GM and Detroit: Bail or let fail?

Scroll down through this blog and you’ll see the artifacts of dearly departed American automakers. In fact, sometimes it seems like all we write about around here are automakers that aren’t around anymore: Studebaker, Packard, Oldsmobile, Plymouth, Pierce Arrow, International-Harvester, AMC, etc. So when serious talk about a Detroit bailout began with the focus being on GM’s increasingly dire condition, I thought: This is a no brainer. Of course taxpayers will want to bailout GM. Who would want...

19/11/2008

GM of Canada shows some love for old Pontiacs

Despite GM’s problems, it seems they still have the time and effort to branch out into new concepts like social networking, as evidenced by their recent launch (well, GM of Canada’s recent launch) of PontiacPulse, a social network just for Pontiac owners and people who appreciate Tin Indians. Sure, there’s a lot of marketing of new Pontiacs involved. So why do we old car guys care? Because the folks behind PontiacPulse went and scanned more than 200 Pontiac brochures, for...

05/11/2008

Groupement de Gendarmerie: French cop supercars

Working on a story for this week’s email newsletter, I needed a generic illustration of a Gendarmerie Nationale, the police arm of the French defense forces. Found some at the Groupement de Gendarmerie of the Départementale de la Somme that made me think they may be having more fun they’re letting on. The ones they’re really proud of are their Alpine-Renaults. There’s an A110 in period photographs, and an A610 that it appears they still have. I’ve seen some...

15/10/2008

got my dad spotting jacked-up General Lees now

My dad has such impeccable taste. In a load of photos from a recent cruise-in down by them, he included this jacked-up General Lee. Which is a different vehicle altogether from the previous jacked-up General Lee we came across. Recall that Dad also sent along the pictures of the Rok Rodz Unimog. Go Dad!

29/09/2008

Guptill’s kicks off 2008 cruise-in season; yes, we did see small cars

Earlier this week, we all hurried out of the office to head over to Colonie, New York, for a summertime tradition - the Guptill’s cruise night. I hadn’t gone since 2004 or 2005, but not much has changed: It still draws large amounts of cars, upwards of 1,000, people still throng the lines for ice cream and they still have a cheesy Elvis impersonator “entertaining” the crowds. We saw plenty of old friends, but we also saw plenty of cars that have never made the trek to...

12/06/2008

gonna hit the lakes with my Porsche…

In the hot rod vernacular, going to the lakes usually means going to the dry lakebeds of the Southern California desert - El Mirage, Muroc, those sorts of places. Perhaps the long-lost owner thief driver of this Porsche 356 took the phrase literally and mistook Wisconsin for California (hey, it’s just as good a theory as any other). Whatever the reason for the Porsche’s submersion, we now have photographic evidence of what 38-plus years underwater will do to a Porsche 356. Compare...

16/05/2008

getting the most from your Briggs & Stratton

It’s funny to think that my push mower has more than double the horsepower of Shorty’s Briggs & Stratton 2hp-powered 1960 McDonough Buckboard, but really, how much horsepower do you need? Shorty posted some pics of his McDonough to the My Hemmings pages, but he also posted a few more pics of the restoration of the buckboard to his own website, where he noted that, even though his father gave it to him when he was 12, his father quickly stowed it in the rafters of the garage when...

23/04/2008

good aim and rhinoplasty!

“Couldn’t do that again if I tried” is the call of the lucky, the damned or the foolish, take your choice. In the case of the driver of this 1937 Hudson four-door sedan, we’ll choose lucky. Jim Plane of Boise, Idaho, sent in this photo that he found among his father’s papers. Jim’s father, an auto mechanic in Los Angeles from the 1930s through the mid-1950s, presumably took this photo for his records and hung on to it over the years for some unknown...

14/04/2008

Great Race 2008 postponed

Just received word that the 2008 edition of the Great Race - the one that promises to take entrants from New York to Paris, just like the inaugural 1908 Great Race - has been postponed indefinitely due to permitting difficulties in China. “It’s just for a short time, though,” officials said. Hemmings Motor News had planned to take our 1934 Dodge humpback panel truck on the first four days of the race, scheduled to begin May 30. The China leg wasn’t scheduled to begin...

10/04/2008

Gas Ronda Thunderbolt comes out to play

Besides his collection of Australian Fords and the Cougar Eliminator that he rescued from a field, Chris Flocken has a friend in Willie D. Smith of Milton, Florida. Willie, for those of you who don’t know Thunderbolts inside and out (that is, most of us), owns the Russ Davis Ford Thunderbolt, the car that Gas Ronda originally drove. Well, Chris convinced Willie to let him display the Thunderbolt at last weekend’s Mustang Club of America show in Pensacola, Florida, along side one of...

04/04/2008

Get on the bus

Last summer, we were patrolling the vendor tables at the AACA Regional on the SUNY campus in Binghamton, New York, when we came upon a guy selling a bunch of vintage tin toys. The eye was originally drawn to this “replica” of a Silver Eagle intercity bus as operated by Continental Trailways, made, natch, in [...]

27/03/2008

George Mattar has left the building

Geo soaking up the May sunshine at his brother Primo’s place Over the last four years, George Mattar has been nothing if not the most colorful character in the editorial offices at Hemmings Motor News. Friendly and engaging, he brought with him incredible enthusiasm and plenty of experiences with muscle cars, motorcycles and vintage snowmobiles when [...]

07/03/2008

Going twice?

With so sign of having the time to tackle them, and needing the space not only for the Speedster, but also a TR6 that’s waiting, the Bavarias are on the way out. I got a couple of nibbles, but if a buyer doesn’t come through soon they’re getting stripped and scrapped. Yep, it’s painful, so if [...]

11/12/2007

GTX wagoon - another break-battle brewing?

Check this out, I’m covering SEMA and I’m not even there. Hotchkis will have two Mopars at SEMA this year, a Mr. Norm’s SRT-10 Ram and “an extremely rare” (according to the press release) 1968 GTX wagon with a Six-Pack-equipped 440. “Hotchkis is using SEMA as a launching pad for its new line of Mopar [...]

29/10/2007

got a quarter mil? last General Lee for sale

While browsing the Hemmings online classified listings, came across what’s being described as the last General Lee (being sold, apparently, by ICA Auctions), with “all known original documents/copies” included in the sale price of $249,995. It also includes Catherine Bach’s signature, apparently on the trunklid: I find it interesting she signed it “For Everyone at Volo…” [...]

23/08/2007