By Dan Strohl

Hemmings

Okay, last week’s Hemmings Six Degrees of Automotive Separation Challenge didn’t exactly sizzle. Except for a couple of the comments that made me hungry for breakfast. Luckily, current events have given me a chance to redeem myself. You see, news broke earlier this week that Volkswagen had bought a 20 percent stake in Suzuki, so that means we have a new connection to explore. Continue reading at Hemmings.

By Dan Strohl

Hemmings

What’d I tell ya about the barn finds yesterday? Here’s another, a 1960 Austin-Healey BT7 being offered for $7,950 out of Osseo, Minnesota. From the seller’s description:

1960 Austin-Healey BT7 3000, barn find, stored for 35 years, good restoration project or use it for parts, solid car minimal rust, missing front bumper.

He’s from Minnesota, so he should know that a solid car with minimal rust sure ain’t a parts car for any Northerner.

By Dan Strohl

Hemmings

Back in the 1960s, magazine writers thought the turbine was on the verge of replacing the piston engine entirely, and nowadays, it’s hardly brought up at all in the auto industry’s alt-fuel fantasies. For SIA #57, Leon Dixon took a look at Chrysler’s turbine program, which came the closest to an actual, offered-to-the-masses production turbine car, and which dates back to the early 1950s. Continue reading over at Hemmings.

By Dan Strohl

Hemmings

I recently made a bonsai one-week run through northern Ohio to attend an auction (more later) and gather a few photo shoots, and one of my stops was Best of Show’s showroom in Mentor. These guys have their act together, and they graciously let me use their in-house photo studio to shoot a couple cars that will appear in upcoming issues of Hemmings Muscle Machines. While in the studio, though, something caught my eye. Continue reading at Hemmings…

By Dan Strohl

Hemmings

I’ve received a few emails about a recent L.A. Times story that’s been making the rounds with a quote from YT in it, defending the 25-year exemption inserted into the federal cash for clunkers program, thanks to SEMA’s lobbying efforts. For the story, Ralph Vartabedian and Ken Bensinger rounded up a bunch of folks who thought their VW Beetles should qualify for cash for clunkers and used those stories to question the 25-year exemption.

Aside from the libertarian who claims that destroying older vehicles immediately results in increased values for the remaining vehicles (attrition-induced rarity != valuable, as any Vega owner can attest), the authors also support limitless crushing of old cars with some dubious-sounding stats from the California Air Resources Board that claim a 1965 Chevrolet Malibu produces 400 times the smog-forming pollutants of a 2010 Malibu. Continue reading over at Hemmings.

By Dan Strohl

Hemmings

Forklift? Forklift. I had never found any reason to get the least bit excited about a forklift, at least not until I ran across Barry Seel’s photos of his Transitier on the Crosley Gang mailing list recently (right around the same time I spotted the Gasporter photos we ran yesterday—I’m just making this a Crosley-powered week). We already know that Crosley’s OHC four-cylinder engines started out as generator engines and eventually found their way into boats as well as at least one airplane, and thanks to Barry, we can add forklifts to that list. Continue reading over at Hemmings.

By Dan Strohl

Hemmings

In looking over the responses to our previous Hemmings Six Degrees of Automotive Separation Challenges, we seem to get more responses when we try to link domestic and foreign companies. So we’re going to put that theory to the test this week by asking you to link two companies with proud racing histories and innovative technologies. Yes, it’s Saab, builders of turbocharged rallying flyers, versus Hudson, builders of step-down NASCAR legends. Though never in direct competition, they share at least one common thread. Can you identify it? Continue reading at Hemmings.

By Dan Strohl

Hemmings

We hate to see things like this happen. Mike Gomez, of Glendale, Arizona, recently wrote to us looking for help locating a straight body for his Mustang. Why? We’ll let him tell the story:

Thirty some years ago I came to own my first 69 Mustang, little did I know how unique a car I had. It was a 428 Mach 1 Cobra Jet 4 speed with a 9″ positraction rear end, power steering, power brakes and tilt steering wheel. I bought the car from my cousin when he got too many tickets and his Dad made him sell it. I had the car for about three years, then got married and sold it to buy my first house. I’ve owned many other cars that today are worth a fortune, who knew that they would go up in value so much.

Well, years passed and I always regretted selling the Mustang so I made a decision with my Wife, Sheri, to get a project car. She found a 69 Mustang on the Internet back in Illinois and we bought the car looking only at the pictures on the Internet. That is the last time I’ll do that!

Continue reading this story and watch a news report about this terrible incident over at Hemmings.

By Dan Strohl

Hemmings

Over the weekend, I took in the Rumblers sixth annual Rumble in the Country down in Terryville, Connecticut, both because I needed to restock on hot rod profiles for Hemmings Motor News and because I’d always heard good things about the show, but never been. I did find a couple rods to profile, but seeing this Chevrolet pickup truck made the whole trip worthwhile. The giant two-ton-truck wheels (single in back instead of dual) tucked up into the wheelwells, along with the modest chop, give the truck a huge Tonka toy look, while the dechromed body and flat off-white/white paint scheme appeal to the less-is-more aesthetic. Continue reading at Hemmings.

By Dan Strohl

Hemmings

I always take a couple thousand photos at Musclepalooza, partly because I have diarrhea of the shutter finger, but mostly because there’s so much happening at the event. You have the show field, the drag race action, the staging lanes, the F.A.S.T. guys, the awards ceremony for the show cars. You even have the go-karts for a little sideshow. And even with a couple thousand photos – I’ve culled out a dozen or so – you only get a small slice of the total action. Continue reading at Hemmings