Hemmings Muscle Machines November 2017

Looking at the image attached to the letter I’d just finished reading, I tried to imagine the feelings the writer must have had on the day that old photo was taken. The shot was of a ’66 Chevelle SS 396, resplendent in gleaming Marina Blue highlighted by chrome mags and redline tires. The photo was taken on a sunny day when the car was about a year old, though it could have passed for brand new. The story behind the car appears in our Muscle Car Scrapbook on page 76 of this issue, and the image that really got me was the one we used as the lead. On that day, the car was new to the writer — he’d just brought it home after picking it up as a…

PARTS WORTH MORE THAN THE WHOLE Great Wall is currently the seventh largest automaker in China, with 2016 sales of 1.1-million vehicles — or less than four percent of China’s ever-expanding market share. Their goal is to become the world’s largest SUV maker, and Jeep’s expertise and global brand presence would help it reach that goal far more quickly. Although Great Wall makes barely a tenth of Fiat Chrysler Automobile’s (FCA) $131 billion in revenue annually, the company is confident that it could raise funds to buy Jeep outright. Valuing Jeep is complicated: the brand has no standalone stores, and are sold through more than 2,400 stateside franchise-agreement dealerships. But Morgan Stanley analysts have calculated that Jeep, by itself, is more valuable than all of FCA: Jeep is worth $17.20…

CHALLENGER 2 RETURNS TO BONNEVILLE FOR FINAL RECORD ATTEMPT On August 12, Danny Thompson drove the Challenger 2 streamliner to a potentially record-setting pass of 435.735 mph at Bonneville during this year’s Speed Week. On the return, the front Hemi snapped a connecting rod, forcing Danny to abort the run, ending his quest for another SCTA record. On September 20, at Mike Cook’s Shootout, he returns to the salt in Challenger 2 for one final attempt at a new FIA land speed class record. Last year’s attempts were meant to be Danny’s farewell to Bonneville, and his SCTA record run of 406.769 mph in August seemed to predict that his career would end on a high note. He’d beaten his dad’s top speed in the car, originally built as the…

JAHNS RACING PISTONS SIGN Garage Art • www.garageart.com • 800-708-5051 • $49.95 (24 x 14), $69.95 (36 x 21) Although this venerable brand dated back to 1912, Jahns Quality Pistons, Inc. had its heyday in the postwar era of high performance. By the mid-1960s, this Los Angeles-based firm claimed to be the world’s largest piston manufacturer, and made both cast- and forged-aluminum alloy pistons for contemporary street and racing applications, as well as for antique cars, imports, and industrial and experimental engines. For a time, Garage Art was able to offer an extremely limited amount of numbered porcelain reproductions of a 1960s-era Jahns Racing Pistons sign, and this firm is happy to now sell a popular-priced, “Authorized Service” version made from 22-gauge steel. It’s available in 24 x 14-…

Chrysler’s B-body Max Wedge- powered twins are occasionally referred to as the first muscle cars, fitting the traditional definition of a full-size-car engine stuffed into an intermediate-line body. We ain’t buying it. Let us momentarily set aside the existence of the 1949 Olds 88, which matches the definition of a muscle car and arrived a baker’s-dozen years before. In 1962, the new B-body was Mopar’s idea of a full-size car. That the full-size Dodge and Plymouth should come within a couple of inches of Ford’s midsize Fairlane was entirely by accident. A Chrysler exec had overheard Chevy boss Ed Cole at a party talking about his new downsized car for 1962. Cole had been discussing the Chevy II, but the Chrysler exec was convinced Cole was talking about the Impala…

By the early 1970s, Ron McHugh had returned from a tour-of-duty in Vietnam and was a graduate student working toward his Ph.D. in economics at Penn State. He was also a drag racer who was fostering a growing affinity for Oldsmobiles. In 1973, an ad placed by fellow racer and friend Paul Mayo in National Dragster to sell his 1970 4-4-2 W-30 convertible caught Ron’s attention, as it stated the Olds would run on the National Record. Mayo had specifically chosen the 4-4-2 convertible instead of the hardtop or post coupe and optioned it to fit into certain NHRA drag racing classes where he felt it would be most competitive. However, having recently bought the 1971 Vista Cruiser Vista Bruiser built by factory-backed racer John “Jack”…