My ’66 Caprice is ready to go whenever I want to use it. Trouble is, the realities of everyday life with a small kid, a job on the other side of town, and the finicky nature of a snarling carbureted big block limit how much I can use the car. So it sits in my garage, waiting for me to find time to spend on it.
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Old American cars are hard to kill. Park your Chevrolet or Ford for a year or so and you’ll see what I mean. Other than a dead battery, I’m willing to bet nothing bad will have happened, save for maybe some stale fuel. Charge it up, clean out the tank, and you’ll be on the road again.
But even Read More
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 one of several annual market Read More
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 offered, but instead how much money, in total, those cars will bring — last year saw 822 cars sell for $464m, with an average sales Read More
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 in April, and spent a week of evenings in May restoring those caps Read More
I don’t remember a whole lot of strict rules growing up, save for one: the rule of GM. The Pickering household bled Chevrolet Orange.
Sure, there were other rules that we had when I was a teenager — but they were more like guidelines. Stuff like no burnouts in the driveway, decreed by Read More
My wife can always tell when I’ve been out driving my ’66 Caprice. Unburnt hydrocarbons waft around that thing and stick to my clothes like high-performance perfume, thanks to a high-lift long-duration cam and big carburetor. I kind of like it, but I’m sure the people sitting behind me at traffic lights don’t.
Want to give the father in your life a Father’s Day he won’t forget? Then you need to give him what he really wants. Not sure what that is? Well, if he’s anything like me, the answer is always horsepower. With that in mind, here are a few gifts he’s sure to love:
A Charger Read More
Old cars offer an un-ending supply of small problems to solve. Figuring out creative solutions — especially for the serious head-scratchers — is one of my favorite things about classic car ownership. Here’s a project I’m working on right now.
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If you drive an old car on a regular basis, you’ve likely had to come to terms with the fact that it’s just harder to use than a modern car. Brakes, lights, wipers, and suspension systems just weren’t as good 40 years ago, right? Right. But that’s not the whole story. The age of the parts — and how much they’ve worn — is a big factor in how your car drives.
Full frame-off restored cars tend to have all-new Read More