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No arachnophobia here: This is the kind of Spider that won’t give you the creepy-crawlies.

The Pick of the Day is a low-mileage 1980 Alfa Romeo 2000 Spider Veloce listed for sale on ClassicCars.com by a private seller in Camden, Maine. (Click the link to view the listing)

“A stylish and well-preserved example of Alfa Romeo’s award-winning Spider,” the listing begins.

The Spider first came to life in 1966 as a two-seat, front-engine, rear-drive roadster with design language penned by Pininfarina. This Spider comes from what became known as the “Series 2” of the Spider model history. It debuted in 1970 with revisions to the grille, door handles, windshield, and tail end.

Showcasing the streamlined body is a color scheme of white over burgundy, but in true Italian form, you have to call the hues by their real names: “Bianco Porcellana” and “Rosso Rubino.” Although the vehicle is currently located in the northeast, the seller states that it was originally owned in New Mexico and is rust-free.

The odometer on this car shows just 71,800 miles and power comes from a 2.0-liter twin-cam inline-four mated to a five-speed manual transmission. The drivetrain received a long list of recent mechanical work according to the seller. Among the items addressed are:

• Cylinder head overhaul (new racing valve springs, new performance camshafts, new valves)
• New engine mount bushings
• Renewed distributor, spark plugs, and spark plug harness
• New water pump and radiator
• New belts and fluids
• New fuel tank, fuel pump, and fuel filters
• New brake master cylinder, new brake pads, and renewed rotors

Documentation is included for all of the above work.

“This Spider drives and rides like a dream. It is a beautiful vehicle to be shown around town, but it really comes alive on the back roads. The induction noise of the engine is inebriating, the exhaust cracks and pops under deceleration, and the chassis works in tandem with the glorious Alfa Romeo twin-cam to fulfill every input and desires of the driver,” the listing concludes. “It is a driver’s car if there is one.”

The seller is asking $9,995 or best offer for this Spider, which seems like a fair price given its southern ownership history, low mileage, and recent maintenance. Best of all, it’s the kind of spider you have in your dreams instead of your nightmares.

To view this listing on ClassicCars.com, see Pick of the Day.

No arachnophobia here: This is the kind of Spider that won’t give you the creepy-crawlies.

The Pick of the Day is a low-mileage 1980 Alfa Romeo 2000 Spider Veloce listed for sale on ClassicCars.com by a private seller in Camden, Maine. (Click the link to view the listing)

“A stylish and well-preserved example of Alfa Romeo’s award-winning Spider,” the listing begins.

The Spider first came to life in 1966 as a two-seat, front-engine, rear-drive roadster with design language penned by Pininfarina. This Spider comes from what became known as the “Series 2” of the Spider model history. It debuted in 1970 with revisions to the grille, door handles, windshield, and tail end.

Showcasing the streamlined body is a color scheme of white over burgundy, but in true Italian form, you have to call the hues by their real names: “Bianco Porcellana” and “Rosso Rubino.” Although the vehicle is currently located in the northeast, the seller states that it was originally owned in New Mexico and is rust-free.

The odometer on this car shows just 71,800 miles and power comes from a 2.0-liter twin-cam inline-four mated to a five-speed manual transmission. The drivetrain received a long list of recent mechanical work according to the seller. Among the items addressed are:

• Cylinder head overhaul (new racing valve springs, new performance camshafts, new valves)
• New engine mount bushings
• Renewed distributor, spark plugs, and spark plug harness
• New water pump and radiator
• New belts and fluids
• New fuel tank, fuel pump, and fuel filters
• New brake master cylinder, new brake pads, and renewed rotors

Documentation is included for all of the above work.

“This Spider drives and rides like a dream. It is a beautiful vehicle to be shown around town, but it really comes alive on the back roads. The induction noise of the engine is inebriating, the exhaust cracks and pops under deceleration, and the chassis works in tandem with the glorious Alfa Romeo twin-cam to fulfill every input and desires of the driver,” the listing concludes. “It is a driver’s car if there is one.”

The seller is asking $9,995 or best offer for this Spider, which seems like a fair price given its southern ownership history, low mileage, and recent maintenance. Best of all, it’s the kind of spider you have in your dreams instead of your nightmares.

To view this listing on ClassicCars.com, see Pick of the Day.

These two 1972 muscle ragtops are painted in the same Flame Orange hue and feature the top engines in their respective lineups. How do they compare?

Nineteen seventy-two was a difficult model year for American performance but, considering General Motors lowered compression one year before the 1972 federal mandate, the public already knew what to expect. The biggest impact on GM performance was the method in which horsepower was measured: the 4-4-2 W30 went from 350 horsepower gross to 300 net, while the GS Stage 1 went from 345 gross to 270 net. Nonetheless, they both were able to pull solid 14-second ETs — not like 1970, but among the fastest cars for the model year.

They are almost equally rare too. Oldsmobile produced 113 4-4-2 convertibles with the W30 package, while Buick produced 81 Stage 1 GS convertibles. Narrowing the Buick down, only 15 were built with the four-speed transmission. If the W30 was a four-speed, it would be one of 33.

Check out the AutoHunter Cinema video from Barrett-Jackson’s 2023 auction in Scottsdale and then tell us which car you prefer if you were in the market for a powerful convertible in 1972.

These two 1972 muscle ragtops are painted in the same Flame Orange hue and feature the top engines in their respective lineups. How do they compare?

Nineteen seventy-two was a difficult model year for American performance but, considering General Motors lowered compression one year before the 1972 federal mandate, the public already knew what to expect. The biggest impact on GM performance was the method in which horsepower was measured: the 4-4-2 W30 went from 350 horsepower gross to 300 net, while the GS Stage 1 went from 345 gross to 270 net. Nonetheless, they both were able to pull solid 14-second ETs — not like 1970, but among the fastest cars for the model year.

They are almost equally rare too. Oldsmobile produced 113 4-4-2 convertibles with the W30 package, while Buick produced 81 Stage 1 GS convertibles. Narrowing the Buick down, only 15 were built with the four-speed transmission. If the W30 was a four-speed, it would be one of 33.

Check out the AutoHunter Cinema video from Barrett-Jackson’s 2023 auction in Scottsdale and then tell us which car you prefer if you were in the market for a powerful convertible in 1972.

These two 1972 muscle ragtops are painted in the same Flame Orange hue and feature the top engines in their respective lineups. How do they compare?

Nineteen seventy-two was a difficult model year for American performance but, considering General Motors lowered compression one year before the 1972 federal mandate, the public already knew what to expect. The biggest impact on GM performance was the method in which horsepower was measured: the 4-4-2 W30 went from 350 horsepower gross to 300 net, while the GS Stage 1 went from 345 gross to 270 net. Nonetheless, they both were able to pull solid 14-second ETs — not like 1970, but among the fastest cars for the model year.

They are almost equally rare too. Oldsmobile produced 113 4-4-2 convertibles with the W30 package, while Buick produced 81 Stage 1 GS convertibles. Narrowing the Buick down, only 15 were built with the four-speed transmission. If the W30 was a four-speed, it would be one of 33.

Check out the AutoHunter Cinema video from Barrett-Jackson’s 2023 auction in Scottsdale and then tell us which car you prefer if you were in the market for a powerful convertible in 1972.

A new Ford patent filing has surfaced that hints at a driver-assist system designed to prevent collisions with trains.

First spotted by Motor1, the patent application was filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in 2021, but was only published on March 30, 2023. As Motor1 notes, the document shows two possible implementations of this idea, each using sensors to detect oncoming trains as a car approaches a railroad crossing.

In one version, sensors would be placed on the railroad tracks on both sides of a crossing, and communicate with sensors in the vehicle. If the system detects a train, it warns the driver not to cross. Placing sensors on both sides of a crossing allows the system to confirm that a train is really out of the way before giving the all-clear, and that it isn’t, for example, reversing back over the crossing.

The second version pares things back a bit. Instead of placing sensors on the tracks, it would rely on in-car hardware, such as cameras and lidar, to watch the crossbars and warning lights at railroad crossings—the cues human drivers sometimes ignore when approaching railroad crossings.

Ford also mentions sending information to other vehicles, so that drivers know a train is occupying the crossing before they reach it. This feature, which sounds like the vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication the automaker in 2018 said could help eliminate traffic lights, could be helpful to emergency vehicles, allowing them to reroute around trains, Ford detailed in the patent.

This system would also help increase vehicle automation, according to Ford, allowing cars to automatically stop at railroad crossings without drivers having to take over. The automaker has filed several patents that could be applied to autonomous vehicles, but the core technology itself is still under development. So it might be awhile before we see anything like Ford’s train-detecting system in a production vehicle.

HIGH-RES GALLERY: Ford train-detection system patent image

This article was originally published by Motor Authority, an editorial partner of ClassicCars.com

A new Ford patent filing has surfaced that hints at a driver-assist system designed to prevent collisions with trains.

First spotted by Motor1, the patent application was filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in 2021, but was only published on March 30, 2023. As Motor1 notes, the document shows two possible implementations of this idea, each using sensors to detect oncoming trains as a car approaches a railroad crossing.

In one version, sensors would be placed on the railroad tracks on both sides of a crossing, and communicate with sensors in the vehicle. If the system detects a train, it warns the driver not to cross. Placing sensors on both sides of a crossing allows the system to confirm that a train is really out of the way before giving the all-clear, and that it isn’t, for example, reversing back over the crossing.

The second version pares things back a bit. Instead of placing sensors on the tracks, it would rely on in-car hardware, such as cameras and lidar, to watch the crossbars and warning lights at railroad crossings—the cues human drivers sometimes ignore when approaching railroad crossings.

Ford also mentions sending information to other vehicles, so that drivers know a train is occupying the crossing before they reach it. This feature, which sounds like the vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication the automaker in 2018 said could help eliminate traffic lights, could be helpful to emergency vehicles, allowing them to reroute around trains, Ford detailed in the patent.

This system would also help increase vehicle automation, according to Ford, allowing cars to automatically stop at railroad crossings without drivers having to take over. The automaker has filed several patents that could be applied to autonomous vehicles, but the core technology itself is still under development. So it might be awhile before we see anything like Ford’s train-detecting system in a production vehicle.

HIGH-RES GALLERY: Ford train-detection system patent image

This article was originally published by Motor Authority, an editorial partner of ClassicCars.com

A new Ford patent filing has surfaced that hints at a driver-assist system designed to prevent collisions with trains.

First spotted by Motor1, the patent application was filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in 2021, but was only published on March 30, 2023. As Motor1 notes, the document shows two possible implementations of this idea, each using sensors to detect oncoming trains as a car approaches a railroad crossing.

In one version, sensors would be placed on the railroad tracks on both sides of a crossing, and communicate with sensors in the vehicle. If the system detects a train, it warns the driver not to cross. Placing sensors on both sides of a crossing allows the system to confirm that a train is really out of the way before giving the all-clear, and that it isn’t, for example, reversing back over the crossing.

The second version pares things back a bit. Instead of placing sensors on the tracks, it would rely on in-car hardware, such as cameras and lidar, to watch the crossbars and warning lights at railroad crossings—the cues human drivers sometimes ignore when approaching railroad crossings.

Ford also mentions sending information to other vehicles, so that drivers know a train is occupying the crossing before they reach it. This feature, which sounds like the vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication the automaker in 2018 said could help eliminate traffic lights, could be helpful to emergency vehicles, allowing them to reroute around trains, Ford detailed in the patent.

This system would also help increase vehicle automation, according to Ford, allowing cars to automatically stop at railroad crossings without drivers having to take over. The automaker has filed several patents that could be applied to autonomous vehicles, but the core technology itself is still under development. So it might be awhile before we see anything like Ford’s train-detecting system in a production vehicle.

HIGH-RES GALLERY: Ford train-detection system patent image

This article was originally published by Motor Authority, an editorial partner of ClassicCars.com

Featured on AutoHunter, the online auction platform driven by ClassicCars.com, is this 1966 Chevrolet Nova SS. Power is supplied by a numbers-matching L79 327ci V8 engine backed by a four-speed manual transmission. Features include bucket seats, console, Delco AM radio with rear speaker, and Positraction. Finished in bronze over an off-white vinyl interior, this Nova SS comes with extra parts including the original wheels and correct wheel covers, Protect-O-Plate and transferable Rhode Island registration.

This 1966 Chevrolet Nova SS was built on January 28, 1966, in Norwood, Ohio. The original owner, who purchased it from Count Darling Chevrolet in Andalusia, Alabama, reportedly kept it for 30 years. The exterior was refinished 25 years ago in the original color of Aztec Bronze (code M). Features include accessory bumper guards, rocker moldings, left and right rearview mirrors and rear-mounted antenna.

A set of 14 x 6-inch Aztec Bronze steel wheels is wrapped in new 205/70/14 BFGoodrich Silvertown redline radial tires.

The vinyl interior is upholstered in Light Fawn (code 718). Features include padded dashboard, center console with shifter, and manual steering.

The instrument panel includes a 120-mph speedometer, clock and gauge for the fuel level. A Stewart Warner oil pressure gauge is mounted under the dashboard. The odometer has rolled over and reads 125,307 miles, which the selling dealer reports to be accurate.

Power is provided by a numbers-matching, 350-horsepower L79 327ci V8 engine fed by a correct, rebuilt Holley 3245 600-cfm carburetor. Other features include a dual-snorkel air cleaner and Muncie M21 close-ratio four-speed manual, which is reportedly the original transmission to the car.

This Nova SS is equipped with an independent front suspension and BS-code 12-bolt solid rear axle with 3.31:1 gears and Positraction. Braking is provided by manual four-wheel drums. A $1,500 NCRS-approved Gardner dual exhaust system exits at the rear.

The selling dealer will include the original SS wheel covers along with the 14 x 6-inch hubcaps. Other items included as part of the sale are the original fuel and water pumps, alternator, paperwork from previous ownership, owner’s manual, and the aforementioned Protect-O-Plate. Additional documentation photos can be seen in the auction’s gallery.

The auction for this 1966 Chevrolet Nova SS equipped with the L79 327 ends on Thursday, April 13, 2023, at 2:40 p.m. (PDT)

Visit the AutoHunter listing for more information and photo gallery

Featured on AutoHunter, the online auction platform driven by ClassicCars.com, is this 1966 Chevrolet Nova SS. Power is supplied by a numbers-matching L79 327ci V8 engine backed by a four-speed manual transmission. Features include bucket seats, console, Delco AM radio with rear speaker, and Positraction. Finished in bronze over an off-white vinyl interior, this Nova SS comes with extra parts including the original wheels and correct wheel covers, Protect-O-Plate and transferable Rhode Island registration.

This 1966 Chevrolet Nova SS was built on January 28, 1966, in Norwood, Ohio. The original owner, who purchased it from Count Darling Chevrolet in Andalusia, Alabama, reportedly kept it for 30 years. The exterior was refinished 25 years ago in the original color of Aztec Bronze (code M). Features include accessory bumper guards, rocker moldings, left and right rearview mirrors and rear-mounted antenna.

A set of 14 x 6-inch Aztec Bronze steel wheels is wrapped in new 205/70/14 BFGoodrich Silvertown redline radial tires.

The vinyl interior is upholstered in Light Fawn (code 718). Features include padded dashboard, center console with shifter, and manual steering.

The instrument panel includes a 120-mph speedometer, clock and gauge for the fuel level. A Stewart Warner oil pressure gauge is mounted under the dashboard. The odometer has rolled over and reads 125,307 miles, which the selling dealer reports to be accurate.

Power is provided by a numbers-matching, 350-horsepower L79 327ci V8 engine fed by a correct, rebuilt Holley 3245 600-cfm carburetor. Other features include a dual-snorkel air cleaner and Muncie M21 close-ratio four-speed manual, which is reportedly the original transmission to the car.

This Nova SS is equipped with an independent front suspension and BS-code 12-bolt solid rear axle with 3.31:1 gears and Positraction. Braking is provided by manual four-wheel drums. A $1,500 NCRS-approved Gardner dual exhaust system exits at the rear.

The selling dealer will include the original SS wheel covers along with the 14 x 6-inch hubcaps. Other items included as part of the sale are the original fuel and water pumps, alternator, paperwork from previous ownership, owner’s manual, and the aforementioned Protect-O-Plate. Additional documentation photos can be seen in the auction’s gallery.

The auction for this 1966 Chevrolet Nova SS equipped with the L79 327 ends on Thursday, April 13, 2023, at 2:40 p.m. (PDT)

Visit the AutoHunter listing for more information and photo gallery