Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2024 i Hemmings Muscle Machines

MODIFIED IF EVER THERE WAS a TV show that inspired its viewers to an enduring admiration for a certain muscle car, without a doubt, that show is the southern-situated, action-comedy series, The Dukes of Hazzard, which debuted in 1979. Those poor Duke boys were constantly being harassed by local law enforcement, just because they rode around in what was supposed to be a mildly tamed stock car. Well, maybe also because they’d dabbled a little in the bootleg liquor trade in their past. Well, that and a few other things, but man, Bo and Luke’s ’69 Dodge Charger, dubbed the “General Lee,” was a hero car for the ages, and the image of that bright orange Mopar was burned deeply into the cerebrums of many budding young hot rodders who…

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 one or 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 months leading up to press time. If you have question s, comments or suggestions, email the Hemmings Auctions team directly: auctions@hemmings.com. 1970 DODGE CHALLENGER T/A RESERVE: $100,000SELLING PRICE: $108,150*RECENT MARKET RANGE: $75,000-$110,000 Big-block E-body Mopars tend to make the headlines…

Someone’s finally gone and done it. A production vehicle, built by someone other than a boutique hypercar outfit that no one outside the Robb Report has ever heard of, packing more than 1,000 horsepower, with a payment book and a warranty, is on its way. It should be here a year from the time you read these words. The performance numbers for Chevrolet’s 2025 Corvette ZR1 read like a demented schoolboy’s delusional fantasy: 1,064 horsepower at 7,000 rpm, with 828 lb-ft of torque, from Chevy’s new 5.5-liter, DOHC twin-turbo flat-plane-crank V-8; call it LT7 for short. Top speed? 215 mph. Sub-ten-second quarter-mile times. At 333.3 cubic inches, that’s 3.19 horsepower per cubic inch. With a curb weight approaching 3,800 pounds (3,670 dry), that’s 3.57 pounds per horsepower. That’s the power…

G.T. GRAN TURISMO (or, in English, Grand Touring). Two little letters that, when slapped on the flanks of an automobile, carry a certain set of values: high-performance, pro-enthusiast, with a dollop of comfort and drivability thrown in for good measure. The working definition is that of a sporting 2+2 that can effortlessly devour vast distances at high speeds in supreme comfort, while having enough luggage space to accommodate a long weekend’s gear. It’s a nebulous designation, living in the grey area between sports car, coupe, and 2+2. A GT is all of these, and none of them. The Federacion Internacional de l’Automobile (FIA, the world’s auto-racing sanctioning body) calls a GT car “an open or closed automobile which has no more than one door on each side, and a minimum of…

AT THIS POINT, Chevy’s 1970 LS6 Chevelle requires no introduction: with its rectangle-port heads and 2.19/1.88-inch valves, high-lift cam, forged crank and rods, 780-cfm Holley carb, and more, Chevy rated its 454-cube LS6 at an audacious 450 horsepower. That’s bigger than anything any other company advertised in a passenger car, full stop, until the end of the millennium. Just 4,475 LS6-equipped A-bodies were made for 1970, and they remain the stuff of legend — arguably the pinnacle of the muscle car movement. Alas, there are no known production breakdowns to give us an accurate number on how many LS6 Chevelle convertibles were made; Chevy’s records only kept the number of engines built in the Tonawanda, New York plant, not what vehicles they ended up in. That said, no credible estimate…

LAST YEAR, Maine’s Throttle Car Club dove into the world of in-person automobile auctions with a one-day event at its 35,000-square-foot facility in the coastal town of Scarborough. The auction returned for its sophomore year on June 1, and the consensus of the bidders we talked with during the preview was that the breadth and quality of the vehicles offered was even better. The crowd seemed larger, too. Seventy-six vehicles crossed the block, ranging in age and condition from a decrepit 1929 Hudson boattail speedster that was hammered sold for $41,000 to a 39-mile 2022 Dodge Challenger Jailbreak that drew a high bid of $85,000 but failed to sell. The top seller was an immaculate 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air coupe, which brought $74,500. Though the total sales were down, in…

FOR MORE THAN A QUARTER of a century, an annual gathering of historic Super Cars has been taking place to celebrate the rarest of all General Motors muscle cars. While the name Super Car Reunion may offer visions of Ferrari and other high-end sports cars, it refers to the outstanding high-performance cars that were a product of Yenko, Gibb, Nickey, and other notable icons of the Chevrolet muscle car world. While the Super Car Reunion isn’t exclusive to the Chevrolet camp, it has naturally become Chevy heavy, as it features quite a few COPO and Yenko combinations. The committee that organizes the event encourages all makes and models from the muscle car era to participate, although the primary focus is specially ordered cars and factory race cars. The unique part…

FORGET FOR A MOMENT all the moral and ethical ramifications of copying someone else’s work. If you’re going to do it, you should at least look over the shoulder of the guy with the right answers. Pontiac found that out the hard way with the legendary Ram Air V cylinder head, which was cribbed entirely from Ford’s Tunnel Port head. The problem was it didn’t work. Not in a street application, anyway — and it wasn’t so great on a racing engine, either. Racing, of course, was the long plan for Ford’s Tunnel Port design. That was no different from Pontiac and every other automaker looking to rack up wins in NASCAR and NHRA. Airflow was the common denominator, as shoving more of it through an engine was the eternal…

HARRISBURG HIGHLIGHTS Mecum finished its Harrisburg auction with nearly 200 muscle cars built from 1964-’72 crossing the block. When the final gavel fell, they accounted for more than $8.25 million in total sales with a 66.8-percent sell-through. The top seller was a 1970 Hemi ’Cuda, thought to be one of 368 produced with the TorqueFlite automatic transmission. Beneath the Shaker hood, the desirable Hemi displayed matching numbers, and the odometer showed only 22,656 miles of use. The car had been converted to electronic ignition and it featured power steering, as well as power windows, which was a rare option for this model. Other equipment included dual exhaust, A01 light group, fog lamps, and Rallye wheels wrapped in Goodyear Polyglas tires. Inside, the ’Cuda featured restored bucket seats and center console,…