It seems Cuba is something everyone knows both everything and nothing about. If someone were to say “Cuba” to a group of hot rodders, they’d probably conjure up images of old ’50s-era cars driving down city streets; a place where time had stopped back when cars still had large amounts of steel and chrome on them.

And though the lure of seeing all these old cars being used as daily drivers or taxis would be strong with these rodders, very few have ever seen it for themselves due to the travel restrictions put in place by the U.S. government preventing any kind of tourism with the island nation.

Like these rodders I, too, have wanted to see Cuba for years, but only recently was able to put together a trip together to fly from Miami to Havana to see for myself what it’s like, and I was blown away when I got there; American cars from the ’50s were everywhere. From the moment I left the airport and down the highway, to every single street I traveled on, at any hour and every day—there were so may you couldn’t figure out which way to look.

Old Habana (the Cuban spelling of Havana) has been around since the early 16th century, and much of the Spanish-influenced architecture is still in place, but much of it is in a serious state of disrepair. There are specific areas (where the tourists go) that is in decent shape, and a brand new Chinese hotel is being built in the midst of downtown, but most of the buildings in the immediate outskirts are crumbling and severely damaged by time. You can’t tell by looking at the buildings if the damage is from a recent hurricane or tornado or just not maintained for the past 80 or 100 years.

But the rest of the world has been visiting Cuba for decades, and a flood of enterprising taxi drivers tote euro tourists around the city while pointing out interesting spots in Cuban history. Most of these cars are late ’50s Chevrolets, but maybe 90 percent of the old cars I saw have had their drivetrains replaced by the more available Audi, Peugeot, or even Lada powerplants. (The Soviet-made Lada, the third-most produced vehicle in the world behind the VW Bug and the Model T, was popular in eastern-bloc countries in the ’70s). We ran across 1955 Chevys with 1.8-liter Korean diesel engines as well as Mercedes-powered Bel Airs. Still, it seems there are more Chevys driving around Cuba’s capitol than you might find at the Street Rod Nationals, and they use them every single day in every which way they can; usually as taxis but also for those employed in a construction or fabrication trade to haul goods in makeshift trailers.

The most popular body style is, of course, the convertible and, if a Cuban happened to own a sedan, it wouldn’t be uncommon to see he’s chopped the roof off and converted his ride into an open-air vehicle to attract more tourists.

A one-hour guided tour of Havana in a nice Tri-Five Chevy convertible runs about $25, but in a 1930 Ford Phaeton it ran about $15 US. In contrast, the three-wheeled bicycle pedal pusher was asking $10 for a 1-hour trike ride around downtown. Many of the taxi drivers are employees to a car owner who might be operating with several old cars in their fleet.

But where Tri-Five Chevys are easily the most common found driving around, Chryslers, Pontiacs, Dodges, Buicks, Oldsmobiles, Studebakers, Fords, Ramblers, Plymouths, and Mercurys are also easily found, with nearly every one having been manufactured in the 1948-1960 year range. Vauxhall, Anglia 100E, GAZ, and other various European nameplates make up the balance.

But just because you’re looking at a mid-1950s Chevrolet parked on the curb doesn’t mean it couldn’t also have an Audi dash and steering, a Mercedes diesel engine under the hood, a Toyota five-speed gearbox, and sitting on a HiLux frame. This is a country where sandpaper is not readily available, let alone automotive paint or any type of welding (though I did see some acetylene brazing being done), so it shows how creative and determined Cubans are in keeping these cars up and running.

The guessing game for what you’re looking at gets trickier when the Cubans start mixing and (sort of) matching parts and pieces to create something new. One Chevy sedan we saw was cut in half behind the door handles and set on some sort of truck frame with a large bed out back for hauling. Other vehicles, such as a multi-seat taxi (not with transverse seating, but rather two long planks running lengthwise like an armored personnel carrier) looked like the roof section of a Toyota Land Cruiser had been grafted into a Dodge truck cab, while another two-door sedan with the rear window/trunk lid area opened up and vertical side panels added to the tops of the fenders to form a large bed for hauling.

And though there is an abundance of 1950s-era vehicles, I couldn’t spot a pre (world) war car anywhere. I took a ride in a Model A four-door Phaeton, but it had a Soviet Lada motor under the hood and I wasn’t sure about the rest of the drivetrain (and, judging from the ride, I wasn’t sure if the spring leafs hadn’t been welded together). In talking with several mechanics and taxi drivers who were working on their cars (some in a four-car repair shop while others just out on the street) it seems good working carburetors are among the hardest parts to find (though we did note a few chrome Edelbrock air filters and valve covers on these cars, along with a surprising number of American Racing-style five-spoke wheels).

While there are many very nice old cars that would be at home in Florida or any other donut shop parking lot across America, there were also many that looked like they were a big bag of walnuts and brush painted right in the street. But it’s not like there are automotive junkyards overflowing with extra parts in Cuba. Extra parts just don’t exist. The Cubans’ ingenuity is what keeps these cars running with whatever they can lay their hands on. For taxis, Cubans can purchase an older, mid-1970s Soviet-era Lada (similar to a Fiat 124) for $20-25K U.S. and the ’50s-era Chevrolets will run you $30-35K U.S. Keeping in mind the U.S. government (C.I.A.) estimates the average annual salary for a Cuban to be less than $13,000, these cars are major investments.

But what you will find everywhere are photos of the Cuban heroes Che, Fidel, and Camilo adorning the walls of Cuba’s shops and businesses, much as you could find images of FDR, JFK, or MLK hanging in American homes decades ago. The words of Fidel Castro are literally written in stone, set into the granite sides of buildings and walkways throughout the capital city—a daily reminder of the revolutionary ideals that created the country.

In the film Field of Dreams they said of the baseball diamond in the middle of the cornfield “build it and they will come,” suggesting people would want to return to a simpler time frame and existence. In Cuba the use of these 1950s-era American cars as taxis helps transport tourists to their happy place, and one can only hope the U.S. and Cuban governments can figure out a way to make that dream more accessible for everyone. SRM

The post Cuba’s Vintage American Taxis…Photo Gallery appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

If you’ve not heard of Classic Car Studio, then you’ve perhaps heard of the TV show, Speed is the New Black. Classic Car Studio is the shop that is featured on the show, and shop owners Noah, Nick, and their team build the high-quality custom vehicles in their 15,000 square-foot shop while also filming the show. Noah stopped by the Hot Rod office in El Segundo, California a while ago and brought two trucks that ain’t your grandpa’s farm truck.

Last season, the guys got the bug to run the HOT ROD Power Tour, and their vehicle of choice was a 1986 Chevy Silverado short-bed that, according to Noah is, “Built to beat on.”

For power, they turned to Chevrolet Performance and the supercharged, direct-injected LT4 backed by a sequential T56 transmission and 9-inch rearend, all of which is held off the ground by RideTech suspension. The interior was kept clean and simple with a digital dash and gear indicator, and to top it off, some gradient Recaro bucket seats. These guys rolled in luxury on Power Tour, sporting air-conditioning from Vintage Air.

We went out for a spin around the office and would describe the experience as similar to driving a a giant go-kart because this thing handles with the precision of a pin-striper and the force of a power-lifter. After riding shotgun, Noah threw me the keys. Aside from the Roadkill Muscle Truck, this is one of the fastest things I’ve ever driven and also my first time driving a sequential transmission.

The second truck that Noah brought out was a customer’s vehicle. This 1970 Ford F-100 was built with inspiration taken from home-built road-race cars. The matte finish, brushed trim pieces, and elements like a hand-made radiator shroud purposely have imperfections in them. “If you look at racecars, they’re not nice,” said Noah. Despite that, this truck is gorgeous and the roughness around the edges contributes to the home-built vibe.

The low-slung stance comes courtesy of a Roadster Shop chassis. Huge brakes and light wheels make for a nimble truck that looks as fast as it goes. The gears are selected by a reinforced TKO600 five-speed .

John Kasse built the engine, a 720hp and 730lb-ft. naturally aspirated, 520 cubic-inch big-block Ford. “It doesn’t do a lot of the stereotypical high-performance big-block stuff,” joked Noah. “It starts a little cold blooded, but after that it’s easy to drive.”

The interior is reminiscent of a vintage racecar; only home to what is necessary. Speed Hut’s red-backed and white-lettered GT40 configuration gauges provide what Noah described as an analogue feel and the center console continues that GT40 theme with only the hand brake, shifter, and two cupholders. The driving experience was visceral and violent. The slightest blip of the throttle in most any gear broke the tail loose. This truck would be an absolute riot on a sweeping two-lane road.

The vehicles coming out of the Classic Car Studio are diverse, top-quality rides as demonstrated by examples they brought to the HOT ROD headquarters. To see more of them in action, check out Speed is the New Black on Motor Trend.

The post Ford vs. Chevy from Classic Car Studio appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

In the early 1960s, Del Wiesner and Dean Seevers were a couple of guys from Loveland, Colorado, who built a ’33 Willys to drag race. It wasn’t long before they and another partner, fellow Loveland racer Harold Owens, found themselves in the thick of the Gasser Wars.

The trio spent several years on the circuit, towing their Olds-powered coupe all over the country to race the likes of Doug Cook, K.S. Pittman, Bones Balogh, George Montgomery, and other warriors of the era. Some weekends were spent match racing at local events, others put them in the national spotlight with fellow A/GS competitors in the NHRA. At their peak, e.t.’s were in the low 10s with trap speeds over 140 mph. In 1964, carrying 400 pounds of ballast to compete in B/Modified Gas, the Seevers/Wiesner/Owens Willys held the AHRA record at 136 mph.

Fifty-plus years later, the Seevers/Wiesner/Owens A/Gas Supercharged ’33 Willys is still pleasing the crowds, albeit in an updated version. “People really love seeing the car. That’s what keeps me going,” Del says. “They love it because it has an Olds Rocket engine in it. That’s not something you see all the time, much less the original owner and driver in it.”

Asked about racing today, Del says, “I do still love it, but I look at it different now. I’ve been in some bad wrecks. I about wrecked this thing at a nostalgia event a year or so ago. I’d hate to wreck it now, so late in life. And I made a promise to my wife that I wouldn’t drive it so fast. So rather than running 8 seconds at 155, I’m content to go 115 in the eighth at 5.70, which is what it will run on a good track. That’s plenty of thrill for this old feller.”

Del will be 80 on his next birthday.

1962

Dean Seevers had a “wild” ’39 Chevy coupe with a blown Olds motor that he drove on the street and raced at the drags as the 1960s dawned. Dean, Del, and Harold Owens were founding members of the local hot rod club, the Loveland Zephyrs, and part of a group of guys who raced in NHRA Division 5.

When they built the Willys, Dean and Del put in it a ’57 Olds mill with a 4-71 supercharger backed by a B&M Hydro. The Willys hit the track in 1962, running “around 120 in the 11s,” Del says. “We won a lot of trophies at all the tracks in Division 5.”

Harold mustered out of the Air Force a year later, and he wanted to join the team. He had an engine he wanted to build. “It was his baby motor, a ’49 Olds Rocket at 303 cubic inches,” says Del. When it was done, it displaced 308 inches and was fed by a 6-71 blower and Scott fuel injection. The “itty-bitty engine” put the Willys into B/Gas Supercharged.

“We went out to Pomona racing some of the biggest names in the country,” Del says of their trip to the 1963 Winternationals. The three friends from Loveland ran “131 miles per hour at 10.75, and we didn’t have to apologize to anyone for anything.”

What they did have to do, though, was be quicker. Doug Cook, running 10.60s, beat them in Pomona.

So in the winter of 1963, the Willys went on a diet. The steel front end was replaced with a liftoff fiberglass nose. The factory doors with their glass windows were pitched in favor of fiberglass doors with Plexiglas. Out, too, was the baby Olds. In went a 324-inch Olds motor bored and stroked to 396 ci. Lighter and more powerful, and with a new Dean Kennedy Hydro, the Willys showed “a dramatic improvement in e.t.,” remembers Del. Times dropped to the low 10s, and speeds increased to 140-145 mph. The Willys’ appearance in 1964, with the Seevers/Wiesner/Owens lettering and the assigned number 239, was the template for the tribute Willys, as that was the last year the trio raced as a team.

“Dean decided he wanted to build one of those Mark Williams dragsters, and he wanted to put his Olds in the dragster,” Del says. “So he went his separate way. That left Harold and me to run the Willys.”

By 1966, Del had moved on, too. He and Harold built a “super light” ’23 T roadster with an Olds capable of sending the car to 150-plus top-end speeds. But the car “nearly killed” him in a bad accident that ended his racing days.

“I still have the scars,” he says.

2008

Scars, and memories, too. “I had two wonderful partners in this car back in the day. In 1964, we did the entire NHRA Division 5, in the points chase right up to the end. We ran every event: Omaha, Minneapolis, Great Bend, Continental Divide, Green Valley Raceway in Texas, Amarillo, plus the Winternationals in Pomona and the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis. It wasn’t unusual for us to be in L.A., then Minneapolis, then Texas. We flat-towed this car all over the country until we finally got a trailer.”

Decades later, “I couldn’t shake the thrill the race car had given me. Even though I had quit racing long ago, I always loved the Willys gassers. Once you get that in your blood, it’s hard to let go. It was the most exciting time of my life, so I decided to rebuild a part of history.”

He considered another go-around with the original car. “I found the original ’33. Someone had converted it to a street machine with a Chevrolet engine. I called, but once they found out about the history of their car, they decided they didn’t want to sell it.”

He opted instead to build a Willys from scratch, with a fabricated chassis and cage, a fiberglass repop body, and the help of a young car builder named Bobby Anderson, who runs Sleds Customs in Apache Junction, Colorado. Bobby modified the frame for the Willys using 2×4 rectangular tubing, and mounted a straight front axle from Speedway Motors and a Ford 9-inch rearend. Within the 10-point polished cage are aluminum seats Bobby fabricated after the fiberglass racing seats Del bought for the project “were thrown in the junk pile,” Del says.

They weren’t the only pieces that didn’t pass muster. Much of the fiberglass Willys body Del bought was either “too heavy or poorly done,” so Bobby fashioned a rear decklid, dashboard, floors, fenderwells, and other parts from aluminum.

The engine had to be an Oldsmobile. “I have a number of blocks,” Del says, preferring those out of a ’62 Starfire. “The 394-inch Olds motors were made from 1959 to 1964, and the blocks from the ’62 Starfire have a unique configuration compared to the other engines. They have a wider main bearing boss, so you could run a heavier-duty main bearing. It’s the strongest 394 Olds block.”

Del built two different engine combinations for the Willys. One has a stock crank with steel billet Crower rods and 8:1 compression pistons. The other, his “quickest engine,” has 9:1 compression and aluminum rods. “I went to the aluminum rods so I could use a pinned rod bearing to keep the rod bearings in place. The steel rods had a tendency to tear the tangs off the ends of the rod caps. Pinned bearings eliminated that problem, but it means a trick crank situation. The crank is undersize 300-thousandths—that’s a lot—then resized to use Chevrolet main bearings. That’s a unique situation for an Olds to have that.”

As Gasser Wars veterans, Del and Howard were used to being courted by camshaft makers. “Several companies gave us camshafts back then.” Jack Engle ground cams for the SWO Willys, and 50 years later, Del again went to Jack, even after the cam maker had retired, for grinds for the tribute car. But with two engines in play, Del also uses a billet Isky 505-C roller cam in his other engine.

“I like both cams,” he says. “Both those manufacturers treated us really well. The Engle definitely has more lift. It’s a more modern camshaft. The 505-C is like it was ground in 1960. I bought a pair of them unused at the Bakersfield swap meet. It has 100-thousandths less lift than the Engle, but I can make the car run just as hard for the first 300 to 400 feet as with the big cam. That’s what I do with the car, run hard out of the hole to give them the show.

“People come out to see cars drive up to the starting line and carry the front end for 100 feet. That’s the show, right there. I don’t run the car at top speed any more. These aren’t real stable at 150-plus.”

With some concessions to NHRA regulations, Del worked to keep the outside of the engine “looking like it was running the old stuff, nostalgia stuff.” Feeding the fire is a vintage Hilborn two-port fuel-injection system “that’s probably from the early 1960s,” says Del. Igniting the fire is a Joe Hunt Vertex magneto.

The headers, too, with their distinctive wraparound collectors, were built by Bobby to mimic the pipes on the SWO Willys. “At the time it was a convenient way to pull the tubes together, and it looked neat on the weed burners,” Del explains.

Another carryover from the original Willys is the tribute car’s shifter, which is on the column. “We always ran a column shifter on them, even though everyone else had it on the floor. In the old days we’d run a Powerglide shifter, a ’53 or ’54 column shifter, but you can’t race one of those anymore since there’s no reverse lockout on them.”

Del admits it “took a lot of work” to graft the B&M ratchet shifter onto the column. “It was a lot harder than putting it on the floor. Everything is handbuilt around the shifter.”

In the 1960s, the B&M Hydro was the transmission of choice for the SWO Willys as well as many of the other gasser teams. It wasn’t Del’s favorite, though. “I’m not a Hydramatic guy. We ran them back in the day, because that was the transmission to race. Everyone ran them until people started using the Chrysler TorqueFlites. But we had a lot of trouble with the Hydros. We lost races because of transmission problems.”

The tribute Willys, too, started with a Hydramatic, but Harold Owens had another idea. “Harold was running a Hughes Performance Powerglide in his dragster, and he recommended it. So I went with it. It matched up to the early Oldsmobile and works slick.”

Both of Del’s former partners are still around. “Dean Seevers, the top engine man and driver, is very ill, but Dean and Harold Owens are my biggest supporters of the car. When I started, I was the gopher guy, the polish guy. I painted the original A/Gas Supercharged car and kept it looking great. But then I started driving in mid-1964, so I got to run Doug Cook a number of times, Bones, K.S. Pittman, Chuck Finders, and the big-name racers.”

Re-creating the Willys that meant so much to him took a full five years. “It was a challenge, largely because all the parts we needed are now considered antiques.” But with Bobby Anderson’s help, Del now enjoys running and showing his tribute Willys for “all the past drivers, owners, and fans who truly loved these kinds of cars.”

The post Gasser Wars Veteran Del Wiesner Is Still Wheels-Up in His Olds-Powered 1933 Willys appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

Last year, we picked apart Dale Snoke’s altered-wheelbase 1964 Mercury Comet Caliente, a street-driven B/FX to install Holley’s latest Terminator Stealth EFI. With its gold Moroso valve covers and through-fender headers, Dale’s Comet was a perfect foundation for this retro-façade that takes the best of Holley’s race-proven ECUs and tucks a throttle body injection system under the wraps of a double-pumper (dripping in a venerable Dichromate-like gold finish, of course). What we left out in Part 1 was a computer-controlled distributor, Holley’s dual-sync unit for small-block Fords. While we first wanted to show you just how capable the basic Terminator kit is, an ECU-controlled distributor really completes the package from a performance and drivability perspective. Not only does it allow you to accurately map a custom timing curve via the hand-held or a laptop, but it also gives the ECU extra control over start-up, idle, and low RPM performance, as it can dynamically adjust timing based on running conditions. This helps the throttle body to rely less on the Idle Air Control (IAC) valve and utilize timing to stabilize the RPM.

How the Holley dual-sync distributor works is not unlike the later Vortec distributor found in GM trucks before the LS was introduced. With a a fixed rotor (no mechanical or vacuum advance), the ECU chooses when spark is sent via the MSD 6AL box (that was already installed on Dale’s Comet. Two Hall Effect sensors (magnetic pick-ups) are used to calculate engine RPM and camshaft position, both of which are used by the ECU to determine when to fire the ignition. For this throttle-body-injected application, we only needed to utilize the crankshaft signal, but using both allows for either sequential fuel injection or coil-pack ignition if you wanted to upgrade the system in the future. The advantage of using just the crank signal with one of Holley’s throttle-body-injected EFI units is that it shortens the cranking time by a second or two, as the computer no longer waits for the two signals to synchronize and quickly starts spraying fuel the moment it sees an RPM signal. With the Terminator Stealth EFI already installed, the dual-sync dizzy was a drop-in, plug-n-play affair that required no extra wiring or modifications to our existing combination.

Tricky Tips

Holley provides incredibly detailed instructions on the setup and calibration process for your dual-sync distributor, but we’ll go over what we learned from the process and pass along some of our notes.

The trickiest thing in this entire install is actually just Step 1, marking your crank balancer for 50-degrees before top-dead-center (BTDC). This puts the rotor for the Hall Effect sensor in sync with the crankshaft, and ensures that the ECU knows exactly where the engine and distributor is throughout its rotation. If you have a degree-marked balancer, this is a quick job. Otherwise, Holley provides a quick reference measurement to mark 50-degrees BTDC in the table below. Using a tape measure, you can measure from the 0-degree mark with the distances below to help find the sweet spot.

The next step is to precisely align the body of the distributor with the rotor and Hall Effect drum, which Holley has made simple thanks to a pair of on-board status LEDs placed under the cap. Start by rotating the rotor, while still directed at the terminal for cylinder one, until the left “Crank LED” turns on and the rotor is aligned with the Hall Effect pick-up (009-A). You then rotate the body of the dizzy in the direction of the rotor’s running rotation until the Crank LED turns off, where you’ll notice that the Hall Effect drum has reached the edge of its tooth. Then, gently rotate the housing back until the Crank LED just turns on – there, you’re set! In the case of Dale’s Windsor, which spins the rotor counter-clockwise, we rotated the housing counter-clockwise until the LED shut-off and then clock-wise until it just came back on. Lock down the distributor clamp and move on to configuring the ECU.

From here, if this was a fresh install, we could use the hand-held display to set the ECU up for timing control with the included wizard; but having already done that, we used Holley’s desktop software to change the ignition parameters to utilize the distributor’s crank signal and timing controls. To start, Dale matched the timing characteristics of the previous mechanical advance distributor, with 25 degrees of base timing ramping up to 30 degrees by 4,000 rpm, double checking the ECU’s settings with a timing light to certify that everything was synced up correctly. On the chassis dyno at Westech Performance Group, we settled on 32 degrees of advance after seeing no increase in horsepower with the timing set at 34- degrees. Backing the timing to 32-degrees allows for an extra margin of safety when running on California’s 91-octane pump fuel. The ease of adjustment is a big plus, but the real advantage over a mechanically-advanced distributor is the precise control that you have over the curve at any given RPM, along with improved timing accuracy at high RPM. Unlike the passive action of a mechanical distributor, which relies on spring tension and a selection of weights that react to centrifugal forces as the rotor spins, the feedback from the Hall Effect sensor inside our new distributor allows the ECU to track the timing curve exactly.

During last fall’s HOT ROD and In-n-Out Burger 70^th Anniversary at Pomona, the Comet ran its best-ever 10.94 at 122mph with the Terminator Stealth and dual-sync dizzy. Our little Nostalgia Stealth Bomber now has a mountain of technology underneath the Dichromate façade of a classic Holley double-pumper. This combination resulted in an ideal “have your cake and eat it too” package of better performance at the track with showroom-stock levels of civility during cold starts and long street miles.

The post Nostalgia Stealth Bomber Pt. 2 – Holley Dual Sync Distributor Install appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

When you come across a rare muscle car, you make sure you cross your Ts and dot your Is when restoring it. When you come across a one-of-99 car, such as this 1969 Yenko Chevelle, you go way beyond correct alphabets. And when it is one of just seven known Garnet Red Yenko Chevelles, you make sure every detail is exactly as the factory built the car.

Such is the case with this 1969 Yenko Chevelle, which was purchased last year from the estate of the original owner. It was located in his garage with only 19,895 miles on the odometer, having been parked there since it was damaged in an accident in 1970. Annie Hartweg and I are co-owners of MuscleCar Restoration and Design in Pleasant Plains, Illinois. We made the purchase with the agreement that the car would be restored to the highest of standards with no corners cut.

[The full story behind this Chevelle and its find was the subject of our May 2018 cover feature, “Yenko Rescue”; bit.ly/2CrYMqv. Copies of the print issue are available at tenbackissues.com.—Ed.]

After two days were spent clearing out the garage to retrieve the Chevelle, it went to our shop for lots of documentation and history gathering. As with so many barn- or garage-find stories, more often than not there is a massive amount of rust damage that has occurred to these cars over time. Fortunately, that was not the case with this Chevelle. However, there was considerable damage done to both the body and the frame. It would need a lot of attention and fine detail work to be returned to the way the Baltimore factory had built it. There was not only damage from two unfortunate accidents, but also from the many four-legged animals that called this Chevelle home for the last 47 years.

Fortunately for us, our friends Jamie Cooper and Joe Griffith and their crew at Super Car Restoration in Clymer, Pennsylvania, are as dedicated to detail and correctness as we are. Jamie, Joe, and crew have been doing the paint and bodywork for MuscleCar Restoration and Design’s customer’s cars for several years and with good reason. It was only natural that we would hand over the duties of restoring the body of our personally owned car to them as well.

Speaking to the Chevelle’s owner, as well as to close family friends and people who had seen the car over the years, we learned about two separate incidents in which the car had been damaged. The first happened when the car was fairly new and the owner let another family member or friend drive it. This individual supposedly drove down the driveway not having a clue how much power the car had, and jumped the ditch on the other side of the road, landing squarely on the frame and rocker panels directly behind the doors. This damaged the frame and all but crushed the rocker panels from the doors back to the rear wheel openings.

Rumor has it the next accident occurred sometime in 1970, when the owner came out of a bar after playing pool and having had one too many. He crashed it into a guardrail or some other solid object, taking out the front clip, driver’s door, and quarter-panel. For reasons unknown (be it lack of insurance, his having been drinking and driving, or just plain embarrassment), the owner claimed the car had been stolen and then relocated. He then brought the car home and disassembled the front clip, likely in an effort to rebuild it, which never happened. Everything in the owner’s garage was disassembled, and nothing had been returned to its original shape. It seemed the car was destined to live the rest of its life in a mass of parts and disarray.

After bringing the car home, we and our crew at MuscleCar Restoration and Design donned full body suits and removed some 3 inches of raccoon feces and skeletons from the floors, seats, cowl, and trunk. We then completely disassembled everything but the main body and rolling chassis to get a firsthand look at the challenges that lay ahead. Much to our surprise, after pulling the original carpet back and expecting to find massive amounts of rust due in part to all the urine from the raccoons, we found nothing but original primered and solid floor pans. Unfortunately, we also found a fair share of damage from both accidents.

Super Car Restoration would be faced with fixing a bent forward frame, a firewall that was damaged in the area of the driver’s footwell where the clutch Z-bar had impacted it, two rocker panels, a missing door, a rolled drip rail on the driver’s side, and a very badly damaged quarter-panel, not to mention a small dent in the center of the taillight panel. For reasons that no one can explain, the owner had cut a very large hole in the quarter-panel as if to remove the window regulator, which could have been easily removed from inside the car by simply taking out the seat and side armrest panel. Because the whole area was so badly damaged, it was agreed that a new GM N.O.S. panel would be the only way to fix this, and so the work began.—Rick Nelson

Fixing the Chevelle’s Quarter and Rocker Panels
It may surprise you to learn that Jamie Cooper buys a lot of his replacement sheetmetal the same place you do: swap meets. The cars coming out of Super Car Restoration are at a level of quality that pretty much demands factory sheetmetal, so his first stop at a car event is the swap meet to look for new old stock (N.O.S.) or original parts. Some he will buy for a specific project; others he puts in inventory.

“If I found quarters for a 1969 Camaro at Spring Carlisle, I’d own them,” he tells us. “We do tons of Camaros and Chevelles, so I know I’ll eventually need them. The N.O.S. wheelhouses for this Chevelle I picked up at Carlisle two years ago. You don’t want to pass this stuff by.”

Many of his customers have done some (or all) of the parts collecting prior to the car arriving at his shop, a process that can take years. Rick Nelson supplied both original and N.O.S. sheetmetal for the Chevelle.

Nelson says, “When we first dug the car out from its 47-year-old tomb, we were unable to locate any of the front clip other than the original front fenders, which I felt were unusable as they had been twisted beyond repair. I then located an entire Malibu front clip that had been taken off a car in the 1980s. Everything I needed to put the front clip back in place was there, other than an SS hood, which I later located.”

The passenger door is original to the car, but, Nelson says, “for reasons unknown other than possible severe body damage, the driver’s door was not located when the car was found. Using an N.O.S. door skin is one thing, but there was no way I was going to use an aftermarket door, more for the fact that it was a completely non-original GM part than the fact that it might not fit well. A good friend of mine, Luis Caceres-Rivera, not only located an original 1969 driver’s door for me that was in excellent shape, but then he hand-delivered it to Super Car Restoration, which took more than an eight-hour drive for him.”

Cooper says, “In the GM world we’ve been fortunate to have sources for N.O.S. parts. Do they fit good? Absolutely not. Not every time. From storage to swap meet to this guy to that guy, they’re not 100 percent perfect. You always have to massage them.”

On the other hand, “take-off original sheetmetal was on a car for all that time and bolted in the position it is supposed to be in, so it will usually fit much better,” Nelson believes. “If you are lucky you are also using original assembly-line sheetmetal and not over-the-counter replacement sheetmetal, which can vary in both shape and in very small stamping details. This is why I elected to use original assembly-line parts on the front clip, bringing them back to bare steel and fixing minor imperfections while keeping all the small details that an assembly-line fender would have.”

The rear quarter-panel that appears in this story “was a slightly different situation,” says Nelson. “Finding an original assembly-line part still on a car would be hard to come by, not to mention the immense amount of labor it would take to remove it while keeping all the detail. For this reason I elected to locate and purchase a very nice N.O.S. quarter-panel.”

To give you an idea of the bodywork processes done at Super Car Restoration, the photos and captions here describe how Cooper and his crew repaired the Chevelle’s ruined driver-side quarter-panel and rocker panel.—Drew Hardin.

Quarter-Panel & Outer Wheelhouse

Rocker Panel

Giving the Floor the Attention It Deserves
In many restorations, car floors do not get the attention they deserve. It may be due to budget constraints or because the car owner (or the restoration shop) has the attitude that “it’s just the floor.” But when one is doing an assembly-line-correct, concours-level restoration, the floors are a key part of the project. Done correctly, they look like a work of art, even though much of the final product will be hidden from view.

There were six assembly plants building the Chevelle in 1969, seven in 1970. The cars they turned out definitely did not look the same. Take primer, for example. Not only was primer color different from plant to plant, but it even changed from year to year. In the Baltimore plant, where this car was built, the 1969 Chevelles were sprayed with a red oxide primer that was more of a reddish-brown than it was in 1970, when the primer had more of a rosette color to it. In the Arlington plant, by contrast, the red oxide primer was more of an orange-red, and that was the only plant that used that primer color.

Processes were different from plant to plant, too, and even from car to car within the same plant. Seam sealer may have been applied in one area of a particular car and missed on that same area of another. Why these kinds of things happened sometimes boiled down to the line workers themselves. They were under time constraints, with just minutes to get their tasks done and move on to the next car. If they fell behind, they may have skimped on certain areas, overlooked areas, or gotten sloppy when it came to properly covering an area.

Bottom line: No two cars are exactly alike. We spent days photographing and documenting every inch of this car, so we could duplicate the factory finishes as well as how they looked after assembly-line application. The photos here show how we made use of that information to restore the Chevelle’s floor.—Jamie Cooper

Refinishing the Chevelle’s Body Shell
It would be impossible to encapsulate in this short space the hundreds of hours of work that go into top-quality bodywork and paint. What you see here, instead, is a “greatest hits” collection: the repair and replacement of certain key body panels in the previous two stories, and an overview of the body and sheetmetal paint process on these pages. Along the way, Super Car Restoration’s Jamie Cooper has shared some valuable information about the long and often tedious tasks involved in a top-tier refinishing job, tips that should help you whether you are tackling a paint project yourself or interviewing prospective painters to do the job for you.

The photos and captions here illustrate the major steps taken by Cooper and his crew to bring Rick Nelson’s Yenko Chevelle from bare metal to body drop. Below, Cooper discusses the pros and cons of paint types, something of a hot-button issue in the refinishing community.—Drew Hardin

Solvent or Waterborne?
More often than not, when talking paint products with potential clients, we get mixed reactions when we talk about waterborne basecoat. They hear the terms waterborne or water base and they panic. Whether they are leery of new technology or because there’s water in the paint, or both, most people are just not real receptive to it.

Although waterborne basecoats are the latest technology, they are far from new. Waterborne paint technology was introduced to OE assembly plants in 1986. Waterborne technology gives you a much cleaner, brighter color than solvent systems. This was a big reason the factories went to it a number of years ago.

The waterborne basecoat we use (including on this Yenko Chevelle) is PPG’s Envirobase High Performance, otherwise known as EHP. It was introduced to shops in 2006. Some of the advantages of EHP over solvent basecoat include less odor and improved air quality. EHP also gives you better metallic control than solvent basecoat, while requiring less product to achieve coverage. Where solvent basecoats are said to leave roughly 0.4 mil of film build per coat, waterborne basecoats leave half that, for a smoother, flatter surface to apply clearcoat over. Among the many benefits to the thinner overall coat is that it’s much less likely to crack when body fasteners, like fender bolts, get tightened. EHP has better adhesion than solvent systems and is much more flexible, which in combination reduces the risk of stone chipping. If you do get a stone chip, it’s much smaller.

Waterborne basecoats are much different from solvent. Not only do they require dedicated waterborne equipment (including a specific paint gun), but the drying process is totally different, too. Solvent systems are more prone to trapping solvent during drying, which can stay in the paint film for months, or even years, causing problems.

With a waterborne paint, creating turbulent airflow across the wet paint enhances flash times. EHP can be sanded to remove dirt specks or two-toned faster than solvent. And because there’s almost no solvent in the waterborne paint, there’s much less chance of it being trapped in the film, which helps the durability of the whole paint system.

Whether you are a believer in waterborne products or not, they are our future. Some states, such as California, already mandate their use because of air quality regulations. That trend may spread in the years to come, and there could come a point when we may not have a choice as to which one to use. That won’t be an issue at our shop; we are already believers.—Jamie Cooper

Firewall Markings
As part of the restoration process, many people like to put assembly-line build notations back on the firewall as they were done at the factory. Unfortunately this is often done incorrectly. When the body was being produced, Fisher Body workers would write these notes on the bare steel firewall in various locations. These would alert workers down the assembly line as to some of the major options going on the car, what color the car would be, the car’s body series number, and so on.

The 1969 Chevelles typically did not have as many of these markings as 1970 models. On a Chevelle you might find the number 13637, which is the body series number. Other numbers would spell out the transmission (M21, for example), stripes (D88), an SS engine option (Z15), color (RED), or a color number (52). I have seen mostly color names on 1969 Chevelles and color numbers on 1970 models. You may find no markings, or you may find a firewall that looks like a college chalkboard. It depends on the plant and the timing. Same goes for where the notations are on the firewall, as that depended on who was doing the writing.

We often see these markings written on top of black firewall paint, but that’s not always correct. Some plants wrote the color number on the bare steel, while others wrote it on top of the black paint. My experience shows this depended on the paint order process—whether the firewall blackout paint or body paint came first.

Jamie and I both apply our firewall markings over primer because the car is primered immediately after blasting to protect against flash rusting. We use a grease pencil similar to what the factory used. Lacquer paint would not stick to the grease pencil markings, so years down the road, the paint would come off the areas that were marked, making them appear that they were on top of the paint originally (whether or not they actually were).

You may also find slash marks that were, in fact, added after the firewall paint to note locations for such things such as cowl hood relays or ground straps. Those are usually the exceptions.

The bottom line: Do your homework, and be very careful and slow when removing the firewall paint so as to expose any of these markings, where they were, the color of the markings (usually yellow), and if they were on top of the paint, on the bare steel, or both.—Rick Nelson

On Color Sanding

As the painter in this shop, let me be very honest about something. Although the painter usually gets the credit for an amazing paint job, I am not the reason the paint looks so flat and has such a high glamor. Wet sanding the outer body and the sheetmetal is time consuming and takes real talent and patience to do correctly. The sanding process from 800- to 5,000-grit takes more than 140 hours. This is what makes the painter look so good.—Jamie Cooper

The post Watch This 1969 Yenko Chevelle Go From Barn Find to Beautiful appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

The 34^th annual Fabulous Fords Forever Show, sponsored by the Ford Car Club Council, is coming to Angel’s Stadium in Anaheim, California on Sunday, April 14^th, 2019. This is the West Coast’s biggest all-Ford show that features around 2,000 cars in 57 different vehicles classes from 106 years Ford vehicles.

This year’s show is celebrating 55 years of the Mustang, 50 years of the Boss and Mach 1 Mustangs, 60 Years of the Galaxie, and 80 years of the Mercury brand. It costs $45.00 to show your fabulous Ford, and if you are not showing a car, it’s free to spectate! The event organizers ask that there are none of the following: tents, canopies/umbrellas, alcohol, amplified media systems, drones, or burnouts. The organizers recommend arriving well in advance of the 7:00 am gate opening time if you will be showing a car.

If you’re a lover of Fords, this is the show for you. Check out some of our past coverage below and mark your calendars for April 14^th! Click here to register your car.

Fabulous Fords Forever 2018

Trucks and Broncos

1965-1978 Mustangs

The post Fabulous Fords Forever Moves to Angels Stadium appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

The Pro Street build style has been a staple of Car Craft readers ever since it blew up in the early 1980s. It emerged as hot rodders began emulating the look of NHRA Pro Stock, which used production-based bodies with back-halved rear suspensions and narrowed rearends. Big engines, often with power-adders and trick induction, were paired with “pizza-cutter” skinnies up front and huge slicks in the rear—and for the first time, those big meats were enclosed within the rear bodywork for a sleeker appearance and better aero.

Pro Street has always been about bringing the look and performance of the dragstrip to the street; in other words, going fast in a straight line. Turning is something you do at the end of the track or in to the burger joint. Comfort in a Pro Street car has also traditionally been sacrificed for performance, with race-car interiors and few baubles. With the advent of the Pro Touring style in the 1990s, many enthusiasts flocked to its superior handling, braking, and driveability. With turning in vogue for decades, Pro Street seemed passé. Or so they thought!

Of course, everything old eventually becomes new again, and the Pro Street scene is seeing a revival of sorts with more drag-inspired builds stuffing mile-wide meats in the back. If you’d like to be on the leading edge of the next big thing, we thought we’d provide a little inspiration. A while back, we asked automotive illustrator Ben Hermance to come up with some designs for modern Pro Street builds, and what Hermance delivered makes us want to commission a few of these ourselves. These cars definitely look like a cross between old-school Pro Street with the Pro Touring look that is so hot right now. Gone is the radical rake in the chassis; these cars sit low and menacing. Modern touches like flush window glass and sleek lines certainly help these cars stand out from any Pro Street you’ve ever seen.

With a nod to better braking and handling, the useless Pro Street skinnies up front have been replaced with stickier front rubber and bigger brakes, although Hermance stops short of going to a full-blown wide tire in the front in order to preserve the staggered Pro Street look. And although the renderings don’t show it, the race-car vibe inside, in most cases, is replaced with more comfort and entertainment options. We hope you’ll be inspired to build one!

1961 Pontiac Catalina

Let’s start with the car that’s least likely to be built in the Pro Street mold. Illustrator Ben Hermance explains that he liked the challenge of this car and the way it turned out. “If you are going to do Pro Street, there are some vehicles that look like they are going to resist a little bit, so you have to finesse them more,” he says. “That bubble-top–style car is usually used as customs or street machine-type cars, not Pro Street. So to make it work, I had to change the stance, and I increased the wheel diameter so you don’t have those big, heavy tires. That’s a little bit like having a flamingo upper body and a hippo lower body, it just kind of looked out of proportion. But I like the final result. It’s still a little bit unusual for a Pro Street car, but I think it works.”

1972 GTX

The Plymouth GTX and Road Runner body style is normally associated with 1970s NASCAR racing and is not usually built as a Pro Streeter. But this car can change that, because few automotive shapes were as alluring as Chrysler’s early 1970s “fuselage” styling. Hermance accentuated the low, bulging, aero-inspired shape with Plymouth’s most outrageous color ever: C7 “In Violet” purple. Note how he stretched the C-pillar and the quarter-panels wider to improve the flow over the greenhouse and beefed up the rear tires.

1967 Chevelle

The Chevelle is probably the car here that will be easiest to build. Hermance says he imagined this as a skunkworks factory race car, so it retains much of the factory sheetmetal unmolested. Underneath that big hood bulge, we can easily imagine a big-inch big-block with a single-plane intake and a Dominator carb bolted up top. Rendered with a satin bronze sheen, this illustration reflects recent trends in vehicle wraps and refinishing.

Buick GNX

Hermance might be committing heresy by penning a Buick GNX in anything other than solid black, but we think it works. “I’ve always loved the Grand Nationals,” he says. “They are already evil-looking, and not much needs to be done to them. Everybody has seen a G-body on a dragstrip, so I felt it needed to do something to make it stand out, so I did make a few aerodynamic touches. Really just adding vents to the front end to get more airflow.”

Hermance also lengthened the hood bulge over the stock model. At its best, the GNX’s turbo V6 made 245 hp—not exactly good enough to keep up these days—so the extra room under the hood probably makes room for an upgraded LS (with turbos, of course!).

1974 Laguna S3

If you want to be a real bad hombre, figure out how to keep the Laguna’s swivel bucket seats. But otherwise, do exactly this: “This is the opposite end of the spectrum from the understated Chevelle,” Hermance says. “This build will require a lot of fabrication work. The first thing I did was ditch the bumpers, which we all know in the 1970s were the worst ever. Those bumpers were just gigantic and there was no styling involved. They were just these big chrome bricks. Then, with the rest of the design, I tried to let the good parts of the vehicle dictate where I was going to go with the parts that needed some help. And the end result might be a bit of overkill, but I said, ‘You know what? Nobody’s ever really done a Pro Street Laguna, so let’s try something different. Let’s build a badass car.’”

1969 Camaro

Although it may not be obvious at first glance, there’s actually a lot going on here. There are so many first-gen Camaros out there, to come up with something different, Hermance drew the ’69 as a Nostalgia Funny Car. First, the wheelbase has been stretched by lengthening the front fenders. The iconic Camaro nose has also been raked back. He’s given the car a Lexan windshield (notice the fasteners around the edge of the windshield), and you can even see the rollcage through the windows. The hoodscoop has hints of a Corvette Stingray, and dog-dish hubcaps add a bit of no-frills flair that you couldn’t get with a set of modern wheels.

Ford Falcon

Here’s another car that is rarely seen in Pro Street trim, and that engine makes a pretty obvious statement! Another big statement piece on this car is the greenhouse. “I’ve never really loved the roof line on a lot of these smaller Fords and Chevys from this era,” Hermance explains. “It’s the same thing with the Nova’s. I just thought it was too abrupt. So I thought, This Falcon is roughly the same size as the Mustangs, so what would it look like if you took the roof off of a fastback Mustang and mated it to the body of a Falcon?

“So this was just an experiment to see how that would look, and I think it looks pretty nice. With that big blower sticking out of the hood, this little car should go like a bat out of hell, and I think the look matches the speed.”

1969 Dodge Charger

Hermance admits that he barely touched the body on this 1969 Charger, other than to open up the rear fenders to fit the gigantic rear tires. He says the Coke-bottle silhouette is such a perfect design, there’s really not much to be done other than accentuate it with that green-on-black paint scheme and tuck in the bumpers. Oh, and a giant blower and dual four-barrel carbs help get the point across, too.

1970 Mustang

Here’s another where the original designers got the body just about perfect. Everybody loves the 1970 Mustang fastback, so once again, Hermance simply tried to accentuate those fantastic lines with an aggressive paint job in black, blue, and silver. He did draw in a functioning shaker hoodscoop modeled on the famous Boss design, and LEDs in place of the original headlamps provide an ethereal glow.

1968 GTO

Earlier, Hermance talked about having to work hard to make the Pontiac Catalina work as a Pro Street design. The 1968 GTO is the other side of the coin. “When you are doing something that is a little bit more of a rounded body like the GTO, that body lends itself really well to the Pro Street style,” he says. “It is more rounded. It has hips and curves, so it allows the big rear tires to fit in there naturally. Plus, it is already fast-looking.”

1970 Oldsmobile

Like the GTO, which is also a GM intermediate A-body, the Oldsmobile Cutlass 4-4-2 simply works as a Pro Street car. Tuck the bumpers, paint it a great shade of gold (what else for an Olds?), and drop in an old-school, big-inch, blown V8 and you’re ready to go.

1970 Ford Torino

“This design I really love. My intention with this one is to build an absolute rocket ship. A high-end race car,” Hermance says. “If there is a future for Pro Street styling, this is my candidate for what it should look like. I tried to incorporate what we have now in all the vehicles you see that have aerodynamic advantages. This has got all kinds of aero goodies all over it. Brake cooling, venting for heat extractors, a wing that can articulate to take advantage of aerodynamics, all that stuff.” This would be a more difficult build because practically nothing has been left stock, but boy, would we love to see this one in real life!

The post 12 Design Concepts for a New Generation of Pro Street! appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

Living the Dream

Greetings to you, my ghoulish Mopar-loving friends …

I want to start, as always, by thanking all of you for your support of Mopar Muscle magazine, Graveyard Carz, and Motor Trend. I wouldn’t be living the dream without the help, support, and feedback from each and every one of you. Yes, even negative feedback can be put to good use. My mom always said, “Truth bears investigation.” When I read something that isn’t positive, I try to be optimistic and consider it feedback. I don’t take personal offense; I use it as a constructive tool to assist me in improving the show and my articles.

Now, not all “non-positive” feedback is helpful. For example, last month MoparRick55 wrote me a direct email. This is an excerpt: “You have a huge nose and your stupid. You can’t dance and your not funny. You look like a Tucan Sam.” There’s more, but I won’t bore you. Normally, this wouldn’t bother me except that he misspelled “your.” I hate that. “Assman1970” tweeted me just before Christmas: “Since you dance so great, why don’t you dance your ass off TV and do us all a favor. Oh yeah, I hope you get canceled.” OK, just one more. “Nutsack4u” sent me a private message on Facebook that read, and I quote: “I have been a Mopar fan my entire life. I’ve owned lots of them and one thing is for sure, YOU SUCK! Your level of SUCK is only exceeded by your ability and desire to SUCK.” So you see, there’s really nothing I can do with that type of feedback — other than veer into oncoming traffic.

OK, let’s get this show on the road …

In recent years, I’ve noticed I’ve become more reflective, more nostalgic, perhaps even more sappy, as mom would always say. I don’t mean that in a self-deprecating way; it’s not meant like that, it’s just an observation forced on me. I find myself putting more thought into things of yesterday, rather than things of today. We build memories every day, no question, but without the advantage of reflection, we don’t always see details. I suppose it’s meant to be that way, kind of a cerebral filing system, I suppose. Whatever the purpose or intent, I’m here to say it works. Not only does it work in my case, but I’ve been fortunate enough to create a lot of files and so far, knock on wood, remember where they’re kept.

A special fish …

For those of you who’ve been avid watchers of the show over the years, you might remember a certain, adorable, little 1970 Barracuda convertible that we restored and unveiled in Season 4. It was EF8, Ivy Green Metallic, with a black manual convertible top, and black bucket seat interior. It may not have been the most expensive Mopar we’ve restored in our tenure on the show, but it certainly is one of my most memorable — not only for me, but the owners as well.

Tommy and Kimberly reached out to me in August of 2012, just two months after our series premiere on Velocity. They had seen the show and had a special car that needed to be helped along. The car had belonged to Kimberly’s father, Stan, who had bought it in the ’70s. He loved the car, which we all do to a degree if we’re pure-hearted car folks, but this car meant more to Stan. So since it meant so much to him, inherently, it meant the world to Kimberly.

During our hour-long phone call I learned about the car and Stan. He had just lost his battle with prostate cancer on August 31, 2011. His Barracuda had been parked for a long time and wasn’t driveable. As his illness progressed, Kimberly thought it was important for Stan to drive his beauty again, before time ran out. So she quickly found a local shop that could rebuild the engine and get the car roadworthy for him. And that’s precisely what happened.

Approximately a month or so before he died, Kimberly was able to take her father for his last ride in his beloved Barracuda. He was too sick to drive the car himself, so Kimberly drove him. He loved that car, and I can’t think of a more wonderful gift he could have received from his daughter and son-in-law — a memory that’s sure to last for lifetimes to come.

It wasn’t long after that we had our first telephone call. I know that in a world of “money matters,” the restoration needed on the car would’ve been, in truth, possibly more than that car’s value. That didn’t matter! It didn’t matter to Tommy and Kimberly, and it didn’t matter to me. Believing in their story and the dream, I made the necessary concessions to keep the restoration cost affordable. I asked for help on parts and materials, and our amazing vendors came through for us.

Big-hearted companies like Auto Metal Direct, PPG, Legendary Interiors, Instrument Specialties, and Tony’s Mopar Parts helped make this dream a reality. There was much more work ahead of us, but in the rearview mirror, I wouldn’t have traded the experience for gold.

The car itself was in pretty darn decent shape. It did have some rust that needed to be addressed, but not bad for its age or being a convertible (BH27). AMD supplied us with right and left foot wells, left and right quarter-panels, trunk floor, trunk floor extensions, and rear body panel. Tommy and Kimberly also wanted to upgrade the hood to the performance sport hood (J54); it was a standard flat hood car originally. The convertible top is a manual unit; yes, you read that right, no power top here. Although, power top (P37) was an option on the Barracuda. The top was in pretty dire straights, which isn’t unusual for the drop-tops. We disassembled the unit, cleaned, lubricated, and adjusted it, then installed a new top, compliments of Legendary Interiors.

This was an air conditioning car as well (H51), so we had our friends at Original Air Group help with restoring the components. New interior, rebuilt and restored original 383 2bbl engine, rebuilt and detailed transmission and rear axle — all just part of the job. One of the most notable items we had restored was the dash assembly. Our friends at Instrument Specialties outdid themselves. This was a standard, non-Rallye dash but air-condition style. The work was impeccable and truly a work of art. I could go on for hours about what’s involved in a restoration of this level, but I’ll let the pictures and our reputation speak for itself.

In the end, the dream was fulfilled. We revealed the car to Kimberly and Tommy in a very special episode of Graveyard Carz that aired on the Velocity channel during Dream Car Week. We thought it was appropriate to make a special episode to air during a special event on the network, because of the backstory of the car and the love Stan had for it. To date, it’s one of our highest-rated episodes of our 10 seasons and counting.

I lost my mother in April of 2018 after a five-month battle with the same selfish, heartless, soulless, effing disease: cancer. There are no words, no condolences, nor empathy to ease the pain or help cope with the loss. The death of a parent is monumental, and it changes us. We may not recognize the change because our gut-level value system is obdurate; nonetheless, we change. The good news is we have those wonderful memories that we carry close to our hearts, always.

Perhaps our present is different now, but our past will always be the same. For Kimberly and Tommy, they’ll always have the fond memories of a wonderful father and the years they had together. And equally important, the ability to forge new memories, as the three of them set off every summer for new adventures in the family car.

Fender Tag read left to right, bottom to top:

The post Greetings from the Grave with Mark Worman appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

Last week, well known GM and Mopar parts manufacturer Original Equipment Reproduction (OER) announced their new product line for classic Ford Mustangs with plans to expand to the Fairlane, Galaxie, Falcon, Ranchero, Cougar, Comet, Ford trucks, and the Bronco. In addition, expansion of GM and Mopar product-lines are slated for 2019.

OER acquired classic Ford parts distributor Highway Classics in 2018 and moved it to the OER headquarters in City of Industry, California. “The classic Mustang market is a sizeable portion of the Ford restoration parts industry,” says OER Corporate Director Ray Yeger. “The acquisition and rebrand of Highway Classics has given OER much-desired Exposure in the Ford restoration parts arena. With this expansion we will solidify OER® as America’s most trusted leader in quality reproduction parts for classic American-made muscle cars and classic trucks.”

Head over to oerparts.com and start shopping.

The post Original Equipment Reproduction New Carries Ford Parts! appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

This dualie dumper circa 1950 is parked inside a chain-linked enclosure. The photos were shot between the links.

The bright red paint has faded to rusty orange. The vehicle seems to be in solid shape for a 68-year-old truck.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree in this case, plus or minus 20 miles from the Studebaker factory in South Bend, Indiana. The dumper is being held captive in Niles, Michigan. CT

The post Tailgate’s Compound Studebaker appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

We first got a glance at John and Ricky Rogers’ Ford Pinto from a distance at the 2018 SEMA Show. “Oh no, not another LS swap!” was our first reaction, as we spotted the coils on the valve covers instantly. As we got closer, though, our mood changed, because the engine was clearly too big to be LS-based. So what was it? It turned out the engine was 557 ci of Blue Oval Ford power that had been modernized with the help of some serious technology.

 A Solid Foundation
Although 460 Ford blocks are pretty stout, Ricky and John only wanted to build it once and were looking for the engine to be able to handle whatever they could throw at it. This meant going straight to a Ford Racing block and stuffing it with a Callies rotating assembly and 14:1 compression Diamond pistons that would put it at 557 ci of displacement. The oiling system is a wet-sump setup, with a Melling high-volume pump and Milodon 10-quart pan. The camshaft starts the connection with legendary Ford guru John Kaase, who spec’d an 0.850-inch lift solid-roller cam for the engine. All the machine work was performed by Hi Tech Machine in Palm Springs, California.

400-CFM Heads
While the Kaase name first entered the build with mention of the camshaft, it wouldn’t end there. Kaase also supplied the P-51 cylinder heads designed for the 385-series Ford, which flow a whopping 401 cfm on the intake and 251 cfm on the exhaust. But it’s more than just flow, as John pointed out in an older interview about the heads: “I hate flow benches…on these heads, the flow bench is almost totally worthless. I think it’s misleading, at best. We can port an older aluminum A-429 CJ head to flow 400 and 250. Then we can have a P-51 head that flows the same. The P-51 will dyno 75 hp better than the CJ. It’s all about sizes, areas, shapes, and valve placement in the bore.” Although the trick may be in the tune, the rest of the numbers on the heads are equally as impressive as the flow, with a 310cc intake runner, 2.25-inch and 1.76-inch intake and exhaust valves, and a 72cc combustion chamber. Aside from the Crower Cams roller lifters, the rest of the valvetrain is all Kaase’s handiwork.

A Full Exhaust
The exhaust side of the engine is a real treat, where beautifully crafted stepped stainless-steel headers (2-1/8 to 2-3/8 inch, with a 4-inch collector) lead into a full 4-inch exhaust with Spintech oval mufflers. Oh, did we mention the car is street-legal? Ricky indicates that was one of the best decisions they made with the car was to keep it streetable.

Into the Modern Age
Probably the most unique features of this big-block are what initially confused us, as we’re not used to seeing coil packs and throttle-bodies on a big-block Ford. This technology update extends throughout the fuel system, ignition, and intake and is controlled by an AEM 710 ECU. There’s still a distributor base, but now the drive is used to send cam and crank signals to the computer, rather than run the ignition. Spark duty is now up to 8 LS7 Super Coils from Granetelli Motorsports. The fuel system is equally impressive. Starting with an Aeromotive A1000 Eliminator fuel pump, fuel is sent up to Injector Dynamics 2200 injectors. Where you might have previously found a carburetor, a massive 1,760-cfm Accufab throttle-body feeds an Edelbrock Victor Jr. intake that has been heavily reworked by Wilson manifolds. And there’s nitrous, too; a dry Pro Flow dual-stage kit capable of a 600 shot was worked into the injector system, but so far the team only has power numbers “on the motor.”

The Pinto
Ricky’s dad raced this very same Pinto in Super Gas before parting with it nearly 35 years ago, and John and Ricky finally convinced the owner to sell it back about five years ago. The ’71 is now all-steel with a round-tube chromoly chassis, four-link rear suspension, hybrid strut/A-arm front, and a Fab 9 rearend with a Currie third-member and 40-spline axles. Power is sent through an ATI Proglide with a transbrake and Super Case and is shifted through a TCI Outlaw shifter. On its maiden voyage on its fourth pass, the Pinto clicked off a 6.0 at 115 mph without the help of any nitrous. (Ricky expects mid- to low-5s on the juice.) Ricky also says he can’t credit Sam Chaysavang at Road Race Engineering enough, who did most of the wiring and work on the car to update it to 21st-century standards.

The post Horsepower! 1,100HP Big-Block Ford Pinto appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

Should I replace it or repair it? I would seem that during any restoration project that question could have to be answered a thousand times. On one hand, keeping as many of the original parts keeps the car, well, more original. On the other, with all of the repo parts available, wouldn’t it be better to replace all the damaged parts with new?

New parts will initially sound like the easier option but anyone with any experience installing them will tell you that new parts don’t always fit the same as the originals. It’s not necessarily that the parts are bad; it’s just that not all cars were assembled exactly the same. Some work may be required to get your new part to fit your car correctly.

Fit won’t be an issue with your original parts but in order to keep them, you’ll need the skills necessary to repair them.

One particular type of part that has long been a source of frustration for many is anything made with pot metal. While there is no standard formula for what makes up pot metal, it is mostly zinc blended with various amounts of lead, copper, tin, magnesium and others.

Factories used it because it had a low melting point and can be inexpensively cast into lightweight, rigid parts. The downside is that it’s not very strong, somewhat brittle and tends to pit with age.

Muscle Car Restorations in Chippewa Falls, WI has to deal with this stuff all the time. Depending on the level of damage, of course, often it’s more efficient to repair these parts because they know there won’t be any issues with how it fits back on the car. Pot metal parts can’t be even slightly messaged like sheet metal to perfect the fit. They are either right or they’re not.

Fortunately, there is a practical way to repair pot metal parts and you might be surprised at what’s possible with the right techniques.

The post How to Repair Muscle Car Pot Metal Parts appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

When Russ Johnson parked his 1967 SS396 Camaro on a dirt floor in a pole barn behind his house in Wisconsin in 1975, he had no idea the Bolero Red coupe would remain parked in this same spot for the next 43 years.

“I guess with family and kids coming along, it just got put on the back burner,” he says.

Russ bought this Camaro used in February 1972, when a 396 under the hood was just what he wanted. He wasn’t looking for any special factory formula. Today, collectors look for the highest performance factory 396, the solid-lifter L78 option. When Russ investigated the collector status of the car he had stored in the barn so many decades ago, he was enthused to uncover, using both paperwork and various codes, that the 396 in his Camaro was not your garden-variety big-block. It was special and rare. It was the L78.

“I wanted a big-block. Back in the day, car guys said there was no substitute for cubic inches. Friends said big-block Chevrolets were good on the dragstrip.”

He found this 396 Camaro, an SS with a four-speed, for sale at Knitter Chevrolet in Cadott, Wisconsin. The previous owner had spun the main bearings and traded the car in. The dealership would sell the Camaro, pristine but not running, for the bargain price of $800. Tax in those days was 4 percent, bringing the total to a modest $832. Russ wanted to go drag racing, so this deal was perfect for him. The money he saved on the purchase price helped him buy another 396 to build for the track.

Having that pole barn, and being the type of person who did not throw things away, especially parts related to cars, Russ kept the original, matching-numbers 396 block, exhaust manifolds, pistons and rods, four-speed transmission and shifter, smog pump and hoses, and literally every little part and piece to make his L78 Camaro whole (although he hasn’t located the air cleaner assembly or the carburetor yet). He used the heads and intake on his replacement 396 that he drag raced.

“I wanted to restore it one day,” he says. But, just as family had gotten in the way of the Camaro 43 years earlier, retirement intruded into Johnson’s restoration plans when the time came in 2018. “The older you get, the more you realize you go other directions.”

He and his wife, Jane, took off last winter for a three-month RV vacation in Florida, and expect to do the same this year.

In October 2018, Russ decided to sell the Camaro, so he unpacked the car and pulled it out of his pole barn. He was intrigued to learn the production numbers on the L78 were low at 1,138 for the 1967 model year. With so many of these cars hot rodded back in the day, he wondered how many could be left with a matching-numbers engine.

For years, Russ staved off collectors trying to buy his Camaro. He told them he wasn’t ready. The sell time had not come. He put his feelers out to the hobby press and let this writer come inside the barn for the car’s unpacking.

The Johnsons pulled off a huge blue tarp that covered the car to find layers of stuff (antlers from deer hunts, a box with a cassette tape recorder, a container full of nuts and bolts, drinking mugs in a large box, and much more) piled on large sheets of Styrofoam to protect the hood, roof, and decklid.

With the debris off the body, the scene turned surreal as we viewed, looking up from a squatting stance, the profile of that red SS body, dusty as through a lens darkly.

The 1967 SS396 Camaro still wore its original Bolero Red paint and front panel white stripe, interrupted on each front fender by an SS emblem that sparkled and gleamed from light streaming into the dimly lit barn.

Each psi of air pressure Russ pumped into the tires seemed like an infusion of life into the Camaro as it literally rose inch by inch out of the sod of the barn floor. Time had dug these holes over 43 years, and now the air pump reversed each one in about a minute. The sight of wheels rising out of depressions in the dirt was magical. A tire mounted on a steel rim for more than 40 years and still holding air was unexpected.

Russ opened the passenger door and began retrieving trophy after trophy, eight or 10 in all. As he read off the date of each drag racing victory, his face beamed with pride.

He hunted for parts on shelves in the barn. Other parts he found in the loft. He wheeled the original block into the center of the barn and with his fingers scraped the dirt off the engine stamping pad to reveal a partial VIN with “163440.” This number matched the last six digits of the VIN displayed on the plate riveted to the A-pillar on the inside of the driver’s door. The block matched and was original to this car.

On the same block we read “MR,” the engine suffix code for an L78, with “AR,” which refers to an air pump for smog, this Camaro being a California-built car. “LOS” was on the cowl’s trim tag.

How times change. Russ never imagined he would park this car for 43 years, and now he and his wife were about to sell the old Camaro.

“I thought about fixing it up, but I know what is involved to do it correctly. I just don’t have the time.”

Most barn finds are sold when we hear about them. Russ Johnson let us inside his barn to record the car’s unpacking in a classic barn scene.

Note: If other owners or finders of barn finds are interested, send me an email: jerryheasley@gmail.com.

At a Glance
1967 Camaro SS396
Owned by: Russ and Jane Johnson
Restored by: Unrestored original
Engine: 396ci/375hp L78 V-8
Transmission: M-21 close-ratio 4-speed manual
Rearend: 12-bolt with 3.55 gears and Positraction
Interior: Standard black vinyl bucket seat
Wheels: 14×7 steel with hub caps
Tires: F70-14 (factory)
Special Parts: U17 Special Instrument gauge cluster (fuel pressure, oil pressure, amps, temperature with console); F41 heavy-duty suspension

The post 1967 Chevrolet Camaro SS396 Spends 43 Years Stuck in a Pole Barn appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

The Back to the 50’s Weekend in St. Paul, Minnesota, has grown since 1974 to become the largest 1964-and-earlier car event in the nation. With almost 12,000 vehicles covering the grounds of the Minnesota State Fairgrounds, it is a three-ring circus of hot rods, customs, and street cruisers. There are even some antiques thrown in just to show what the others looked like when they rolled off the assembly line. One of the most amazing things to keep in mind is that the entire event is organized by one car club. Obviously the Minnesota Street Rod Association is one special club.

A visit to the MSRA website tells the story of how the club came about and what it takes to put the Back to the 50’s Weekend together. The MSRA was formed in 1967. From its original beginnings it has grown to have a worldwide base of about 20,000 active members. If you have been involved in a car club before, you can only imagine what it takes to keep people happy in a group that size. It involves a Board of Directors, activity committees, and countless volunteers who devote time all year round because the MSRA is not just about the Back to the 50’s. It is a club that has events and activities and rod runs throughout the year—but without a doubt, the Back to the 50’s Weekend is their crowning achievement.

The first Back to the 50’s Weekend (known as BTTF) was held in 1974 in a shopping plaza parking lot in St. Paul with about 150 cars in attendance. Compare that to last year’s 45th annual event that saw 11,707 participants cover the Minnesota State Fairgrounds. It took 2,000 volunteers who worked 4,000 shifts to make it happen. More than 450 vendors displayed and sold their wares over the weekend. It is an amazing undertaking and from someone who has attended about a dozen BTTF weekends, it really does go unbelievably smoothly all weekend long.

It is one of my favorite events in the country and it has become one of the most popular Road Tours of the summer. We will be in St. Paul again this summer for the whole week leading up to the event. There is plenty to see and do in the Minnesota-Wisconsin-Iowa area. Over the years we have visited some fantastic private collections, amazing museums, tourist attractions, and one very cool junkyard. For this year, we are planning some of our greatest hits as we visit the Surf Ball Room in Clear Lake, Iowa, where Buddy Holly and others played their last concert. I could spend a month at Elmer and Bernadette Duellman’s mind-blowing collection of pedal cars, toys, and collector cars. We’re hoping that the new building will be ready at Veit Automotive Foundation Museum. We must head north and see our friends at AMSOIL in Superior. Yes, we will be visiting the coolest junkyard on the planet as we make a return trip to French Lake Auto Salvage. We also have plenty of new places to visit, so watch the website for updates.

Our MSRA Back to the 50’s Week kicks off on Saturday, June 15, and runs through Sunday, June 23. We have a great hotel lined up and of course we will have a hospitality tent and special parking at the fairgrounds all weekend. Go to the website and sign up to be part of the Back to the 50’s Road Tour leading up to one of the most amazing car shows on the planet.

The post The 2019 ARP/STREET RODDER Road Tour Heads Back To The 50’s appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

Building a custom vehicle in five days seems silly to me. Might sound silly to you as well. I’ve never heard of anybody doing it, outside of TV come to think of it. So, it only made sense for us to do just that: build a truck in a week. But what would we call it?

Resto Presto?

Bang Out a Build?

Project Fortnight?

One-Twenty Turnaround?

Five Days to Donuts?

Nah, we’ll call it Week to Wicked. Two years and four builds later and we haven’t not resulted in an un-wicked build yet. That’s a pretty good record, but an even better testament to the quality of parts and components available in today’s aftermarket. In fact, that was the genesis of the Week to Wicked program to begin with; take a vehicle, upgrade as many things as possible in five days’ time, and showcase the reliability, the quality, and the consistency of all the components.

Have we had a few stumbling blocks along the way? Sure. Every build has those. Mismatched components, incorrect items, accidents in the shop, these things happen. Thankfully, we’ve had Christian Arriero on hand to do all the “dirty work.” If you watch any of the Week to Wicked episodes, you’ll notice Chris always dons the pneumatic punch when it’s time to knock rivets out. He’s also the only one skinny enough to comfortably fit under the dash of a C10. So, he’s also the honorary “gauge man.” Before they’re even installed, he already knows they’re gonna look amazing.

We have a lot of fun during the course of the week. We also eat pretty good. But we also work a handful of long days. Those long days result in all manners of silliness that, thankfully, only the post-production crew really gets to see. Hopefully, that blooper reel will never see the light of day! Unless of course you think fart jokes and bad impressions are funny. Now that I mention it, the blooper reel would probably be hilarious.

But, what’s really cool about the last two Week to Wicked builds that I’ve been involved in is the fact that the trucks aren’t being finished and put in some showroom or relegated to some corporate-owned storage facility only to be brought once or twice a year and paraded around. The last Week to Wicked project in Classic Trucks, a blue square-body Chevy, was given away at the C10 Nationals last May in Ft. Worth, Texas. Immediately following the event, the new owner hopped in and laid rubber all the way back to Lake Havasu, Arizona. That truck has a few hundred miles on it up till then and didn’t skip a beat halfway across the country. That’s pretty cool and speaks to what I was referring to earlier about the reliability of the aftermarket. Bolt-on, hop-in, burn-out.

We’re doing the same thing again this year in May at the second annual C10 Nationals with the truck gracing these very pages. The keys to that red and black big-block–powered C10 are going to be handed over Saturday afternoon and will hopefully be used, abused, but mostly loved for many years to come. I know seeing the new owner roasting those tires would make me smile.

So, what started as a silly idea has actually got me convinced that it’s become a pretty cool outlet to build cool stuff and make people happy. I dig that. CT

The post Haul Monitor: Built to Last appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

David Freiburger and Mike Finnegan started a little internet show known as Roadkill back in February of 2012 when they both still worked for HOT ROD Magazine, and it blew up, becoming an internet phenomenon that garnered millions of dedicated fans. In recent years, the show started throwing their very own events so fans could have the chance to hang out with Mike and Dave as well as check out some of the strange vehicles from the episodes. For the third year in a row, an event known as Zip-Tie Drags took place at Tucson Dragway starting with a cruise there all the way there from the Irwindale Event Center in California for a day full of cool cars, drag racing, and good times.

We tagged along with the one and only Green Hornét, a 1972 AMC Hornet wagon, making the cruise there with no issues and taking tons of photos along the way. At the event, we did our best to capture enough of the shenanigans that you would be able to live vicariously through the images and photos we put together. So take a look through this gallery of all the best images and be sure to watch the recap video to see what you missed!

The post What You Missed at Roadkill’s 2019 Zip Tie Drags with Recap Video appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

Christopher Thompson bought this 1968 Dodge Dart in 1987 when he was only 14 years old, and 30 years later transformed it into his Pro Street dream car.

Though in 1987 he was still two years away from being old enough to drive, Christopher Thompson managed to cut a deal and buy this 1968 Dart. There was nothing especially exotic about the car, but it was all his, and by the time he was 16 and in possession of his junior license, he had already rebuilt the car’s 273-cid V-8. He also completely rebuilt the front suspension, replaced the stock drum brakes with a disc setup, and installed an 8 ¾-inch rearend with track-friendly 4.56:1 gears.

“After I got my license,” Thompson recalls, “I drove it all the time, and I raced it four or five times a year at Carlsbad Raceway while I was in high school. It ran low 14s in what I call its ‘high school configuration.’”

After graduating from high school, Thompson’s Dart graduated as well, with a moderately built-up 360-cid engine replacing the 273. With more power on tap, it consistently ran 13.80s at around 105 mph. Over the next 10 years, he bracket-raced the car at a wide variety of tracks, including Carlsbad, Brotherhood Raceway Park, Sears Point, Bakersfield, Los Angeles County Raceway, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tucson, and Sacramento. Los Angeles and Carlsbad, which Thompson considered his home track, were particularly kind to the Dart, with numerous bracket wins to show for it and a best e.t. of 12.09 at 109 mph without nitrous. With a 150-shot of nitrous, it tripped the lights at 10.88 at 116 mph.

In 1998, Thompson bought his first house and set up a nice shop in the garage. The Dart had a few electrical issues, so his first project in the new shop was a complete rewire. As is always the case, while working on the wiring the closer he looked the more he saw, and the more he thought about where he’d like to take the car. At the same time, a friend happened to have a turbo setup for sale and that further encouraged Thompson to dream. He bought the turbo system and proceeded to disassemble his Dart for a comprehensive Pro Street build. As often happens however, taking everything apart turned out to be the easy part. With increasing attention and time devoted to developing his career, the new house, and other commitments, getting all of the work done and putting it all back together proved to be considerably more difficult.

“There was no progress until 2005,” Thompson explains, “and then I found some time and motivation to do a little bit of work on it. I cut the back-half out and then made a crucial mistake. In addition to the trunk, floor, trunk hinge supports, rails, and other parts, I also removed the rollcage before sending the body to Painting & Stripping Corporation in Santa Fe Springs for dipping. Without the back-half and rollcage, the car folded like a taco when it came out of the strip tank. I was devastated when I saw what happened, and was just about ready to throw the car away or use what was left of the sheetmetal to build a tube frame car.”

Fortunately, Thompson called Gary Hansen at Hansen Race Cars in Montclair, California, who quickly talked him out of scrapping the Dart. “Gary assured me it was not the end of the world, and they could put it on their jig and get it fixed. He was right, and I can’t thank him enough for all that they did. Hansen was on time, on budget, and the workmanship was fantastic throughout.”

Hansen Race Cars installed a four-link chromoly tube back-half, complete with an SFI 25.5D-spec Funny Car ’cage. Though Thompson had big plans for completing the Dart after it came back from Hansen’s shop, life once again intervened and it sat idle for another dozen years.

“I knew I’d get to it one day,” Thompson recalls, “but once again the years passed by and little was done. That changed in 2017 when I participated in HOT ROD Drag Week with another car that I own, and my friend Gary Goodner planted the seed in my head to finish the Dart in time for Drag Week in 2018.”

Finishing the car to the level Thompson had in mind was a massive endeavor, but with an unbreakable commitment to have it completed in time for Drag Week, he found the motivation to put in all of the many necessary hours. “For 10 straight months I worked on the car almost every day that I had off. In the beginning, Gary would come over one day a week to help, and then his visits increased in the spring and summer, for the final push. In the last month before Drag Week, I was putting in 18 to 20 hours per day almost every day. I also had a lot of invaluable help from friends, especially Stuart, Andrew, Mike, and Brian. They were there for me when it counted.”

Thompson and his friends did the vast majority of the needed work, including installing the QA1 frontend, sheetmetal fabrication, wiring, fuel system, interior, and bodywork. Though the car was blissfully rust-free, a lot of sheetmetal work was required because of the modifications. In addition to all of the custom pieces required for the new back-half, Thompson stretched original quarter-panels 6 inches to accommodate the rear rubber.

The Dart went to Frank’s Custom in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, for final paint. Master painter James Burdette expertly applied 1968 Dodge Dark Red Metallic code RR1 using two-stage PPG acrylic urethane. “In the beginning, I intended to paint it myself,” Thompson tells us, “because I planned to drive and race the heck out of it, so I didn’t put too much emphasis on the paint. Now it’s gorgeous, probably way too nice to drive and race, but I’m thrilled with it!”

When Drag Week arrived, the Dart was close enough to being finished that it could’ve gone, but Thompson was still waiting on a few key parts so decided not to bring it. The little bit of disappointment he felt was far outweighed by the satisfaction of finally getting the car up and running after it sitting idle for most of the previous 20 years.

“This car means a lot to me,” he explains, “and it also means a lot to my wife, Jessica. She put up with it all those years when it was just sitting around, and when I finally decided to complete the build she was 100 percent supportive. She said, ‘I’ve got your back — let’s do this!’ She never complained about all of the time and money it consumed, and she was truly the key player in getting it done.

“Looking back over the 30-plus years I’ve owned the car,” he continues, “I realize now that it has taught me a lot of life’s lessons. It kept me occupied at some very trying times in my life, and it drove me to learn all about the inner workings of cars. The skills I learned rebuilding it in high school led to a career working on cars in my teens and 20s. Even more important, it has also led to unlikely friendships that are still going strong today. Over the years, it has driven many thousands of street miles and made a couple of thousand passes down the track, and it’s been dragged from house to house and shop to shop, but I never gave up on my dream to transform it into a Pro Street car, and I love it every bit as much today as I did back in the beginning, when I was 14 years old and this was my first car.”

Fast Facts
1968 Dodge Dart
Christopher Thompson, Cowan Heights, CA

ENGINE
Type: 344-cid V-8
Bore x stroke: 4.070 inches (bore) x 3.31 inches (stroke)
Block: stock 1970 Mopar 340, cast-iron, decked, line-honed, bored and honed with torque plate, four-bolt splayed main caps
Rotating assembly: Eagle 4340 forged crank, GRP aluminum connecting rods, Ross custom turbo aluminum pistons machined for clearance, entire rotating assembly balanced
Compression: 9.25:1
Cylinder heads: Mopar Performance W5 aluminum heads, fully ported, combustion chamber relieved, angle milled, oil passages modified
Camshaft: Comp Cams solid roller, .685-inch 242/244 degrees duration
Valves: Ferrea titanium/Inconel, PAC valvesprings, Jesel 1.8:1 rocker arms, Manton pushrods, PAC tool steel retainers, locks and seals
Fasteners: ARP
Machine work done by: B&P (Orange, CA)
Induction: Mopar Performance M1 intake manifold, Comp Turbo Technology oil-less CT4X 68mm billet turbocharger
Oiling system: Milodon oil pan, Melling high-volume pump, Moroso filter
Exhaust: custom stainless exhaust, including 1.75-inch header tubes and 4.0-inch pipes
Ignition: Holley Distributorless Ignition System
Cooling: Champion radiator, Mezerie water pump
Fuel: Holley Dominator EFI, divided fuel cell with 7.5 gallons for race fuel and 12.5 gallons for road fuel, Aeromotive 3.5 gpm brushless pump for race fuel, Aeromotive A1000 pump for street fuel
Engine built by: B&P (Orange, CA)

DRIVETRAIN
Transmission: 727 TorqueFlite three-speed automatic
Converter: Dice Performance converter 3,500-stall speed 9.5-inch torque converter, 2.45/1.45/1.00 gear ratios, built by Pro Trans (Lancaster, CA)
Transmission Cooler: Derale cooler
Shifter: Precision Performance Products
Driveshaft: 3.5-inch double wall chromoly
Rear End: Mark Williams Ford 9-inch narrowed 20 inches, aluminum centersection with lightweight chromoly spool, 3.73:1 ring-and-pinion, Richmond Pro Gear, 40-spline gun-drilled axles

CHASSIS
Front suspension: QA1 bolt-in tubular K-frame and arms, QA1 double-adjustable coilover system, Mopar Performance .810 torsion bars
Rear suspension: Hansen Race Cars chromoly round tube back-half, four-link suspension with Strange Engineering double-adjustable shocks and Strange Engineering springs, adjustable custom torsion bar
Steering: stock 1968 Dodge
Front Spindles: stock 1968 Dodge
Brakes: Mark Williams four-piston lightweight, 10.5-inch rotors

BODY
Modifications: rear quarter-panels stretched 6 inches, custom sheetmetal underhood and surrounding back-half, wheeltubs
Paint: PPG two-stage, 1968 Dodge Dark Red Metallic

INTERIOR
Seats: JAZ Products aluminum seats, black vinyl upholstery
Instruments: Holley digital dash, Motion Raceworks digital dash mount and billet turn signal switch
Electronics: Infinity box
Steering: custom chromoly column

WHEELS & TIRES
Wheels: 15×4 (front) and 15×16 (rear) Weld Racing
Front Tires: 26×4.5 Mickey Thompson Sportsman
Rear Tires: 33×17 Hoosier D05 slicks

The post 1968 Dodge Dart: First Love appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

What Is MPMC & Why You Care

Everybody knows about the Specialty Equipment Market Association’s annual trade show, more commonly known as SEMA. But SEMA, the organization, serves many other functions besides putting on a glittery trade show in Las Vegas each Fall. Among other things, SEMA serves as the world’s biggest matchmaker for those in love with hot Detroit iron, and we’ll bet you didn’t even know it! It’s called the Motorsports Parts Manufacturers Council (MPMC) conference, and it happens over three days behind closed doors every January in a non-descript chain hotel in Santa Ana, CA. The next time you crack open Car Craft or any other car buff magazine or website and read about your next favorite bolt-on part or dyno mule, chances are better than even that the idea for the story was born at MPMC.

Here’s how it works: SEMA member companies apply to attend the conference, for which there are just over 200 spots. These companies must be core to the performance aftermarket industry, which for our purposes means street performance, restoration, and all forms of racing on four wheels. Once the list is set for the year (some companies wait years to get on the coveted list), members of the motorsports media (must be in good standing!) select which of those companies they’d like to meet. It gets interesting here because each company on the MPMC list chooses whether to accept or decline a requested meeting from a given media brand—so it goes both ways!

This is speed dating with speed parts, and you’d be right if you guessed that it’s a bit like Christmastime. Over three days there are 42 half-hour meeting slots, which means with over 200 companies (many of them representing multiple performance brands) there is the potential to host some 9,000 meetings. In those meetings, editors, writers, and various freelance contributors pitch the vendors on story ideas and projects, while the manufacturers convince the media brands to cover their newest toys. Just like on the track, everybody’s hoping to win the race, only the prize here is to win the hearts and minds of consumers—that’s you guys!

The only down side, if there is one, is that the MPMC is not open to the public. It’s not publicly announced, there are no ticket sales, and there’s no PR campaign. In fact, there are a lot of companies and media people who would love to get in but can’t—but we’re bringing you behind closed doors right now, if only for a couple of minutes. Watch as Car Craft correspondent Kendra Sommer takes you for a snap video tour of the coolest car crafting convention ever!

The post What is MPMC, and Why Do You Care? appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

For many of us in our formative years, being told “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should” seemed more like an open invitation rather than the stark warning it was really intended to be. Decades later, as we find ourselves now in the roles of the warning givers, it seems that “just cuz” incitement is just as alluring now as it was then for some of us grown-up kids.

As it applies to hot rodding, just because you can chop up an old ’30s Ford, doesn’t mean you should—unless it’s a completely dilapidated 1-ton water truck, that is. In that case, if you can—and make a cool-looking hot rod out of it—then you sure as well should. Well, it seems to have worked for Bob Lopez at least.

Bob’s a retired fireman; his 1936 Ford commercial truck a retired water truck from a local horse corral in his hometown of South Lake Tahoe. When the corral closed, Bob acquired the old 1-ton despite its having a caved-in roof, stomped-on hood, and smashed-up grille. But none of that seemed to matter much to him considering the fact that he was going to take on the challenge of chopping, channeling, and sectioning it—and so the homebuilt task began.

Instead of making a whole new chassis, Bob kept the stock 1-ton ’rails from the cab forward (with extended framehorns) and fabricated the shortened rear section along with new center, front, and rear crossmembers. A Magnum 5-inch drop axle with Speedway’s hairpin radius rods, tube shocks, Lincoln-style Bendix brakes, and Vega cross-steer replaces the old commercial hardware up front; the rear has been outfitted with a 9-inch perched on parallel leaves and coilovers from the same source. For power, Bob chose to go with a 1956 DeSoto Firedome Hemi topped with a single Edelbrock four-barrel and homemade lakes headers, and backed by a Wilcap-adapted S-10 five-speed.

When Bob was finally faced with the challenges of making all that old Ford tin fit his new chassis the way he wanted, he met them head-on and even added one or two more before all was said and done. Ultimately, the truck was channeled 5 inches, its 1934 passenger grille sectioned 4 inches, and the top not only chopped 7 inches but afterward he then went and made the roof removable from the windshield header back—you know, for roadster pickup weather … or a run to the Central Cal coast with his custom-made longboard rig strapped on.

Bob finished his hybrid surf rod off in a satin burnt copper with contrasting orange 17- and 18-inch Ford wires currently running Firestone bias blackwalls from Coker Tire. The interior was entirely done by Bob as well, from the Tahitian print-covered, scratchbuilt split bench seat to the pinup airbrushed door panels and wood panel–looking carpet.

Now, the fire helmet–adorned skull shift knob may be in honor of Bob’s years spent fighting fires, but we’re pretty sure the old water truck would like to forget its years spent watering down the horse tracks.

The post Bob Lopez’s All-Weather 1936 Ford Pickup appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

Ever hear stories about places that don’t exist anymore? I had traveled through Wisconsin many times over the years, unfortunately after a place called the Dells Auto Museum had closed its doors. I had no idea what was behind those doors, but I had heard stories from friends that it was a nice place. As fortune would have it, I met the son of the owner, and he took me to see the few cars they had left.

Lance Tarnutzer Jr., the grandson of the museum’s owner, and I had talked online through social media and met at various car shows around central Wisconsin through the years. But timing just never quite worked out to get out to the family farm and see the collection. One cold winter day plans fell into place and I made it to the farm.

I met with Lance and his dad, Lance Sr., out at their storage barn, which was a converted chicken coop. We chatted a bit about how in years past, after church, Lance Sr. and his father, Dick, used to go get the local penny saver at the gas station, circle a handful of cars between $50 and $500, and then check them out, bringing a few home every week. Didn’t matter what it was—they would just go buy a car. Dick was a Ford man, but appreciated it all. That’s how it all started, and from there they built their collection, buying and selling. Eventually Dick wanted to share his collection with the public, so he rented a building in Wisconsin Dells and started the museum.

Of all the cars they liked, the family was really into pace cars. It didn’t matter what kind of pace car it was—if it was at the front of the pack during the parade laps at a NASCAR or Indy Car race, they wanted it. There was a little bit of everything, from a Studebaker Lark convertible pace car tribute all the way to factory-made Indy 500 pace car Fieros and Camaros. If they could not get an actual pace car model, they would get the same car and make tributes as close as possible to the originals.

The barn was filled from front to back and side to side with cars, most of them too close to one another to even open their doors. Many of them had been in there so long they had sunk into the dirt. But there was gold in the barn. Right up front was the Lark convertible that had been built as a tribute to the original 1962 Studebaker Lark pace car. It showed the scars from a 1999 fire that started in an outside bay at the storage warehouse and quickly spread to the rest of the building, engulfing the warehouse that housed a good portion of the cars that were not on display or in this barn. The family lost 53 cars, 43 of which were pace cars of some form. The Lark was lucky to have (barely) survived.

Across from the Lark was a car that I not-so-secretly lust after, a 1966 Mercury Comet Cyclone GT Indy pace car convertible. Only 100 S-Code pace cars were built in 1966, and they had two in the same barn! All of the cars were the same: red with white interior, 390 V-8, automatic transmission, power steering, power brakes, power top, and handling package. I had never seen a single one in all my travels, and here were two, sitting in an old chicken coop.

It got even better. There were two 1963 Impala SS 409/four-speed convertibles, a 1970 Cougar Eliminator Boss 302 owned by Lance Jr., a Ford Torino GT convertible with a Shaker hood, and the list just goes on and on.

This was just the first building for long-term projects. These were the cars that the family hoped to get to someday. In the other storage building, most of the vehicles were running and driving. This was the same building that burnt to the ground in 1999, along with the cars inside. The family rebuilt it and stuffed it full of even more cool cars.

Walking in you immediately notice an overcooked Superbird. Have you ever seen aircraft-grade aluminum melt? Neither had I. The Superbird wing got so hot, it melted to just stubs on the rear quarter-panels. Before the fire removed the paint job, it had an intricate red, white, and blue scheme with stars and stripes. Some of it remains on the lower parts of the car, providing a glimpse of what it used to be. Thankfully the car didn’t burn to the ground, and the 440 Six Pack, transmission, and most of the body is restorable.

This building was just like the coop, packed end-to-end with cool cars. Many of them were pace cars as well, including a rare 1964 Chrysler 300 pace car and a pair of restored 1967 and 1969 Camaro pace car convertibles. Not all were pace cars, like a 1970 Torino Cobra Shaker-hood car, a 1960 Ford Sunliner, and another 1966 Mercury Comet convertible, also a 390 S-code car, but not a factory pace car replica. This one was better with a four-speed on the floor.

Outside were a few more cars that were serious projects, but complete, including a rare 1969 Plymouth Road Runner convertible, an AMC Marlin, and a 1969 Plymouth Sport Fury convertible. These had been beaten by the Wisconsin elements for so long that it would be quite an undertaking to bring them back to any sort of usable condition.

Last but not least, at the family garage was a handful of cars, including a nice running and driving 1972 Hurst/Olds Indy pace car and a 1984 Pontiac Fiero Indy pace car.

The car I was there to see, though, was buried in the corner. You could barely make out what it was, but once you took in all the Shelby parts around it, and a few other pieces, well, I could not believe it. It was a legitimate 1968 Shelby GT 500KR convertible, one of 518 made. It was in rough shape, but had everything important—original engine, transmission, and so on. It just needed to be redone, but since the owner already had another 1968 Shelby GT 500KR convertible that was a running and driving car, it wasn’t a top priority.

What a way to end the trip on a high note! I thanked Lance Sr. and Lance Jr. for taking the time to show a friend and me around their incredible collection. They were happy to do it, they said, and we were welcome back anytime. I see the two Lances often at car shows in central Wisconsin, and they have actually been moving cars around and selling a few. The 1968 Shelby GT 500KR convertible project recently went to a new home. So you never know what can happen with these barn finds!

If you have any leads or know of anything cool sitting neglected, let me know! I don’t share locations or owners’ names. You can contact me through any of my social media links: Facebook page, TheAutoArchaeologist; Instagram, @theautoarchaeologist, and now on YouTube, @AutoArchaeology.

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