Excerpts taken from world famous ‘Hemmings Auto Blog’
Almost 35 years is a long time for a car to remain in original condition. It’s about doubly as long for a car that didn’t get much respect from car collectors until recent years, but this 1979 AMC Pacer D/L appears to be as original as they come, with just Read more
Photos courtesy Bob Auxier, except where noted. Bill Thomas’s Cheetah may very well have become a legend on par with Carroll Shelby’s Cobra if it hadn’t been for a number of factors, a shop fire and a sudden withdrawal of funding from Chevrolet among them. However, Thomas had even larger Read more
Photo by Ken Dwinell, courtesy Portland Historics. If you followed American racing in the 1980s and 1990s, you know that Al Unser Jr. was one of its brightest lights. He was cherubic looking when he arced up out of Sprint cars and road racing to scintillate the world of Indy Read more
Mazda Cosmo Coupe. Photo courtesy Mazda. At the dawn of the 1960s, Mazda was a little-known Japanese manufacturer of light-duty trucks, with a single urban commuter car (the R-360) to its credit. Like other Japanese automakers of the day, Mazda had great ambitions for its future, and it saw the Read more
Slated to be incinerated, one of the two or three fiberglass-bodied prototypes for AMC’s AMX narrowly avoided that fate when a line worker in AMC’s Kenosha assembly plant spoke up and bought it for $50. More than 40 years later, the 343-powered car remains in that worker’s family and our Read more
There’s dozens of different ways to identify a car, from overall dimensions to headlamp and taillamp configurations to sheetmetal topography. In our carspotting series, we’ve even used license plates to pinpoint the time and place. For today’s carspotting photo, we’ll get rid of the cars altogether and focus on the Read more
There’s something undeniably appealing about purchasing an ex-highway patrol car. Perhaps it’s their heavy-duty suspension or high-performance V-8, or perhaps it’s just the fact that these cars have seen some serious usage over their less-than-pampered lives. The fact that clones abound should be proof positive of the demand for authentic Read more
Harley Earl poses with the Firebird II concept. Photo courtesy General Motors. For those in the automotive industry, induction into the Automotive Hall of Fame (AHOF) is perhaps one of the greatest honors to be bestowed upon an individual. Achieving this recognition requires the inductee to be retired from the Read more
Photos courtesy Coys. While many associate custom cars with 1950s California-based customizers like George and Sam Barris, Bill Hines and Gene Winfield, they really followed in the footsteps of an earlier generation of customizers who operated in the pre-war years without much fanfare or national recognition. Many of those cars Read more
1938 Volkswagen Beetle prototype. All images courtesy Volkswagen AG, unless otherwise noted. For countless drivers who came of age between the late 1950s and the late 1980s, the iconic Volkswagen Type 1 “Beetle,” which marks its 75th birthday this May, served as a reliable and economical means of all-weather transportation. Read more