Hemmings

Date: post 1972

Location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Source: via Milwaukee Police Historical Society

What do you see here?

In the feature film Hot Tub Time Machine, John Cusack’s character, Adam, and his misguided cohorts unknowingly travel back in time to the 1980s, where the guys have an opportunity to brighten their future by righting some of the poor decisions they made in the past. It’s a well-covered premise that still inspires people to hope and dream that one day time travel could possibly exist.

This machine sounds like something we all could use at one point or another in our lives. Who hasn’t had the hope of possibly going back to correct some of the mistakes that we all have made somewhere in time? To right the wrongs, to dot the I’s and cross the T’s. To try and make our lives profoundly better. You know, to invest in Apple stock or buy a Hemi ’Cuda convertible and stow it away… it really makes you think.

So, what if you could build your own time travel machine, one that could correct some of the choices you’ve made, while also being the “vehicle” of that very mission. Perhaps a car — a muscle car no less — with all the bells and whistles. Well, if you’re Dan Braun of North Hanover, New Jersey, you’ve already figured out a way to make the time-space continuum work in your favor, while having fun along the way.

Photo by Scotty Lachenauer

Dan has found a way of going back, a sort of portal providing the means to access the past while living in the present. That time-travelling experience is brought to him courtesy of his ’68 Ford Torino. Dan decided that, instead of searching for the long-lost Torino he had back in high school, he would just build a better version — one that could hit all the high points of his past ride, while adding more modern parts and pieces to yield something even better.

Even though Dan’s ride of choice was from the musclecar ’60s, the target date for his time warp would be set for a more recent period: the days of cassette tapes and day-glo clothes; those wild and crazy ’80s.

“I’ve been building and modifying cars for as long as I can remember. I have a long list of never-should-have-sold-that-one cars, but my ’68 Torino GT is right at the top of that list,” Dan states. The young gun bought his first Torino back in 1981 when he was still in his teens. “It was my cruiser. Lots of memories with my friends during that time. Then I joined the U.S. Army in ’83 and was stationed in Fort Stewart, Georgia. That Ford made numerous trips back and forth from Georgia to New Jersey over the next several years. I was always partial to that Torino. I loved the size and the fastback look.”

Photo by Scotty Lachenauer

However, like many good things, it soon came to an end. “Life happened: marriage, kids, and a mortgage. I’ve been on my own since I was 17, when my mother passed away; my dad passed when I was 12. I had my 18th birthday in boot camp.” As his adult life developed, responsibilities mounted and sacrifices were needed. “There weren’t any options. I knew I had to do it.” So, in 1988 the Torino was sold off to make way for a more family-oriented ride.

By that time, Dan was out of the regular Army and was serving in the New Jersey National Guard. That decision led to a career in law enforcement as a State Principal Investigator K9. It was during a training session in Tennessee that Dan saw his future ’68 Torino sitting on the side of the road. “I had always regretted selling my first one, so when I saw this car, I stopped and spoke with the owner. It was in bad shape. It did run, but it was nowhere near roadworthy. I was interested in this one as it was an original air-conditioned car. I knew I was going to do a full restoration on it anyway, and I wanted that A/C dash.”

So, Dan left a deposit with the owner and advised him that he would be back the next day. “I drove home to New Jersey that night with a very intense Belgian Malinois. I dropped him off with my wife and asked her to feed the dog while I was gone. My wife has a fear of dogs and told me she wasn’t going to go anywhere near ‘that wolf.’ They did become best friends down the road. But at that moment, I grabbed my trailer and drove 17 hours back to Tennessee to pick up my new trophy.”

Photo by Scotty Lachenauer

Once back home, Dan wasted no time tearing into his new project. “I had a vision and drawings of what I wanted to do.” First to go was the suspension; Dan already knew from previous experience that he didn’t want it to handle like a stock ’68, so a Rod and Custom Motorsports tubular coil-over front suspension and Mustang II rack and pinion were installed.

The new front suspension would require some surgery, as the stock shock towers would have to be removed. But this Torino had suffered years of exposure and would need extensive rust repair — much of the rotten steel in the lower regions was going to have to be cut out and replaced anyway.

“There was plenty of welding and fabrication going on over the weekends,” Dan says of that time. Next were two-inch drop spindles, the installation of Crites full frame rails, and then widened rear wheel tubs for larger tires out back. The rear suspension is made up of an Art Morrison ladder bar three-link, built with adjustable coil-overs and a Panhard bar.

Photo by Scotty Lachenauer

Repairs to the steel to remedy the weathering and other abuses continued. “I welded in new floor pans and I hand fabricated a new cowl and firewall for the car. If this had been a Mustang, I could have gotten anything I wanted and all the parts I needed. They don’t make much for this car, especially not cowls and firewalls. I need a Torino as I don’t fit in Mustangs. I’m six-foot-four and 245. Pony cars don’t work for me!”

The owner finished up the bodywork and prepped it for paint. “That was the only thing I didn’t do on this car. I wanted it done in a shop. My buddy Chris Cather at Island Works in Toms River, New Jersey, laid out the PPG Toxic Orange, after loading it up with an extra dose of pearl.” The color is loud and proud and gets this Torino plenty of attention when it’s out in the light.

The 390 now displaces 445 cubic inches and is topped with aluminum heads and intake from Edelbrock. Photo by Scotty Lachenauer

Dan knew he wanted to have plenty of power under his right foot, so he went straight for a big-block. “It’s a 390 FE with a 4.250-inch stroker nodular-iron crank, 6.700-inch forged rods, and flat-top pistons pushing 12.1:1 compression.” A hydraulic flat-tappet Isky cam controls the valvetrain and Edelbrock aluminum heads complete the assembly, topped with a low-rise dual plane manifold and a Quick Fuel 650-cfm carburetor.

A 7-quart Canton front-sump oil pan keeps this beast well-lubed. The front end was dressed up with a Concept One six-groove serpentine system to mount the accessories, including the A/C Dan wanted when he first saw the Torino. Exhaust is handled by Custom Ford PowerTrain (FPA) headers with Hooker electronic exhaust cutouts, 2 ½ inch pipes with X-pipe crossover, and Flowmaster Super 40 mufflers get the tone that Dan desired. “This engine puts out nice horsepower and torque curves. It’s worked flawlessly so far,” Dan states.

All that power is channeled by a Tremec TKO 600 five-speed manual transmission with an 11 ½-inch Centerforce clutch, Quick Time bellhousing, and a hydraulic clutch setup. A heavyduty custom racing driveshaft with a cradle was installed to handle the output, which twists a Ford 9-inch rear with Yukon axles and Grizzly locker 3.73 gears.

Inside feels factory stock, other than the obvious steering wheel upgrade. But gauges are also updated, and a modern A/C system now blows through factory vents.Photo by Scotty Lachenauer

The interior was nowhere to skimp. “I installed a new harness from Painless to handle everything I needed to add to the Torino.” That list includes a Vintage Air HVAC system, an Iditit tilt column, and Billet Specialties steering wheel, along with a Hurst Competition shifter to get Dan through the gears. As far as the dash goes, the instrument cluster was customized with four-inch Speedhut gauges including a speedometer, a tach, as well as readouts for volts, oil pressure, fuel and temperature. Macs Auto Parts supplied the new upholstery that Dan installed himself.

The car was finished in 2017 and has been featured at the Philadelphia Car Show and on the 102.9 MGK Car Calendar in 2020. It also took first place at the Fairlane/Torino Club of America Dutch Country meet in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Dan sums up the build with this thought: “Driving it reminds me of 40 years ago, cruising town in my original ’68. Once I’m in the seat, I am immediately sent back to the ’80s, remembering the great times I had in my favorite ride. I just built this one with a lot more power and better suspension.”

OWNER’S VIEW

It’s a blast to drive; I get it out as much as possible. I love the sound of it. When a newer model car pulls up and revs its motor, I push a button and open the electronic exhaust cutouts. It’s not a trailer queen, and it was built, not bought. I’d like to thank my wife Monica for putting up with me living in the garage after work, on holidays, and on weekends. A shout-out goes to the Asbury Park Circuit for their recognition and awesome Thursday Night meets. Thanks also go out to all the people who’ve helped along the way. —Dan Braun

Photo by Scotty Lachenauer

SPECIFICATIONS–1968 Ford Torino GT

ENGINE

Block type: Ford FE-series OHV V-8, cast-iron

Cylinder heads: Edelbrock Performer RPM aluminum, #6007

Displacement: 445 cubic inches

Bore x stroke: 4.080 x 4.250 inches

Compression ratio: 11.2:1

Horsepower @ rpm: Not tested

Torque @ rpm: Not tested

Camshaft: Isky hydraulic flat-tappet camshaft, .565-in lift, 292 degrees (adv.)

Induction system: Edelbrock aluminum intake, Quick Fuel 650-cfm four-barrel

Ignition system: Pertronix Flame Thrower III electronic distributor and coil

Exhaust system: FPA Ford PowerTrain custom headers, 2.5-in exhaust with electronic cutouts and Flowmaster Super 40 mufflers

TRANSMISSION

Type: Tremec TKO 600 five-speed manual

Ratios: 1st/2.87:1 … 2nd/1.90:1 … 3rd/1.34:1 … 4th/1.00:1 … 5th/0.68:1

DIFFERENTIAL

Type: Ford 9-inch w/ Grizzly locker

Ratio: 3.73:1

STEERING

Type: Rod & Custom Motorsports power assisted rack and pinion

Ratio: 16:1

SUSPENSION

Front: Rod & Custom Motorsports Mustang II type with 2-in drop spindles and adjustable coil-over shocks

Rear: Art Morrison adjustable ladder bar three-link with adjustable rear coil-overs shocks

BRAKES

Front: Wilwood six-piston disc

Rear: Wilwood four-piston disc

WHEELS & TIRES

Wheels: Foose Legend Front: 18 x 8 inches Rear: 20 x 9 inches

Tires: Nitto NT555 Radial Tires Front: 225/40ZR18 97W Rear: 255/35ZR20 97W

PERFORMANCE

Not yet tested

Photo by Scotty Lachenauer

One thousand pounds. Half a ton. Way more than any strongman contestant can lift. That’s how much weight Finale Speed has been able to cut out of a 1969 Camaro by replacing its steel body with carbon fiber. And the company’s aiming to bring that supercar technology to pretty much any American muscle car.

“Carbon fiber’s been around for years,” said JD Rudisill, who founded Finale Speed in Yukon, Oklahoma, in April 2022. “It’s what they use in Formula 1, all the hypercars, because it’s just a fraction of the weight of steel. Half the weight and double the strength, is what they say. It’s just that nobody had used it on the classics.”

Other aftermarket companies have offered ready-made carbon-fiber components, Rudisill noted, and a handful do offer full carbon-fiber bodies, but Rudisill said that as far as he knows, Finale is the first company to offer full carbon-fiber bodies for 1968-1970 Dodge Chargers and first-generation Chevrolet Camaros.

The latter made its debut this past week at Barrett-Jackson’s Scottsdale auction as a complete car dubbed Viral, powered by a 650hp LT4 6.2-liter crate engine. The former has had a far more eventful few months. From the start, Rudisill wanted to work with Dodge representatives to license the second-generation Charger’s design, and even before those agreements were in place, he got an invitation to unveil the Charger’s bare carbon-fiber body at Dodge’s Speed Week event in August – the same event at which the company debuted its all-electric Charger Daytona SRT Concept.

“We just got there, and we’ve got Tom Sacoman (Director of Dodge Product and Motorsports) and Ralph Gilles (Stellantis Head of Design) crawling all over it,” Rudisill said. “I’m in shock. Then Tim Kuniskis sees it and says he wants it at SEMA, still unfinished and with a Hellcrate in it.”

According to Rudisill and Finale’s Chris Jacobs, the company has been able to make such great strides in less than a year due to a number of factors. While Rudisill gives credit to the eight guys in the shop who came to the company from Rudisill’s prior venture (“The eight best guys you want working on carbon fiber cars,” he said), he also has 15 years of experience working with carbon fiber in automotive applications. Finale has also partnered with Brothers Carbon in Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin, which supplies the dozen or so pieces that Finale then pieces together into bodies.

(For what it’s worth, Brothers displays a complete carbon-fiber Bumpside F-100 body on its website. Speedkore has also built full carbon-fiber Dodge Chargers, but does not appear to offer the bodies separately. Kindig-It Design offers 1953 Corvettes with full carbon fiber bodies. Classic Recreations, which was already building carbon-fiber Shelby G.T.500s, also announced a full carbon-fiber Shelby Cobra body last year.)

Perhaps just as important, Finale employs a straightforward, old-school method for building carbon fiber bodies that dispenses with the time-consuming process of CAD modeling, 3D printing, and other high-tech prototyping solutions normally associated with carbon fiber. More like creating fiberglass body panels, the process starts with sourcing a body from which Finale can pull fiberglass molds, which then go to Brothers for laying up with prepreg (carbon fiber sheets with the resin already embedded in the carbon fiber weave) and curing in an autoclave. “With the prepreg, they just roll it out and trim it to fit,” Jacobs said. “It looks just like they’re installing Dynamat.”

Once Brothers delivers the individual panels to Finale, the crew there begins piecing together the panels into a full body, attaching them to each other and to the steel inner structure of the donor car using a panel bonding adhesive. All of the panels are exact replicas of the originals, Rudisill said, so OE components like glass and door strikers will mate right up to the carbon-fiber bodies.

“It’s a true art to line up the panels, but the biggest hurdle is making the molds,” Rudisill said. Because he wants the carbon-fiber weave to be visible in the end product regardless of whether the customer specifies a bare or painted body, he said his crew puts in the time to make sure the source body and the fiberglass molds are as straight and smooth as possible.

According to Jacobs, Finale makes use of the donor car’s steel inner structure – including the firewall, dash structure, and much of the floor – to retain the car’s VIN and make registering the car straightforward. He said the company currently has a good stock of donors with VINs, but should they run out, they might consider producing entirely new bodies under the Low Volume Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Act.

While Rudisill said he started the venture to build the carbon-fiber Camaros (“One of my personal favorite cars,” he said), the manufacturing process essentially allows Finale to replicate any cars in carbon fiber. He and Jacobs are currently pursuing a licensing deal with Ford to build and offer complete bodies for an undisclosed vehicle, and Jacobs said the license deal with Dodge allows the company to build carbon-fiber bodies for any Dodge vehicle. “In the future, I’d like to see us get out of the box with something like an A-body Barracuda or a 1971 Charger,” Jacobs said. “We’ve even been talking about GM G-bodies. We have total freedom to do what we want; it’s just a matter of finding a clean version of that model and using some portion of an existing car.”

That also includes offering carbon-fiber bodies in pretty much any state of completion, from bare bodies to turnkey cars. Finale currently lists the 1970 Charger body, sitting on a Salvaggio Designs perimeter chassis and equipped with Detroit Speed front and rear suspension, Wildwood 14-inch disc brakes, and Forgeline wheels, for $199,000. Viral, the carbon-fiber Camaro, is a complete running and driving car with a full interior; Finale currently lists it for $429,000. According to Jacobs, Finale currently has body panels for another five Camaros and five Chargers. Lead time for the cars sits at six to eight months, and Jacobs said that Finale currently has the capacity to complete two to three cars per month.

For more information about Finale’s carbon fiber-bodied Charger and Camaro, visit FinaleSpeed.com.

Date: circa 1970s

Location: Fort Worth, Texas

Source: via The Portal to Texas History

What do you see here?

If one needs any further proof that the rat rod and gasser movements are just two peas in a pod, take a look at this 1951 Chevrolet gasser listed for sale on Hemmings.com, a car that blends elements of both into a drivable conglomeration of assorted parts. Underneath, it’s standard gasser with the straight front axle, parallel leaf springs, and square-tube ladder bars in the back. Stone simple. While gassers of yore tended to run something far larger than a small-block Chevrolet, the 350 between the fenders at least has an excessive amount of carburetion atop a Weiand tunnel ram, open headers, and a laundry list of internal modifications.

With new floors, the body’s rust free, according to the seller, but that’s not to say it’s perfect, what with the pieces of other Chevrolets patched into the quarters, the dents throughout, and the heavy patina underneath the retro lettering and decals. It wouldn’t be a rat rod without a bottle opener bolted somewhere to the body, but the inside is where it goes full-on piecemeal. The seats came out of an airport shuttle bus, the door panels and carpet and headliner have been dispensed with, there’s some remnants of a sparkle vinyl custom interior, and no seats or rear bulkhead separate the driver from the fuel cell in the trunk.

All that said, the car reportedly runs and drives well and recently benefited from a new brake master cylinder. According to the seller, it’ll probably need new rear tires as well as a steering stabilizer and rear glass. In addition, while the gleeful thumbing of the nose at safety is the raison d’être of any rat rod, we’d argue that at least the front suspension should be re-engineered to remove those lift blocks.

Recent reports claim that Renault, via its Alpine sub-brand, may return to the U.S. market sometime before the end of the decade. Those same reports note that Renault last sold cars here in the States in 1987, but that’s a) not for lack of trying, and b) not really the case, considering U.S. car buyers have been buying Renaults almost the entire time since.

As Automotive News reported last week, Laurent Rossi, the CEO of Alpine, plans to increase the sub-brand’s sales volume and product portfolio from the 3,500 Alpine 110s that it sold last year to more than 150,000 examples of at least three models by 2030. “We want to go to the U.S., which will create the bulk of the extra volume,” he said. While Rossi has plans to introduce a small EV resurrecting the Renault 5 model name in Europe, his U.S. plans center around a midsize electric crossover and a larger electric crossover to be introduced sometime in 2027 or 2028.

Eagle Medallion 1989 Advert USA “Expect The Best”

When did Renault leave the U.S. market?

The Automotive News article makes note of Renault’s partial ownership of AMC that ended when Chrysler bought the latter in 1987 but also claims Renault models were last sold in the U.S. in the early 1990s. Both are true.

Renault started exporting cars to the United States before World War I but sales of its luxury cars had slacked even before the onset of the Depression, and Renault didn’t re-establish itself in the States until the introduction of the Caravelle and Dauphine, the latter of which often came close to eclipsing the Volkswagen Beetle’s U.S. sales figures in the late Fifties and early Sixties. The French carmaker took third run at the U.S. market in 1979 when it entered an agreement with AMC to sell its cars through the latter’s dealership network. That agreement led Renault to take a 22.5 percent interest in AMC the following year, which Renault expanded to 46.4 percent in 1982.

The partnership ended up benefiting both parties. Renault got to sell Jeeps in Europe. AMC netted a massive infusion of cash from Renault and was able to invest in its Brampton Assembly Plant in Canada. The two automakers even began to collaborate on design, engineering, and product development, resulting in the Renix fuel injection system for Jeeps and the Renault Alliance compact front-wheel-drive sedan. Under Georges Besse’s leadership, the French government-owned Renault began to turn a profit, with AMC right on its heels.

While some sources point to Besse’s assassination in November 1986 in Paris as the main reason why Renault decided to sell AMC and Jeep to Chrysler, Besse and Chrysler’s Lee Iacocca had already started talking about cooperative ventures (resulting in AMC building some Chrysler cars in Brampton) and the potential for more as early as the spring of 1986. Besse and Iacocca’s discussion about selling AMC to Chrysler even took on a codename, Project Titan, according to Pat Foster’s “American Motors Corporation: The Rise and Fall of America’s Last Independent Automaker.”

The sale proceeded in March 1987 with the stipulation that Chrysler would sell the Renault 21-based Medallion – which went on sale as a Renault just eight days before the sale – for five years. Chrysler essentially left it alone for the 1988 model year, rebadged it as an Eagle for the 1989 model year, then discontinued it altogether. The Alliance, despite early reports that Chrysler would continue to market it and despite the existence of press kits for a 1988 model year Alliance, came to an end in June 1987. The Encore, Le Car, and other Renault models sold via AMC dealerships, had all been discontinued well before the Chrysler purchase.

Renault’s Chrysler LH legacy

That’s not to say Renault vanished entirely from the American market in the late Eighties. AMC and Renault had for several years been working on the Giugiaro-designed, Renault 25-based Premier full-size sedan, and pre-production prototypes were spotted with Renault badging. As with the Medallion, Chrysler’s purchase agreement also stipulated that the company would continue to sell the Premier at least through 1992, with a minimum sales figure of 300,000 over that five-year period, so Chrysler put an Eagle badge on it and sold 117,000 Premieres – plus another 21,000 badge-engineered Dodge Monacos – through 1992. (According to some reports, parts bearing the Renault logo could be found on Premieres through the 1989 model year.)

Even then, that wasn’t the last of Renault. The Premiere’s chassis, complete with its longitudinal front-wheel-drive layout, had been designed under Francois Castaing when he served as AMC’s head of product engineering and development, and he was loathe to let it expire so soon, so when he transitioned to Chrysler’s vice presidency of engineering, Castaing made sure the Premier lived on as the basis for Chrysler’s lineup of LH “cab-forward” cars. The chassis packaging, the suspension, and all of the hard points became the basis for the LH platform, which underpinned a number of Chrysler products, among them the Eagle Vision, the Chrysler Concorde/New Yorker/LHS, the Dodge Intrepid, and later, the Chrysler 300M. The LH cars rolled off the same Brampton platform, and Chrysler’s prototypes even ran around disguised as Premieres.

(We’ll note here that Castaing and Renault engineers also had a hand in the development of not just the Jeep XJ Cherokee but also the Jeep ZJ Grand Cherokee, two SUVs widely heralded for their European influences on their introductions. Credit for the former, however, goes to Roy Lunn and Bob Nixon while the latter is often attributed to Castaing and Larry Shinoda, and neither was based on a Renault platform.)

Certainly, none of the Premiere’s or LH cars’ parts carried Renault logos anymore, but strong Renault influence on cars sold on American soil remained unbroken through the end of LH production in the 2004 model year.

Re-introduced as Nissans

Renault certainly wasn’t making money on the LH cars, so it started to eye a return to the U.S. market as early as 1999, this time through another alliance: the one it entered into with Nissan that year. As reported not long after the alliance was announced in March 1999, Renault executives had planned to sell its cars in the United Stated badged as Nissans. Louis Schweitzer, chairman and chief executive of Renault, told reporters that Renault had no plans to use Nissan’s assembly plants in Tennessee, but “you may find a product (in the United States) that looks like a Renault, but they would be called Nissans.”

That report predicted the alliance would pay off as early as 2003 with jointly developed cars rolling off the same assembly line. That wouldn’t actually happen until 2006, when Nissan introduced the Versa and the Sentra, with the latter built on the Nissan/Renault C platform (the same platform that underpinned the Renault Megane II) and the former riding a stretched version of the Nissan/Renault C platform (the same that underpinned the Renault Clio III). A number of other Nissan products sold in the United States since then – including the Cube, the Juke, the Rogue, and the Murano – have used one of multiple common chassis designed by Renault and Nissan.

Of course, none of those vehicles have carried the Renault diamond logo on their grilles, and it remains to be seen whether the Alpines planned for later this decade actually arrive for a fourth run of Renaults in the States. Or is that fifth? Sixth? We’re about to lose count here.

Date: February 1986

Location: Miami, Florida

Source: courtesy Miami-Dade Public Library System Digital Collections

What do you see here?

The description for this 1976 Toyota Celica GT listed for sale on Hemmings.com doesn’t state what it was in the midst of being modified for (road racing? drifting? time attack?), but whatever the purpose, the wrenches behind the modifications were serious about it. The full roll cage is the first clue: attached to the frame and fully welded, it’s reportedly rated for 9-second passes. Then there’s the turbocharged and intercooled Toyota 3SGE BEAMS four-cylinder built to a claimed 450 to 480 horsepower, mated to a six-speed manual transmission and turning an Eaton differential in a custom rear axle shortened to fit 10-inch wide Watanabe wheels wrapped in slicks. Aftermarket coilovers and Wildwood brakes round out the chassis modifications.

With all the go-fast stuff swapped into or bolted on to the car, one would expect the body to have only a passing resemblance to what came from the factory. Instead, it remains rather sedate, with a chin spoiler, a couple hoses and AN fittings peeking out from behind the bumper, and the stock rust-free Nevada sheetmetal still in place. (That said, it does come with steel fender flares should the need to cut the original fenders arise.) Similarly, despite the roll cage, the interior looks like it’s meant to go back together again with stock door panels, a stock dash, and even the original seat belts still in place.

The seller admits it’s not ready for primetime. The fuel system needs to be finished, we see brake components that need to be reattached, it’s missing seats and carpet, and surface rust under the hood and on some chassis parts indicates it’s sat partially completed for a while. Plus, there’s the potential for customizing it to an entirely new vision or to built it to a different race spec. Either way, it’s a good start on a Japanese muscle car project.

There’s a reason the auction listing for the 1977 AMC concept vehicle called the AM Van didn’t include photos of the interior when the compact red wagon came up for sale last summer: It didn’t have one. The 4×4 drivetrain that its decals advertised? No such thing. No real chassis either, just four rolling wheels. But German collector and customizer Andreas Wietzke intends to rectify that with his plans to make the AM Van into a running and driving vehicle.

“I love to perform correct restorations, but sometimes also create and build new constructions in the period style,” he said. “That is what I am doing now with the AM Van.”

What were the Concept 80 vehicles?

Built at a time when the public’s confidence and interest in the independent automaker was flagging, the AM Van was one of several concept cars that AMC whipped up for its Concept 80 program in 1977. Conceived as a sort of GM Motorama-like traveling road show, the Concept 80 program was intended “to demonstrate in a tangible way that (AMC) still had plenty of new ideas for the small car market, and to reinforce its reputation as an innovative small-car manufacturer,” Pat Foster wrote in his account of the show’s stop in New York City in the September 2009 issue of Hemmings Classic Car. “For several months, newspapers had been full of doom and gloom stories about American Motors… Management hoped the Concept 80 show vehicles would influence the press to be more upbeat about AMC’s future.”

In some ways, AMC showed prescience with its concepts – or, at the very least, showed that company execs and stylists paid attention to what was going on in the auto marketplace. For instance, Foster described the Concept I – a compact two-door hatchback – as something like AMC’s answer to the Volkswagen Rabbit, though it also looks very much like Honda’s second-generation Civic. The reduced size of the Jeep II foreshadowed the Samurai and other compact SUVs. The Electron predicted a far-flung future of battery-electric power that wasn’t nearly ready in the late Seventies (and which was no more ready than when the Electron initially appeared as the Amitron in 1967). And then there was the AM Van.

What was the AM Van?

In some ways, the AM Van was prescient as well. Aside from the Volkswagen Type 2 and perhaps Dick Nesbitt’s designs for the Ford Carousel, the minivan – that is, a taller station wagon able to squeeze in an entire family, their dog, and all their stuff and still fit into an average suburban garage – was still several years in the future.

On the other hand, nothing about the AM Van was geared toward grown-up Baby Boomers and their suburban garages, especially with just two doors up front and barn doors in the rear. Instead, the AM Van was little more than a reflection of the times, when custom vanning took off as young men – not yet able to afford velour-laden personal luxury cars, nor willing to suffer the insurance premiums of what little American muscle remained – discovered that the vast flanks of cargo vans doubled as excellent canvases for Frazetta-like artwork and as cozy hideaways that readily accepted shag carpet and wood paneling. Magazines, movies, even music sang the praises of these rumpus rooms on wheels, and an aftermarket sprung up to outfit both the interiors and exteriors with chandeliers, sidepipes, and the like.

American Motors, however, had no such vans it could offer those youth, despite the fact that renderings on styling room walls as far back as the early Seventies reveal AMC designers’ interest in the bodystyle. In fact, it had nothing closer than the FJ-3 Fleetvan and other postal vehicles, which was why Dick Teague and his staff of designers started from scratch with the AM Van.

True to the American Motors way, the AM Van was envisioned as a compact van, shorter even than the Volkswagen Beetle. But like the custom vans, it had flares, sidepipes, custom wheels, and sundown stripes. One version of the AM Van even had porthole windows. Like the forward-looking supercars of the day, it had a very wedge-shaped prow. Teague and his staff took advantage of the clean-slate design (and the fact that the AM Van didn’t need to actually run for the Concept 80 show) to suggest that the van could have had four-wheel drive and a turbocharged engine at a time when the latter, at least, remained an exotic technology. It had youth-market bait literally written all over it. Little wonder that, according to Foster, exit surveys of Concept 80 show attendees ranked the AM Van the most well liked among the show’s concept cars.

What happened to the AM Van?

Photos, renderings, and even video of the AM Van in period show it with the aforementioned porthole windows, vertical stripes, and non-turbo graphics. While some have speculated American Motors built two AM Vans – one with the portholes, the other with the full side glass like we see today – it’s more likely that American Motors simply updated the former version into the latter either during or after the AM Van’s Concept 80 tour.

Despite the positive reception for the AM Van, it never proceeded beyond the pushmobile stage, with its body rendered in fiberglass, but its chassis little more than a wooden frame supporting rolling – but not steerable – wheels and tires. According to concept car collector Joe Bortz, AMC held on to the AM Van after the tour and through Renault’s ownership of the company (a period that nearly saw a production AMC minivan based on the Renault Espace) before ultimately selling it to Bortz around the time that Chrysler bought AMC in 1987.

While Bortz has motorized other non-motorized concept cars in the past, he said he ultimately came to the realization he’d never get around to doing the same with the AM Van, as he intended, so he put it up for sale, initially on eBay with a $72,000 buy-it-now price in 2017, then in 2022 as part of RM Sotheby’s Sand Lots online auction. It didn’t sell during the auction, but a month later Wietzke and Bortz made a deal, and in September it arrived in Wietzke’s garage in Frankfurt.

What are the plans for the AM Van?

Wietzke has restored a Pacer, a Kellison, a Volkswagen Fridolin, even an Albar Jet, but he’s perhaps made more of a name for himself driving a Coca-Cola-themed 1965 Mustang converted into a station wagon to Concours d’Lemons and building a roadworthy P-51 Mustang atop a 1968 Ford Mustang’s chassis. “I sleep in a loft only 20 stairs above my ‘playroom,’ so when some engineering solution appears in my dreams at 3 in the morning, I walk down and get to work on it immediately,” he said.

Rather than place a forklift motor and some basic steering under the AM Van and drive it no further than on and off a concours green, Wietzke decided the AM Van needed a full roadworthy drivetrain and chassis. Others have suggested AMC was considering some version of its Eagle all-wheel-drive system for the AM Van and that it would make the most sense for anybody in Wietzke’s position, but he instead bought a 1977 Jeep CJ-7 (“Same manufacturer and same year as the van,” he said) for the project.

While the CJ-7 didn’t come with a turbocharged engine, it did have a 304-cu.in. V-8 and four-wheel drive, so close enough. Wietzke also discovered that the CJ-7’s wheelbase was too short by an inch and a half and its track width too narrow to fit perfectly under the AM Van’s fiberglass shell, so he fabricated a longer rear frame section, installed wheel spacers, and cut off the front frame horns to get everything to line up. He said he’ll also have to relocate the entire drivetrain rearward by 10 inches and lower by three inches just to make it fit under the AM Van’s hoodless shell. And that’s all before he installs floors, an interior, lighting, and everything else necessary to make it drive.

The whole project should take him about three years, he said, after which he intends to ship the AM Van back over to the States so he can hand the keys to Bortz for a ride.

As for the rest of the Concept 80 cars, only the Amitron/Electron is confirmed to still exist.

With nearly 2,000 cars on site, finding five personal favorites, cars that I’d bid on if I had the money to secure a bidder’s paddle, shouldn’t be difficult. Yet the preponderance of restomods and customs, done to the taste of the builder and/or a wide prospective audience, rarely resonates with me. Listen, I bought a Nissan S-Cargo. On purpose. You really think my tastes are inline with the bulk of the people who show up at Westworld? I like what I like. At Barrett-Jackson this year, from what I saw from my brief time on the ground there, these five stood out to me.

Lot 1018.1 1969 Chevy Nova SS396

The muscle car recipe–full-size car engine in a mid-size car–is one that has sustained our hobby and stoked our enthusiasm for (checks calendar…) yeesh, nearly 60 years now. But what about dropping a full-size car engine into a compact? What madness do you call this? I call it Nova SS396. So did Chevy. And this four-speed example is both super-sano and in super-sleeper mode. If someone twisted my arm and told me I needed to head out to Dove Valley Parkway for a night of recreational quarter-mile indulgence, I’d probably bring this. Dark green paint. Black bucket seat interior. When the sun goes down, you’d barely be able to see it. Hell, we barely saw it and we were standing right in front of it. Only the flashy wheels and SS in the grille are obvious; the 396 on the front corner marker is far subtler. Otherwise, no one would suspect. Good.

Lot 1278 1998 Toyota Supra

Ordinarily I’d say that a car like this last-year-Stateside Supra is a collector car for a new generation, but I’d be wrong: with multiple fourth-generation Supras achieving six-figure sales results in the past couple of years, it’s pretty obvious that this car is happening now. It’s aspirational to a new generation in the same way that a Highland Green Mustang fastback is aspirational to Boomers–and for the same reason. While plenty of these succumbed to Fast and Furious syndrome (sketchy paint, dodgy body kits, questionable underhood modifications that their long-suffering twin-turbo 2JZ engines were robust enough to account for), the ones that haven’t been beaten into the ground are the ones to look for. This one, in clean silver that shows off the body lines, equipped with the six-speed stick, and showing less than 19,000 miles on the odometer, was the one that I most wanted to hop in and drive to Vegas.

Lot 1109 1979 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am

I (through the pages of Hemmings Muscle Machines) have long espoused the basic mechanical goodness of the ’79 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am. W72-code Poncho power ratings that were actually on the upswing in an era when horsepower seemed like a dirty word, the proud availability of a four-speed stick in a world of increasingly-prevalent slushboxes, and the optional WS6 chassis pieces (including four-wheel-disc brakes for ’79) that let it handle like a Corvette for half(ish) the price are at the heart of this particular recipe. But the two versions you see most often don’t inspire me to own. The Bandit-homage black-and-gold Special Edition models feel overdone, and the silver-on-silver Tenth Anniversary Trans Am models seem just a skoshe too disco for my driveway. And so there’s this beauty: optioned how I’d like, and painted gold with a camel interior. This example has way under 1,000 miles from new; that said, I’d never be more tempted to make tracks in a low-mileage classic than with this one.

LOT 1152.1 1971 Plymouth GTX

Muscle-era Mopars are a lot like pasta. The shapes differ, and there’s a lot of ways to make them so that they’re to your taste, but the basics are the same basic blend. Spaghetti? Fettucine? Penne? Fusilli? Farfalle? Orecchiette? All made from flour, water and eggs. Belvedere? Coronet? Road Runner? Coronet? Satellite? Charger? ‘Cuda? Challenger? All made from more or less the same unit-body chassis, give or take a couple of inches of wheelbase, with a K-frame in front and leaf springs out back, and the same range of engines between divisions. So for me, it comes down to shape. And my favorite shape of the muscle car era, bar none, is the 1971-72 Plymouth B-body coupe. Paint it a bright color and install a 440 under the hood, like this one has, and that sounds just as tasty as the ziti with vodka sauce I get for dinner at local Italian hot-spot Lorenzo’s.

LOT 1586 1983 Rolls-Royce Corniche

Sometimes, I just want to get away. Sometimes, I want to revel in the silence. Sometimes I want to be alone with my thoughts. Sometimes I want to marvel at the Western scenery outside my windows as I cruise, rather than focus on the road and storm up the highway. Sometimes, I don’t want the tires to talk to me. Sometimes I don’t want to hug the curves like I’m humping their leg. Sometimes, I need a sensory deprivation tank. Sometimes, I need a Rolls. And this ’83 Corniche, with its convertible top coming apart at the seams near the rear deck and the paintwork starting to check, would let me achieve this with peace of mind–that with 118,000 miles on the clock, it’s used to running and there’s no fear of ruining the value of a pristine machine. Peace be with me.