Hemmings Muscle Machines November 2016

“ I could go on with similarly idiotic tales of ill-advised automotive acquisition escapades, but I think you get the picture ”. I had some sort of flashback the other night that slapped me right out of my car-classified-surfing coma. While doing the usual online perusal of motorized heaps that I know I shouldn’t even think about owning, I came across one of those special offerings that has the power to incapacitate rational thought. You know how this works. While late-night web window shopping for some kind of deal on one of the myriad old cars you think you’ve got to own might seem dangerous to the casual observer — like, say, the one you’re married to — it’s really a non-issue. We’re just looking, and there’s no harm in…

CORVETTE GRAND SPORT: STANDARD 460-HORSE DRIVELINE IN A Z06 ENVELOPE The original Corvette Grand Sport was a dedicated racing machine that did battle on the road courses of the world. When the name was later revived, in 1996 and 2010, it offered cosmetic and performance enhancements to production models. Now, for 2017, Chevrolet has dropped the standard Corvette’s 460-hp LT1 drivetrain into wider Z06 bodywork, adapted the Z06’s chassis tuning, upgraded cooling and high-tech spiffs, beefed up the brakes, wheels and tires and launched the new Grand Sport. The package includes specific wheels (19 x 10-inch front, 20 x 12 rear) on Michelin Pilot Summer Sport tires (285/30ZR19 front, 335/25ZR20 rear; that’s 40 mm and 50 mm wider, respectively, than a standard Stingray), standard Magnetic Ride Control, specific stabilizer bars…

DANNY THOMPSON DRIVES CHALLENGER 2 TO SCTA AA/FS CLASS RECORD Danny Thompson, son of racing legend Mickey Thompson, has been trying since 2014 to set a Land Speed Record at Bonneville in the Challenger 2, a streamliner built by his dad in 1968. After two years of mechanical frustrations and environmental delays, the Thompson LSR team caught a break on August 13-14, turning in a pair of passes that averaged 406.77 MPH, good enough to set a new Southern California Timing Association (SCTA) record in the AA/FS class. In 2010, Danny began restoration work on the Challenger 2, a multi-year project that retained as much of the original car as possible. Like the original, this version employs four-wheel drive, but power comes from a pair of Chrysler Hemi V-8s instead…

“OHIO GEORGE” MONTGOMERY Patrick Ertel www.coastal181.com $34.95 The Gasser wars of the 1960s were some of drag racing’s most colorful years, and old Ohio George Montgomery lit ’em up brighter than most. He was an innovator and as hardcore a racer as you’d ever deign to meet, having started out from a tiny shop in Dayton. It took the author 132 big, softcover pages to tell the tale of this gentlemanly competitor and outline the raft of cars that he raced during his long career. Sure, everybody knows Ohio George was a killer with his 1933 Willys, but how many of you know that he once wrung 500 hp out of a basic Ford Pinto 2,000-cc inline-four for a sportsman-class drag car? Or that he holds an NHRA lifetime achievement…

It’s no secret that General Motors fast-tracked the first-generation F-body twins — the Chevrolet Camaro and Pontiac Firebird — to blunt the cultural revolution that was the Ford Mustang. The Falcon-based sports coupe caught even the most optimistic prognosticators in Dearborn off guard, racking up a million sales in a little less than two years. A new vehicle segment was born, and the other automakers all scrambled to compete. GM took a page from Ford’s playbook and hustled the F-cars’ development using an existing compact platform, but compromises were inevitable. Based on the architecture initially developed for the revised Chevy II, the Camaro and Firebird’s sporty characters and overall design were formed on mostly immovable “hard points” on the architecture. It worked well enough, but the designers and engineers knew…

I’ve always been a Pontiac guy and have two other Firebirds in my garage. I started my search looking for a later second-generation Trans Am, but when I ran across this one, it all added up for me. The car has a great look, especially with the Lucerne Blue exterior and Bright Blue interior — it’s a great combination. It’s one of the most balanced cars of its era and handles as good, or better, than many contemporary cars. Pontiac engineers really nailed the second-generation Trans Am, and I couldn’t be happier driving this car.…