Posted by Kurt Ernst - A 1976 Ford Gran Torino, used in the television series Starsky & Hutch. Image courtesy Leake Auctions. Starsky & Hutch, which premiered on ABC television in April of 1975, was hardly the first crime drama to feature an automobile in a starring role. It was, perhaps, the first television series to spawn a limited production run of copycat cars from a major automaker, and four decades after the debut of the 1976 Starsky/Hutch Ford Gran Torinos, the cars retain their cult following (aided by a 2004 motion ... Read On>> 
Hemmings Find of the Day - 1993 AM General M998 HMMWV Posted by Kurt Ernst - Introduced into the U.S. military in 1984, the AM General-produced M998 High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV, or Humvee for short) replaced a fleet of light duty trucks that included the M151 ton Jeep, the Gama Goat and civilian pickup based Commercial Utility Cargo Vehicle (CUCV). In the decades since, Humvees have seen action across the globe, in variants as diverse as troop transports, ambulances and surface-to-air missile launchers. This 1993 AM General M998, for sale on Hemmings.com, is set up ... Read On>>
NCM Motorsport Park to present amended development plan further addressing noise complaints Posted by Kurt Ernst - The disagreement between the National Corvette Museum Motorsport Park and its neighbors on Clark Circle remains ongoing, but on March 17 the track will present an amended noise abatement plan to the Bowling Green City-County Planning Commission it believes will go a long way towards settling the issue once and for all. In June of 2015, the NCM Motorsport Park was served a Notice of Violation by the planning commission, advising the track that it had not met several conditions outlined in the Binding Elements docu... Read On>>
The $5,000 Challenge, Matador and more edition Posted by Kurt Ernst - One man's trash, it's said, is another man's treasure. While none of the cars gathered for this edition of the $5,000 challenge fall into the "trash" category, each has the potential of being a treasure for the right potential buyer. This week's selection includes everything from an under-appreciated-in-its-day AMC, to a do-it-yourself Corvair autocrosser, to a bargain-priced Jaguar Mark II that has us wondering just how long we can live on a single package of ramen per day. If you want variety, you've come to the... Read On>>
Landmark Andretti race car coming to Amelia Island Posted by Jim Donnelly - Mario Andretti, in the Brawner Hawk at Indianapolis in 1965. Photo courtesy Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Amelia Island, whose concours weekend runs March 11-13, is one of a handful of major car events to presents two best-of-show awards; one for a road car, and one for a competition car. So if you go, you're guaranteed to see exceptional racing cars, and here's an example. This is the first rear-engine car to win a USAC National Championship. Its restoration, under the supervision of NASCAR team builder and T... Read On>>
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 1950s Posted by Daniel Strohl - Submitted by Facebook reader Rich Kohr, today's street scene shows Chambersburg Street - a.k.a. the Lincoln Highway - in Gettysburg, and once we take in the modern-day street view, we see that not much has changed from the early Fifties to today. There's even some bunting to be seen if you swivel around in the modern-day street view. Of course, the cars are different, so let's take a gander at what was parked along Chambersburg Street that day. What do you see here? ... Read On>>
This Day in Automotive History | 3/11/2009: | Toyota sells sells its 1 millionth hybrid car in the United States. |
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Week in Review Thursday, March 10, 2016 Baby got (fast)back: Slopers to take the green at Concours d'Elegance of America Posted by Daniel Strohl - Photo by the author. Of all the unconventional shapes that dreamers and designers applied to conceptual automobiles during the streamlining craze of the Twenties and Thirties, perhaps none made the transition to production automobiles as successfully as the fastback roofline, applied to sporty closed cars as small as tiny economobiles and as large as lumbering land barges. To celebrate its varied history, the Concours d'Elegance of America will host a class dedicated just to the fastback. If the fastback bodys... Read On>>
Hemmings Find of the Day - 1976 Mercury Monarch Ghia Posted by Kurt Ernst - It isn't likely that the first owner of this 1976 Mercury Monarch Ghia, for sale on Hemmings.com, purchased his car for investment purposes, intent on preserving it for future generations. Life, as the saying goes, is what happens while we're busy making other plans, and, four decades after this car rolled off the assembly line, it reportedly shows just 7,602 miles on the odometer. Said to be all-original, down to the paint and even the tires, this Monarch might be the finest remaining example of the breed left on... Read On>>
Quarter Mile Foundation begins crowdfunding Project 1320 Posted by Daniel Strohl - Stills from Project 1320 crowdfunding video. Zero to 265 in seven years might not sound that impressive on the dragstrip, but that figure takes on a whole new dimension when applied to nabbing interviews with some of drag racing's legends while they're still alive, the goal of the Quarter Mile Foundation's Project 1320, and one reason why the foundation has set up a crowdfunding effort. Launched in 2009, Project 1320 is the brainchild of Traci Hrudka, the daughter and niece of Mr. Gasket founders Tom and Joe H... Read On>>
The birth of the classic Airstream Posted by Hemmings contributor - Photos from the Airstream Archive, except where noted. With the purchase of the Bowlus-Teller design and equipment, the look and feel of what was to become the iconic silver slipstream Airstream trailer began to take shape. Wally hired some of the Bowlus-Teller employees, primarily those experienced in the special construction techniques for building the advanced trailers, and set to work redesigning the Road Chief to incorporate his own ideas. His first goal was to address design problems. For one t... Read On>>
Midweek Matinee: Sailing Along, Plymouth style, 1937 Posted by Ed Heys - All photos are frame grabs from video below. Wilding Picture Productions presents for us today an in-your-face advertisement for the 1937 Plymouth, with no pretense of being anything other than an 11-minute class in Non-Stop Salesmanship 101. Unlike their counterparts at the Jam Handy Organization compound, who might have led with an extended primer on the history of sailing, we have here one all-too-brief clip of a tall ship. Period. Through the marvels of technology, though, we do get a series of film frame ali... Read On>>
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1958 Posted by Daniel Strohl - Howard Arbiture, fed up with all the Vegas, Los Angeles, Vermont, Hartford, and New York photos we've been running in the carspotting series, decided we needed some Milwaukee sprinkled in there, so he sent us this one from the Milwaukee Public Library's digital collections showing the intersection of Fond du Lac Avenue and 37th Street, sometime in 1958, with a used car lot for us to pick over. What do you see here?... Read On>>
Wednesday, March 9, 2016 New bill aims to place competition vehicles out of EPA's reach Posted by Daniel Strohl - Photo by Steve Berry. Claiming that the Environmental Protection Agency's pending race car ruling poses a restriction on personal freedom, four Congressmen this week introduced a bill intended to thwart the EPA's oversight on competition vehicles by specifically excluding them from the Clean Air Act. House Resolution 4715, also known as the Recognizing the Protection of Motorsports Act of 2016, specifically aims to remove race cars from the Clean Air Act's definition of "motor vehicle" and to exclude "any vehi... Read On>>
Hemmings Find of the Day - 1966 AMC Rambler Classic 770 Posted by Daniel Strohl - Even restorations age - that car you redo today won't remain pristine forever - but when the car's removed from daily driver status, it tends not to age quite as fast. This 1966 AMC Rambler Classic 770 four-door sedan for sale on Hemmings.com, redone 20 years ago, has aged rather well, with only a little rust to really detract from the excellent mechanical condition of the car. From the seller's description: The paint and interior were redone approximately 20 years ago and have aged well, and a lot of mechanical re... Read On>>
Mods and Rockers descend on the AACA Museum Posted by Kurt Ernst - A 1953 Vincent Black Shadow, what a well-heeled Rocker may have ridden in the day. Photos courtesy AACA Museum. Though both groups were actively rebelling against societal norms, the Mods and Rockers of 1960s England went about it from entirely different perspectives. The leather-clad Rockers, obsessed with 1950s American rock and roll, preferred motorcycles as a primary method of transportation, while the fashion-conscious Mods listened to newer music and opted to ride scooters. On March 19, the AACA Museum in H... Read On>>
National Corvette Museum to add preservation workshop Posted by Kurt Ernst - The 1962 Corvette in as-recovered condition. Photos courtesy National Corvette Museum. In 2015, the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky, added a maintenance department, housed in the former pre-delivery inspection shop. Now, a year later, the museum has recognized the need to add preservation and restoration to the department's list of responsibilities, requiring a build-out that will add a potential new attraction for future museum visitors. Daniel Decker, head of the maintenance department,... Read On>>
Porsche's "Rolling Museum" takes to the road Posted by Kurt Ernst - On the California Mille, 2015. Photos courtesy Porsche AG. In 2015, vehicles from Porsche's "Rolling Museum" made over 280 appearances at events stretching from Europe to North America to China. The museum's 2016 schedule is equally crowded, with events that will put museum cars on public roads and race tracks around the world from April through September. The opening event, to which Porsche will be sending a 1955 356 Speedster and a 1956 356 A coupe, is the California Mille, scheduled to run from April 24-28.... Read On>>
Scotia, New York, 1960s Posted by Daniel Strohl - Thanks to reader Jack Shea, today's carspotting comes rather close to the Hemmings backyard with a shot of Jumpin' Jack's Charcoal Pit and Twin-Freez in Scotia, about an hour away from Bennington. Looks like it's been consistently busy since it opened in 1952, which makes for great carspotting. Hopefully there's similar photos of Jack's from throughout the years out there waiting for us to discover them. In the meantime, what do you see here?... Read On>>
Tuesday, March 8, 2016 Frank Currie, pioneer of the modular rear end, passes at age 87 Posted by Daniel Beaudry - Frank Currie with his 1966 Ford Mustang G.T. 350. All photos courtesy of Currie Enterprises. >From hot rods to land speed vehicles, drag racers to muscle cars, street rods to off-roaders and desert ralliers, it's hard to think of a motorized application that hasn't benefited from Frank Currie and his company Currie Enterprises. Currie passed away in Yorba Linda, California, on the evening of March 2nd at the age of 87. Born in 1929 in Anaheim, California, Currie was in the right place at the right time for a ... Read On>>
Hemmings Find of the Day - 1962 Pontiac Tempest convertible Posted by Kurt Ernst - To broaden the appeal of its compact Tempest, introduced for the 1961 model year, Pontiac added a convertible model to the lineup for 1962. Even in its debut year, the drop-top Tempest was a hit, selling 20,675 units, enough to make it the third-most popular variant in the model's lineup. How many survive today is anyone's guess, but this 1962 Pontiac Tempest convertible, for sale on Hemmings.com, appears to be a particularly nice example. Said to be rust-free, the Tempest benefits from a laundry list of recent wo... Read On>>
La Jolla Concours d'Elegance to show off "French Curves" Posted by Kurt Ernst - The 1936 Delahaye 135 Competition owned by Ken and Ann Smith. Photo courtesy Ken Smith. The prewar French automotive industry produced countless practical and utilitarian vehicles, yet it is the work of a few exclusive companies that often comes to mind when French cars of the period are discussed. This year's La Jolla Concours d'Elegance, set for Sunday, April 10, honors these design masterpieces with a European Classic subclass entitled "French Curves," celebrating the rolling artwork of Bugatti, Delahaye, Hisp... Read On>>
Canted Quads: Lincoln's 1958 models offered a new twist to headlamps Posted by Matt Litwin - 1958 Lincoln Premiere; image by the author. The Lincoln marque can invoke a variety of opinions regarding its status in the domestic luxury car market, especially the Continentals. First-person accounts of the lengthy masterpieces are continuously conveyed, each slightly different due to the different tastes and automotive generation variants. Take, for instance, our featured 1958 Premiere, which was positioned between the base Capri and top-of-the-line Continental Mark III. At Lincoln, engineers and stylists had... Read On>>
The Un-Honked Hero of George Gershwin's "An American in Paris" Posted by David Conwill - Images courtesy of Renault, unless noted. The New York Times and National Public Radio broke a story on March 1 that Musicologist Mark Clague of the University of Michigan, who is in the process of re-evaluating the musical works of George Gershwin, has used Gershwin's own handwritten score and an early recording to determine that the taxi horns that appear in his 1929 composition An American in Paris have essentially been portrayed incorrectly ever since Gershwin's untimely death in 1937. George Gershwin,... Read On>>
Hartford, Connecticut, 1960s Posted by Daniel Strohl - While we might've been ambivalent about the decade of last week's Hartford photo sourced from the collection Joe Sokola sent us, there's no doubt these two photos came from the Sixties. And, bonus, we got street signs to tell us roughly where the photographer stood: above near the corner of Pearl and Ann streets looking southwest, and below near the corner of Pearl and Main streets looking north. What do you see here? ... Read On>>
Monday, March 7, 2016 Faster than a Corvette? GMC's Syclone sport truck celebrates a quarter-century Posted by Daniel Strohl - Photos by Jeff Koch. Over the years, as the rumors go, plenty of GM-built performance vehicles either got spiked, squashed, detuned, or hush-hushed to protect the Corvette's reputation as the prime speed machine in the General's lineup. Only one of those, however, supposedly, as some say, came from truck brand GMC, the 1991 Syclone, which this year joins the list of small-c classics on its 25th anniversary. While the compact GMC S-15 dated back to 1982, it exhibited about zero difference whatsoever from its co... Read On>>
Hemmings Find of the Day - 1947 ZIS 110 limousine Posted by Daniel Strohl - Anybody who's ever taken a side on the did-ZIS-really-copy-Packard debate and hasn't ever actually traveled to Russia to examine an old ZIS in person, we present this 1947 ZIS 110 limousine for sale on Hemmings.com - specifically for sale in Houston, which is a little easier to get to. Probably the only ZIS 110 on this side of the globe, it comes with a complete history and doesn't appear to be missing anything, which should make its restoration (and its validity for anybody who does want to take a stance on the deb... Read On>>
Simeone Museum celebrates "The Beauty of All-Wheel Drive" with upcoming Subaru exhibit Posted by Kurt Ernst - 1968 Subaru 360. Images courtesy Subaru America. Vintage Japanese vehicle enthusiasts aside, Subaru isn't a brand that most Americans associate with collectible cars. Perhaps that's a testament to the brand's reputation for building sensible, go-anywhere transportation, or perhaps it's due to Subaru's relatively short 48-year history in the U.S. market. In either case, Philadelphia's Simeone Automotive Museum is looking to shine a spotlight on the Japanese brand with a new temporary exhibit, running April 16 ... Read On>>
Collecting automaker-to-dealer documents for your vintage car Posted by Thomas A. DeMauro - 1973 Hurst/Olds press photo. Art courtesy of Owen Griesemer and GM. If you think you've amassed every piece of literature that exists for your car, you may be surprised to learn that there's probably still more out there. How can that be, you say? You already have all the paperwork that came with your car, as well as its owner's manual, and you even found and extricated its build sheet. You also acquired assembly, service, and body manuals; AMA specifications; press releases; parts book; dealer brochure; paint... Read On>>
Ask a Hemmings Editor - What's the best generation of Impala? Posted by Kurt Ernst - 1958 Chevrolet Bel Air Impala Convertible. Photos courtesy General Motors. Chevrolet's Impala has been around for a long, long time. Debuting in 1957 as a 1958 model, the Impala soldiered on (in its first life) from 1958 through 1985, evolving to include convertible, hardtop, coupe, sedan and even station wagon variants through portions of its lifespan. From 1994 through 1996, a high-output version of the Chevrolet Caprice was rebadged as the Impala SS, and in 1999 the model returned to the regular Chevrolet line... Read On>>
Los Angeles, 1960s Posted by Daniel Strohl - Once more to Los Angeles, where, perhaps moreso than anyplace else in the world, the parade of people on the streets proves just as interesting as the parade of cars driving past. While we've always focused on the latter in our carspotting series, these two photos of the city in the Sixties from The Filth and The Fury has us reconsidering that approach. Above, an Elliott Erwitt photo taken in 1966, and below a Dennis Stock photo taken in 1967 at the corner of Manchester Boulevard and La Cienega Boulevard. What do yo... Read On>>
Sunday, March 6, 2016 Hemmings Sunday Cinema - Bonneville in 1953, Leo Lyons Mercury, Citta Violenta Posted by Daniel Strohl - We consider them legends today, but the people racing at Bonneville in the early 1950s were for the most part just regular guys looking to go fast. Fortunately, a couple enthusiasts went out there with some color film and a camera in hand and 60-something years later posted that footage to YouTube. * Geoff Hacker is currently prepping the Leo Lyons Mercury for Amelia Island and thought we'd be interested in this photo montage of the car's history, from its early days to the time he found it and through its restor... Read On>>
Hemmings Find of the Day - 1984 Pontiac Trans Am Posted by Kurt Ernst - In 1982, Pontiac debuted an all-new Firebird with a radical aerodynamic shape, the first significant redesign of the model in 13 years. Not content with the car's already slippery shape, in 1984 the automaker introduced an aero kit that lowered the car's coefficient of drag to a claimed 0.299, the lowest measured by GM on a production vehicle at the time. This 1984 Pontiac Trans Am, for sale on Hemmings.com, comes with the W62 Special Aero Package, as well as the WY6 Suspension Package (essentially a WS6 package... Read On>>
Four-Links - trophy Cord, Jappic repro, aluminum Batmobile, Jay-Eye-See Posted by Daniel Strohl - We mentioned it briefly in the story about the Amelia Island Concours's vintage trophy class, but the 1937 Cord that won the Stevens Challenge Trophy has already been hanging out with that piece of hardware at the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum, we recently found out through the National Automobile Museum. * You might have seen photos of the Jappic Racing Cyclecar before, but guaranteed you haven't seen the cyclecar itself because it burned in a fire 85 years ago. As we read on the Kneeslider this week, though... Read On>>
Hemmings Find of the Day - 1963 Dodge D500 Posted by Daniel Strohl - Every old car enthusiast should have or have access to a car hauler, something stylish, something heavy duty, something able to hit highway speeds for those over-state-lines car purchases, something ready to go at a moment's notice so you don't have to arrange a tow truck at two on a Sunday afternoon for those impulse old car purchases. Perhaps something like this 1963 Dodge D500 for sale on Hemmings.com, which appears rust free after spending most of the last half century as a farm truck in Arkansas before it was c... Read On>>
LAST WEEK'S MOST READTwo-owner, "last-of-its-kind" 1939 Oldsmobile takes Ridler Award Posted by Daniel Strohl - Photos via Customs and Hot Rods of Andice. The catalogs and reference books all say it shouldn't exist, but according to both its owner and the shop that built it, the 1939 Oldsmobile Series 60 that won the Ridler Award at this past weekend's Detroit Autorama not only came from the factory as a convertible but is also the last of its kind. The short-lived Series 60 represented the most basic Oldsmobile one could buy in the late 1930s: a small six-cylinder-powered car fitted with the GM A-body shared with Chevr... Read On>>
LAST WEEK'S BEST DISCUSSIONCould this be the best-preserved 1979 VW Beetle Convertible (and what will it sell for)? Posted by Kurt Ernst - Photos courtesy Bonhams. By the late 1970s, America's love affair with the Volkswagen Beetle was coming to an end. The final year for the Volkswagen Beetle sedan in the United States was 1977, but with the Rabbit Cabriolet not due until the 1980 model year, Volkswagen sold its Beetle Convertible here through the (extended) 1979 model year. With visions of future collectibility dancing in their heads, many owners parked their final-year Beetle Convertibles, reserving them for special occasion drives. At least one ... Read On>> |
