Well one thing we can count on for sure, is that things will always change.
For nearly 10 years my 1970 Mustang has been a great joy. I’ve taken it from a 6 cylinder lady’s car (I say that purely because it was first owned by a lady, who in turn, handed it down to her daughter and it had some dainty pin striping) to a proud muscle car.
We suffered a couple flat-bed trips, a problematic carb and leaking power steering, an AC unit that got less miles per oz of coolant then the engine did in miles per gallon and invented some new cuss words!
We survived a few charity drag races and won a bunch street light mini drags, took home a couple of car show trophies and placed a lot of smiles on passerby faces and kids when I let them sit behind the wheel.
But things change and I’ve enjoyed my Mustang thoroughly. But it’s time to move on so my Mustang is going to a new home, where it will enjoy the company of four other Mustangs.
I will miss the old steed but so proud of where it started and where it is now.
So fare well old friend…on to new adventures.
1970 Mustang Mods for 300 HP
So what’s next for me? Well there is my 1965 Bridgestone motorcycle and many more car shows and SCCA with the my C7 Vette and a surprise coming up….oh…no you are just going to have to wait to find out.
So stay tuned for some more mods, car shows, racing and classic/muscle car reading.
One of our (myself and my better half) favorite things to do is road trip to out of the way places. Once there, I have a limit to how many shops, art galleries and “antique” stores I can handle. So we’ve taken to the back streets to look at the local neighborhoods. My wife is an interior designer and she loves architecture so we are always keeping eye out for interesting homes and buildings and I love cars so I’m always on the lookout for what’s in the backyard.
So that is what led us to this unique discovery outside of Bisbee, Az. The next few blog entries will be what we discovered in the area.
Lowell, Az is nearly a ghost town, surrounded by the mining town of Bisbee. The story goes like this: there is this fellow who had something to do with starting and promoting one of the largest motorcycle events in the world… The Sturgis, South Dakota motorcycle event!!
Some call it a ghost town, but it is not. There is a food co-op, a small cafe and a working motorcycle restoration shop. The rest is really a very cool set up.
Here is the town:
Downtown Lowell, Az
Coming up we’ll explore this town and find some interesting details.
They almost always went hand in hand with GM, at least during my formidable days. Then came the Trans-Am. Pontiac was over took the Camaro arguably in performance but uncontested in folklore, I offer up Burt Reynolds & “Smoky and the Bandit” for support (you can count the Rockford Files, the Camaro there was not much more than a prop –cool no doubt but mostly a prop.
Camaro’s back (in case you’ve been living under a discarded intake manifold) with the Z28 soon to return and the SS and LT1 already burning up the streets. But the when the axe fell on Pontiac it took with it any chance to bring back the Firebird in any kind of configuration. So we are forced to back in time and watch old super 8 movies of Firebird/Trans-Am in motion. Or do we?
What if (and it’s a BIG IF) some where, someone started producing that iconic version of the Firebird – not a pre-made body – al-la Dynacores’ Mustang offering, but an up to date platform, like Mother Mopar did with the Challenger.
What if (BIG IF – again), they placed it on a new 2012 Camaro platform and soup-ed it up a bit? Something like this:
Awesome!
Yes , that is just what those innovative folks did at Lingenfelters. This is the 455 TA “lightly” (snicker) Camaro.
It sports a the Tran-Am trade mark split grille and honey comb wheels and blue and white paint schema. But under the hood is a power plant will make the hardest Camaro shake in it’s engine bay.
Oh…BTW…comes in drop top…love the wheels
The engine is a custom RHS Aluminum engine block at displaces 455 cubic inches. It has a 4.155” bore Diamond 11.5:1 compression ratio pistons, 4.200” stroke, Lunati forged crankshaft, LPE CNC ported and polished LS7 heads. Pair this up with LSX Fast 102 intake and Lingenfelter’s 6 bolt LS9 twin disk fly whee/clutch assembly and you get a 655 horse powered monster that can lay down 610 ft-lbs of torque to the 20×11 rear tires (front are 20×10),
MONSTER!!!!
OK…you can exhale now, but when the 455 TA does it uses a custom Corsa stainless exhaust and it sounds AWESOME!!!!
I caught this version at the Barrett Jackson Auction this past January.
The LPE concept body mods include front air dam and rear Firebird like spoiler and taillights.
Spec Page is a new series where we explore a particular model’s DNA.
This post is covering a car that I’ve frankly never heard of before. Plymouth Belvedere sure is recognizable as a 60’s muscle car (yes properly powered they were muscle cars) and Suburban as big hauler. The 1954 Plymouth Belvedere Suburban was a hauler, but power house it wasn’t.
Plymouth Belvedere Suburban
So lets start with the engine. Weren’t a lot of choices in 1954 and the standard for working class cars was the Plymouth’s flat head six.It was an iron block with L-head valves. It had a bore and stroke of 3.25″ 4.64″ and a compression ratio of 7.1:1 and displaced 217.8 cubic inches. Topped with the a single carb barrel downdraft (normally a Carter Type BB model D5h2) help produce 100 hp.
Flat Head Six
All that power was transferred to the wheels was a 3 speed synchromesh on column and a Hypoid 3.73:1. Once underway stopped by 4-wheel hydraulic drum with double front cylinders. And those will be need to get this 3,000 plus pound, 189 inches (nearly 16 feet).
Supporting all this mayhem was a double-channel box frame with side rails and 4 cross members and Briggs all-steel body. The suspension was independent in the front with coil springs and torsion sway bar with tapered leaf springs and 6.50 x 15″ tires and press steel safety rims.
You could buy his car with some added option like push-button radio, heater, two-tone paint, wire wheel covers, white side walls, bumpers guards, tissue dispenser, exhaust extension deflector locking gas cap, mirrors.
963 horsepower from a combined combustion/electric engine?!!! Yes!!
Farrari Combo Combustion-Electric
It has been long-awaited for the day we see the successor to the mighty Enzo supercar. After its debut this morning at the 2013 Geneva auto show, the automotive world is in uproar over the new Ferrari icon, LaFerrari. Producing a combined 963 horsepower through a 800 horsepower combustion engine and a 163 horsepower electric motor, the new LaFerrari is the most powerful and efficient Ferrari built to-date. 0-62 in under 3 seconds and achieving 205 mph top speed. Body & chassis structure is similar to the multi-material used to in the Scuderia F1 racecar. Like its predecessors, LaFerrari will be a limited production vehicle. Though just 499 copies will be made, that’s much more than the Enzo 24 copies. Price has yet to be announced, but expect it to be north of the $1 million dollar mark.
A really light week this week. It includes a government bailout, corporate take over, iconic debut, a tragedy and record falls. Yeah…not much going on!!!
Lets start with the government bailout it was 1971, but it wasn’t a US auto company but Rolls-Royce got a $144 million loan from the British government March 5th 1971.
1971 Rolls Royce
On the same day in 1952 Willys rolled out its Aero-Ace.
Willys Aero Ace
In 1929 on March 7th General Motors buys Opel. I was not aware that this occurred that early.
The iconic car released by Pontiac on March 8, 1969 was a variation of the Firebird – the Trans Am – amazing car.
1969 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am
Did you know there is a company that is making the a Trans Am out of the new 2012 Camaro? More coming on that!!!
Automotive tragedy occurred in Detroit in 1901. The Oldsmobile plant burned down.
A few days later (plus) twenty-seven years Sir Henry Seagrave broke the 200 mph land speed barrier. Here is his beast.
This is my latest segment. It will be a frequent blathering of car stuff – current and maybe some old stuff. I hope you enjoy it.
Bench seats started as the first front seats, clearly a hold over from the old ‘buck-wagon’. Over the years the bench was a stable, but has somewhat faded Well for American cars it comes to an end the last 2013 Impala, which is the last U.S. car and the 2014 Impala will have bucket seats.
’61 Chevy bench seat.
2012 Impala w/bbench seet and 2014 without
I was really excited to see C-X75 Super Car for Jaguar back in 2010 at the Paris Car show. The car was to sticker at about 1.1 million dollars. However, it has been killed after just 3 prototyped.
This round of “They Made How Many” we get some numbers for 1916.
Not very exciting? Oh I disagree. The 1916 Buicks had great lines. Very rounded from the hood to the cowl.
Here is the Buick D-6-44…the lines just flow:
Buick’s D-6-44 From www.americanauto.com
The told out put for all of the U.S. auto industry for 1916 was 1,525,578 cars and 92,130 trucks. Some of those were powered by a V12 (Packard, Enger, Haynes, National and Pathfinder and some were powered by a V8 (Abbott, Apperson, Brisco, Cadillac, Cole, Daniels, Holliers, Jackson, King, Monarch, Oakland, Oldsmobile, Peerless, Pilot, Ross, Scripts-Booth, Standard and Stearns-Knight )
I have to share one more car of 1916 that I thought had great lines. That was the Jefferys Special Touring model. The long hood and slightly raised rear really begs to have headers sticking out of the hood!!!!
1916 Jefferys Special Touring
So here are the numbers:
Top of the heap was Ford with 734,811 cars; 2nd was Willys-Overland with 140,111; 3rd was Buick with 124,834
