20 Years Ago
December 1997 (140 pages, $3.50): While appreciating the first “double cover,” we question the decision to repeat both the ’57 and the V10 on the extra real estate, instead of teasing newsstand browsers with the 1968 Hemi ’Cuda or four-valve Chevy street heads lurking inside. Nor was mention made here of fine writing by Gray Baskerville, who revisited HRM project and race cars since 1950, or Jeff Koch, whose hilarious coverage of Pebble Beach’s first hot rod class ripped “graying men with slinky little minkies half their age on their arms” who paid scant attention to some of history’s most-famous roadsters.
40 Years Ago
December 1977 (108 pages, $1.25): Alternative horsepower earned two references this month—literal horsepower in Post Entry’s retelling of a 1939 street race that Ak Miller staged, on a bet, between a hot 1932 roadster and a quarter horse. The animal dropped a close decision. Its shocked owner dropped $200 (about $3,500 now). Staffers John Dianna and Marlan Davis did not get shocked cruising Van Nuys in Sears Diehard’s Fiat-bodied electric car, except by jeering “teen-agers [who] have no appreciation for developmental vehicles that they find odd-looking.” Editor Dianna was favorably impressed by torquey launches, 70-mph freeway velocity, and a reported 100-mile range per six-hour recharge (220V).
60 Years Ago
December 1957 (84 pages, 35¢): We numbered this first 22 Jr. cover car as Tony Nancy’s 18th roadster, without mentioning that the other 17 were mostly cannon fodder for fellow San Fernando Valley rodders. The exasperated upholsterer bemoaned the beatings to Tommy Sparks, who solved the problem by plucking his personal blown flathead from the legendary Sparks & Bonney Willys (winner of 55 trophies in one year, said the cover story).
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