’53 CORVETTE: BIRTH OF AN ICON

Posted on October 19, 2025October 19, 2025 by MartynL

Chevrolet has been producing Corvettes for more than seven decades, since the ’53 CORVETTE: BIRTH OF AN ICON broke cover at the 1953 GM Motorama. How do you chronicle a legend? How do you put on paper the story of an automobile that is so much more than the automobile itself? That the Corvette has been, is, and always will be something much more than the sum of its parts cannot be questioned. Perhaps a Campbell-Ewald advertising copywriter summed it up best when he wrote for a 1970 Corvette sal...

’68 PONTIAC RAM AIR GTO: THE GREAT ONE

Posted on October 11, 2025October 11, 2025 by MartynL

Coke-bottle-restyled ’68 PONTIAC RAM AIR GTO: THE GREAT ONE, plus Royal Pontiac Bobcat editions, enhanced the GTO’s youth-market performance appeal. Pontiac’s GTO created and dominated the Supercar marketplace in 1964 and, in 1968, was downsized and restyled. GM’s successful Supercar formula that started it all showcased a 115-inch wheelbase, two-door coupes with large displacement engines, and unique trim and badging. Downsizing reduced the wheelbase to a sportier, more appealing 112 inches. W...

’70 FORD TORINO COBRA

Posted on October 4, 2025 by MartynL

All new styling and engine options up to and including the 429 SCJ turn the Fairlane into the ’70 FORD TORINO COBRA, a maximum muscle Supercar. The new year ushered in bigger, more powerful engines, new specialty Supercars, and a plethora of Ponycars. But the future of the performance car phenomenon was not bright. In many ways, 1970 was the storm before the calm. The war in Southeast Asia continued, casting a pall over a much-divided country and thinning the ranks of young enthusiasts. Carmake...

NASH-HEALEY: ANGLO-AMERICAN-ITALIAN SPORTS CAR

Posted on September 26, 2025 by MartynL

The 1951-1954 NASH-HEALEY: ANGLO-AMERICAN-ITALIAN SPORTS CAR beat the Corvette to the marketplace, but only lasted four model years. When you think of historic Le Mans champions, you picture Porsches, Ferraris, Aston Martins, and Jaguars howling down the Mulsanne straight. But in 1952, a Nash Inline-Six-powered Nash-Healey lightweight racer bested all of those greats, earning a class win and third place overall behind the dominant Mercedes-Benz 300 Gullwing SLs. Over the years, the Inline-Six-c...

’64 PONTIAC GTO IGNITES THE SUPERCAR REVOLUTION

Posted on September 19, 2025September 19, 2025 by MartynL

There were bigger-engined and more powerful performance cars from the competition, but the ’64 PONTIAC GTO IGNITES THE SUPERCAR REVOLUTION! Pontiac called it “A device for shrinking time and distance.” Magazine writers and editors called it a “Supercar”. And, from coast to coast, enthusiasts flocked to Pontiac dealers to see the new GTO, an option that breathed life into a Tempest. Pontiac - not Ford, Chevy, or Plymouth - essentially created the option that ignited the Supercar Revolution, and ...

ON TRACK W/FLORIDA’S SARASOTA CAFÉ RACERS!

Posted on September 18, 2025 by MartynL

Some of our members do more than “break bread & tell lies “at our lunches. Here are some examples of ON TRACK W/FLORIDA’S SARASOTA CAFÉ RACERS! Few enthusiast events have the appeal of the Goodwood Revival, and one of ON TRACK W/FLORIDA’S SARASOTA CAFÉ RACERS! Howard Mintz just came back from an exhilarating trip to Goodwood. It included riding “shotgun” with vintage racing car and Ford GT collector Gary Bartlett in his GT40 Mark III, the first customer car of seven built, up the iconic hi...

CARS & COWBOYS 2025

Posted on September 14, 2025September 20, 2025 by MartynL

Car Guy Chronicles' Jim Palam wrangles highlights from CARS & COWBOYS 2025, this year's outstanding car show and fundraiser. The similarities are striking: Their lives are driven by an ethos of character, tradition, purpose, and independence. We're talking about Car Guys and Cowboys, of course, who, along with Car Gals and Cowgirls, trekked up the twisty San Marcus Pass in Santa Barbara County to participate in the 4th Annual Cars & Cowboys 2025 car show and fundraiser. This year's e...

’61 FORD SHOWROOM SUPERCAR

Posted on September 7, 2025September 7, 2025 by MartynL

Ford hits the street, drag strips, and the high-speed ovals with a slick new ’61 FORD SHOWROOM SUPERCAR, and the most powerful single-four-barrel and tri-power big-blocks yet. By 1961, Henry Ford was coming under pressure internally as well as from dealers to pull out of the restrictive 1957 Automobile Manufacturers Association’s racing ban. Most of Ford’s racing activities, like those at Chrysler and General Motors, were being run out of Dearborn’s “back door,” and successes on the rac...

’57 FORD SUPERCHARGED FAIRLANE

Posted on September 1, 2025September 1, 2025 by MartynL

Ford offered multiple high-performance 312-inch engines in 1957, but the ’57 FORD SUPERCHARGED FAIRLANE was the prelude to Dearborn’s Total Performance marketing. In 1957, Ford offered high-output engines in its passenger cars, as well as in the T-Bird. You could order the hottest dual-quad and supercharged 312-inch engines with three-speed manual (with or without Overdrive) or Ford-O-Matic transmissions in any model, base two-door sedan and station wagon to T-Bird! The lineup consisted...

MONTEREY CAR WEEK 2025

Posted on August 27, 2025August 27, 2025 by MartynL

CAR GUY CHRONICLES' JIM PALAM HITS THE LONG PEDAL AND RACES TO THE HIGH-OCTANE EVENTS DURING MONTEREY CAR WEEK 2025. Monterey Car Week is an unapologetic showoff. Heck, its 'week' lasts 10 days! Its calendar crams in over 35 official events. MONTEREY CAR WEEK 2025 attendees – and there were over 100,000 of them – travel from all over the world to the Monterey Peninsula for the privilege of getting stuck in traffic jams and paying three to five times the going rate for hotel and motel rooms – j...