Hemmings Classic Car July 2024

“The somewhat comedic scene that would have had safety engineers cringing went without a hitch…” THE PAST MONTH has been an exciting one for your HCC staff. As you’ll read in this issue, a relatively local subscriber and longtime friend of Hemmings reached out to offer us a Chevy 292-cu.in. straight-six he had stashed away in his barn years ago, provided we had not already found another worth pursuing. Between late-season snowstorms, we were able to retrieve the engine with the aid of an ancient beam in the barn, a cable come-along of questionable load capacity, brute determination, and our recently revived 1965 Dodge A100 cab-over pickup. The somewhat comedic scene that would have had safety engineers cringing went without a hitch, and within a couple days our master mechanic…

MOST OF MY high school years, living in Montana, were spent driving a customized 1948 Chrysler. That ended in 1960 when I graduated, enlisted in the Army, and soon thereafter, was stationed in Germany. My first knowledge of Triumph sports cars developed there in 1963 when my good Army friend purchased a new Triumph TR4. It was painted red, had a black interior and top, and I remember it having an overdrive transmission. My friend had really wanted a TR3, but couldn’t get one due to Triumph transitioning to the new TR4 design. Regardless, what fun it was when we piled in his new Triumph and took off to visit small country towns or travel the roads along the Rhine River. Upon completing my three years of service, I returned…

ALTHOUGH I WAS BORN in 1927, I remember becoming a car enthusiast as early as 1930 or 1931 years old. My maternal grandparents lived in Chicago, Illinois, just a short walk from the Miller Sesler Ford dealership that we passed quite often on family trips to the department stores in our area. I loved stopping to look at whatever new Ford was sitting on the showroom floor. The real bug set in not long after. Recall that 1933-’34 were the years in which Chicago hosted the World’s Fair. My grandparents’ neighbors offered to drive us to the fair, and I made sure I didn’t miss out on the opportunity. One of the displays that captivated me was Ford Motor Company’s final assembly line that we could tour. It wasn’t long…

THE FEATURE ABOUT Frank and Cathy Stubbs’ 1957 Ford Country Sedan wagon in the March issue brought back fond memories. My father was not a car guy and was very frugal. He had three children and needed a station wagon, so he went to the local Ford dealership to look at the new 1958 models, but was instead shown a still-new, leftover ’57 wagon still on the lot. Suffice it to say, he purchased the car. It was the same color combination as the Stubbs’, and the only mechanical difference in my mind was that ours didn’t have the supercharger. That wagon created many great memories as a youngster. −TIM FORD Nipomo, California AS A RETIRED OFFICER, I really enjoyed the great story in the April issue about the restored 1958…

From the days of the prewar Porsche 64 to the present, the heritage of Porsche is brushed boldly in its legacy of competition, ranging from early European hillclimbs to shrieking along the Mulsanne Straight in a long-tail 917 to the current hybrid-powered victory at Daytona. In its history, owners have adapted Porsche models of all sorts for racing, which captured victories in countless classes before—frequently—bringing crazy money at auctions as classics with competition provenance. This case is different. We say as much because this 1957 Porsche 356A coupe, a classic Stuttgart creation, also enjoyed a considerable career in both club and vintage racing. But rather than keep competing, or take a trip to the auction block, this 356A has been returned to street duty, albeit with the same sort of…

THE SLANG TERM “It’s a ‘doozy’” is supposedly related to Duesenberg automobiles, though some etymologists disagree, citing earlier instances of its usage. Whatever the case, Duesenbergs are simply magnificent, the best cars of their era, and in my opinion the greatest automobiles of all time. For years I avoided writing about them because I wasn’t sure I could supply prose sufficiently soaring enough to describe them. Duesenbergs were more than merely great; they were so far advanced from their contemporaries it seemed as if the engineers had gotten a glimpse of the future. Brothers Fred and Augie Duesenberg founded the company that bore their surname in 1913 primarily as an engine firm. The first Duesenbergdesigned car raced in the 1914 Indianapolis 500, with driver Eddie Rickenbacker, and placed 10th. During…