Blogs
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Horses and Horsepower — the 2nd Annual Chantilly Concours
Jousting. That was a first for me. I’ve seen many things at car events, but never armed knights charging toward one another horseback. Losing a joust might entail being dumped from your horse, summersaulting mid-air and landing hard on the ground. It made me appreciate the skill and training that come from spending time at…
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Just the Amazon and Me
Last Saturday I did something I haven’t done in quite a while — I took a little road trip by myself. It’s been a typically hectic few months. I’ve attended car events in Italy, Colorado, California, Oregon and Washington, but I haven’t had any “alone time” with my cars. The 1967 Volvo 122S “Amazon” continues…
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Jim’s Blog: The Next Big Thing?
The Monterey auctions are done, with $395m in total sales this year. And out of all of the high-end events and multi-million dollar cars that sold, one of the trends I noticed was increased interest in later-model supercars, such as the Ferrari Testarossa, Lamborghini Countach and Porsche 930. I’ve always looked at Monterey as…
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A Weekend With The Gunnison Car Club
Once a year The Gunnison Car Club, under the able direction of Mike Callihan, takes over downtown Gunnison, Colorado, filling the streets with street rods, muscle cars, sports cars and pickups. This year the club selected me to receive The Lee Iacocca Award. Gunnison is 224 miles from the Denver International Airport — and 1,138 miles from…
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Quick Takes from the Monterey Week
Driving up Highway 101 from Monterey to the San Francisco airport, it was clear that the ball was over. Instead of Monterey Car Week’s sea of candy-colored Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Porsches, a swarm of Kias, Toyotas and Chevrolets peppered the landscape. An occasional modern Fiat 500 served as the token exotic. This was my 28th…
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Concours at St. John’s Continues to Impress
Last year, I made my first visit to the Concours d’Elegance of America at St. John’s and was surprised and delighted. Formerly known as the Meadow Brook Concours d’Elegance and held at Meadow Brook Hall in Rochester, Michigan, the concours moved to its new location — the Inn at St. John’s in Plymouth, Michigan — in…
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Jim’s Blog: On to California!
Monterey Car Week is here — one of the biggest events on the American auction calendar. Today through Sunday night, over 1,200 high-end classic cars will cross the auction blocks of seven different auction houses, all set up in different spots on the Monterey peninsula. But the big news isn’t how many cars will be…
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BMW i8: The Shape of Things to Come
I’ve just spent a weekend with BMW’s current vision of the future. There are some rough edges to smooth out, but the hybrid i8 represents the most important effort by a major car company to define what the performance car of the future can be. Recently I drove a McLaren 650S Spider for a week…
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Jim’s Blog: What’s the Best Part of a Car Project?
A few months back, I found a set of original steel wheels for my 1972 Chevrolet K10 pickup. In the time since, I had them soda blasted, welded up scar on one of them, and had them primed and painted white. Then I hunted a set of proper hubcaps for them at the Portland Swapmeet…
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In the Montana Dirt in a 1927 Vauxhall
“Vauxhalls were built for the wealthy to take them grouse-hunting in Scotland. So these dirt roads are what it was built for.” That was Peter Stevens’ first comment as four of piled into Miles Collier’s 1927 Vauxhall Type OE 30/98 Velox. Peter knows a thing or two about cars; his portfolio as a designer includes…