Jim’s Blog

Jim’s Blog: What’s The Next Big Thing?

The auction world is starting to prepare for January’s Arizona events, with some companies already announcing certain special consignments to their auctions. That’s got me thinking: What’s going to be this year’s big new trend? Last year we saw hefty pricing for 5.0 Mustangs from the 1990s. The year before […]

Jim’s Blog: When it Rains it Pours

Now that I’ve completed the Holley Terminator Stealth fuel injection install on my car, the little issues I’ve been living with for years finally required solutions. After all, with the car now running better than ever, those small issues just needed to go away. Turn-key or bust, right? First up […]

Jim’s Blog: The Required Equipment

These days, I’m busy living the life of a new dad — up all night with a partying infant, running to doctor’s appointments, and spending more money than I expect at the baby store on a regular basis. From strollers to car seats, changing pads, diaper bags, bottles, pink room […]

Jim’s Blog: The Newest Model is Here

Like most of you, I’m a car addict. I spend most of my time thinking about cars, or working on cars, or thinking about working on cars. But not this week. My wife and I just welcomed a baby girl into our household — Emma Jane Pickering, born 9/2/17 — […]

Jim’s Blog: My Car Week

The Monterey auctions and events, otherwise known as “Car Week,” are a tradition for me — I’ve been going to these events for years, first for Sports Car Market, and since 2011, for American Car Collector as well. But this year was different. While the SCM and ACC team headed […]

Jim’s Blog: Help Us Pick the Next ACC Car

ACC’s Viper GTS ACR Coupe has been a great car — in the few years we’ve owned it, we’ve covered a bunch of miles in it with no trouble — all it’s needed other than oil changes and periodic cleaning was a set of tires. But we’ll be putting it […]

Jim’s Blog: Finding the Payoff

Last Friday, I took a day off work and spent it at my dad’s house, wrenching on his 1968 Camaro. The car is in the absolute final stages of reassembly after restoration, so we worked on things like adjusting the hood fit, wiring the dash gauges, installing the front bumper, […]

Jim’s Blog: When is it Time to Sell?

When it comes to classic cars, buying is the easy part — just lay down the cash and take home your new prize. Hopefully your significant other is on-board and you’ve got a place to keep the new car — but those are only details, right? We can work them […]

Jim’s Blog: Stock or Not?

When I was building my ’72 Chevy truck, I kept the engine and drivetrain as stock as possible, all the way down to the original rebuilt Q-jet carburetor. Why mess with something that worked? But there have been huge leaps in technology made in the decades since 1972, and it’s […]

Jim’s Blog: Movie Cars Matter

The 1980s brought us a lot of things, but for a certain generation of car people, the most important of those things was the VCR. When the VCR became commonplace in the American household, kids could all of a sudden watch movies or recorded TV over and over again — […]