Resident electric vehicle expert John Voelcker talks the best and worst EVs of 2022

John Voelcker, our resident EV expert, joins us on this episode of the Hemmings Hot Rod BBQ Podcast for a 2022 year-end update on what’s happening in the world of electric vehicles. We talk about favorites like the Lucid Air and Hyundai G80 Electrified, along with some of his not-so-favorites, which we’ll let him tell you about. He then recounts a hilarious ride along experience in the Porsche Cayman GT4 E-performance race car, and even touches on that new Toyota Prius that everyone seems to be talking about.

Resident Electric Vehicle Expert, John Voelcker, Talks the Best and Worst EVs of 2022

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So, grab a beverage or sit back in your favorite easy chair, because the BBQ is about to begin!

What at first looks like a fairly typical late-twentieth-century street rod is anything but, as we see once the engine swapped into this 1928 Ford Model A roadster pickup listed for sale on Hemmings.com is revealed. To begin with, it’s been converted to a mid-engine setup using a Ford 4.6L Cobra dual overhead-camshaft V-8 and Pantera transaxle. Then, to accommodate the drivetrain and to make it accessible, the entire body and chassis have been re-engineered so the former can tilt forward and reveal all the work done to the pickup. One would expect such an extensive undertaking to still have a few loose ends, but from the pictures it appears nothing here has been overlooked, from the finished interior to the folding top. From the seller’s description:

Model A pickup with a Ford 4.6 Cobra four cam engine behind the cab. Its transmission is a DeTomaso Pantera ZF 5-speed transaxle and is located directly behind the engine. The truck’s body is an original Ford Model A cab and bed that is mated to a custom fabricated tube chassis. With the touch of a button, the entire truck body pivots up with hydraulics to reveal the engine, drivetrain, and chassis. Power disc brakes all around. Concourse paint and leather interior. Custom billet aluminum wheels. Top shelf craftsmanship. More than 3500 shop hours are invested in this truck.

The top of a mountain is an inhospitable place. The higher the peak, the less accommodating the climes. When the brothers of the Order of Carthusians purchased 7,000 acres at the top of Mount Equinox in Sandgate, Vermont, the men of peace were headed into war with nature—including the building of two hydroelectric dams to power their monastery, the Charterhouse of the Transfiguration. To subdue their new home, which opened in 1960, they would need not guns and bombs, but at least military-spec equipment to match the elements atop Vermont’s tallest mountain.

Luckily, previous attempts at investigating the hydroelectric potential of the Vermont wilderness meant the brothers had already visited the Dodge dealer in Greenfield, Massachusetts, where they ordered up the latest version of a one-ton, 4×4 truck Dodge had been producing nonstop since 1942: The Power Wagon. Originally created for the military during World War II, the Dodge Power Wagon was treated to glossy paint and civilian equipment after the war, but retained its no-nonsense, no-frills workhorse nature to an even greater extent than the Willys Civilian Jeep.

Consider that, by 1956, the Jeep already had softened its styling and introduced an overhead-valve engine. Dodge offered a “Power Wagon” to customers like that, based on its civilian trucks, but hadn’t compromised the original one bit—including the retention of a cab that debuted back in 1939. The essential differences of this military-style 1956 Power Wagon from its 1945 equivalent boiled down to the 12-volt electrical system (a late-year introduction not present on all ’56 models), additional gauges, some tweaks to the bed sheetmetal, and a New Process SM 420 four-speed manual transmission that was synchronized in its upper gears.

You would not have mistaken the brothers’ Power Wagon for a military model when it was new, however, as its original finish was Bermuda Coral—pink. That oh-so-‘50s hue would be a hoot to see on a Power Wagon today, but given that owner/restorer Gerald “Jerry” Mattison, of Glastonbury, Vermont, is a Vermont State Fire Warden, it’s easy to understand why he chose Pontchartrain Green, another 1956 Dodge color he had mixed up in Mason single-stage urethane and sprayed on one piece at a time by the obliging Bodywerks in Shaftsbury, Vermont. The green-and-black scheme perfectly complements Jerry’s mania for Forest Service collectibles, including a period axe, Pulaski and water pump he mounted to the truck, and a passion for the heritage of Smokey the Bear, USFS’s long-time mascot for forest-fire prevention.

“I spent countless hours sourcing the period-correct Smokey Bear image and USFS logos which were painted and installed by White Rocks Design, in Bennington, Vermont,” Jerry says. The color change was a relatively easy deviation to make since Jerry’s restoration of the truck was mostly cosmetic. Brother Michael, the young monk of 1956 who had been entrusted with operating the truck and who had used it for the next 53 years to haul hundreds of cords of firewood to keep his fellows warm, had been devoted to maintaining the mechanical systems of the truck. Initially, the original 94-hp, 230-cu.in. flathead six-cylinder engine, for example, wasn’t even rebuilt—just torn down and treated to new seals, though a bad cam subsequently called for a full rebuild to be performed by Vermont Engine Works in Williston, Vermont.

It was Michael who suggested to Jerry that he purchase the truck. “He said it would be nice if someone could give the truck a good home, then stared at me until I took the hint,” Jerry says. He was at the time mountain manager and business director for the Carthusians and was shocked at the retirement of what he called “an icon on the mountain.” Although he’d never before restored a vehicle, he nevertheless hauled it home and at least stored it until the mild winter of 2016 persuaded him to give it a shot. He had, at least, long admired the Power Wagon, attracted to “its stance and look; its simplicity and utilitarian style” and noting how its “mechanically strong engineering comes through no matter what vantage point.”

Even restoring “just” the cosmetic side was no small effort, however. Even though it had been garage-kept from 1956 to 2009, and rust was limited to one driver’s side cab mount, a half-century of hard work had resulted in a body that was faded chalky white and covered in dents and dings.

“The biggest hurdle was getting it all apart,” Jerry says, recalling the restoration efforts that started in 2016. “Being bolted together so many years, as you can imagine, it was all Sawzalls and hammers.”

A local bodyman welded in a new cab mount, and Jerry ordered up new bedsides and running boards from Tisdale Coachworks in Winslow, Indiana.

To complement the green paint and USFS graphics, Jerry has collected various period-correct Forest Service items to display with the truck at shows, including a canteen, backpack, portable telephone, and a vintage map of the service area he covers now as a Vermont Fire Warden.

To complement the green paint and USFS graphics, Jerry has collected various period-correct Forest Service items to display with the truck at shows, including a canteen, backpack, portable telephone, and a vintage map of the service area he covers now as a Vermont Fire Warden.

To complement the green paint and USFS graphics, Jerry has collected various period-correct Forest Service items to display with the truck at shows, including a canteen, backpack, portable telephone, and a vintage map of the service area he covers now as a Vermont Fire Warden.

To complement the green paint and USFS graphics, Jerry has collected various period-correct Forest Service items to display with the truck at shows, including a canteen, backpack, portable telephone, and a vintage map of the service area he covers now as a Vermont Fire Warden.

To complement the green paint and USFS graphics, Jerry has collected various period-correct Forest Service items to display with the truck at shows, including a canteen, backpack, portable telephone, and a vintage map of the service area he covers now as a Vermont Fire Warden.

While Power Wagons themselves are somewhat scarce due to the hard lives they often lived, and certainly in demand among the retro-oriented in today’s 4×4-centric marketplace, they remain rather easy to get parts for. In addition to Tisdale’s offerings, Jerry got items from DCM Classics in Zeeland, Michigan, and Vintage Power Wagons, in Fairfield, Iowa.

Today, the old Power Wagon lives an even more sedate life than it did in a monastery. Jerry takes it out for moderate cruises “a couple times a month” and adds about 1,500 miles to the odometer yearly. He’s only had it to three shows and says that the real pleasure he gets from it is “the smiles and stories it brings out in people of all walks.” Want a Power Wagon yourself? Then you may want to take Jerry’s advice.

“They are harder and harder to find, and becoming expensive. Save money, find the right one, and have patience.”

On this episode of IROC REHAB, presented by Edelbrock, our new drivetrain is prepped for install in our 1987 Chevrolet Camaro IROC-Z. After removing the original engine from the stock cradle, we degrease, and inspect it for imperfections before coating the cradle with POR-15 protective sealant. The original front accessory drive system is then removed and tested for proper fitment on our 380-hp Edelbrock-supplied crate motor.

Finally, it’s time to mate the engine to the American Powertrain Tremec TKX 5-speed transmission, install our new headers from Summit Racing, as well as the clutch master cylinder and pedal assembly. This is a great episode you’ll not want to miss!

Sources

American Powertrain • 931-646-4836 • americanpowertrain.com

Bendpak • 800-253-2363 • bendpak.com

Blacktop Yacht Club • blacktopyc.com

Classic Industries • 800-854-1280 • classicindustries.com

Covercraft • 800-274-7006 • covercraft.com

Edelbrock • 888-799-1135 • edelbrock.com

Griot’s Garage • 800-345-5789 • griotsgarage.com

Summit Racing • 800-230-3030 • summitracing.com

U.S. Radiator • 323-826-0965 • usradiator.com

Date: May 1974

Location: Richmond, Vermont

Source: Donald Wiedenmayer, via Vermont Landscape Change Program

What do you see here?

Pulling a distributor can be intimidating the first few times you do it. The distributor, after all, is where the delicate dance between spark and compression is choreographed. Put things back wrong and the engine may not run or may run so badly it’s at risk of damaging itself. Then, even if things are put back together more or less in the correct way, they still require fine tuning.

To get yourself as close as possible to the right starting point, pull out something virtually everyone has, a test lamp (12V or 6V, as appropriate to your car), and use it to find the exact moment your points make contact inside the distributor. Then, when you go to actually start the engine, you’ll already be within a degree or two of the proper static advance.

I recently had to do just that on my ’62 Corvair after combining the worn-out original distributor with a much nicer one salvaged from a 1965 110hp engine. It made getting the car re-started a snap.

The Problem

For quite some time, I’d noticed my car had diminishing power on hills. Because it wasn’t that great to start with, that was a real problem. Although I’d installed a new distributor cap, plug wires, and rotor some time ago, I figured it was time to replace the points and condenser. Yet, imagine my surprise when I discovered they were both nearly new! It was clearly a deeper problem.

I turned to one of the best Corvair resources I’ve found yet: How to Keep Your Corvair Alive! by Richard Finch. The late Mr. Finch was a devotee of the raced and daily driven Corvair and offered up his book as a supplement to the GM-supplied shop manuals (which I also own—I insist on owning a shop manual for all my cars, otherwise I feel I’m just groping in the dark when I work on them).

In his initial tune-up instructions (which, of course, I’d never really gotten around to following until now), Finch describes testing both the vacuum and centrifugal advance systems. One problem, I quickly discovered, was that rust had formed between the centrifugal-advance weights and the plate on which they slide inside the distributor. I pulled them, gave them a gentle cleaning with sandpaper, and then reassembled things—confident I’d be back on the road shortly now that my mechanical advance was working again.

Except when I went to give it the test, the distributor shaft no longer moved when I turned over the engine with a wrench. That was a new and unpleasant development. Down inside the engine, the roll pin that holds the distributor gear had sheared. Something I only discovered once I pulled the distributor to investigate why it no longer interfaced with the engine.

The Solution

Getting new roll pins off the generic-parts rack at the parts store is thankfully no problem. But when I got my old distributor cleaned up for repair, I noticed that the cam inside was really showing its mileage. I think it was probably run without lubrication for a long time. It occurred to me that I actually had a second distributor from a parts engine I’m slowly disassembling. To my delight, it was like new inside and still even wearing what may have been its original points, condenser, and dust shield.

I pulled the rusty, crusty vacuum advance unit off, replaced it with the unit from my original distributor, and swapped in the advance weights for good measure. Then I installed the Frankenstein distributor and went to set the initial timing using another of the Finch tricks: using a test light to know exactly when the points open and close.

Getting the Car Started

No project like this can begin without knowing for certain that the engine’s number-one cylinder is at top dead center (TDC) on its compression stroke. That’s the moment the spark is timed to and thus the zero-degree spot when we’re talking about advancing or retarding the spark. Because the spark cannot instantaneously burn all the fuel in the combustion chamber, we’re trying to light it off just far enough ahead of time that maximum explosive effect occurs just at the moment the piston can be pushed back down in the bore.

Spark the mixture too far ahead of time and the piston is pushing down on a crankshaft that can’t yet turn in the right direction. It beats up the innards of an engine, can blow holes in the top of pistons, and definitely doesn’t help move the car forward. Retarded spark is safer for the engine, but because the explosion is kind of chasing the piston down the bore, it leaves a lot of power on the table.

The main method for determining whether the engine is at TDC is to remove the spark plug (removing or loosening all the spark plugs will make the engine turn over a lot easier) and then to place a finger over the hole to feel compression building—showing that the valves are closed in that cylinder. If no compression builds, the piston is likely coming up on the exhaust stroke instead.

Some people “bump” the engine with the electric starter for this. I prefer to have the battery disconnected and to use a wrench. It seems safer and more precise.

Once you know the engine is on the compression stroke, you can use the timing-alignment marks on the engine to put the piston at the proper advanced moment—a value found in your shop manual. For a Powerglide-equipped ’62 like mine, I needed 13 degrees. This requires too much precision to do by bumping the starter. With the piston in the right spot, now you can twist the distributor so that the points are opening at just that moment.

This is where the test light comes in. It is connected to the negative lead on the ignition coil and to the engine ground. The ignition is then switched on at the key (careful not to bump the starter). If the light is on, the points are closed; advance the distributor just until it goes off. If the light is off, the points are open; retard the distributor just until it comes on.

And just like that, you’ve gotten the engine within a degree or two of proper timing without a timing light and without cranking it over, twisting the distributor at random until it starts firing. I put my timing light on the engine afterward and it was essentially spot on, though I ended up dialing in a bit more advance just because my engine seems to like it.

But Then…

The result was incredible. The car has never had this much power. Despite the extra advance, it doesn’t ping on hills (a friend has suggested that’s because I have stuck rings and thus no real compression) and it’s downright exciting to drive now.

Or it was, the two times I got to drive it. Then the starter bit the dust… Tune in next time!