Retro Review: Ford Maverick Grabber,1970-’75
There is an interesting species of near muscle car that came into being and briefly existed for a handful of years, beginning in the early 1970s - just as the high...
1986-1993 Cadillac Allante: They Got it Right … Too Late
It began with high hopes - and an audacious plan. Unfortunately, it belly-flopped badly... .
By the mid-1980s, Cadillac was still the "standard of the world" - if by "the world" one meant...
How Uncle Killed Pontiac
The French philosopher-economist Frederic Bastiat wrote about the unseen repercussions of government interfering with the market's natural progressions. In other words, what might have been. Perhaps the saddest four words in...
Retro Review: 1983-1984 Hurst Olds and 1985–1988 442
Oldsmobile had a long and distinguished history—and suffered a slow, painful death.
The process of mortification began in the early 1980s, when General Motors gutted the formerly independent engineering departments of each...
Muscle Car Classics of the ’80s… Get ‘Em While You Still Can (Afford ‘Em)
Back around 1980, the now-legendary, much-coveted and Big Bucks muscle cars of the 1960s and early 1970s were just tired old cars; common sights at seedy used car lots - and...
Retro-review: 1983-1988 Monte Carlo SS
If you were a kid in high school (or college) during the mid-late 1980s - and into fast cars - you probably have a place in your heart for the last...
Doomed: Chevy SSR, 2003-2006
When muscle cars were legislated off the roads, muscle trucks became a kind of end-run alternative. A way to offer the same basic gear in a form that did not have...
In the rearview mirror: 1980-’81 Turbo Trans Am
Let's dial back the clock a quarter century and return to the wee hours of the Reagan Era, when Pontiac made a desperate, last-ditch effort to keep the Trans-Am from becoming...
Ode to the Carburetor
Once upon a time, there was a simple mechanical device that fed fuel to your car's engine. It had no electrical hook-ups, was not dependent on sensors nor controlled by a...
Trans Am Shaker Scoop Functional Conversion
I have just made my '76 Trans-Am's shaker scoop functional!
First, some background: While all second generation (1970-81) Trans-Ams (well, except the '80-'81 turbo models, which had an off-center hood blister) came with...
