Indholdsfortegnelse for June 2024 i Classic American

As I write these very words it is April 2024, the very same week in fact that the Ford Mustang made its debut at the World’s Fair in New York 60 years ago. What subsequently ensued was the stuff of legend: Mustang mania swept North America. Ford pulling out all the stops when it came to marketing, including a Disney-created Magic Skyway ride experience, where World’s Fair visitors could take the new Mustang convertible on a 12-minute ride exploring ‘Life on Earth’, and the combination of the car’s sporty styling and low base price was just too tempting to resist. While the story of how Ford predicted it would move 100,000 units during the first year of sales and ended up selling 418,000 has been told many, many times, the…

During the Sixties, numerous children found themselves captivated by drag racing, a motorsport that enjoyed major growth across North America. Among them was Denny Sanders, now the proud owner of the red Savoy featured here. His fascination stemmed from his father Fred, then heavily involved in the drag racing world. Fred worked at Al Roberts Plymouth, a dealership located in Garden Grove, Southern California, which provided him with ample backing to race freshly manufactured cars at local dragstrips. Fred’s foray into drag racing began with fast street cars during the Fifties, with Santa Ana Drags and Lions Drag Strip being favourite playgrounds. Then came a white ’62 Savoy, equipped with a low-compression 413 Super Stock V8. Denny clearly remembers going for a drive with his father and mother in the…

While in Detroit recently, I immersed myself in car culture and visited as many classic car related sites as I could. I was most surprised by the fact that Detroit is still a little bit ashamed of the car, the Ford Highland Park facility, built in the early years of the 20th century and home to the world’s first vertically integrated production line, is still there, BUT – and this is almost criminal, it is NOT marked for its unique place in history! It is a concrete crushing plant now. You have to go down the block and into a parking lot to see ‘Model T Plaza’ for any reference to its past. Next to that lot, by a drive-in thrift store, is the world’s first car sales showroom. Boarded…

If you’ve been scouring eBay for the Project Buick GS that we told you about a couple of months ago that was given to the Hall family in return for ‘disposing’ of it and removing it from a premises in Bolton, Lancashire… well, the latest is that they’ve decided to keep it! Daughter Olivia Hall explained: “Dad has managed to find the missing parts and has picked them up. They aren’t as immaculate as was hoped but can be restored… the interesting news is that we may be restoring the Buick – dad is thinking of retiring or slowing down and spending some days working on it!” Well, what a turn up for the books! So, a project that initially looked like one for the very, very brave with all…

The full proverb says: “If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it’s yours. If not, it was never meant to be.” It’s a reminder to let go and trust in a bigger plan. It’s about surrendering something beloved in the hopes that fate will intervene and bring it back – if it’s truly meant to be ours… I have always been a fan of classic cars and muscle cars, particularly the early Chevy models. The 1970 Chevelle SS in Cranberry Red was one of my all-time favourites and 25 years ago, while on patrol as a police officer, I observed just such car for sale at a local service station. After my shift that day (and a run to the bank!) the car was mine. With…

This event, which takes place in March, to my mind is the mirror ‘bookend’ of the big Classic Motor Show at the NEC in November – which marks the end of the car show season. This show marks the beginning. And while not an American car show, there’s plenty of American content and even non-American content that’s of interest to any red-blooded petrol head. How long will it be before we see Just Stop Oil gluing themselves to the front doors or throwing orange paint about? Well, mercifully not yet thank goodness… There’s definitely a restoration theme to this show (hence the name!) and that’s borne out not only in the displays, but in the trade stands as well – and I reckon if you are undertaking any kind of…

1. We are back in Attalla, Alabama this month, for our second and final visit to Gibbs Junk Yard. This is the scene that greets you on arrival. It’s certainly a tantalising sight and gives you a taste of what you can expect to find scattered over the 100-acre hillside. The car nearest the camera is a 1947 Chevrolet Fleetline. It appears to be largely complete, and relatively sound, but you’d need deep pockets and plenty of time to get it back on the road. 2. Sharing the semi-trailer is this 1958 Ford Fairlane 500. It looks alright from a distance but look at the state of those doors. You can bet your life that the floor will be equally rotten. 3. Last but not least, is this 1955 Plymouth…

FNo ‘production’ car ever lived up to the mantra ‘It ain’t done till it’s overdone!’ quite like the Bugazzi. It made the donor vehicle – a Lincoln Continental Mark IV – appear a model of restraint by comparison. In 1972, you could have set sail in this land yacht for just shy of $30,000. A Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow cost less, but then you did get a lot of car for your money, if only in terms of scale. The Bugazzi in all its glittering glory was a belief-beggaring 5867mm (19ft 3in) long. Conceived by custom car show promoter Paul Remmeir, this was perhaps the most wondrously obnoxious automobile ever made. The car began life as a rendering by designer Harry Bradley, a man whose resume included everything from the marvellous…

Originality: as custodians of historic objects, where would we be without that elusive but vitally important state of being? The preservation of original specimens is what enables us to say, ‘This is exactly the paint used by the factory,’ and ‘This is exactly the type of cloth the such-and-such buyer of 1955 would have felt as he motored along the ever-changing highway of time’. It is only with originality that we can look at a car and say with certainty, ‘This is how it was and should be’. The significance of an unaltered survivor is not lost on Graham Howard-Wall, chairman of the Cadillac Owners’ Club, who has owned this exquisite 1949 Cadillac Series 62 Coupe de Ville since 2016. Although a lifelong old-car enthusiast, he had never previously ventured…

Jeeps are cool – Jeep has proven this simple, wonderful fact repeatedly over the last 80 years, becoming one of the most enduring and popular vehicles ever made. And few eras spawned as many ice cold rockstar Jeeps as the Eighties, which introduced raptor-inspired, delightfully radical trucks such as the Golden Hawk (and Golden Eagle). Enter Vigilante 4x4 founders Daniel and Rachel van Doveren and their company’s restoration experts based in Texas (dubbed JeepHeritage) with a sunbeam-chasing screamer in this 1980 Golden Hawk now being offered as a means to explore the happiest of trails – should you have the means to acquire it. “In the vintage Jeep market, Golden Hawks are rare,” explains Daniel van Doveren. “The opportunity to restore a very special truck like this was such fun…

MATT RICHARDSON, PHOTOGRAPHER, KENT 2001 Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor Since importing my 2001 Crown Vic Police Interceptor, which was covered in the June 2023 issue, and having shot hundreds of cover cars for this and other magazines, this was the first time I’d featured my own car. I was, you could say, loving ‘American car life’. The big green cop car became a regular fixture overflowing from the dinky spaces at the supermarket, gym and shops, and making the oversize SUVs on the school run almost look like sensible size family transport. It went on display at the NEC Classic Car show alongside my friend’s Australian Ford Falcon – different continents’ answers to the same question – and with the American Police and Service Vehicles group at Brands Hatch…