Now just make the runners telescope so torque can be maintained as it revs. ... View more

I'm surprised early C4 Vettes aren't here. That market seems really depressed. If I didn't have so many vehicles now, I'd grab one of those. ... View more

For 50 plus grand you can buy something that looks like everyone elses! ... View more

If only they'd offer more than the same five boring colors today.......... ... View more

I saw a Tri Motor giving rides at a south Florida airport in February. ... View more

They still are. ... View more

I have to take exception to one thing you said. "long stroke engines also have more torque than their short stroke equivalents". By equivalent I assume you mean same displacement and everything else being equal? Not necessarily true. ... View more

It's never to late to learn what you need to know.Get out there and learn and do it yourself. Stat with learning the basics.........get an old auto mechanics book and start reading and studying. ... View more

So glad it isn't just "another" (boring) LS swapped car. ... View more

That's easy. Just buy a car hauler! ... View more

I started in a Ford dealers service department in 1977. Warranty work was a screwing as was some of the flat rate. Those emissions engines had all sorts of driveability issues and keeping customers happy with them was a chore. After a year and a half, I went trucking. A whole lot more money, less stress and a lot more enjoyable. In another 11 years I ended up in aviation. Eventually more money and fun. (flying airplanes is the best job in the world). I still work on my own cars and trucks (don't trust anyone to touch my stuff). For a time I would take automotive jobs privately (both mechanical and body/paint) and made good money doing so. Today's unreliable junk is complicated, over priced and difficult to work on. My newest is an '08 and when it is not worth fixing, my newest will be in the 90's. I have a yard (and garage) full of vehicles with breaker points, carburetors and mechanical fuel injection pumps. I'll be good until I die. ... View more

GM has made so many mistakes in the last 30 or 40 years it's a wonder they are still in business. In fact, without a bailout, they'd have been gone years ago. They sell nothing today I'm remotely interested in. ... View more

To much electronics and self destructing CVT's. You can keep all the new overpriced junk. ... View more

Who knows. With the manufacturers cowering to the left, we'll be lucky to drive eventually. ... View more

I smoked a brand new '78 Smokey and the Bandit Trans Am in the summer of '78 with my big block Chevy wagon. I don't know if the kid sold the car afterwards but he was as red faced as I've ever seen and his girlfriend was laughing her you know what off. ... View more

So why can't GM offer more than one interior color on their other vehicles? ... View more

I never warmed up to them. I also remember front inner fender apron cracks developing. ... View more

Like the V6, the aluminum V8 made it into the new millennium too. ... View more

My first car was a '62 Buick Special wagon with the 198 Fireball V6. Some years later I owned a couple.of turbo Buicks. As far as I'm concerned, the V6 Buick should place right behind the Chevy small block for the most famous engine in automotive history! ... View more

My '97 12 valve is a large beast......extended cab 8" box. It too stays in the garage and never goes out in salt. I only use it when I need a truck. Lot's of other drivers to put wear and tear on. Low miles 119K so off to the body shop it went for a redo in '18. I only put 1,000 miles a year on it so it should last well past me. ... View more

I bought my Accel turbosonic kit in the late spring of 1976. Installed it on a '72 Nova with a 400 small block. While waiting for a boost gauge I had ordered, I got impatient one night fooling with the boost control (an intake spoiler controller) and blew the engine. Subsequently I built another 400, fixed the bearings in the turbo and ran the car until 1984 (with a boost gauge and exhaust wastegate) until I twin turboed the car with a system I built myself. I still have the turbosonic kit (and the '72 Nova) although the priority valve is on my turboed 65 Chevy pickup (since 1986) and the rest of the parts are in my inventory. ... View more

"Shooting itself in the foot" has been a GM trademark for a long time! ... View more

And of course GM did it again.......killed the Blackwing. ... View more

Like a lot of things GM for the last 45 years, they fixed it after it was too late. The Northstar eventually got fixed, by the time the HT4100 had morphed into the 4.9 it was a good engine and the V8-6-4 (368) was based on the 472 of 1968. Aside from the 8-6-4 stuff, it was a bullet proof engine. Same for the Olds diesel. Bean counters and head bolts. The injection pump fiasco was Roosa Master who cheaped out on the governor flex rings. Eventually all that was fixed too, but not in time to repair the destroyed reputation. ... View more

I think you are correct. ... View more

I recall a GM film where they did the same thing.....a '66 396 Caprice, 390 Galaxie and 383 Plymouth Fury I believe. I think 16MPG was tops by the Chevy. ... View more

We had those devices in drivers ed (1970). I was lucky enough to put it to the test in front of the high school library. I can still see people looking out the library window to see what had just happened! ... View more

I remember his road tests. A reader once wrote in and asked Tom is his picture was actually of a fly squished between the pages. Depending on the year, a 0-60 time of ten seconds was a rocket. From the mid 70's to mid 90's, most cars couldn't manage that. My Olds diesel need a calendar to measure 0-60. ... View more

Cadillac actually developed the Hydra Matic in the early to mid 1930's. One of the engineers on that team was none other than Ed Cole. Oldsmobile was selected to test it in the mid 30's and the Hydra Matic was introduced in 1939 for the '40 Olds models. It also served faithfully during WWII in tanks. Later on, deuce and a half's use it and a 8 speed version with a second splitter gear was used in large trucks until the first Allisons (MTseries) in 1956. It also soldiered on as an option in medium trucks/buses into the early 60's. I rode three school buses with the hydra matic, a '57, '60 and '62, all GMC's. While I like the engineering of the modern dual clutch automatics, I was to scared to gamble on one just yet. Just bought a Golf Sportwagen with the 6 speed stick. (I prefer manuals anyway!) ... View more

The two that I think "got away" were both in the summer of 1972. While in the Army, I was driving a 1960 Chevy Bel Air with about 100K on the clock. In those days at 100k, most cars were pretty well worn out and mine was rusty too so I started looking for a replacement.   A guy in my unit was driving a '66 Impala SS, 390HP 427, auto, bench seat column shift with PS,PB and a radio. It had 80,000 miles and was in real nice shape. He wanted $600. I thought the mileage was to high so I passed.   I started shopping local for something with less miles and found a '69 Chevelle SS 396 with 60,000 miles (high for a three year old car) at the local AMC dealer. Like the Impala, it was bare bones....bench seat, column shift, PS, PB and a radio. They wanted $2000. I offered $1825. Neither of us would budge so I went down the road and bought a brand new '72 Nova Coupe with a V8 and three on the tree for $2500.   I still have the Nova but I think either of the other two would have been the better investment. ... View more

I have two winter rides.   First is a 1992 Explorer for the deep snow/harder going and the second is a 2017 VW Sportwagen AWD with a 6 speed stick for the normal/commuting duties.   I used my first "winter car" in 1972, before anyone else was doing it. People thought I was nuts to have two cars......one for winter. ... View more

That Chevy looks like a square body greenhouse on a first gen Ford ranger. ... View more

Buick built a few "sleepers". I have one of them.....a 1968 Wildcat. Buicks equivalent of an Impala 427, mine has a 360HP 430 cube high compression engine.  Factory gear is a 3.07 ratio and with positraction, headers and a very mild cam, it clicks off 14.40 in the quarter like clockwork. Build on the Electra chassis and wheelbase the car is huge (and heavy) but very very comfortable and in the 33 years I've owned it, it still turns heads. ... View more

I recall that the 1966 full size Ford lived on in Brazil at least through 1973. ... View more

Torque is expressed as lbs/ft and work produced is expressed as ft/lbs. ... View more

It looks more like an International Scout than a retro Bronco........but that's ok too. ... View more

Hmmm, I thought that saying only applied to aviation! ... View more

In 2006 or so a friend and I rented a then new GT350H convertible in Miami and drove it to St Augustine. It was #247 or #253......can't remember now. I do remember wondering what it might be worth in the future. ... View more

I have an equally boring VW diesel Rabbit. Bought it 16 years ago and still keep it around for the inevitable. Fortunately, almost everything is available for the car so keeping it going is a walk in the park.   It's only a matter of time before fuel goes haywire again. In the meantime, I enjoy my fleet of gas guzzlers! ... View more

The $5600 option price is probably what killed it. Good ole greed at it's finest.  Who knows, had it been priced properly it might have caught on and forced change with the other truck manufacturers.   GM eventually got what they deserved..........bankruptcy! ... View more

I've always felt  the big cars with the biggest engines were better than the muscle cars. I currently have two. One a 66 Biscayne Wagon with a 427 and a '68 Wildcat. With minor tuning, mild cams 2teens@.050" lifter rise and headers, both run low to mid 14's. Stock gears, intakes and Q-jet carbs. Both weigh north of 4500# (actual weights) too.   Only difference between a '68 and '69 Wildcat other than the styling is that the '68 was on the C body chassis with 4 inches more wheelbase and the fender skirts from the Electra. That extra length (and weight) was in the rear seat foot.well area. Both cars have surprised many over the years! ... View more

Electricman,   The article mentioned those two. ... View more

170, Ford inline 6 and a Chrysler slant 6 198, Buick V6 and Chrysler slant 6 200, Ford inline 6 and a Chevy V6 215, Buick and Olds aluminum V8 and a 3.75 inch bore Chevy six sold only by Pontiac 225, Buick V6, Chrysler slant 6 230, Chevy 6 and Jeep Tornado 6 250, Chevy 6, Rambler V8, Cadillac V8 HT4100), and a Ford inline 6 258, AMC 6 and Jaguar 6 267, Chevy V8 and Cadillac V8 300, Buick V8 and a Ford 6 304, AMC and International 305, Chevy and GMC big block V6 307, Chevy and Oldsmobile 315, Chrysler and Ford voodoo 325, Chrysler and Chevy (5.3) 330, Oldsmobile, Ford truck (FT), Ford modular 340, Buick and Chrysler 360, Ford truck (FE) 368, Lincoln Y block and Cadillac 390, Cadillac 392, Chrysler and International 401, GMC big block V6, International V8 and Ford truck (Super Duty) 410, MEL and FE. Both the same manufacture but two completely different engine families. 413, Chrysler and the Ford V10 425, Buick nailhead, Oldsmobile tall deck and Cadillac ('77-'79) 429, Cadillac and Ford 430, Buick and Ford MEL 440, Chrysler and a White V8 truck engine in the '50's 478, GMC V6 and International V8 ... View more