How about the early 1953 Jaguar 120, ALL aluminum bodied cars? seems that there were some sheet aluminum metal cars in the US in the teens? The Prowler sold over 11,000 vehicles, not exactly coach-built! Compared to  many other low volume steel cars, it was pretty good. Not  mentioned was WHY the OEMs wanted to save weight. Cheapest way to higher mileage, to  meet the stupid US CAFE requirements. in the '20s-'30s the Miller-Offenhauser engines were all aluminum and often the race cars were bodied in it, too. Technology was well-known in aircraft, but deemed too expensive for anything else, besides race cars. BTW, Time Magazine isn't a particularly good reference for anything! I am still waiting for their  predicted "Coming Next Ice Age" from back in 1976! Never mind the 2016 election  predictions... Apparently, Musk has no clue about repairing an entire die-cast car. Sub frames are one thing, sheet metal attached to die castings is quite another. If and when AV (autonomous) cars ever arrive, that would preclude operator error accidents and mitigate massive insurance repair claims. Good luck with THAT. And he is NO Henry Ford, sorry! ... View more

IF you are not wealthy (as opposed to well-off), start slow. Do not discount club events and autocrossing- harder than it looks! If you don't have a garage, then you will need a place to store car and all the tools you will need to buy. $2000 or so is a good start. If you don't know how to fix, repair, modify a car, then you will need to learn as you go (not cheap), or hire it out ($100/hour or so). The path to becoming the best driver you can be, is knowing and understanding the mechanics of the car (Ref: Ford v. Ferrari). Follow the slow path to  instruction, as maturity processes it all. Unfortunately, you started way too late in life to ever go pro. Not impossible, but highly unlikely. So exactly what are your short term and long term goals? Start there and follow the paths here. BTW, karting has all levels of performance and skill. The younger guys will eat your lunch to start... But that can be a good incentive! ... View more

I don't know what '80s anything ever looked like this. It is a used black/black Gremlin that has a tired interior and the wrong engine, sits too high and is just a starter project to redo the entire car. Not impressed at all... ... View more

Yeah, too bad the re-seller didn't opt for the upscale package with an actual paint color and a few chrome accents. All black is as boring and uncreative as one can get! It is also an insult to all of the designers that worked hard to make the surfaces, the details, and a pleasing appropriate wheel design, to just disappear because some 15 year old thinks it looks cool on a video game. I for one would rather have a'63 or a '57. We never see Ferraris around here anyways and if we did, so what? ... View more

This IS the problem with nanny-state, "Big" government. Give bureaucrats and we the "We know best." crowd an inch and they will bury you. Keep voting for those that want to control you until you have no control at all! The best answer is only drive and buy pre-1996 (OBD-II) vehicles or better yet, only pre-OBD-II ones.  I don't know why the term VM is being used, since OEM describing Original Equipment Manufacturers, has been the norm forever. It is a sad commentary on the mentality that thinks we must eliminate the needs of the many for the desires of the few! ... View more

Love all of the illustrations! Cutaways are notoriously a pain to do,  but were handled very well, too. The artistry made the article so much more interesting. ... View more

The Monkee Mobile was designed by now retired Ford designer Howard "Buck" Mook. He is still very active in the art world with his paintings and numerous collector cars. I worked at Fundimensions (MPC-Lionel-Craftmaster) 1975-77. Most fun job ever, but the pay was abysmally low. Toteff had totally control over marketing, box art, and product  decisions. Never saw him much in the design department, but GM got the 20th Century license for Battle Star Galactica and Star Wars which provided a nice ongoing forever kit products. Couldn't do a "toy", as that was all Kenner Toys products. We also did Lionel Power Passers HO scale slot cars, which was a good idea, that came out a year too soon. Sold several hundred thousand for a couple of years... ... View more

Why wouldn't thy do the run at Bonneville; a very flat, straight run of miles? FIA gets that and so do all of the world record LSR people.. As far as "production" goes, how many have they made to qualify as production? ... View more

The Modulo is the only real concept in this group. It still looks more advanced than any concept vehicle done in the last 25 years! ... View more

Adding CO2 is nothing more than a bureaucrat lifetime, job insurance, mandate! It is incredible hubris to think that mankind is changing the weather, unless adding 5 billion more souls to the planet, could make a real difference. The amount of resources in time, people, and money for 1% reduction is NOT helping the world or the economy. Maybe LA should have limited the amount of people, businesses, and infrastructure so they didn't get so congested. When the car exhaust is cleaner than the air used to run it, just maybe the eco-nazis have gone far enough in LA, or Gary IN. ... View more

The motor was the easy part. Where do you put enough batteries to get adequate range? ... View more

Nicely done article, but needed more actual nostalgia cars, not vans and Pintos... ... View more

What is with the ridiculous giant black frit around the rear quarter glass? If you do such a bad job of design and build, maybe you need to hire some new people or just copy the competition! You see it everywhere, and there is NO excuse for it! ... View more

I look at the concept car and I see the '67 Chevelle in side highlights and in the 3/4 rear view with the flying buttress roof. When a company gets too large, with too many managers and execs vying for position and power, you get GM shooting itself in the foot, the leg, or the groin. Sad that there aren't more enthusiast visionary leaders. The bean counters just need to give theri numbers and skulk away.:-) ... View more

This was definitely NOT a convertible. The black top is crushed and pushed forward. The structure for the package tray is quite visible. I will try to post an enlarged and much brighter last picture that clearly shows this. I was never great at chemistry, but I think gypsum is not unlike lime, which is very reactive. Add in ground moisture and humidity  and it is formula for bubbling the paint right off. The prior photo shows the right door either open or popped open by the crushing. even if there wasn't a giant boulder on top of it, i suspect it was badly corroded and not salvageable. (Never heard of goodly corroded!) I posit that maybe it was stolen and stashed there to bury, or hide it... Can't post the pic, dammit! ... View more

This demonstrates the custom of breaking records and not destroying them, so you can come back again and break another! Keeps life interesting!! ... View more

For the age and history challenged, the Chrysler 300s, starting in 1955 defined luxury performance. The Squarebirds with their 430 ci engines were never close in performance. For that matter, Chryslers and Dodges up to '83, had models that would certainly qualify for luxury and performance. For the rock thrower trolls, styling reflects the times. Unless YOU actually have designed anything automotive produced in the thousands, you might want to temper your insults with an actual critique! ... View more

A chevy is never superior... 🙂 ... View more

Can you think of ANY other OEM company that had the balls to build a modern, production, fender-less rod? There a was a lot of effort put into this. 20-20 hindsight 20 years later, adds nothing here. ... View more

Yeah, they only sold 11,000 when it was going to be limited to 5,000! ... View more

A Chevy in a Plymouth? I think not! A few Mopar V8s have been built, but at the time, it wasn't packaged for a V8. The V6 and associated stuff maxed out available space. A modern Hellcat Hemi would have made far more sense and cost less, too.  ... View more

I have a great book on the history of Can Am by George Levy, with Peter Biro photography, many unpublished, which really covers the story of how it happened and what happened. I was too busy to follow it at the time, although I had an idea of how neat they were. It wasn't until seeing them at retro events that I started to realize what I missed. This book brings some of it back! ... View more

There were no auto race track in that era. They were all clay horse tracks. The photo of a RF 999 was at the Detroit Driving Club at Algonquin and Jefferson, a 1 mile banked clay track that was a premier horse track from 1894 - 1915. At that time, the DDC was one of 7 horse tracks in Detroit and horse racing was THE mass entertainment sport of the day. It was by 1908, also the first auto test track, where Chalmers cars were tested, as the factory was only 4 blocks away. This was the track where Henry Ford started to change the world, by winning a 10 mile race against Alexander Winton on Oct 10, 1901 which jump started the final Ford Automobile company within 2 years. There were 8,000 people on hand, including most of the nascent auto industry people and money men to see this technology demonstration. Ford drove the 1902 999, on a frozen lake St Clair, but not on a track, unless it was at one of the Windsor Ontario horse tracks, owned by George Hendrie, the owner of the Detroit United Railway street car system. Board tracks really didn't start to happen until the late teens, evolving from the bicycle velodrome tracks. Detroit only ever had 1 board track, the Detroit Motordrome, at Navajoe and Jefferson, adjacent to the Detroit Driving Club. It started out as a 1/6 mile bicycle track and found success racing early motorcycles. All of this is well documented in the 2012 book, Horsepower, Men, and Machines by Nicholas Sinacori. I think it is still available on Amazon. ... View more

Has anyone ever contacted the GM Heritage Center to see if they are even interested in it? Saw it at St Johns on the stage, before the auction. It does belong in a museum somewhere. nice to know where it is. Should be hanging out with the stainless steel Fords! BTW, concept cars are more like $1M+, not $460k... ... View more

So who added the Shaker hood and when? That wasn't original, so.... ... View more

A nice tribute to her dedication and balls. Not to the engineering of the vehicle. I hope she was at least wearing a firesuit, unlike the photo of her in the cockpit in sleeveless top... ... View more

BRAVO!!! ... View more

The 2 prior commentators, must have missed the comment by Virgil Exner Jr. that said he felt it DID the Imperial and his father's legacy very well!I think he should have a much better handle on the success of the design than these 2! This car will be remembered as an iconic custom, long after their cars are rust piles. ... View more

The writer apparently never looked at any Chrysler history to see how many 2 seat concept cars they built, most with Ghia. Understanding that it took Exner 8 or 9 years to get a VP designation, explains why the engineering controlled organization never did a production 2 seat car. The 1955 Chrysler Falcon was the most likely candidate, but never made it. The 1957-58 Chrysler Ghia Dart-Diablo, were wonderful 4 pass convertibles that saw very limited production, along with the Dual-Ghia convertibles used by so many celebrities. I wish this imperial that was a tour-de-force of sectioning, had a few more inches of wheelbase and wasn't green. The tan version was a more palatable color, but the wire wheels or the mags do not speak to the mission statement as much as they could. This car by far, is still the most outrageous and well-done custom, since the '60s! ... View more

Nice little article about Hemi Mopars. So where's the Hemis? All this talk and NO pix. Not good guys... ... View more