Featured | AUTO CARS FANS

A Golden Jubilee for the Silver Shadow

Posted on Apr 20, 2015 in Featured | 2 comments

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

The simple argument for preserving any old car

Posted on Apr 20, 2015 in Featured | 2 comments

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

Stretched Chevrolet station wagon from the Milton Hershey School joins the AACA Museum collection

Posted on Mar 24, 2015 in Featured | 2 comments

Buses were just too industrial for the Milton Hershey School in the early Sixties. Instead, the boarding school’s administrators wanted to transport its students to and from student housing in a manner that more resembled typical family life. To do so, they commissioned a fleet of station wagons – extra long five-row 14-passenger station wagons – and now,...

The Shape of Things To Come: Remembering Triumph’s TR7

Posted on Mar 24, 2015 in Featured | 2 comments

1975 Triumph TR7. Introduced in 1975, Triumph’s TR7 coupe (and later, convertible) represented a bold new styling direction for the British automaker, whose other coupe and convertible offerings (the GT6 Mk III, the Spitfire and the TR6) were beginning to show their age. With a distinctive and futuristic wedge shape, penned by Harris Mann, the TR7 put the...

Automatic transmission fluid, part one—American manufacturers

Posted on Jan 12, 2015 in Featured | 2 comments

Cutaway view of ZF automatic transmission. Just as vehicle manufacturer recommendations for engine oil are changing at an ever-increasing pace, so are requirements for the ever-widening range of automatic transmission fluids. With the advent of overdrive transmissions and four-, five-, six- or more speed units being employed in today’s cars, it is important to...

Rebirth of a Legend: 1984 Chevrolet Corvette brochure

Posted on Dec 10, 2014 in Featured | 2 comments

It’s hard to overstate the impact that the fourth-generation Corvette made upon its national introduction on April 21, 1983. Replacing a popular car that had grown very familiar through its incredible 1968-1982 lifetime was an incredibly fresh and forward-thinking new model that was completely of the 1980s, but would also prove timeless in the physical appeal...

On the 50th anniversary of its soggy victory, the Chaparral 2 returns to Sebring

Posted on Nov 26, 2014 in Featured | 2 comments

The Chaparral 2 in action. Given the focus that Ford had put into beating Ferrari in endurance racing, motorsport fans probably expected the Ford GT40 to repeat its 1965 Daytona victory with a win at Sebring. Instead, it was an innovative team from Texas, running an open-cockpit, Chevy-powered sports racer of their own design, that claimed victory in the 1965...

Midweek Matinee: Corvair in Action, 1960

Posted on Sep 21, 2014 in Featured | 2 comments

The 1960 Corvair, in all its initial release glory. The Chevrolet Corvair was named Motor Trend’s Car of the Year for 1960, due in part to its air-cooled, OHV, 139.6 cu.in., horizontally opposed six, featuring an aluminum alloy crankcase and heads and detachable ferrous alloy cylinders, fed by dual single-barrel Rochester carbs—all of which resulted in 80 hp...

Setting up a home garage

Posted on Aug 13, 2014 in Featured | 2 comments

Richard’s column on setting up a home garage, which previously ran in the August 2005 issue of Hemmings Motor News and the December 2007 issue of Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car, includes such good advice, we thought it worth running it yet again. Setting up a garage for your old car restoration needs is the single-most important phase of your car’s...