capacity triple-disc clutch system and a lightened flywheel to mitigate some of the abuse taken by the Tremec ‘box. (That clutch and flywheel package can also be optioned onto the stage II car.)

These cars will be easy to identify thanks to a host of exterior and interior flourishes. On the outside: A body-color carbon-fiber hood will feature an exposed hood scoop and the YSC (Yenko Super Car, stylized sYc) logo; Yenko crest badges for the grille, fenders, and the rear panel; and a cowl badge denoting your car’s peak output, rendered either in chrome and red or gloss black and red. You can take it a step further by springing for the side stripe graphics that will adorn the hood and bodyside fenders, available in 10 stock colors, or your own tone for an added cost.

The stage III car gets a high-wing rear spoiler, and all stages receive lightweight forged wheels and Nitto race rubber.

Inside, you’ll enjoy special Yenko/SC doorsill plates, sYc embroidered headrests, Yenko floormats, a special crest with peak output and the car’s build number.

SVE plans to build 50 editions each of stages I and II and 100 of the stage III cars. They’ll be available exclusively through GM dealers in Canada and the United States. We’ve reached out to SVE for pricing information and will update this story when we hear back.

If you’re living in California, bad news: These menacing machines are not emissions-legal in the Golden State, and can only be used in sanctioned motorsports events there. Everywhere else, have at it.

Would you take one of SVE’s Yenko/SC Camaros over the just announced 1000-hp Hennessey Exorcist “Final Edition” Camaros? Let us know in the comments below.

***

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Spy Photographers have captured images of what appears to be a C8 Corvette ZR1 development mule undergoing dynamic testing at the Nürburgring Nordschliefe in Eifel, Germany.

Holy wing, batman.

The ZR1 will be the gnarliest C8 yet, wilder than either the razor-sharp Z06 or the future-focused hybrid Corvette E-Ray. The photographers claim that the ZR1 was testing two different rear wing configurations, but we only see one in this gallery. That said, we did see another ZR1 mule earlier this year that definitely has a smaller wing on it, so we’ll roll with their claim.

There’s precedent for two different wings. The C7 ZR1 offered two different aero packages—the base one and a much more aggressive ZTK package which was capable of producing 1000 lbs of downforce. Expect a similarly bonkers number for the wilder of the two packages on the C8 ZR1, assuming that we will get two variants. Heck, there might even be active aero, a-la the Porsche 911 GT3 RS.

Aside from the rear wing, there are a few other bodywork tweaks that stick out. First, those vents on the hood: The ZR1 will, predictably, build huge amounts of heat from any number of high-performance engineering components. Those openings are likely heat extractors to help manage temps on the front brakes, or perhaps as an exit for the air flowing over one of the ZR1’s many, many heat exchangers.

Second: There are two little vents just behind the main intake channels on the sides of the car. We’ll speculate here: The ZR1 is expected to use an upgraded, twin-turbo variant of the LT6 DOHC V-8 engine that powers the Z06. In the ZR1, it’s rumored that this engine will be called the LT7 and could pump out nearly 800–850 hp. Perhaps those openings are separate intakes directly ramming air into the turbos? Maybe they’re new channels to blast ambient air onto the dual-clutch automatic transmission that’s going to be banging off gear shifts at a frantic pace? Cooling ducts for the rear brakes, which look extremely large? Whatever they’re for, we dig ’em.

As far as shoes go, the mule seen here has some ridiculously wide rear wheels, likely necessary to cope with all the power that this beast is going to be putting down. The fronts aren’t exactly svelte either, and the sticky rubber that’s sure to come standard here should make for exceptionally deft handling traits. (GM engineers are kind of wizards when it comes to that stuff.)

It’s unlikely that we’ll see any sort of hybridization in the ZR1—that honor will likely be reserved for the Zora, an even wilder version of the C8 that’s supposedly also in the works. If that’s true, the C8 ZR1 could be the final pure-ICE Corvette ever, a milestone that will certainly carry weight with collectors and enthusiasts down the road.

If the thing drives as menacing as it looks, it might be time for tracks everywhere to dust off those lap record boards. The new king of the Corvettes is coming.

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We’re still about three weeks away from Movemeber, when millions of men fill out their upper lips or beards, partly to raise awareness of men’s health issues and partly for fun. Turn the clock back about 40 years, however, and every month was mustache month. Not just for Tom Selleck and Freddie Mercury, but for guys all over the United States. And quite often, that lip foliage peered out above the steering wheel of a Monte Carlo SS.

Despite the glitz and glamour implied by its name, a Monte Carlo has always been more at home in Missouri than in Monaco, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t cool. Built on GM’s rear-drive mid-size G-body platform—which also included the Buick Regal, Chevy El Camino, Olds Cutlass, and Pontiac Grand Prix—it’s a sporty-looking but not exactly fast piece of “mustache muscle” that can be had on a budget. Surprisingly, though, that budget is a lot higher than it was just a few short years ago.

The first, coke-bottle-styled Monte Carlos arrived in 1970, and by 1981 the Monte Carlo was already in its fourth generation. It was smaller and lighter, but also roomier than the Montes of the ’70s. Although a short-lived Monte Carlo Turbo model offered boosted Buick V-6 power, and despite the Monte Carlo making a lengthy go of it in NASCAR, a more serious performance model was conspicuously absent from the roster. Performance was coming back into the coupe market, however, particularly with the launch of the Fox-body Mustang in 1979 and the all-new Chevrolet Camaro/Pontiac Firebird in 1982. For 1983, the Monte Carlo caught up when Chevrolet gave it a mild facelift and added an SS option to the lineup. It was the first Monte Carlo SS since 1971.

Buyers could choose between white or dark blue, while a small trunk spoiler, big decals, and Rally wheels let people know you spent the extra coin for an SS. Under the subtly muscular body was a Quadrajet-carbureted 305 cubic-inch small-block with aluminum intake, column shift three-speed automatic, F41 suspension, Goodyear Eagle GT rubber, and an open diff. The price was a little over $10K, and options like power windows and cruise control pushed it to about $12K.

For the 1983 cars, the 305 small-block managed 175 horsepower and 225 lb-ft of torque. Not a tire-shredder, then, but this was 1983, and those numbers were still enough to have fun with in-period. The 1984 Monte Carlo SS brought a five-horse gain and an optional limited-slip differential, while 1985 brought even bigger improvements. While the engine didn’t change, a TH200-4R 4-speed automatic and 3.73:1 rear axle made for livelier shifting and driving than the old 3.42-geared three-speed. New, optional bucket seats and floor shift gave a racier feel than the standard bench seat and column shifter, while optional T-tops let your facial hair dance in the breeze. Silver, black, white, and maroon encompassed the revised exterior color palette while gray or maroon cloth were the interior choices.

For 1986, new five-spoke alloy wheels arrived along with different graphics and a third brake light, while the only other major change over the SS’s 1983–88 production run was the Aerocoupe.

Built for 1986 and ’87 only, it followed the same aero-driven formula of NASCAR legends of the previous generation like the Dodge Daytona, Plymouth Superbird, and Ford Torino Talladega. Built to homologate a more slippery shape in the quest for every last mph on NASCAR speedways, the Monte Carlo Aerocoupe isn’t as extreme as something like a Superbird, but its unusual, sloped rear glass and revised spoiler are certainly distinctive. Chevrolet needed to sell 200 Aerocoupes for homologation and did just that in 1986, but for 1987 the company realized that plenty of folks would want to channel their inner Dale Earnhardt (who also had a mustache, of course) and drive a car that looked just like the Intimidator’s. GM obliged, selling 6052 Aerocoupes for 1987 at $16,325 apiece (about $44K in 2023 money).

The Monte Carlo went into 1988 without major changes, as it was the model’s last year before being replaced by the Lumina. As far as most enthusiasts are concerned, the Monte Carlo story mostly ends there. A new Monte Carlo SS did arrive in 2000, but it was a fat front-driver with a V-6 engine, and despite several special-edition NASCAR models, the Monte Carlos you could buy at the dealership had almost nothing in common with the cars you saw Dale and Jeff driving on Sunday afternoon.

As for fourth-gen Monte Carlos, they were very popular when new and they remain so. Although the faster and more sinister Buick Grand National gets most of the G-body glory in the eyes of collectors today, far more people walked into a Chevy dealership and bought a Monte Carlo. While just 4714 sold in 1983, sales shot up to 24,050 in 1984, then 35,484 in 1985, and peaking in 1986 at 41,164. 1987 brought a still-substantial 33,204, and 16,204 followed in 1988. Total Turbo Buick sales were less than half that.

In addition to a strong supply of cars, Monte Carlos offer plenty of room for drivers who shop at the big and tall store, and lots of parts interchange with other GM cars. Other than rust in a few key areas, leaky T-tops, and amateur-ish, why-on-earth-did-they-do-that modifications on many examples, there aren’t any major issues to look out for.

Mid-’80s Monte Carlos have never been expensive cars. But, surprisingly, they aren’t exactly cheap these days, either. The median condition #2 (“Excellent”) value currently sits at $29,400. That’s 68 percent higher than it was five years ago, and 188 percent more than it was 10 years ago. Generally, the 1985-and-later cars with floor shift, bucket seats, and cooler wheels are more sought after, and you should expect to pay a few percent more for T-tops. Despite that, there’s little variation in value, as an ’83 model is worth $28,100 at the low end while an Aerocoupe is worth $34,400 at the top of the heap.

These numbers are even more surprising when we compare them to the other cars playing for the Chevrolet team in the mid-to-late ’80s. While the ’87 Buick Grand National has moved into an entirely different price point with a #2 value of $70K, the #2 value for an ’87 Camaro Z/28 is just $22,600. And for an ’87 Corvette? Just $18,500.

It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, especially compared to the Corvette, which is much cooler to look at and will run circles around the Monte. But, as we saw with our comparison of C4 Corvettes and IROC Camaros last year, nostalgia can be a powerful market force when it comes to cars that are nearly old enough to have their own midlife crisis. Combined with the fact that there aren’t a lot of clean and unmodified examples left, it starts to become a little clearer why the best ones are getting more expensive.

Gen-Xers, who came of age when these cars were new, make up 36 percent of buyer interest for 1983–88 Monte Carlos. Millennials make up the same share. They may not exactly remember the ’80s in vivid detail, but they still play into nostalgia for that decade and, like Gen-Xers, buy these cars at a disproportionately high rate.

It’s hard to see values going up much further from here, given the wide variety of other great cars that are available in the $30K range. Which means that, as always, Monte Carlos will be a (reasonably) affordable celebration of mustache muscle.

***

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Via Insider

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Chevrolet’s performance truck development engineers are due for a vacation. After developing and validating a full lineup of off-road performance trims for the Colorado, Silverado 1500, and Silverado 2500 by creating Z71 and ZR2 models of each truck, they’ve upped the ante with ZR2 Bison versions of each of them as well. You can even credit these engineers for making the case for the biggest, most powerful Bison yet and proving to the execs that the brute could deliver on the Bison brand’s promise of off-road capability. To prove it to us, Chevy invited us to Johnson Valley, California, home of King of the Hammers, to try for ourselves. We spent a day in the desert that included both highway and trail drives in the Silverado 2500HD ZR2 Bison.

At first glance, the biggest Bison might seem like a completely different beast than its lighter-duty Bison brethren, and it is, but it certainly deserves the moniker. To create the Silverado 2500HD ZR2, Chevrolet gave the truck’s independent front/leaf spring rear suspension chassis a small lift and 305/70R18 Goodyear Territory mud-terrain tires. That makes them the largest tire among its competitors, with the same 35-inch height (actually 34.8 inches) as Ford’s Super Duty Tremor, but with a bit more width. It’s also taller and wider than Ram’s Power Wagon offering. Like its competitors from Ram and Ford, the ZR2 is only available in crew-cab, short-bed configuration.

As with the rest of the ZR2 lineup, the stars of the show are the Multimatic DSSV dampers that work their magic to keep the truck from being loose or wallowing on the street, without being too firm or jarring when venturing off-road at speed. It also gets an electronic-locking rear differential. Unlike the rest of the ZR2 lineup, there is no front locker. The Bison package takes the ZR2 hardware and expands on the theme with front and rear bumpers from American Expedition Vehicles (AEV), which have a provision up front to mount a winch. The $9,135 Bison package also includes a power-locking Multi-flex tailgate, unique 18-inch AEV wheels, including the spare, and three skid plates to protect the underbody and transfer case. Inside, it adds AEV floormats and embroidered headrests to the ZR2 interior, which is unique in the Silverado lineup. We found the recently updated Silverado interior to be very comfortable and functional.

Like its smaller stablemate, the biggest ZR2 Bison is perfectly comfortable on the highway. The 35-inch tires don’t drone or whine on pavement, and the cabin is well insulated from the mighty Duramax. Listen carefully and you can hear the whine of the turbocharger spooling up like a distant air-raid siren, but it’s not as rowdy as you might expect from a 470-hp V-8. Throttle response is quick, and the 10-speed is tuned to fit the powerband of the engine, delivering immediate power when asked. None of that was a surprise. Once we ventured off-road, the heavy-duty suspension still gave the truck the sturdy feeling of an HD truck, yet that made its off-road performance all the more shocking. It’s less punishing than one might suspect on the occupants as it navigates rutted dirt roads. The Duramax diesel V-8 has tremendous pull everywhere it goes, and where it can go might surprise you.

We picked our way over a rocky trail in the HD ZR2 Bison and the big tires easily found grip. The trail, not as technically challenging as the trails picked for the Colorado we were also testing, was still formidable and would have left plenty of pickups behind with battered body panels. Unfortunately, we managed to chalk up some trail damage of our own. While picking a line down some vertical ledges, we misjudged our descent and dropped more than a foot, landing the truck’s power running board bracket right on the unforgiving rock and breaking the linkage. If you plan on taking your HD ZR2 Bison on these kinds of trails—and you should, it’s several tons of fun—consider tubular rocker protection like the set found on the Colorado ZR2 Bison. Or, you could opt to take better lines like the rest of the HD ZR2 Bisons that survived the trail with all of their parts intact. It must be said, the deployable running boards, one of many optional side steps available on the Silverado, were a help climbing into the tall cabin.

HD versions of the ZR2 start at $72,595 for the naturally aspirated 6.6-liter gasoline V-8, or $82,085 for the 470-hp Duramax turbodiesel V-8, like the one we drove. Add up the $9135 Bison package, towing options, and the $2295 side steps as equipped on our tester, and the MSRP, including destination, topped $95,000. That’s steep for an off-road toy, although the ZR2 Bison is far more than that, bringing real heavy-duty payload (3013 pounds, gas/2811 pounds, diesel) and towing (up to 18,000 pounds) to compete in a tough segment where buyers are fiercely loyal. We’re sure that the HD ZR2 Bison will win over some conquest sales from Ram and Ford thanks to its potent diesel powerplant and unique combination of off-road capability and on-road driving comfort. However, it seems that the HD ZR2 Bison will serve as a sort of halo vehicle for the Silverado HD lineup, so its success might be harder to quantify with just sales numbers. Chevrolet seems confident that its recent growth in the retail pickup market will continue, and the Silverado HD ZR2 Bison seems capable of leading that charge.

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After the early aughts were focused on street performance, the enthusiast pickup truck market has swung back to the off-road side of things, and buyers seem to be reveling in this renaissance of factory-built desert runners and trail tamers. Ford, Chevy, GMC, Ram, Jeep, Toyota, and Nissan all offer trucks that can take on difficult terrain and live to tell the tale, and the latest salvo from Chevrolet, a lineup of ZR2 Bisons, aims to take on all terrains without the compromises in ride quality that often come with tall tires and the kind of suspension that can shrug off high-speed whoops. Chevrolet gave us the keys to a 2024 Colorado ZR2 Bison and invited us to Johnson Valley, California, to show us what a no-compromises off-roader was all about.

If you’re not familiar with the 2023 Colorado ZR2, you may want to brush up on it. We spent a few days and several hundred off-road miles in the current Colorado ZR2 earlier this year and came away very impressed. Just as the standard Colorado ZR2 was able to tackle steep trails and high-speed desert runs with ease while cruising on the highway with quiet, stable comfort, the Colorado ZR2 Bison excelled in all environments. It increases the ZR2’s already formidable list of standard equipment—33-inch tires, Multimatic DSSV dampers, and front and rear power locking differentials—and goes one step further. The Colorado ZR2 Bison’s suspension gets a touch taller to fit 35-inch mud-terrain rubber. That extra height gives the Colorado ZR2 Bison best-in-class ground clearance at 12.2 inches and improved departure angle and break-over angles of 26 and 26.9 degrees, respectively. The Bison package for the Colorado also includes body and undercarriage armor developed with American Expedition Vehicles (AEV). Boron-steel skidplates keep rocks and trail debris from damaging the radiator, steering rack, fuel tank, rear axle pinion, and transmission and transfer case. The Bison package also includes steel bumpers; the front comes winch-ready. AEV also designed the sturdy tubular rocker protection that is standard on every Colorado ZR2 Bison. Finally, the parts that truly set the ZR2 Bison apart from the standard ZR2, and every other truck in its class, are the Multimatic hydraulic jounce control dampers—bump stops—at all four corners of the suspension.

That’s the same basic suspension that Chad Hall Racing has been using for his desert racing truck, along with the same frame, same 310-hp 2.7-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine, and the same eight-speed automatic transmission and two-speed transfer case. The race-proven parts, particularly the jounce control bumpers, give the driver even more confidence to tackle high-speed whoops and turn jarring jolts into much more manageable bumps. We got to test them out over a series of whoops that got increasingly deep and had unevenly spaced peaks and troughs. Hit them at the right speed and the Bison glides over. Hit them too fast and the jounce dampers come into play, absorbing what could have been a spine-altering crunch of the rear axle bottoming out and translating it into a gentle reminder that even capable trucks have a limit.

Chevy pointed us up one of Johnson Valley’s many well-known rock-crawling trails, Chocolate Thunder, to show how the new 35-inch tires and tough steel armor allow the ZR2 Bison to scramble over rocks and ledges and scrape over obstacles when necessary. This trail is always changing as the suitcase-size rocks can get rearranged by drivers, but it can be a challenging trail that would have all but the best-equipped stock 4x4s finding an alternative route. With the help of a spotter to guide us, our group of Colorado ZR2s made it up and over the trail without any trouble, with just a couple of attempts to hit the right line in the tightest, most technical parts of the trail. The tubular rocker rails proved their worth here, along with the extra clearance from the 35s and the sure-footed traction of the lockers. This trail may have been possible with the standard ZR2, but the Bison made it look easy.

Like the standard ZR2, the fun in the Bison really comes in high-speed desert running over dirt, sand, and gravel, especially when the center console driving mode selector is set to Baja. Baja mode dials back the traction control and allows for plenty of tail-wagging while keeping an eye on wheel speed sensors and steering and braking input to be ready to step in and straighten things out if needed. This is best appreciated in two-wheel-drive, which makes it remarkably easy to initiate and hold a drift. If amateur drift drivers realize that you don’t have to pay for track time on dirt trails on BLM land, and that tires last a lot longer when they’re not getting turned to smoke on asphalt, Chevy dealerships are going to have to figure out how to take LS-swapped S13s in as trade.

Specs: 2024 Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 Bison

• Price: Pending
• Powertrain: 2.7-liter, turbocharged DOHC inline-four, eight-speed torque-converter automatic
• Output: 310 hp and 430 lb-ft of torque
• Layout: Four-wheel-drive, four-door, five-passenger mid-size pickup truck
• Weight: 5265 lb
• EPA Fuel Economy: Pending
• Competition: Ford Ranger Raptor

We only spent a couple of hours with the ZR2 Bison, and it certainly felt that the truck’s increase in capability came without any loss of on-road comfort. It’s also Chevy’s best rock-crawler thanks to its smaller size, so it seems like a win-win. If there’s one drawback to the new stance and taller tires, it’s that the ZR2 Bison has to cut a larger hole through the air, and that will take its toll in the form of highway fuel economy, something we were not able to sus out during our limited time with the truck. Pricing is still pending, but the jounce bumpers unique to the Colorado might make this the most expensive Bison package of a ZR2 lineup that includes Silverado and Silverado HD. Don’t be surprised if these trucks start at close to $60,000, and don’t be surprised if they are hot sellers.

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One American sedan is still rolling off the assembly line, be it in Azerbaijan, in China, or in these United States, surviving and thriving in a global marketplace. With well over 10 million sold worldwide since 1964, the Malibu has been everything from a gussied-up Chevelle to the middle-class family sedan presented here. Which makes it a winner, and not entirely by attrition.

Finding a family sedan is harder than it used to be, especially if you want to buy American. But the current Malibu is a perfectly respectable car, American or otherwise. Even better, a 2019 refresh gave the Malibu a face worthy of competition with imported sedans and every crossover utility on the market. It’s big and bold, but also delicate and effortless. So let’s run this Canadian-spec Malibu, which I rented last month, over the vellum.

I’m not a huge fan of the Gaping Maw School of Design (TM), but it offers a beautiful way to integrate pedestrian safety into a modern automobile. And in the case of the Malibu, a larger opening made decades of Chevrolet split grilles finally make sense. Note how the grille’s lower chrome bands form a muscular ripple in the center, a shape that translates back to the hood’s pointed beak and muscular power bulge.

This is a very refined design with fantastic surfacing, giving the Malibu a front end on par with that of any premium vehicle from a more aspirational brand. And that’s a big deal considering previous implementations.

But don’t take my word for it: Take a look at the slideshow above, and the half-baked, bisected-by-bowtie grilles that preceded our car below. Every Malibu before this 2019 redesign sported a milquetoast grille that was lost in a sea of bold-faced Chrysler 300s.

This expensive-looking grille makes no apologies for its design: Chrome-accented black plastic is the modern-day equivalent of tail fins on American sedans from decades past.

Even the grille’s details are done right: The Chevy bowtie emblem boldly sticks out farther than the center grille bar but is elegantly molded around said bar.

The obligatory blocked-out grille holes, something I usually dislike, are pushed so far into the background that it takes serious effort to spot them. There are simply too many crisp horizontal lines, subtle contours, and chrome trimming to make the block-off plates visible to the passerby. Even better, the block-off plates’ linear relief pattern is nestled so deeply behind the bars of the grille bars that they are rewarding to behold once you get up close.

Even the holes for a front license plate are downright impossible to spot behind all that gently bechromed geometry.
Sajeev Mehta

This is one of the few bad angles for the Malibu’s grille: the headlights and painted bumper are absolutely dwarfed by this angry grille with a furrowed brow.

But it’s okay to be angry when almost all of your brother sedans from the Motor City have fallen by the wayside. The Malibu’s center chrome spear turns into a frame inside the headlight assembly. The transition from indoor to outdoor chrome trim is a bit awkward, but it’s downright breathtaking considering this isn’t a luxury vehicle.

More to the point, I’m thrilled that such attention was paid to a vehicle that stickers for $25,100 in today’s economy ($33,074 CAD as rented).

The grille and headlights combine to make the face of a vehicle that we all should be proud to own over others at the same price point. From the front, the Malibu is more restrained than a Camry, far more exciting than an Accord, and, best of all, it’s a gen-u-wine family sedan and not a crossover utility.

The cooling ducts and front splitter are non-functional, but remember how much real estate needs to be covered on tall, boxy front fascias of modern cars. This execution looks pretty great, with secondary lamps mimicking the “cooling duct” texture, itself a nice homage to the grille’s texture.

The color contrast between white paint up top and black trim below adds functionality, as the bumper is less likely to need a pricey bumper repaint in a minor collision. Hopefully, some sections of that massive grille can be rebuilt individually, like that of the Fusion sedan before it.

Is this the pointed hood of a Chevy Camaro? The DNA of Chevrolet’s pony car is very much on display in the Malibu, and that’s another reason why this body style might be the best of the Malibu series.

The sheer volume of creases on the hood makes no sense from up close, but their proliferation is not unique to the Malibu. The mission of these lines makes more sense when you step back.

The hood lines are actually a transition from a low front fascia (relatively low, anyway, provided a Chevy Corsica doesn’t park nearby for reference) to the tall cowl below the A-pillar. Go way back, like back into your hotel room, and the lines turn into connective tissue: the lines that add logic to the space between the cowl and the aforementioned “muscular ripple” in the center of the grille.

Speaking of connective tissue, there’s a hard line at the grille’s widest point, mirrored by the hard edge that frames the secondary lighting pod and fake cooling duct. It’s a nice compliment, one that doesn’t try too hard to make the visual handshake work.

The Camaro’s front-end design makes an even bigger impression on the Malibu, as the header panel pushes the Malibu’s hood back just like it does on Chevy’s pony car. The turn signal also has the same smart upkick in its tail, albeit with a chrome frame to work with the grille.

But the Malibu’s proportioning makes it clear this is a front-wheel-drive sedan for modest family needs, and not a rear-wheel-drive Camaro.

Much like the grille, the level of surfacing on the 1LT grade Malibu’s 17-inch wheels is impressive. Someone took the time to craft these muscular spokes and spent the money for the brushed aluminum center caps, which add a bit of prestige.

The front end’s aggressive face transitions to a bodyside akin to that of the Chevy Impala (RIP 2021), but the surfacing is far more subtle than that of the former flagship Chevy sedan.

Unlike the Impala, even the hard bends in its side profile are muted by curved transitions. The block of metal between the hood and the A-pillar is regrettable, but this tall cowl needs a filler panel in the fender to make everything line up.

To wit, imagine if the cowl ended where that chrome strip begins. This would be a far, far, sleeker design.

While the Malibu’s door lettering appears to be perched high atop this body, it actually falls closer to the midpoint of the door, which is unfortunate but expected with a cowl this tall. Still, the door stretches impressively forward, while the contouring of the body side is subtle and almost expensive-looking.

That long A-pillar makes for a sleek door, and pricey chrome trim and this nicely chiseled sideview mirror look more upmarket than the Malibu’s base price would suggest. Note the strong shadow where my finger’s pointing, as this assembly is sculpted quite nicely.

Too bad about the excess flashing on the mirror’s mounting panel—affordable family cars exist for good reason.

More to the point, I’m glad Chevrolet spent the money in places that matter. Like this blackout pillar trim, as it helps the chrome-rimmed DLO truly stand out.

Ditto the fact that Chevrolet spent the money for an actual piece of glass behind the rear window, instead of the DLO FAIL we see in the other sedan in GM’s portfolio.

It truly feels like Chevy’s designers had more time, money, and desire to surface the Malibu compared to their counterparts at Cadillac who made the CT5.

The only bit of bodyside surfacing that doesn’t quite work is the character line, which gets a bit too close to the negative area reserved for fingers to curl around the pull-out door handle.

And that character line has an aggressive downward trajectory as it slides back to the rear door. It is not terribly organic because of the door handle’s location—dropping it down an inch or so wouldn’t kill the flow.

And when that character line falls down the door, another one begins, crossing (too closely!) over the rear door handle, and becoming a significant design element in the quarter panel.

Indeed, it becomes a hard crease that does a fantastic job of elongating the quarter panel. Too bad it also has to crease the filler door; very few designs get away with an unbent gas door.

Down by the rocker panel, you can see how a few hard bends remain across the body (the chassis needs to remain flat for passenger space) but a cosmetic character line does bend upward to harmonize with the downward bend just a few feet away.

These body creases really make you forget how tall modern vehicles are, don’t they? Yeah, me neither. 

This body’s presence in rental fleets almost ensures it won’t be considered automotive art; its main role is to be an alternative to a Nissan rival. (Remember the infamous Big Altima Energy movement?) And that’s a shame, as the all-glass DLO, chiseled doors, and long strokes across the body deserve more recognition outside of airport parking lots.

But this one crease in the quarter panel? It feels unnecessary, relative to the flatted-out plane around the wheel arch, and almost fights the mandatory cut line for the rear bumper. I’d eliminate this bit of surface tension and let the cutline do its job, visually speaking.

Aside from the aforementioned crease, this might be the best angle on the Malibu. The bumper moves skyward to meet the tall rear deck, and the tail lights are squinting, like they are thinking long and hard about something. The integrated decklid spoiler kicks up, like an angry forehead enhancing those slitted eyes, while the bumper cutline goes right up to the tail lights like a mean mugging mouth.

But this is far from an overly angry family sedan. There’s a lot of swoopy, harmonious curves here, accomplishing so much without resorting to the tacked-on blobs seen on the Toyota Camry.

The bumper’s upward slope is accentuated by this black panel, which pretends to be a diffuser. Blackout trim panels at the top or bottom of a body are a common trick these days to reduce visual bulk, and they really help accentuate the aggressive upward slope of the bumper.

Large relief patterns and an integrated reflector also help reduce the visual bulk of this tall vehicle.

Sometimes I wish body sides had character lines that were this linear and flowing instead of swooshes and such stamped onto those huge doors.

The bumper’s upper character line aggressively moves upward to meet the taillight, thereby reducing the size of the bumper shelf and providing a clean break for aerodynamic efficiency along the bodyside.

Those squinting tail lights meet a center relief in the trunklid that looks like a menacing grin. The trunk itself has a gentle, sculptural curve from top to bottom, which smooths out the grin and makes it feel more natural than the jagged elements in the C8 Corvette’s license plate area.

That sculptural curve ensures there’s plenty of room to tuck a backup camera in the license-plate relief …

… but the curve isn’t wild enough to mess with the bowtie emblem’s mounting surface.

Ditto the surface behind the Malibu emblem. You can see just how “hard” the lights squint from other angles, just by looking at their drop in height relative to the emblem’s horizontal orientation.

The red lights themselves have a replicated “L” pattern in their internal diffusers, an accent that makes them almost as cool as the fancy LED units found on 2LT Malibu, as the duplication really accentuates the squint.

Get above the vehicle, and the fastback-style roof sports aggressive muscles that effortlessly translate to the deck lid.

It’s just a shame the muscular character line fights for your attention with a downright counterintuitive cutline between the trunk and the quarter panel. Odds are the cutline could be slightly modified to have the aggression of the character line while still working as a functional door with bulky hinges.

The strong linear elements presented in the rear are matched by exposed rain gutters on the roof. I never loved the gutter covers on similar family sedans, as it leaves more money for stockholders desirable items like a big screen with Apple CarPlay/Android Auto.

Because tech sells, and that color-matched antenna is proof. But it’s also resting on an elevated plateau on the roof. I wonder why?

Oh wow, that bump in the roof is for a white strip that turns red for the Malibu’s CHMSL. This kind of surprise and delight I would never have suspected in this car, but it’s precisely why I wanted to write this installment of Vellum Venom.

Here’s the thing: Even the most boring, mundane, and forgettable piece of product design was designed by folks who (at one point) were thrilled to be doing this task. I am sure even designer Yves Behar has some level of pride in the Juicero, as his efforts aren’t necessarily the problem with that doomed product. But comparing a failed San Francisco start-up to work on a General Motors product is a bit disingenuous, even if the results of both ventures are equally forgettable to most onlookers.

At least plenty of folks will enjoy driving this Chevy Malibu, in either a fleet or retail setting. Many won’t admit it, but some just want to understand why they’re intrigued by this vehicle. If so, I hope I helped make that happen.

I firmly believe these lines will age extremely well over time. And with that, thank you again for reading Vellum Venom. Have a good week!

***

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Since 1963, the International Show Car Association (ISCA) has been ubiquitous in the world of indoor, large-scale car shows. Thanks to the participants, judges, and event planners, we’ve seen decade after decade of advancements in design, engineering, and technology. Times change, but some efforts are timeless. Rarely do we get to see a former ISCA show car that survived and thrived after its 15 minutes of fame—and that’s where this particular 1964 Corvette convertible (discovered via Barnfinds) comes into focus.

It’s currently for sale on Craigslist with an asking price of $69,500. It is a fair ask for just about any C2 Mid Year Corvette, but the provenance presented here goes far beyond being a unique options-list configuration. The seller states this Corvette entered the ISCA show circuit in the late 1960s, and was the “number one ISCA competition show car and points winner in its class for the ’66–67 year.”

Those claims might sound like those of a stereotypical seller, working overtime to tart up a car to unsuspecting buyers, but the sheer volume of historical documentation in this Craigslist ad suggests otherwise.

The seller states this Mid Year Corvette was originally finished in Ermine White with a 375-hp “fuelie” small-block, complete with a four-speed manual transmission and a rear end with 4.11:1 gears. But its owner, Don Connelly, modified the Corvette to be a Pikes Peak race car in 1965, which then made the transition to ISCA stunner. As the photos above show, this Corvette has seen several paint jobs, different sets of long-tube headers, various induction systems, and different graphics.

The seller suggests Don’s Corvette had multiple paint schemes “from ’65 to early ’70s,” including this yellow-ish hue seen in vintage photographs. (That’s definitely not the factory Ermine White.) Clearly, Don was proud of his car: You can spot him in these photos with a large number of trophies, presumably from a car that the promotional material suggests is the “Number One Competition show car in the USA.”

The interior shows the same level of attention to detail, though it is more restrained than the exterior’s race liveries or later paint jobs. The cream-colored tuck and roll upholstery really highlights the Mid Year Corvette’s elegant, dual-cove dashboard and removable hard top. The Hurst shifter and chromed rollbar are probably race items that survived the Corvette’s transition into a show car. Which begs the question, do modern show cars with racing bits affixed to them owe a debt of gratitude to Don and his 1964 Corvette?

The Corvette’s underside is still show-car fresh. It suggests that vintage ISCA entries didn’t need extensive chrome plating, loud colors, or impressive hardware polished to perfection to steal the judges’ hearts. Instead, we see what makes the Mid Year Corvette so special: a fully independent suspension, finished in black, dirt-free to this day.

The polished-up and chromed-out engine bay has everything a 1960s show car with a small-block Chevy needs to wow the crowds, but the real money was spent on making the Mid Year’s body. The paint job is period-correct for a show car from the late ’60s or early ’70s, and the seller states this lacquer finish “shows beautifully.” There are dual hood scoops, open-air cleaners, a frenched antenna, dovetailed rear fascia, pinstriping, mag wheels, etc. but the real beauty lies in the fact that everything remains in time-capsule condition. Of course, that time capsule isn’t from 1964, and that’s why this Corvette is worth discussing.

How this 1964 Corvette survived the 1990s and 2000s in this condition speaks volumes about its owner(s). I have heard of a 1970s-era custom Mid Year being returned to stock by a new owner with no connection to the custom work: Such builds fall into disrepair over time and are often more valuable when restored to stock. Let’s also remember that Corvette fiberglass repair panels are readily available and fairly easy to install by most trained body shops. All of this makes this particular Corvette a true survivor worthy of sitting next to a factory fresh L-88. Perhaps more so, because it retains the vibes of when a small-block, Mid Year Corvette was heavily depreciated, not terribly appreciated.

If the pictures are any indication, this Corvette stands on its period-correct show car attributes very well. Even better, it proves how the right paint job, wheels, and custom parts of an era can make any car look great, long after it makes its exit, stage left from the show-car scene. We’re just lucky this ISCA Corvette survived the “hard times” so that it can thrive today.

***

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The early 1980s were no walk in the park for American automakers, even for those that had not declared bankruptcy in 1979. The forces that caused Chrysler to briefly go under weren’t unique to that company: increasingly worrisome foreign competition, R&D budgets stressed to lower emissions and improve safety, and an ever-present need to improve fuel economy via smaller cars with smaller engines. While the last was clearly needed after the onslaught of OPEC’s oil embargo in 1972, fuel economy was not always top of mind for customers.

Take, for example, the events in 1979 that threatened serious ramifications for gas prices but turned out to be less of a problem than we had feared. Unfortunately, automakers don’t have crystal balls, and turning their respective ships to make the vehicles demanded by the market takes a lot of time. Gas prices may fluctuate at speeds Wall Street can appreciate; supply chains are long and product development takes years.

This is the environment, however misinformed, that influenced Detroit to focus on downsizing operations, right-sizing its vehicles, and front-wheel-driving famous model names in its portfolios. Take Chevrolet’s mid-size lineup from 1982 to ’83: There were two platforms, one a brand new front-wheel drive (FWD) design, the other a rear-wheel-drive (RWD) platform downsized just a few years ago. Timing is everything, but time wasn’t on Chevy’s side: In GM’s alphabet soup of naming designations, both FWD and RWD mid-sizers were called “A-bodies.”

Since the FWD A-body was new, Chevy gave it a new name: Celebrity. This yet-to-be-famous Celebrity had the latest technology derived from GM’s X-body and even computer-assisted design to ensure it would perform better than the competition, which generally lacked General Motors’ impressive R&D budget. The Celebrity boasted new engines, aerodynamic designs, and advancements in NVH engineering—in short, a lot of money was on the line.

The RWD A-body was the polar opposite, tracing its roots to decades of successful, famous, and ultimately desirable vehicles from GM’s past. Chevrolet gave it an appropriately vintage name: What was once a Malibu became a Malibu Classic. (Oldsmobile did the same via Cutlass to Cutlass Supreme, Pontiac went from Lemans to Bonneville G, and Buick turned the Century into a Regal.) But most of the A-body DNA that traditionalists adore was filtered out by Malaise Era engineering upgrades, including anemic V-6 engines and side windows that rear-seat occupants couldn’t roll down. No matter, guess which one still had a lot of pull, thanks to gas prices that did the opposite of what we were anticipating?

This photo from the 1982 Chevy Malibu Classic’s sales brochure says it all. Why have front wrong-wheel drive and a unitized body when rear-wheel drive and a ladder-type frame work better in many North American zip codes? Clearly, the GM brotherhood was failing, as there was too much competition within Chevrolet. What was needed was a unified force to fight external threats.

But wait, the situation gets worse. Not only was the Celebrity fighting the Malibu Classic, but it also had an infighting problem. With one deliciously tragic photo, this Fortune magazine cover proved the similarities between the Celebrity and its sister ships from Pontiac (6000), Oldsmobile (Cutlass Ciera), and Buick (Century). While the A-body attributes were worthy of individual consideration, the disastrous change of guard at General Motors’ design studio made it much harder to cross-shop GM brands on anything but price.

That’s not to say the Celebrity (and all of GM’s new A-bodies) weren’t well-designed vehicles. I remember our family renting a Celebrity in the mid-1980s, and we liked the interior quality, ride, handling, and acceleration. That 2.8-liter Chevy was head and shoulders above the rear-wheel-drive, A-body, V-6-powered Buick Century and the Chevy Monte Carlo in our family’s garage. (Yes, the Monte is technically a G-body, I get it … don’t roast me in the comments.)

General Motors was playing damage control during this time, and its mea culpa wasn’t lost upon the fine folks at Motorweek when it drove the 1983 Chevrolet Celebrity CL coupe. In its sophomore year, the Celebrity performed well in Motorweek‘s road test, with a quiet ride and tolerable acceleration, thanks to the three-speed slushbox. However, the nervous handling and braking meant a few tweaks were still needed.

The Malibu Classic still had merit at the time, especially if dealership discounts/haggling lowered its price to a figure that belonged to the RWD A-body’s heyday. To be fair, discussing the Celebrity and Malibu Classic in some sort of A-body deathmatch some four decades later is a trite yet boring path to Middle Class Fancy commentary. I imagine something similar could be said about the Ford Edge vs. Fusion in another 40 years. Isn’t it wonderful to have 20/20 hindsight while wearing rose-colored glasses?

All non-Celebrity GM A-bodies were updated in 1989 for more passenger space and a sleeker rear window, but none could hold a candle to the W or N platforms, introduced in the ’90s, in terms of modern style. But look at the prices above: The A-body was still a convincing value proposition. Imports from Honda and Toyota were usually threats at the higher end of the market (i.e. high demand, infrequent discounting), and the Cutlass Ciera and Buick Century completed the squeeze at the other end. While the A-body of the 1990s was outdated (especially its interior design), GM still thought there was a market for the cars until 1996.

Or perhaps the powers that be at the Oklahoma City assembly plant had some leverage on the management types on GM’s Fourteenth Floor? We may never know the truth of the matter, but there’s no doubt that the FWD A-body was the best of the new GM … until it became the worst of old GM.

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well, maybe not all of it.

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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America’s sports car was in sorry shape during the disco era. The later third-generation (1968–82) Corvette, although a strong seller, was not the performer that it used to be. In 1975, the once mighty Vette was down to just 165 horsepower due to new emissions regulations.

However, in 1984, Chevrolet made big strides to resuscitate Corvette performance with the release of the fourth iteration of America’s sports car. The C4, as it is known to enthusiasts, was the first all-new Vette since 1968. With its sleek styling, modern suspension, and stiff chassis, the C4 represented a clean break from the Duntov-designed C3.

The car was a phenomenal handler—Car and Driver clocked 0.95 g on the skidpad in a period test—but early examples lacked power. However, Chevrolet remedied the lack of grunt later in the C4’s 12-year production run.

By 1996, the final year of production, Vettes equipped with the ZF six-speed manual received a hopped-up small-block dubbed LT4. The engine was good for 330 horsepower and 340 lb-ft of torque, making a 5.0-second sprint to 60 miles per hour possible. Compared to the 1984 model’s paltry 205 horsepower, this was a big upgrade.

The later cars with the LT4 are more desirable, with Excellent condition (#2) examples being valued at $30,200 according to the Hagerty Price Guide. That brings us to our auction pick of the week, a one-owner 1996 Corvette convertible with a desirable engine and transmission combo.

Our striking yellow-on-black feature car has only seen 14,ooo miles since new. It’s a well-appointed example, equipped with the optional Delco/Bose Gold Series sound system, six-way power-adjustable driver and passenger seats, and electronic air conditioning. Unsurprisingly, the Vette is highly original—down to the as-delivered Goodyear Eagle GS-C tires—and in excellent condition. Really the only minor flaws are faded sun visors and light creasing in the upholstery.

If you’re in the market for a top-down Corvette experience, this one is hard to beat. Just slap on some new tires, and enjoy the V-8 soundtrack and six-speed gearbox for many miles to come. The auction ends Thursday, August 31 at 3:40 p.m. EDT, so make sure to get your bids in.

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I have always been curious to put one of my vintage cars on a dynamometer to test how much power it makes. However, such a test never made sense: Most of my cars are stock, with known factory outputs, and the few that are modified aren’t tailored for true performance. Currently, the most promising candidate is my 1965 Corvair: The flat-six under the trunklid sports a mild cam, high-flow air cleaners, upgraded electronic ignition, and a custom exhaust using era-correct headers. On the right day, it really sounds the business.

But … I know where the restrictions are in this engine and what it needs to make big power. The modifications on my car likely haven’t increased horsepower by a significant amount. The epitome of all bark, no bite. So when an acquaintance purchased a house that included a garage with a chassis dynamometer, I wasn’t scrambling for a session. Bad influences—nay, friends—wore me down, and before I could make any excuses about “fragile old car,” the Corvair had a date with a psychic.

That is the role of a dynamometer. It asks your car a few questions, tests its reaction to a challenge, and reveals something about that car based on the test.

First, the challenge had to be set up properly: The Corvair’s drive tires sat between a set of rollers, and straps from ground anchors cinched down the rear from a couple of carefully selected points on the suspension. The front end was doubly secured: a strap and a chock for each wheel.

Then came the hard part: the math.

Before we had started the engine, we had a little problem. The Mustang-brand dyno installed in the my friend’s two-car shop space uses a factor to interpret the data from the load cell. That factor stems from an older metric of “horsepower at 50 mph.” The nerds call it road load coefficient: essentially, it is how much horsepower a vehicle needs to drive down a flat road at 50 mph. Mustang Dynamometer has a handy chart for most models going all the way back to … 1971. No Corvairs built after 1969.

The Corvair’s silhouette—grille-less front end, flat tail—is unlike that of most vehicles in the 1970s. Substitute models weren’t obvious. We looked at the numbers for some cars, averaged a few, and … guessed.

Why sugarcoat it? For me and the Corvair, the numbers really don’t matter. Never did, never will. I was there to learn something new and have a fun afternoon.

We did, of course, have a side bet on whether my little white coupe would crack triple digits to the tire. The over/under figure stemmed from my memory of an old forum post claiming that the Corvair’s factory rating of 140 hp typically came out to around 100 hp at the tire. I was working with a … sort-of known quantity: The engine has been upgraded, but I don’t know its mileage and have no records of who built the engine, or when, or what parts they might have used. I’ve been inside the six enough to trust that it has been rebuilt and that the person who did the job was competent. That said, it’s still a little bit of a shrug as to exactly what is inside.

We entered our factor. Patrick, the owner of the dyno, talked me through the process: Drive up to the chosen gear and hold engine rpm at 3000. Give him a thumbs up, let off the throttle, and allow the engine to coast down to the desired start rpm. Give another thumbs up and, once Patrick returned the signal, mat the throttle.

The noise. The vibration. This subtle sensation of speed—burying my right foot, hearing the engine on song—sat right next to a feeling of calm: The only thing moving was the tachometer needle, which rose with all the speed of an octogenarian filling a buffet plate.

Right as the tachometer needle touched 5000 it was time to lift, put in the clutch, and let the dyno spin down a bit before lightly helping with the final slowdown using the Corvair’s brakes. Letting off the throttle was met with a big pop as flame shot out of the exhaust.

The cacophony of noise, vibration, and anticipation began to mellow. I was immediately proud of the car—nothing had exited the engine except a massive backfire when I closed the throttle. After letting the engine idle for a minute, we shut the car off. I got out, and we surrounded the dusty computer screen to see what the psychic had to say.

96 horsepower and 120 foot-pounds of torque. Not too shabby. 96 was in the ballpark, given that the original, 140-hp rating for this engine was measured in gross horsepower: The tests were done utilizing an engine, not a chassis, dyno and an engine from which most of the accessory drive had been removed. For the Corvair, the accessory drive is literally just the alternator, but the crank-horsepower figure is optimistic considering that many more components are needed to turn crankshaft rotation into forward motion. The transmission, differential, and other necessary accouterment all soak up a little power. Over the years I have heard drivetrain loss is in the 15 percent range for manual-transmission cars, but that “rule” is misleading at best. It’s hardly a rule, more of a generalization if anything. Being “down” 32 percent compared to the factory rating is actually not bad considering everything that can and should be factored in.

The peanut gallery checked my initial feeling of smug: At higher rpm, a screen of black smoke had poured out of the exhaust pipe—unburned fuel. Confusing, because when I went through and cleaned the carburetors years ago, I could tell there was no funny business inside. Jets were stock sizes, no evidence of machining. While their lack of modifications didn’t explain the smoke, it likely explained why the torque levels off and begins to drive down as rpm increased. What a lovely, flat torque curve.

Since we knew the car wouldn’t explode under the stress of the dyno, we decided to have some fun and take off the fan belt. The Corvair’s is an air-cooled engine: A bi-planar fan belt turns a magnesium fan that forces air down through the finned cylinders and cylinder heads. The system is critical to keeping a Corvair engine alive during regular use, but driving the fan sucks up a ton of horsepower. Your engine doesn’t even have to be air-cooled for you to observe the output difference with and without the fan: Plenty of people with access to dynos have tested flex fans versus electric fans on small-block V-8s.

After letting the big air-mover fans blow down the fan intake for a bit to cool things off as best we could, I popped the spring-loaded belt tensioner in and zip-tied the belt to the oil filter adapter to keep it from catching on the crank pulley during the dyno run. A clean pull felt a good bit spicier and the results revealed all those forum posts from armchair engineers (and real engineers) were pretty well spot-on.

Did I need to know these numbers? Of course not. And if I did, our method would have been a terrible way to discover them. Still, I got the opportunity to test my car in a safe, controlled environment. In just a few hours I learned the Corvair was running rich in the higher rpm range, something I likely would have never learned just driving around town. As I drove home, I thought about how to fix the fueling issues and debated with myself about plopping down the money for a modern cooling fan. Do I need it? No, but I now know what could be, and the prospect sure felt fun.

That psychic inside the dyno computer says the same thing to everyone and is also always right: You can make more power if you want. How much do you want to spend?

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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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General Motors racing has announced a shakeup in its Corvette and Cadillac driver lineup for 2024. Most notable is the departure of Jordan Taylor, who is leaving the Corvette stable to rejoin his family-owned team (Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport) in an Acura prototype, as the team plans to field a second car for 2024. Taylor will pair with co-driver Louis Delétraz.

In more than ten years as a factory driver for Corvette Racing and General Motors, Taylor achieved 33 victories and four Drivers championships in both prototype and GT competition, including wins in 2020 and 2021 with Corvette Racing. He also was part of the team’s winning lineup for the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2015 and is a three-time Rolex 24 winner in GM-powered entries. The vast majority of his sports car career has come in GM race cars. In the Corvette, he teamed with Antonio Garcia.

“I loved my time competing in GT with Corvette Racing alongside Antonio these past few years. We had a lot of success together. I’ve learned a lot and grown as a driver, so I’m looking forward to bringing that experience back to prototype racing,” Taylor said.

The 2024 Corvette lineup includes Alexander Sims, who returns as a Chevrolet Corvette factory driver, this time for a full season, along with returning veterans Antonio Garcia, Tommy Milner, and Nicky Catsburg. The quartet of drivers will contest the 10-round GTD Pro championship for Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports in the debut year of the Corvette Z06 GT3.R.

Sims moves over from Cadillac; Jack Aitken, co-driver of the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac V-Series.R for this year’s four IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup races, will join Pipo Derani as a full-season driver for the 2024 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship in the car, replacing Sims.

“We’re very pleased with the full-season IMSA lineup in the Corvette Z06 GT3.R for 2024,” said Mark Stielow, Director, Chevrolet Motorsports Competition Engineering. “The four drivers have exceptional records and history with Corvette. At the same time, we thank Jordan Taylor for his years of service and success with General Motors,” Stielow added. He has been an important part of Corvette Racing and a great ambassador for Chevrolet. We wish him well.”

The current Corvette Racing program is in the midst of its 25th season with 126 race victories to date—114 in IMSA with the most recent coming at the Chevrolet Grand Prix in July at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. Also for the second year in a row, Corvette Racing has programs in both IMSA and the FIA World Endurance Championship with the Corvette C8.R, now in its final season of competition.

As for WTRAndretti, Taylor and Delétraz will join teammates Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque, holdovers from this season. Additional drivers for the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup and the Rolex 24 At Daytona will be announced in the coming months.

The 2024 IMSA season begins with the Rolex 24 At Daytona on January 27–28.

***

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Though this story originally published here in 2020, there is never a bad year to remind yourself that Kyle Smith once submitted his crusty van to the one of the world’s most prestigious vintage car concours. Enjoy! —Ed. 

Every opportunity I’ve had to visit high-end automotive events ends more or less the same way. Concours participants climb into sultry prewar feats of coachwork magic, or perhaps, effortlessly fast Italian cars with snarling V-12s. They drive off into the open road, bound for a heated garage and a microfiber rubdown. It takes me three-quarters of a mile to walk to the dirt parking lot where my beige Camry rental car awaits, with only the rear view mirror reflecting my now-Rosso-Corsa-colored forehead to greet me.

When the email came through in December 2016 announcing that the application process was open for the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, this was a clear opportunity to flip the script. Right? Longing to be part of the exclusive club that gets to drive across the picturesque 18th fairway on a particular Sunday morning in August, and perhaps suffering from a bit of optimistic delusion, I started writing an application for the only classic I owned at the time: a 1961 Chevrolet Greenbrier van.

Admittedly, the inspiration for this foolish stunt came from Concours d’Lemons, an event organized by “Head Gasket” Alan Galbraith. Alan started the pseudo-concours event to poke fun at the exclusivity and general best-of-the-best nature of Pebble Beach. The gathering features classes with kitschy names, which are more often than not self-deprecating. A class featured in the early days of the Concours d’Lemons was “Pebble Beach Rejects.” A car could only be entered in this class if the owner could display a rejection letter from Pebble Beach. Despite attending many Lemons events, I’d never seen any vehicle actually enter this class. If the Greenbrier was the only entry, surely it was guaranteed to win.

Fortunately, this was not my first rodeo. Prior to Hagerty, I worked with a few smaller outfits that helped owners apply to top-tier concours events, Pebble Beach included. It’s a whole lot more than checking the box on the printed out form and sending it back with a check for $25 like many local shows. The check is left out completely, as Pebble Beach has no application fee. Typically, the event wants to know the car inside and out (even if the selection committee is already familiar with it), along with its history, who did the restoration (if it had one), and other events where the car has been featured. In the industry, that’s known as provenance.

This is where I had to get creative. The van was rich in patina, yet impoverished in provenance. It was a crusty surfer van that a friend found on the side of a California highway before I bought it and road tripped it to Michigan. However, if you spin a tale hard enough you can get an interesting thread from even the most boring and mundane of vehicles. It is certainly not unheard of for concours applicants to practice the delicate art of wordsmithing in order to paint their car in the best possible light.

My letter stuck to the facts, albeit presented carefully and for maximum effect. For example, the previous owner worked for a company which had an office in the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, and therefore was able to tuck the broken down hulk in a corner of the basement Vault for some time while he was working on it. On display? Well, technically no. Some of the finest pieces of automotive history sat right along side it, though!

I drafted it all in a PDF, attached it to an email, clicked send, and waited. This sort-of prank had two possible outcomes: some type of form letter rejection (remember, this was my ticket to that special Lemons class) or absolute (and justifiable) radio silence.

To be clear, the whole enterprise was a waste of the selection committee’s time, and I fully expected it would be ignored. Instead, the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance team rose above my childish humor and honored me with a personalized response—including wishing me luck with entry and participation in other events. I’d done it!

This golden ticket of a rejection technically qualified me for that exclusive Lemons class, but in the end, my van lived in Michigan and the special class was open only during the Monterey event in August. Driving cross country purely for a practical joke is not entirely outside the scope of my M.O., but at the time I couldn’t make it happen.

Fun story to tell people at parties, though. Still, the polite response from the Concours served to amplify the tinge of regret I felt about wasting the selection committee’s time and energy. As much as I goofed off at its expense, I have nothing but respect for the group of professionals that make such events happen every year for our enjoyment. So, please, don’t repeat my escapade with Pebble Beach or any other concours. It will be even less funny the second time.

I never got to experience the feeling of driving my Chevrolet onto the finely groomed golf course in the wee hours of the morning, but with the show canceled this year, I joined many in the Hagerty community and made it my own. I set an alarm for real early on Sunday and made my own Dawn Patrol. While I don’t own the Greenbrier any longer, my ’65 Corvair coupe was happy to fill in, leaking oil on my lawn.

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Jay Leno has driven countless automobiles in his life, yet he still manages to find unique rides. Among the most memorable is the 1948 Ford F6 rat rod featured on the latest installment of Jay Leno’s Garage.

“This is what people will be driving on the last day of gasoline—when it’s all used up,” Leno jokes. “… In most modern cars, you go 100 [mph] and you feel like you’re going 60. In this one, you go 60 and feel like you’re going 200.”

Owned by Brett Gregory, CEO of the Circle G Movie Ranch in Agua Dulce, California, says the truck “checked three boxes” for him: rat rod, vintage tow truck, and blower motor all in one package.

“So you’re ready to die,” Leno says. “Leave this with me and I’ll take care of it. You’ve pretty much accomplished everything.”

Just about every major American auto manufacturer is represented in the F6. Under the hood, the ’48 Ford has a Chevrolet 350-cubic-inch roller motor with a 671 blower that’s mated to a three-speed Turbo 400 transmission. (The driveline averages 3 to 4 mpg.) The build also features ’42 Chevy headlights, Dodge motorhome wheels (19.5 inch tires on the front, 20s on the back), ’50 Pontiac running lights, and so much more.

The roof has been chopped five inches, the front axle raised two feet, and the back lowered to create its head-turning stance. Yet “it looks authentic,” Leno says. “There’s still a lot of 1948 there.”

Created by Larry Mason and Ed West about a decade ago, the patina-laden rat rod has numerous unique—and sometimes hidden—features. The “GPS” is a World War II compass. There are two antique brass fire extinguishers in back. A JVC stereo system with a back-up camera is concealed behind a drop-down panel on the dash. The battery is hidden inside a tool box. And the fuel tank is located beneath a hinged gas can in the truck bed; the can is secured in place by an old Winchester lock.

Though the license plates read BADNUWZ, this truck is anything but.

“It must be a lot of fun when you go to car shows,” Leno says, “because this is what people go crazy for.”

“They really do,” Gregory admits. “… It really makes people smile. They want to come up, they want to talk about it, they follow me on the street, the cameras come out … It’s very, very unique.”

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Back in 1981, if you’d asked Saddam Hussein if he had weapons of mass destruction, he would have told you “yes” and pointed at the stockpile of 12,500 desert-spec’d G-body Malibus just in from Canada.

The government of Iraq ordered 25,000 Malibus in total, which were officially invoiced as taxis. After the first shipment, however, Iraq backed out of the $100 million deal. The government cited massive reliability problems as the reason for canceling the order.

The build sheet was basic but intriguing: Four-door sedan; 3.8-liter V-6; three-speed manual 200-km/h speedometer; cloth bench seats; steel wheels with polished center caps; uprated four-core radiator; heavy-duty suspension; AM/FM radio with cassette; air conditioning (because it’s hot in Iraq); and rear defrost delete (because it’s not cold in Iraq).

Instead of soaking up the sun and sand, however, the remaining Malibus sat for months at the snowy docks in Halifax, Nova Scotia, as General Motors was left pondering what to do with them. Eventually, they were distributed to Canadian Chevrolet dealers and sold off. Cheap.

Despite the criticisms doled out by Saddam’s government, GM workers insisted that the Malibus were well made. In fact, many of those workers tried to purchase the cars. There was such a high demand from GM employees that their union threatened to launch a class action lawsuit against the company for not ensuring a fair allotment of Iraqi Malibus to workers who had already submitted deposits.

Ultimately, the $6500 price point made these desert Chevys appealing workhorses, which, like most cars of that era, were all but run into the ground. The surviving Iraqi-spec Malibus have gained a reputation in Canada and today are affectionately known as “Iraqi Taxis.”

This one belongs to my dad.

His Iraqi Taxi has been souped up, but aside from the lumpy V-8, it still retains the unmistakable feature set of the Iraqi Taxis. At just over 30,000 original kilometers (18,640 miles), it may be one of the cleanest examples out there.

The previous owner and backyard hot-rod mechanic, known locally in southern Ontario as “Malibu Mike,” meticulously restored the car. It had sat for a number of years in storage before Mike got into it and replaced the tired and lethargic V-6 with a 350-cubic-inch V-8 that he modified with a high-lift cam, roller rockers, a 4.56:1 Posi rear end, and a 3000-rpm torque converter. Then, reluctantly, he sold the Malibu to my dad in order focus on other projects.

At every car show Dad and I attend in Ontario, at least one person knows something about these Malibus and their contribution to Canadian automotive history—the car that wasn’t good enough for Saddam. But were these cheap, barebones taxis really that bad?

The short answer is “yes.” It was the Malaise Era and most cars sucked. The Iraqi Taxis came with a 110-horsepower V-6 and a bargain basement three-on-the-floor manual.

The long answer is more complicated, because Saddam Hussein was in the middle of a costly war with Iran, and I’ve got to imagine that fighting the Ayatollah was probably more important than adding another 13,000 taxis to the fleet.

After an Instagram reel of my dad’s Iraqi Taxi went viral, I got connected to a man named Soran Ako—an Iraqi who had previously owned a Malibu taxi in Iraq. Although he now lives in Sweden, Ako was able to provide me with unique Iraqi intel on these “taxis,” which, as it turns out, weren’t actually taxis at all.

During his time as a student in the autonomous Kurdish region of Northern Iraq, Ako acquired his lightly used 1981 Malibu, not from a taxi driver, but from a retired Iraqi sergeant from Saddam’s regime. Despite the invoice submitted to GM Canada listing “Taxi” as the official vehicle classification, it seems these cars were in fact personal gifts for Saddam’s most loyal sergeants.

Although the spec sheet screams “base model,” according to Ako, they were considered Cadillacs compared to the other vehicles patrolling Iraqi streets at the time—mostly worn out military trucks and Soviet-export Ladas. The 3.8-liter V-6 “roared,” Ako said, churning out more than double the torque of anything comparable, and he described the stereo system as “top-notch.” Cranking tunes through the standard four-speaker system was a rare luxury considering most other vehicles in the desert nation had no stereo at all.

In Iraq, these cars were a symbol of the elite. Once sold on from the original sergeants who owned them, they were usually found in the hands of rich kids and local authority figures—and apparently one lucky student. Ako owned his light-blue Malibu for three trouble-free years before fleeing abroad as tensions in Kurdistan escalated to violence. Unfortunately, exporting the Malibu was not an option at the time, and ever since, Ako has been chasing the high that only these utilitarian land yachts could provide. He told me his goal one day would be to get his hands on another Iraqi Malibu—a light blue ’79.

Whether you happen to be in Scandinavia, out on the mean streets of Ontario, or points between, if you encounter a Canadian-made 1981 Malibu with a 200 km/h speedometer, three-speed manual, and no rear defrost, you’ve found a custom Chevrolet built for the henchmen of one of the world’s most notorious dictators. Despite the Iraqi government’s official stance on these cars, the actual owners—Canadians and Iraqis alike—treasure these basic, beefed-up ’Bus.

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This was the end of a fine line of glorious full-size Chevrolet convertibles. Oh sure, the Big Caprice would carry on with a square-headlight facelift through 1976, but you could no longer get a convertible. While the well-known 1976 Eldorado convertible was the “last convertible” in 1976 (at least until 1983, when a new topless Caddy appeared on the heels of the new K-car Chrysler convertibles of 1982), 1975 was last call for the Caprice convertible and its Olds 88, Pontiac Grand Ville Brougham, and Buick LeSabre Custom siblings.

In 1975, the Caprice was the biggest, most luxurious Chevrolet you could buy. Since 1965, the Caprice had out-Broughamed the Impala, first as a custom luxury trim package in 1965 and then becoming a full-fledged model of its own in 1966, with wagons added to the two-door and four-door hardtop models.

By 1975, you could get your Caprice in two- and four-door pillarless hardtops, a four-door sedan, six- and nine-passenger Caprice Estate Wagons, and the belle of the ball, the Caprice Classic convertible. And today’s featured Caprice looks especially good to me in Antique White with matching white interior with blue dash and carpets. Very nautical. See you on deck, Senator!

As I’ve mentioned in past columns, convertible sales in the U.S. had been slowly but steadily declining since the late ’60s. There were myriad reasons for this, but the biggest was the increasing popularity (and the corresponding decrease in price) of factory air conditioning. Why endure a drafty convertible top and the related ease of breaking into the car when you could get your Caprice two-door hardtop with factory air?

The production figures tell the story. The 1971 Chevrolets were all-new and bigger than ever and, of course, there was an Impala convertible. This continued for 1972, but then in ’73 the Impala droptop was discontinued and replaced with a Caprice convertible. Production figures for 1971–74 were 4576, 6456, 7339 and 4670.

Compare that with a decade earlier, when Impala convertible sales in 1960–63 were 79,903, 64,624, 75,719, and 82,659. Of course, tastes changed a lot from the ’60s into the ’70s, but it still surprises me that the big Chevy convertible couldn’t hit annual production of even 10,000 units in the ’70s (1970 came closest, with 9562).

But I’m getting off track, so let’s get back to the 1975 model. Chevy was a little bit sly about the convertible in its big ’75 brochure: “For those who still favor a convertible, we still offer one, combining the exhilarating effects of a convertible with the elegance of a Caprice.” Nowhere near the “Last chance, so get one now!” seen a year later with the ’76 Eldorado convertibles. Still, it was pretty common knowledge early on that the ’75 Caprice droptop was going to be the last one.

The ’75 Caprice Classic convertible (how’s that for alliteration, ha ha) had a base price of $5113 (about $29,000 today), a not-insignificant sum, as the cheapest new Chevy that year was the two-door Vega sedan at $2786 ($15,800). Curb weight was a majestic 4342 pounds, and a total of 8349 Caprice convertibles were built. Despite all the compact, midsize, and subcompact Chevrolets available in 1975, big Chevys were still popular: just in the top-tier Caprice line, production including the convertible was 103,944. And that was that. Come 1976, the sportiest Caprice Classic you could get was the coupe.

As many of you recall, 2020 and ’21 were bad years for classic car fans, as many shows and cruise nights were canceled due to the pandemic. But as 2022 came along, most (if not all) of them resumed, and I was dedicated to attending as many as I could. I saw this Caprice at the annual car show in Alpha, Illinois, in May 2022. It was the first show of the year that I attended. I’d never been to this particular show before, but it was quite good, with entrants ranging from an early Bronco restored to showroom condition, a 1963 Cadillac convertible, and an early Studebaker Avanti with that amazing factory-correct orange interior. But the one I wanted to cruise home in most of all was this Caprice!

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There’s a reason Harley Earl is often referred to as the father of car design. Multiple reasons, in fact, including the Buick Y-Job, Project Opel, and the LeSabre Concept. One of Earl’s most famous production vehicles, however, isn’t a car but a pickup. As head of General Motors’ first design studio, Earl is responsible for Chevrolet’s stylish and hugely popular Advance Design light- and medium-duty trucks, which were produced from 1947–55.

Although Chevy wasn’t the first of the Big Three to enter the pickup market—that honor goes to Ford—the Bowtie was Detroit’s No. 1 truck seller entering World War II. Following the war, GM was back in the business of building civilian automobiles by May 1945, but it would be two years before new designs rolled off the line. They were worth the wait. As America got back to work, so did Earl, and his new Advance Design pickups were much more than utilitarian.

Wider, longer, and lower than the prewar leftovers, the Advance Design models looked thoroughly modern. Headlights were incorporated into the wide front fenders. The grille featured five curved horizontal chrome bars, much like Chevy passenger vehicles. The windshield was larger. Under the hood was Chevy’s proven 216-cubic-inch “Stovebolt” six-cylinder engine, mated to a three-speed, column-shifted manual transmission.

The new cab was wider and offered more head and leg room. Thanks to its Unisteel design, which formed a single unit, the cab offered enough room for three people. The bench seat could be adjusted to the height of the driver, and it rose when moved forward, increasing visibility for shorter drivers. A pop-up cowl vent routed fresh air inside. Heater/defroster and AM radio were optional.

The same basic design was used for all Chevrolet Advance Design trucks, including the Suburban, panel trucks, canopy express, and cab-overs.

Advance Design pickups received new series designations based on cargo capacity. A half-tons was known as a 3100, a 3/4-ton as 3600, and a one-ton as 3800. Vent windows in the doors first appeared in 1951, and push-button door handles (as opposed to the previous turn-down style) were introduced in 1952. That year, half-ton Chevys were also available as chassis and cowl, chassis and cab, panel trucks, canopy trucks, and Suburbans with either tailgates or doors in back.

All of this brings us to the 1952 Chevrolet 3100 pickup on Hagerty Marketplace. Offered from the Gateway (Colorado) Automobile Museum Collection, it features a deluxe five-window design and has been beautifully restored in two-tone Cream and Windsor Blue. 

Among its features are a heater, AM radio, dash-mounted traffic light refractor, rubber floor covering to reduce noise, running boards, 16-inch steel wheels with chrome hubcaps, chrome grille, and oak-varnished bed floor and matching bed rails.

Purchased by the Gateway Collection in 2012, this 3100 (VIN 14KPK12372) has received multiple AACA awards,  including a First National Junior and Senior, and a Second Place Grand National Award.

Although the odometer reads 799 miles, actual mileage is unknown.

With a base price of $1407 when new (that’s about $16,200 today), 1952 Chevrolet 3100 pickup trucks have an average value of $45,600 in #2 (Excellent) condition. The bid for this one is at $23,000 with less than a week remaining until the auction closes on Wednesday, August 9, at 3:30 pm EDT.

A total of 147,756 Advance Design 3100s were produced for the 1952 model year, making them America’s most popular Chevrolet commercial vehicles that year, and they remain popular among collectors. Regardless of their age, it seems that these old-school pickups just never get old. Thank you, Harley Earl.

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Chevrolet built just 4640 Corvettes between 1953 and 1955, which makes each survivor of this initial “C1” design a special car in its own right. But perhaps none is quite as special as the 1954 Corvette prototype that will go under the hammer at Gooding & Company’s Pebble Beach auction on August 18 and 19. Because the mere fact this ‘Vette still exists at all is exceptional.

This car’s story goes back all the way to the very beginning of the Corvette program, prior to ’53, when GM built a batch of around 15 pre-production prototypes for experimental and display use. Largely hand-built, these vehicles were issued only a four-digit S.O. (“Shop Order”) code for internal use rather than a regular production-code number, as would have been used for a salable car.

Known initially as S.O. 2000, this particular Corvette prototype began life as a pale yellow hardtop model. It didn’t stay that way for long, though. Dismantled in early 1954, its body returned to GM’s design department where it received a new “S.O. 2151” code as well as a new chassis.

Most important in this context, the car got a fresh look. Under the watch of GM’s legendary design chief Harley Earl, this Corvette was transformed into a so-called “Proposal Car,” a prototype built for GM management to evaluate the styling changes intended for the Corvette’s 1955 model year. Given that the scope of this project was a simple facelift, likely meant to rekindle interest in the Corvette amid flagging sales, the car’s fundamental design and proportions didn’t change. Nevertheless, it’s an intriguing glimpse into Earl’s ideas for the Corvette’s evolution, highlighting a somewhat different design direction from the one he eventually chose for the model’s subsequent 1956 revamp.

In automobile design, the period between the end of World War II and 1960 was characterized by an intense creative exchange between the two sides of the Atlantic. On the one hand, to people in war-ravaged Europe, the triumphant U.S.A. represented a beacon of progress, the promise of a brighter future. In car design terms, this translated into European automakers’ wide adoption of design elements like wraparound glass and tailfins.

On the other hand, Detroit’s stylists sought inspiration from the Old World’s design heritage to lend a certain prestige and sophistication to their mass-market offerings. This Corvette prototype serves as an excellent case in point.

Design cues like the aggressive egg-crate grille, non-functional hood scoop, and slanted air outlets on the front fenders were all lifted straight from period Ferraris. Chevrolet’s curvaceous little roadster originated from Harley Earl’s desire to create an all-American answer to the growing success of European sports cars, so the look of this proposed facelift seems to further build on that original idea.

Interestingly, the decorative chrome trim pieces adorning the fender’s air outlets are only present on the left side of the car. The same goes with the Corvette script, which is also placed differently from left to right. A convenient way to evaluate different options using a single model, such asymmetrical prototypes are still a staple of every automaker’s design process.

The most notable styling change at the rear of S.O. 2151 is the trunk lid, whose shape is redolent of the ’54 Motorama’s fastback Corvair show car. The exhaust tips integrated into the rear bumperette’s design are another noteworthy feature, if only because they are the sole design element from this Corvette that made it onto the redesigned 1956 model.

General Motors ultimately decided not to change the Corvette’s appearance for the 1955 model year. With just 700 cars produced that year, the Corvette program was hanging by a thread and was ultimately, albeit indirectly, saved by the Ford Motor Company. As the Thunderbird outsold the Corvette more than 20 times over in ’55, GM reimagined the Corvette for 1956 with better weather protection, roll-up windows, and an overall glitzier appearance.

For GM or any other automaker, cars like S.O. 2151 are development tools. It may seem cold and shortsighted through a retrospective lens, but once such prototypes serve their purpose, their life expectancy can usually be measured in weeks. So, although we may never know exactly how this unique Corvette managed to escape destruction, let alone slip into private hands, it’s important to recognize its survival as an exceptional occurrence.

Following a painstaking restoration that took three years and brought this forgotten piece of Corvette history back to its appearance during its (fleeting) glory days of mid-1954, S.O. 2151 made its public debut at The Amelia in March this year.

Given the car’s unique status and significance, it comes as no surprise that Gooding & Company estimates it could fetch between $1.5M and $2M on the auction block, which means it could become the most expensive “C1” Corvette ever sold. That honor currently belongs to a 1962 Corvette “Gulf Oil” race car, which sold for $1.65M in 2015 at an RM Sotheby’s auction.

Although few people can afford to bid for the privilege of being this Corvette’s next custodian, those who saved, lovingly restored, and documented it all made a priceless contribution to the preservation of automobile history. That makes us all a little bit richer, no?

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

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Despite the known dangers of putting ethanol in your own tank before driving—as opposed to putting it in your car’s gas tank—there have been some official associations between alcohol and automobiles. The 1957 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham came with a custom minibar in the glovebox. If you have the means to own a Rolls-Royce Ghost, you can order it with a “Coolbox” installed at the Goodwood works that keeps the bubbly chilled (for backseat passengers only, one presumes) and has dedicated storage for a couple of champagne flutes.

You might think, then, that when vintage Camaro enthusiasts talk about “Cocktail Shakers” in their convertibles, they might be discussing something similar, but in this case the term has nothing to do with the fruit of the vine or its grain-based cousins in the EtOH family. It has to do with how Detroit automakers did a clever bit of “engineering by afterthought.”

Most of us probably think of our car’s roof as being there to protect us from the elements, but the roof is a structural element. Removing the roof to make a convertible (or cutting a big hole in the back of the body to make a hatchback) decreases the body’s overall stiffness. That’s obviously an issue when a vehicle uses monocoque or unibody construction, but even convertibles with body-on-frame designs can exhibit symptoms of their bodies flexing like cowl shake. Every structure has one or more resonant frequencies. Those resonances can create an oscillating feedback loop that results in vibrations that the driver and passenger can feel.

During the development of the first-generation Camaro’s convertible iteration, when then recently-installed Chevrolet General Manager Pete Estes was given a ride in an early prototype at the General Motors Proving Grounds near Milford, Michigan, the new boss found the vibrations to be unacceptable for a production vehicle. Estes tasked his engineers with immediately finding a solution.

Normally, the solution would be to make the mid-section of the body less flexible, but while conventional methods like reinforcing rocker panels and stiffening the floor ameliorated the shaking, it didn’t completely solve the problem. Eventually, Estes’ team came up with something that had earlier been used on Chevy’s own Corvair, similar to how Ford engineers had addressed the torsional vibration of the early-1960s Ford Thunderbird and Lincoln Continental convertibles (which shared a platform). Rather than address the bodies’ flexibility, the engineers attacked the vibrations. Since the vibrations were the result of resonant frequencies, they realized that if they could effectively dampen those frequencies, they could not cause the vibrations. In the case of the Conti, Ford engineers mounted weights on the end of what are essentially leaf springs in each corner of the car’s body. The assembly is acoustically tuned to the body’s resonant frequency, and when the body is subjected to loading, the energy from that loading, which would normally start the feedback loop of oscillations, is instead absorbed by the damper.

The early-’60s Continental and T-Bird are large cars, with substantial body overhangs front and rear, so there’s no problem fitting in and hiding the relatively long mechanical dampers. Corvairs and Camaros, though, are relatively compact, so for the redesigned 1965 Corvair convertible, Chevy engineers put a weight on a coil spring inside a sealed cylinder filled with automatic transmission fluid, all tuned to the body’s resonant frequency. The sprung weight would dampen the body’s vibrations while the ATF would dampen the motion of the weights. The motion of the weight inside the cylinder is not unlike the contents of a cocktail shaker, hence the nickname. The capsule ended up being small enough to be tucked vertically in the corners of the body.

At the next demonstration of the Camaro convertible, when engineers took their boss for a ride, Estes was very pleased with the lack of vibration. He wasn’t as happy when he found out about the solution. Not only was he reported to be vocally disappointed in what he considered to be an inelegant, albeit clever, solution, the four canisters added about 100 lbs to the weight of what was supposed to be a sporting automobile. Estes tasked the engineers with coming up with a better solution, but they were never able to replace the Cocktail Shakers before the convertible Camaros were discontinued when the second-gen Chevy pony car was introduced as a mid-year 1970 model.

While you may be able to buy a complete, new reproduction convertible body for your first-generation Camaro, sourcing the Cocktail Shakers might be a bit more difficult, as they are long since out of production and nobody appears to be manufacturing repro units. GM made about 60,000 first-gen Camaro ragtops, so used dampers can be found, though they are getting rarer.

Installing used units shouldn’t be a problem, as it is a very simple mechanical device, and the only things that can go wrong are a broken spring or leakage of the ATF. They’re also not prohibitively expensive. Advertised prices are between $125 and $500 each (try Camaro Central and Heartbeat City).

 

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So often when we get a new car or truck to test, it’s the latest and greatest, with every option in the book. We aren’t really complaining, but sometimes it makes it hard to credibly judge what the average consumer is likely to buy. Somehow, this 2024 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 Crew Cab LT 4WD snuck in through the cracks. Make no mistake, it’s hardly a stripper model—it has plenty of options, nearly $20,000 worth, but the list price, $73,935, is less than some half-ton trucks we’ve tested.

So what’s missing? Running boards, for one thing: You don’t want running boards if you’re doing serious ranch work of off-roading. But the 28-inch floor height does require a heavy jerk on the grab handle, or if you are my wife, her portable kitchen step stool.

That said, there are some luxury options like leather upholstery ($995, plus $620 for front bucket seats), heated driver and front passenger seats ($400), remote start ($525, and oddly includes a rear-window defroster) and a 10-way power driver’s seat.

But most of the options are work-related, such as the gooseneck trailer fifth-wheel package ($545), evidenced by five covered holes in the sprayed-on bed liner; the liner comes as part of the $1165 Z71 package that also included twin-tube, off-road shocks, hill descent control and skid plates.

Standard are safety features that include rear park assist, rear cross traffic alert, plus a trailer-side blind zone assist and provisions for trailer cameras, should you tow a lot, and you probably will if you’re in the market for this pickup, considering its generous 20,000-lb. capacity. There’s “hitch guidance with hitch view,” cheap at $425, and for some reason that also includes a power sliding rear window. Big heated trailering, auto-dimming outside mirrors are $530, and worth it, but beware of smacking restaurant drive-through windows.

The interior of the 2500 HD was redesigned for 2024, but stylists went moderately retro with easily-mastered controls, and a knob for turning on the radio and adjusting the sound, meaning they got it half right since there’s no knob for tuning. Instruments are easy to read. Front seats are supportive and properly contoured, good for all day in the saddle. Rear seats have room for three basketball centers. Fortunately there are grab handles back there if you aren’t seven feet tall.

Specs: 2024 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 Crew Cab LT 4WD

Price: $54,000/$ 73,935 base/as tested
Powertrain: 6.6-liter turbocharged diesel V-8, 10-speed automatic
Horsepower: 470
Torque: 975 lb-ft
Layout: Four-wheel-drive, four-door, five-passenger pickup
EPA-rated fuel economy: Not rated. Our overall fuel economy was 15.7 mpg.
Competitors: Ford Super Duty, Ram 2500, Nissan Titan XD

Outside, the 2500 HD has a purposeful look, with the seemingly truck-standardized Big Grille with fog lights and heavy tow hooks. The hood lists its means-business credentials – the 6.6-liter Duramax diesel engine and the 10-speed Allison transmission, and the Z71 badge on the fender has, for decades, suggested off-road prowess.

On the road, that 470-horsepower Duramax (torque is a stump-pulling 975 ft.-lbs. at just 1600 rpm) works well with the busy 10-speed Allison to keep things moving off the line and beyond, but weighing in at nearly four tons, the 2500 HD accelerates leisurely and loudly from a standing start. (Standard, by the way, is a 6.6-liter gas V-8 with 401 horsepower, which saves you $9499 and 700 pounds.) The diesel engine is quiet at cruise and idle, and fortunately for the McDonald’s employees operating the drive-through speaker, the exhaust exits on the passenger side through a massive, coffee can-sized chromed outlet.

On the highway, the 2500 HD is a surprisingly docile companion. The ride is remarkably good, unless you encounter ruts or a series of bumps, and then the solid rear axle makes itself known with the live-axle shudder. Steering is spot-on, but the turning circle is pretty wide.

The big disc brakes are excellent, making the truck seem much lighter than it is. Tires are the largest available from the factory on the Z71, all-terrain LT275/65R20 Goodyears ($200) that are nearly silent, and happier on the street than in the mud. We did some moderate off-roading – the truck is simply too large and heavy for it to be much fun – and we were wishing for a more aggressive tread. The 10-spoke spoke aluminum wheels are handsome but cost $1100, one place we’d save a little money.

In all, the 2024 Chevrolet 2500 Crew Cab LT 4WD is a very comfortable workhorse, designed for tough duty and likely to last a long time, at a price that’s expensive but certainly on par with the competition. Add a dual rope ladder to help get in and out, and we’re sold.

2024 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 Crew Cab LT 4WD

Highs: Excellent, appropriate powertrain, stiff chassis, very good highway ride.

Lows: Heavy as a boxcar, could use better off-road tires, high step-in.

Takeaway: A legitimate, talented workhorse but with all the creature comforts you really need.

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Sometimes it’s tough to enjoy a vehicle that’s in perfect condition, as the worry of getting it scratched remains a constant in the back of your mind. With this 1974 Chevy pickup, up for bid on Bring a Trailer, that won’t be a concern. The C10 was nicknamed Boomhauer not just because the incomprehensible King of the Hill character was a fan of V-8 muscle, but because of its NASCAR-inspired boom tube exhaust. Lots of the truck’s build was chronicled on the Hoonigan YouTube channel if you’d like to learn more. While it’s rough on the edges, Boomhauer has what counts under the skin, namely a thoroughly revamped suspension and a menacing LS V-8 swap.

The 1974 C10 had lived a work truck’s life and had suffered some poor repairs, but most of that is behind it, save for some rusty bits on the lower fenders and bedsides. The suspension was completely rebuilt with QA1 components and the leaf spring suspension out back was ditched in favor of coil springs, trailing arms, and a Panhard bar. The main event, however, is under the hood.

A 434-cubic-inch LS3-based engine has been re-sleeved to accommodate its larger bore and longer stroke. The engine is topped with a sheet metal intake manifold and a set of Texas Speed’s Precision Race Components cylinder heads with 260cc intake ports. The heads flow in excess of 370 CFM and, along with the aggressive “Chop Monster” cam and Hooker headers, allow the big LS to breathe easy. The result is an impressive 669 hp.

Behind the nasty V-8 is a stout 4L80E transmission from Gearstar. In case you’re not familiar, just think of a 4L80E as an electronically controlled Turbo 400 with overdrive. They’re probably not the most efficient transmission thanks to their heavy-duty construction, although they do come with one heck of a reputation for durability and longevity. If you want to put this burnout machine to work as your shop truck, or, well, burnout machine, you’ll probably be glad it’s there.

What we like best about this truck is how it was upgraded where it counts, in addition to the complete suspension transformation and drivetrain swap, a Wilwood brake system, stealthy Dakota Digital dash, and Vintage Air HVAC system give the pickup some much-needed updates. That kind of power and performance doesn’t come cheap. With a few days left in the auction and the bid at just $33,000, we’ve got a feeling things are going to heat up.

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Chevrolet has taken its pricing configurator live at Chevrolet.com for the three 2024 Corvette models.

Well, most of it.

The E-Ray starts at $104,495 for the coupe and $111,495 for the convertible, and you can price out a specific model. The Z06 starts at $108,100, and “as shown, $128,650,” but when you try to price the Z06 coupe and convertible out, you get, “See dealer for pricing,” perhaps suggesting Chevrolet knows that there’s still going to be a healthy markup added to the list price due to supply and demand.

For 2023, the Z06 coupe started at $106,695, and the convertible at $114,195. You can still price out the 2023 models, just not the 2024 cars.

By comparison, the base 2024 Stingray coupe starts at a relatively bargain price of $66,300 (just $405 more than 2023) or $67,895 with shipping. The convertible starts at $74,895 with shipping. The Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price does not include “tax, title, license, Dealer Fees and optional equipment.” We capitalized Dealer Fees for effect.

Clicking almost all the options for the Stingray coupe, including the $6345 Z51 performance package, took us to $99,650, but you can have a very nice Stingray for far less. The configurator automatically adds in the $1595 destination charge.

Adding up the $74,895 convertible the way we’d configure it—the Z51 package and mostly standard equipment for the rest—took the price to a more sensible $88,235.

As for the E-Ray, we went middle of the road with the coupe, adding a handful of accessories including the ZER performance package (just $500), and ended up at $131,385. As for the convertible, we again added a modest amount of features, including the cheapest package, the 1LZ, which took the price to $111,495. We then selected the killer Amplify Orange Tintcoat for $995, the carbon fiber wheels (a whopping $13,500), a base interior, and that ZER package, which took the price to $125,900.

As mentioned, you’ll have to see your dealer to completely price out the Z06. We wish you and your pocketbook the best of luck.

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In 2017, Hagerty arguably debunked the myth advanced by safety advocate Ralph Nader in his 1965 book, Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Danger of the American Automobile, that the Chevrolet Corvair was inherently unsafe.

In the story and accompanying video, Hagerty editor-in-chief Larry Webster, an experienced race car driver, put a vintage Corvair through its paces on an airstrip. While slipping and sliding around, he found that the rear-engine, rear-wheel-drive, swing-axled Corvair did handle differently than most of the American lead sleds of the 1960s. It was more nimble than its competition, yes, but at no point in the experiment did the car exhibit a willingness or tendency to flip, as Nader claimed.

Thus making the final score one for the Corvair, zero for Ralph Nader. He made some valid observations in the book (the Corvair took up only one chapter) but the car’s exoneration did, of course, come far too late. The Corvair was marketed from 1960 to 1969 and was Motor Trend’s Car of the Year in 1960.

But the market for Corvairs has long been solid among car collectors, and that remains so now.

Which brings us to this three-owner 1964 Chevrolet Corvair Monza 900 being offered at auction on Hagerty Marketplace. It’s a very original survivor, powered by a 110-horsepower, 2.7-liter air-cooled six-cylinder engine mated to a two-speed Powerglide automatic transmission. The rear suspension was substantially improved in the 1964 model with a traverse leaf spring to handle camber compensation as the rear wheels move through their travel, making the ’64 the last and best of the Corvair’s first-generation models.

The car is believed to be still wearing its original Ember Red lacquer paint and red vinyl interior, as stated by the consignor, who believes that the odometer, which shows just over 35,000 miles, is likely correct.

The Corvair’s exhaust has been upgraded with a dual-pipe setup. The transmission was serviced with new fluid and a pan gasket, a new engine oil pan gasket, oil cooler seals, pushrod tube seals, fuel pump, left and right heater hoses, front and rear shock absorbers, rear stabilizer spring bushings, and both rear axle universal shafts.

The car is wearing chrome baby moon hubcaps on body-colored wheels, and raised-white-letter tires, but Monza wheel covers come with the car. On the rear panel is the badge from the original selling dealer, Gibson Motors of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.

Bidding on the 1964 Corvair Monza ends Friday, July 21, at 4:30 p.m. ET.

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As we reported earlier this year, Chevrolet is making some small but welcome changes to the 2024 Silverado. The 3.0-liter Duramax inline-six, the only diesel engine offered in the 1/2-ton market, saw its output increase from 277 hp and 460 lb-ft of torque to 305 hp and 495 lb-ft of torque. (That exceeds the power output of the 6.6-liter Duramax V-8 when it launched back in 2001!) The newest change to the 2024 Silverado lineup, however, is the addition of a five-year, 100,000-mile powertrain warranty for the 2.7-liter L3B TurboMax gasoline inline-four engine.

We’ve written about the mighty L3B four-cylinder in detail and have experienced it in both the Silverado and Colorado. In both applications, its broad torque curve pairs well with GM’s redesigned eight-speed automatic transmission to deliver seamless power, and it features a lot of tough parts just like you’d find in a diesel. It’s the standard engine on most of the Silverado lineup, starting with the WT and continuing on to the Custom, Custom Trail Boss, LT, LT Trail Boss, and RST.

We asked Chevrolet if there was anything new for the 2024 engine that prompted the warranty upgrade, and it’s the same L3B with the same tune that’s been in service since 2022. Sean Szymkowski, Senior Manager of Chevrolet Trucks Communications, told us, “We’re proud this warranty goes beyond competitors’ offerings in the light-duty, full-size pickup segment for a gasoline-powered engine.”

Having two powertrain options with 100,000-mile warranties could give Chevrolet a leg up on its competition, although it’s already been doing quite well on the sales front against Ford and Ram. This same powertrain combination in the Chevrolet Colorado will maintain the five-year, 60,000-mile warranty that also previously applied to the Silverado’s L3B, matching the powertrain warranty of its chief competitor, Toyota Tacoma. The big difference is that with Colorado, a turbo-four is the only powertrain available.

Our thinking? Chevrolet might want its tough four-cylinder to be perceived as more than just a “base engine” when it’s on the showroom alongside a 355-hp 5.3-liter V-8 and 420-hp 6.2-liter V-8.

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Metallic exhaust roar echoed through the hillside as I wound along Ohio’s Kokosing River. Overhead cams whirred and the engine swept through its sweet spot between 4500 and 6500 rpm. Shifting at redline, I was rewarded by another eager rush in the meat of the powerband. It’s hard to believe this is a big American V-8. Now, as in 1990, the Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1 is a revelation.

So revelatory, in fact, that it shocked General Motors’ own engine division into a frenzy of activity. GM engineers were so taken aback at the decision from on high to hire Lotus to design the ZR-1’s high-performance LT5 engine—and Mercury Marine for its construction—that they quickly got to work on new small-block V-8 designs. The result was in the car behind us, a 2004 Corvette Z06.

These two bygone bosses of Bowling Green obviously have a lot in common—flip-up headlamps, about 400 horses under their hoods, and capable handling. Here’s something else: Both can be had today in excellent condition for around $45,000, according to the latest Hagerty Price Guide. That’s quite a steal considering the recent run-up for other performance cars of the era (a roughly contemporary Toyota Supra Turbo, for instance, will easily run you six figures).

Of course, we couldn’t help but wonder which Vette is better. Father and son Hagerty members Rick and Rocky Yusi own pristine, low-mile examples of each and graciously shared them to help us understand what sets these cars apart. Together, we disappeared into the hills of southeast Ohio to find answers.

C4 ZR-1

Engaging with a C4 Corvette is an exercise in immersion. Or maybe it’s contortion. Slide over the famously large sill and slither down into the deeply bolstered bucket seat, and you’re completely enveloped by a high transmission tunnel and driver-oriented dash. You’re now of this Corvette, not merely in it.

Nowadays this cockpit—complete with orange-over-charcoal analog gauges, digital display, and acres of small buttons—screams RADwood. But in period, the futuristic design ethic was intended to break completely with prior generations of America’s sports car. “The C4 was a modern statement: It didn’t look back at heritage,” retired GM designer John Cafaro told me in a phone interview.

Brash as it is, there’s not much to the cabin or the design as a whole that tips off the casual observer that this version of the Corvette is a supercar slayer. “I love the way it looks and all the subtle ways it’s different from the base car, but I do wish Chevy made it stand out a bit more,” admitted Rick, who bought this ZR-1 new in 1990. The tachometer’s 7000-rpm redline is the only hint at the marvel that is under the clamshell hood.

The standard Corvette in 1990 had a pushrod, iron-block 5.7-liter L98 V-8 that produced 245 horsepower at 4000 rpm. The ZR-1’s engine, known as the LT5, carried over only the displacement and bore spacing. Its block and cylinder heads were aluminum. Dual overhead cams actuated 32 valves (versus 16 in the standard car). It made 375 horsepower at 5800 rpm—around the fuel cutoff for the standard car.

I fired up the LT5 and left the college-town charm of Wooster via a sweeping state route dotted with Amish farms. The bucket seat cosseted me with a vast array of power and pneumatic adjustments. Meanwhile, the three-way adjustable Selective Ride Control dampers—a feature that debuted on the ZR-1 and paved the way for similar tech in later models—impressively blunted road imperfections when set to Touring, the softest mode.

Along with that comfort, though, comes some softness in the controls. This is a car from a different era, after all. Initial application of the brake pedal is 1990s-GM squishy, although it firms up with increased pressure. The weighty, mechanical shifter atop the ZF six-speed box has a rubbery give as you reach each detent.

The asphalt roller coaster bends began south of Millersburg, where the scenery evolved from undulating corn and soy fields to rocky, rolling hills. I stiffened the ZR-1’s damper settings to Sport and then to Performance. Even in modern cars, selectable drive modes can be more gimmick than substance, but not here. The dampers deftly responded to imperfections and helped the car stay utterly poised as I pitched from left to right.

The harder you drive the ZR-1, though, the more it reveals the one dynamic trait that belies its age: the chassis itself. At anything more than about 6/10ths pace, the frame flexes through camber changes. The car never gets upset, but when pushed, the compliant chassis’ additional motion distracts from the experience. Turning the ride control setting from Performance down to Sport softens the dampers, enabling smoother, less wobbly transitions, yet I found myself wondering how much more dynamic the ZR-1 would feel had its structure been further stiffened to let that superb suspension more effectively do its job.

Despite that, I emerged from the twisty river-bottom roads with some newfound respect for the ZR-1. Remember: Less than a decade prior to this car’s debut, the Corvette was a still 190-hp weakling. This car made clear that Chevrolet wanted to build a world-class sports car, and the seriousness of that intention still shines through when you’re driving it today.

C5 Z06

On to the Z06. The design is clearly less of a departure from what had come before than the C4. The General Motors that developed the C5 in the 1990s was more cautious—and had a considerably smaller pocketbook—than the one that had spawned the C4 in the early ’80s. Cafaro, who was chief designer for the C5, noted that special care had to be taken to appease various departments, including what he affectionately calls “the toothpaste and detergent folks” in marketing. “One little controversy could’ve killed the car,” he said. By 2004, the C5’s last year, Chevy had relaxed enough to allow a carbon-fiber hood and stripe package for the Commemorative Edition, as on the Yusis’ car. Today it’s worth slightly more than other C5 Z06s.

Styling aside, the generational difference from the ZR-1 immediately presented itself upon opening the door: Those massive side sills are gone. You can simply get into the car without first having to practice yoga.

Those sills shrank because the C5’s chassis, four times stiffer, incorporated hydro-formed frame rails and a strengthened center tunnel. The concerted effort to increase rigidity went hand in hand with making the C5 accessible to a wider array of people. A longer wheelbase increased cabin space, as did repositioning the gas tanks to behind the seats.

Most of that practicality carried over to the high-performance Z06, which debuted in 2001. The Z06’s flat, wide seats surely did better in focus groups than the ZR-1’s, since they’re able to take in a broad swath of humanity, although they don’t hold you nearly as well in aggressive maneuvers. (Sport buckets, available in the base coupe and convertible, didn’t make it into the Z06 due to their extra weight.) Those same focus groups also nixed the pseudo-digital gauges, so you stare at more traditional analog gauges. As a result of the efforts to make the C5 more approachable, the Z06 feels more utilitarian and less of an occasion than the ZR-1.

At least, until you fire up the 405-horse, 5.7-liter V-8. The standard, lightweight titanium exhaust emitted a docile burble that turned raw and throaty when I rolled onto the throttle. The LS6, as this engine is known, is on its face less exotic than the ZR-1’s LT5: It’s a pushrod engine and makes only 55 horsepower more than the contemporary base Corvette. Yet that only speaks to how profoundly the tried-and-true small-block had changed in the intervening years. The LS-series V-8, which debuted with the C5 for 1997 and eventually proliferated to millions of trucks and SUVs (not to mention hot rods and restomods of all stripes), was the most significant update to GM’s bread-and-butter V-8 since it debuted in the 1950s. An aluminum block was baked in from the start, as were high-compression aluminum cylinder heads.

The LS6 was the first true rock star of this engine family, with even higher (10.5:1) compression, better-breathing intake manifold and cylinder heads, and myriad tweaks to the internals. The result is an engine that pulls linearly—and hard—from about 2000 rpm and barely lets up by its 6500-rpm red-line. You can rev it out or stick the gearbox in third or fourth and count on low-end torque to muscle through a corner.

The Z06’s controls would be at home in a current sports car. Moderately heavy steering offers feedback but isn’t particularly lively—for better and for worse, it’s similar to many modern racks. The shifter’s throws are long but crisper than in the ZR-1. The brakes inspire confidence with a firm and linear pedal. And, thanks to the relocation of the transmission to the rear of the car, the Z06’s footbox allows plenty of room for fancy pedal work.

Returning to the route along the Kokosing, I discover how progressive and predictable the Z06 is, especially for something with this much brawn. The nonadjustable suspension allows for plenty of body roll in assertive driving, but it’s always well composed. You quickly get used to this trait, and it becomes part of how you set the car through a corner. The chassis does exhibit some flex, but it’s dramatically less than the ZR-1’s. Overall, the 3100-pound Z06 feels big but never unwieldy, even on tight, technical roads.

As the day ended, I slotted the Z06’s shifter into sixth gear and settled into a cruise. The car quietly soaked up the miles and nosed close to 30 mpg at the speed limit. It was almost funny; in contrast to the ZR-1, the only thing I needed to adjust to bring out the Z06’s differing personalities was what gear I was in.

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What we have here, despite the apparent similarities and comparable values, are two very different slices of apple pie. The ZR-1 is more complex and full of character. It is also, from a design and historical standpoint, more significant—we’re talking about the first Corvette in decades that truly went toe-to-toe with the best in the world. Perhaps for those reasons, trailer-queen ZR-1s tend to fetch considerably more than similarly pampered Z06s.

If you’re looking to drive a lot, it’s hard to argue with a Z06. Say what you will about GM’s obsession at the time with metrics and ergonomics; it yielded a sports car you can still easily use every day to fetch groceries—and then embarrass younger and more expensive cars at a weekend track day. It’s truly a Goldilocks car. That versatility and usability help explain why it’s generally appreciating faster than the ZR-1—and why we put it on our most recent Bull Market List.

Ultimately, both exude “Corvette” and offer heaps of performance and personality. I end the day still wondering which $45K classic I would choose, but more so, I’m grateful to have experienced them both.

***

This article first appeared in Hagerty Drivers Club magazine. Click here to subscribe and join the club.

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Did you know this coming Friday is Collector Car Appreciation Day? Well now you do, and we need to find some automobiles to truly appreciate. We could pick the usual suspects, but all vehicles are special in their own right. Very few get the recognition they deserve until decades after their debuts. Those vehicles deserve a better fate than slipping through the cracks on this special day, don’t you think?

Celebrating the life of automotive rock stars, especially heroes that made it big before they were born, has merit, but others silently live below the surface. They are in a middle ground, hoping to one day be more than just basic transportation. There’s a moment when an automobile transforms from its planned purpose into a specialized experience on its own. That moment is absolutely worth celebrating on Collector Car Appreciation Day.

While I am not sure this notion is entirely fitting for the 1968–74 Chevrolet Nova in particular, the Chevy II/Nova series wasn’t as prestigious as other cars wearing that famous bowtie emblem, and that’s truly unfair. The Nova sported stealthy style, stout suspensions, and both big- and small-block V-8s. It was a combination that made the Nova into a serious performer in sensible shoes. And it ushered the meteoritic rise of its more famous brother, the Chevrolet Camaro. Or as NovaResource.org put it:

“While many say the 1968 and later Novas were just Camaros with a trunk and seating for five, the platform was actually designed first for the Nova and then quickly introduced in 1967 as the Camaro to catch up with the Mustang. From there, the Nova and Camaro would follow a similar evolutionary path, in terms of suspension and engine availability, until the Novas demise after 1979.”

While more recent history has ushered the Nova into the same space as Chevelles, Camaros, and possibly even Corvettes (think Yenko Nova), there was far too much time when it wasn’t getting the respect it deserved. But today even the bigger bumper 1973–79 examples give the same good vibes, with a more approachable asking price. Or so it feels to yours truly, which again begs the question:

What classic car was underappreciated when new?

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Fear not, Barbie fans—the bowtie brand is back in the playhouse garage. Coming to theaters on July 21, 2023, is a new Barbie blockbuster written by Greta Gerwig and her husband, Noah Baumbach. Gerwig directed the movie as well, which follows Barbie’s 2020-era-appropriate existential crisis. Amid the frenzy she gets a sweet set of wheels—a classic first-generation Corvette. Barbie has had plenty of dalliances with America’s sports car, but her most recent was a C5, about two decades ago.

America’s relationship with Barbie started in the ’50s, when Mattel co-founder Ruth Handler noticed her daughter eschewing her baby dolls for paper adult versions. An idea was born, and on March 9, 1959, Barbie debuted at the New York Toy Fair. The long-legged blond with eyeshadow that matched her cornflower blue eyes became the first adult-looking mass-produced doll in the United States. Handler’s daughter’s name was Barbara, but she also had a son named Kenneth. Ken, Barbie’s male sidekick, came along in 1961.

By the early ’60s, the iconic doll’s star was on the rise. She did what most celebrities do with their first big paycheck: She bought a car. Her first was a 1962 Austin Healey 3000 MkII. It came in a variety of colors, including a sedate brown with a blue interior as well as her now-signature pink. But golly, a girl from the fictional Willow, Wisconsin, couldn’t be driving around in a foreign car, so eventually Barbie got herself a Corvette.

The third-generation Corvette (C3) was her first, making mid-’70s Barbie’s American dream come true. Dubbed the Star ‘Vette,  this magenta-colored beauty donned the slim mid-section and fat fenders from the pens of Chevrolet designers Zora Arkus-Duntov and Bill Mitchell. Then there’s Barbie who, if she were an actual woman instead of a doll, would have been anatomically impossible.

Barbie’s pink convertible came with star decals for the hood and door panels. A luggage rack came with a snap-on suitcase. (This being a Corvette, we can assume two sets of golf clubs fit in the trunk.) The interior came fully loaded with a tape deck and three cassettes. It also sported sport bucket seats, a CB radio, and a working steering wheel that turned the front wheels, and sweet “G70-14 Super Slicks” tires.

In 1979, the Barbie Super ’Vette hit toy stores with remote-control capability, though, since it was corded, you’d have to walk alongside Barbie and her plastic man as you cruised the living room. The Super ‘Vette’s sunshine yellow hue sparkled over a blue interior. The toy version seems to have snagged the post mid-cycle refresh details in concert with the big-person version, including the front and rear bumpers revised for federal safety compliance. Barbie is law-abiding, but we’re assuming the RC version’s electric power meant it was exempt from Malaise Era emissions controls.

Mattel took some creative license taken, however, as the real-life 1975 Vette was the final one of the C3 generation to don a convertible top. Ingress and egress would never have been so easy in a coupe, and it helped that 1967 marked the first year Barbie started bending her legs and could swivel at the waist thanks to “Twist ‘N Turn” technology.

There were only two engine options for the real-world, late-model C3: a 350-cubic-inch small-block that made 165 horsepower and the L82, which made substantially more, with 205 max output. Barbie, one imagines, opted for the bigger engine just to see if she could blow any of Ken’s hair back. By 1980 we got the final of Barbie’s C3 iterations. The interior even gained a TV screen—how prescient! The box came with the verbiage “push it everywhere,” which is not the ideal situation for real-deal Vette owners.

Mattel stayed on the Corvette bandwagon into the Dave McLellan–designed C4 generation, built between 1984 and 1996. Brand-new from the chassis up, the C4 represented a sea change for America’s sports car, and Barbie had several. As the C4 shifted from a fiberglass body-on-frame to what GM called a “uniframe” U-shaped frame construction, Barbie also got some significant changes. This was the ’80s, so Great Shape Barbie arrived in her leotard-and-leg-warmers outfit. The C4 got more power during its tenure, up to 375 hp if you got the LT5-equipped ZR-1; the improvement of Barbie’s core strength after adding Jazzercize to her workout regimen is impossible to quantify.

Barbie’s first C4 showed up at toy dealers in 1983 as the sparkling metallic pink Ultra ‘Vette. Around 1984 another Mattel C4 appeared, named Silver ‘Vette, for obvious reasons. While the clean design of this 1980s-era Corvette felt understated by the decade’s excess-laden standards, the Silver ‘Vette came loaded with “lots of realistic features” as the box proclaimed: vanity plates, chrome wheels (stickers), and a working hatchback window.

While we’ve only had eight generations of Corvette, Barbie has seen closer to 12 major facial changes. This doesn’t take into account her myriad mid-cycle refreshes as different makeup trends came and went.

Barbie has run for President of the United States every year since 1992. That year, to reflect this new stoic Barbie, Mattel left the cutesy naming conventions behind; it was now just the Barbie Corvette. Today you can find a pink-on-pink example on eBay for anywhere from $15 (a well-played-with driver) to $75 for a sealed, new-in-box specimen.

Over the years, the Corvette saw its share of race tracks, doing duty as pace car for Indy over several years of its run. Barbie herself, no stranger to motorsports, first appeared to the NASCAR crowd in 1998 with, yes, NASCAR Barbie, in honor of the 50th Anniversary. Helmet and firesuit in hand, Barbie was ready to take the wheel. In 2000, Barbie belted in for Scuderia Ferrari, becoming an F1 driver for the yellow and red. (There was a car, too but it was a limited edition that only sold at the 2004 International Barbie Doll Collections Convention in Chicago.) Let’s hope it’s not much longer until a real live woman can claim an F1 seat.

By the mid-2000s Barbie took a step back from the cockpit, dressing in Dale Jr.—and Jeff Gordon-inspired streetwear, but by 2009, she was back in the driver’s seat again when Race Car Driver Barbie showed up ready for the starting grid.

Radio Shack, back when that was still a thing, offered up a gift set that featured the new-for-1997 C5 as a proper remote-control unit. From what I can tell, it’s her only example of the C5 and the final Corvette Barbie would have. The pale-pink-over-white car could turn and reverse and came with chrome wheels (plastic, not stickers this time), a quad exhaust, vanity plates, and power from four C batteries. Purists may consider the Corvette E-Ray to be the first to drive its wheels with battery power, but Barbie thinks otherwise.

The real-life C5 got the LS1 engine and a new transmission—a rear-mounted transaxle—as well as hydroformed box frame that improved stability, especially on the convertibles. Barbie thanks you, Chevy.

Barbie’s first-generation Corvette (C1) in the 2023 movie is scaled smaller in size but retains the pastel-shaded, two-toned details of the original. This officially marks the first time Barbie has claimed a C1 in the driveway. There’s actually one in every Barbie’s garage (yes, every Barbie in the movie is named Barbie). The director, Gerwig, clearly has excellent taste.

Barbie rarely rides in the passenger seat of her cars, but she did once when her sister, Skipper, went to the DMV. The Student Driver gift set came complete with driver handbook, traffic signal charts, and an insurance card.

Barbie’s passion for driving and cars has hopefully fueled the love of cars for girls and young women across the globe. Now, come on Mattel, put her in a C8.

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By the 1990s, the full-size, rear-wheel-drive, American family sedan was an endangered species. The automotive industry had embraced front-wheel drive due to the layout’s advantages in efficiency, cabin space, and manufacturing costs. Accordingly, cars like the Ford Taurus, Honda Accord, and Toyota Camry had almost completely taken over family-hauling duties. Chevrolet’s redesigned Caprice Classic was one of the few rear-wheel-drive holdouts in 1991, but it was a slow seller that appealed only to fleet buyers and traditionalists.

Jon Moss, the head hot-rodder of GM’s Specialty Vehicles Group, was tasked with reinvigorating the Caprice. His solution was simple: Put a big engine in it, make it look cool, and revive an iconic nameplate. A 260-hp version of the Corvette’s LT1 V-8 engine was added to a 9C1 police-package Caprice, and the 1994 Impala SS was born. The trim was painted body color, the hood ornament was removed, five-spoke wheels were fitted, and a BMW-like kink was added to the rear-most pillar. Black was the only color available. “Lord Vader, your car is ready,” the ad copy went.

It was an instant hit. Chevy sold more than 69,000 examples during the car’s short three-year production run and didn’t see the need to change much on the Impala SS. Two new colors, Cherry and Dark Green, were offered in 1995, but most buyers still went with black. The 1996 model received full analog instrumentation and a console-mounted T-handle shifter, as opposed to a column shifter.

If you’re in the market for an Impala SS, beware of clones. It’s not difficult to convert a regular Caprice to SS spec. Look for WX3 on the Service Parts Identification located in the trunk to verify if it’s the real thing.

Mechanically, the Impala SS is pretty stout, but there are a few things to look out for. Opti-Spark, the LT1’s optically triggered ignition distributor, can fail, and replacement is labor-intensive. The four-speed automatic transmission—4L60E in GM speak—has a mixed reputation. Failures seem to happen north of 100,000 miles or with prolonged hard use. Owner Mike Reily grenaded the 4L60E in his Impala at a track day. Instead of replacing the autobox, he swapped in the six-speed manual transmission from a contemporary Camaro. “Jon Moss let me drive the GM Specialty Vehicles 1994 six-speed prototype Impala SS in 2001 at the Dreamapalooza car show,” he explained.  “At that point, I knew I needed to do the manual transmission conversion.”

Unmodified Impalas are worth more to collectors, but Reily is probably having more fun in his car. Rowing through the six-speed’s gears is immensely delightful, like giving the torquey V-8 a firm handshake. Even with its sport-tuned suspension, the Impala SS is not light on its feet. You are always aware of how substantial this 2-ton behemoth is when you pitch it into a corner. Not to say that the SS won’t stick to the road—Car and Driver reported an impressive-for-the-time 0.86 g figure in its skidpad test.

GM unceremoniously killed the Impala SS at the end of 1996, when its Arlington, Texas, assembly plant was retooled for SUV production. But the cars have enjoyed a cult following. It turns out Americans think a big rear-wheel-drive sedan with a big engine is still a timeless recipe for cool.

1996 Chevrolet Impala SS

Engine: 5.7-liter V-8
Power: 260 hp @ 5000 rpm
Torque: 330 lb-ft @ 3200 rpm
Weight: 4036 lb
Power to weight: 15.5 pound/hp
0–60 mph: 7.0 sec
Price when new: $24,405
Hagerty #3 (Good) condition value: $13,900–$19,800

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This article first appeared in Hagerty Drivers Club magazine. Click here to subscribe and join the club.

I ’ve always liked finding cars in people’s yards out in the country. I like knocking on doors. That’s how we found cars where I’m from, a little town in North Carolina. Cars with maybe just a hint of the front end showing—that always gets me excited.

There was an old lady who had a Datsun 240Z in her yard. I had always liked the look of those—that long front end and the way they squatted when going through the gears. I’d walk by her place every now and then, and finally I knocked on her door and asked if it was for sale. It wasn’t, but she said it was her husband’s car and had been there forever. I gave her my number in case she ever decided to sell it. Then one day, I got that call. I went over there and we ended up making a deal. I was 14 and a half.

I was always tinkering with it, trying to get those dual carburetors right, but I never could get that thing to run to save my life.

Around that time, I got started in the entertainment industry. I signed on with the Ford Modeling Agency when I was 15, and I was with them for 25 years. I did mostly print ads and campaigns for big fashion houses—Versace, Dolce & Gabbana, Yves Saint Laurent—and I was featured in GQ. As an African American man, that was rare. But I made it, and I got to travel the world.

I lived a very clean life, and all during those years, cars were my high. I sold the Z after a while, but one of the first cars I got that I have held on to is a ’54 Bel Air, which I keep in North Carolina, where most of my family still lives. Today it’s part of my eclectic collection, mostly postwar American stuff.

I love the ’59 Eldorado Biarritz. It’s a lot of car, all [225 inches] of it. So much metal, so elegant, and it’s numbers-matching. And you can eat off it! The ’56 Eldorado isn’t far behind—that’s probably the classic I drive the most. It has the same feel as the ’59 but is easier to park. Driving the ’59 is like driving a bus, you know? When you turn, you better make sure you’re clear, because those fins might hit something. I don’t really drive any of the cars far, though. Mostly around Beverly Hills, or over to Bob’s Big Boy, or to a cars and coffee. Stuff like that.

My two boys are into cars, too. Morris is 18, an up-and-coming pop star, and he’s always driving our cars in his videos. (You can see them on his Instagram, @moneyxmo.) Bronson is 14 and behind the camera—a filmmaker who’s always shooting and producing. They’re both so creative, and both of them love cars. They’re always laying claim to the ones they like. Morris will say, “Well, Dad, you know the ’56 is gonna be mine.” And Bronson will say, “Well, Dad, you know the ’59 is gonna be mine. And the ’56 Lincoln, too. Morris can have the ’63 Lincoln.” Always picking favorites.

I have my own favorites, including my Morgan 3-Wheeler. It’s one of the finest cars I’ve ever owned. A buddy introduced me to them one day and let me take it out. I had such a blast in that thing. It was really something else. I love-love-loved it. I’m good friends with [former football player] Michael Strahan, who is a huge car guy, and he and I actually ended up ordering a pair of them. We take them out on weekends up the Pacific Coast Highway, into the canyons, and have fun with them.

Driving is what I enjoy, and I don’t really show my cars, but one day a couple of years ago, I was at the Original Farmers Market with my ’59 during a car show at the Grove, and I met [collector] Bruce Meyers. He came up to me and asked if it was mine. He said, “I know every car in this town, but I’ve never seen this one.” I’m around, I told him. Then he invited me to his show, the Rodeo Drive Concours, and said he’d love it if I would drive the mayor. I was like, who is this dude? But that’s how we met, and we hit it off. They put me in the concours magazine, and I even won a trophy.

For a while, I thought I was done buying. I’m very happy with what I have. Then I started teetering, you know, so I’ve been on the lookout. Now there are about 10 cars I’m interested in, mostly prewar. I’d really like to make them my own and do some customizing, because most of my cars now are pretty stock.

Now, when I was growing up in North Carolina, Camaros and Chevelles were the cars. My uncle, his friends, or somebody’s daddy always had one. I always said that if I ever made it in life, I’d get the best of both. And that’s what happened. Those cars represent where I’m from. And that I made it. Both are dream cars to the people I knew (and still know) back home.

If I’m being honest, my dream car is the one that runs without me having to crank it up every week to keep it running. But really, there are elements of every car I own that make up my dream car. I love certain things about all of them. It’s a blessing to feel that way.

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This week, I’m laughing at a 41-second clip my son showed me, on Father’s Day, of a NASCAR stock car at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The Chevy stock car ran in the race as an exhibition, in a class of one, and was considered a blunt and crude instrument in a field of more sophisticated sports cars. In the video, it passes a car while Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Freebird plays. While the finishing order was irrelevant, Chevy’s effort scored massive publicity and inspired a special edition Camaro ZL1. There are dozens of similarly clever clips. I love the creativity.

Stock cars of a different sort found their way into an unlikely place, The New Yorker, which posted a Father’s Day video about a dad and his kid bonding over racing and wrenching. This one hit home to me because it highlighted how a community and family in rural France enrich their lives through cars—in this case, beat-up old Renault and Peugeot hatchbacks. Sure, many hobbies offer similarly positive family activities, but cars are unique: they’re life-size, often raucous objects that need regular care and feeding, ideal canvases for curious hands. My two sons and I spend more time maintaining and repairing our cheap-o fleet than we do behind the wheel. I’m forever grateful for these mechanical, positively analog objects that teach so many valuable life skills.

My kids learned plenty when we prepared a 1969 Chevelle wagon for a cross-country trip. For reasons I can’t remember, we decided to swap the iron cylinder heads for aluminum ones, a job I had never performed. The modifications did not go smoothly, which in hindsight probably taught them more than I hoped. It gave us stories to retell later, which help create the tapestry of a family.

If we were to plan that trip today, we’d think twice about crossing Nebraska. A recent report detailed a 24-mile section of Interstate 80 where police are unusually aggressive about seizing property and cash discovered during traffic stops. The stated motive is to reduce illegal drug smuggling, but it’s also an opportunity for overreach.

The piece got me thinking about the numerous speed traps—sections of road that have unexpectedly low speed limits and police patrols tasked with generating ticket revenue—that have ensnared me over the years. I imagine it’s an uncomfortable position for our mostly dedicated and hard-working officers. I once got a speeding ticket while on an entrance ramp before I’d even seen a speed limit sign. The ticket felt unfair enough that I went to court to fight it.

There was no court that day; instead, I was brought to a cramped room where an officer told me I had little chance of beating the charge. I was far from an angel back then and already had points on my license. This new ticket would have put me one additional infraction away from a suspension, a problem for a guy who drives cars for a living. I could, the officer told me, pay the fine and go to a traffic school and then I would not accrue the points. Or I could roll the dice with the judge. I went to school.

Not long after, the section of road was outed as a speed trap. The town’s police chief was sent to jail for a list of crimes that included embezzlement. The interesting thing about my experience was the traffic school. I expected a weekend of “speed kills” lectures but instead the instructor provided a useful seminar on breaking bad habits. Our repeated behavior behind the wheel is what landed us in a dreary hotel meeting room, and paying fines, he said. Maybe we should recognize our patterns and adjust? Then he showed us how. My ticket was probably unfair, but that was not a wasted weekend.

As you head into your weekend, don’t miss Jason Cammisa’s latest video. For this episode he focused on the Tesla roadster and explained the company backstory that you probably didn’t know (hint, Elon didn’t start it). The original Roadster has now depreciated enough that we put it on the Bull Market list in 2022.

Our writers are on their usual tear, churning out new and compelling stories daily. One of my recent favorites is Grace Houghton’s profile of John Delorean’s daughter who is working to make her own car. Steven Cole Smith reported on the $1 billion lawsuit filed by Carlos Ghosn, the automotive executive smuggled out of Japan in a box. Aaron Robinson drove the new Acura Integra S, the most compelling new sports sedan in a decade. And it only comes with a manual transmission. Drivers, rejoice.

All this material is free on Hagerty’s website and our newsletters can deliver it right to your email inbox. If you’d like to support our efforts, please sign up for the Hagerty Drivers Club. I’d also appreciate your help spreading the word about this driver-focused newsletter by sharing this email with your friends.

Have a great weekend!

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General Motors plans to invest at least $920 million to expand its DMAX truck engine operation near Dayton, Ohio, it announced today.

The company said it will expand the existing 250,000-square-foot Brookville, Ohio, facility, building a 1.1 million-square-foot addition.

GM did not say specifically what products the engines would be for, or the timing, but this quote from Mike Trevorrow, GM’s vice president of North America manufacturing, offers a strong hint:

“This investment furthers our commitment to HD truck market dominance with the Duramax power under the hood that customers love so much,” Trevorrow said in a statement. “Additionally, it is truly a testament to the hard work and dedication of our DMAX team members in the state of Ohio who build world-class powertrain products.”

The DMAX operation began as a joint venture between GM and Isuzu in 1999, building Duramax diesel engines for the Chevrolet Silverado HD and GMC Sierra HD. Since last year, DMAX has been wholly owned by GM. The Brookville site opened in 2021 and builds engine components for the nearby Moraine operation.

A GM spokesperson told Automotive News that the automaker plans to move current employees at the Moraine facility to Brookville as production there increases. “We have no announcements to make at this time beyond the current product for the Moraine plant, but after this engine program builds out the plant may be considered as we evaluate future program allocation,” the spokesperson said.

This comes on the heels of an announcement that General Motors plans to invest more than $1 billion in two Flint, Michigan, manufacturing plants for trucks.

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Once upon a time in the ’70s, people bought cars. Cars, not trucks, not SUVs. Fortunately for humanity at the time, the crossover had not yet been invented. Trucks and 4x4s were more of a specialty item for outdoorsmen, tradesmen, and the like. But there were some outliers at the time, like the car-based Chevrolet El Camino/GMC Sprint and the Ford Ranchero. And the Vega Panel Express.

Yes folks, it’s another Vega! Hold on to your hats. Today’s example is a rather uncommon Vega, even amongst Vegas: the Panel Express. Which was referred to in the brochures as “Our Truck.”

I won’t dive too deeply into Vega history since I’ve already discussed Chevy’s star-crossed subcompact, the 1976 Cosworth-Vega, but here’s an abbreviated version: It was introduced in 1971 as an all-new model, to great fanfare. It was an immediate hit, with its four-model lineup and attractive baby-Camaro styling.

A total of 269,905 were sold in 1971 and 390,478 in ’72, but by then the bloom was already off the rose, so to speak. The two biggest issues were that they liked to break down, and they liked to rust. Really rust. Especially the front fenders. Even in dry, warm climates.

So while they continued to sell, sales slowly but surely tapered off—so much so that by 1977, the car’s final year on the market, only 78,402 were built. While that’s not terrible, it was a far cry from ’73, when 427,300 rolled off the line.

The ’74s, like pretty much everything else that year, lost the nifty little chrome bumpers for park-bench-style ones, making the 1971–73 models much prettier. I must have seen the occasional Vega when I was a kid, but I don’t have any hard and fast memories of it, though I did have a couple of plastic, dime-store Vega toys … one of which I’m pretty sure was a big-bumper Panel Express.

Back to the featured ’71. I was at a car show in Davenport, Iowa, over Labor Day weekend in 2013, and while walking back to my car I spotted this survivor. I was taken aback because I had never seen a Panel Express up close, though I knew of their existence. My Uncle Dave, who as a teen in the early ’70s naturally was in a garage band, lusted for one of these back then. He was the drummer, and I remember him telling me it would have been a great car to haul his drum kit around in.

Of course, later events would prove it was just as well that he didn’t get one. Plus he was 13 at the time, so there’s that.

When I peeked through the window of this one, it was clear that its navy blue paint was not original—it was originally the bright blue that was prominently featured in early Vega brochures and ads. Otherwise, it appeared to be in quite original shape.

The Panel Expresses were never common, as you would expect. As I recall, even the passenger seat was optional, as the whole point of the model was it was to be used as a mini utility vehicle. Add the fact that the very attractive Vega Kammback wagon was essentially the same except for the rear quarter glass and back seat, and it makes sense the Panel was never a popular model.

In 1971, 55,839 Vega two-door sedans were built, along with 71,957 Kammback wagons and 262,682 hatchbacks. Of the wagons, approximately 7800 were panels, though it wasn’t clear in my research if that was a separate figure from the standard wagons or included in the near-72,000 unit total.

Any way you slice it, however, the Panels were pretty small potatoes in Vega production. Indeed, the model only lasted through 1975, then was quietly retired. Apparently the Estate and GT versions of the wagon were more popular. Unsurprising, really.

But it was a unique offering, and it was pretty cool to finally see one, 20-odd years after finding a coverless ’71 Vega brochure in my uncle’s old room at my grandparents’ house—the very same one my Uncle Dave pored through 20 years prior, I’m sure. I’m not sure what happened to that brochure since I discovered it in a stack of magazines around 1991, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find it in a box someday!

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Each year since 2012, the 24 Hours of Le Mans welcomes a race car to its grid. Known as a Garage 56 entry, this car need not fit in any of the race’s sports-car or from-scratch race car classes, and it will not compete for points. For 2023, IMSA has invited a NASCAR Cup Car—specifically, a Camaro ZL1 from Hendrick Motorsports, Chevrolet, and Goodyear—to take this coveted spot. Seven-time NASCAR Cup Series Champion Jimmie Johnson, 2009 Formula 1 World Champion Jenson Button, and 2010 Le Mans winner Mike Rockenfeller will share driving duties.

Naturally, Chevrolet has decided to celebrate with a special-edition run of road-legal ZL1s so collectors can remember the occasion.

First, a bit more on what these ZL1s are commemorating.  The pairing of team, manufacturer, and tire is no accident, as Hendrick Motorsports has more NASCAR race wins and cup championships than any other team, and the same goes for Chevrolet and Goodyear. “Even though Chevrolet has been racing since its inception in 1911, we’ve never done anything quite like Garage 56,” said General Motors president Mark Reuss.

The NASCAR Next Gen car debuted in 2022 and brought a host of changes. The traditional four-speed manual transmission was replaced with a five-speed sequential transaxle located at the back of the car. The change also eliminated the solid axle that had been a NASCAR stalwart since 1947 and allowed for an improved underbelly that increased downforce.

Another big change for NASCAR was the move from five lugs per wheel to a single center-lock setup. The change makes for much faster pit stops, surely a big bonus over the course of Le Mans’ 24-hour race. The Hendrick Motorsports team is on its game, too, having just won the Le Mans GTE Pit Stop Challenge.

The NASCAR Camaro ZL1 did require some changes for Le Mans, including modifications to its R07 small-block V-8 as well as real headlights. Stickers just don’t provide the kind of visibility needed for 200-mph rips down the Mulsanne Straight.

To celebrate this milestone in Camaro history, Chevrolet will build 56 Camaro ZL1s as Garage 56 Editions. Chevrolet’s Performance Design Studio gave each a Riptide Blue exterior paint, new for 2024 model-year Camaros, along with thin gold stripes that set off the larger white ones that run the length of the car. A NASCAR 75th Anniversary logo is prominently displayed on the front of the hood, and buyers will be able to opt for one of three additional graphics: a NASCAR windshield header decal, white Goodyear front wheel-arch decals, or door decals displaying 24, just like the Le Mans–going race car.

“When adapting a race car appearance into a production car, you want to showcase themes, proportions, and colors without making the car look out of place on the street,” said Marc Mainville, senior manager of GM Motorsport’s design studio. “The Garage 56 Edition captures the feeling of the race car while allowing the car’s athletic lines to be in the forefront.”

Each of the Garage 56 Edition 2024 Camaro ZL1s will use the ZL1 1LE’s fascia with dive planes and a wicker-bill spoiler on the decklid. In addition, each car will be adorned with a Garage 56 fender badge, Hendrick Motorsports logos on the sail panels, and Garage 56 emblems on the floormats and steering wheel. Naturally, the Camaro ZL1 rides on Goodyear rubber—specifically, Eagle F1 SuperCar.

With this announcement coming quickly on the heels of the Camaro Collector’s Edition, we’re wondering how many more special-run sixth-gens Chevrolet has up its sleeve. Production of the Garage 56 Edition Camaro ZL1 will begin later this year, and we expect to get pricing information as soon as orders open up.

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I don’t think we ever found out what Floyd the barber drove on The Andy Griffith Show, but it doesn’t take much imagination to picture this 1952 Chevrolet pickup in front of Floyd’s Barber Shop in downtown Mayberry.

The show emphasized that sometimes the world is best viewed low and slow, off the main drag. The “slow” part wouldn’t be a problem with this Hagerty Marketplace Auction Pick of the Week: It has a 217-cubic-inch Thriftmaster six-cylinder with a single-barrel carburetor, and the transmission is shifted via a “three on the tree”—the shifter is on right side of the steering column where a modern car’s wiper stalk might be.

Restomods are undeniably nice—something like this truck but equipped with an LS V-8 and an automatic transmission, with wide wheels and tires—though there’s something endearing about an almost all-original vehicle like this ’52 Chevy. Something gets lost in the chemistry when you yank out the original engine, forever gone, and replace it with a crate V-8 off the shelf.

And this truck on Hagerty Marketplace is probably 95 percent the way it looked when it rolled off the assembly line, but better. A genuine (and coveted) five-window model, it has a custom snap-on tonneau protecting the lovely wood bed, which even has a wood cover over an in-bed locking toolbox.

Inside, the dashboard is period-correct; a steering wheel cover and an added-on tachometer appear to be the only modern touches. Under the hood, the Thriftmaster engine is painted blue. Running boards are in excellent shape. The grille and chrome bumpers appear to be near-flawless. The undercarriage is solid and simple. The 6-volt electrical system has been replaced by a 12-volt, a very good thing for most buyers.

There are a couple of dings in the handsome metallic brown paint, but this ’54 Chevy is a runner, not a trailer queen. It’d make an excellent Home Depot weekend errand truck.

Information posted about the truck says that it was restored before the current owner bought it six years ago, and it has been driven modestly since. If your name is Floyd, and you used to be a small-town barber, we have your pickup.

The auction ends June 15 at 4:20 p.m. ET.

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Chevrolet is reaching deep into the early days of Camaro development for the car’s 2024 sendoff. The final year of the sixth-generation Camaro will see an optional Collector’s Edition available across the model range in two colors named after the car’s codename from the mid-1960s: Panther.

“We found it fitting for this Collector’s Edition Camaro to officially recognize the significance of the original code name and share it with Camaro enthusiasts,” said Rich Scheer, design director of Chevrolet Performance. “Of course, the name ‘Panther’ influenced the colors used, Panther Black Metallic for SS and Panther Matte Black for ZL1.”

The Panther Black Metallic Tintcoat paint will be found on the V-6-powered 1LT, on the LT1-powered LT1, and on the 1SS, which is also LT1-powered. The shiny metallic paint will be highlighted with satin black stripes and 20-inch satin black wheels, or contrasted by optional polished forged wheels. All Collector’s Editions will wear the front splitter from the 1LE package, and coupes get the rear spoiler from the ZL1 package.

Just 350 copies of the ZL1 Collector’s Edition will be built, and they will each wear Panther Black Matte paint, along with a black metallic stripe. Like the other Collector’s Editions, the ZL1 coupes will use the ZL1 1LE front splitter and rear spoiler, with the exception of the convertibles, which only get the splitter. Each of the 350 ZL1 Collector’s Edition buyers will receive a serialized steering wheel badge along with a Shinola Canfield Sport 45-mm watch with a serial number that matches their car.

Aside from the paint and aero bits, each Camaro Collector’s Edition will use unique script fender badging that incorporates a panther into the Camaro’s “R”, along with floor mats with a laser-etched aluminum Collector’s Edition logo. The panther will also make an appearance on the steering wheel.

As much as we’d have liked to see the Camaro go out with a bang, with, say, a 302-cubic-inch version of the Corvette’s LT6 or with a much more realistic LT2 V-8 that powers the current Stingray, at least the Collector’s Edition will be noticeably unique with its paint, especially the ZL1 Collector’s Edition, which will mark the first time a matte paint has ever been applied to a Camaro from the factory. The package price, along with the totals for coupe models are as follows:

Those totals don’t include the gas-guzzler tax for the ZL1, which will add another grand to the total. You may have also noted that there was no mention of the 2.0-liter turbo. Production of the 2.0-liter LTG engine had been winding down, and the Camaro was the last model that still used the engine. If you were hoping for a forced-induction Camaro Collector’s Edition, you’ll have to go full-bore and opt for the ZL1. All versions will be available for order starting June 15.

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General Motors’ Square Body trucks hold a special place in the hearts of Chevrolet and GMC fans. Although pickups dominated the market in the 1970s, adventurous customers without the need for a traditional truck bed could opt for an enclosed Blazer or Jimmy.

Even today, Square Bodies are attractive and utilitarian, with plenty of creature comforts for the era, but they don’t stray far from their original purpose: to do work. They remain one of the last “Goldilocks” trucks—juuuuust right—from a time before manufacturers started tossing in more and more options, sending us down the slippery slope that has brought us to today’s luxury trucks, which rival the best-appointed luxury cars. Square Body days were simpler, when there was no “sport” before “utility vehicle”; a Square Body was simply a utility vehicle, and everybody was OK with that.

So OK, in fact, that GM kept the vehicle style alive for an astonishing 18 years, from 1973 to 1991. The pickup line transitioned to the GMT400 platform in 1988, but the Suburban and Blazer/Jimmy held out.

When introduced, the Blazer came in two configurations: rear-wheel-drive and four-wheel-drive. For nomenclature, GM used the same C/K system as it had on its previous generation of trucks: C for 2WD and K for 4WD. Though the Blazer and Jimmy were based on C10/K10 half-ton trucks, their badging adopted C5/K5 monikers. Through 1975, a fully removable fiberglass roof was offered. For the rest of production, the trucks featured a permanent top, over the front seats, with a removable rear section. Power came from a variety of engines, from the base six-cylinder to a 400-cubic-inch small-block V-8.

A facelift came in 1981. The trucks got even more square, a silhouette highlighted by slab sides and a flatter hood, with a revised headlight configuration. A big change came again in 1982, when a 6.2-liter diesel engine was added. After that model year, the 2WD C5 was discontinued. In 1987, throttle-body fuel injection (TBI) debuted, and in 1989, the trucks were given their final front-end styling change.

Subtle differences do exist between the Chevy/GMC versions. Like their shared models today, GMC’s Jimmy was slightly more upscale (a very relative term, in the truck world of the era) than Chevy’s Blazer. Trim levels varied as well, with utilitarian offerings like the Sierra and Custom Deluxe on one end and more comfortable ones like the High Sierra and Silverado on the other.

In terms of today’s values, there aren’t huge gaps between trim levels. Disparity does exist, however, between the brands: Despite being a bit more decked out, the Jimmy lags slightly behind the Blazer in pricing. Gen X is the strongest buying demographic for both the Chevy and GMC, with the cohort accounting for more than 40 percent of the quotes for these trucks. Millennials make up the second biggest group, accounting for around 30 percent of quotes.

Living with a Square Body Blazer, as with any of these trucks, comes with some perks and perils. Square Bodies are robust overall, and most came with a small-block Chevy, so the reliability is high and the difficulty of repair low. Later TBI trucks work well, but the system is pretty low tech: If you plan to modify a TBI-equipped truck, it is generally much easier to rip out the system and go with a carburetor or a more modern EFI system. The tried-and-true TH350 transmission was standard on earlier trucks and got swapped out for the 700R4 overdrive unit in the 1980s. These had a few teething problems, but nothing that hasn’t already been addressed by now.

Among 4×4 trucks, those built through the late 1970s got a full-time 4×4 transfer case, which wasn’t universally loved. Many of those earlier Blazers and Jimmys have had their transfer cases swapped out for part-time units, a perfectly acceptable substitution in the eyes of most. Finally, watch for rust. Rocker panels and floor boards easily fall victim to rot, especially if you’re looking at an early model with a removable top plagued by a leaky seal. Rust can also occur around the rear inside wheelwell.

Upgrades also bring on their own set of problems. Because Blazers and Jimmys share so much with the pickup versions, heavier-duty axles bolt right in. While a beefier axle is not a problem on its own, these swaps are usually accompanied by lift kits and big tires, both of which put extra strain on the truck. Without proper bracing to the frame at the steering box, a lifted Blazer with larger tires can eventually stress-crack the frame, so be wary of a truck with mods that lacks the proper reinforcement.

The market for these trucks exploded around the same time as the Bronco market did. However, in comparison, Blazers and Jimmys have remained less expensive than their Ford rival. But we’re grading on a curve—early Broncos are just plain expensive, so a $60,000 Blazer seems like a more affordable option. But $60K–$70K is about where the top of the market lives for these trucks now, and anything that would make for a good driver is around $20 grand.

There used to be a bit of a gap in value between the ’73–80 trucks and the ’81–91 models, with the latter being a bit more affordable. That gap has closed somewhat. Even the diesel-powered trucks have crept up in value. Anyway you cut it, Square Bodies are expensive, and that’s just in stock form. Well-executed custom work can easily push values into the six-figure range. That said, we haven’t seen a cottage industry latch onto Square Bodies the way high-end builders have with first-gen Broncos. But that could just be a matter of time.

The bottom line? Second-gen Blazers and Jimmy have solidified themselves as serious collector trucks. It wasn’t that long ago these were just used trucks. Now they’re highly coveted machines caught up in the classic truck craze, so get yours while the gettin’s good.

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Via Insider

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Growing up in Jackson Heights, Queens, I was the neighborhood kid who would always detail all the older kids’ vehicles in the neighborhood. The C3 Corvette was always a lifelong love for me. I really loved the car so much. When I retired in 2010, I could finally fulfill my dream and try to find one.

I searched for a few years, and then I found a 1972 Corvette in Texas. It was just what I was looking for, so I pulled the trigger and purchased it in 2017. It’s been a six-year project; the car spent an entire year in paint. Everything was taken off. Jeff Buchak, the owner of Paradigm Automotive in Sparkill, New York, is a genius. He has done cars for the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance and for the SEMA show. Jeff does really high-end work. The paint is flawless, the gaps are flawless. I’m pretty much a perfectionist, and we made it perfect.

I was a fan of all the blues of the ’70s that Corvette did. There was Briar Blue, Targa Blue, Le Mans Blue. We took all the blues that Corvette offered for 1972, and we made one blend. The paint is unbelievable, because depending on the lighting conditions, it can look like Targa Blue, and then if it’s a little lighter, it may look a little bit like Briar Blue.

The engine is the numbers-matching 350 stock block. I like to go fast, so we stroked it out to a 383 and replaced the carburetor with a Holley Terminator EFI. We did all kinds of high-performance work with the trick flow heads and the cam and everything. I did the EFI and certain mods to it because I wanted it to be reliable. I wanted to be able to hop in the car and drive without incident. I take it to a lot of shows in the tri-state area, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. I belong to the Rockland Rodders Car Club in Rockland County, New York, and I belong to the All-American Corvette Club in Paramus, New Jersey. I want to try to do my part to get more younger people involved in it, and more involved in the hobby.

When I’m at a show, my car doors are open, I have kids in there, and I don’t care if they get it dirty or if they have ice cream on their hands. The car can always be cleaned. When you get a 12-year-old or a 10-year-old and you say, “Go sit in the car, take some pictures,” their eyes light up, and it means the world to them. They’re hooked at an early age. It’s these simple things that car people can do to get the younger generation into the hobby.

I had a young kid come up to me and say, “Thank you so much.” And I said, “Thank you for what?” He replied, “For preserving history. For giving my generation the opportunity to see what a 1972 Corvette Stingray looks like. And to enjoy it.” I had a tear come to my eye. And I said, “Oh, man. No, it’s my pleasure.” The younger people, they love it, they appreciate it, and hopefully, we can recruit that young generation of gearheads together into the hobby.

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The beauty of Hot Wheels, like many of the toys we treasure, is the way they inspire kids to use their imaginations. Turns out, Hot Wheels does the same for big kids, too. 

Mattel’s iconic die-cast vehicles have been inspiring car lovers of all ages since 1968, and now some of those kids are turning their actual cars into life-size Hot Wheels on NBC’s new hour-long show Hot Wheels: Ultimate Challenge, which debuted on May 30. 

Like the iconic toy cars that we grew up loving, the competition is good, clean, family fun. And although it airs at a time—Tuesdays at 10 p.m. Eastern—that’s not exactly family friendly, each episode can be streamed on Peacock the following day.

Hosted by aw-shucks nice guy Rutledge Wood, Hot Wheels: Ultimate Challenge features two “superfans” who are tasked with turning their dream designs into reality. Each contestant has a touching story to tell about a car that changed their lives, and an identical model serves as the basis for their build.

“Buckle up for the ride of your life,” Wood says in the intro, “where car-loving Hot Wheels fans get the chance of a lifetime … transforming nostalgic cars from their past into life-size Hot Wheels of their dreams.”

The winner of each round gets $25,000 and a spot in the finals. The overall champion (of 16 contestants) gets an additional $50,000, plus the honor of having their custom creation made into a Hot Wheels car that will be sold to the public. 

Wood, who auto enthusiasts may know from the American version of Top Gear, is joined by fellow judges Dalal Elsheikh, a Hot Wheels ambassador and designer for Ford Motor Company, and car culture influencer Hertrech “Hert” Eugene Jr. Each week also introduces a new celebrity judge, who in the premiere episode is Terry Crews, host of America’s Got Talent.

The first two superfans to square off are 24-year-old Jadejha Edwards, of Houston, and 58-year-old “Jerzey” Jim Farrell, of Forked River, New Jersey.

Jadejha chooses a 2009 Chevrolet Camaro to match the car her aunt drove when Jadejha went to live with her as a teenager. Now a cybersecurity engineer, Jadejha says her aunt offered her constant encouragement and a safe place to live and dream. “Who I am today,” she says, “started right there in that car.”

Jim, a custom van outfitter, selects a 1969 Dodge Charger like the one that he and his father restored together—and painted bright yellow—decades ago. This one wears black matte paint, just as his previous Charger did prior to its final paint job. “Seeing that car again feels like I’m 18 years old, man,” Jim says.

Given one week to design and build their cars, each contestant receives help from three experts from the “Car Pool,” who are charged with making their dreams a reality. It all begins in the “Chrome Zone,” where hundreds of actual Hot Wheels serve as inspiration. Once the build begins, there are plenty of hurdles to clear along the way. That includes a curveball thrown by the Hot Wheels crew more than halfway through the build: the Inspirationator 5000, the huge centerpiece of the set, selects an actual Hot Wheels car, and the fabricators are required to incorporate one of its design elements into their own cars.

Jadejha wants the Camaro to be green and have a low, wide, futuristic look that reflects her job in cybersecurity—and the sense of indestructability she felt whenever she rode in her aunt’s car. Jim requires two things: the Charger must be yellow, like his first car, and pop a wheelie. That last criterion prompts him to pull the engine from the front and put it in back; he also wants the engine to be a Hemi V-8.

Although we know that each team has seven days to complete the work, the editors of the show manage to manufacture some drama by making it look like the cars are completed just in time. Regardless, both are gorgeous successes and receive plenty of praise from the judges. Jim’s Charger can indeed pop a wheelie (thanks to hydraulics), and that’s enough to steal the show and take the win.

The real winners, however, are those of us who remember the first time we imagined driving one of those spectacular little cars on the track, the street, or some remote two-track. Yes, the show’s jokes are a little lame, and we want to know more about the specifics of each build, but the kids are going to love it all. Even some of us kids who remember playing with their first Hot Wheels cars 55 years ago.

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R.C. Enerson is a racer. Any time there’s action, he wants to be on track.

Except last Sunday. Enerson, 26, wanted nothing to do with the Sunday activities, nor did any other driver. The Indianapolis 500 allows 33 cars, and last Saturday, organizers locked in the 30 fastest. Sunday was a mad scramble, four cars fighting for the last three starting spots.

The slowest of the four turned out to be veteran Graham Rahal, driving for his father, 1986 Indy 500 winner Bobby Rahal. But his team just couldn’t get the car up to speed. Graham was moved to tears—broadcast to the world, by the way—at the prospect of missing out on his 16th Indianapolis 500. He was comforted by his wife, former NHRA Funny Car driver Courtney Force, but still the tears flowed. That’s how important the Indianapolis 500 is.

(As it happens in racing, driver Stefan Wilson, brother of Justin Wilson, who was killed in a crash in 2015 at Pocono, crashed hard in Monday practice, breaking a vertebra. He underwent surgery Wednesday night and will make a full recovery, but he can’t race. His last-minute sub: Graham Rahal, who will have something to prove.)

Anyway, back to Enerson, a 26-year-old rookie with a handful of IndyCar starts under his belt. Two years ago, he was part of that desperate Sunday scrum. Like Rahal, he ended by packing up and going home. This year, no such problem. He’ll start Sunday’s race from 29th.

Fresh from the official rookie luncheon at the Speedway—“chicken parm, sitting on a pile of mashed potatoes”—Enerson suggested that he still has a lot to learn. Qualifying is relatively straightforward: four laps by yourself, wide open, just hanging on. Racing in traffic is a different beast.

“I’m definitely behind on learning how to run in traffic and getting used to that whole scenario. We just focused straight-up on qualifying the entire week, and yesterday was my first day running in traffic [at Indy], ever, and it was eye-opening.”

Enerson has raced, and won, in IndyCar’s feeder series, and that helped prepare him a little. “The amount of air wash you get is pretty similar, but you’re going way faster, so it’s really a pain in the butt. It’s friggin’ difficult, seriously.”

As for qualifying early, “That was great. That was our goal, to get into the show on day one.” Enerson’s four-lap average was 231.129 mph. He’ll start behind Devlin DeFrancesco and in front of Sting Ray Robb. (Yes, that’s his real name; his father liked Corvettes.) On the pole is Álex Palou, with a speed of 234.217 mph.

Enerson took most of 2022 off from racing, working as chief instructor at the family-owned racing school. He did some private coaching, too. “But a lot of our time was spent trying to put together a program. It’s so difficult to find opportunities, especially as popular as IndyCar is getting right now.”

Enerson and his father own the car he’s in, and they’ve teamed up with Abel Racing to help put the number 50 on track. Bill Abel owns a construction company in Kentucky, and it has been his dream, too, to enter the Indy 500. Together with Abel, the Enersons hired John Brunner, 59, an experienced team manager. Says R.C.: “We’ve known of Abel Racing, and [of] Jacob Abel when he was racing in the FR Americas series. We’ve known Bill for a long time—he’s very passionate about motorsports, and his son Jacob has aspirations of making it to IndyCar, so we kind of just floated the idea out there, and quite honestly, I thought he would say no.

“But we just started talking, and deciding we were going to do it around February. The car was in the shop so we just started prepping the car.” They still didn’t have an engine—there are only so many to go around, but Chevrolet stepped up with a powerplant.

This is the same exact car in which Enerson, a native of New Port Richey, Florida, tried in 2021 to qualify. The difference between not making the race then, and making it now, is preparation. All the cars are essentially identical Dallaras, and can only run Chevrolet or Honda engines. The real speed—those last two or three miles per hour—comes when a team tweaks everything it can touch.

“The fact that we were as fast as we were in 2021 is amazing—I mean, we got the car just 38 days before Indy practice. In boxes. There was no body fit, no polishing the floors, no work done on the uprights or the gearbox, and all of that equates to miles per hour,” says Enerson. “It’s all about the car being freed up, with the proper setup it takes to go after the speed.”

So how about the rest of the 2023? “We wanted to focus on Indy first. Then we’ll talk with the team and see if there’s any kind of plan we can come up with for the rest of the year. I highly doubt we’ll do any IndyCar races for the simple fact that there’s already 27 full-time cars, so we’ll just have to see. Some testing might be on the menu, you never know.”

While Enerson has been running open-wheel cars since his karting days, he did get a shot running a NASCAR Xfinity and a Cup car on road courses, and he raced a prototype sports car in IMSA.

“Yeah, I’m definitely interested in more NASCAR or IMSA racing,” says Enerson. “Since we’ll probably not do any more IndyCar races this year, I’m looking to see what’s available on the NASCAR side of things. IMSA seems pretty booked up at the moment, but obviously I’m hoping to be a part of as much racing as I can.”

Enerson recalls his first experience in the NASCAR Xfinity car. “Oh my gosh. It was in 2020 during COVID, so there was zero practice and no qualifying. You just randomly drew your spot, and I was starting behind [road racing ace] Andy Lally and in front of A.J. Allmendinger.” The latter is more of an accomplished NASCAR road racer than Lally, who is a former NASCAR Cup rookie of the year.

“I had never driven the car. I was buckled up on the grid, with the window net up, and the mechanic was on the radio saying, ‘This is how you start it …’ I’ve never been so unprepared for a race in my life. On the way out of the pits he was saying, ‘Turn the brake fans on,’ and I’m like, there are 15 switches in here, and none of them are labeled ‘brake fans!’”

There are no brake fans on an IndyCar, so he should be good on Sunday. “I’m so excited,” he said. “This is something I’ve dreamed about.”

Jewel will sing the U.S. national anthem at 12:24 p.m. ET, Jim Cornelison sings “Back Home Again in Indiana” at 12:36 p.m., and the 107th running of the Indianapolis 500 takes the green flag at 12:45 p.m. It airs on NBC.

Keep an eye on the number 50 car. R.C. Enerson would friggin’ appreciate it.

***

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The first time that Joseph Reyer saw American Graffiti, it turned into an all-day affair—and ignited a lifelong obsession with the movie.

“I was about 13 when it came out,” Reyer says of the 1973 film created and directed by George Lucas. “My mom dropped me off at the movie theater, and it was so good that I called her afterward and said, ‘Don’t pick me up. I’m going to watch it again.’ Then I called her again and said, ‘Don’t pick me up yet. I’m going to watch it again.’ She said, ‘This is the last time!’”

It wouldn’t be.

“I’m such a huge American Graffiti fan,” the Detroit-area native says. “I’ve seen it probably 30 times, and I have it in all forms—VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray. I also have all sorts of memorabilia, including an original poster. I’m just nuts about this movie.

“It had such a profound effect on me, especially (John) Milner’s coupe. I couldn’t tell you the (name of the) first girl I kissed, but I can tell you the first car I fell in love with. That one.”

Reyer’s appreciation for the American Graffiti, which turns 50 later this summer, has never waned. Twenty-five years ago he bought a black 1955 Chevy 150 similar to the one that a young Harrison Ford (playing Bob Falfa) drove in the film. He still owns the car. “It isn’t a replica,” Reyer says, “but it’s black, turn-key, and gorgeous, so I went for it.” The seller also had a ’32 Ford, but as much as Reyer would have loved to buy it and recreate the yellow hot rod that Paul Le Mat (Milner) drove in the film, he decided against it. The financial math just didn’t make sense.

A detailed ’32 Ford replica became his holy grail.

***

Reyer’s passion for cars came from both his parents, but his father, Joe, was his biggest influence. “My dad was very supportive of my love for cars. I can remember sitting on the fender of his ’64 Impala. He said he never had to look for me because he always knew he could find me in the garage.”

The son not only followed his father into the garage but also in his professional footsteps, becoming an electrician for Ford Motor Company. “Dad worked at the Michigan Truck Plant for 35 years, and I worked there for 15. He always encouraged me. He really made all of this possible.”

For its part, American Graffiti opened doors for nascent talents to break into the movie business, many of whom became Hollywood heavyweights. Even Lucas, whose resume to that point included just one film—a sci-fi flick called THX 1138—can look to Graffiti as his launch pad to stardom. Reflecting on his own experiences with cars, cruising, and rock ’n’ roll music as a teenager in Modesto, California, Lucas needed only three weeks to write the movie’s coming-of-age script about one end-of-summer night in 1962. That was after his friends, screenwriters Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, had to back out to work on another film.

“Like most kids who grew up in the Valley, I had a strong interest in cruising,” Lucas said in a documentary included on the Blu-Ray edition of American Graffiti. “When I got to college (at the University of Southern California), I studied anthropology and began to realize that [cruising] was a uniquely American dating ritual involving automobiles.

“When I came up with the idea of doing the movie … I really felt compelled to document the whole experience of cruising and what my generation used as a way of meeting girls and what we did in our spare time. I wanted to document the end of an era, how things change—life passages—how you go from being a student into the real world.”

Lucas shopped the script around Hollywood, but he says “nobody wanted to do it.” After a rewrite, Universal agreed to make the movie, a decision that came no doubt with help from Lucas’ friend Francis Ford Coppola, who signed on as executive producer. Just before production began, Huyck and Katz—freed from their previous commitment—assisted in beefing up the script, particularly the love story of Steve Bolander (Ron Howard) and Laurie Henderson (Cindy Williams).

Lucas spent six months casting the film and says he “saw thousands of kids.” Those he ultimately chose to include in the film did not disappoint. The best known actor of the group was Howard, who starred as Opie on the Andy Griffith Show when he was a kid; the rest were basically unknowns—at the time, anyway. In addition to Howard, Williams, Ford, and Le Mat, the lead parts went to Richard Dreyfuss, Mackenzie Phillips, Charlie Martin Smith, and Candy Clark. Lucas also brought in legendary disc jockey Robert Weston Smith, better known as “Wolfman Jack,” to string together the 41 hit songs that serve as the soundtrack.

Henry Travers, the film’s transportation manager, was responsible for locating and maintaining the cars that Lucas wanted in the film, including the ’32 Ford (originally purchased for $1300), the ’55 Chevy (which was also used in Two-Lane Blacktop), the 1958 Chevrolet Impala driven by Howard, the 1958 Edsel Corsair driven by Williams, the 1967 Citroën 2CV (yes, a ’67 for a movie that was set in ’62) driven by Dreyfuss, the 1951 Mercury coupe driven by the Pharaohs, and the 1956 Ford Thunderbird driven by another newcomer, Suzanne Somers.

The entire movie was filmed in 28 days, mostly at night and on a budget of $750,000 (about $5.1 million today). There was no money for original music or incidentals. The budget was so tight, in fact, that between takes the cast members sat on the curb or rested in cars. Fancy trailers were nowhere to be seen.

As Howard recalled in the documentary, “I finally went to Francis and I said, ‘You know, Francis, I know it’s a low-budget movie; it’s great—the spirit of the movie is wonderful … Do you think we could have a chair? Could we just have chairs?’ And he said, ‘Well, no, there’s nothing in the budget for chairs.’”

American Graffiti went on to make $140 million.

“I met Paul Le Mat once about 20 years ago,” Reyer says, “and I said, ‘It looked like you had a great time making that movie.’ He said, ‘It was the greatest 30 days of my life.’”

***

Reyer, 61, saw plenty of replicas of John Milner’s ’32 Ford through the years, “but there was always just too much to do to make them right.” Then, in 2022, opportunity knocked: an astonishingly accurate replica came up for sale, built by Jack Bell and perfected in Arkansas by second owner Nick Coe, with help from Rob Pruitt, Dan Griffin, Tim Bowman, and Dr. Rachel’s Upholstery Clinic, which cloned the interior of the original.

“The more I looked at it, the more I thought, ‘Holy cow, this guy nailed this,’” Reyer says. “I mean it’s 99.9 percent correct. I’ve seen a lot of replicas over the years, and nothing comes close to this one. I thought, ‘This guy is as crazy as I am.’ I asked Nick, ‘Do we have a sickness?’ And he said, ‘Yes, we do. And it’s a good one.’”

Reyer just had to have the car.

Coe, a fellow American Graffiti fanatic, decided to let the yellow Deuce go only because his son was ill and he could use the money. Reyer assured him that it would be in good hands. “You still have visitation,” he promised.

Among the Ford’s movie-matching features are small-block 327 Chevy V-8 engine, Ansen swing pedals, interior trim off a ’56 Ford, steering wheel, piston gear shift knob, front axle, front chrome shocks, rear suspension, headlights and headlight bars, and tinted windows.

Reyer loves taking the Ford to car shows and advancing the American Graffiti gospel. “I want everybody to catch the bug,” he says. “I’m a super spreader.”

No one is immune, especially not his family, which includes son Jeremiah and daughter Christin, five grandchildren, and a sixth grandchild on the way. “I’m just the caretaker; this will be Jeremiah’s someday,” Reyer says. “And I’m going to get a gearhead out of one of those grandkids, you can be sure of that.”

It’s a lineage that began with his parents, particularly his dad.

“He would be as excited about this car as I am,” Reyer says of his father, who passed away in 2020. “I wish he was still here to see it come to fruition. I restored a ’66 F-100 pickup for him, and it was his pride and joy. I remember he’d look at it in the garage every night before he went to bed. I do that now with this car. I feel like I won the lottery.”

***

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Nearly a decade after Toyota’s last new Tacoma, which was mechanically quite similar to its 2004 predecessor, we finally have an all-new truck. There’s nothing to wait on now except pricing.

If you only remember a few details about the 2024 Tacoma, make it these eight.

Make like a Prius and go hybrid

Like the new Tundra and the new Sequoia, the Tacoma is now available as a hybrid—a first for this pickup. It rides on the same TNGA-F architecture as those larger trucks, both of which are also all-new as of the last year. Toyota’s been busy.

The hybrid Tacoma’s system will pair a 2.4-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine with a 48-hp electric motor integrated into the eight-speed automatic transmission. That electric motor will draw power from a tiny, 1.87-kWh nickel-metal-hydride battery. Total system output rings in at 326 hp and a whopping 465 lb-ft of torque. That’s nearly double the torque output of the current V-6, which the new truck will not offer.

The hybrid drivetrain is optional on the TRD Off-Road, TRD Sport, and Limited trims, but it comes standard on the range-topping TRD Pro and Trailhunter trims.

The other engine offered is that same 2.4-liter turbocharged four-cylinder sans the battery pack. On the SR, the lowest trim Tacoma, output will be 228 hp and 243 lb-ft of torque. Opt for anything above the SR—SR5, TRD Prerunner, TRD Off-Road, TRD Sport—and output jumps to 278 hp and 317 lb-ft of torque.

Speaking of Trailhunter …

The 2024 Tacoma brings a new trim level: Trailhunter, which Toyota would like you to think of as the perfect overlanding rig. The automaker partnered with legendary Australian outfitter ARB to develop a special lift kit specifically for this truck. Its showpiece is on the rear axle—a set of 2.5-inch forged monotube shocks with external reservoirs.

ARB also helped create a special steel rear bumper with stronger recovery points and a new rack to mount to the truck bed that can support various overlanding essentials like a rooftop tent.

The Tacoma Trailhunter gets 33-inch Goodyear tires that, along with that lift kit, give the truck an extra 2 inches of clearance up front and 1.5 inches in back. An electronic swaybar disconnect, a first for the Tacoma, is also offered on the Trailhunter. (Toyota didn’t specify where else it would be offered, but we could see the TRD Pro and the TRD Off-Road both featuring this tech as well.) The Trailhunter also gets a special snorkel air intake that snakes up the passenger-side A-pillar, similar in concept to the one that adorns the Ford Bronco Everglades.

A suit of underbody armor and a tucked exhaust tip help ensure the underside of the vehicle stays safe when the going gets a bit rocky. There’s even an integrated air compressor to air down your tires at the trailhead and pump them back up for the highway drive home.

I thought the TRD Pro was the ultimate off-roader?

It was. Is. Well, sort of. Toyota has shifted the TRD Pro’s focus a bit, tailoring the upgrades less for rock-crawling than for high-speed hijinks in the desert. Get pumped: The Tacoma is coming for Ford’s Ranger Raptor and Chevrolet’s Colorado ZR2.

The 2024 Tacoma TRD Pro gets special upper control arms and Fox internal-bypass 2.5-inch shocks. Those can be adjusted by hand to three different stiffnesses, depending on what sort of terrain you’re thundering over. There are also new Fox internal floating piston bump-stops as part of a re-designed, multi-link rear suspension setup. Not sure what that means? The ride over high-speed bumps just got smoother.

Are those … shock absorbers in the seats?

Indeed they are. You’re looking at Toyota’s IsoDynamic Performance Seat, the only one of its kind in the midsize truck class. Two air-over-oil shock absorbers manage vertical and lateral seat movement at the same time to dampen the wild body motions you’ll experience when hammering over sandy whoops, rocks, goats, and whatever else the desert throws your way that day.

The goal of this patent-pending system is to reduce the strain on your head, neck, and spine by minimizing the movements for which your muscles and joints are trying to compensate. Drivers can adjust the dampening effects, based on body mass and preference, using levers on the seat backs.

Can we take a moment to appreciate how badass these look?

Yeah yeah. But wait … don’t these trucks use leaf springs?

Yes! Well, no! Not always! How’s that for confusing? Here’s the long and short of it: If your new Tacoma is an SR, an SR5 with the XtraCab, or the newly revived TRD PreRunner, you still have a leaf pack in the rear. Anything else—TRD Pro, Trailhunter, TRD Off-Road, TRD Sport, Limited, and the SR5 DoubleCab—will feature the multi-link rear suspension that utilizes a coil spring instead.

One side effect of that switch: The Tacoma’s max towing capacity didn’t increase at all. In fact, it actually drops to 6500 pounds, down 300 from a properly-equipped third-gen truck. Ford’s new Ranger, by contrast, can drag up to 7500 pounds.

The new Ranger doesn’t have a manual, though!

Three. Pedals. The 2024 Toyota Tacoma will, in defiance of current trends, offer a manual transmission. Rowing your own gears will be a choice on any of the non-hybrid Tacomas, although output for the 2.4-liter turbo four will be reduced slightly to 270 hp and 310 lb-ft of torque, drops of 8 hp and 7 lb-ft over the automatic-equipped models.

That arrangement means that, unlike the previous Tacoma, the TRD Pro does not come with a manual. The Trailhunter won’t get the six-speed, either. Ah well. Rejoice in its existence nonetheless.

On the topic of old tech: The new Tacoma ditches drum brakes in the rear in favor of disc brakes. They’re now present at all four corners.

There sure are a lot of choices to make.

For 2024, the choices get better. Or, at least, more complex. Unlike the new Chevy Colorado and the Ford Ranger, which offer a single bed size, the Tacoma will offer two bed lengths—a 5-foot option and a 6-foot option.

You can have either bed with your choice of cabs: either the standard four-door crew-cab (Toyota calls it the DoubleCab) or a new two-door, single-row one. The latter boasts an added chunk of smart storage space behind the front seats, earning the name of XtraCab. The U.S. will be the only market to get the 2-door, 6-foot Tacoma.

While other manufacturers chop choices and minimize manufacturing complexity, Toyota is taking the opposite approach. As of 2024, Toyota and Nissan build the only two midsize pickups to offer multiple cab configurations.

Anything the new Tacoma’s missing?

One piece of tech is conspicuously absent: A locking front differential. Both Chevy and Ford offer a front locker on the most extreme versions of their midsize trucks, the ZR2 and the Ranger Raptor.

Given that so many of the trim levels feature an electronically locking rear diff, one would think the tech could be adapted for the nose of the truck without too much difficulty. Sure, the outgoing, third-generation Tacoma also lacked a front locker, and that component can be hard to adapt to a vehicle with independent front suspension (Jeep’s Gladiator Rubicon does get an e-locker in the front, but that thing also runs solid axles front and rear). If Chevy and Ford have figured that out, seems like Toyota should too.

The new Tacoma’s biggest competitor, however, might be itself. The outgoing Tacoma just flat-out worked, always and forever. Will the 2024 truck, with all its added mechanical complexity, be as bulletproof? We’re skeptical. It’s possible. But those associations only come from one thing: millions of miles driven by real customers.

On paper, the new Tacoma has the chops, the choice, and the charisma of a truck ready to fend off a new wave of competitors. We can’t wait to get behind the wheel.

***

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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Chevrolet fought the good fight with its C4 Corvette for a dozen years before giving America’s sports car an overhaul. It was as complete as remakes get, and really the only thing that carried over to the new-for-’97 Corvette C5 was the badge.

The aluminum-block 346-cubic-inch LS1 V-8 was new. Putting its 350 ponies to the back wheels via rear transaxle was new. The hydro-formed space frame, the suspension, the interior, the exterior—all of it clean-sheet new. All the meaningful dimensions increased, too—the wheelbase by 10 inches, the width by 3 inches, the track by 4.4 and 2.9 inches front and rear—which led not only to a more sure-footed Corvette, but also to actual space for real human-sized feet in the footwells. The result was the most revolutionary sports car Chevy had ever built.

By the time production gave way to that of the C6 for 2004, the Bowling Green, Kentucky, plant had churned out nearly a quarter-million C5s. Including this 2003 coupe, our Sale of the Week, which rolled off the line October 14, 2002. Radiant in Millennium Yellow, it sold May 10 on Bring a Trailer, after 23 bids, for $30,500.

This Corvette was outfitted with a black leather interior, polished five-spoke wheels (17-inch front, 18-inch rear), a four-speed automatic transmission, a limited-slip differential, Magnetic Select Ride Control active damping, removable glass and body-color roof panels, and a Bose sound system.

None of that exactly makes it a unicorn, but there are several interesting tidbits to consider about this Corvette. For starters, the mileage. The odometer shows just 812 miles, with the dealer-seller adding 20 of those and stating that the original owner only drove the car regularly to cars and coffee on the weekends (a 10-mile round trip) and to a few other car shows. It never knew a raindrop and spent the majority of its days in a climate-controlled garage in Texas. “He was all show and no drive,” the seller said in the BaT comments.

There’s also that color. Millennium Yellow found its way onto 3900 Corvettes in 2003, including 1041 coupes just like this one. It’s not the rarest color (that would be Speedway White), but it does bring a small premium in the market—a premium that will likely exist no matter how many miles get put on this car.

Which brings us to the Corvette’s custom engine control unit (ECU) tune and an aftermarket exhaust that includes tubular headers, high-flow catalytic converters, a crossover pipe, and a cat-back system. A cold-start video provided to curious parties confirmed the car’s meaty resonance, while a recent dyno printout confirmed output at the wheels at 324 hp and torque at 355 lb-ft. The car was made to sound better and go better than stock, but who are we to judge an owner for upgrading the performance of a car when they had little intention of driving it?

Hagerty quote data tells us that C5 owners skew boomer, and the majority drive their cars an average of 1823 miles per year, which, 20-ish years on, theoretically makes many of them 36,000-mile cars. In that respect, sure, there is something special about this example. But special enough to keep it that way?

This is no precious Corvette; it is no double-digit, plastic-on-the-seats “wrapper car.” Certainly it would have benefited from such treatment, as the large, unfortunate stain on the passenger seat front bolster attests. As it sits, then, this Corvette presents the buyer with a serious question: Drive it or park it?

The $30,500 price paid puts this C5 smack-dab in the middle of the range occupied by condition #1 (Concours) and condition #2 (Excellent) examples, which happens to be about the same realm as a #2 50th Anniversary edition or a #3 (Good) Z06 of the same vintage. But it is neither of those cars. It’s regular coupe with an automatic, which generally accounts for a 10 percent hit in the market.