By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

The wonderful age of high-tech video and the Internet have finally come together for the greater good. Yes folks, thanks to Wikihow.com, you can learn how to do a burnout online. And lest you think this is some redneck explanation, keep in mind there are written instructions on front- and rear-wheel drive burnouts, peelouts, rollbacks, and more. Stick guys are covered as well. And for those of you star struck by the phenomenon known as Pinks, you’ll even find a how-to video by Nate Pritchett!

Visit today and you will laugh within the first two sentences. Try out some of the techniques and let us know what you think. While comical in their seriousness, I think some might actually work.

Smoke’em if you got ’em!

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

Since the snow has been melting around here in Massachusetts and the glaciers are receding, old cars and trucks are now seeing daylight after being literally buried for months. We saw this neat group of trucks behind a hardware store we had been to a bunch of times this winter and had never noticed them until now.

Here’s the story. If anyone remembers, the Old Navy clothing company had a blue 1950 Chevy truck as its mascot when the first stores opened about 10 years ago. Lots of their clothing had the old blue truck on it and they actually had real trucks in each location, normally one per store. The trucks had no motor or trans in them, but every one we saw was rust free and literally a motor, trans, and driveshaft from being a cruiser.

A couple years back they switched away from the trucks and as such they were all yanked out of their stores. We know of five now in our area counting these three. All five are sitting outside just like these three, which were encased in ice and snow for several months.

We want one bad and wouldn’t even mess with the faux faded blue paint. They seem just killer for a “shop truck” looking cruiser…with a 540.

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

We spotted this ad, saw the 66-inch tires, and thought of all those great monster truck events we went to as kids. This thing is not as it first seems, though. In looking past the tires we happened to find a fully optioned and relatively new Ford F-250.

The truck has a stock 351, stock transmission, nice comfy normal interior and, oh yeah, several feet of lift. In true monster truck form it has four-wheel steering and a big honking light bar. It appears that the previous owner used the truck to draw people to his business.

We just like the idea of crushing stuff with out all those pesky steel roll cage bars. You’ve got until tomorrow so pony up!

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

There are bitchin’ cars hidden in barns all over the world. We don’t have a hammer lock on them just here in the States. This week’s Time Killer site proves that there is coolness to be found everywhere, even in the great white north.

These happen to be all Mopars as the page is put together by the Maple Leaf Mopar club. But even if you are not necessarily a fan of Chrysler products, hit the link and tell your boss to kiss off for an hour or so. When we look at photos like these we like to visualize being the guy who stumbled across these treasures. Anyone who has ever had the experience knows it is a feeling you can’t replicate.

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

After a day of burning up phone lines, sending e-mails, reading other online reports, and launching flares up into the sky, we’ve got some more information for you with regard to Wednesday’s announcement about the disbanding of GMPD.

The good news is that things seem to suck far less than we were led to believe with the story we were working off of from Automotive News.

GM Performance Division has not, in fact, been completely disbanded. The engineers that were focused on performance-car development have been reassigned to other areas and projects in the company. The positive seems to be that when things are back on track, this unit will be reconvened. Continue reading at Freiburger’s Junkyard

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

We’re unabashed fan boys of Steve Evans and we’ve made that point well known. The man rocked, and outside of the NHRA coverage, his best work was done covering the unique vehicles and, umm, unique competitors who raced Swamp Buggies every year down in Naples, Florida.

This is video from the 1980s with Evans and Brock Yates on the call and it includes all the legends from the sport that helped bring it to some bizarre level of national prominence.

This video is nearly 10 minutes and every second of it is entertaining. Put on your rain gear and get ready to dodge flying muck!

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

We attended Lead East 2008 this past summer on behalf of a print magazine. They decided to let us use the photos that they are not using in the book here on el blog. This is the first of several galleries that you will see from the event.

We’ve got a major Jones for straight-axle cars and we have never seen such a collection at a car show as we did at Lead East 2008. Here are the best shots we were able to wrest away from the overlords of the print world. There’s some neat junk in here!

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

Automotive News is reporting that General Motors has killed off the GM Performance Division. This is crushing news to fans of domestic performance vehicles and the decision appears to have been made in order to appease the government.

Quoting directly from the AN piece by Jamie LaReau, “All high-performance projects are on indefinite hold,” GM spokesman Vince Muniga said. “The engineers are moving into different areas of the organization, and they will work on Cadillacs, Buicks, Chevrolets and Pontiacs.”

Outside of the obvious implications regarding the desirability of the GM product line, we think that this means no SS Camaro. This truly is a shocking and frightening development for everyone involved in the automotive hobby, whether you are a GM fan or not. Continue reading at Freiburger’s Junkyard

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

These photos are completely for real. I took them one day while driving home from class at college (I always kept my camera with me as I do now). I nearly drove off the road when I saw this contraption and basically blew a donut to make sure I didn’t miss the chance to get a better look.

The car, a Mustang GT was owned by a kid I knew named Joel. To be fair, Joel was what scientists like to call a “drug addicted lunatic.”

He got all wound up on God knows what one afternoon and started buying leaf blowers, tie-down straps, PVC pipe, and duct tape and came up with this. Note that he sealed both tubes into the air box lest he lose any boost pressure. As I was taking the photos the car was idling horribly and the blowers were running at full tilt cramming who knows how many CFM into the factory airbox. Continue reading at Freiburger’s Junkyard

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

Chad over at Freiburger’s Junkyard put together an awesome gallery from Winternationals. My favorite is this green Mopar, but they have  a little of everything, from Stock to Super Stock to Pro Stock. Check it out.