Hemmings Muscle Machines January 2024

"At least one person on the team must be able to see a way through." As I leaned over the fender, scraping an old cork valve cover gasket from a V-8 cylinder head, I got a momentary sense of déjà vu, no doubt triggered in part by the familiar scent of aged motor oil and years-baked sealant. The recall was clearly drawing back to my high school days and tinkering with old cars in a driveway — either the one at my parents’ house or one of my car-guy friend’s from back then. Those sorts of reminiscences to days of youth and old friends are usually pleasant, and it’s common to be left with a wistful desire to go back to that place, but on this particular day, I was…

RAM TRX: 2020-2024 STELLANTIS’ SUPERTRUCK GOES THE WAY OF ALL THINGS HELLCAT: INTO ITS SUNSET, QUICKLY Seems like only yesterday (well, 2020) that Stellantis dropped a Hellcat into a Ram and called it TRX; now, for 2024, America is saying goodbye. The (take a breath and say it with me) 2024 Ram 1500 TRX 6.2L Supercharged V8 - Final Edition packs the same basics as every other TRX — most crucially 702 horsepower and 650 lb-ft of torque with the 6.2-liter supercharged Hellcat Hemi, good for 12-second quarter-mile times. So what else would you want? Why, splashy paint, special badging, and new interior finishes, of course! (What, you thought they were going to drop a Redeye under the hood?) That’s right, three new exclusive colors (Delmonico Red, Night Edge Blue,…

Letter of the Month: Bravely Tackling Body & Paint I thoroughly enjoyed Terry McGean’s column titled “The Evolution of Skills” in the November 2023 issue of HMM (#243). I have been doing most of the mechanical work on my cars since 1956. At the age of 6, my father started teaching me mechanical skills on our 1953 Nash Ambassador four-door sedan family car. Since then, I have dabbled in light body and interior work, which I found to be intimidating. I just finished my latest project—a 1963 Rambler Classic 770 two-door Club Sedan street machine made to look like a 1964 Ambassador 990. I swapped the six-cylinder automatic on the column to a 290-cu.in. V-8 four-speed on the floor with a fabricated four-link rear suspension. When I priced replacing both…

SPECIAL FEATURE SPOTLIGHT: ’80s/’90s Muscle IT’S COMMONLY KNOWN that the 1979-’86 Mercury Capri was the corporate kissing cousin of the Fox-body Mustang, offered strictly as a three-door hatchback. Throughout its run, a number of uniquely trimmed special-edition Capri models were made available, including the Black Magic and Crimson Cat packages and the Turbo RS, which featured the same non-intercooled 2.3-liter turbo-four engine offered in the rare 1983-’84 Ford Mustang GT Turbo. Additionally, ASC — the industry’s go-to sunroof and convertible supplier and second-stage special model manufacturer — used the Capri as the foundation for a series of convertible and coupes, produced from 1984-’86. ASC produced 557 convertibles and 275 coupes, which were sold directly through Lincoln-Mercury dealers in an arrangement that mimicked Ford’s original deal with Carroll Shelby two decades…

STOCK THIS IS A TALE OF REDEMPTION. From acting out and no-good hooliganism, to a calmer, happier, less-fraught life. Now, most of us know the basics behind Plymouth’s Superbird. NASCAR stock-car racing was a sport born of outrunning the law, but on the track, aerodynamic attention worked hand-in-hand with cranking as much power as you could slip past race officials. (That’s cheatin’. Not nice.) Superbirds won 21 of 48 Grand National races for 1970, with King Richard Petty winning 18. Less well-known is the Superbird’s place in big-league drag racing. Several Sox & Martin Superbirds were campaigned by the Pro Stock pioneers: one ran C/Modified Production, and others in Super Stock/E. “Mr. 5&50” Jack Werst piloted a SS/EA Superbird at the drags, and of course Karl Gould Chrysler-Plymouth’s SS/EA Superbird,…

MODIFIED BY 1972, the prolific muscle car wars of the late ’60s were coming to a close. Gas prices and insurance rates, along with the EPA’s blossoming emissions standards, were a cataclysmic one, two, three punch, putting a boa constrictor grip on the performance car market that had flourished just a few years before. Popular models were being cut, or even worse, turned into detuned daily drivers, declawed, and stripped of their once infamous powertrains. However, it wasn’t quite over yet in 1972. There was still a glimmer of light shining out of each of the Big Three and into their respective dealerships for that model year. With a little browsing, you could get a taste of the excitement that had been running rampant just a couple of years prior.…