Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2023 i Hemmings Muscle Machines

HEMMINGS AUCTIONS IS OUR LIVE, ONLINE AUCTION site staffed by customer service professionals ready to help bidders and sellers with any questions. A wide variety of classic and specialty vehicles from all eras are up for bid. Auctions run for two weeks, and qualified bidders place their bids electronically. Once a vehicle is accepted into the auction, the seller pays only a $99.95 listing fee. The winning bidder is responsible for a 5-percent fee on all completed auctions. The following are examples of auctions that transpired during the month leading up to press time. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions, email Director of Auction Operations Terry Shea: terryshea@hemmings.com. 1969 AMC JAVELIN RESERVE: $25,000 SELLING PRICE: $29,400RECENT MARKET RANGE: $21,500-$30,250 The first-gen Javelin is one of the lesser-seen, yet more…

PRODUCTION LINE It’s the announcement Mustang lovers have been waiting for: Ford just released the horsepower and torque figures for the 2024 lineup — and the news is good. Output continues to increase and blue oval enthusiasts have a lot to be excited about with the the seventh-generation 2024 Mustang, dubbed S650. “Mustang has always pushed the envelope. From Mustang GT to Dark Horse, this is our best 5.0-liter V-8 yet. It’s naturally aspirated awesomeness,” Ed Krenz, Mustang chief engineer, says. “And Mustang EcoBoost fans are also getting a boost in power to make every Mustang more fun and visceral to drive.” New to the Mustang party is the 2024 Dark Horse, a pony Ford announced a few months ago designed to push the limits of handling and on-track performance.…

STOCK MERCURY WAS THE GOLDILOCKS OF CAR BRANDS in the mid-Sixties, dedicated to searching for that just right balance of its lineup. The Comet in particular was one of those cars that didn’t quite fit. It was originally conceived as an Edsel model, but when Ford pulled the plug on its expensive marketing misfire, the Comet’s development was already well underway — and with the Falcon already headed for production, Dearborn’s brass made the Comet a Lincoln-Mercury product. It had an identity problem from the get-go, unfortunately, as the inaugural model was technically a standalone car, wearing neither Lincoln nor Mercury branding in 1960 or ’61. There were also echoes of the Edsel in its design, as the long, thin taillamps looked an awful lot like the 1960 Edsel’s, but…

STOCK “DAD WAS A MOPAR GUY,” Cedar Springs, Michigan’s Rich Straub says about his late father, Carl. “He bought a ’64 Polara new, a 383 car, then he bought a new ’65 Dodge Coronet 500. He didn’t like the ’66 and ‘67s, but when the Dart GTS came out, he really liked it.” Dodge’s compact A-body Dart had a GT package since its 1963 launch, but this was little more than bucket seats and some trim. For 1968, the new top-of-the-line Dart GTS (or GT Sport, as it’s sometimes known) was also treated to stiffer Rallye suspension, a low-restriction air cleaner, chromed exhaust tips, a bumblebee stripe on the tail, a power-bulge hood, plus all of the other spiffs that came with the GT, including bucket seats, styled wheel covers,…

AUCTION ACTION DO ECONOMIC HICCUPS have everyone aflutter? Not in Vegas, man. Another Sin City car auction, another record: Mecum’s extravaganza in the North Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center in November 2022 took in a house-record $27.5 million over three days. This trampled their previous Vegas high by more than $2.25 million and topped the 2021 event by a whopping $5.2 million. Las Vegas in November isn’t nearly as sweltering as it is in, say, July... but clearly the action on the car auction block is plenty hot. Timing may be key to the house’s success: Mecum holds two annual events in the Southwest: this one in November and another in Glendale, Arizona — just 300 miles away — in late March. With two events in relatively close…

I had just come in from helping a neighbor change a tensioner pulley, and my wife of 33 years dropped the mail in front of me. Hemmings Muscle Machines — nice! Nice scoop on the Torino on the cover. In 1969 I was working in a Ford parts department and had one of those scoops bolted to the hood of my ’56 Chevy. Then I glanced down to see green print: “BIG-BLOCK BIZ.” I love big-blocks. Next line, “’68” — my heart rate jumps. “427” — I start to mumble strange noises. “BISCAYNE” — I placed both feet carefully under me and settled into my chair. I flipped the magazine open and there it is! I love those big-inch big cars! And not just reading and dreaming about them —…

ON LOCATION GREAT BILLOWING CLOUDS OF ACRID SMOKE hung in the air as the two vehicles hurtled with abandon towards the big sweeper, locked in door-handle-to-door-handle combat. The pungent smell of molten rubber assaulted our olfactory receptors while the screaming tires were matched in protest by the wailing engines bumping their rev limiters. As the drivers careened through the drifting course, fastidiously applying the hand brakes, furiously locking the front wheels left and right, and controlling the vehicles’ trajectory with the throttle, we could hear the crowd’s cheers rise above the on-track cacophony, and we turned to see the packed masses standing in unison and bellowing their approval of the spectacle before them. At that precise moment we became keenly aware that this was no ordinary, sit-in-the-shade-and-talk-about-the old-times kind of…

WHO HASN’T DRIVEN THEIR CLASSIC ON A drizzly or misty day and been annoyed by the archaic two-speed wiper system that’s either too fast or too slow for the prevailing conditions? Reaching for the wiper switch and toggling it on and off gets old in a hurry, plus there’s the extra wear and tear on the switch and related electrical system and components. But right around the time the muscle car era was just getting underway, relief from the irritating responsibilities of wiper control was also being addressed. We all have Robert Kearns, an engineer and relentless garage tinkerer, to thank for creating the impulse wiper system back in the mid-Sixties. His invention was so radical, however, that when the engineers at Ford Motor Company first saw it, they were…

MECUM KANSAS CITY AND KISSIMMEE Mecum Auctions has concluded its 2022 finale in Kansas City as well as its 12-day curtain raiser for 2023, the Kissimmee, Florida, auction. The Kansas City auction realized a sell-through of 74.5 percent in the era of American muscle and performance cars with total sales reaching more than $3.3 million. Among them were 15 low-mileage examples of the C4 Corvette, ranging from 1984 to 1996. Each of the fourth-generation Corvettes was finished in red with mileage as low as 9,825 clicks; none showed above 27,293 miles. The high sale among this group was a 1994 ZR-1 (pictured), one of 448 made that year. Its interior was adorned with black leather, and it came with the build sheet and window sticker. Showing only 11,676 miles on…