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1978 Corvette Pace Car Replica
In the mid-’70s, emissions regulations caused engineers at General Motors and elsewhere to spin their wheels (without horsepower) trying to make old-technology engines burn clean. They did it by robbing vast amounts of performance. To keep selling cars, they had to offer something new to the public. It wasn’t ponies, it was styling.1978 was the…
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1952 Porsche Type 540 America Roadster
This is an unusual example of a significant, yet somewhat mysterious early Porsche model, the enigmatic Type 540. It has taken decades for marque experts to unravel the numerous questions of the America Roadster, even including such basics as how it came about, who thought of it, and why its production was so brief. Suffice…
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1939 Lincoln Zephyr Custom – “Scrape”
“Scrape” began in January of 1993 when Terry Cook found a nearly complete 1939 Zephyr coupe in a barn in Farmington, Maine. It had been there for twenty-two years and was covered with pigeon droppings. Cook bought the car and delivered it to Rams Rod Shop where it spent 4½ years and 4,500 hours, cloaked…
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1959 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint Zagato
The Giulietta Sprint Zagato echoes the severe tumblehome roofline of the fabulous Bertone BATs and the slanted tail of the same bodybuilder’s Sprint Speciale. The BATs, however, were strictly styling exercises and the Sprint Speciales were too heavy to be race cars. It was Zagato that finally filled Alfa’s need for an aerodynamic Giulietta coupe…
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1966 Ferrari 330 P3
The P3 was a logical and comprehensive evolution of the 1965 model P2, still a tubular frame but now, in P3 form, riveted-on alloy panels and the fiberglass undertray were both bonded to the chassis to increase torsional rigidity. An all-new, four-cam V-12 engine was developed for the P3, now fitted with Lucas mechanical fuel…
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1960 Austin-Healey 3000 2+2
The Austin-Healey sports car range is synonymous with a particular era of British sports car production, and is similar to Jaguar in many ways. Both companies built strong, reliable and affordable cars for the North American market, their strongest and safest market, and the cars evolved model by model over the years. The 100 series…
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1971 OTAS Grand Prix
Abarth and Company, a name that was to become synonymous with highly tuned specialist cars based on Fiat mechanical components, opened for business in 1949, manufacturing high-performance mufflers. A year later, Carlo Abarth’s genius for obtaining amazing horsepower from tiny engines became evident with his modifications on the then-new Fiat 600. Abarths earned class victories…
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Legends in Kentucky
Watching Formula One Champion Phil Hill tinker with the handbrake assembly on a 1929 Bentley three-liter open tourer was like being at a rehearsal in Manhattan while modern dance choreographer Martha Graham fine-tuned her ballets. Graham had an instinctive understanding of how to put a dance together for maximum artistic and intellectual effect. Hill, after…
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Alfa Romeo GTV-6
The Alfa Romeo GTV-6 was produced at a time when Alfa Romeo was hemorrhaging money. Yet, the engineers at Alfa managed to create one of the most sophisticated sports cars of its era. An all-alloy SOHC V6 engine driving a rear five-speed transaxle with deDion suspension is world-class engineering. This was also the last two-door…
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1967 Porsche 911S SWB 2.0L Coupe
It was evident to Porsche management in the late ’50s that the 356 series was rapidly becoming dated and reaching the end of its development potential, so in 1959 Ferdinand Porsche began designing a new car. A number of criteria were laid down: the car would have no more than a 2,200-mm wheelbase and would…