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Jan 11, 2025 | 
hemmings.com | Dave Wallace
Who knew that much-maligned station wagons would become not only acceptable, but highly desirable, in the 21st century? Certainly not the hardware seller who saw this intact ’57 Plymouth’s true value as inexpensive support for his movable sign alongside busy Highway 101 on California’s north coast. In that store owner’s defense, nearly nobody in the previous century expected long-roof Mopars to ever appreciate past scrap-metal rates.
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Dec 28, 2024 | 
hemmings.com | Dave Wallace
Chrysler’s first overhead-valve V8 was the gift to drag racing that keeps on giving in the 21st century. Based on the “double-rocker-shaft” V12 and V16 respectively developed by Chrysler for WWII tanks and fighter planes, the 331-cubic-inch FireDome debuted in 1951-model Chryslers and Imperials (pictured) as America’s most-powerful production engine, making 180 hp despite restrictive two-barrel carburetion and single exhaust.
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Nov 30, 2024 | 
hemmings.com | Dave Wallace
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Nov 23, 2024 | 
hemmings.com | Dave Wallace
Exhibition wheelstanding was a dangerous and competitive business in the mid-1960s. Side-by-side contests at 120-plus mph often ended badly for one or both exhibitionists. Arch-rivals Bill “Maverick” Golden and Chuck Poole totaled at least three trucks each (not counting lesser brushes with guardrails and other unseen objects below their floorboards). Poole was among the first to successfully copy the Little Red Wagon formula of a mid-mounted 426 Hemi pushing Dodge’s “cab-forward” A100.
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Nov 2, 2024 | 
hemmings.com | Dave Wallace
Originally patented in 1952 to control smokestack pollution, the catalytic converter came to cars in response to 1970’s federal Clean Air Act. Chrysler came onboard mid-cycle 1975, as did the ’76-model Aspen/Volaré replacement for aged Dodge and Plymouth compacts. This unidentified factory rep doesn’t look entirely sold on a super-heated device that went on to ignite countless roadside wildfires—each choking the air, ironically, with toxic pollutants—while attracting thieves.
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Oct 12, 2024 | 
hemmings.com | Dave Wallace
This driver and chassis builder is virtually forgotten within motorsports, yet the Steve Miller Band has made Allen Stephen “Lefty” Mudersbach more familiar worldwide than Garlits or Prudhomme or any drag racer before or since. Here, Lefty gets push-started in the gas-burning Herbert Cams Special, a dominant force during regional and national “nitro bans” of 1957-’63.
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Sep 21, 2024 | 
hemmings.com | Dave Wallace
The Ford Mustang‘s introduction might’ve stolen the spotlight at New York City’s 1964-65 auto-themed World’s Fair, but it was no re-bodied Falcon that inspired a 15-year-old Californian to grab his dad’s camera while Sr. Dave did bathroom business in General Motors’ Futurama pavilion. Design elements of this two-seat, smooth-sided “car of the future” would arrive sooner than later with GM’s 1968 A-bodies (Pontiacs, in particular).
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Sep 7, 2024 | 
hemmings.com | Dave Wallace
A large part of Top Fuel Eliminator’s early appeal was the diversity on display here. Long before national sanctioning bodies settled on “spec” dragsters differentiated by little more than disposable sponsor wraps, pioneer builders enjoyed virtually unlimited freedom (except regarding safety). Independent tracks typically imposed no restrictions whatsoever upon their headliner attractions’ weight, displacement, fuel mixture, number of engines, inches of wheelbase, or even number of wheels.
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Aug 28, 2024 | 
hemmings.com | Dave Wallace
Oversized, V-8-powered shopping carts are having a moment online. Whereas most are crude, homebuilt contraptions, Save Mart elevated the genre—literally—with a race-shop-quality cart standing 13 feet tall. Designed and built by BRE Rods & Classics (Salida, California), “Big Red” enjoys a favorable power-to-weight combination of 520 big-block-Chevy ponies pushing 3,000 pounds. Center of gravity is another story, but handling wasn’t a priority for straight-line, low-speed parade duty.
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Aug 25, 2024 | 
hemmings.com | Dave Wallace
Neighbors unaware of Bob Panella Sr.’s drag-racing fame know him as the friendly trucker treating their kids to rides in a miniature train steaming around his California yard. The tracks and tiny support vehicles used by Griffith Park employees were included in an all-or-nothing sale resulting from the L.A. park’s switch to electric tourist trains. Indiana-made 1939-52 Crosleys were common in Altered and Gas classes of the 1950s and early ’60s, before foreign bodies became universally accepted.
