Hemmings Muscle Machines February 2024

"These concerns stem from an epidemic of ‘bad’ parts that’s been spreading across the market..." “Whoa! Gimme that back!” We were working on the front brakes of a project car, and the owner, who was assisting, was about to toss out the used wheel bearing that had been removed, when my friend, turning the wrenches, suddenly lit up. Fresh wheel bearings were there, in the boxes, retrieved ahead of time from a local parts house before the project began — exactly as you’d expect. Yet my friend was adamant about wanting the old set back. If you turn your own wrenches, you likely know just why the seasoned mechanic was more interested in returning the old bearings rather than installing new ones. Those fresh bearings were typical of what you’ll…

Letter of the Month: It’s Contagious I just read Terry McGean’s column “Tales of Tenacity,” and now I want to bore you with my story. I was born in 1959 in a small community in the “thumb” of Michigan. My brother was eight years older than me and graduated from high school in 1969, and many of his friends had Chevelles, GTOs, Plymouths, Torinos, and so on — it was a great time to be a kid. My neighbor’s son-in-law worked for Chrysler at the time, and he purchased a brand-new blue 1970 Superbird. My mother would wonder what was wrong with me as I would sit in our garden picking raspberries and beans while just staring at that car — I thought it was the most beautiful thing I’d…

SPECIAL FEATURESPOTLIGHT: Camaro THE SPORTS CAR CLUBof America caught the pony car zeitgeist with the Trans-American Sedan Championship, better known simply as Trans-Am. Evolved from the SCCA’s A- and B-sedan club-racing categories, the series had two classes that ran on track together; the more relevant of these was the Over 2-liter class. Wheelbase was limited to 116 inches, engine displacement to five liters (or 305.1 cubic inches), and regulations required that eligible production vehicles have a rear seat. Trans-Am was also open to FIA Group 2 Touring Cars, which required a minimum of 1,000 cars built for public consumption. For the series’ 1966 debut, Chevy largely sat out as it stuck to its no-racing agreement with Ford and Chrysler — then watched as the other guys competed in Trans-Am. Enthusiast…

STOCK HOW MANY OF US who identify as, ahem, middle-aged, can say we still have the car we owned in high school? The answer of course is, not many. If you’re squarely middle-aged now, you would have been in high school sometime in the ’80s, and such is the case for Danny Truitt. To the point, Danny still owns the ’68 Mustang GT fastback he drove in high school, which is now restored to concours trailered standards. Danny would know, as he’s a Mustang Club of America gold card judge and restored his fastback himself. “All well and good,” you say, “but the car featured on these pages isn’t a ’68 GT fastback, it’s a ’68 GT coupe.” And you’d be right. What we are doing here is setting the…

MODIFIED BEING TALL AIN’T ALL it’s cracked up to be. Sure, when you’ve got some extra elevation on your side, there are some benefits, like being able to grab stuff off the top shelf with ease, or to dunk a basketball right on cue. But being vertically gifted can be a hassle, too, especially when trying to slide behind the wheel. As a self-proclaimed “big guy,” Rob Magliano of Thorton, Pennsylvania had to be picky about the cars he chose to drive over the years. “I’m 6 feet 7 inches tall, so yeah, there are some rides that just don’t fit me.” Those challenges have led Rob to pilot a string of full-size SUVs, but when it came time for him to choose a classic muscle car to enjoy on…

FOR 35 YEARS, practically from birth right up until GM’s fourth-gen F-body breathed its last in 2002, Pontiac’s Firebird lived in the shadow of Chevrolet’s mighty Camaro. While Pontiac’s models tended to be aimed at the performance-hip, Chevrolets were the car for the everyman, and the division’s entry-level pricing and massive dealer network meant that you saw a lot more Camaros than Firebirds out on the streets. Except, of course, in the late ’70s: Pontiac assaulted our movie screens with the Burt Reynolds one-two punch of Smokey and the Bandit and Hooper (with the addition of both Smokey and the Bandit II and Steve McQueen’s The Hunter arriving soon after), cementing the late second-gen Trans Am as the era’s aspirational high-performance car. On TV, The Rockford Files even made the…