American

Finding a Hemi Challenger convertible today is no ordinary thing, especially when one considers that Dodge produced only nine such cars in 1970. Our subject car, the second one produced, and the first to hit the street, did so under unusual circumstances: it was sold by the dealer principle at cost to a friend while…

In April 1963, Shelby prepared two cars for Le Mans that summer. Features included Dunlop magnesium wheels with larger fender flares, FIA hood scoops and a 37-gallon fuel tank. The engines, stated to be “moderate tune,” had four Weber downdraught carburetors. One team car entered by AC Cars, managed by Stirling Moss and driven by…

The Shelby Series 1 was a high-performance roadster manufactured by Shelby American from 1996 to 2002. Only 249 Shelby Series 1s were built, and this was the first running car, as well as the “pre-production” #1 Series 1, which was featured on the cover of Motor Trend. With a carbon fiber body, sophisticated chassis, and…

More than half of all the Model Js produced were closed and were generally more expensive and popular than the sporty, open cars. Styling was mostly both very conservative and conventional. However, Murphy of Pasadena, California, was an exception among Duesenberg coachbuilders, for their unique sedans were sporting. George Whittell Jr. bought more new Duesenbergs…

In the 1950s, concept cars-often referred to as Dream Machines-were built to test new ideas. For 1954, Ford Motor Company fielded two new entries in the show circuit: a sporty little two-seater called the Thunderbird and a full-size two-door hard top produced under the Mercury banner and called the XM-800. Ford’s head of design, George…

In 1962, Henry Ford II, keen to add some racing luster to his company, started negotiations to buy Ferrari. The deal never happened, so Ford decided to build his own race-bred car. That car was the incomparable icon GT40, created in England in 1964 and capable of over 200 mph. Victory followed four times in…

Pontiac’s 1970 Ram Air IV GTO Judge convertibles are so rare that, for any genuine Pontiac enthusiast, seeing one today is an event in itself. Only 17 were built, twelve are known to exist today, and only six were optioned with a 400 Turbo Hydra-Matic transmission. The L76 Ram Air IV engine, which became available…

Big changes at GM for 1970 included the end of the corporate edict forbidding engines larger than 400 cubic inches in its intermediate models. Chevrolet’s “big-block” V8 was enlarged to 454 ci and formed the basis of the LS6 option, intended to help Chevrolet wrest control of Super Stock drag racing from Chrysler. The redesigned…

Ford’s classic 1932 roadster, better known as “the Deuce,” is the quintessential hot rod. Great-looking, with timeless lines, light weight, especially when shorn of its fenders, equipped with a souped-up Ford flathead developing three to four times its original output, and transmitting that power through a 3-speed top-loader with a Lincoln-Zephyr close-ratio cluster, this historic…