Hemmings Muscle Machines March 2018

“ One thing I do know is that there was never a time back then when I seriously considered getting rid of that Camaro, impractical as that may have been ”. There’s a common thread running through the feature cars in this issue: All have spent significant portions of their existence being “stashed.” I’m using stashed as a broad term to include the myriad ways so many of us have had to put old cars somewhere just to hang onto them. To me, the term “storage” implies a proper, safe, secure place of keeping something — that’s not what we’re talking about here. Stashing a car away more often than not involves places that are hardly ideal; often they’re just the best we can come up with for the time…

ZR1 GOES TOPLESS Over 200 mph, $124,000, still really orange Hot on the heels of last month’s report about the new 2018 Chevy Corvette ZR1 (on sale now!) comes news of the first Corvette ZR1 convertible since the C3 generation back in the early 1970s. The weight difference between coupe and convertible is just a 60-pound penalty for the soft-top, mostly accounting for the roof-folding mechanism and some bracing. Everything that comes on the ZR1 coupe, save for the fixed roof, comes on the ZR1 convertible. You’ll recall that the new ZR1’s supercharged 6.2-liter V-8 puts out 755 hp, and 714 lb-ft of torque — officially the most powerful passenger-car engine Chevy has ever built. (That’s more than two horses per cubic inch ... and nearly 122 horsepower per liter.)…

NHRA HALL OF FAME DRIVER BOB GLIDDEN 1944-2017 When Bob Glidden was inducted as num- ber four on the NHRA’s Top 50 Drivers list, panelist Bob Frey said of Glidden’s talent, “There never was, and probably never will be, a more dominant driver in our sport.” On December 17, following a brief illness, Glidden died at age 73. Though his 85 Pro Stock wins have since been bested by Warren Johnson (with 97) and Greg Anderson (with 86), Glidden’s 25-plus years behind the wheel produced some truly impressive statistics, including a nine-event winning streak in 1979, 10 season championships, and a run of continuous titles from 1985-’89. For much of his career, Glidden drove Fords, including the Fairmont that remained unbeaten from the 1978 Summernationals through the remainder of the…

REPRODUCTION DECALS Canned Ham Decals 541-390-0224 www.cannedhamdecals.com$9.60 and up, free s&h When we embark on the restoration of an automobile, we’re worrying about where we’re going to source parts for the transmission, who is going to do the bodywork, and whether we should replace the cracked dash pad. We typically don’t think about the decals on the air cleaner or the toolbox that we put in the trunk until the end. But, thankfully, Jim Lovelace in Bend, Oregon, has. Jim began reproducing decals on an as-needed basis in 2001, when he had a small-engine repair business specializing in antique Briggs & Stratton motors. Since then, his inventory has grown to include over 650 decals for everything from basic components to performance parts, from minibikes and go-karts to travel trailers and…

No one buys a car expecting it to last their entire life. Shoot, when you get in multiple wrecks in your first few years of driving, you don’t generally go get yourself a high-performance machine to replace it. “I had a ’61 Corvair when I got my license in 1965,” says Dennis Baker of Dover, Pennsylvania. “I had five wrecks in three years with that car—including a rollover. You remember Ralph Nader, and how the rear wheels went under? Well, after my fifth wreck, the insurance company totaled the car.” Somehow, the demise of that Corvair indicated to Dennis that it might be a good idea to go look into a Chevelle. “The dealer had a ’67 SS 396 four-speed, bench-seat car, in red. I bought it, and took a…

Buyers considering either of the 1970 Plymouth GTX’s optional engines probably skipped the fine print in the brochure regarding the 440 Six Barrel and 426 Hemi: “Recommended for Sanctioned Events.” Considerably cheaper than the top-dog and sometimes-fickle Hemi, the 390-hp Six Barrel engine still proved enough to get the GTX into the 13s. We wanted to write that Darcy and David Regala learned that the hard way, but we’d be wrong if we did. The twin brothers, recent retirees from the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections and proprietors of a martial-arts studio, have owned this GTX since 1977, not really knowing what they were getting into other than that it was fast. That first summer, “It just made short work of everything it went up against,” according to Darcy. Originally ordered…