Hemmings Muscle Machines August 2022

“The moment I saw the cobbled-up proposal, I understood his vision…” I stopped by my friend’s shop the other day so he could show me the wheels he’d just gotten. They were custom made and he’d already had the new tires mounted, which were also special-order items. So far this sounds like typical car-guy behavior — ordering new wheels and tires is a pretty common way of giving a special car an update. But in this case, the vehicle these rollers would be mounted to didn’t yet exist. Not really, anyway. My friend has been planning out his next build for some time and gathering pieces while the vision comes into focus. The wheel/tire acquisition was a bit extreme, but as soon as I showed up to see, the whole…

As the headline suggests, Cadillac has rated the new Escade-V’s supercharged, hand-built 6.2-liter V-8 at a whopping 682 horsepower (@ 6,000 rpm) and a gut-tightening 653 lb-ft of torque (@ 4,400 rpm). The basics are not unlike what live beneath the hood of the CT5-V Blackwing we tested in June’s Production Line, but the Escalade-V features a bigger supercharger — a 2.65-liter R2650 TVS unit that spins at up to 13,500 rpm for 10 pounds of boost — to overcome inlet and exhaust restrictions. A forged-steel crankshaft, forged-steel connecting rods, and forged-aluminum pistons are among the beefy internals. The aluminum cylinder heads feature titanium intake valves. With a specifically-calibrated 10-speed automatic getting power out to all four wheels, the Escalade-V is expected to hit 60 mph from a standing start…

“First of all, I must say: Great magazine. I look forward to getting it every month. Your article on the ’68 Torino GT fastback (“Impulse Buy,” HMM #226) really hit home with me. It was early in 1968 and my wife and I were driving down Ventura Blvd in Encino, California, past Ralph Williams Ford. Sitting in the showroom was a gold 1968 Torino GT fastback. I told her we should stop and take a look at it. As we approached, I said, “If I was to order this car, I would want a 325-hp 390 and a four-speed.” Lo and behold, it had a 325-hp 390 and a four-speed, plus power steering, power brakes, bucket seats… it was a virtual twin to the car in your article. Did we…

SOMEWHERE, MAC McKELLAR IS SMILING. Who? Malcolm “Mac” McKellar ran Pontiac’s engine-development team for decades, with his work encompassing Super Duty 389 and 421 V-8s, the OHC Six and the ’61 Tempest’s four, which was simply one half of the existing Pontiac›389. He even had a number of trick factory racing camshafts named for him. Somehow, his name doesn’t pop up in most casual conversations about Pontiac in that era. John DeLorean and Jim Wangers are most often cited there, and occasionally a historian will drop a mention of Chief Engineer Pete Estes in the mix, since he went on to run GM. But McKellar? His name is a deep cut for anyone but the most dedicated Pontiac fan. Among the experiments McKellar’s division carried out, and a prototype long…

I wanted this car to be well-done, not overdone. The idea behind it was to enhance that 2+2 every way we possibly could yet keep it looking stock. Singer is a company that builds Porsche 911s, and they have a saying: reborn, reimagined, restored. That’s kind of what this 2+2 is. It’s restored in a sense, and it’s restomodded, but it’s just a modern reimagining of what this car would be: perfecting what the factory didn’t do—straightening things that weren’t straight or fitting things that may not have fit as they should have, while still trying to keep it looking the way it was, since it was cool when it was built.…

ENGINE Block type................................GM LS7 V-8; cast aluminum, six-bolt cross-bolted mains Cylinderheads..........................................Aluminumfour-valveDOHC,71.2-ccchambers Displacement.........................................................................................................428-cu.in. Bore x stroke...................................................................................................4.00 x 4.125 in Compressionratio............................................................................................................11.7:1 Horsepower@rpm...........................................................................................750 @ 8,000 Torque @ rpm............................................................................................570 lb-ft @ 6,000 Valvetrain............................................1.70/1.38-invalveswithshaft-mounted,end-pivot finger followers; mechanical lash adjustment Camshaft ............................. DOHC, each (of four) polished, REM surface-finished, and case-hardened billet steel Induction.......................Mercury Racing PCM controlling sequential port fuel injection; twin 80-mm electronic throttle bodies, 60 lb/h injectors, in-tank electric pump Lubrication ................................... Wet sump with modified fourth-gen Camaro LS1 pan, GM high-volume oil pump Ignition........................................................................Coil-on-plugwithintegrateddrivers Exhaust.................................Roadster Shop long-tube headers, dual 3-in mandrel-bent stainless exhaust with twin crossovers, dual Borla mufflers, resonators Originalengine...................................................................................Pontiac421-cu.in.V-8 TRANSMISSION Type..............................Tremec T-56 six-speed manual with double overdrive by Bowler Ratios ........................................................ 1st/2.66:1 … 2nd/1.78:1 … 3rd/1.30:1 … 4th/1.00:15th/0.80:1 … 6th/0.63:1 … Reverse/2.90:1 DIFFERENTIAL Type............................................................................Ford9-inchhousing,33-splineaxles Ratio................................................................................................................................4.56:1 STEERING Type...................................................................................Power-assistedrack-and-pinion Ratio.................................................................................................................................16.0:1 BRAKES Front/Rear............................................................Baer Extreme…