Jim’s Blog

Most of the fun of owning classic cars comes from getting out and driving them. But hitting the road in an old machine that isn’t used daily can be a gamble. Will it really get you to where you’re going without an issue? If something happens out on the road, will you be ready to…

My ’72 Chevy truck resto is now pretty much complete, just in time for Portland’s summer weather to turn rainy and nasty. For me, this truck project was mostly about building something usable for year-round hauling. So with that in mind, it needed to be a no-nonsense rig: no overheating problems, good brakes, new tires,…

It’s been a car-filled few weeks for the ACC crew. First, we took a new Jeep to Reno, and then we drove to Monterey for the annual Monterey car auctions, the Pebble Beach Concours, and this year’s vintage races. ACC Associate Editor Chad Tyson and I were on the road a total of 12 days,…

There are all sorts of things for car people to do in Reno during Hot August Nights. But for buyers and sellers, there was one place not to miss: Barrett-Jackson at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center. Thursday and Friday saw car sales roll past $5.6m for 209 lots, and a lot of the heavier stuff –…

Yesterday morning’s car show outside our hotel caught us by surprise. Today, we were ready for it. We walked about a mile up the Reno strip this morning, which was lined with cars on both sides. Again, everything from vintage hot rods to restored American muscle was well-represented, as well as some oddball entries, like…

Get a big enough group of car guys together and eventually some of them are going to want to race. It’s just in our DNA. The people who put on Hot August Nights know this, and they feed that need for speed at the Nugget’s west parking lot in Sparks. There, a sixteenth of a…

After a good night’s sleep, this morning’s plan was set: Grab something to eat and head up to B&T Specialty’s Reno auction, which is not a Hot August Nights event, but is taking place just a few miles from the heart of the city. Chad and I had an assignment to cover cars for ACC,…

Car season is now in full swing, and when ACC’s staff has had time away from working on the magazine, we’ve been hard at work buttoning up a few items with our own cars to get ready for the next few months of car shows, cruise ins, and road trips. Here’s what we’ve been up to: ACC’s…

Summer sets the stage for some of the biggest collector car auctions of the year, and those auctions tend to bring some really high-end cars to market. And when those cars sell, they tend to bring big dollars as well. Here’s a list of the top five American cars ever sold at auction, sourced from…

We’re deep in production of ACC #10 this week – it’s set to ship to the press in early June. One of this issue’s profiles is of a well-known star car from the silver screen. Which one is it? I’m not giving it away here – you’ll just have to wait to see.  Of course,…