By Dan Strohl

Hemmings

If you weren’t one of the hundreds of people who joined us for Musclepalooza IX over the weekend, you missed one heckuva show. Besides the show cars, besides the wheels-up racing (both of which we’ll give you a glimpse of in later posts), you also missed a battle royale in the F.A.S.T. ranks as the 10.53-second e.t. record fell not once, but twice, and two prominent F.A.S.T. racers vied for the $1,000 bounty we offered.

First up, Terry Pennington in his ‘69 L88 Corvette had thrown down a couple mid-10.40-second runs during practice on Saturday, so we eagerly anticipated his first run of the day. Continue reading at Hemmings

By Weston Henderson

Weston Henderson

The Castrol GTX How Do YOU Keep Your Car So Clean contest is about to announce its first monthly winner! It’s not too late for you to enter your video or photo for a chance to be the first $1,000 monthly winner. Head on over to the Castrol GTX site and check out the competition today!

By Katherine Helmetag

Atomicalex

Right now it looks like a filing by early next week, which would result in a government stake in GM of around 70%. Yep, GM will soon stand for Government Motors. It turns out that the hold-out bondholders aren’t responding to GM’s request for relief because they (the bondholders) bought some of those credit default swaps on their GM holdings from…. AIG. So if they hold out and GM goes bankrupt, AIG has to pay out the swaps with taxpayer TARP money. We, the regular taxpayers, get screwed twice in the deal. The only way out would be invalidation of the swaps as illegal unregulated insurance policies, but I doubt that will happen. I hope this doesn’t compromise the Camaro or Volt programs in any way. Urgh. Not fun in Detroit this week, but at least this time, we knew it was a real possibility.

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

On Monday I ended up behind this cool Camaro in the ferry line coming back from Vashon Island. We just missed the previous boat and had an hour to kill, so I went over and talked to the owner. Turned out to be Jay Rowlands, actor/director/producer of the upcoming feature film Clutch. Jay and I had corresponded a bit about his film via e-mail a year ago, but had never met in person. Look for clips from Clutch to show up on StreetFire in the next few months as Jay finishes up the final editing.

Jay picked up this Daytona Yellow Camaro last year. It was originally 4-speed L34 SS 396 big block car, though the original drivetrain is long gone. It’s currently motivated by a LT-1 style 350 and was serving duty as a dedicated drag car until Jay put it back on the street, with new exhaust and street tires. The Flowmaster 40s with 3 inch tubes and an X-pipe sound great. So good, in fact, that Jay has been using the car for some sound editing on the movie. The license plate was my favorite part of the car, though. Jay said that he’s had that plate on various cars over the years. Stoked!

Continue reading "Stoked" »

By Sam Barer

Sound Classics

The “Sound Classics” team had a great time up at the All-British Field Meet in Vancouver, B.C. There were hundreds of great classics.

In this video report, you’ll see my personal pick for the best car at the show and the one I’d want to take home. Watch the video and tell me if you agree!

By Ron Honig

WaytooFurious

As I have now moved into my new home, I can finally contemplate getting the Charger out of storage and re-starting the restoration. I went to check it out on Saturday and found that one of the tires had gone flat. Unfortunately it wouldn’t hold air despite the best efforts of my compressor. A quick trip to one of the local tire emporiums fixed that. While I was getting the tire fixed I kept thinking how much more I prefer the round tail lights from the ’68 Charger to the lights on the ’69 and ’70 cars. As I am going to be doing a full rotisserie restification, it will be the perfect opportunity to make the alterations for a different set of lights. What do you think, should I fit a set of ’68 tail lights to my ’70 Charger?

Continue reading "Should I Keep The Correct Year Tail Lights For My Charger?" »

By Jim Brennan

UDMan

Over the past two weeks, both GM and Chrysler informed a number of their dealers that they would no longer be needed. Since part of my job deals with evaluating possible new dealers, as well as auditing existing dealers, I’m in the unique position to understand this process. Many of the dealers have asked why they were singled out for termination (or in the case of GM, why their dealership agreements will not be renewed in 2010). While the parameters seem complicated, it is actually quite simple, and there are five key points to look for.

Continue reading after the jump!

Continue reading "Chrysler Dealership Closings: Why Certain Dealers Were Chosen Over Others" »

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

Imagine our surprise when our Mopar-loving father in law was looking through an old copy of Hot Rod magazine from 1969 and found the GM ad below. It’s for an “experimental” model called the Stir-Lec 1 and it is a freaking hybrid, using a little gas motor to generate electricity for the batteries that actually provide the power for the car.

We’ve never heard of this thing before, haven’t seen any photos, and didn’t know that it existed at all, and we’re kind of blown away that the company has not at least made mention of it with the promotion it has been doing with the upcoming and much anticipated Volt.

Sure, in terms of the technology of today this thing is about as crude as a concrete block, but it must have been space-aged stuff back in the late 1960s. The whole thing was packaged up in an Opel Kadett body per the wording in the old advertisement.

Is there a chance that this car is buried in the basement of a GM engineering building? Did it ever actually exist as a real car? Does anyone know anything more about this project? Once again, there’s nothing new under the sun. This is wild!

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

My brakes have been feeling like crap recently, so I swung by Chris and Jen’s place so they could have a look, and we ended up bleeding the brakes. Didn’t improve the pedal feel much, so maybe I’ll call Master Power and see if they have any ideas. After that I aired up the tires and gave the car its annual 15 minute detailing, so it’s pretty much ready for the All Mopar Spring Roundup on June 7th. What did you do this weekend?

Continue reading "What Did You Do This Weekend?" »

By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

They like to harp about how the Coca-Cola 600 is NASCAR’s longest race, and this weekend, they sure weren’t kidding. The Sprint Cup run at Lowe’s Motor Speedway was long–like, two days long–as unrelenting showers pummeled the legendary track, causing one delay after another. The downpour entirely derailed Sunday’s scheduled race, which didn’t run a single lap and was postponed until Monday. Though they finally got to run yesterday, the cars were dogged by thundershowers and rain-related electrical problems until NASCAR finally called the race just a little past the halfway point. And in case you didn’t stick it out for the entire sodden two days, David Reutimann won under the final rain delay after not having led a single lap. I know, kind of boring, right? I really wonder how much trouble it could possibly be to mod those cars to run in the rain–because the revenue, viewership, and fan morale that the sport loses as a result of a weekend like this one must be astronomical.

Follow the jump to see some pics from the soggy track this weekend, courtesy of Getty Images.

Continue reading "NASCAR's Memorial Day Weekend Washed Out By Rain" »