Indholdsfortegnelse for April 1963 i MotorTrend

THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA weather man provided a beautifully warm, sunny day, and more than 50,000 race fans swarmed to Riverside Raceway to watch 44 big names in stock car racing slug it out for the $66,500 purse. It was the biggest pot ever offered west of the Mississippi. Race week started on Tuesday, January 15. Cars, mechanics, and drivers came West from all over the country to set up shop and get down to the business of qualifying. Not a day went by that someone didn’t get his car upside down, but through frantic work by seemingly tireless mechanics and pit crews, 20 cars qualified and the rest got into the 25-lap consolation race on Saturday afternoon. Dan Gurney qualified fastest, with a lap of one minute, 37.67 seconds and…

FROM ITS BULKY, impractical beginning some 35 years ago, the automobile radio has come a long way. Today, a simple radio is only the first step for automotive audiophiles. Record players, tape playbacks, stereo (real and simulated), two-way radios, television audio reception—all and more are available to add interest to the automobile. While some of the products might seem gimmicks of doubtful value, they all have their place. The various tape and record machines, for example, provide entertainment for the motorist who has to drive through remote sections of the country where radio reception is poor or non-existent. And the joys of FM reception are familiar to most people—clear, static-free listening from stations with generally more music and fewer commercials than on standard AM. As an indication of what’s currently…

WORD OF A HUSH-HUSH General Motors crackdown on any racing plans Pontiac or Chevrolet divisions may have had for 1963 is the hottest and most universally believed rumor of the young stock car racing season. As the story goes, Pontiac and Chevy brass were informed that any detection of financial or technical aid to any racing team or individual would bring perilous consequences for those responsible. Of course, the GM position is that there has never been any racing subsidization within the organization—a stand that brings hearty chuckles from the competition. It would seem that something more than coincidence is responsible for Pontiac race cars running like scalded cats since 1958. The story continues that the drivers and mechanics who were in line for full Pontiac and Chevy support this…

CAR OF THE YEAR I’d like to congratulate you on your excellent choice for the Car of the Year. American Motors has made great progress in the past few years and really deserves this honor. JOHN GENDRONColeman, Wis. THREE CHEERS! Three cheers for MOTOR TREND! YOU finally gave the Car of the Year award to the best-made American car. I’ve owned four Ramblers over the years, and each one has given me trouble free ownership over many, many miles. I’m glad to see someone else besides Rambler owners praise their many merits. WALTER M. DANIELSIrwin, Pa. A FAIR CHOICE Your selection of Rambler as the Car of the Year should prove to everyone the fairness of your selections. American Motors doesn’t have the money to spend on advertising that General…

NEW CORVAIR dual-exhaust system gives deeper tone worthy of a big V-8. Trombone design allows a much longer exhaust pipe, muffler, and tailpipe. Available for all 1960-63 passenger cars for $49.95. Douglass Muffler Mfg. Co., 5636 Shull St., Bell Gardens, Calif. STAY-SAFE REMINDER makes it impossible to start car until seat belt is fastened. When the belt is tightened, the pressure trips a safety mechanism inside the reminder, which unlocks the car’s starter solenoid. $4.95; Caravan Mfg. Co., 1368 Oregon Ave., Long Beach 13, Calif. “AMBRITE” converts turn-signal lights on Ford, Chevy, or compact cars to high-visibility amber. It’s a filter which fits into the lens and can be installed in minutes. $1 postpaid; state year and make. “Ambrite,” 7176 University Ave., La Mesa, Calif. NEW LINE of colored and…

IT SEEMS THAT OLDSMOBILE’S radical turbo-supercharged Jetfire sports compact has gotten a reputation for poor performance these last few months. Some of the road tests in the magazines weren’t very encouraging. The September, 1962, issue of MOTOR TREND quoted a 0-60-mph time of 10.2 and standing quarter-mile in 18.7 seconds at 80 mph for the 1962 package. The conclusion was that this wasn’t much of a performance increase over unblown for the money. Lansing, Michigan, hop-up expert Dick Griffin agreed 100 per cent. But Dick has great faith in supercharged engines. He thinks they all have potential if you tune them properly. He demonstrated his ability to do the nursing two years ago when he built up a Paxton-supercharged ’61 Corvair that turned ETs in the low 13s and up…

WHEN ANY CAR THAT’S NEW and different in concept is offered for the first time, it’s met with a barrage of questions from the public. What about its purpose and practicability, degree of class or quality, construction details, cost and economy, comfort and roadability—how does it stack up against its competition? Here at MOTOR TREND, we’re no different from our readers. A new car like the Riviera creates just as much interest and raises just as many questions with us. After logging over 2500 miles in a Riviera, we’ve managed to answer just about every question but one—just how big a slice of the personalized luxury car market is the Riviera going to be able to carve off in its first year? We think the Riviera has a lot going…

A NUMBER OF YEARS AGO, we held a contest in these pages, looking for the best definition of a Classic. First prize was a 1930 Lincoln LeBaron convertible, a true Classic in its own right. I can well remember the hours of reading as I tried to judge each entry properly. As I anticipated, some of the definitions were great, while others were terrible. I didn’t care for those that defined a Classic as “a car for the classes, not for the masses.” I was amused by the number of readers who copied the MOTOR TREND definition (published before the contest) word for word. The winner, Lewis C. Markley, now a well-known geologist in Oklahoma, arrived in California to accept his prize. I remember with extreme pleasure the gleam in…

MARKET RESEARCH ANALYSTS and product planning experts at Ford (and at other manufacturers as well) must be spending a lot of sleepless nights trying to keep ahead of what’s become a rather unpredictable car-buying public. Just a short time ago, everyone was talking economy and the trend was toward smaller, less expensive cars. Suddenly the trend reversed, and while people were still giving lip service to the spartan series, they usually ended up buying top-of-the-line, option-loaded luxury models. Over at Ford, this means the Galaxie 500-XL. In 1962, the basic Galaxie line accounted for 46 per cent of all Ford Division sales, with the sleek “XL” taking one in every eight of these. This year, experts predict an even greater swing to the sporty models. The Galaxie 500-XL convertible we…

For years, people living in the Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, area have been seeing strange sights. They think they see cars leaning the wrong way around curves. What they’re really seeing are the experiments of Joachim Kolbe—cars that indeed do lean INTO corners. ■ The more we heard about Kolbe’s success with this unusual suspension system, the more interested we were in finding out if his ideas really worked. We assigned a correspondent to the project, instructed him to drive a prototype. We wired him to report his impressions as soon as he could. Here’s his story. ■ Ever since he came to this country in 1938, and for quite a few years before that, Kolbe’s been trying to perfect an automobile suspension that banks a car into a turn instead…

ONCE UPON A TIME there was an organization—the Pure Oil Company—that decided to stage a series of tests. These tests were designed to determine the best all-around-performance automobiles made in America. Not the speediest cars, mind you, or the most economical or the swiftest-stopping. What they sought were the automobiles that represented the best combination of economy, acceleration, and braking—and that’s precisely what the 1963 Pure Oil Performance Trials accomplished. The first requisite of such a test is a fair set of rules. To this end Pure Oil and the officiating National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing went the extra mile. In order to cover the entire range of American-made autos, six classes were established according to engine size. The classes and the 1-2-3 winners were: ►Class 1—401 to…

SQUEAKING FALCON We have a 1961 Falcon automatic with brakes that nearly drive us crazy. The brakes themselves are excellent, but when they’re applied they give off a very high-pitched squeak, especially from the front wheels. From what I’ve heard, this is a common problem in Fords. H. HUGHESMoncton, N.B., Canada There’s a very simple remedy for squeaky brakes on Falcons. It’s by simply installing a copper brake hose washer between the star adjuster and the floating (loose) end of the adjusting screw. This stops vibration at this point and with that, the noise. Another point to check is the taper of the brake lining at each end of the brake shoe. If it’s too abrupt, it may sometimes cause the shoes to chatter, which would also cause a similar…