John Mills’ extensive automotive artwork didn’t get the attention it deserved when he was alive. That all began to change this week when American Pickers visited his son David’s home in Sedona, Arizona.   Mike Wolfe, who co-stars with Frank Fritz on the acclaimed History Channel television series, was joined on the pick by his younger brother, Robbie, and both were astounded by the late Detroit artist’s paintings and drawings, some of which were used in automotive sales catalogs and advertising in the 1950s and ’60s.   Read the full article on Hagerty.com: https://www.hagerty.com/media/people/american-pickers-puts-unsung-artist-john-mills-amazing-automotive-work-into-the-spotlight/ ... View more

There are a number of tracks across the U.S. that feature a country-club type of format, where, in addition to the track, they boast amenities such as trackside condominiums, garages, restaurants, and more. There is Lime Rock in Connecticut; Palm Beach International Raceway in Florida; and M1 Concourse outside Detroit, Michigan, to name a few. The Circuit of the Northwest (CNW) is set to join the ranks sometime in early 2023. And for members of  Hagerty Drivers Club , there is a special discount on the initiation fee for the first 200 members.   Read the full news on Hagerty.com: https://www.hagerty.com/media/motorsports/circuit-of-the-northwest-country-club-race-track-set-to-open-in-2023/ ... View more

The mission to restore the Bonneville Salt Flats by dramatically increasing the salt pumped onto its surface over the next 10 years almost has a green light; there are just a few more legal hurdles, according to SEMA.   Read the full news on Hagerty.com: https://www.hagerty.com/media/news/restore-bonneville-program-could-be-fully-funded-by-this-september/ ... View more

Every morning, setting off from a village outside of the city, Manu Campa commutes to his downtown studio in Madrid. He appreciates the three-mile cushion between home and the hustle-bustle of Spain’s largest city, where he spends his days painting cars. By now, the locals recognize his golden 1931 Ford Model A Roadster. “It has to be only the one in the whole city, and they’re in general very rare in this country,” Campa says. “Everyone knows it’s me, so the car is like a rolling advertisement for my art.”   Read the full article on Hagerty.com: https://www.hagerty.com/media/people/manu-campa-paints-cars-for-a-living-but-his-31-ford-roadster-is-a-work-of-art/ ... View more

If today’s “compact” pickups seem like yesterday’s full-size pickups, you’re not crazy. A 2020 Ford Ranger is 210 inches long, and a Toyota Tacoma, nose to tail, is 212; those figures are comparable to a 1979 Ford F-Series regular cab pickup. Even in the ’70s, that seemed like more truck than some people needed. The Japanese pioneered the idea of smaller pickups, mostly because they designed trucks for their home market, where space came at a premium. However, as consumers embraced small cars in 1960s and ’70s, they also embraced small pickups.   Here are 8 throwbacks to an era when compact pickups really were compact.   Read the full list on Hagerty.com: https://www.hagerty.com/media/automotive-history/8-throwbacks-to-when-compact-pickups-were-truly-compact/ ... View more

Like a lot of you, I spent the rainy and chilly spring fretting about the amount of time my suddenly stay-at-home kids spent on screens. How, I wondered, could I get them into something else without feeling like a camp counselor and driving myself insane?   The oldest of our three kids, 17-year-old John, is not the car-crazy nut his old man is but has a burgeoning interest in driving and wrenching. I’ve been an imperfect mentor because I tend to be too precious about my own ragtag used-car fleet. For example, our 1995 Mustang might be a perfect canvas to let him tinker, but it’s a cream puff with only 40,000 miles that we can only make worse by ripping apart to cure boredom.   Miata to the rescue ...   Read the full article on Hagerty.com:  https://www.hagerty.com/media/magazine-features/the-answer-is-always-miata/ ... View more

Rolls-Royce has sent its   Cullinan Black Badge   out under the cover of night to join the hot rod community, as you can see in this short video.   Why? Because apparently Rolls-Royce believes that, like its own customers, hot rodders “take risks, break rules and build success on their own terms.”   Catch the full clip on Hagerty.com: https://www.hagerty.com/media/news/rolls-royce-seeks-street-cred-with-california-hot-rodders/ ... View more

Three multi-million-dollar Bugattis are the stars of the Gooding & Company “Passion of a Lifetime” auction to be held at London’s Hampton Court Concours of Elegance in September. Read the full news on Hagerty.com:   https://www.hagerty.com/media/news/bugatti-trio-leads-passion-of-a-lifetime-auction/ ... View more

Chicago-area delivery driver Brian Murphy and his million-mile Frontier have parted ways for good—but they’re each going to take things a bit easier now.   The red million-miler is headed to the plant where it was originally built—the Nissan Smyrna Vehicle Assembly Plant in Smyrna, Tennessee—and Nissan has made good on its promise to put Murphy behind the wheel of a new 2020 Frontier. Despite appearing a dupe for Murphy’s original pickup in all but color, the gifted Frontier represents quite a few changes for its driver.   Read the full article on Hagerty.com: https://www.hagerty.com/media/news/driver-swaps-million-mile-2007-frontier-for-2020-model/ ... View more

Today’s featured car is a 1974 Plymouth Scamp. Essentially a Dodge Dart Swinger with different badging, the Scamp was introduced in 1971 and sold through 1976. The ’74 models are distinguished from the previous model year by their enlarged rear bumpers, which grew in response to federal impact standards. The rear lights migrated upward and out of the bumper in ’74, as well.    This particular Scamp is powered by Chrysler’s venerable 318 and belongs to Josh Miller, who—together with his father, Victor—repainted the car this spring.   Read the full article on Hagerty.com: https://www.hagerty.com/media/hagerty-community/rides-from-the-readers-1974-plymouth-scamp/ ... View more

America and Australia have a few things in common, despite being on opposite sides of the world. We’re both massive countries with wide stretches of open landscape. We both love cars—specifically muscle cars. And at one time, both countries had light trucks based on passenger cars, also called utes. America’s most popular ute was the Chevrolet El Camino, which ran through five generations from 1959 to 1987. By the late 1980s, America’s fascination with the ute dwindled as light trucks like the Ford Ranger and Toyota Pickup took over. Australia was able to keep the ute going another 30 years until the Holden Commodore finally ceased production in 2017, portending  the end of the Holden brand  altogether. El Camino values, for the most part, have been flat over the last several years, as the market has turned in favor Japanese cars over American muscle. In light of this shift, let’s take a look at Japan’s version of the ute: the Subaru BRAT.   Read the full article on Hagerty.com: https://www.hagerty.com/media/valuation/the-1978-93-subaru-brat-is-fun-functional-and-climbing/ ... View more

In a win-win for those shopping its crate-engine offerings, GM Genuine Parts has updated its direct-replacement service engines with additional parts from the Chevrolet Performance Parts catalog, consolidating its fleet of factory small-blocks from 1987 to 2002. The engines share most of their upgraded parts with the  Chevy Performance SP350 , like its newly-cast four-bolt main block and Vortec cylinder heads, forged crankshaft, and roller camshaft. This move also helps Chevy reduce the sheer number of obsolete engine components it’s pumping out for the stock-replacement crate engines, allowing it to essentially eliminate old-school parts like the nodular cast iron cranks and earlier non-Vortec heads.   Read the full article on Hagerty.com: https://www.hagerty.com/media/news/gm-updates-direct-replacement-crate-350-small-blocks/ ... View more

When I was growing up in a small farm town in central Illinois, we had a neighbor, a mechanical engineer, who had a small shop behind his house. There was a piston in there so large I could use it as a stool, so I’d sit and listen to him explain things. He was my first mentor, and I was six or seven when I started working on small engines. I just had a bug. By age eight, I knew I wanted to be a mechanical engineer, too ...   Read the full article on Hagerty.com: https://www.hagerty.com/media/magazine-features/bronco-buster-a-booming-business-of-old-fords/ ... View more

The late 1930s was an extraordinary time in automobile design, thanks to the Art Deco movement. In France, Figoni and Falaschi created elegant “teardrop” coupes and roadsters, while Italy’s Alfa Romeo and Czechoslovakia’s Tatra explored aerodynamic forms.   Meanwhile, America flirted with concept cars like the Chrysler Thunderbolt, Buick “Y-Job,” and Rust Heinz’s menacing Cord Phantom Corsair. Some extreme designs made it into production, like the 1938–39 Graham “Sharknose” sedans, although their striking frontal aspect fizzled out at the rear.   But the most outrageous production sedan comes from an unlikely source: Checker, the car maker from Kalamazoo, Michigan, known for indestructible taxicabs.   Read the full article on Hagerty.com: https://www.hagerty.com/media/automotive-history/this-last-surviving-1939-art-deco-checker-marks-the-high-point-of-taxi-design/ ... View more

As American consumers, most of us feel confident that we can buy pretty much whatever we want, as long as we have some kind of income. Even if we have limited liquid cash, we know there is someone out there willing to extend us some level of credit to buy things. According to Experian, 85 percent of the new cars sold in America last year were either financed or leased. Keep in mind that many people use other, hidden sources of credit to buy cars, like home equity loans or even unsecured personal loans. So what this means is that loans have been made available to a large group of Americans, not all of whom are necessarily solid candidates for said loans. On the bottom end of this group is the sub-550 FICO score, or what banks call the “deep subprime” customer.   I dealt with a lot of these customers on the used and new car side of the business under a different nickname:   credit criminal ...   Read Part 1 in full on Hagerty.com: https://www.hagerty.com/media/opinion/the-credit-criminals-guide-to-buying-cars-part-1-you-cant-have-that/ ... View more

Barely a week after announcing a near $300 million loss, Aston Martin is selling a limited edition scotch to boost its coffers.   The Black Bowmore DB5 1964 is a collaboration with 240-year-old Islay distillery Bowmore, and just 25 bottles will be produced. Catch the full news on Hagerty.com:   https://www.hagerty.com/media/news/drowning-its-sorrows-aston-martin-launches-65000-whisky/ ... View more

The latest round of the Concours Virtual Presented by Hagerty in aid of UNICEF produced a Post-War Grand Tourers battle between Britain and Italy. Read the full news on Hagerty.com:   https://www.hagerty.com/media/news/its-britain-vs-italy-in-the-concours-virtual/ ... View more

Hot rod art lives in an interesting space. Custom cars themselves are often viewed as art , so when hot rod style bleeds into actual art, the result can seem trivial, especially if the piece is non-functional. However, even my non-art-loving self can get down with this hot-rodded surfboard.   Read the full article on Hagerty.com: https://www.hagerty.com/media/auctions/could-this-hot-rod-surfboard-make-you-hang-10-thousand-dollars/   ... View more

The 1992 McLaren F1 was something that world had never seen before. Until Gordon Murray delivered the new T.50—revealed in detail here—it’s something we never expected to see again. It was a car made completely without compromise, and perhaps that’s why it is now one of the most sought-after cars in the world.   Read the full article on Hagerty.com: https://www.hagerty.com/media/car-profiles/how-the-mclaren-f1-became-the-ultimate-investment/ ... View more

Today is a bit of a unique one, but as diesel engines grow in popularity as projects, learning to work around their incredible mass becomes something of a creative challenge. For my GMT400 Suburban with the 6.5-liter turbo diesel, the difference between the 454 cu-in big-block gas engine and the  Detroit Diesel  was over 100 pounds thanks to the diesel’s beefed-up block and turbocharging hardware, sitting around the 800-pound mark when fully dressed. When it came time to replace what were likely the original 1996 engine mounts, lifting the Detroit was going to take careful planning since the traditional wood-block-under-the-oil-pan trick would still collapse the pan under the engine’s own weight.   To get around this problem, rather literally, I designed a cradle for lifting at the block’s skirt.   Read the full article on Hagerty.com: https://www.hagerty.com/media/maintenance-and-tech/wrenchin-wednesday-floor-jack-cradle-for-lifting-an-800-lb-diesel-engine/ ... View more

All-electric pickup maker Lordstown Motors announced earlier this week that it was merging with DiamondPeak Holdings Corporation, with the plan to take the resulting merged company public on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol “RIDE.”   “The financing that comes from being publicly listed is the last piece we needed as we march towards production in 2021,” says Lordstown CEO and founder, Steve Burns, in a video from the company.   Read the full article on Hagerty.com: https://www.hagerty.com/media/news/lordstown-motors-is-going-public-after-a-merger-swells-valuation-to-1-6-billion/ ... View more

For hundreds of years, the humble mule has served an important role in the armed forces all over the world. Compact and docile, these surprisingly strong members of the Equus genus have a talent for schlepping packs of equipment, food, and supplies across harsh territory. In fact, long after the U.S. Army had mechanized, as late as the 1950s it was using mules to deal with the challenging southeast Asian terrain during the Korean War.   Read the full article on Hagerty.com: https://www.hagerty.com/media/automotive-history/the-jeffery-nash-quad-was-the-armys-big-4wd-upgrade-over-well-mules/ ... View more

From where we’re sitting, Lisa Bonet is surrounded by some pretty good guys. Case in point? Her father bought her a 1965 Mustang as her first car when she was 17, and her husband, Jason Momoa (who you may know as Aquaman or Khal Drogo), dug up the exact car and commissioned a makeover from Divine 1 Customs.   Check out the full article on Hagerty.com: https://www.hagerty.com/media/video/jason-momoa-commissions-a-makeover-for-his-wifes-65-mustang/   ... View more

Conventional gas and diesel engines do a commendable job serving car and truck owners’ needs, but futurists insist that electric motors will eventually supplant them as the power source of choice. Some 50 years ago, a similar situation cropped up: Mazda’s ultrasmooth rotary engine had bright hopes of sending pistons the way of the buggy whip. With  Mazda celebrating its 100th birthday this year , what better time to toast the brand’s most ambitious technical stride?   Read the full article on Hagerty.com: https://www.hagerty.com/media/automotive-history/engine-revolution-mazdas-rotary-and-its-uncertain-future/ ... View more

Jim McNeil is a down-to-earth, history-loving, do-it-yourself car guy. He’s also, according to Herschel “Junior” Conway and pretty much every other significant member of the custom car community, a savior. It was McNeil, then just a teenager, who saw the   1951 Hirohata Mercury   at a used car lot in 1959 and decided (with some encouragement from his older brother) that he just had to own it.   And he never let it go.   Read the full article on Hagerty.com: https://www.hagerty.com/media/video/jim-mcneil-is-the-down-to-earth-savior-of-the-iconic-1951-hirohata-mercury/ ... View more

Jaguar Land Rover has lost a U.K. court attempt to trademark the shape of the classic Defender. Read the full article on Hagerty.com:   https://www.hagerty.com/media/news/land-rover-fails-to-defend-the-defender-in-court/ ... View more

Bentley has begun work on its Blower Continuation Series—a run of 12 hand-built four-and-a-half-liter icons, as raced to victory by Sir Henry “Tim” Birkin at the 1929 Le Mans. Read the full article on Hagerty.com:   https://www.hagerty.com/media/news/blower-bentley-back-in-production-after-90-year-hiatus/ ... View more

EV West has made a name for itself with its electric-power conversions of classic cars, but the California shop has also broken into the world of motorsports. Past projects have included experimental electric race cars, with the firm’s Artic Silver BMW E36 M3 lighting the internet up with its silent hand of horsepower pushing the modest time-attack car up Pikes Peak in 2012. This year, EV West’s sights are set on Bonneville, with ambitions to chase the “Floating Mountain” across the Salt Flats in a quest for the E2 class record of 213.084 mph.   Read the full article on Hagerty.com: https://www.hagerty.com/media/news/californias-ev-west-to-race-at-bonneville-with-electric-streamliner/ ... View more