Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2023 i Hemmings Muscle Machines

STOCK AT FIRST GLANCE, you may think the subheading of this article is something akin to clickbait. After all, who in the world has ever purchased a 1969 ZL-1 Camaro for $1,000? The COPO option alone cost $4,160, and that was in Nixon-era money. Well, in 1976, Don Martens Jr., then residing in Cleveland, Ohio, bought this ZL-1 Camaro for that paltry price. At the time, the pony car was rumored to have been a COPO 427, but he didn’t know if it was built with an iron L72 or the aluminum ZL-1. That uncertainty was created by a theft, but more on that later. Fred Gibb, the owner of a La Harpe, Illinois, Chevrolet dealership that bore his name, had already used the division’s Central Office Production Order (COPO)…

STOCK YOU NEVER FORGET YOUR FIRST. “My friend Billy Travis bought it new,” recalled Jack Viera of Taunton, Massachusetts. “I did get to drive it a couple of times, although I rode in it many more times after. It was one of those cars that just stood out. It had that solid-lifter sound, the dual exhaust … it made you want to go to six grand on the tach.” The car? A ’64 Ford Fairlane Sport Coupe, black with red gut… and Ford’s vaunted K-code 289-cu.in. V-8, installed at the factory, along with a four-speed stick and a set of 3.89 gears in Ford’s 9-inch housing. Subsequent rides in another friend’s ’65 K-code Fairlane (coincidentally also black with red interior) cemented the Hi-Po-powered Fairlane as Jack’s dream ride. If you…

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. 1964 PONTIAC GTO RESERVE: $43,000SELLING PRICE: $48,300RECENT MARKET RANGE: $40,100-$57,400 The 1964 GTO was the start of something special for Pontiac.…

PRODUCTION LINE In the ‘60s, Carroll Shelby launched the G.T. 350R: a super-strippo racer designed (and destined) to conquer the nation’s road courses. It took three decades, but in rapid succession, for ‘93 and ’95, Ford launched two generations of the Mustang Cobra R — the first packing a breathed-on 5-liter, the latter receiving a fuel-injected 351 and fully capable of going 12s on the drag strip despite its road-course leanings. Another Cobra R arrived in the year 2000 — this time with a 385-horsepower, naturally aspirated four-cam 5.4-liter Modular V-8 and a six-speed. Each of these — devoid of niceties like air conditioning, sound deadening, carpet, and the like, but packing power and chassis tweaks aplenty — cost a premium over the street-spec models. Of the handful of each…

ONE OF THE BEST WAYS TO INITIATE an animated discussion with car guys is to offer an opinion about spark plugs. Everyone has their own point of view, and there’s always plenty to talk about. Because of the wild claims about spark plugs adding horsepower and other magical achievements, we thought we’d take a look at the host of variables that are involved with selecting the best spark plug for your application. The best place to begin is with some operational basics. It all starts with ensuring that the spark plug properly fits its intended application. For stock vehicles, this is as easy as looking it up in a parts catalog. But if your engine is well beyond what the factory intended, or parts have been swapped around, then there…

IF YOU’RE READING THIS, you’ve probably lived it. Open the door of your old car, feel it drop an inch, then muscle it back up a little bit to slam it shut again. The door hinges are sacked. Rebuilding worn door hinges on a vintage car is fairly easy but can take a little time depending on how difficult the old bits are to remove. It’s possible to rebuild door hinges without removing the hinges from the car, but here I unbolted them from my 1961 Impala and took them over to the workbench to just make the job a little easier. I rebuilt both the upper and lower hinges, but I’m only covering the lower hinge here because it has a couple more moving parts. Once you tackle the…

AUCTION ACTION LOOK, $56 MILLION is nothing to sneeze at, okay? It’s not that it’s a down year so much as that it’s not a record-breaking one, the way most of Mecum’s year-on-year Glendale numbers have been since they started coming to the Phoenix-adjacent desert in the spring of 2019. This year’s $56 million, versus $66 million and change in ’22, accounts for a 15-percent year-to-year drop. The sell-through rate of the most recent sale was 76 percent, versus 78 percent last year — near enough to equal. The per-vehicle sale average of just over $44,000 versus $51,595 in ’22 — also a 15-percent year-to-year change — might just pivot things toward a more hoi polloi clientele getting involved in the hobby. Mecum at Glendale was also a five-day event…

Letter of the Month: The Rest of the Story I really enjoy being a subscriber to HMM. I was especially interested in the article by Eric English, “The Contender,” in the September 2023 issue (HMM #241). In the article, there were questions about the history of this rare ’Cuda. I know much of the history before it was restored and wanted to share it with HMM so you could pass it along to Eric and current owner Bob Leenstra. I was with Chrysler Performance Parts and Direct Connection from 1972 to 1980 and knew many of the racers. Thank you for remembering Dave Wren in the same story. He was an exceptional racer, able to build fast cars and engines as well as drive. The Chrysler Race Group was always…

WHEN DODGE grabbed the previously used Dart nameplate to be the new moniker for its compact A-body platform for 1963, it marketed the model as a workaday, economical family car for the masses. The new Dart replaced the Lancer in the lineup, which had been the Dodge version of the original Valiant, and Dart continued to carry the torch for thrift-conscious transport at the division, offering just two engine choices, both of them Slant Sixes: the base 170-cu.in version rated at 101 hp and its more powerful sibling, the 225, pushing out a much better, though still tepid, 145 hp. As the ’60s rolled on, the Big Three’s compacts would all gain V-8 engine options, and some would evolve into mini muscle cars, including the Dart, being offered with the…

MECUM’S SUMMER SPECIAL Mecum’s Summer Kissimmee Auction, held from July 6-9, wrapped with $30.6 million in total sales and 885 lots changing hands. The American muscle cars built from 1964-’72 that sold at this event represented more than $7.4 million in total sales, realizing a 60-percent sell-through, with more than 100 vehicles sold. The top sale from this era was a 1969 Dodge Super Bee with some customized touches. The 4,000-hour restoration featured a recently rebuilt Hemi V-8 mated to a TorqueFlite transmission. The car’s matching interior was redone, and all glass was NOS throughout. Other highlights included a proper Hemi K-frame member, core support, and leaf springs, plus Wilwood brakes with red calipers and billet Schott wheels with Redline tires. The Super Bee buzzed away for $220,000. Another muscle…