mod@tech

In the 1990s I did the How-To segment on the My Classic Car TV show, and it was there that I saw my first restored car. This was years after having gone to Pebble Beach and other famous concours d’elegance shows. Let me explain.

One of the cars we featured on the show was a 1963 Corvette split-window coupe that had been meticulously restored to the way it was when it left the factory, right down to the slight orange peel in the paintwork and the faint overspray on the chassis. In fact, the owner researched everything to the point that he actually knew how much grease was shot into the fittings on the chassis!

Even the original chalk marks made by the inspectors on the assembly line were in place, despite dealers having usually erased them when they prepped the cars for sale. Also, the car’s hubcaps were stowed in the back of the car, wrapped in the correct brown paper that the factory used for shipment. It took years, a lot of money, and a lot of research to make the car as painstakingly authentic as it was, and of course the owner never even started it. The car was strictly for show and was shipped in a closed trailer everywhere it went.

I say kudos to this true restorer who presented us with such an exact restoration of this unique car. I will not take a position on whether it is advisable for anyone to go to such incredible effort to recreate assembly-line mediocrity, though. Or for that matter, why restorers try to exceed the original with a lovingly hand-built fantasy of what the car could have been. That’s because I also enjoy seeing the great classics over-restored to what they could have been.

The great classics on display at the prestigious concours shows are stunning to behold, and yes, they were hand built by craftsmen to very high standards, but they were never done to the level of perfection that you see at Pebble Beach. People who were alive at the time they were built would tell you so, and that includes my late father, who once shot paint for Howard “Dutch” Darrin back in the late 1930s.

Pop said that Dutch used a lot of lead, rather than the best metal finishing, and that some of his early Packard Darrins had problems with cowl shake after being sectioned and channeled, and the doors would pop open without warning. He then resorted to a cast-aluminum cowl. Apparently, Dutch relied on the designer’s dictum: “If it looks good, it IS good,” which is great for static art, but not necessarily ideal for kinetic items such as cars.

I have over-restored half a dozen cars to show-winning standards myself and have the trophies to prove it, and I have gone to a great deal of trouble to make them as factory-original as possible. But I like to drive classics too, so I have subtly upgraded and changed some of them to make them more usable in today’s traffic.

For example, I have added more durable roller-type front-wheel bearings to my 1958 Chevrolet Apache parts-chaser pickup, and vented the brake drums for extra stopping power. I added aftermarket air conditioning to my 1955 Chevrolet Beauville station wagon so my wife and I can be comfortable on hot summer tours. I used the original factory-correct inlets in the passenger compartment, but I had to add an alternator to deal with the extra amps required to run the system.

With my 1940 Packard 110 coupe, I installed the correct original R9 Borg Warner overdrive available that year, but left the non-overdrive differential in place because it had a higher (numerically lower) gear ratio that allows me to drive at freeway speeds without over-revving the engine. Also, the Packard’s paintwork is the original Harbor Gray hue, but it has been color sanded and polished to a gleaming perfection using modern materials that the carmakers were never blessed with at the factory.

So, what’s my point? Just this: I admire and applaud people who restore cars to exact originality, though I have only ever seen one, and I also admire those who over-restore to concours d’elegance standards, based on the original French meaning of the term that originated in Paris in the 19th century, when people tarted up their horse-drawn vehicles and toured them around that city.

Also thrilling to me is seeing well-preserved original cars, because they are the most accurate tangible artifacts of automotive history we have left, and I am a history buff. Such surviving originals are the closest things to time machines that exist and are able to transport us back to another era. I applaud people who keep such cars original and running, so we can all see, hear, and smell what once was.

Instead of restoring, maybe all such preserved cars need is careful re-storing, not restoring, to make sure they survive for future generations to appreciate.

With rows upon rows of Shelby Mustangs, Hemi-powered Dodges, Yenkos of all stripes, and other production-line Detroit performance vehicles, the American Muscle Car Museum seems an unlikely place for the 1956 Mercury XM-Turnpike Cruiser, a recently restored chrome-laden one-off show car, to wind up. But museum founder Mark Pieloch thinks it’ll still fit in nicely.

“The car struck me – it’s stunning from a color perspective,” Pieloch said. “I like to have a tremendous variety of colors in the museum; I’m not a black and white guy.”

Pieloch noticed the car at last month’s Mecum Kissimmee auction, where restorer Tom Maruska had consigned it after a restoration odyssey that started with a car that had been vandalized, left out in the elements in Detroit, and rusted to the gills. It was far from the gleaming, pearl-orange turntable twirler that John Najjar and Elwood Engle designed with rocket-inspired side sculpting, butterfly panels above each door, and a dual-quad Y-block as a precursor to the production 1957 Mercury lineup, but Maruska, no stranger to restoring unique concept cars – he’s done both the Ford Thunderbird Italien and the 1954 Mercury XM-800 – took on the Ghia-built concept car figuring it’d be just a two-year job.

Photo courtesy Tom Maruska

Four years later, Maruska, working on his own out of his shop in Duluth, Minnesota, ended up having to replace much of the rusted-away frame with sections from a 1954 Mercury’s frame, fabricate an entirely new floor and lower sections of the body panels, nearly re-create the entire interior, and teach himself how to shape plexiglass to shape the unique rear wraparound windows. He researched just about every aspect of the car, from how the Ford and Ghia workers put it together to the exact color they painted it (a 1956 Mercury production color called Persimmon with a coat of pearl sprayed over it), discovering a number of oddities about it along the way, including the fact that it used F-250 chassis components and that one of the butterfly panels ended up being longer than the other by a couple inches.

From the beginning, Maruska was clear that he was only restoring the XM-Turnpike Cruiser to sell at auction, and after wrapping up the restoration in the fall of last year, he consigned it to the Kissimmee auction, where Mecum staff estimated it would sell for $1.25 to $2 million. While it failed to meet Maruska’s reserve, bidding up to $350,000, it did bring Maruska and Pieloch together.

Photo courtesy Tom Maruska

Pieloch, who’s been mainly collecting muscle cars for 30 years, opened the American Muscle Car Museum in October 2016 in Melbourne, Florida, in a purpose-built 123,000-square-foot facility. Though it’s not open to the public, the museum does host more than 100 activities throughout the year, including car shows, autocross events, and student tours. As a result, more than 20,000 people go through the museum every year.

“I know people down here in Florida with $20 million to $50 million worth of cars in their garages that nobody ever sees,” he said. “I’d rather show my vehicles than put them away where nobody sees them, and I told Tom that’s exactly my plan for the XM-Turnpike Cruiser, to put it on prominent display and to show off his restoration work. It’s going to be seen.”

Photo courtesy American Muscle Car Museum

Of the more than 400 cars in the collection, about 200 of them have less than 100 miles, and another 80 of them have less than 10,000 miles. And while that – plus the fact that Pieloch insists on maintaining every car in running condition – makes the collection fairly unique, he said there’s not many truly unique individual vehicles in the collection. He could only point to a one-of-two Alan Mann lightweight 1966 Ford GT40 and a one-of-10 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air Indy pace car as standouts in that regard. That said, “I try to have a couple pinnacle examples of every car,” and the XM-Turnpike Cruiser fits that bill.

As for Maruska, he’s an avid restorer of Amphicars and already has another one, a 1964, on the rotisserie in his shop. But he’s not averse to taking on another concept car project, especially if it’s a Ford from the Fifties or Sixties.

Date: circa 1970s

Location: New Orleans, Louisiana

Source: via David Pirmann / Flickr

What do you see here?

Owning a ‘Cuda from 1973 is much like having your name appear on the top of an entry list to an exclusive club. It was the last year for the optional four-barrel 340 small-block, and emissions and safety standards would only become more strict in the following years. The visually striking old school styling of the E-body blended with the most powerful engine available at the time is what Mopar dreams are made of.

This handsome Forest Green Metallic ’73 Plymouth ‘Cuda, actively up for auction as of this writing, is equipped with the optional 340 V-8 engine rated at 240-horsepower and 295 lb-ft of torque. A TorqueFlite automatic transmission puts the power to the pavement via an original Slap-Stik shifter. According to the seller, this Mopar muscle car is all-original, from the engine down to the axles, with the exception of a factory-correct repaint within the last seven years. It sits on 14-inch Magnum 500-style wheels wrapped with newer installed P215/70R14 BFGoodrich Radial T/A tires that show 2022 manufacturing dates.

“It has the fender tag, VIN, and original Chrysler sticker still intact,” says the seller, who rates the car in #1 condition. Just 11,260 miles appear on the odometer, which, although unverified, the seller believes to be authentic. According to the Mopar’s excellent condition, those numbers very well could be true.

Less than 10,700 ‘Cudas were built in 1973, and the examples equipped with the optional 340 paired with the TorqueFlight automatic transmission equate to just over 4,500 examples produced. It’s rare to find an E-body Mopar in such minty condition and with minuscule mileage. In fact, you’re probably more likely to gain access to an exclusive club than find another ‘Cuda just like this one.

The Grand National Roadster Show is now a national success and perhaps the best custom car show held in the United States. But that didn’t happen over night. In fact, the Grand National Roadster Show at its founding in 1950 in Oakland, California was a local event and limited to just a few types of vehicles.

By 1962 “Grand” was added to its original “National Roadster Show” title and everything from customized go-karts to chopped Harley-Davidsons filled in the gaps between two-seater T-Birds and customized 1/2-ton pickups. In 2004 the Grand National Roadster Show moved from Northern California to Southern California and immediately grew from just three buildings in 2004 to consuming everything from outdoor spots up to Building 10 in 2005 at Pomona’s Fairplex.

For the 2023, 73rd edition of the Grand National Roadster Show a special tribute was held in GNRS’ “special features building” celebrating 50 years of unique classic trucks from 1948 up to 1998 and displayed a healthy helping of former magazine cover trucks and local icons from the past.

1954 Chevy AD with Chrysler Hemi power built by Harold’s Hot Rod Shop of Enid, Oklahoma and on the February 2023 cover of Classic Truck Performance.

Powered by a 429-inch Ford V-8 the “Lone Ranger” a very custom 1969 Ford Ranger originally a pickup by Kykers Rod & Kustom of Telford, Tennessee.

Kennedy Waite’s LS1 powered 1958 Chevy Cameo Carrier with paint and body by Squeeg’s Kustoms and upholstery by Gabe’s Custom Interiors on Wheelsmith wheels.

Darryl Hollenbeck custom painter for 2023’s AMBR winning 1932 Ford entered his 1974 Chevy C-10 stepside with special thanks to his friends that helped refresh it.

Chip Foose’s first car was a truck —Chip’s 1956 Ford “Big-Window pickup originally in CoCo Brown Metallic was restyled to Chip’s wishes in an episode of Overhaulin’.

Nothing brings back 1980s mini-trucking nostalgia like this 1977 Datsun 620 King Cab mini truck that came to Pomona all the way from New York.

Grand National Roadster Show 2023 Classic Trucks

With regulations in several countries pressuring automobile manufacturers to shift into a future of hybrid electric vehicles by 2030, driving full force to all electric power by 2035, the unknown fate of certain production sports cars is unsettling for car lovers. In the midst of uncertainty, Martijn ten Brink, chief executive of Mazda in Europe, shared some good news: The Miata MX-5 will live on.

In an interview with Autocar, while discussing plans for the Miata’s next generation, ten Brink said, “How do you stay true to the concept of what the car stands for taking it into the next generation of technologies? That’s not been decided. But I think for Mazda it would be fair to say that the MX-5 will never die. I think it will continue to exist forever and it will have to go with the times. That’s a super challenge, and people are passionate about this car in Mazda.” He added, “Of course, as you can imagine, people have opinions on which direction it should go. So, I’m very curious where it will end up, but it will definitely remain part of the line-up.”

Since its introduction at the 1989 Chicago Auto Show, the Miata has been a symbol of Mazda’s car making philosophy, “Jinba Ittai,” which translates to the “horse and rider as one,” representative of the little lightweight sports car’s responsive, fun-to-drive platform. The Miata holds a special place in the Mazda lineup and in the hearts of its diehard enthusiasts.

In May 1989, the two-seater convertible became available to U.S. and Canadian buyers as a 1990 model. Mazda sold 35,944 Miatas within that first year. Automobile Magazine was obviously impressed, naming it “Automobile of the Year.”

“It was a labor of love, that’s for sure,” said Tom Matano, now retired as Mazda’s Chief of Design. “It still is.”

Built on its own unique platform, the Miata combines the best of past British sports cars with Japanese reliability. It’s also one of the few cars still sold with a manual gearbox. It’s no surprise that the little budget sports car has made its mark in motorsports. It provides a perfect platform for reliable, fun daily driving on weekdays and transitions to a quick, maneuverable weekend racer on the track. A forgiving car that is on the driver’s side, it knows you want to have fun but don’t necessarily want to be scared silly. Today, Miatas are abundant in SCCA classes and beyond. The platform has introduced many novice drivers into the competitive driving scene.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway, 1992

In a melting pot of SUVs that look the same, where performance names are slapped on just about anything to draw attention, reassurance in knowing that this automotive icon won’t be watered down feels similar to taking a deep breath of fresh, untouched mountain air. Very Zen.

In its 34-year run, the Miata generations have lived longer than most other models on the market. The original version, the first-generation NA, was in production for eight years. The second-generation NB lasted for seven, and the third-generation NC lived for a decade. The current ND model was released in 2015 and an upgraded ND2 engine may help to extend its life.

Will the next generation see hybrid-electric technologies? With the trend toward EVs, it’s likely unavoidable, but one thing is for certain: Miata will always be the answer.