The rare factor: Rare doesn’t always equal valuable

Posted on May 14, 2016 in Featured | 2 comments

1963 Chevrolet Impala SS. Just because a car is considered rare, it isn’t necessarily valuable. Case in point is this 1963 Chevrolet Impala SS convertible. I recently had the pleasure of visiting Melbourne, Florida, to drive and photograph this stunning piece of Chevrolet history for an upcoming feature in Hemmings Classic Car magazine. Recently restored, it is...

Playmate of the Year AMX returns to its original pink

Posted on Mar 31, 2016 in Featured | 2 comments

Photos courtesy Mark Melvin. For decades, the pink AMX that AMC gave away in 1968 wore one coat of different colored paint after another to hide its factory-original hue. The coverup, however, came not from an overabundance of testosterone on the part of the car’s owner, rather on the part of its pursuers—longtime owner and Playboy Playmate of the Year Victoria...

Reminder: Be safe out there in the garage

Posted on Mar 20, 2016 in Featured | 2 comments

There are jackstands under Jeff Koch’s Dart, he informs us. Springtime is upon us here in the Northeast (finally!). The salt is slowly dissolving off the highways, and that means—unless you’re one of those lucky souls who has a heated garage with heated floors and heated underwear—it’s time to get back to wrenching on our project cars and other collector...

Breadvan ‘Bird: Remembering Pontiac’s Firebird Type K

Posted on Jan 22, 2016 in Featured | 2 comments

The Pontiac-built 1977 Firebird Type K. Fifty-eight years after production ended, Chevrolet’s two-door wagon, the Nomad, remains sought-after by collectors. In the decades since, GM has tried on at least three occasions to revive the idea, using the F-body platform to create midsize two-door wagons based upon the Chevrolet Camaro or the Pontiac Firebird. None...

Only one lost wheelcover and one attempt on my life so far…

Posted on Dec 18, 2015 in Featured | 2 comments

While the AMX has occupied hallowed ground in one half of my garage since I bought my house, the other half has seen a rotating cast of assorted projects—an MG Midget, a Crosley, a mystery streamliner, an AMC Eagle station wagon—that might have kept our daily drivers out in the rain and snow but ultimately never panned out. My latest acquisition, though,...

License Plate Memories

Posted on Nov 4, 2015 in Featured | 2 comments

Recently, I found myself staring at my garage wall, which, suffice to say, really isn’t anything out of the ordinary, but there’s lots of stuff hanging on it like car parts and tools, so I have an excuse. What caught my eye were some licenses plates from a few cars I used to own. It’s funny how seeing something as simple as on old plate can instantly bring back...

I fought the law… and I won – How I weaseled my way out of a (probably well-deserved) speeding ticket

Posted on Oct 6, 2015 in Featured | 2 comments

This didn’t happen. Not this time, anyway. It was the perfect mix of conditions: a dark, clear night; a miles-long straight shot of divided four-lane unimpeded by development; light but pokey traffic; a clearly marked 55-mile-an-hour speed limit; my mind on other things. Traffic going 59 in the left (but clearly not the fast) lane meant I juked right,...

The rarest GTO you may have never wanted

Posted on Sep 3, 2015 in Featured | 2 comments

Here’s an example of a chrome bumper 1968 GTO, but it’s not the same car discussed in the blog, as understandably, we couldn’t locate a photo of a factory Pink Mist GTO. Photo by author. When it comes to collecting vintage cars, generally, nostalgia, value (real or perceived), budget and rarity all come into play. Many option combinations were rare for more...

Open Diff – What would you mix and match to make the perfect car?

Posted on Aug 23, 2015 in Featured | 2 comments

Good news, everyone! I have just invented the Patented Miracle Mystery Adapter, which is not at all based on the spackling properties of Torgo’s Executive Powder. This means that you and I and shkle can now adapt any part of any car to any other part of any other car. All body parts, all drivetrain components, all chassis sections are now universally...

Petersen Museum launches campaign to fund restoration of its 1948 Davis Divan

Posted on Jun 9, 2015 in Featured | 1 comment

1948 Davis Divan, from the Petersen Museum’s collection. The Davis Motorcar Company built just 17 examples of its three-wheeled cars before production ended in 1948, but the Van Nuys automaker is one of the few that originated in Southern California, making the company of particular interest to the Petersen Museum. The fourth Davis built, long owned by the...

A Golden Jubilee for the Silver Shadow

Posted on Apr 20, 2015 in Featured | 2 comments

Black-and-white photographs courtesy of Rolls-Royce In 1965, tradition was on the run. Bob Dylan plugged in his guitar at the Newport Folk Festival, electrifying half of his audience, and electrocuting the other half, as music historian John Gilliland put it. Houston’s National League baseball team began playing its home games inside the air-conditioned...

The simple argument for preserving any old car

Posted on Apr 20, 2015 in Featured | 2 comments

What makes an old car special? Is it the engine under the hood? Is it the ownership history? Is it the stylistic or mechanical or technological advances that the car embodies? Or is it something else, something far simpler, something much more democratic? We didn’t expect to have to confront these topics in our recent story on the stretched Chevrolet station...