Apologies to Geoff Hacker for cribbing the title of the post from his email to me, but how can you not want to say wedgie? Wedgie wedgie wedgie wedgie. There, I got it out of my system. Actually, Wedgie’s actually a circa 1975 Urbacar, and Geoff’s proudly showing off the new wheels and tires for it, which Geoff said measure 145 R10 68T.
If the Urbacar looks slightly like those build-it-yourself kits you’d see advertised in the back of magazines in the 1970s, that’s...
Aah yes, the photography season is winding down. I can tell that because I couldn’t feel my fingers about half-way through yesterday’s shoot of Meriden, Connecticut, resident Rick Reale’s incredibly preserved 60,235-mile 1941 Packard Clipper sedan, a Driveable Dream car that he has owned for more than 40 years, having purchased it from the original owner when he was 23. I’m looking forward to sharing Rick’s stories of his time with the Clipper; as a taste of how...
It’s been a long time coming, but the Rover finally has its powertrain back. Once the new rear main seal was installed, it was a simple matter to bolt up the pressure plate and slide the gearbox back into position. The splines on my Volvo clutch alignment tool fit the Rover’s clutch disc perfectly.
I’m into uncharted territory here, because now I’m assembling stuff that I didn’t take apart. (The car came with the gearbox in the trunk, remember.) But so far, all...
When Lee Iacocca, helming Chrysler, bought AMC in 1987, he not only dismantled the country’s last major independent car manufacturer, he shredded every AMC fan’s hope that the brand would someday be revived. Sure, somebody raises a faint hope here and there, mostly based on trademark renewals (or lack thereof) as evidence, but most speculation about a return of AMC now rests on the sketchpads and in the Photoshop wizardry of dedicated AMC fans.
But the sketches and renderings...
Made some time the other day to start yanking the old, faded, ripped, stained and generally abused diaper-brown carpet from the AMX. Yes, it was that crummy, but I wanted to wait until after I was sure it ran and drove well and it was in the garage for the winter before I started to tear into it. Ideally, I’d have liked to paint the whole car first, but this has never been an “ideally” project to begin with, right?
Made some decent progress on the back half. You Southwest...
Last week, our Editorial inbox contained an e-mail from Georgia resident Josh Thornton, who presented us with something of a Holmesian mystery that we’re inviting you to help resolve. Josh is seeking historical information on the Ford F-100 pickup depicted here, which he describes as a 1965 model, or ideally, somebody interested in restoring it. As he tells the tale, the F-100 was originally built by Ford, with a four-door cab, for his great-grandfather, who then owned the local Ford...
I didn’t take any pics because I was hanging on for dear life, but I rode one of these the other day:
Two hundred and fifty ccs of two-stroke power. Sure, it’s only 18hp, but snap that throttle wide open and the front wheel comes up in an instant.
I’ve got a real thing for vintage trials bikes. They’re light (comparatively - it’s still 200 pounds) and agile and you can have a blast with them riding up and down picnic tables and junk cars in your yard. Put one in...
Spotted on the MustangWorks.com forum:
Red, thou art my companion. Hasten now your quickened metamorphosis to Green that I may conquer all who dare abide there beside me. May they be left thither behind burnt black.
Of all the questions I’m asked by car owners and readers alike, there is one that I cannot quickly answer: “What’s the toughest shoot you’ve ever been on?” I think back on rain delays, traffic tickets I’ve had to pay for (from a park ranger, no less!), leaning out of moving vehicles, the time my feature car owner T-boned someone during an action shot, and the time I stood on the seat of a new Corvette convertible, facing backwards, sitting atop the windshield as a driver...
1953 AEC Matador
You thought I meant AMC? Not even close. Cheffins Cambridge Vintage Sale last month was mostly farm implements and tractors, but about 40 pages into the 1,200-item catalog (ah, the glamorous life of an autowriter), two Matadors appeared.
The first of the Cheffins Matadors, the ‘53 above, looks like a civilian production model, but it’s hard to imagine what you’d do with that big steel box. Then, we’re used to the thought of something like that turning...
Actually, based on the grille, that appears to be a LeMans-amino. In the comments to the post about the Grand Am-amino that I spotted in the GM Heritage Center, Louis pointed us to some photos that his buddy, Dave Simmons, took of a Pontiac-nosed ElCo sitting forlorn in the Orlando U-Pull & Pay junkyard.
All the sheetmetal appears the same shade of the same color, though none of the photos show the fine detail behind the sheetmetal that would likely not have been painted had somebody just...
Apologies to Geoff Hacker for cribbing the title of the post from his email to me, but how can you not want to say wedgie? Wedgie wedgie wedgie wedgie. There, I got it out of my system. Actually, Wedgie’s actually a circa 1975 Urbacar, and Geoff’s proudly showing off the new wheels and tires for it, which Geoff said measure 145 R10 68T.
If the Urbacar looks slightly like those build-it-yourself kits you’d see advertised in the back of magazines in the 1970s, that’s...
Aah yes, the photography season is winding down. I can tell that because I couldn’t feel my fingers about half-way through yesterday’s shoot of Meriden, Connecticut, resident Rick Reale’s incredibly preserved 60,235-mile 1941 Packard Clipper sedan, a Driveable Dream car that he has owned for more than 40 years, having purchased it from the original owner when he was 23. I’m looking forward to sharing Rick’s stories of his time with the Clipper; as a taste of how...
It’s been a long time coming, but the Rover finally has its powertrain back. Once the new rear main seal was installed, it was a simple matter to bolt up the pressure plate and slide the gearbox back into position. The splines on my Volvo clutch alignment tool fit the Rover’s clutch disc perfectly.
I’m into uncharted territory here, because now I’m assembling stuff that I didn’t take apart. (The car came with the gearbox in the trunk, remember.) But so far, all...
When Lee Iacocca, helming 
Chrysler
Made some time the other day to start yanking the old, faded, ripped, stained and generally abused diaper-brown carpet from the AMX. Yes, it was that crummy, but I wanted to wait until after I was sure it ran and drove well and it was in the garage for the winter before I started to tear into it. Ideally, I’d have liked to paint the whole car first, but this has never been an “ideally” project to begin with, right?
Made some decent progress on the back half. You Southwest...
Last week, our Editorial inbox contained an e-mail from Georgia resident Josh Thornton, who presented us with something of a Holmesian mystery that we’re inviting you to help resolve. Josh is seeking historical information on the 
I didn’t take any pics because I was hanging on for dear life, but I rode one of these the other day:
Two hundred and fifty ccs of two-stroke power. Sure, it’s only 18hp, but snap that throttle wide open and the front wheel comes up in an instant.
I’ve got a real thing for vintage trials bikes. They’re light (comparatively - it’s still 200 pounds) and agile and you can have a blast with them riding up and down picnic tables and junk cars in your yard. Put one in...
1953 AEC Matador
You thought I meant AMC? Not even close. Cheffins Cambridge Vintage Sale last month was mostly farm implements and tractors, but about 40 pages into the 1,200-item catalog (ah, the glamorous life of an autowriter), two Matadors appeared.
The first of the Cheffins Matadors, the ‘53 above, looks like a civilian production model, but it’s hard to imagine what you’d do with that big steel box. Then, we’re used to the thought of something like that turning...
Actually, based on the grille, that appears to be a LeMans-amino. In the comments to the post about the Grand Am-amino that I spotted in the GM Heritage Center, Louis pointed us to some photos that his buddy, Dave Simmons, took of a