Hemmings Muscle Machines July 2016

“ The speedometer didn’t work, but the Sun tach on the steering column did, so that’s what I referenced most of the time.” A few weeks ago I found myself on a road trip that traced a route I hadn’t travelled in many years. Though some of the scenery and interchanges had changed a bit, I still felt like I could have made it back to my old college town blindfolded, such was my level of familiarity with these roads at one time. This time out I was wheeling the late-model family hauler, breezing down the road in relative quiet and comfort, my greatest concern that the modern wagon master not creep up to 80 MPH without my knowledge — the troopers are still tucking in behind bridge abutments and…

DRIVEN: 2016 DODGE CHALLENGER 392 SCAT PACK SHAKER We’ve given the Challenger a lot of stick for being a pretend pony car: It’s got the shape and the power, but, good heavens, it’s a big ol’ 4,200-plus-pound chunk of car. More Clydesdale than pony. And yet, recently, after a week in a Plum Crazy Challenger 392 Hemi Scat Pack Shaker, we have had cause to reevaluate our feelings. What caused this soul-searching? The new Mustang. After our week in the ’16 GT/CS (Production Line, HMM #152, April 2016), we were left disconsolate. Is this what performance was now? Did the market demand such a level of comfort to go along with its power? On the heels of the GT/CS’s return, we got to spend a week in the Plum Crazy…

EPA REMOVES RACECAR LANGUAGE FROM GREENHOUSE GAS REGULATION In the same statement, the Environ- mental Protection Agency promised to rescind contentious language that motorsports enthusiasts say targeted them, reiterated that removing emissions equipment remains illegal, and said that they’re not going to crack down on individual racers. “EPA supports motorsports and its contributions to the American economy,” the agency wrote in a statement on its website. “EPA’s focus is not on vehicles built or used exclusively for racing, but on companies that … make and sell products that disable pollution controls on motor vehicles used on public roads. These unlawful defeat devices pump dangerous and illegal pollution into the air we breathe.” The language at the heart of the controversy, which the EPA inserted into regulations concerning emissions from medium-…

SOX & MARTIN Jim Schild • www.coastal181.com • $34.95 Have you noticed that we’ve been experiencing a boomlet in good-quality drag racing history books over about the past six months or so? Here’s the latest entry, the first book ever done solely on the great heritage of those Plymouth wizards from the Tarheel State, Sox & Martin. The author is a recognized expert on Chrysler racing and performance, and given that fact, we were expecting something really good here. We weren’t disappointed. Published by CarTech, the narrative encompasses 176 pages, a story that begins when a young Ronnie Sox, demonstrating preternatural ability with a shifter already, starts street racing around his native Burlington, North Carolina, and gets to the strip and blows the guts out of the family Plymouth.…

‘‘I buy when other people are sell- ing,” said oil baron J. Paul Getty. But what happens if you have a ready customer and you don’t want to sell? You’ve heard the stories a thousand times, about how in the late ’60s it was ridiculously easy for anyone to slide into their local Chevy dealer and order a factory-authorized chunk of violence with only paper-route money and pocket lint. If some young punk with Sunoco 260 in his veins wanted to upgrade his cologne from Aqua Velva to F70-14 and invest in 396 cubic inches of terror to make his girlfriend squeal in concert with the tires, what dealer in their right mind would stop him and refuse a $4,000 payday? Well, one unnamed Chevy dealer near Galesburg, Illinois, must…

SPECIFICATIONS PRICE Base price . . . . . . . . . . . . . $2,517.00 Options on car profiled . . . SS 396 equipment, $347.60; 375-hp Turbo-Jet 396 V-8, $252.80; close-ratio four-speed M-21, $184.80; special instrumentation, $94.80; push-button radio, $61.10; Positraction axle, $42.15; rear speaker, $13.20; 3.73:1 axle ratio, $2.15 ENGINE Type. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chevrolet Mark IV OHV V-8, cast-iron block and heads Displacement . . . . . . . . . . 396 cubic inches Bore x stroke . . . . . . . . . . . 4.09 x 3.76 inches Compression ratio . . . . . . . 11.0:1 Horsepower @ RPM . . .…