Hemmings

The Ford Mustang is coming up on its 60-year anniversary, and America’s Pony Car has never been more popular than it is now. With so many generations of body and chassis designs, and so many awesome engine configurations, the Mustang legacy is something that Ford enthusiasts are proud of, and rightfully so. Ponies in the Smokies is an event that allows Ford enthusiasts to celebrate all things Mustang with a beautiful backdrop of the Great Smoky Mountains in the distance. The Sevierville Convention Center in Sevierville, Tennessee provided just enough room to hold the huge turnout of cars, which came from all over the country.

Ponies in the Smokies has a relatively short history, compared to many other car shows. It all began in 2017 and has grown immensely each year. Now, the event features five days of activities, with a kick-off party on Monday for those who just can’t get enough Mustang action. The event features a special ‘Shine Run, Autocross at Smokies Stadium, drag racing at English Mountain Raceway, and many other activities that keep Sevierville and surrounding towns busy for the entire week. We were on hand for the Car Show portion of the event, where more than 1,000 Mustangs of all generations competed for awards in many classes. The show had an excellent display of original, restored and customized Mustangs inside the Convention Center building, and then the show outside was packed with hundreds more cars. The aisles were packed with people of all ages, and this event is fun and affordable for the whole family. With such a strong reputation in the Mustang community, we’re sure this event will continue to grow each year and provide even more reason to spend the week in the Smokies.

Steve Saleen made a special appearance at the show, and there were several beautifully restored Saleen-prepared cars from the Fox Body era on hand. Other special edition Fox Body cars included the 1984.5 Mustang GT350, a limited production model that celebrated the Mustang’s 20^th birthday. We also spotted a few Mustang SVO models with the turbocharged four-cylinder, several Pace Cars, Shelby Mustangs and so much more. Even though most of the cars on hand were built in the last 30 years or so, our coverage focuses primarily on the classic Mustangs on hand. Take a look at some of our highlights from the 2023 Ponies in the Smokies event in Sevierville, Tennessee and make plans to join the fun in March of 2024. For more information visit www.poniesinthesmokies.com.

Darin Clark’s 1968 Shelby GT500 KR is a tribute to his father, who passed away 14 years ago. His prized Shelby has been beautifully preserved and shown at select events, where it has won MCA Gold and SAAC Division 2 Gold awards. It is one of only 1,053 GT500 KR Fastbacks built in 1968.

Sporting Grabber Orange paint and a shaker hood scoop, this 1970 Mustang Mach 1 is a popular body style and option package. Elizabeth Gatrost’s Mach 1 was part of the special indoor display that included all generations of Mustangs.

Terry Wideman brought his rare 1985-1/2 Ford Mustang SVO. These turbocharged four-cylinder Mustangs are already rare, but the half-year production makes it one of less than 500 built. The mid-year refresh brought 30 more horsepower to the table, as well as the flush-mounted headlights, compared to the first half of 1985 production.

The Mustang II doesn’t get nearly the respect as other Mustangs, but Ponies in the Smokies had several on display, including this immaculate King Cobra, owned by Robert Gesling of Blue Grass, Iowa. Robert has owned the car since 1980 and recently finished a thorough restoration.

Mark Brown’s 1969 Mustang convertible is a modern take on a classic pony car. It features a 5.0-liter Coyote engine, and lots of great suspension tricks underneath. The fine metallic paint danced in the sun, and Mark added a nice mixture of black stripes and brightwork for a great appearance package.

Another half-year production came in 1984, when the GT350 was introduced to celebrate Mustang’s 20th anniversary. This example, owned by Michael Zachary features a lowered stance with Pony wheels, but the rest of the car appears very original, including the original rocker panel stripes.

Originally a California car, this 1966 Ford Mustang GT fastback still has its original 289ci V8 with emissions equipment. Frank and Cheryl Chamberlain made the short drive from Maryville, Tennessee to display their beautifully restored Mustang. We love the styled steel wheels and dual redline tires.

Another incredible Fox Body is this flawless Saleen, owned by Jason Smith of Greenwood, Indiana. It’s one of only three black coupes built by Saleen in 1988, and it only has 33,000 miles on the odometer. Under the hood is a supercharged stroker small block, putting down 486 horsepower to the wheels.

It’s always exciting to own a car that comes up as one of one on the Marti Report, but it’s even better when the car is unrestored with only 3,477 miles on the clock. This example, a 1973 Mustang convertible is owned by Randy Cunningham of McCalla, Alabama, and it features its original 351 Cleveland 4V Cobra Jet engine that’s barely broken in.

This young Mustang enthusiast found a Mustang that’s exactly his size. This special edition go kart with Official Pace Car livery was positioned next to an incredibly well-preserved 1979 Mustang Indy 500 Pace Car, which only has 162 miles.

Although it is a factory 302 car, the showroom fresh Indy 500 Pace Car received “Turbo” emblems on the hood, a factory error that makes this no-mile classic even more unusual.

Date: July 1975

Location: Las Vegas, Nevada

Source: via UNLV Libraries Special Collections and Archives

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Aside from being the shop manager and master of all things mechanical at our Hemmings Sibley Garage and workshop in Bennington, Vermont, Junior Nevinson is also a rabid motorcycle enthusiast. So much so, that when we were filming our IROC REHAB video series on the Hemmings YouTube channel, we started talking about motorcycles. We started talking about road bikes, with the conversation then turning to off-road. Then, after a few moments, something amazing happened. Junior, being the humble human being he is, casually told us about how he took a motorcycle journey through South America that covered over twenty-one borders, and 46,000-miles, on a 250cc Yamaha dual sport motorcycle. Yeah, he did that… And now he’s on our very own Hemmings Hot Rod BBQ podcast to tell us exactly how it went!

Date: 1982

Location: Houston, Texas

Source: via Retro Houston / Facebook

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The 1956 Ford F100 is not only one of the most desirable generations of Ford pickup, but it’s one of the most sought-after classic trucks overall. This vintage turquoise beauty has a secret under its hood: A small-block Chevy 350 crate engine backed by a GM Turbo Hydra-Matic 400 three-speed automatic transmission.

While some enthusiasts may scoff at a classic Ford that’s powered by a Chevrolet engine, a small-block 350 engine swap has its advantages. The mass-produced SBC offers more power at less cost, and its simple design allows for easy upgrades, not to mention it tolerates tons of abuse. The popularity of Chevy’s 350 engine also means that parts are affordable and easily accessible.

The seller of this mild custom half-ton pickup states that the F100 is in great condition, is rust-free, and runs and shifts smoothly. It also handles easily with the addition of power steering and a tilt steering column. Modern front disc brakes give the classic truck more stopping power.

The paint is reported to be in very good condition and the bed planks have been varnished for longevity. Inside, the reupholstered interior matches the turquoise exterior. A Bluetooth Kenwood stereo provides tunes, and the heater runs hot as it should.

As of this writing, this Chevy-powered 1956 Ford F100 Deluxe Cab Pickup is up for auction on Hemmings. More build details, photos and videos of it running and driving are available on the auction listing.

When you open a new automobile museum, you want to do it in a big way and perhaps offer something different from the many car museums scattered across the country. You need the right blend of great automobiles and intriguing art, an impressive physical location, and recurring exhibits that bring people back again and again. Entertaining public programs are a must, and a top-notch restaurant is a plus. The new Savoy Automobile Museum in Cartersville, Georgia, has all of that and much more.

It starts as you approach the museum. There’s an enormous sculpture in front called “The Spirit of Speed” that resembles a giant hood ornament. It’s 42 feet long, 20 feet high, and you can see it from a mile away. The architecture is futuristic, with a wheel-shaped rotunda at one end and a low silhouette. The predominant colors are silver and bright red.

Photo by Blake Johnson

Inside, there are five galleries, nearly all of them with curated exhibits that change every four months. There’s a permanent gallery for the Savoy Collection, but even the cars in that space are rotated occasionally, so you won’t see the same cars in the entire museum each time you return.

A little more than a year ago, when the museum was just under construction, I was invited to come down and meet the senior staff. Regrettably, I never met the late Frank Bergman, the Savoy’s principal architect and interior designer, but Frank had attended my exhibitions at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta in 2010 and 2014. Frank told the Savoy’s team to ask me to be involved.

I came to Cartersville for the first time in February 2021 and met Savoy Director Macra Adair, Development Director Tom Shinall, and Curatorial Director Bruce Patton, along with the staff at the Savoy and the management of the companion Booth Western Art and Tellus Science museums. I was very impressed. I believe I said something to the effect that the Savoy Automobile Museum was much better than I’d anticipated, and arguably better – in comparison to many automobile museums nationwide – than the team could imagine.

Photo by Blake Johnson

We elected to create themed exhibitions in the galleries using cars from the museum’s existing 75-car collection, along with cars that we’d borrow from other museums and collectors. From my experience with both automobile museums and fine art museums, I knew you could convince visitors to come once, but you had to give them good reasons, like a major gallery update, to return again and again. Once that idea was approved, I set to work outlining the exhibitions, curating their content, and then calling various car owners to arrange to borrow them for four or five months.

This was a challenge. No one had ever heard of the Savoy, and we were asking them to loan us some very valuable cars. Fortunately, in my capacity as a museum director and guest curator, and my work on selection committees for the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance and several other concours events, I have a pretty decent Rolodex and the trust of many people in the collector car community.

For our first exhibitions, we borrowed cars from the prestigious Richard H. Dreihaus Collection in Chicago (special thanks to its Director, Stephen Murphy). From New York, Howard Kroplick loaned his award-winning Tucker 48. Wayne Carini, popular star of “Chasing Classic Cars,” trusted us with his very original Studebaker Starliner hardtop. Wayne kindly came to the Savoy’s opening and together we gave gallery tours to a growing number of museum members. Jeff Lane, Founder of the Lane Motor Museum in Nashville, kindly loaned his rare 1948 Davis three-wheeler.

Photo by Blake Johnson

Local collectors provided several NASCAR racers — the1969 Dodge Daytona #71 K&K Car (Tim Wellborn), the 1970 Richard Petty Superbird #43 (Todd Werner) and the 2018 Ford Fusion #66 driven by Mark Thompson, the oldest driver to start and finish the Daytona 500. Reliable Carriers, Inc., the country’s largest transporter of vintage and manufacturer vehicles, has helped us with shipping, adding to the Savoy’s credibility among collectors.

Previous exhibits have included Art Deco Cars, with help from the Nicola Bulgari Collection in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and the ACD Museum; Big Blocks, with support from the Wellborn Musclecar Museum; Front Runners – a display of ‘50s-era Indy roadsters, with cars from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum, Brumos Collection, and the Unser Museum; Fast Brass, with cars from Corky Coker, Rob Kauffman, Howard Kroplick, and the Audrain Museum; Microcar Marvels from the Lane Motor Museum; and a special exhibition celebrating 150 years of Pirelli.

Thanks to creative programming, changing exhibitions, and all the great cars on display, visitors have flocked to the Savoy. The first year was a great success with more than 100,000 visitors.

Photo by Blake Johnson

Currently, museum visitors can see the British Invasion display; a tribute to Porsche’s 75th anniversary with cars from the Ingram Collection; Fabulous Fins, including loans from the Dreihaus Collection and the General Motors Heritage Center; Locally Owned, with some surprising cars from area collectors; and Built for a Crisis, small cars that were sold during the fuel crises of the 1970s. There are always at least a dozen cars on display from the Savoy’s own collection.

Working with Bruce Patton, Director of Curatorial Services, we’re planning the next rounds of gallery changes. The goal is to intrigue, inform, entertain, and educate Savoy Automobile Museum visitors, now and in the future. Enthusiasts won’t want to miss seeing what they have in store as exhibitions evolve. Already they have collectors who have heard about the Savoy and have asked about the museum displaying their cars.

I enjoy working with the team and I look forward to more exciting exhibitions. Miles S. Collier, a respected voice in the collector car community and the founder of the Revs Institute in Naples, Florida, has said that “…the automobile is the single most important invention of the 20th Century.” Look to the Savoy to display the history of the automobile in exciting ways that will encourage visitors to return again and again.

Ken Gross is the former Executive Director of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. His exhibitions of fine cars in fine art museums have entertained and informed more than one million art museum visitors nationwide.

According to a March 22 press release by Chevrolet, the final sixth-generation Camaros will roll off the assembly line at Michigan’s Lansing Grand River Assembly Plant in January, 2024. Plans for an immediate Camaro successor have not been finalized.

This isn’t the first Camaro discontinuation. Chevrolet killed the Camaro after the 2002 model year and brought it back eight years later to nip at the heels of the retro 2005 Ford Mustang. Considering the Camaro’s nine strong years in the automotive market with hundreds of thousands sold, the Camaro namesake could still live on.

The latest generation of Camaros are available in coupe and soft-top convertible variants, and according to Chevrolet, are known for supreme athleticism and composure. Whether it is earning awards for on-road performance or collecting race wins and championships at tracks across the world, Camaro has demonstrated Chevrolet’s ability to win in the most demanding environments.

“As we prepare to say goodbye to the current generation Camaro, it is difficult to overstate our gratitude to every Camaro customer, Camaro assembly line employee and race fan,” said Scott Bell, vice president, Global Chevrolet. “While we are not announcing an immediate successor today, rest assured, this is not the end of Camaro’s story.”

The pause of the Camaro model wouldn’t be official without an honorary limited edition package option. Chevrolet will release a Collector’s Edition package for the 2024 Camaro RS and SS models which will also extend to a limited number of ZL1 equipped vehicles available in North America. Chevrolet will release more information on the 2024 Camaro line and Collector’s Edition package this summer, but in the meantime the marque provided a few photo teasers:

As for motorsports involvement, Chevrolet will continue to campaign the sixth-generation Camaro in a variety of series, including NASCAR, IMSA, SRO, NHRA and the Supercars Championship.

Coming soon: The Chevy E-maro, an electric vehicle named with a spin-off of the common misspelling “Camero”. Just kidding. All jokes aside, Chevrolet says that the end of the sixth-generation Camaro doesn’t necessarily mean the nameplate will be gone forever, however, chances are the next reiteration will be of the EV variety.

Sixth-generation Camaro – One more ride | Chevrolet

youtu.be

The moment Peugeot descended on the Paris-Dakar, Mitsubishi’s representatives knew they had a fight on their hands. Its Pajero, which had handily won the race for the Japanese carmaker just a few years prior, needed a thorough re-evaluation if it were to remain competitive, and starting in 1988 that’s just what it received. Now, amid soaring prices for vintage production-line Pajeros on the collector-car market, one of those 1988 Paris-Dakar Pajeros will cross the block, expected to sell for a quarter of a million dollars or more.

The Pajero’s history with the Paris-Dakar dates back nearly to the introduction of the four-wheel-drive SUV, which debuted in May 1982 as a replacement for the Jeeps that Mitsubishi built under license and which Mitsubishi sold in the United States as the Montero and as the Dodge Raider. With a 4G54 2.6L four-cylinder gasoline engine, torsion-bar independent front suspension, and four-wheel-drive, Mitsubishi racing officials determined the Pajero would do well in the Paris-Dakar. After some blueprinting in Kyoto and reinforcement and rally prep by Sonauto, Mitsubishi’s French importer, Mitsubishi entered four Pajeros in the production car class in the 1983 race. None of the four finished in the top 10, but Andrew Cowan and George Debussy still finished first and second in their class, which Mitsubishi considered a victory.

Mitsubishi upgraded to the turbocharged version of the 4G54 from the Starion, switched first to the Modified Production car class and then to the Prototype class, and managed to notch another class win in 1984, followed by an overall win and second-place finish in 1985, then a trio of top-10 finishes (behind the Porsche 959 supercar) in 1986, but the most significant challenge to Mitsubishi’s Dakar success came in 1987 when Peugeot entered the fray. The French carmaker had taken the final two World Rally Championship Group B titles in its Peugeot 205 T16, but the FIA’s ban on Group B after the end of the 1986 season left Peugeot with a lot of motorsports investment and nowhere to compete, so Peugeot officials turned their eye to the Paris-Dakar.

As many Paris-Dakar contestants complained, Peugeot didn’t simply enter the race to win, it entered to dominate. “The team deployed 30 mechanics and enormous supply of spare parts, preparing a practically new car each night for the next day,” Mitsubishi noted in its history of the race. “(Peugeot driver Ari Vatanen) tackled the marathon rally as a series of sprint-type rallies and fought a hard battle every day.” In the end, Mitsubishi placed third, about four hours behind Vatanen.

To remain competitive, Mitsubishi and Sonauto made the most wide-ranging changes to the Pajero to date. It rode on a shorter 4.03-meter wheelbase, benefited from a longer-travel suspension, received a power boost to 275 horsepower thanks to an increase in compression, and was fitted with a larger 400-liter fuel tank. Because the Pajero had all the aerodynamics of the shipping container it arrived in, Mitsubishi tasked its Passenger Car Technology Center back in Japan with redesigning the body to be more slippery, fine-tuning it in a wind tunnel to ultimately reduce the body’s coefficient of drag by 20 percent.

Still, it retained its predecessors’ same basic ladder-frame chassis, rather than the Peugeot cars’ tube-frame structure, for which Mitsubishi granted Peugeot the advantage. Paris-Dakar veteran Pierre Lartigue – who’d previously raced Range Rovers and Lada Nivas – joined Cowan and Kenjiro Shinozuka on the Mitsubishi team and even managed to win one of the early stages before throwing in the towel, reportedly due to overheating. (This was the same Paris-Dakar in which Vatanen’s Peugeot was stolen as he was leading the race, putting him out of contention.) Juha Kankkunen won the race for Peugeot, but Shinozuka managed a second-place finish.

The 1988 Paris-Dakar Rally

www.youtube.com

Lartigue and the Pajero would both go on to greater success in the Paris-Dakar: After finishing second in a Pajero in 1991, Lartigue switched to Citroen and three-peated the race from 1994 through 1996; Pajeros bookended Lartigue’s success with overall wins in 1992 and 1993, 1997 and 1998, and then the remarkable string of seven consecutive wins from 2001 to 2007.

Still, Lartigue had a soft spot for that 1988 Pajero. After the Paris-Dakar, he took a pair of second-place finishes in it in the Rallye de Tunisie and the Rallye de l’Atlas, won the Course de Cote TT de Brive and the 1989 Rallye de Tunisie, and then turned in a pair of sixth-place finishes at the Rallye TT de Cognac and the Rallye TT de Vitrolles. And despite the switch to Citroen, he held on to the Pajero from the time Mitsubishi was done with it after the 1989 rallying season until 2021.

Photo courtesy Aguttes

Lartigue’s Pajero has since passed to a French collector, who restored it to its 1988 Paris-Dakar condition and made it the centerpiece of a small collection of Dakar vehicles, including a 1976 Opel Manta GT/E that had previously run in the European Rally Championship, a 1986 Audi Quattro placed atop a Range Rover chassis by Franco de Paoli, a 1981 Range Rover that ran the Paris-Dakar when new, and a 1991 Range Rover also prepared for the Paris-Dakar by de Paoli, all of which French auction house Aguttes will put up for bid in its spring sale. The Opel and Range Rovers are expected to sell for anywhere from €40,000 (about $44,000) to €80,000 (about $88,000) while the Quattro is expected to sell for €150,000 (about $165,000) to €250,000 (about $275,000) and the Pajero is expected to sell for €250,000 (about $275,000) to €350,000 (about $380,000). While production-line Pajeros (and Monteros and Dodge Raiders) don’t come close to those numbers, the Pajero Evolution that Mitsubishi offered from 1997 to 1999 to homologate the company’s entries in the Paris-Dakar has, over the last year or so, steeply climbed in value with examples now selling for anywhere from $35,000 to $50,000.

The Aguttes spring sale will take place April 2 at Hotel Espace Champerret in Paris. For more information, visit Aguttes.com.

The E30 325i is a cool car as is, offering an analog driving experience paired with a small, maneuverable wheelbase. This extra exciting example ups the smiles per mile with by adding 70-plus horsepower via an engine swap. The car’s original 168 horsepower 2.5 liter engine was traded for the more performance-oriented 3.2 liter inline-six out of a U.S.-spec E36 M3.

The blending of the E30 and E36 BMW generations resulted in a high-performance custom with several notable upgrades. Aside from its M3 power and matching five-speed manual transmission with an AKG short shifter, this 325i convertible sports a custom-fabricated exhaust system, an E36 steering rack, Ground Control coilover suspension, and larger aftermarket Wilwood brake calipers. Upon installation, the engine was equipped with an E34 oil pan, a Mishimoto aluminum radiator, and a Racing Dynamics carbon-fiber engine cover.

If you’re thinking that the exterior also looks updated, you’re right: the build also included an M-Tech body kit and BBS 17-inch wheels. Inside, the tan leather interior is refreshed and an aftermarket Pioneer stereo with Bluetooth was added.

All the listed modifications were completed by the pros at Castro Motorsport, a BMW specialist shop in North Hollywood, California. The seller states that the engine and transmission swap was completed in May 2017, and he only out 10,000 miles on it since.

“This car has been with me for many years, and I’ve put a lot of resources and love in it,” he said. “I never cut any corners.”

Visit the auction listing for more details but be quick! Time flies and the auction ends on Monday, March 27^th.

Date: March 1973

Location: Bethesda, Maryland

Source: Yoichi Okamoto, via Documerica

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